For dinner they planned a much grander menu. But for the present, bacon and potatoes filled a crying need.
It was necessary to get more bait; and refreshed by their breakfast, the boys, having tidied camp to the extent of hanging their blankets upon some bushes in the sun to dry, went with Bob on another frog hunt. They found frogs, but no snakes; evidently the evening was the snakes’ special hour for foraging.
In their search they followed adown the little swamp which slanted in toward the river. It grew wetter as they proceeded, and they were about to leave it, when they heard a tremendous outburst of barks and growls from Bob.
“Here, Bob! We’re coming, Bob, old fellow!” they called, running helter-skelter to back him up, or scold him, whichever was proper.
Bob was in a great dilemma. He had run across an immense snapping-turtle, and did not know what to do with it. He was afraid to close with it, and yet he was unwilling to flee from it, therefore he had adopted the middle course of circling it at a respectful distance, and abusing it in dog language.
The turtle was a patriarch. His shell was thick and black and knobby, and the skin of his neck and legs was thick and black and warty. His claws were long and curving, and as with his head he slowly followed Bob’s antics, his deep-set eyes fairly flashed sparks, while he held his formidable mouth half open, as if hankering for a bite out of one of Bob’s legs. How he hissed, with a hoarse, gaspy hiss! He was so enraged that he filled the air with a musky odor.
“Isn’t he a whopper, though!” exclaimed Ned, grasping Bob, who, at the arrival of reinforcements, had waxed altogether too fierce for safety.
“I’d hate to have him get hold of me!” asserted Hal, poking at the monster with a stick. The turtle seized the stick with such a grip that he jerked it out of Hal’s hands, and Mr. Hal involuntarily jumped back a pace.
“Well, I guess we aren’t wanted here,” remarked Ned, laughing. “Come on, Bob.”