“I am sure of it,” replied Jones, who grew enthusiastic at once. “It’s the very idea, and I know the boys will be in for it hot and heavy. It takes the new fellows to get up new schemes. I can see only two objections to it.”
“What are they?” inquired Lester.
“The first is, that we can’t carry it out under four or five months. Couldn’t you think up something that we could go at immediately?”
“I am afraid not,” answered Lester. “Where could we go and what could we do if we were to desert now? We could not sleep out of doors with the thermometer below zero, for we would freeze to death. We must have warm weather for our excursion.”
“That’s so,” said Jones, reflectively. “I suppose we shall have to wait, but I don’t like to, and neither would you if you knew what we’ve got to go through with before the ice is all out of the river. The other objection is, that we have no one among us who can manage the yacht after we capture it.”
“What’s the reason we haven’t?”
“Can you do it?”
“I might. I have taken my own yacht in a pleasure cruise around the great lakes from Oswego to Duluth,” replied Lester, with unblushing mendacity. “It was while I was in Michigan that I killed some of those bears.”
“I didn’t know you had ever killed any,” said Jones, opening his eyes in amazement.
“Oh, yes, I have. They are also abundant in Mississippi, and one day I kept one of them from chewing up Don Gordon.”