CHAPTER X
A BIG BEAVER MEADOW
The next morning dawned bright and clear. Jack and Hugh were both up before sunrise, and while Hugh was kindling the fire, trying to make wet wood burn, Jack went down to the stream to get a bucket of water. He was just about to stoop over to fill his bucket, when suddenly he saw something swimming along under the water, and placing his bucket on the ground, he fired at the object just as it passed in front of him. The stream was narrow and deep, so that he shot almost directly down into the water, and as soon as the splash made by the ball ceased, he could see something struggling below him, and reaching down into the water he caught the animal by a foot, and lifting it out threw it on the bank. It was a little beaver.
Jack had seen plenty of beaver hides, but never before a living beaver, and this seemed to him very small, and, judging by what Hugh had previously told him, he concluded that it was a young one. It would not weigh more than ten or twelve pounds.
Filling his bucket, he carried his water in one hand and the beaver in the other, with the rifle under his arm, up to the tent, and surprised Hugh by throwing the beaver on the ground.
"Well," said Hugh, "is that what you shot at? I wondered whether you could have run on a deer down by the creek, or maybe an antelope. This is a good piece of meat you've brought in. Beaver is first-class eating, and this is a nice, fat, tender kitten. About three months old, I should say, by the size, and it's mighty early for kittens as big as this. You'll get your first lesson in skinning a beaver to-day, and your first taste of beaver meat, too. Won't it be, or did you ever eat beaver when you were with the Blackfeet?"
"No, Hugh," said Jack, "I don't think I ever tasted it. I'd like to."
"We'll have beaver tail soup, too," said Hugh. "This tail's only a little one, but it'll be enough to give us a taste. Beaver tail used to be considered great meat by the old-time trappers, something like back fat among the Indians. I never cared much about beaver tail. It's too oily for my taste. I should think those Indians we saw last summer up in British Columbia would like it, but I like something a little more solid.
"Lay that kitten in the shade," he went on, "and after we've got through our breakfast we'll stretch that bear hide. You must remember that that is like so much cash in our pocket. We've got to save all the fur we get this trip, and no fur is ever safe until it's good and dry."
As they sat at breakfast, they looked toward the mountains. The morning was still, and instead of the flames and the onrushing clouds of smoke which they had seen the day before, there were now only a few smoke wreaths lazily curling up toward the sky at occasional points on the mountain side.
"Yes," said Hugh, as he waved his knife toward the range, "I reckon that storm last night put out that fire. In the first place it wet all the timber, green and dry, and then it wet all the dead underbrush and the needles and dry branches with which the ground is covered. I think everything got a good soaking, and I believe that now the fire will go out. Anyway, I hope so."
"I suppose you have no more idea than I have how the fire got started?" asked Jack.
"No," said Hugh, "no man can tell about that. A fire may get started in forty ways. Usually, it's some fellow goes off and leaves his campfire burning, and then a puff of wind comes up and blows some of the coals into some dry grass or something that catches fire easy, or else the Indians may set fire to the timber just for the purpose of driving the game into some big stretch of country where it is easy to hunt it. Of course, Indians get the credit for a whole lot of fires that they never set, and I believe that half the fires are started by white men, just from carelessness, like throwing down a lighted match, or chucking away a cigarette that will burn for ten or fifteen minutes. On the prairie, of course, lots of fires are started by the railroad. The sparks from the locomotive fall among dry grass. Sometimes in the timber lightning starts a fire. There are lots of ways in which the forests can be burned, and as long as there's so much forest, and it's nobody's business to look after it, of course, these fires will keep burning year after year."
"Well now, son," said Hugh, "after they had finished eating, if you'll get another bucket of water I'll wash the dishes, and then we can stretch that bear hide."
Jack brought another bucket of water, which Hugh set on the fire, and while it was heating he directed Jack to unlash the bear hide and to drag it out a little away from camp. After this had been done, he sent him down to look along the stream to see if he could find any birch or alder brush, telling him if he could do so to get enough branches to make thirty or forty wooden pins. Taking the ax, Jack went down the stream and could find neither birch nor alder. He did find, however, a thicket of small ash saplings, and cutting down half a dozen of these he put them on his back and dragged them back to camp.
"Couldn't find any birch?" said Hugh. "Well, I don't know as I'm much surprised. It's pretty well south for birch, but that makes better pins than 'most anything else. However, this ash will have to do, I reckon." He took the saplings and with the ax cut them into lengths of about eight or ten inches, and then taking the thickest ones he split them.
