“O, for the sake of variety, probably,” answered Don. “Perhaps their house was too small for them; or it may be that the roof leaked, or that the scow was full of water. They always like to live ashore when they have the chance.”
There was much to be done about the shooting-box, and the boys were kept busy all the forenoon. Old Cuff grumbled lustily while he scrubbed, declaring over and over again that Don ought to set fire to the cabin and destroy it, for it never could be made fit for white folks to live in again. After eating a substantial lunch, which was served under the trees, Egan, Hopkins, and Curtis took their guns, and, accompanied by Bert and Fred Packard, strolled along the shore of the lake to see if they could find anything for supper, while Don and Joe remained behind to assist Cuff at his work. When Egan and Curtis returned at dark, they declared that they were more than satisfied with their prospects for sport. The lower end of the lake was full of ducks, they said, and Egan had astonished his companions by bringing fourteen of them down with a single discharge of his heavy double-barrel, while Curtis had showed his skill with the rifle by shooting four ducks on the wing, and killing a swan at the distance of more than two hundred yards. They were tired as well as hungry, and glad to see the inside of the shooting-box, which did not look now as it did when they first came there in the morning. A cheerful fire was burning in the stove, which had been blacked and polished until one could almost see his face in it; the room was brilliantly lighted by two lamps that were suspended from the ceiling; the floor was covered with rugs; pictures of hunting and fishing scenes adorned the walls, and camp chairs and stools were scattered about.
In the next apartment, which was used principally as a sleeping and sitting-room, the same scene of neatness and order was presented. The wide fire-place, which occupied nearly the whole of one end of it, was piled high with blazing logs, and comfortable beds were made up in the bunks. There were pictures on the walls of this room also, rugs on the floor (some of these rugs at once attracted the attention of Egan and his friends, for they were made of the skins of bears and deer that had fallen to Don’s rifle), and there were camp-chairs enough to accommodate all the boys that could crowd about the fire-place. The room looked cosey and comfortable, and the visitors no longer wondered why it was that Don thought so much of his shooting-box.
“I am going to have one of my own,” said Curtis, “and it shall be modeled after this one. I shall build it this fall, so as to have it in readiness to receive you fellows when you go home with me next vacation. Now, then, where are those quails that Hop brought in? Can your darkey serve them up on toast in good shape?”
“Of course he can,” answered Don. “No one can do it better; but Hop hasn’t brought in any quails yet. Where did you leave him? I wondered why he didn’t come home with you.”
“Hasn’t he returned?” exclaimed Egan. “Then[“Then] he’s lost. We haven’t seen him since two o’clock, when he coaxed your pointers away from us—we owe him a grudge for that, for we wanted the dogs to stay by us and retrieve the ducks we shot—and went over into a field after a flock of quails he had marked down there. We heard him shoot several times after that, and as he is a good marksman, we made up our minds that we were to have quails for supper. There he is now,” added Egan, as an impatient yelp sounded at the door.
“I am afraid you are mistaken,” replied Don, and the sequel proved that he was; for just then the door was thrown open, and Don’s hounds, which Cuff, in obedience to Bert’s orders, had brought up to guard the shooting-box, came bounding in. There were six of them, and the one which held the foremost place in Don’s estimation was Carlo, the dog that had been the first to respond to his whistle when he was tied up in Godfrey Evans’s potato-hole. He was an immense brute, as well as a savage one, and when he raised himself on his hind feet and placed his paws on Don’s shoulders, his head was higher than his master’s.
“We will keep them in here with us until Hop comes; for as they are not very well acquainted with him, they might object to his coming to the house,” said Bert. “Now, Cuff, dish up a couple of those ducks in your very best style. Be in a hurry, for we are hungry.”
Curtis and Egan, having exchanged their high-top boots for easy-fitting shoes, and their heavy shooting-coats for others of lighter material, set to work to clean their guns, while the rest of the boys drew their chairs up in front of the fire, and asked one another what it was that was detaining Hopkins. He couldn’t get lost; they were sure of that, for all he had to do when he wanted to come home, was to follow the shore of the lake, and he would find the shooting-box without the least trouble.
“Do you suppose he would be in any danger from those vagabond friends of ours, if he should chance to stumble upon them in the woods?” said Curtis, as he pointed his breech-loader toward the lamp and looked through the barrel to make sure that it was perfectly clean. “I must confess that I didn’t quite like the looks of them.”