Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/142

 try to find our lost line, run more’n a century ago.”

“When do we start?” asked Stanley.

“We’ll cruise Mt. Jim till Charlie gits back, then we’ll push right through,” said Abner.

Both the boys missed Charlie keenly; Stanley more than Bub, perhaps, as it was his first experience in the woods. He had learned to depend upon the silent Indian and feel no apprehension while near him. Abner, too, missed him, but in a different way. He missed the cooking. He did not take kindly to what he and Bub called “squaw” work.

On the first day after Charlie’s departure Abner was content to remain in camp, preparing the packs and studying his maps. This allowed the boys considerable leisure and resulted in Stanley learning a valuable lesson.

He had wandered about a half a mile from the shack and had succeeded in seeing a lynx chasing a rabbit and this incited a conviction that he was rapidly becoming a woodsman, Bub’s discouraging opinion to the contrary. Near the base of a towering ledge, carpeted in front with dead trees, blown down from their meager root-hold, he came upon a low dark opening. He might have passed it if not for a strange whimpering, whining noise.