“O, no,” replied Bob. “You can lie down in the bow of the canoe and I’ll do the paddling. Does your head ache?”
“Dreadfully, and I thought perhaps it would be well to speak to father about those bonds of yours. We don’t want to be beaten again, you know.”
“Of course not, but if you speak to him to-night it will answer every purpose. If my father had been in any hurry he would have told you so. I have a plan to propose that will wake you up and put life into you. You remember that when you went over to get Don to join our Sportsman’s Club, he told you that he and Bert had been frightened off Bruin’s Island by a bear, don’t you? And you told him that perhaps you would go up there some day and shoot him?”
“Ah! yes, I think I remember some such conversation. But I don’t feel like it to-day. Some other time I’ll go up there with you, and if we find any bears there, I’ll show you how to hunt them.”
It was not at all probable that Lester or any other boy in the settlement could have taught Bob anything about bear-hunting. He had ridden to the hounds almost ever since he was large enough to sit on horseback. Nearly every planter in the neighborhood owned a pack of dogs, Mr. Owens among the number, and hunting with them was as much of a pastime as base ball is in the North, and during the proper season was as regularly practised. Many an old bear had Bob seen “stretched” by the dogs, and the rifle he then carried had been the death of more of them than Lester could have counted on the fingers of both hands.
“It is strange that you never come out to any of our hunts,” said Bob. “You have often been invited.”
“I know it, but I can’t see any fun in it,” answered Lester, who knew that if he ever appeared among the hunters they would soon find out that he was a very poor horseman. “It is easy enough to kill a bear when you have a score or two of dogs to hold him for you; but I’d like to see one of you fellows walk into the woods and meet one alone, as I have. There’s where the fun comes in.”
“I should think so,” answered Bob, as, with one sweep of his paddle, he brought the canoe to a stand-still in the mouth of the bayou that led to Bruin’s Island. “What do you say? Shall we go up?”
“Not to-day; my head aches too badly.”
“I was all over that island this last summer,” continued Bob; “you know one can wade out to it when the bayou is low; and I didn’t see any bear sign. More than that, I know there hasn’t been a bear near the island for years; but if we should go up there and find one, and you should shoot him, I don’t know of anything that would make Don Gordon feel more ashamed of himself.”