"It's the greatest thing I ever saw!" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say you did it all yourself?"
Paul nodded, his pale face tinged with color, his eyes sparkling. "It isn't hard when you know how to stuff things," he said. "I took lessons in the city before we came out here last year. It's been lots of fun fixing them up."
"But how the deuce did you get 'em all?" Frank turned quickly back to the case again. "You must be a dandy shot."
"But I'm not! I hate to kill things--especially birds. You see, I go off for long tramps a lot, and in the winter especially you often find birds that have been frozen, or killed by flying into things. Some of them people gave me. A farmer that I know out near Alton shot that skunk and the mink in his chicken-yard. The quail and that woodcock came from down South. A cousin of mine sent them up, and I got Mother to let me take the skins off before she cooked them."
"How about the hawks--those are hawks, aren't they?"
"Sure. Red-shouldered hawks. I s'pose I oughtn't to have taken them, but I wanted to try taming some. I knew where there was a nest, and last spring I got up the tree with climbers and took two. They were awful funny the way they'd sit up and cry whenever they saw me coming. I guess I must have fed 'em too much, or something, for they died in about a week. I won't try it again, you bet!"
Paul looked rather sheepish as he made this confession, and hurried on to another subject. "It's the same way about the eggs. I used to take only one out of a nest, but Mr. Curtis said even that was pretty hard on the birds, so I stopped. I haven't taken any since I've been a scout. It's more fun, really, taking pictures."
"Oh, eggs and nests and birds--anything wild. It's dandy sport. I've got quite a lot of good ones if you'd like to see them."
Frank quickly acquiesced, and as Paul went over to a desk for the photograph book, his eyes followed the boy with an odd expression in them. Hitherto he had regarded Trexler with a certain measure of tolerance as a queer, unsociable sort of fellow, who seldom took part in the sports and pastimes of the troop, but preferred moping by himself. It had never occurred to him that the solitary rambles could be productive of anything like the results he saw about him. As he glanced again at the case, a dawning respect began to fill him for the boy who could do all this and yet remain so modest that not a whisper of it leaked out among his companions.