"And me, I always c-c-carry a little c-c-club along when I g-g-go fishing," Toby declared, proudly.

"Hear him, fellows?" exclaimed Bandy-legs, pretending not to understand; "he must think he's a policeman, and meaning to knock every sleeping tramp on the soles of his feet to wake him up."

"It's to k-k-knock the fish on the h-h-head after you've c-c-caught the same!" Toby hastened to inform him, grandly, as became a humane sportsman.

"Any more coffee in that pot, Max?" Steve asked, pa.s.sing his cup along, for he certainly had a weakness for the "ambrosia" as he often called it, though never allowed more than one helping at home, and then only at breakfast.

The meal went on to its close, and while in the start it had seemed as though the eyes of the cooks had been much greater than their capacity for stowing food away, judging from the minute amount that was wasted it would seem that they knew better; or else that the average boy's stomach does stretch away down into his lower extremities, as some people claim.

"That was a hunky-dory supper, all right," Steve admitted, as he lay lazily back on his blanket, and commenced to pick his teeth after the manner of one who has dined well, and is perfectly at peace with the whole world.

"Best I've had since the last time we ate grub together," Bandy-legs added, as his quota of praise, although he had been one of the cooks.

"And that was up in the Great North Woods, when we spent that joyful time with Trapper Jim, wasn't it!" Max suggested.

"I'd sure like mighty well to repeat that trip some of these fine days,"

Steve told them, "but I reckon we never will, because there are so many other temptations all around us. And seems like we might squeeze all the fun we can manage out of this little vacation. Here we are, away off from everywhere, and if we want we can just think we're camping in the heart of Africa, with wild beasts all around us and savage Hottentots or Zulu warriors waiting to take us by surprise."

Steve liked to indulge in these little flights of fancy once in a while.

His imagination sometimes ran away with him; but he seemed to get considerable of enjoyment out of the idea.

Hardly had he ceased speaking on the present occasion than each one of the four boys sat upright, and seemed to be straining his hearing to the utmost, as though some sound had come to them then and there that caused surprise, even consternation.

"S-s-say, w-w-whatever was that n-n-noise like thunder?" asked Toby, blankly.

Steve looked puzzled.

"That's what's got my goat, Toby," he remarked in a perplexed tone of voice; it might be one thing or another, but it sure wasn't thunder.

"As for me, now, I'm racking my poor brains to guess whether it could only have been a farmer's bull bellowing away off there; or we sat here and actually, listened to a savage African lion at large!"

His words appalled every one, and it was well that supper had been eaten, else their appet.i.tes might have suffered a decided slump.

CHAPTER VII

THE QUEER ACTIONS OF STEVE

"Listen, and see if it comes again!" said Bandy-legs, with bated breath.

The four campers sat there for several tense minutes, each one almost holding his breath in the effort to train his ears so as not to miss the slightest sound that might come.

"Whoo--whoo--whoo!"

After all their great expectations, to hear this solemn cry from the depths of the woods made several of the chums chuckle.

"Good evening, Mister Owl!" Bandy-legs called out, with mock respect.

"Hope all the little Owls are feeling quite well to-night. Glad to have us for company, are you? Well, we're just tickled to death to be with you, believe me."

"But s-s-say, that wasn't what we heard the other t-t-time!" objected Toby, in some dismay, as though he feared he might have been dreadfully deceived by mistaking the booming hoot of a horned owl for the roar of a lion.

"Oh! no, of course not, Toby," Max hastened to a.s.sure him; "but it seems as though there isn't going to be any _encore_ to that other noise."

"Then h-h-how are we agoin' to decide w-w-what it was?"

"We might take a vote, and see how we stand on it," laughed Max.

"Bull or lion, eh?" suggested Steve.

"There's a few clouds floating around loose," remarked Bandy-legs, as though in an uncertain state himself; "and p'raps after all that was a grumble of faraway thunder."

"S-s-s'pose somebody could be doin' blastin' up around here?"

This was a new idea that appealed to Toby. He sometimes startled his comrades by having an original thought.

"That isn't such an impossible thing after all, Toby," admitted Max, after considering it for a brief time; "although so far as I'm concerned I don't think it was either thunder, or a blast."

"That brings us back to the original question--bull or lion?" Steve pursued.

"We may never know which, if it isn't repeated," Bandy-legs observed, sagely; for not wanting to be outdone by Toby he had racked his brain in vain to find another possible explanation, and had to give it up.

"Well, whoever goes for eggs and milk to-morrow," began Max, "ought to make a little investigation on his own account. Perhaps he might manage to pick up a few points that will help us decide this mystery."

"You m-m-mean ask the f-f-farmer whether he k-k-keeps a bull, or a roarin' old l-l-lion in his b-b-barn?"

"Ask about the bull, anyway," Max told him. "And if we learn that he's the owner of such an animal, find out if the beast gives a bellow once in a while."

"All right, that's settled then," Steve announced. "If I happen to be one of the pair chosen to take that little excursion I'll put it up straight to the old hayseed, and learn the truth. But say, hadn't we better be changing the subject some, fellows. It isn't always a good thing to get talking _too_ seriously about things like this just before you drop off to bed."

"W-w-why?" asked Toby, suspiciously, for he had noticed that Steve grinned somewhat when saying this, and gave him a quick look.

"Oh! well," the other continued, "you never can tell what sort of an impression things make on one's mind, and are carried with you into dreamland. I've done some queer stunts myself away back when I had the bad habit of seeing things in my sleep. And I know a fellow who thought he was in the heart of Africa watching the savage beasts come down to a waterhole to drink, and then getting up in the morning to discover the whole shooting-match had taken up quarters in his back yard. You never know what's going to happen."

"That's right, you don't," added Bandy-legs, and shaking his forefinger at Toby dramatically he continued: "Now see here, Toby, just you quit dreaming about lions and elephants and rhinoceroses and such things.

Dreams come true sometimes. Think we want to wake up in the mornin' to find a lion sitting on that stump over there; a striped jungle tiger perched in this tree waiting for his breakfast; and an old rogue elephant spoutin' water from our creek all over the camp? Just start thinking of apple pies, custards and that sort of thing, and sleep sound."

Toby only grinned back at him, and made no reply.

"How about keeping watch to-night?" remarked Steve, some time later.

"Oh! I don't believe that's absolutely necessary," Max informed him.

"Some of us are light sleepers anyway," suggested Bandy-legs.

"That's me, as a rule!" Steve instantly declared; "and a cat couldn't walk across the floor of my room without me waking up and asking who was there. Then again it seems as if when I hit the hay I never know a thing till daylight comes. They may tell me we had a heavy storm in the middle of the night, but it didn't faze me one little bit. I don't know why that should be, unless it depends on what I've been eating for supper."

"Well," Max told him, "let's hope then that this is going to be one of the nights when you're on guard, and that if anything tried to carry Toby off you'll hear him let out a yell."