Joe Wayring at once set off to hunt up a couple of suitable boards, another started a fire, two more fell to work upon the fish and squirrels, and the rest found employment in gathering a supply of fuel, and providing birch-bark plates and platters. Although Tom and his cousins did their full share of the work, they did not neglect to keep an eye on their more experienced companions; and they were astonished to see how easily one can get on without a good many things which the majority of people seem to think necessary to their very existence. When the fish had been cleaned and washed in the pond, they were spread out flat and fastened with wooden pins to the boards, which were propped up in front of the fire; while the squirrels were impaled upon forked sticks and held over the coals by Arthur Hastings and Roy, who turned first one side and then the other to the heat, until they were done to a delicious brown.
“If Matt Coyle had only been good enough to leave us the bacon, which I was careful to have put up with my lunch, these squirrels would be much better than they are going to be,” said Arthur, addressing himself to Ralph, who manifested the greatest interest in this rude forest cookery. “Their meat is rather dry, you know, and a strip of nice fat bacon pinned to each side of them would furnish the necessary grease—that isn’t a very elegant word, I know, but it expresses my meaning all the same—and give them a flavor also. It would make the fish more palatable, too. My advice to you is, always take a chunk of bacon with you if you are going to cook your dinner in the woods.”
“What’s he doing?” inquired Ralph, nodding toward Joe Wayring, who stood around with his hands in his pockets, now and then elevating his chin and sniffing the air like a pointer that had struck a fresh scent.
Arthur laughed heartily.
“Joe’s timing the fish,” was his reply. “When they smell so good that he can’t wait any longer, he will know they are done; and then dinner will be ready. It’s rather a novel way, I confess, but Joe hits it every pop.”
This was the first time that Tom and his cousins had ever sat down to a meal that was composed of nothing but fish and meat, but it tasted much better than they thought it would. Perhaps the reason was because they were hungry. At any rate they disposed of all that was placed before them, and would have asked for another piece of squirrel if there had been any more on the big slice of bark that did duty as a platter.
“This meal will give you an idea of what we could have done if that squatter had not stumbled on our canoes while we were after that bear,” said Roy, who stood holding the empty platter in one hand and his light bird gun in the other. As he spoke, he sent the platter flying over the pond, and broke it into inch pieces by the two charges of shot he put into it before it struck the water. “What’s the next thing on the programme?” he continued. “I don’t much like the idea of undertaking that long carry during the heat of the day, but I don’t see what else we can do unless we are willing to stay here and be idle for hours to come. We can’t fish any more, that’s certain. We haven’t brought our long bows with us, and who wants to shoot squirrels with a shot gun? Not I, for one.”
There was no debate upon the question Roy had raised. They had their choice between going home, and staying where they were until the sun sank out of sight behind the mountains; and they were not long in making up their minds what they would do. When Joe Wayring picked up his gun and stepped into Roy’s canoe (it was a Rice Laker, and not being decked over, it could easily accommodate him and its owner), the others got into theirs, and the fleet started toward the upper end of the pond.
We have said that Mirror Lake and Sherwin’s Pond were fifteen miles apart, and that there were about twelve miles of rapids in the stream by which they were connected. This, of course, would leave three miles of still water; but the trouble was, it could not be made use of by any one going from the pond to the lake. At every one of the points at which the rapids ceased and the stretches of still water began, the banks were high and steep, and so densely covered with briers and bushes that the most active boy would have found it a difficult task to work his way to the water’s edge, and an impossible one if he had a canoe on his back. This being the case our six friends had a long portage (they generally called it a “carry”) to look forward to; but three of them, at least, went at it as they went at every thing else that was hard—with the determination to do it at once and have it over with. Arthur Hastings went first with his little Rob Roy on his back, Joe Wayring followed close behind him with all the guns and paddles he could carry (the rest of them were lashed fast in the cock-pits so that they would not fall out when the canoes were turned bottom up), and they led their companions nearly a third of the distance before they put down their loads and leaned up against a tree to rest.
“This is my last visit to Sherwin’s pond this season,” panted Arthur, as he drew his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the big drops of perspiration from his forehead. “It’s too much sugar for a cent—altogether too much.”