Hans told Merriwell quite privately that the stings of those island mosquitoes were almost as bad as the stings of the “trout” he had caught.
Except that the sun was torridly hot during the midday hours, the weather was almost perfect. The skies were clear and blue, the bay placid. Trout, genuine trout, took the hook readily. The canoeing was all that could be desired. Merriwell, too, had secured some splendid views of wild life with his ever-ready camera. One of the finest of these was a trout leaping. When developed, the photograph showed the trout in the air above the surface of the lake, with the water falling from it in silvery drops, and its scales glinting in the sunlight.
Another fine view was a moonlight scene of a portion of Lily Bay, from the headland where Hans had done his fishing.
“I shall always regret that I didn’t snap the camera on that buck while he was making such a gallant fight against those dogs,” Merriwell often declared. “That would have been great. But really, I was so excited over the buck’s peril that I entirely forgot that I had a camera.”
But he had caught other scenes and views, that were highly satisfactory, if they did not quite compensate for the fine scene of the combat between the hounds and the buck. Whose the hounds were they had no means of knowing, but Caribou suggested that they probably belonged to a gentleman who had a cottage not far from Capen’s.
Highly as Merriwell regarded John Caribou, there could be no doubt that there was something mysterious about his movements. Merriwell had once seen him steal out of camp in the dead of night, an act for which the guide had no adequate explanation when questioned. In fact, Merriwell’s questioning threw Caribou into singular confusion.
The day the camp was moved, Jack Diamond saw the guide meet a stranger in the woods, to whom he talked for a long time in the concealment of some bushes, in a manner that was undeniably surreptitious. Still, Merry clung to his belief in the guide’s honesty.
Hans Dunnerwust had become valiant and boastful since his great success at catching “trout.” He wanted to further distinguish himself.
“Uf I could shood somedings!” Merriwell once overheard him say in longing tones.
This remark, which Hans had only whispered to himself, as it were, came back to Merriwell with humorous force a couple of days after the setting up of the camp on the mainland.