For nearly two hours they fished, watching their chance whenever an open space gave them opportunity to cast. They lost several on account of the ice closing in before they could get them out, but more were landed successfully and by ten o’clock they had enough for dinner for the crew. They were all good-sized fish, none weighing less than three pounds, but the first one caught remained the prize of the lot by a good margin.
“Now I guess it’s up to us to clean ’em,” Jack said, as he reeled in his line. “That’s a dandy mess if I do say it.”
They had thrown the fish as they unhooked them into a packing box, and each taking hold of an end, they started for the mess house. They had stepped from the wharf when Jack chanced to look back toward the lake.
“What’s that out there?” he cried, setting his end of the box down on the snow.
“Looks like a man,” Bob replied, as he followed suit with his end.
“I’ll get the glasses,” Jack shouted, starting on the run for the office only a few rods away.
He was back in almost no time and, running to the end of the wharf, quickly raised the glasses to his eyes.
“It’s a man all right,” he declared after a moment, as he handed the glasses to his brother.
The man was probably a mile and a half from the shore, on a cake of ice about twenty feet in diameter. Bob could see that he was sitting in the center of the cake.
“I can’t see him move a bit,” he said, as he lowered the glass from his eyes.