let it just slip back to catch the second trigger. It’s as easy as tumbling off a log.”

“Or going over backward, when you do bang away with both barrels at once,” added Davy Jones, wisely.

As they were descending the river the work was comparatively easy for the two guides. They would have their business cut out for them later on, when their plan of campaign, looking toward reaching the Eagle chain of lakes, was more fully developed.

In the beginning there had been three of the paddlers in the party; but a telegram had caught them as they left the train, calling the Oldtown Indian, Sebattis, home, on account of the serious sickness of his wife.

Thad was capable of assuming charge of one canoe, with the assistance of Step Hen and Davy, both lusty fellows. And so they had not bothered trying to fill the gap at the last hour. The chances were that they might have had to take some fellow along who would turn out to be sullen, or else a shirk; thus spoiling much of their pleasure on the trip.

These members of the Silver Fox Patrol had reason to feel proud, because each one of them was at that time wearing a trifling little badge that proved their right to call themselves assistant fire wardens, employed by the great State of Maine to forever keep an eye out for dangerous conflagrations, and labor to extinguish the same before they could do much damage.

It had come about in this manner:

On the train they had formed the acquaintance of a gentleman, who turned out to be the chief fire warden, on his way right then to patrol a certain district that nearly every year boasted of one or more severe fires.

He was greatly interested in Thad’s account of the numerous things a Boy Scout aspired to do each day; and as it was his privilege to take on as many unpaid assistants as he chose, just as a sheriff may do in an emergency, the gentleman had with his own hands pinned a little badge on the lapel of each boy’s coat.

They were very proud of the honor, and expressed their intention of serving as fire-wardens to the best of their ability–all but Giraffe. He used to shake his head every time he glanced down at his badge, and look solemn. The fact of the matter was, Giraffe had all his life been so wrapped up in starting fires, that the very idea of spending his precious time in helping to put one out did not appeal to him very strongly.

“Jim is telling me that we can expect to see the mouth of the Little Machias River any old time from now on,” remarked Allan; “and while I haven’t come up this way exactly, to the Eagle waters, I guess he’s about right.”

“Sure he is,” ventured Giraffe, “for we passed the place where the Big Machias joins forces with the Aroostook some time back; and unless my eagle eye fails me, away up ahead I can see the junction right now, where we turn to the left, and leave this dandy old stream. Then the fun begins with the paddles.”

“What was that the fire-warden was saying to you, Thad, about some sort of bad man up in this region, that gave the game wardens more trouble than all the rest of the poachers combined?” Step Hen asked.

Jim Hasty was seen to squirm a little; and Thad noticed this as he answered the question.

“Oh! yes, he was warning me to steer clear of one Caleb Martin, a strapping big fellow who used to be, first a logger, and then one of those men who get boats’ knees out of the swamps and marshes up here; but who for some years has made up his mind to loaf, and take toll of other peoples’ traps, or shoot game out of season.”

“Caleb Martin, eh?” Step Hen went on; “seems to me it was another name from that?”

“Well,” Thad continued, “he did mention two others who were said to be cronies of the big poacher. Let’s see, I believe their names were Si Kedge and Ed Harkness; wasn’t that it, Jim?” and he turned suddenly on the smaller guide.

“That’s right,” answered the other, promptly; “though to be fair and squar’ with you, I didn’t hear him speakin’ o’ ’em atall. But I lived up hyar, yuh knows, an’ Cale, he’s been akeepin’ the hull kentry kinder riled a long time now. I’m hopin’ we won’t run a crost him any, an’ that’s a fact.”

“Sounds like there wasn’t much love lost between you and this same Cale Martin?” ventured Thad.

“They hain’t,” was the only thing Jim would say; and Thad knew there must be a story back of it, which he hoped later on to hear.

“But why should the wardens be afraid of just three men, when they have the law on their side; that’s what I’d like to know?” Bumpus demanded.

Giraffe gave a scornful laugh.

“The law don’t count for a great deal away up in the wilderness, Bumpus,” he remarked, in a condescending way. “All sorts of things are done when men get away off in the Maine woods. They laugh at the law, till they feel its hand on their shoulder, and see the face of a warden close to theirs. Then p’raps they wilt. But this bully of the big woods has had a free hand up yonder so long, that he just thinks he’s the boss of all creation. He needs takin’ down, I reckon. And p’raps, if we happen to run across him, it might be the mission of the Silver Fox Patrol to teach him a lesson. Queerer things have happened, as we all know, looking back a little at our own experiences.”

“We don’t want to brag,” remarked Thad. “Perhaps the shoe would be on the other foot, and he might kick the lot of us out of his territory. But all the same, let’s hope our trail won’t cross that of Cale Martin.”

They were presently turning in to the left, and starting to ascend the Little Machias; a pretty stream, which some years back used to fairly teem with game-fish, but which, like many another river in Maine, has felt the effect of the continual work of thousands of fishermen, and worse than that, the sly netting at the hands of lawless poachers.

Step Hen was interested in many things that opened to their view as they went on, and his two companions did the paddling; for he had been working quite some time himself, and was entitled to a resting spell.

This was a new trait in Step Hen. Time had been when he would hardly notice a single thing when out in the woods, unless his attention was especially directed to it by a comrade. But it was so no longer; and the way his awakening came about, as mentioned in a previous story, is worthy of being recorded again, as showing what a trifling thing may start a boy to thinking, and observing the myriad of interesting events that are constantly occurring around him, no matter where he may happen to be at the time, in a crowded city, or alone in a vast solitude.

Step Hen had once come upon a humble little tumble-bug, striving to push a ball four times as big as himself up a forlorn road, at a point where there was a “thank-you-mum,” intended to throw the water aside during a heavy rain, and save the road from being guttered.

He had grown so deeply interested in seeing the little creature try again and again to overcome the stupendous difficulties that faced it, that he lay there for half an hour, watching; clapping his hands when he thought success had come, and feeling deeply sorry when a slip caused the ball to roll back again, often upsetting the bug, and passing over its body.

The astonishing pluck of the humble little bug had aroused the admiration of the boy; and in the end he had picked up both ball and bug, and placed them safely above the baffling ascent in the road. And after that hour Step Hen awoke to the fact that an observing boy need never lack for something intensely interesting to chain his attention, no matter where he might be.