CHAPTER X.
TRAPPING AND NETTING.
It was eight o’clock when the boys got up the next morning. Joe was stretching the skin on the barn door, and his wife frying bear’s steaks for breakfast. They had eaten but two meals the day before, and though the last was a very hearty one, yet, as they had been at work out of door, the greater part of the night, they awoke hungry. The smell of the meat was so savory, and it looked so tempting, as Sally piled up the large slices on the plate, and prepared to place them on the table, that, resisting the impulse to go out of doors, the boys sat down to await breakfast, which they saw was nearly ready.
“Where is Joe?” inquired John.
“Stretching the bear’s skin.”
“Has he been to the trap?”
“I don’t know.”
Charlie shoved back the sliding shutter of the window that commanded a view of the barn (there was but one glazed window in the house; the others were furnished with wooden shutters, in two of which there were diamond-shaped holes cut, and small squares of glass set in them), where Joe was at work.
“Joe!”
No reply.
“Joe!”