“Are all the tip-ups alike, Phil?” asked the deeply interested Lub.
“Not by any means, although they have the same common idea of notifying the fisherman that he has made a catch,” the other continued. “Some I have seen consist of a stick, with a cord and a red piece of cloth; when the fish is caught he drags on the extra cord, and this causes the flag to appear at the top of the stick set upright in the ice. That is a good way, though it means considerable labor fixing your poles.”
“Tell us the easiest way, then,” said Lub, who did not care for too much work, because, as he often said, of course in fun, he was “dreadfully afraid of wasting away to just skin and bone.”
“The simplest tip-up,” said Phil, “consists of a crotch with two short prongs and one longer one. The line is tied to this in such a way that a jerk causes the longer prong to dip down into the hole, though the crotch cannot be wholly drawn through, care being taken to have it too large for that. Of course this tells the watchful fisherman to hurry his stumps and take his catch off.”
“Show me how to cut one of those same crotches the first thing in the morning, will you, Phil?” asked Lub; “while the rest of you are building our shack I might as well busy myself out there on the ice gathering in a mess of pickerel and pike, for I reckon both of them live like cousins in our lake.”
Phil accordingly agreed to this, and so Lub presently crept off to lie down in his selected place. They heard his deep breathing shortly afterwards, and knew he had passed into the land of dreams.
“I hope Lub doesn’t get to hauling in big fish while he’s asleep,” complained X-Ray Tyson; “I’ve known him to do the silliest things in his dreams, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find him trying to hug me in the night, under the belief that he had hooked a monster sturgeon or muscalonge that was trying to get away from him. If you hear me let out a yell, pull him off, boys, please.”
Of course both Phil and Ethan promised faithfully that they would accommodate him, though possibly they were half hoping something of the sort might occur, because it would be a ludicrous sight to see Lub with his arms wrapped around the more slender comrade, who would be gasping, and trying to break away.
“There, it was certainly a wolf let out that wailing howl!” declared Phil, as they were about to follow the example of the fat chum, and crawl into their already arranged blankets.
“Ef I had a bawbee for every one o’ the creatures I’ve heard howl I’d nae doot be fixed for life,” The McNab assured them.