“H’m! not if you keep your wits about you, and do the right thing; but for any one apt to get rattled, the old style might be best. Not that I’m blaming you, this time, Dolph, because you had an ugly tumble, you see. Well, so-long.”
As neither of the other lads chanced to be feeling any too warm about then, they waited not upon the order of their going, but ducked into the tent soon after Teddy vanished. Amos, however, with the instinct of one who had spent pretty much all of his young life in the forest, waited long enough to throw several more large pieces of wood on the fire, meaning to find something warm when morning came along, for the air was sure to be cool up to the time the sun rose part way up in the eastern heavens.
There was no further alarm; and when dawn came peeping through the pines the campers were soon astir. However, no one seemed anxious to take the customary morning dip in the stream, so sharp was the air. Dolph had his fishing-rod jointed, it being a steel affair calculated to resist the rush of even a furious muscallonge. So, being an enthusiast in this sport, he was out the first thing, having a try to see whether he could not pick up a mess of trout for breakfast.
Fortune smiled on his efforts too, for he made several fairly decent captures, which Amos cleaned in the most approved style as fast as the fisherman threw them to him.
And in the end, just as the first rays of the sun found them out, from the delicate odors that were going up from that fire, such as coffee and trout, it was evident that the boys were in for a treat they never tired of.
While Dolph was doing the fishing, and Amos looking after breakfast, the third member of the expedition had another sort of job laid out for his amusement. This consisted in taking off the furry coats of the three dead lynx. They were all in a fair condition, though the shot holes would have to be hidden by the man who eventually made them into a rug; and for the summer season, when furs are generally pretty “skimp,” Teddy said they passed muster.
Amos knew how to cook trout so as to brown them in a crisp manner. He first of all “tried out” several slices of fat salt pork; and after the resulting liquid had become furiously hot, he dropped in the fish, that had first been dipped in cracker crumbs. It was very much after the manner in which the New England cook manages with her crullers, only no lard was used.
Each of the boys was gifted with a hearty appetite; and when breakfast was declared closed there were precious few crumbs to throw away, outside of the fish-bones. Yet Amos had seen to it that enough had been provided to satisfy all.