The boys marched steadily until sunset, when Sam called a halt and selected a camping place for the night. He ordered a fire built and himself superintended the preparation of supper, limiting the amount of food cooked for each member of the party, a regulation which he enforced strictly throughout the march, lest any of the boys should imprudently eat their rations too fast, which, as their route lay through woods and swamps in a part of the country scarcely at all settled, would bring disaster upon the expedition of course. Sam had calculated the march to last about ten days, but he hoped to accomplish it within a briefer time. The supplies they had would last ten days, and Sam hoped to add to them by killing game from time to time, for although the party were unarmed, Sam knew ways of getting game without gunpowder, and meant to put some of them in practice. Toward evening of the first day out, he had stopped in a canebrake and cut three well seasoned canes, selecting straight, tall ones, about an inch in diameter, and taking care that they tapered as little and as regularly as possible. Cutting them off at both ends and leaving them about fifteen feet in length, he next cut three or four small canes, very long and green ones, without flaw. That night, as soon as supper was over he brought his canes to the fire and laid them down, preparatory to beginning work upon them. "What are you a goin' to do with them canes, Sam?" asked Billy Bowlegs. "What do you think, Billy?" "Dog-gone ef I know," replied Billy. "Suppose you quit saying 'dog-gone' Billy," said Sam. "It isn't a very good thing to say, and you've said it thirty-two times this afternoon." "Have I? well, what's the odds if I have?" "Well, it's a bad habit, and if you'll quit it, I'll give you one of those canes when I get them ready." "What 'er you goin' to make 'em into?" "Guns," said Sam, working away as hard as he could with his jack-knife. "Guns! what sort o' guns? Powder'd burst 'em in a minute, and besides we aint got no powder." "No, but I'm going to make guns out of these canes, and I'm going to kill something with them too." "What sort o' guns?" "Blow guns." "What's a blow gun, Mas. Sam?" asked Joe, becoming interested, as all the boy were now. Sam was too busy to answer at the moment and so Tom, who had seen Sam's blow guns at home, answered for him. "He's going to burn out the joints and then make arrows with iron points and some rabbit fur around the light ends. The fur fills up the hole in the cane, and when he blows in the end it sends the arrow off like a bullet. But Sam!" he cried, suddenly thinking of something. "What is it?" asked the elder brother without looking up. "What are you going to burn them out with?" "With that little rod," answered Sam, tossing a bit of iron about six inches long towards his brother, "I brought it with me on purpose."