ong that line has made me keen on the
subject. And right now I believe I'd rather shoot a moose with a camera
than with my Marlin rifle."

Ethan laughed a little, and shook his head.

"I confess that I don't understand it, Phil," he went on to say. "The
real thrill must be lacking. You can only get it when you're bent on
bagging your game. That's the thrill that comes down to us from our
savage ancestors who had to live by hunting."

"I'm able to judge of that, Ethan, because I've tried both ways; and I
give you my word I feel just as much pleasure when I'm trying to outwit
a cunning fox as you do when you trap one. I get his picture, and you
have his pelt, that's all the difference."

"Well," replied Ethan with a grin, "when that same pelt brings you in
more than a cool three hundred, it makes considerable difference in the
end."

Lub began to make faces, and swallow very fast at hearing that, as
though he had come near choking; but in fact it was to keep from
chuckling, and thus arousing suspicion in the mind of the hoodwinked
Ethan.

"I noticed you down on your hands and knees, Ethan, over where we
thought we saw that moving figure of a man last night," Phil went on to
say, changing the subject hastily, partly from the same reason that
influenced Lub to cough and gasp; "did you find out anything?"

At that the other assumed a mysterious air.

"Well, first of all, we weren't mistaken, you want to know, boys," he
remarked.

"Then it was a sure-enough man?" asked Lub, beginning to be deeply
interested.

"That's what it was," Ethan assured him. "I found his trail as easy as
turning over my hand. Even followed it some ways off, but lost the same
among the rocks. When we saw him turn away he didn't come back again,
but kept straight on."

"He must have been watching us through one of the windows?" suggested
Lub.

"If he was, he made up his mind we were too many for him to tackle, and
that he had better clear out for good," Ethan continued, as though he
had been figuring it all out beforehand, and had his mind made up.

"Do you think he could have been the same party who was in our cabin
before we came along, Phil?" asked Lub.

"It looks that way," the other told him. "If this man had just been a
stranger, up here to try the fishing, or something like that, he would
have knocked on the door, and tried to make our acquaintance. As it was,
he watched us, and then cleared out."

"Let's hope he won't think