Then he said to Jack: "Get out your knife now, son, and help me whittle pegs. We want quite a lot of them, for I would like to stretch this hide nicely, and take it in in good shape."
For half or three-quarters of an hour the two were busily employed whittling down and pointing pins, and they had a large pile of them before Hugh declared that there were enough. They carried the pins over to where the bear skin lay and threw them on the ground; then turning the hide flesh side up they stretched it as nearly square as possible, and then with their jack-knives went round its border, cutting holes half an inch long in the margin of the hide at intervals of about six inches. When these had all been cut, the hide was again spread out, and Hugh, with the ax, drove two pins through holes, one in each side of the neck, and then, stretching the hide to its full length, drove two more in holes each about a foot on either side of the tail. Then two pins were driven at one side of the hide between fore and hind leg, and two on the other side, between fore and hind leg. The hide now was held in position, and going about it, Hugh, with great care, drove in his pins, stretching the hide so that it was nearly square, though a little longer from head to tail than from side to side. Of course, the four legs and the head made the square irregular, but, on the whole, Hugh declared, after he had finished, that it was a very good job.
"I shouldn't have stretched this hide quite so large, son," he said, "if it hadn't been so very well furred. Usually the hair is thin on the flanks, and if you stretch a hide much you get places on either flank just in front of the hind-legs where there is scarcely any hair at all, and a bear hide that shows up like that never brings a good price. You notice, though, that on this hide the fur is just about as good on the belly as it is on the back. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if your uncle bought this hide himself, instead of letting us sell it to some fur buyer.
"Now, I don't want the sun to burn it," he went on, "so we'll just go down to the creek and get a lot of willow brush and make a shade for it. If the sun shines all day on this fat it will more than half cook it, and that will spoil the hide."
Hugh and Jack went down to the stream, and cutting a lot of the green-leafed willows, brought them up and so arranged them that the direct rays of the sun were kept from the hide.
"Never dry a hide in the sun," said Hugh; "always in the shade. Let the wind and the dryness in the air take up the moisture for you. Then your hides will always sell well."
"Well, son," said Hugh, when the job of stretching the hide and shading it was ended, "do you feel pretty wolfish?"
"Yes," said Jack, "I believe I'm ready for dinner."
"All right," said Hugh, "we'll skin that little beaver, and roast him for our dinner. If we have any luck trapping you'll have plenty of skinning to do before we get back, and I guess you'll be pretty sick of it."
Returning to the camp they took the beaver kitten to the shade of one of the cottonwood trees, and Hugh showed Jack how to skin it.
"You split it," said Hugh, "from the chin right straight down the middle of the belly to the root of the tail, and then take off the skin just as you would with any other animal. You must have a whetstone by you and keep your knife sharp, and be careful in your cutting so that you make no holes in the hide. At the same time you must skin close to the hide, and not leave any fat on it. When you get to the legs, cut the skin all around just above the feet on fore and hind legs, and at the tail cut all around the bone, just above where the scales begin. In skinning around the eyes, see that you don't cut the eyelids, and when you get to the ears, cut them off close to the hide on the inside. Now, go ahead and see what you can do."
Jack split the beaver as directed, and carefully worked back the hide, first on one side and then on the other. It was slow business. In his effort not to cut holes in the skin he made short cuts, and the peeling off of the hide seemed to go very slowly. However, he worked it along with much patience until he got to the legs and the tail, and cut them around, as Hugh had instructed.
Meantime, Hugh had gone off and cut some long willow sprouts, and returning to where Jack sat, occupied himself in making a circular hoop, which, he told Jack, was to stretch the skin on. He bent a long twig into a circle, and with the slender branches on the end tied the smaller and larger ends together. By this time Jack had the beaver about half skinned, and Hugh, drawing his knife, took hold of one side of the hide and helped, and in a very few minutes the carcass was free and lying on the grass, while beside it lay the skin, flesh side up.
"Well, son," said Hugh, "that is a pretty good job, considering it's the first beaver you ever skinned. It will be a good practice for you. You see, if we should ever be lucky enough to get half a dozen beaver in a morning it will take us about all day long to skin them."
