tone meant. "We'll surely go when you talk that way, for, of coorse,
it _kin_ be done. You see, I know more about animals than birds,"
he continued. "I'm just as likely to be a dentist as a hunter so far
as serious business is concerned, but I'd sure love to be a hunter for
awhile, an' I made Da promise to go with me some time. Maybe we kin
get a Deer by going back ten miles to the Long Swamp. I only wish Da
and Old Caleb hadn't fought, 'cause Caleb sure knows the woods, an'
that old Hound of his has treed more Coons than ye could shake a stick
at in a month o' Sundays."

"Well, if that's the only Coon dog around, I'm going to get him.
You'll see," was the reply.

"I believe you will," answered Sam, in a tone of mixed admiration and
amusement.

It was ten o'clock when they got home, and every one was in bed but
Mr. Raften. The boys turned in at once, but next morning, on going
to the barn, they found that Si had not only sewed on and hemmed the
smoke-flaps, but had resewn the worst of the patches and hemmed the
whole bottom of the teepee cover with a small rope in the hem, so that
they were ready now for the pins and poles.

The cover was taken at once to the camp ground. Yan carried the axe.
When they came to the brush fence over the creek at the edge of the
swamp, he said:

"Sam, I want to blaze that trail for old Caleb. How do you do it?"

"Spot the trees with the axe every few yards."