the advice given, and thus increase
the seeds of rivalry between the fishermen.
They had a glorious mess of trout for supper, and even Lub owned up that
it was utterly impossible for him to stow away another one, so that
several had to be wasted. None of them had yet shown any signs of
becoming tired of the deliciously browned trout, and Lub even declared
that if they would get him up betimes in the morning he would fry
another batch.
"The night favors my plan, because you see how it's clouded up," Phil
was saying, as he prepared to go and set his trap.
"That is, you mean you need darkness, because your camera has to be set
ready to take the picture," Lub remarked.
"Well," said Phil, "that's the way photographers do when taking an
interior, but I've got an arrangement attached to my camera that works
different. When the animal pulls the string that is connected with the
flash light apparatus he does something more. He exposes the plate for
just a quarter of a minute."
"A time exposure, you mean," remarked Ethan. "If you've no objections,
Phil, I think I'd like to go along, and see how you set the thing."
Phil looked pleased.
"Only too glad to have you, Ethan," he told the other.
Ethan had been the one who only lately had scorned the idea that any
hunter could find so much delight in "shooting" game with a camera as in
other days he had done with a gun.
Phil began to feel encouraged. He knew only too well, from his own
personal experience, that once the seed had taken root it was bound to
sprout and grow rapidly.
Ethan's genuine love of all out-doors, together with a nature that could
not be called cruel, would make it fallow ground that the seed had
fallen upon. Results were sure to follow.
So Phil led the way to the place where he had discovered that one or
more of a colony of 'coons had actually made a trail leading to the
lake, going and coming so many times.
He had half jokingly declared that they went down when fish hungry to
look for an unwary trout. Whether this could really be so or not Phil of
course was in no position to prove.
"But they do eat fish," Ethan remarked, as they walked along together;
"I've seen a big buck 'coon snatch one out of the water. Some people say
they bob the end of their striped tail on the surface as they sit on a
log, and in that way lure a fish close in. As I never saw such a thing
you'll have to take the story with a grain of salt."
He was really ver
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