"With what we'e already cleaned, they'll make a fine mess for the crowd," he remarked, pointing out an unusually big fellow that had given him all the fun he wanted, before consenting to be dragged ashore.
"I notice that you both kill your fish as you get 'em," remarked Tom.
"I wouldn't think of doing anything else," replied Jack. "It only takes a smart rap with a club on the head to end their sufferings. I'd hate to think of even a fish dying by inches, and flapping all over the boat or the ground, as it gasps its life away. That's one of the things scouts are taught—to be humane sportsmen, giving the game a chance, whether fish, flesh or fowl, and not inflicting any unnecessary suffering."
"Wonder if anything's happened in camp since we came away; because Bobolink and I have been gone nearly an hour," remarked Tom Betts, to change the subject; for his conscience reproved him with regard to the matter Jack was speaking about.
"What makes you think that?" asked Paul, suspiciously.
"Oh! nothing; only things seem to be on the jump with us right now; and a fellow can't turn around without bumping into a wild man, or some bogus money-makers, it seems. P'raps the ghost'll show up next. Listen! wasn't that somebody trying to blow your bugle, Bobolink, that you left hung up in the tent?"
"It sure was, for a fact. Let's start on a run, fellows. Mebbe they've gone and grabbed that wild man! P'raps he was bent on carryin' off the whole outfit this time. You never can tell what a crazy man'll do next; that's the hard part of being a keeper in a queer house, where they keep a lot of that kind; anyhow a man told me that once who'd been there. But listen to that scout trying to sound the recall, would you? Whoop her up, boys; there's something happened, as sure as you live!"
CHAPTER XV
ORDERED OFF
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon of this, the first day of their intended stay on Cedar Island, when Paul and his three comrades came running around the bend of the shore above the camp, and saw some of the scouts beckoning wildly to them.