Whereupon his uncle handed him the shotgun, with a word of caution as to the trigger.  This particular squirrel was pretty high up, presenting no easy target.  Romer stood almost directly under it, raised the gun nearly straight up, waved and wobbled and hesitated, and finally fired.  Down sailed the squirrel to hit with a plump.  That was Romer’s first successful hunting experience.  How proud he was of that gray squirrel!  I suffered a pang to see the boy so radiant, so full of fire at the killing of a beautiful creature of the woods.  Then again I remembered my own first sensations.  Boys are blood-thirsty little savages.  In their hunting, playing, even their reading, some element of the wild brute instinct dominates them.  They are worthy descendants of progenitors who had to fight and kill to live.  This incident furnished me much food for reflection.  I foresaw that before this trip was ended I must face some knotty problems.  I hated to shoot a squirrel even when I was hungry.  Probably that was because I was not hungry enough.  A starving man suffers no compunctions at the spilling of blood.  On the contrary he revels in it with a fierce, primitive joy.

“Some shot, I’ll say!” declared Romer to his uncle, loftily.  And he said to me half a dozen times:  “Say, Dad, wasn’t it a grand peg?”

But toward the end of that afternoon his enthusiasm waned for shooting, for anything, especially riding.  He kept asking when the wagon was going to stop.  Once he yelled out:  “Here’s a peach of a place to camp.”  Then I asked him:  “Romer, are you tired?” “Naw!  But what’s the use ridin’ till dark?” At length he had to give up and be put on the wagon.  The moment was tragic for him.  Soon, however, he brightened at something Doyle told him, and began to ply the old pioneer with rapid-fire questions.

We pitched camp in an open flat, gray and red with short grass, and sheltered by towering pines on one side.  Under these we set up our tents.  The mat of pine needles was half a foot thick, soft and springy and fragrant.  The woods appeared full of slanting rays of golden sunlight.

This day we had supper over before sunset.  Romer showed no effects from his long, hard ride.  First he wanted to cook, then he fooled around the fire, bothering Isbel.  I had a hard time to manage him.  He wanted to be eternally active.  He teased and begged to go hunting—­then he compromised on target practice.  R.C. and I, however, were too tired, and we preferred to rest beside the camp-fire.

“Look here, kid,” said R.C., “save something for to-morrow.”

In disgust Romer replied:  “Well, I suppose if a flock of antelope came along here you wouldn’t move....  You an’ Dad are great hunters, I don’t think!”

After the lad had gone over to the other men R.C. turned to me and said reflectively:  “Does he remind you of us when we were little?”

To which I replied with emotion:  “In him I live over again!”