"Did you catch them with a hook and line?" inquired George.
"Of course I did! What else should I catch them with? I should like to see one of you trying to handle a ten or fifteen-pound fish with nothing but a trout-pole."
"Could you do it?" inquired Harry, struggling hard to suppress a laugh.
"Do it? I have done it many a time. But is there any hunting around here?"
"Plenty of it."
"Well," continued Charles, "I walked all over the woods this morning, and couldn't find any thing."
"It is not the season for hunting now," said George; "but in the fall there are lots of ducks, pigeons, squirrels, and turkeys, and in the winter the woods are full of minks, and now and then a bear or deer; and the swamps are just the places to kill muskrats."
"I'd just like to go hunting with some of you. I'll bet I can kill more game in a day than any one in the village."
The boys made no reply to this confident assertion, for the fact was that they were too full of laughter to trust themselves to speak.
"I'll bet you haven't got any thing in the village that can come up to this," continued Charles; and as he spoke he raised a light, beautifully-finished rifle from the bottom of the boat, and held it up to the admiring gaze of the boys.