CHAPTER XII
A CALL TO BREAKFAST
Every one came tumbling out in a great hurry. The moon was so situatedthat the forepart of the boat was somewhat in the shadow; and on thisaccount they could not see plainly, save that there was some sort of ananimal crouching there. As Bumpus had so loudly wailed that it wastrying to carry off his prize trout, which had been left hanging in theair until needed at breakfast time, the rest of the boys understood thesituation pretty well. Immediately they started to shout, and wavetheir arms, as well as hurl every sort of thing they could lay hands on.
Naturally enough this proved too much for even the bravest wild beast;and giving a savage snarl the thing suddenly bounded ashore, and waslost to view. They had just a last glimpse of a shadowy figure skulkingoff along the sandy beach near by.
"Oh! tell me, did he get away with it?" cried Bumpus; and to hear thepain which he threw into these words one would have though a pricelesstreasure was involved; and so it was, the biggest speckled trout he hadever caught in all his life.
Giraffe scrambled forward, waving his arms in order to discourage anybeast that might think to attack him, and "shooing" at a vigorous rate.
"Brace up, Bumpus!" he called out.
"Is it safe?" demanded the fat scout, joyously.
"Yes, he didn't dare carry it off when we got to shouting so lively; andhere's your trout, but I reckon we had better take care to make itsecure next time. These cats can climb some, and that's right."
"Was it really a wildcat?" asked Step Hen, curiously; just as though thebeast had seemed so large to his excited fancy that he would have feltsafe in calling it a panther.
"Looked mighty much that way," admitted Allan, who ought to know thebreed, as considerable of his younger life had been spent up in theAdirondacks, and in Maine, where he must have seen many a specimen ofthe feline tribe.
"I thought at first it was a tiger," Bumpus admitted, faintly; at whichthere was a little laugh all around, for they could easily understandhow a fellow's fears might magnify things, when suddenly aroused, andwith only that deceptive moonlight to see by.
"Whatever it was, and we'll try and make sure in the morning," remarkedThad, "it's gone now."
"But it may come back, after smelling of my fine trout," Bumpusobserved, seriously; "and rather than run any chance, I think I'll haveto sit up, and play sentry the balance of the night."
"Joke!" chuckled Giraffe, chuckling again.
"Huh! mebbe, now, you think I couldn't do that same?" remonstratedBumpus. "I know I'm a good sound sleeper, which fact I can't deny;but then there's such a thing as rising to an occasion, you see."
"Yes," scoffed the tall scout, "if we depended on you staying awake,chances are we'd have no trout for breakfast to-morrow morning."
"No need of anything like that," remarked the scout-master; "because wecan fix it so that no wildcat could get that fish, let him try as hardas he wants. Just you leave it with me, Bumpus, and I'll guarantee thatwe have fish for breakfast, and without anybody having to stay upeither, or lose another minute's sleep."
He tied a cord to the dangling trout, once more placed where it had beenbefore, and then announced that he meant to fasten the other end to hisarm. If anything pulled at the fish it would telegraph the fact down tohim; and as Thad took the double-barreled shotgun to bed with him, andoccupied the place Rumpus had vacated, they understood what the answerwas going to be should he be aroused.
But evidently the beast thought discretion the better part of valor, forhe did not come aboard again that night. Possibly the shouts, and thewhooping of the boys had given him all the excitement he could stand.He liked fish very much; as do all of the cat species, but if he musthave a feast of trout it looked as though he would have to procure thesame in some other way than stealing it from those on board theChippeway Belle.
Strange to say Bumpus was the first to crawl out; and his laboredprogress over his comrades evoked a continual series of grunts andcomplaints.
"Hurrah! it's still there, and we ain't going to be cheated out of ourtreat after all!" he was heard to cry, as he gained the open air.
"Well, here's the first case on record of that fellow ever getting awakeahead of the rest of the bunch," said Step Hen.
"Yes, and he mighty near flattened me into a pancake when he crawled ontop of me to get to the doors," grunted Giraffe.
"Say, where's my other shoe? Anybody seen my leather around? I bet younow some fellow just grabbed it up, and tossed the same to that peskyold cat last night; and if so, how'm I ever to limp around with only oneshoe for my both feet; because some of the things went into the water,for I heard the splash?"
"If anybody threw it, you did yourself, Step Hen," asserted Giraffe, notliking this thing of being accused of things promiscuously; "because Isaw something that looked mighty much like a shoe, in your hand when youcrawled out."
