The parade being over, there was nothing to keep Joe and his two chums at home, and on the evening of the 4th they began making preparations for their annual trip to Indian Lake. Shortly after supper Joe Wayring came into the room, and having exchanged his uniform for a suit of working clothes, he shouldered my friend, the canvas canoe, and carried him down stairs. Half an hour later he came back after the creel and me. He took us down to the boat-house and there we found the canoe, snugly tucked away in his chest like a tired boy in his little bed.
“Hurrah for me!” exclaimed the canoe, after Joe had gone out locking the door behind him. “I am going to Indian Lake, too. Now, if Joe can only keep clear of Matt Coyle, we’ll see some fun before we get back. You think you know something about fishing; but wait until you get hold of one of those big lake trout, and then tell me what you think about it.”
That was just what I wanted to do, but I didn’t say so, for fear that when the time came I might discover that I was not quite so good a rod as I thought I was.
We were so very impatient to be off that the night was a very long one to us; but at the first peep of day we heard Joe’s step as he came down the walk toward the boat-house. He placed a basket of provisions on the wharf, mildly scolded Mars for making such a fuss over the coming separation, and then came in after us. Arthur Hastings, Jim and the skiff were on time, as they always were, and in half an hour more we had taken Roy Sheldon on board and were moving gayly down the river. We camped for the night at the old perch hole, where the skiff had ridden out that furious storm a year before, and the boys had fish for supper. Joe had been told that perch would rise to a red ibis, but he and I could not prove the truth of the assertion. Although Arthur and Roy pulled out the fish as fast as they could bait their hooks, Joe never got a bite. The reason was, the water was too deep. His uncle afterward told him that six feet is about as far as any fish can be relied upon to rise to a fly; and sometimes they are too lazy to come from that depth.
On the afternoon on the fourth day we left the river and turned into a little creek, whose current was so swift that the boys were obliged to use extra exertion in order to make headway against it. About an hour after the sun went down we came to anchor in the mouth of a brook, and there I made amends for my failure at the perch hole. I captured more trout than both the other rods, and if I had felt so inclined, could have returned some of the left-handed compliments they paid me when it was found that I could not catch a perch in twenty feet of water; but being peaceably disposed I said nothing. While the tent was being put up, a muffled voice came from the chest in which the canvas canoe was packed away. The cover being shut down, I had to listen intently in order to catch what he said to me.
“Didn’t I hear some one say something about trout?” asked the canoe.
“I think it very likely,” was my reply. “There are lots of them in the brook; almost as many as there in the spring hole at Mount Airy.”
“Then I know where we are,” said my imprisoned friend. “Did you see an ugly looking snag about a mile below? Well, there’s one there, and it’s the one Jake Coyle ran into the night I was sunk in the creek. The fight I told you about took place right here. Have you seen or heard any thing of the squatter?”
“No, I haven’t; but I know that Joe and his friends are keeping a bright lookout for him.”
“I am glad to hear it, and I hope they will not relax their vigilance just because Matt keeps himself out of sight. His shanty is over there in the woods on the right hand side of the creek. I’ll bet he is there now, and that he has had his eye on the skiff ever since she came into this part of the country. Mark my words: Joe will hear from him before he sees Mount Airy again.”