“Spellatim?”
“I think so” laughed Bob. “Why? What makes you so particular?”
“I can’t stand it any longer. It’s too pathetic for me.”
“I suppose the folks here feel just the same as they do in the city,” said George, curtly. “I didn’t bring you here to have you poke fun.”
“I’m not poking fun,” said Ben, soberly; “but the exquisite pathos of that poem is too much for my tender feelings. Poor Jimmie! I don’t wonder he’s dead. Do you know the poet, the author of those touching, plaintive lines?”
As the boys broke into a laugh, George turned abruptly away and took his seat in the carriage, an example his companions speedily followed.
When they arrived at the Landing they discovered that there were yet two hours before the little steamer would depart, and in response to George’s suggestion, for his good nature seemed to be restored now, they accepted his invitation and went with him to view some “sturgeon pounds.”
These pounds were pens in the water, near the shore, in which the boys discovered some fish which even put their great muscallonge to shame. These fish were caught, they learned, from a slender pier or framework built out into the rapids. There, men, equipped with long poles, each of which had a hook on the end much like the gaff George had used on the preceding day, took their stand, and as the mighty sturgeon slowly forced their way up the stream and against the current, they were seen by the waiting fishermen, and “hooked.” They were then thrown alive into the pens and kept, with others, until a sufficient number had been obtained, when they were all shipped to Montreal.
Interested as the boys were in the sight, they did not long remain there, and soon after their return to the Landing went on board the steamer, and were ready to depart. Bidding George good-by, and thanking him once more for all the assistance and pleasure he had given them, they were eager, when the boat left the dock, to return to the camp on Pine Tree Island, for which they had now come to cherish almost a feeling of home.