"Then why didn't, you tell me about it, Giraffe?" complained the other,with a doleful groan. "I think you're about as mean as you can be, tolet a poor fellow in his excitement do such a thing."
"Why, however was I to know?" said the tall scout, chuckling as thoughit struck him as a joke that Step Hen, in his sudden anxiety to scarethe prowler away, should have thrown his own shoe at the cat. "Besides,I had troubles of my own, just about that time, let me tell you. Butmebbe you can find your old shoe again; because the water ain't so verydeep up ahead there."
"No need to bother," sang out Bumpus, who was taking his trout downtenderly, and examining it to see how much damage the claws of theintruder had done, if any, "because there the shoe is right now, onshore, and all right."
That gave Step Hen reason to say he knew he could never have been sillyenough to cast his shoe in such a way as to hurl it overboard; but allthe same he was pleased to be able to recover it in a dry condition,after all.
"Who'll clean it while I get a fire started ashore?" asked Giraffe,presently, when they had finished their dressing.
"No hurry," remarked Thad; "for while the sun's getting ready to comeup, and the storm petered out after all, I guess the lake's a bit toorough for us to go out for some time yet. Such a big body of water cankick up some sea when it gets in the humor; and some of the party don'tseem to hanker after that rising and falling motion."
Bumpus himself decided to do the last honors to his "noble capture," andtaking the fish ashore, with a hunting knife that had a keen edge, helooked for a good place to sit down, on a rock bordering the littlebeach. Here he kept industriously at work for quite some time.
Meanwhile the fire was a big success, for Giraffe certainly was a marvelwhen it came to knowing all there was about making them. He had foundjust the finest hole to serve as the bed of his cooking fire, where abody of red embers would after a little while invite them to place theirfrying-pan and coffee-pot on the iron grating they carried for thepurpose, and which was really the gridiron-like contrivance belonging toa cast-off stove's oven.
"I say, Thad!" Bumpus was heard calling, after he had had plenty of timeto finish his job with the trout.
"What do you want now, Bumpus?" replied the scout-master, cheerily.
"Come down here, won't you, and settle something for me."
So Thad hastened to accommodate him; and several of the other fellowsfollowed at his heels, being consumed by curiosity, perhaps; or it mightbe they suspected something of the truth, and wished to hear Thad'sdecision in the matter.
"Now what?" asked the scout-master, as he reached the spot.
"I wish you'd tell me what sort of a critter that was last night,"Bumpus remarked, as he pointed down near his feet; "because he ran alonghere when he skedaddled off; and you can see the prints as plain asanything."
"I should say it was a wildcat; but let's ask Allan, to make sure,"replied the patrol leader, and upon reaching the spot, Allan instantlydeclared the same thing.
At that Bumpus appeared to be satisfied; and as the trout was now readyfor the pan they adjourned to where the fire
was waiting, with a hungrylooking cook in readiness to get things going.
Just as they anticipated, that trout was elegant--no other word Bumpuscould conjure up would begin to do justice to the feast they had thatmorning. And the proud captor of the prize cast many a look in thedirection of his rival, which of course the envious Giraffe construed tomean; "see what I can do when I set my mind on a job; and get busyyourself."
But then Giraffe had just had a pretty generous second portion of thesalmon-colored fish steak, and was in no humor to get huffy.
He did start in right after breakfast to get several lines out, andattended to the same assiduously all morning. Between the busy workersthey managed to pull in five fish, of which Bumpus took two. So thatthus far the score was even, as regards numbers, though the fat scoutwas still "high notch" when the question of size was concerned.
"I see that before we get back home we'll all have swelled heads," Thadremarked, with a broad, smile; and upon the others demanding to knowwhat he meant, he went on to say: "why, don't you know, scientists unitein declaring that fish is the greatest brain food going; so if thesefellows keep on loading us down with trout and white fish and everyother kind that lives in this big lake, why, our hats will soon be toosmall for our enlarged craniums."
"Oh! we can afford to take the chances of that!" laughed Allan.
As the wind had gone down, and the waves with it to a considerableextent, it was decided that they might make a start after an earlylunch. Thad consulted his Government Survey charts, and marked a placethat he believed would make them a good harbor, and which they ought toreach with any reasonable luck.
This being settled they got underway about half-past eleven; and whenthe little cruiser left the shelter of the cove, and once more breastedthe rising and falling waves, Bumpus shook his head dismally, and loudlyhoped he would not once more have to spend all his time feeding thefishes. But his fears proved groundless, for they had apparently becomeused to the motion of the waves, and not one of them became seasickagain that day.