Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/353

 over this endless fairy-book you’ve been opening for me I’m reminded now to ask, What of Nick?”

Bub frowned. “It’s time I was thinking of him,” he admitted. “Wait till I shin up this tree. I can get a good look at our back trail.”

Swarming up the trunk he paused but a second before he quickly slid back again. “I saw something move the rushes on the edge of the swamp,” he whispered, his eyes suddenly dilating. “Let’s leg it.”

“Now, wait a bit, Mr. Thomas,” calmly commanded Stanley. “We’ll leg it, as you so elegantly put it, only after we’ve decided where we are going and why we are going. Be calm, my son, and get back your nerve before rushing away.”

“It’s Nick, I know it is,” hurriedly whispered Bub, for some strange reason changing places with Stanley and now becoming the one to be calmed and encouraged. “He’ll kill both of us.”

“Possibly,” agreed Stanley, surprised at himself as he failed to find any symptoms of nervousness in his system. “But he won’t bag us while we are madly dashing in line with his gun. We’ll have something to say about