They had caught more fish than any two boys could eat; but Sid's first remark on reaching the tent with them was, "I do hate cleaning fish."
"Clean fish? Out here in the woods? While we're Indians? You wait till I find a bass-wood tree."
There were plenty of lindens, or bass-woods, in that vicinity, and the broad flat leaves were as good as brown paper to wrap up a trout in, fold over fold.
The fire had now burned long enough to supply Wade with a heap of hot ashes, which he raked out on one edge of it. All the little coals were carefully poked aside, the leaf-covered trout were put down and smothered an inch deep in their ashy bed, and then a pile of glowing cinders was raked over them.
"They'll cook, Sid. You go to the lake for a kettle of water, while I get out the frying-pan and the coffee-pot."
"Frying-pan! We won't need any bacon with all those fish and the partridges."
"We'll only broil one bird, but we must have some hard-tack. I'll show you."
Sid went for the water, but when he got back Wade was putting the frying-pan on a bed of coals, with a couple of thin slices of bacon in it.
CAMP LIFE.—Drawn by Charles Graham.