“Yes, thought we’d make a haul or two ‘crost the river this afternoon,” informed Joe. “Ever see a big seine laid?”
“I have,” said Ned.
“I haven’t,” said Hal.
“Better come along, then,” invited Joe.
“All right—much obliged,” responded Ned and Hal. “What time?”
“Oh, some’ers after dinner toward the shank o’ the afternoon,” replied Joe. “You watch, an’ when you see us gettin’ ready, you come down.”
With this in prospect the boys gleefully returned to camp, to run their trot-lines and to have an early dinner. The running of the lines was not especially a success, the haul being only two catfish; but the dinner was a great success, being baked potatoes and fried pickerel, pressed beef and coffee, and with dessert of toasted bread dipped in canned blueberries.
Before Sam and Joe showed signs of starting out, the boys had time to fit up a stove, by digging a hole in the top of the bank, covering it with a piece of sheet iron, and making an entrance at right angles, for fuel and draft.
It was quite a luxury to loll back, Ned against the mass of net heaped upon the fish-box built into the broad stern, and Hal in the narrowing bows, while Sam and Joe sped the boat across the ripply, sparkling river. Soon the wordy, left-handed compliments being exchanged between Bob, on guard at the grape arbor, and the brindled dog, on guard at the shanty, died away in the distance, and the eastern shore of the Mississippi came into plain view.