They travelled very fast now for a time.  Pete was helped by the knowledge that he was really going home.  A hasty lunch of Deer-tongue delayed them but little.  At three they sighted Caleb’s smoke signal, and at four they burst into camp with yells of triumph.

Caleb fired off his revolver, and Turk bayed his basso profundo full-cry Fox salute.  All the others had come back the night before.

Sam said he had “gone ten mile and never got a sight of that blamed river.”  Guy swore they had gone forty miles, and didn’t believe there was any such river.

“What kind o’ country did you see?”

“Nothin’ but burned land and rocks.”

“H-m, you went too far west—­was runnin’ parallel with Beaver River.”

“Now, Blackhawk, give an account of yourself to Little Beaver,” said Woodpecker.  “Did you two win out?”

“Well,” replied the Boiler Chief, “if Hawkeye travelled forty miles, we must have gone sixty.  We pointed straight north for three hours and never saw a thing but bogs and islands of burned timber—­never a sign of a plain or of Indians.  I don’t believe there are any.”

“Did you see any sandhills?” asked Little Beaver.

“No.”

“Then you didn’t get within miles of it.”

Now he told his own story, backed by Pete, and he was kind enough to leave out all about Peetweet’s whimpering.  His comrade responded to this by giving a glowing account of Yan’s Woodcraft, especially dwelling on the feat of the rubbing-stick fire in the rain, and when they finished Caleb said: 

“Yan, you won, and you more than won, for you found the green timber you went after, you found the river Sam went after, an’ the Injuns Wesley went after.  Sam and Wesley, hand over your scalps.”

XXX

A New Kind of Coon

A merry meal now followed, chaffing and jokes passed several hours away, but the boys were rested and restless by nine o’clock and eager for more adventures.

“Aren’t there any Coons ’round here, Mr. Clark?”

“Oh, I reckon so.  Y-e-s!  Down a piece in the hardwood bush near Widdy Biddy Baggs’s place there’s lots o’ likely Cooning ground.”

That was enough to stir them all, for the place was near at hand.  Peetweet alone was for staying in camp, but when told that he might stay and keep house by himself he made up his mind to get all the fun he could.  The night was hot and moonless, Mosquitoes abundant, and in trampling and scrambling through the gloomy woods the hunters had plenty of small troubles, but they did not mind that so long as Turk was willing to do his part.  Once or twice he showed signs of interest in the trail, but soon decided against it.