Two nights had passed without anything of this sort happening. He wished Mr. Hopkins would get back to the camp so he could consult with so experienced a man as Tubby’s uncle must be, and decide what their duty should be.
Andy did not come back until after the others had started to eat lunch. When they saw the number of plump partridges he carried they congratulated him on his good luck. Rob had anticipated something of this sort, having heard a number of shots in rapid succession, so suspecting that the hunter had struck game.
“But, shucks!” Andy went on to say in a disgusted tone, “I’m almost ashamed to tell you how easy they came to me. Why, after I’d flushed the covey they went and alighted in a tree with wide-spreading branches. There half a dozen of the silly birds perched on a lower limb, and I picked off one as nice as you please. Still, to my surprise, the rest didn’t fly away, but just sat there, craning their necks to look down and see what their companion was doing all that kicking and fluttering on the ground for. Guess the gumps thought it was a new sort of partridge cake-walk. Anyway I nailed the second one, then a third and a fourth, and, why, would you believe me, I actually got the fifth when the last bird flew away. It was too easy a job; like taking candy from the baby. Don’t call me a hunter, I feel more like a butcher right now.”
“But, Andy, they’re nice and fat,” cooed Tubby, running his hand admiringly down the speckled breast of one bird. “I’m figuring on rigging up a dandy spit so we can cook it in front of the fire. I’ve tasted chickens cooked that way at a restaurant in the city, and my! but they were delicious.”
“They did use a spit ages and ages ago,” laughed Rob, “which goes to show that after all our forefathers knew a good thing or two that hasn’t been improved upon in all these centuries. Here’s hoping you have the best of luck, Tubby. If you need any help, call on me.”
Tubby did put in most of the afternoon on that job. Zeb took it upon himself to attend to the fowls, which he dressed most carefully. Tubby was more than glad that the little company had received an addition, for if there was one thing he disliked doing it was cleaning birds or fish.
Along in the late afternoon he had the right kind of a fire for his purpose. With all the birds fastened on his home-made spits, which could be revolved with a clock-like motion, Tubby set to work to prove himself a master chef. Indeed, as the work went on, and the revolving birds began to take on a brown hue the odors that permeated every part of the long bunk-house were enough to set any ordinary hungry boy half crazy. Andy was seen to hurriedly take his departure, after finding out from Tubby that supper would not be ready for at least half an hour; it looked as though he for one could not stand it to “be so near, and yet so far.”
When Tubby grew tired or overheated he would give the willing Zeb a chance to make himself “useful as well as ornamental,” as Tubby jokingly remarked. He and the big Maine guide were the best of friends. It looked as though Zeb would have a pretty good advocate with the uncle in case any were needed to straighten out his affairs with Mr. Hopkins.
Finally the summons was beaten on a skillet, always welcome to those who have been hanging around, and suffering cruel tortures because the minutes seem to drag with leaden feet. Every one pronounced Tubby’s enterprise a most wonderful success. Partridges may have tasted fine before, when cooked in one of those hunters’ earthen bake-ovens that resemble a fireless cooker so much; but in that case they would have simply been as though steamed, and lacked all that brown crispness.
Still no sign of the party from the Tucker Pond. They must surely come back by another day, Rob thought, with a feeling akin to uneasiness; for once more he dreaded what a night might bring forth, his thoughts being again carried across the line into the country whose sons were in the trenches over in Belgium and the North of France.