"Oh! I guess we've seen just as bad before," replied Allan, with a confident smile. "How about some of those moonshiners down in North Carolina? And tell me about that Charlie Barnes and his crowd, the hobo yeggs we ran across up in Maine. Then, remember Si Kedge and Ed Harkness the game poachers we met later on; and how they were sorry they'd ever bothered with the Silver Foxes? And to wind up the list, Thad, there were Hank Dodge and his French Canadian half breed pard, Pierre Laporte, the hard-shelled timber cruisers, who gave us all that bother when Bumpus lost himself down in the big timber. How's that for a crowd, tell me; and didn't we come out on top every time?" Thad laughed. "I see you've got it all down pretty pat, Allan," he remarked. "And sure enough, just as you say, after getting the better of so many bad men in all our travels, we hadn't ought to feel worried right now because three more bob up, and think to throw a scare into us. On the whole, this Kracker had better keep his hands off, or he'll be sorry." "But how about our hunting?" Allan went on to say. "Some of the boys are getting anxious to make a try for a big-horn. Why, there's Smithy, a fellow we never expected would ever take the least interest in shooting, because his nature has seemed so mild, and sissy-like--I even heard him declare he wanted to make a try and see what he could do. Owned up that his father used to be a great hunter years ago; but that he guessed he'd inherited his mother's gentle disposition; while his hobble-dehoy sister she wants to play baseball, hockey, tennis, and those kinds of games all the while. And Thad, I think we ought to encourage that idea in Smithy. It may be the making of him, if once he gets waked up." Thad thought the same way. He knew the boy possessed amiable traits; but he had always been given too much to dress, and the little things of life, at which most fellows look with scorn and contempt. He must have the edges roughened a little, if he was ever going to hold his own when he went to college, or out in the wide world, where "sissy" boys are held up to derision. "Nothing to hinder our hanging over here a bit, and seeing what the next move of this cannon cracker is going to be," he remarked. "And the hunting?" asked Allan. "Why, a party could start out right from camp here, leaving enough behind to defend the place, of course, and keep Kracker from taking Aleck away by sheer force, if he did have the nerve enough to come here," the scoutmaster replied, after thinking over the matter for a brief time. "Of course we ought to let the guide go along with the boys; for I wouldn't like to trust them alone in the mountains," Allan suggested.