All were hungry for a taste of roast duck, and so they stopped off long enough to cook a fine dinner. For dessert they had some blackberries which they chanced to find growing near the watercourse, and they stopped so long over their midday meal that it was after two o'clock before the journey was resumed.

"Do you remember the awful windstorm we once struck up here?" queried Shep, as they rowed along.

"Will we ever forget it," cried Whopper. "Gosh! I thought I was going to be blown into the next century! Say, did I ever tell you how it blew my socks inside out?" he added, with a grin.

"Hardly," answered Giant, and laughed.

"Fact, and the next morning I had to turn my shoes inside out to accommodate the socks," finished Whopper. "Yes, that was a wind to remember."

"Hurrah, Whopper is coming to his own!" cried Snap. "Whopper, what would you do if you couldn't tell stories now and then?"

"Why, I'd---" began Whopper, and then leaped to his feet. "Well, I never! Give me a gun, quick! There's a bear!"

CHAPTER XIV

DELAYED BY A STORM

"A Bear!"

"Where is he?"

"Let me get my gun!"

Such were some of the exclamations uttered after Whopper made his declaration that he had seen a bear. In the meantime the youth who loved to tell big stories had caught up his shotgun and was aiming it to the right of the watercourse, where there were several big rocks overgrown with brushwood. He took aim and blazed away. A grunt followed, and then came a thrashing in the bushes, growing fainter and fainter in the distance.

"You hit him!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Snap.

"Yes, but he is running away for all he's worth," answered Whopper, disappointedly.

By this time every one of the young hunters had his firearm. The boat was turned to the bank of the creek, and then each youth looked at the others. Not a trace of the bear was to be seen anywhere.

"No use of going after him," said the doctor's son. "More than likely he's half a mile away by this time and he'll be so shy he won't let us get anywhere near him."

"If only we could have gotten a shot at him!" said Giant, wistfully.

"Think of bringing a bear down first lick!" And his eyes glistened.

"We might have crawled up on him, only I thought he saw us," explained Whopper. "That's the reason I called for my gun."

"I guess he kind of scared you," said Snap.

"Well, I admit I was startled. I didn't think we'd find a bear along here---I thought they hung up in the mountains."

"They may come down to gather some stuff that grows in this water,"

answered Snap. "They love to eat certain roots, so Jed Sanborn told me, and sometimes they travel a long distance to get them."

After a little more talk the journey was resumed, and nothing out of the ordinary came to their notice until late in the afternoon. Then Shep, who was in the bow looking forward, held up his hand for silence.

"What is it?" whispered Giant, who was next to him.

"Some small animals squatting on yonder rocks," replied the doctor's son. "I don't know what they are."

The young hunters stopped rowing and took up their shotguns with care.

They allowed the boat to drift behind a screen of bushes on the side of the watercourse. Then they looked through the bushes with care.

"I know what they are---muskrats," whispered Giant.

"I see two of them," added Shep. He raised his gun and Giant did the same. Bang! bang! went both pieces, one directly after the other.

The muskrats gave a leap upward and fell with a splash into the stream.

"We hit them, that's certain," said the doctor's son. "But they may get away."

Eagerly the boys rowed up to the spot where the muskrats had sat.

Around the rocks the clear water was churned up into mud. But on the surface floated the two bodies of the creatures.

"I don't know what we are going to do with them," said Snap. "The skins are not very good this time of year."

"I couldn't resist bringing one of 'em down," said Shep.

"Just the way I felt," added Giant.

They continued on their way, and a few minutes later came to something of a cleared spot along the watercourse. Here Snap leaped up, shotgun in hand.

"Here's our chance, fellows!" he whispered. "All together."

He pointed to some low trees beyond the clearing. The branches were thick with quail. All understood and took up their firearms.

"I'll shoot high, Shep can shoot low, Giant to the left and Whopper to the right," commanded the leader of the club. "All ready?"

"Yes," was the low answer, and the four weapons went off almost as one piece. There was a great fluttering in the trees and five quail were seen to drop. Then two others flew around in a fashion that told plainly they were seriously wounded.

"Come on, we must get them!" cried Giant, and leaped forward. As the two wounded birds flew close together he blazed away a second time, and the game dropped like a stone. The rest of the quail were now out of sight.

"Seven quail!" cried Snap, enthusiastically. "I don't call that half bad."

"I call it very good," declared the doctor's son. "To-morrow we can have quail on toast."

"Where are you going to get the toast?" questioned Whopper.

"Well, we'll have quail on crackers then," put in Giant.

Stowing the quail away in the bow of the boat, they went on through the gathering darkness. The sun had gone down over the hills in the west, casting long shadows across the little watercourse.

"It will be pretty dark by the time we reach Firefly Lake," said Snap, and he was right. It was cloudy too, and a stiff breeze from the east had begun to blow.