know not, for I had fallen into a train
of thought so deep that I was utterly unconscious of everything around
me, when I was suddenly aroused from my reverie by the quick dash of
oars, and by a volley of some seven barrels discharged in quick
succession. As I looked up with an air, I presume somewhat bewildered, I
heard the loud and bellowing laugh of Tom and saw the whole of our stout
company gliding up in two boats, the skiff and the canoe, toward the
landing place, perhaps a hundred yards from the spot where I stood.

"Come here, darn you," were the first words I heard, from the mouth of
what speaker it need not be said--"come here, you lazy, snortin, snoozin
Decker--lend a hand here right stret away, will you? We've got more
perch than all of us can carry--and Archer's got six wood-duck."

Hurrying down in obedience to this unceremonious mandate, I perceived
that indeed their time had not been misemployed, for the whole bottom of
the larger boat was heaped with fish--the small and delicate green
perch, the cat-fish, hideous in its natural, but most delicious in its
artificial shape, and, above all, the large and broad-backed yellow
bass, from two to four pounds weight. While Archer, who had gone forth
with Garry only in the canoe, had picked up half a dozen wood-duck, two
or three of the large yellow-legs, a little bittern, known by a far less
elegant appellative throughout the country, and thirteen English snipe.

"By Jove!" cried I, "but this is something like--where the deuce did you
pick the snipe up, Harry--and, above all, why the deuce did you let me
lie wallowing in bed this lovely morning?"

"One question at a time," responded he, "good Master Frank; one question
at a time. For the snipe, I found them very unexpectedly, I tell you, in
a bit of marshy meadow just at the outlet of the pond. Garry was
paddling me along at the top of his pace, after a wing-tipped wood-duck,
when up jumped one of the long-billed rascals, and had the impudence to
skim across the creek under my very nose--'skeap! skeap!' Well, I
dropped him, you may be sure, with a charge, too, of duck shot; and he
fell some ten yards over on the meadow; so leaving Garry to pursue the
drake, I landed, loaded my gun with No. 9, and went to work--the result
as you see; but I cleared the meadow--devil a bird is left there, except
one I cut to pieces, and could not find for want of Chase--two went away
without a shot, over the hills and far away. As