"Guess not. I can do that as well as you can. Give me one of 'em."

It was easy work to strip the tender game and hang it in the tent, but the boys were thoroughly tired of mere "going into camp" by the time they started for the lake.

"Hullo, Sid! If there isn't the old dug-out floating yet!"

"That thing out there by the snag? We can't get at her."

"Can't we? Can't you swim as far as that? I can."

"Swim? Oh yes, of course we can. Shall you go now?"

"Why, no; not till we get in fish enough for dinner."

"That's it. We're Indians. Got to fish, hunt, or starve--or live on hard-tack and bacon."

Pot Lake was a great place for trout, and both of the boys knew how to handle a rod.

"No three-inchers; none of your speckled minnows," shouted Sid, as he landed a half-pound beauty.

"Here comes a bigger one. Oh, but isn't this fun?"

"Better fun than going into camp."

"Or tramping through the woods with a load. But don't you begin to feel hungry?"

"Begin? Well, you may say begin if you want to. Seems to me I began a little while after breakfast," replied Sid.

They had caught more fish than any two boys could eat; but Sid's first remark on reaching the tent with them was, "I do hate cleaning fish."

"Clean fish? Out here in the woods? While we're Indians? You wait till I find a ba.s.s-wood tree."

There were plenty of lindens, or ba.s.s-woods, in that vicinity, and the broad flat leaves were as good as brown paper to wrap up a trout in, fold over fold.

The fire had now burned long enough to supply Wade with a heap of hot ashes, which he raked out on one edge of it. All the little coals were carefully poked aside, the leaf-covered trout were put down and smothered an inch deep in their ashy bed, and then a pile of glowing cinders was raked over them.

"They'll cook, Sid. You go to the lake for a kettle of water, while I get out the frying-pan and the coffee-pot."

"Frying-pan! We won't need any bacon with all those fish and the partridges."

"We'll only broil one bird, but we must have some hard-tack. I'll show you."

Sid went for the water, but when he got back Wade was putting the frying-pan on a bed of coals, with a couple of thin slices of bacon in it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAMP LIFE.--DRAWN BY CHARLES GRAHAM.]

"They look lonely," said Sid.

"They'll have company enough. This coffee smells first rate."

"No milk, Wade, and nothing to settle it with."

"I thought I'd surprise you, Sid. I've brought some little cans of condensed milk."

"Why not a big can?"

"Spoils after it's opened, just like other milk."

"Next thing to having a cow. But, oh, won't the coffee be muddy!"

"I guess not. There, the bacon's beginning to fry."

Half a dozen ship biscuit, hard as dinner plates, were dipped for a moment in the water, and quickly transferred to the frying-pan.

It was wonderful how puffed up and soft they became, and what a fine flavor of bacon improved their taste when it came time to eat them.

Wade was at his coffee-pot before that, however.

Two heaping table-spoonfuls of the ground coffee were first poured into one of the tin cups, which were all the "table crockery" in that camp, and just covered with cold water.

That had been done before the bacon was put on, and now the coffee-pot full of water was sitting on a bed of coals and beginning to steam.

"She's boiling," shouted Sid.

In went the contents of the tin cup, and on went the cover.

"Let her boil awhile."

"The hard-tack's a-swelling."

"The fish must be done, too. Now for settling."

The cover of the coffee-pot was lifted, and half a cupful of cold water was suddenly dashed in, and then the pot was lifted from the coals to the gra.s.s.

"Let her stand a bit. Now for the fish. Have your tin plate ready."

"Ain't they splendid?"

So they were, when they were dug out from the ashes, their leafy coats removed; and Sid discovered that by a careful use of his fork and fingers all the parts of the fish that he did not want seemed to come away together. A little salt and pepper improved both them and the hard-tack, and the coffee poured out beautifully clear and strong.

Just as he and Sid were getting ready to begin their meal, however, Wade took one of the partridges and spread him flat on the forks of a long crooked branch he had cut.

"That'll hold him just high enough above the coals."

"Yes, but you stuck him right into the heat, first thing."

"Always. That shuts up his outside coat, so he won't lose all his juice in broiling. Cook him slow, now. I've put a little salt and pepper on him, and a piece of b.u.t.ter as big as a chestnut. He'll do."

"We can't eat all we're cooking."