"Whew!" said Jack, as he stood up and stretched his cramped limbs, "that's something like work. I guess most fellows, when they think of trapping, think only of how good they feel when they catch their beaver, and how good they feel when they sell the skins. They don't remember how much work it takes to get the skins ready for market."
"That's so, son," said Hugh, "but then, I guess that's true about 'most everything in life. The miner thinks only about the rich haul that he is going to make; he doesn't reckon on the number of hours that he's got to swing a pick or a sledge or hold a drill before he strikes pay streak. He just thinks of striking it rich, and then getting the money for his mine. There's lots of human nature in all of us.
"Well, now," he went on, "the first thing we want to do is to go down to the creek and get rid of some of this grease that we have accumulated, and then we can come back and cook our dinner."
It took a lot of scrubbing with soap and sand to free themselves from the oil of the bear and the beaver, and the smell of the grease they could not get rid of. When they had returned to the tent Hugh sent Jack to cut a long, green, forked stick. Sharpening this at its larger end, he drove it firmly into the ground in such a position that it would overhang the fire. He tied a stout cord to the hind-legs of the little beaver, built up his fire of dry cottonwood, and let it burn down to good, red coals, and then hung the beaver to the fork of a green stick so that it swung directly over the coals. Then he told Jack to get a long, green, willow twig, and from time to time to give the beaver's carcass a twirl, so that it would constantly keep turning over the fire. Then Hugh himself began preparations for the rest of the dinner, which, after all, consisted only of bread and coffee. The hot coals soon caused the grease to drip from the meat, which slowly twirled over the fire, and by the time Hugh had baked his bread and cooked his coffee he declared that the meat ought to be done. It was taken from the fire and a slash with a knife showed that it was cooked through. Hugh divided it into two pieces, and putting it on two tin plates, gave one to Jack and took one himself.
"Now, son," he said, "try this meat, and see how you like it. Most of us think that kitten is pretty good food. Of course, it isn't like fat cow, or even like mountain sheep or elk, but to my mind it's quite as good as any bird or fish that there is."
For some time Jack's mouth was so full that he could not comment on the dinner, but, after a time, he declared in response to a question by Hugh, that the meat was "prime." "But what is this queer, half-bitter taste that it has, Hugh?" he asked.
"Why, son, that's extract of cottonwood and willow bark. Don't you know that is what the beaver feed on, and, of course, the flesh tastes of it? This little fellow is not very strong, but I've sometimes eaten old beaver that was so bitter that you really didn't want to eat much of it."
"Well," said Jack, "this is about the tenderest meat that I've ever eaten, and I like the bitter flavor."
"Yes," said Hugh, "it's mighty nice, and then this fellow is so young that you don't have to mind the ribs at all; you can chew them right up and swallow them down."
"Well," said Jack, "I say it's prime, and I hope we'll have lots more beaver meat before we go in."
"No doubt we will," said Hugh; "but no doubt, also, it will not be as good as this has been. It's not every day that one gets a kitten beaver, and it's mighty poor policy to kill them. You see this little bit of a hide isn't worth anything, whereas, if the kitten had been allowed to grow a year more the hide would have been worth, maybe, four or five dollars. Now it isn't worth more than seventy-five cents."
"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "if I had known that perhaps I wouldn't have shot it, but you see, I didn't know that kitten ought not to be killed, and if I had known about it I had no time to think."
"No," said Hugh; "it was all right to kill this one, but I'm just telling you so that after this you'll know about kittens. We try always to set our traps so as to catch only the old beaver. Of course, Indians will sometimes tear down a dam and kill all the beaver in a pond, but then Indians haven't much idea of looking out for the future. I say, kill what old beaver you can and leave the young ones to grow up. If you don't get them next year somebody else will, and we'll hope that whoever does will have sense enough to spare the young ones."
When dinner was over and the dishes washed, Hugh told Jack to bring him the little beaver's hide and the willow hoop that he had made, and then after cutting holes all around the margin of the hide, he took a string and passed it through one of the holes, around the hoop, through another hole and around the hoop again, and so went all around the skin until it was fairly and evenly stretched on the willow hoop.
"There, son," he said to Jack, "that is the way to stretch a beaver hide. Now hang this up somewhere in the brush where the sun can't get at it, nor the wolves and coyotes, either, and by to-morrow morning it will be dry enough so that we can fold it and put it in the pack."
Jack soon found a good place in the shade near the tent and hung the skin up, well out of the reach of any animals that might be prowling about.
