The Boy Scouts in A Trapper's Camp

by Thornton W. Burgess

"Six. That ought to be a good place over there, and that will make the dozen. Here come Sparrer and the Big Chief, and I guess we'll soon see what the idea is. Pat must have found the spring open, for Sparrer has the pail."

The guess was a good one, for when he peeped in the pail Walter found that it contained a couple of dozen minnows. Together the three walked over to where Hal was just finishing the last hole. The doctor took from under his arm a bundle of short pieces of lath, each about eighteen inches long, tapering toward one end, to which was fastened a bit of red flannel. Two inches from the other end was a hole big enough for one of the alder sticks to pass through freely. Fastened close to the end, and neatly wound around it, was a short length of stout line on the end of which was a hook with wire snell. Unwinding one of these lines the doctor passed one of the alder sticks through the hole in the lath, baited the hook with a lively minnow and dropped it through the hole in the ice. The alder stick was placed across this so that the lath came in the middle and lay on the ice at right angles. A pull on the line would drag the end of the lath down, making it stand upright with its little red signal on the end, and that was all there was to it.

It was simple in the extreme, but quite as effective as Hal's more elaborate type could have been, as was presently demonstrated. They were just preparing to set the last tip-up when Hal, glancing over to the first one set, saw the red signal and with a wild yell of "We've got one! We've got one!" started for it at top speed. The others paused to see what the result would be, and saw him yank out a flapping prize.

"It's a beaut!" he panted as he rejoined them, holding out a handsome pickerel. "Bet it weighs five pounds if it weighs an ounce. Say, this is great!"

The fish was already stiff, but much to their surprise the doctor told them it was not dead, frozen fish often retaining life for some time after being taken from the water. He now left the tip-ups to the care of the three boys, warning them to make frequent rounds of the holes to break the ice as it formed and keep the lines free. The fish he took with him to where Mother Merriam was busy beside the fire, for which Pat was chopping wood.

Pickerel were numerous and hungry, to judge by the way they bit. It was novel and exciting sport to the three city boys. There would be a yell of "There's one!" and then a wild race to see who could reach it first. At first they almost invariably forgot in their excitement to take along the bait pail, which meant a second trip for one of them to rebait the hook. Sometimes the signal would drop before they reached it and they knew that the fish was off. Several times there were two signals waving at once and one time there were five. By the time the doctor's welcome hail of "Din-ner!" came ringing across the ice the bait pail was empty and they had fourteen fish, none under three pounds, and from that up to six. With the first one caught they had a total of fifteen. The doctor smiled as he scanned the eager faces of the young fishermen and then looked at the long row of fish laid out on the snow.

"Enough is plenty," said he, "and I guess this will do for to-day. We want to leave some for the boys next summer. We'll take the lines up after dinner."

How good that dinner did smell to the hungry boys with appetites whetted by exercise in the keen air! The snow had been shoveled away nearly to the ground for the bed logs for the fire and ample space cleared in front and spread with balsam boughs on which to sit. There was a steaming kettle of pea soup and a pot of hot chocolate. The pickerel had been split and, broiled in halves pinned to pieces of hemlock bark, stood before the fire and basted with bacon drippings. There was a venison steak done to a turn, for the doctor had hung a deer in his ice house at the end of the open season. There were potatoes boiled in their jackets. There was a brown johnny-cake baked in a reflector oven, and to cap all a plate of the doughnuts for which Mother Merriam was famous.

"And you call this a lunch!" cried Walter when he had eaten until he had to let out his belt. "No wonder it required two packs to bring it here. Well, is there anything to beat this in New York?"

"Not in a tousand years. Oi'm going to run away and live here," declared Sparrer, and while the others laughed he stared with dreamy eyes into the leaping flames of the huge fire Pat had built, and who shall say but that in them he saw the symbols of new hopes and ambitions springing from the colorless, sordid drudgery which until this time had been his life.