It was not long before they were sitting down to the first real game supper of the excursion. Everybody spoke of it as “Bobolink’s venison treat,” and that individual’s boyish heart swelled with pride from time to time until Spider Sexton called out: 137
“Next thing you know we’ll have a real tragedy hereabouts.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Phil Towns.
“Why,” explained Spider, “Bobolink keeps on swelling out his chest like a pouter pigeon every time somebody happens to mention his deer, and I’m afraid he’ll burst with vanity soon.”
“And when the day’s doings are written up,” Bluff put in, “be sure and put in that another of our gallant band came within an ace of being terribly bitten by a savage wild beast.”
“Please explain what it’s all about,” begged Tom. “You see Jack and I were away pretty much all day. You and Sandy went off with Tolly Tip, didn’t you, to see how he managed his traps? Was it then the terrible thing happened?”
“It was,” said Bluff, with a chuckle. “You see Tolly Tip kept on explaining everything as we went from trap to trap, and both of us learned heaps this morning. Finally, we came to the marsh and there a muskrat trap held a big, ferocious animal by the hind leg.”
“You see,” Sandy broke in, as though anxious to show off his knowledge of the art of trapping, “as a rule the rat is drowned, which saves the skin from being mangled. But this one stayed up on the bank instead of jumping off when caught in the trap. Now go on, Bluff.” 138
“Sandy accidentally got a mite too close to the beast,” continued the other. “First thing I knew I heard a snarl, and then Sandy jumped back, with the teeth of the muskrat clinging to the elbow of his coat sleeve. An inch further and our chum’d have been badly bitten. It was a mighty narrow escape, let me tell you.”
“Another thing that would interest you, Paul,” Bluff went on to say, “was the beaver house we saw in the pond the animals had made when they built a dam across the creek, a mile above here.”