Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/75

 I see him feeding the first night he was here?”

“At that time he was half starved; he doesn’t eat much now,” defended Bub.

“It’s no use; quit talking,” grumbled Abner. “I’ve seen too many of them thin, scrawny fellers not to know a big feeder when I see one. It ain’t no place to be took starving up in the woods. Besides, I don’t need anyone else.”

“Bub told me he knew you wouldn’t take me,” spoke up Stanley, “but I urged him to ask you, as I awfully wanted to make the trip.”

“Do ye know the woods?” asked Abner, veiling a sarcastic gleam in his shrewd eyes.

“I’ve camped out quite a few times,” eagerly replied Stanley.

“I see,” sniffed Abner. “Drank spring water out of fancy drinking cups and thought ye was roughin’ it, eh? If ye was dying of thirst in the woods and see a loon flying above ye and had a gun, what would ye do?”

“I’d shoot the loon,” promptly replied Stanley, bracing back his shoulders as he became more confident.

Bub’s groan told him, however, that he had erred, even before Abner exploded, “Ye would, would ye? Wal, I thought so. Ye’d make a