Endurance Test Part 7

Ted had come up from his fishing place below to ask what all the row was about.

"Fact ith, you have buthted up the fithing for thith morning," he declared, with some show of indignation. "If you mutht kick up a racket, why under the thun don't you go off by yourthelf and do it. I got theven fith, and one of 'em a beaut. And the biggetht of the bunch wath jutht going to take hold when you had to make all that beathtly row."

When, however, the thing was explained to him, Ted enjoyed the joke as well as Elmer had. He declared that he would wander along down the river to another promising hole he remembered seeing. And Elmer, thinking that the German boy might as well begin taking some lessons in ba.s.s fishing, agreed to accompany Adam upstream a little distance, to try for a capture.

"Hey, that was just the greatest thing ever!" called out a voice; and Landy was seen approaching from above, waving his little kodak in glee.

"What's all this talk about?" demanded Ty.

"I got it, that's what!" the fat boy kept on saying. "And won't it just be a corker, though!"

Elmer jumped to conclusions at this remark.

"Do you mean you saw the tumble Adam and Ty took?" he asked.

"Well," Landy went on, "you see, I had just discovered Adam sitting there asleep on that log sticking out over the water; and I thought what a lovely subject he would make for a picture. So I crept up till I had a good focus, and then I pressed the b.u.t.ton!"

"Yes, go on; that wasn't all you did, was it?" asked the patrol leader, who was able to read the open-faced Landy like the page of a book.

"Well, you see, it was such a fine subject that I thought I had ought to knock off another view, so that if one proved poor the other might be good. And just as I was all ready, why, it happened!"

"And you snapped it off as they were falling in?" Elmer continued.

"I think I did," said Landy, eagerly; "for my finger just pressed the trigger unconsciously. I was that astonished, you see. And I'm going to develop this roll to-night. Wouldn't it be just immense if it turned out to be a good picture!"

"Oh, yes; something to amuse the rest of the troop, and chase the blues away," grunted Ty, as he hunched his shoulders and sauntered back to the camp to ascertain what Elmer might have been doing there.

Elmer did take Adam up the river a piece, and finding a promising spot where there seemed to be a likelihood of ba.s.s frequenting, he proceeded to instruct the other in the rudiments of the art.

Adam took to it from the very first. He was frank enough to confess that he had never done any fishing in the old country, and was therefore utterly green; but he showed an apt.i.tude for catching on to what Elmer told him; and before they had been an hour at work he had not only succeeded in hooking a fine specimen of the gamey ba.s.s, but played and landed him in great style.

"You'll do, I reckon, now, Adam; so I'll leave you here and go back to camp. Be sure you come in when you hear the signal, which will be three loud cooies."

At noon, when the fishermen gave it up for the day, as the heat stopped all biting on the part of the ba.s.s, it was found that while Ted had caught seven fair-sized fish, five of them ba.s.s, one a large perch, and a sucker that was the largest Elmer had ever seen around that region, Adam had brought in two ba.s.s and a big catfish.

"Py shiminy crickets, dot feller vas dry some foolishness py me," he said, as he held up the still wriggling catfish; "I haf drouples to get him off der hook; and he sthick me dwice so hardt in der finger. Ooch!

put it do feel sore yet somedimes. I d.i.n.k me he preak off some dot thorn in der pone."

"That's another lesson you must learn, Adam," said Elmer. "The catfish has ugly spines that hurt like fun when you run your hand against them.

I guess they're poisoned, like the tail of the stingy-ray, down South.

I've known a fellow who had a running sore for a month after being stuck by the fin of a cat. And, Ted, seems to me here's another chance to use that colored stuff that was so fine with Landy."

"Right-o, Elmer," exclaimed the other, making a dive for the tent to look up his medicine bag.

So Adam grinned, and allowed the "doctor" to paint his hand in the region where the spines of the catfish had penetrated with such painful results. Indeed, he declared an hour later that the pain had all departed; and Elmer concluded from this that permanganate of potash was good to use on all sorts of poison wounds.