When he had returned to the tent, Hugh had about finished washing the dishes, and Jack wiped them and they were put away in a corner of the tent.
"Hugh," said Jack, "you told me to hang the beaver skin where the animals could not get at it, but what about that bear skin out there? May not some of the animals trouble that to-night?"
"Not so, son; the smell of the bear skin ought rather to frighten off the animals. At the same time I haven't very much confidence in the miserable coyotes that this country seems to be full of, so I am going to put a scare out around that hide to-night, and to-morrow morning you will see that nothing has disturbed it."
"Well, I shall be mighty glad to see what you do to it, Hugh," said Jack.
"Oh," said Hugh, "there is nothing special about it. I'm going to protect that hide by taking advantage of the cunning of the coyote. He is always on the lookout for traps and snares of one kind or another, and he won't go close to where he thinks there is a trap. Now, if I put four sticks in the ground at the corner of that bear skin, and run a little string from the tops of these four sticks all around the hide, the coyotes will not pass under that string, because they'll think that maybe it's some kind of a trap to catch them. You see, the coyotes are like some men you have heard of; sometimes they are a little too smart."
When Hugh had finished his pipe Jack said, "What shall we do this afternoon, Hugh? You were going to visit this beaver meadow this morning if we hadn't had that bear skin to attend to. Is there time enough for us to go down there now?"
"Plenty of time," said Hugh. "I was just going to propose it. There's an awful big stretch of beaver work here and I guess that a great deal of it has been abandoned. We want to find out where the beaver are now, and when we've learned that and something about their ways, we can get out our traps. If you like, I'll go down with you now and look for ponds that have beaver in them."
"All right," said Jack; "I'm ready."
"Well," said Hugh, "let's go on now, and I reckon this is as good a time as any to christen those rubber boots that we bought in Laramie. We are likely to find it pretty wet down there, and I don't care to take a horse in those thick willows until I find out a little about them myself. An old beaver meadow is a mighty mean place to take horses. There are bogs and beaver sloughs and old abandoned beaver holes, and it's easy for a horse to fall down, and sometimes mighty hard to get him up again."
Hugh and Jack donned their rubber boots, and taking their rifles, started down toward the main stream. The meadow here was miles in width and it was quite uncertain how far they could go. As well as they could see, much of the meadow was overgrown with tall willows, but on the other hand, there seemed to be many open, grassy meadows.
Before plunging into the willows they followed along the edge for some little distance and at last Hugh said, "Let's turn in here, son, there seems to be a game trail running in the direction we should go." Sure enough, they found a well-traveled and dry game trail which showed that last autumn it had been traveled by bands of elk, for the bark was rubbed off the willows as high as Hugh's head, where great horns of the bulls had forced the stems of the brush apart on either side of the trail. The way led just in the direction they wanted to go, that is, across the valley, and ten or fifteen minutes' brisk tramping brought them to the edge of a green, grassy meadow of considerable extent. Just as they reached the edge of the willows Hugh paused and motioned with his hand, beckoning Jack to come up to his side. "Look there, son," he said, pointing, and Jack saw, only about forty yards away, two bob-cats pulling and tearing at some small thing on the ground, a little distance out in the meadow. Hugh said, "You try to kill the one that is nearest to the brush, and I'll see if I can take the other one on the jump." Jack leveled his rifle and took a careful side aim at the breast of one of the cats, which stood facing him. On the crack of the gun the one he had fired at fell over, while the other jumped high in the air, and when it struck the ground again stood looking to see whence the noise had come. It looked only for an instant, for then Hugh's gun also spoke, and the animal fell over.
"Well," said Hugh, as he reloaded his gun, "I wouldn't have looked for those two bob-cats in such a place as this. I reckon their hides are not worth much, but they might make you a pair of shaps, son; let's go over and get them and see what it is that they were eating."
Walking over to the place, they found that the bob-cats had been devouring the carcass of a little spotted fawn.
"Look there, now," said Hugh; "that's the sort of work these fellows are at day in and day out all the year round. Of course, after a while the fawns get too big and shy for them to tackle, but these bob-cats are all the time killing something that ought to be allowed to live. I suppose that every two or three days for the next month or two each of these cats will kill a young deer, or a young antelope, or maybe a young elk. That would make twenty head of young game animals to a cat each summer. It's mighty lucky that there ain't any more of those fellows in the mountains than there is." He stooped over and looked at the head of the lynx he had shot, and then at the one that had fallen to Jack's gun. The latter was shot through the neck and showed a small hole where the bullet went in and a large one where it came out. The lynx he had killed had only one bullet hole in its neck, the ball having entered its mouth and having knocked out some of its front teeth.
