did not have the heart to break away, while the fish were feeding so savagely.
"Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest!" cried Bobolink; "good-bye ham, and how d'ye do Mr. Trout. I really don't know which I like best. When I'm eating trout my thoughts go out to ham; and when I'm sitting down to a rasher of bacon I do long so for a mess of trout. But they're all to the good, fellows. Do it some more, will you?"
And when William and the other cooks served the fish at noon the boys were loud in their praises. Some had suggestions to offer about the ways of cooking them; but it was noticed that half the inmates of the camp busied themselves immediately after lunch in hunting fishing tackle; and the prospect for peace among the finny tribes in that lake was small.
There was no little rivalry between the trio of cooks. Usually this took the form of good-natured chaffing, and trying new dishes, in order to arouse the envy of other patrols.
Bobolink always hung around to hear these discussions; but William made a great mistake when, thinking to bolster up his cause at one time, he demanded to know what the member of the Red Fox Patrol thought about it.
"Huh!" grunted the wise Bobolink, "I'll tell you, if you promise not to hold it against me, and
give me the poorest grub in the bunch for spite."
"All right, go on," said William slowly, as though he already began to doubt the wisdom of asking his comrade's opinion; "I don't know as you c'n settle this important question at all; but I promise not to hold anything against you. Give us a straight yarn, now, Bobolink, hear!"
"Well," said Bobolink, with a grin, "when I hear you learned cooks disputing about how to do this, and that, I just have to think about the blind men and the elephant, you see."
"What about 'em?" demanded Nat Smith, who belonged to the third patrol, and had carried his mother's big cook book along into camp, thinking to surprise his rivals by the vast extent of his knowledge concerning cookery terms.