"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." "Well, but it won't reach; you've got to reach all the joints you know, and the rod must be as long as the cane." "Oh no, not by any means." "Yes it must, of course it must," exclaimed all the boys in a breath.
"It's just like burning out a pipe stem with a wire." "No it is not," replied Sam, smiling, "but suppose it is.

I can burn out a pipe stem with a wire half as long as the stem." "How ?" asked two or three boys at once.
"By burning first from one end and then from the other." "Yes, that's so," answered Sid Russell slowly, drawling his words out as if he had to drag them up through his long legs, "but that don't tell how you're goin' to bore out a big cane, fifteen feet long with a little iron rod not more 'n six or eight inches long." "Well, if you will be patient a moment, I'll show you," answered Sam, picking up the bit of iron.