"You ought to shoot closer, son," he said to Jack. "Every hole cut in a skin takes a little off its value. You might remember this."
Two Bob-Cats Pulling and Tearing at Some Small Thing on the Ground.—[Page 106.]
"Yes, Hugh, I know I ought to have shot it through the head, but the range was short and I was a little afraid that if I fired at its head I might overshoot."
"Well," said Hugh, "of course, you might have done so, and at the same time you ought to know how to hold your gun so that you would know just where the bullet would hit at every range from twenty yards up to two hundred."
"Well," said Jack, "I have been pretty lucky with my shooting, but you know that I can't shoot like you, Hugh; and I don't believe I ever will be able to."
"Nonsense," said Hugh. "When you once know your gun thoroughly, provided it's a good one, you can shoot just where you want to, and just as well as any man alive."
"Well," said Jack, "I'll try to be more careful after this. Lord knows, I want to be a good shot, but you can never make me believe that I'll ever learn to shoot as well as you do, Hugh."
"Yes, you will," said Hugh. "Now, let's see what we can do with these bob-cats, son, and then go on a little further and find out something about how these beaver down here are living."
Hugh took from his pocket a buckskin string and tied the two cats together. Jack climbed up among some stout willow stems and by his weight bent them down to within five or six feet of the ground, and then Hugh hung the cats across them. When Jack came down the stems rose nearly to their former height and left the lynxes suspended well out of reach of any prowling animal. Then the two went on.
As they walked on over the meadow where the thick grass stood knee-high, the ground became more and more moist, until presently the water quite covered the soil.
"We must look out here, son," said Hugh; "we may strike bad places anywhere and must go carefully."
Presently they were stopped by a ditch two or three feet wide, in which a few inches of water seemed to stand. Hugh stepped across it, finding the bank on the other side firm enough, and Jack jumped after him.
"This," said Hugh, "is one of those ditches that I was telling you about that the beaver dig to float their feed down to their ponds. If we could follow it back to the brush we would find that the willows all along it had been cut off."
A little beyond this they came to a place where the water was deeper and where the mud under the water was soft, and here they stopped and turning up the stream, followed as nearly as they could the edge of the old pond. Standing in the grass, out where the water was deeper, Hugh pointed out a number of little mounds overgrown with grass and low willows, which he told Jack were old and long-deserted beaver houses. "If we could get out to them," he said, "we should find under that brush a solid foundation of sticks and mud. Those houses will last for a long time, for as the sticks are kept wet all the time they don't rot, but just become water-soaked and will last pretty nearly forever."
The grass, the mud and water, and the frequent detours they had to make made their progress up stream slow, but at length they came to a grass-grown wall a foot or two higher than the rest of the ground, and when he saw that, Hugh gave an exclamation of satisfaction.
"Now," he said, "I think we'll have better going. This, you see, is an old dam, and the chances are we can get on it and cross the stream, and on the other side, where the bottom is narrower, we shall have better going." It turned out just as he had said. The dam, though soft in places, was generally so firm that they could walk along on it pretty comfortably. Over toward its further end it was partly broken down and the water of the stream trickled over and through it for a width of about twenty feet, but by carefully feeling their way and at every step testing the dam with their feet, they managed to cross the running water, and from there to the other side of the valley the dam was firm.
On this west side of the stream the moist bottom was much narrower and they presently found themselves on firm ground, and started to walk briskly up the creek.
"All this work here," said Hugh, "is very old, and I haven't seen any sign of beaver being here for a long time. We'll go up stream as far as we can, but we must cross to the other side before it gets night. We'd be pretty badly off if we were caught in this beaver swamp after dark. We'd sure have to spend the night here. I wouldn't be much surprised if we found that we had to move camp and go up further toward the head of the stream. The beaver have certainly left this part of it."
They hurried on, and for a mile or two nothing was said. The sun was hot and the rubber boots which both wore seemed clumsy and heavy. Jack felt pretty tired but he said nothing of this to Hugh. Presently, from the dry upland where they were walking they could see ahead of them a pond, and then, a little later, the dam which held back its waters.
