“Every time you come through here on a hot day you say the same thing,” observed Joe.
“I know it; but I am in dead earnest now. The game isn’t worth the candle.”
“What’s the matter? Are you sorry that you didn’t smash your canoe in the rapids?” asked Roy.
“Or didn’t you catch fish enough to suit you?” chimed in Ralph.
“Perhaps he is disgusted because he didn’t shoot that bear,” said Joe.
“It’s hard work,” repeated Arthur. “The fun of running the rapids, catching a nice string of bass and seeing a bear, does not repay one for the horrors of this fifteen mile carry. It is worse for me to-day than it ever was before, because we have been so very unlucky. We have used our rods for the last time, and Joe will never see his canvas canoe again.”
This was the way in which Arthur and his two friends referred to their losses whenever they referred to them at all. There was no unreasonable exhibition of rage, such as Tom Bigden would have been glad to indulge in, if he could have found the least excuse for so doing.
If Tom had possessed even the semblance of a heart, it would have smote him when he saw how patiently Joe and his chums bore up under their misfortunes. If Matt Coyle had turned the matter over in his mind for a whole month, he could not have hit upon anything that was so well calculated to render these three boys miserable, as was the piece of villainy which he had that day carried out at the suggestion of Tom Bigden. Tom was glad of one thing: His companions did not ask him any questions, and consequently he was not obliged to tell them any lies.
The boys rested a good many times while they were on the carry, and when at last they launched their canoes on the broad bosom of the lake they were so weary and devoid of ambition, that it was a task for them to paddle down to the boat-houses; but, like their arduous journey across the portage, it was accomplished at last by steady and persevering effort, and when they separated near the middle of the lake and pulled away toward their respective homes, they told one another that the next time they went down to the pond they would see to it that Matt Coyle had no chance to spoil their day’s sport.
“There’s something about that business that don’t look just right to me,” said Ralph Farnsworth, as soon as Joe and his friends were out of hearing. “I don’t mind my own loss, but I am really sorry for Joe Wayring.”