"I believe," he went on to say, "that if I was struck on the arm by a rattler, I'd cut the wound open some, suck all the poison I could out, providing I had no scratch or sore about my mouth, and then take my chances, after painting it freely with the strongest solution of this potash I could bear. Yes, and I think I'd come out much better than those who believe in soaking the patient with whisky."

The afternoon they spent in resting up. Indeed, it was unusually hot, and somehow none of them aspired to exert themselves any more than they could help.

Adam had offered to clean the fish, after he had been shown how, and made quite a good job of it, being very particular, after the fashion of his kind. And Elmer gave Ty the duty of seeing that the fish were served that evening at supper. It would be a poor piece of business if they put several days in up there on the old Sweet.w.a.ter, famous for its ba.s.s fishing, and never once enjoy a mess of the delicious dish.

They waited later than usual that evening, hoping the air would cool off some with the setting of the sun. It was almost dark when Ty got started with the supper. When the fish began to fry in the pan (in which the cook had first tried out several slices of salt pork, which grease was made very hot before the ba.s.s, dipped in cracker-dust, were placed in the pan), some of the boys, who had declared they had no appet.i.te, were observed to sit up and take notice as they sniffed the fragrant odors that arose.

"Guess you-all will come around when things are ready," laughed Ty, who often liked to mock the Southern scout, Chatz Maxfield, when he talked.

"Well, I confeth I'm waking up," admitted Ted, frankly.

"And that stuff smells mighty good, Ty," declared Landy. "I want you to remember now that it wasn't me said I couldn't eat a bite."

"I thould thay not," laughed Ted. "n.o.body would ever believe you guilty of thuch a thilly thing. You're alwayth hungry, Landy, and ready to gobble."

"Say, now, that's what I call mean," expostulated the fat boy, pretending to be very indignant, though these attacks on his character were of daily, almost hourly occurrence, and he was quite accustomed to meeting them. "Just because I'm big, and need more to keep me up than the rest of you, some fellows like to say I'm greedy. 'Tain't so. And some day I'll run you a match, Ty, to see who can keep from eating a bite the longest."

"Not much, you will," declared the cook. "Why, it wouldn't be a square deal. You've got all your fat to fall back on; and look at me, skin and bones."

So they laughed and talked, as the preparations for supper went on apace.

"What're you listening to, Elmer?" asked Landy, after some time had pa.s.sed; and looking toward the patrol leader he saw that he had his head raised in an att.i.tude that told of suddenly aroused interest.

"I thought I heard a queer plunk just then, out there on the river,"

replied the other. "Yes, there it went again. Did you hear it, boys?"

"Sure we did," replied Ty, raising his head from his duties at the cooking fire, in between the stones that had been fashioned somewhat after the shape of a V, with the evening air fanning the broad end.

"Whatever can it be, Elmer?" demanded Landy, his face immediately expressing curiosity, and, perhaps, a trace of alarm; for anything that savored of mystery always excited the fat boy.

All of them were now interested, and listened to ascertain whether that strange sound was repeated. Perhaps an interval of half a minute pa.s.sed.

Then once more came that plain "plunk!"

"Sounds like somebody drowning, and givin' the last gasp!" declared Ty.

"Oh, let up on that thort of thuff, Ty," said Ted. "You're alwayth thinking about thuch nathty thingth."

Landy turned appealingly to the patrol leader. He realized that if anybody ought to know what the character of those queer sounds was, Elmer must.

"What is it, Elmer?" he asked again. "The sea serpent or only some old grand-daddy bullfrog croaking to himself on a log. Say, perhaps that's one of them funny old loon birds you were telling us about to-day, that can just laugh so's to make your flesh creep! Tell us about that, Elmer.

Whatever is it? There, that time it was a double plunkety-plunk! Now, I wonder what in the d.i.c.kens it means!"

CHAPTER VII.

THE NEWS THAT GEORGE BROUGHT.

ELMER laughed.