“Are these real eggs, Phil, or the sawdust kind?” demanded X-Ray.
“Well, that hardly needs an answer,” he was told; “they may be able to condense eggs in a small compass like dust, but no man who ever lived could put them together again once they are broken, and the yolk runs into the white, Didn’t you learn that ‘all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again’? which meant that it was an egg fell from the wall.”
After breakfast McNab hitched up and said good-by to his boy friends.
“Depend on it, laddies,” he said, after shaking each one by the hand, “if so be ye dinna arrive at my h’use in twalve days I’ll be for startin’ up this way once mair till fetch ye back. That is the compact I make ye this day. And the best o’ luck be with ye, amen!”
They were sorry to see McNab go, for he was good company; but there was plenty to engross their full attention. Ethan and X-Ray had already begun to use the two camp axes, and the merry sound of their lusty blows was as music to the ears of Phil, who soon had a picture of Camp Brewster in the making, to add to his collection.
Then there was Lub who had hurried through the clearing up of the breakfast things in order to get at that fishing through the ice. They took a hatchet with them so Phil could cut the first hole. After that he showed the fat chum just what kind of a crotch to select from the scrub growing near the shore, and how to fashion it so that it would answer the purpose.
“If we had live minnows I think it would be much better than this bought bait that is said to be extra good for pickerel fishing,” Phil told him; “but we couldn’t very well fetch such things away up here. Where fishermen make this ice fishing a regular business they keep a big supply of minnows in a spring hole that does not freeze over in winter; and each day they use a quantity until all have been put on the hooks. I don’t know much about this patent bait, but it is said to answer a long-felt want.”
Lub worked industriously indeed. When he had six good tip-ups made he proceeded to cut five more openings, about fifty feet away from each other. Then he began to bait his hooks, and set the lines.
Before he had the third hook baited he was thrilled to discover the first tip-up trying to get into the hole; and when he saw it moving he hurried over to ascertain whether he really had caught his first fish, or if it was going to turn out a false alarm.
A vicious tug at the line assured him he had something worth while at the other end, and hand over hand Lub pulled a wriggling captive in, finally tossing out on the ice a pickerel weighing at least seven pounds.