CHAPTER IX.
THE SQUATTER TURNS UP AGAIN.
ONE fishing excursion is much like another, and any boy who has handled a nicely-balanced bait-rod when the black bass, perch, and yellow pike were hungry and full of fight, as they were on the morning of which we write, will have a clearer idea of the sport Tom Bigden and the rest enjoyed there on the pond than we could possibly give him. We did not follow them through the rapids to tell how they played their fish and how many they caught, and so we shall have but little to say about it. Joe Wayring affirmed that the twenty minutes’ fight he had with a nine pound pike, which began in less than half a second after he dropped his hook into the water, gave him solid comfort and enjoyment for a week afterward; but whether or not he found any comfort in something that happened when they went ashore to eat their lunch, is another matter altogether.
About eight o’clock the fish gave notice that they had quit business for the day by refusing to notice any of the lures that were dropped among them, and then the boys discovered that their long pull before breakfast had made them hungry.
“Did you ever eat a fish that had been baked in the ashes?” inquired Joe, addressing himself to Tom and his cousins. “Then you have yet one enjoyment in store for you. You won’t think much of house-cooking after you have eaten one of Roy’s dinners. We know a nice place on the point above, with an ice-cold spring handy, and we’ll—”
“Excuse me for interrupting,” said Loren, suddenly. “But did you ever see a dog like that before?”
The speaker was not a little surprised by the effect his words produced upon some of his companions. They all looked in the direction indicated by his finger, and then Joe began pulling up his anchor with almost frantic haste, while Arthur and Roy reached rather hurriedly for their guns.
“You can’t do any thing with him from here,” said Joe.
“And if we paddle for the shore he will see us and take to his heels,” added Roy.
“Why who—what are you going to do to him?” stammered Ralph.
“We’d be glad to shoot him if we could,” replied Joe. “He’s no dog. He’s a half-grown bear.”