Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/204

 “What was the hardest time you ever had, Abner?” mischievously asked Bub, nudging Stanley.

“It was when I had to make a soup out of a crow,” gloomily replied Abner. “Crows ain’t poison, but they was never intended fer polite fodder. The first day it tasted good, ’cause I was starving. But on the fourth day I begin to git weary of it. And on the fifth—Say, ye young scallywag, didn’t I tell ye up on the Allagash never to ask fer that yarn agin?”

“These rocks are getting hard,” remarked Stanley, now somewhat recovered from his recent exertions.

“Might be a good plan if ye’d spread down yer blankets,” sarcastically observed Abner. “I did.”

Stanley blushed under the cover of the darkness and silently unrolled his blankets. It had not occurred to him to soften his couch by their means.

“If you had a nice fat sandwich I wonder if you’d have to be told to eat it,” snickered Bub.

“I say, quit talking about food,” sternly commanded Abner. “I remember once I went to a circus in Bangor and the hotel people charged me seventy-five cents for a meal and I