got enough grub to keep them for a week. But it isn't much fun
staying cooped up in a cave, and I reckon they've had enough of it.
Sim and Jud acted that way, not to mention Bud Phillips."

"Before we make our start I'd like to take a last turn over that way,"
Paul observed, as though he had been thinking the matter over. "I'd
just like to see if they did strike out across the timber. Their trail
would tell the story, and we'd know what to expect."

"I speak to go with you then," flashed back Jud, even as Bluff opened
his mouth to give utterance to the same desire.

"T-t-that's what a fellow gets for being a stutterer," grumbled Bluff.
"I meant to say just those words, but Jud--hang the l-l-luck--was too
speedy for me. Huh!"

"Oh! as for that," laughed Paul, "both of you can go along if you care
to."

As the day dragged along the scouts busied themselves in a dozen
different ways according to their liking. Some preferred to swing the
axe and chop wood, though doubtless if they had been compelled to do
this at home, loud and bitter would have been their lamentations.

During the afternoon several went out for a walk, carrying guns along
so as to be prepared for either game, or another pack of hungry wild
dogs, though Tolly Tip assured them that, so far as he knew, there had
existed only the one pack, with that enormous mastiff as leader.

"If ye follow the directions I've been after givin' yees, it may be
ye'll come on a bevy av pa'tridges," the woodsman told them as they
were setting out. "For by the same token whin we've had a heavy
snowfall I've always been able to knock down a lot av the birrds among
the berry bushes. 'Tis there they must go to git food or be starved
entirely. Good luck to ye, boys, an' kape yer weather eye open so ye
won't git lost!"

"Remember," added Paul, "if you do lose your bearings stop right still
and fire three shots in rapid succession. Later on try it again, and
we'll come to you. But with such clever woodsmen along as Jack and
Bobolink we don't expect anything of that kind to happen, of course."

Paul himself went with the keeper of the woods lodge to follow the
frozen creek up to a certain place where there were numerous holes in
the bank. Here Tolly Tip pointed out little footprints made he said by
the minks on the preceding night.

"Av course," the woodsman went on to say, "ye do be knowin' a hape
better nor me jist where the best place to set the trap might be. All
I c'n