They went forward again, and suddenly, with a splash and a sound of throbbing wings, a small duck rose amid the rushes and went flying away over the bosom of the lake.
“Hang it all!” exclaimed Roy in vexation. “Just look at that! If we’d brought our guns, we might have knocked her down. That’s a young duck, or it would have flown before we got anywhere near. Young ones always hide if they can, until they get thoroughly used to the idea that their wings will serve them better. We’ll get some shooting here in the morning, mark what I say.”
The raft was found where Hooker expected to find it. It was a small affair and would support only one of the boys, but would be sufficient for their use in picking up such ducks as they might shoot. With the raft there was a long pole and a piece of board that had been roughly hewn into the shape of a paddle.
When the raft was floated Roy got on it and poled it around into the little cove near the blind, where he succeeded in concealing it quite effectively amid the grass and reeds. Then he waded ashore in his water-tight boots without sinking nearly as much as he had thought he would.
“That’s done,” he said. “Now we’ll get back to the camp and chop our firewood while we can see to do it. There are no signs to indicate that anyone has shot from the blind this fall, and therefore the ducks ought to come up to it without fear.”
Soon the strokes of an axe were ringing through the gloomy woods as Sage worked at the trunk of a dry fallen tree. Hooker carried the wood into the camp and piled it beside the old stone fireplace. Sunset’s faint afterglow faded from the sky, and with gathering darkness the atmosphere took on a sharp, nipping chill, which, however, was little felt by the active boys. Sage continued chopping, while Hooker found time between armfuls to build a fire. Through the open door of the camp Fred saw the welcoming glow of the flames, and it gave him a feeling of buoyancy, of keen relish, of intense satisfaction in life and the pleasures thereof. It was good to be there with his chum in those dark and silent autumn woods, making ready to spend the night together in that old camp before the duck hunt that was to come in the crispness of gray dawn.
Hooker’s figure was silhouetted in the open doorway.
“I say, old man,” he called, as he came out, “there has been somebody in this camp lately.”
“That so? I thought you said you were sure no one had used the shooting blind.”
“I am; I’ll bet on it. I looked to see, and I could tell that no one had been there. They would have left tracks and marks and probably empty shells. Whoever it was that stopped in the camp, they did not try any shooting from the blind. And say, I’ll bet somebody was in that camp last night. I thought I caught a smell of tobacco smoke when we first opened the door, but it was so dusky inside that I didn’t notice anything else. There’s fresh-cut boughs in the bunk, and the ashes in the fireplace were hardly cold. I found crumbs on the floor, too, and part of a newspaper not quite two weeks old.”