"Go ahead. I'm a greenhorn yet. What are you going to do?"
Wade was too busy to answer, but he quickly had a pair of very slender ash saplings hacked down, trimmed clean, and laid side by side about two feet apart. To these he tied a couple of cross-sticks, six feet from each other. Then he spread his blanket on the ground, laid the frame in the middle, folded the blanket across, and pinned it firmly.
"Looks like a litter," said Sid.
"That's what it is. Put the tin box of hard-tack in the middle. It's the heaviest thing we've got; weighs ten pounds. Now the bacon; that only weighs five. Now the other things. The guns ain't loaded; lay 'em along the sides. And the fishing-rods. Now we're ready."
One boy in front between the poles, and one behind, and it was a pleasant surprise to Sid to find how easy it worked. Still, it was a dreadfully long and warm mile and a half over that rough forest path before they came out on the slope that led down to the blue waters of Pot Lake.
"It's just beautiful," said Sid, as they set down their load for a rest and a look.
"Hist! Let me get my gun."
A cartridge was slipped in like a flash; and then there came another flash, and a report.
"Thought you said it was unsportsmanlike to kill a partridge sitting?"
"So it is, my boy; but it's a question of dinner. Our breakfast was an early one. Look at 'em, will you?"