The mere possession of the rifle bent his mood toward adventure rather than concealment.

He did not think now of the lookout station as a refuge so much as a snug lair in the heart of a wonderful hunting ground.
He wanted to hear more about the bear and deer which Hank Brown had shot on these slopes.

But Hank was no longer in the mood for recounting his adventures.

Hank was congratulating himself upon selling that rifle, which had lately shown a tendency to jam if he worked the lever too fast; and was trying to decide just what make and calibre of rifle he would buy with the money now in his pocket; and he was grinning in his sleeve at the ease with which he had "stung" this young tenderfoot, who was unsuspectingly going up against a proposition which Hank, with all his love for the wild, would never attempt of his own free will.
At first sight, the odd little glass observatory, perched upon the very tip-top of all the wilderness around, fascinated Jack.

He had never credited himself with a streak of idealism, nor even with an imagination, yet his pulse quickened when they topped the last steep slope and stood upon the peak of the world--this immediate, sunlit world.
The unconcealed joy on the face of the lookout when they arrived did not mean anything at all to him.