a barn? I'd
like to wager that with all your high-falutin' talk you do more
execution among the poor game than comes to my share," answered Bluff,
indignantly.

"Oh! well, have it your own way. I've tried my best to show you what a
genuine sportsman should be like, always giving the game a fair chance.
Didn't I induce you to quit fishing with that murderous gang-hook last
summer; and when you did finally get a bass didn't you feel prouder than
if you just '_yanked_' him in, perhaps caught on the outside of his gills
with some of that deadly jewelry?" demanded Jerry, whose one hobby was
the "square deal" in all that he undertook.

"I acknowledge the corn about the gang-hook; but that has nothing to do
with an up-to-date, repeating shotgun, and other things such as modern
campers use. I've kept posted, and I know what's going on. Some people
seem to be asleep, and are just contented to do as their forefathers did.
I'm progressive, that's what."

"Well, boys," Frank Langdon here broke in with, "suppose you postpone
that old chestnut of a dispute until we're snug in camp; and let's
talk about how the thing can be done. The first thing is to get
consent at home."

"I don't believe we need fear any trouble there. Frank, you call us up on
the 'phone in about an hour, and if everything's lovely and the goose
hangs high we'll meet at my house and make definite arrangements," said
Will, whose mother was a well-to-do widow, and seldom refused her
idolized son any reasonable request.

"We could go on our motor-cycles, and have a wagon bring the duffle
along. If it started at a decent hour in the morning we'd be able to get
in camp by the middle of the afternoon, and have things fixed fairly well
for the first night," suggested Jerry, his eyes bright with anticipations
of a delightful time ahead.

"You've got all the things needed, Frank; and now we'll see what your
experience up in Maine amounted to. Say, ain't this just glorious? Think
of it, two weeks' outing at this beautiful time of the year, and up there
in the woods where we were just planning to go next summer. I wonder if
old Jesse Wilcox has begun to set his traps yet; that's his
stamping-ground, you know, during the winter, and he makes quite a haul
of muskrats, 'coons, some mink and even an otter once in a long while,"
said Bluff, enthusiastically--he was always a leading spirit in new
ventures, but lacked the pertinacity of Frank.

"Don't you worry, old fellow,