of the pudding's in the eating of it, they say."

"Oh, I do hope we get a deer, even if it doesn't fall to my gun," Steve
continued to say. "It'd be too bad now if we spent a whole two weeks up
here with Trapper Jim and never tasted any game besides measly squirrel,
rabbit, or maybe partridge, if they're still to be had."

"You forget musquash," added Max.

"Bah! I _wanted_ to forget it," declared the other.

"Suppose we knock off talking for a while, Steve," suggested Max. "We're
coming to one of the places he said we might find deer. And they've got
pretty sharp ears, let me tell you right now."

"But you said we were always hunting up against the wind, so our scent
wouldn't be carried to the game," Steve observed.

"That's true enough, Steve, but even then good deer hunters seldom talk
above whispers when they expect to run across game. This is one of the
times when we can apply that old maxim we used to write in our copy books
at school."

"Sure, I remember it well," chuckled Steve, "'speech may be silver, but
silence is gold.' I'm dumb, Max."

And for a wonder, not another word did Steve utter for over half an hour.
As he was usually such a talkative fellow, this keeping still must have
been in the line of great punishment to Steve.