"There," said Hugh, "that looks to me like fresh work. Don't you see there in that dam some green leaves sticking up? That looks as if the dam had been lately mended; so lately that the twigs and brush used in repairing it have not yet died and lost their leaves."
Jack could see this, and then as he looked over the pond he saw a long wake in the water close to the bank, and caught Hugh's arm and said, "Look there. Hugh, away over there under the bank. What is that swimming? Of course, it may be a duck, but may it not be a beaver?"
Hugh looked carefully, and presently the object which was swimming passed a little bay so that it was distinctly seen as a small, round object. "That's a beaver, son," said Hugh. "You can see for yourself that it isn't a duck, and the only other thing it could be would be an otter or muskrat. It is too big for a muskrat and it doesn't seem like an otter. There are beaver down there, and what's more, they haven't been disturbed for a long time, or else they wouldn't be out swimming around like that in the heat of the day. Let's go down and take a look around; but keep quiet; don't make any quick motions, and whatever you see, don't fire your gun. If there are any beaver there we want to get some of them."
The two walked slowly down toward the dam, taking advantage of whatever little cover there was in the way of inequalities of the ground or of willow brush. Down close to the water's edge grew a good many willows, and they were thus able to get quite close to the dam, and sitting down there they watched the water. For a long time, as it seemed to Jack, it was absolutely still, and then, while he was staring as hard as he could at the farther bank and the place where the dam met it, Hugh touched him and made a little motion with his head, and Jack, following the direction of his companion's eyes, saw, not more than twenty-five yards off, two beaver swimming down toward the dam, each with his head slightly turned to one side, and each dragging after him a green stick about three or four feet long. The two animals came on down to the dam, and without the slightest suspicion that they were being watched, crawled out of the water, dragging their sticks after them. When they left the water they were so close to the watchers that they were hidden from them by the dam, and just what they were doing could not be seen. Jack touched Hugh, and when he bent down his head, whispered to him, "Couldn't we crawl up a little closer and watch them?" Hugh shook his head. A few moments later the two beaver entered the water again and swam off up the pond. When they had disappeared Hugh touched Jack, and turning about, they crept away among the willows in the direction from which they had just come.
When they had left the dam some way behind them, Hugh stopped and said to Jack, "Now, let us go on up this pond, and try to see where these beaver are living and where they're working. Keep out of sight as much as you can. I don't want them to know that there are any people about. It looks to me as if nobody had been trapping here for years, and as if we had struck something good. Now, come on, I want to walk fast and find out all I can to-night, and then we've got to get back to the camp as quickly as we can." They hurried along up the stream, Hugh looking carefully at the willows and aspens along the border of the meadow, and sometimes going down toward the edge of the pond. They crossed a number of places where branches, some of them quite large, had been dragged over the ground, but Hugh contented himself with saying to Jack, "You see, these beaver are working all along here, and they have to go quite a little way for their food."
The beaver pond was quite a long one, but at last they reached its head. Here they came upon a game trail which seemed to lead back across the stream, and turned into it in the hope that it might lead them to the other side. From one high point above the pond they got a good view of its whole length, and Hugh pointed out half a dozen grayish brown objects raised two or three feet above the water's surface, which he told Jack were beaver houses. "It may be, son," he said, "that we'll have to bring our outfit across and camp up at the head of this pond. It's too far from our present camp for us to trap here conveniently."
The game trail led them across the wide stream valley by a good, hard road. At only one point was it deep and muddy, and just here by good luck they found an old cottonwood tree, felled long ago by the beavers, which bridged the bad place.
Once on the other side of the valley, they turned sharply down stream, and after a long walk, reached the game trail by which they had crossed it earlier in the day. They went down this until they came to the place where the lynxes had been hung up, and getting these, they went back to camp, reaching it just about sundown.
"Well," said Hugh, "I feel as if we'd had quite a walk. I guess you are ready for supper, aren't you, son?"
"You bet I am," said Jack; "but the first thing I want to do is to shed these rubber boots. They seem to me the heaviest things I ever had on my feet, and I believe I've got three or four blisters from walking in them. I'd rather go barefoot than wear these again."
"Don't you believe it, son," said Hugh. "You'll be mighty glad of them boots before many days, now. I expect before long to have you wallowing around in the mud and water like a terrapin."