Sneeze
once, and we're done for. That means more diet of flapjacks and pork,
instead of venison steaks. And I guess your city appetite won't rally to
pork much longer, even in the wilds."
Neal Farrar sighed as if there was something in that.
"But, you know, it's just when an unlucky fellow would give his life
not to sneeze that he's sure to bring out a thumping big one," he said
plaintively.
"Well, keep it back like a hero if your head bursts in the attempt," was
the reply with a muffled laugh. "When you know that the canoe is gliding
along somehow, but you can't hear a sound or feel a motion, and you
begin to wonder whether you're in the air or on water, flying or
floating, imagine that you're the ghost of some old Indian hunter who
used to jack for deer on Squaw Pond, and be stonily silent."
"Oh! I say, stop chaffing," whispered Neal impetuously. "You're enough
to make a fellow feel creepy before ever he starts. I could bear the
worst racket on earth better than a dead quiet."
This dialogue was exchanged in low but excited voices between a young
man of about one and twenty, and a lad who was apparently five years his
junior, while they waded knee-deep in water among the long, rank grasses
and circular pads of water-lilies which border the banks of Squaw Pond,
a small lake in the forest region of northern Maine.
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