There were still a powder-flask and shot-pouch somewhere on the bottom of the river (the professor had told Oscar that with the gun he had lost all the equipments), but these articles could be replaced for so little money, and the chances of picking them up with the drag were so few and far between, that the boys did not think it worth while to waste time in looking for them. They had recovered the gun, and the owner would certainly be satisfied with that.
CHAPTER XIV. WHO DESTROYED THE SNARES?
Arriving at the head of the island, the decoys were set out, and the boys took their positions behind the blind, where they remained until three o'clock that afternoon.
The shooting was all they could desire, and when they returned home that night, Oscar had thirty-one and a half brace of ducks to ship to the city, after Sam had taken out all he wanted for his own use. The extra duck Oscar carried home for his next day's dinner, and the others were duly forwarded to Calkins & Son.
The first thing Oscar did after he had eaten his supper was to take the recovered shot-gun into his shop and give it a thorough overhauling.
The loads were drawn (Oscar laughed when he saw how small they were—they would scarcely have ruffled the feathers of a mallard at ten paces), the breech-pins were unscrewed, the locks taken to pieces, and every part was oiled and rubbed until it shone like silver.
He worked upon it until ten o'clock, and when he put it together again no one would have supposed that it had lain for a whole week at the bottom of the river. It could not have been in better order when it first came from the hands of the man who made it.
Oscar was up long before daylight on Monday morning, and, having eaten breakfast, he set out with his gun on his shoulder and Bugle at his heels, to try his luck with the black fox.