“We’ll go ashore for dinner now,” said Ethan, after the prize had been examined. “Ye’re ready to stop a bit, aren’t ye?”
“We are,” shouted the boys together; and side by side the two skiffs moved toward the shore.
Before the boys landed they discovered that near the place to which evidently Ethan was going were the ruins of some building which plainly had been a large one. The boatman explained that a hotel had stood there at one time, but it had been burned, and never had been rebuilt.
As the boys leaped ashore they all eagerly examined the catch which Tom’s boat had made. There were several bass and a fish which strongly resembled the pickerel which Jock had caught, though it was much smaller.
“They’ve got a pickerel, too,” said Jock, as he discovered the fish.
“That isn’t any pickerel,” remarked Tom.
“What is it, then? It looks just like one,” said Jock.
“It’s a muscalonge. It’s a little fellow, and the first one I’ve seen this year.”
“Ye ought not to have saved him, Tom,” remonstrated Ethan. “If you’d let him go, he might ‘a’ growed big enough to amount to somethin’.”