“Guess I ought to, seeing it was a present anyhow but another time you’ll find me on deck with a different make of gun,” Dolph declared; and his chum only smiled.
Another time the camp was invaded by a wandering hog with a whole troop of partly grown pigs; and they had no peace during the balance of their stay there. Whether the porkers scented food, or “just wanted to be friendly” as Teddy put it, they were hardly driven away in one quarter than another detachment turned up in another place.
Dolph was full of dark threats as to what he would do pretty soon, if the invasion did not let up. He even handled his gun in a ferocious manner, and asked all kinds of questions of Amos as to how best they could roast a small pig in an earthern oven, made after the manner of the old hunters.
But this must all have been said just in the hope of the old sow scenting danger to her brood when she whiffed the odor of burnt powder, might call the invading army off. Certain it was that Dolph was not called upon to fire his gun; and they positively did not have roast pig for supper, or breakfast, or any other meal, for that matter. And at nightfall their troublesome visitor, grunting their disgust, departed.
And so it came that about three in the afternoon of their last day on the Tahquamanon, while they were all plying their paddles briskly, Teddy gave vent to a loud shout and pointed ahead:
“Look! yonder lies Lake Superior. Tonight we camp on the shore of the Big Water!”
CHAPTER XXIV
DOWN THE SOO RAPIDS—CONCLUSION