t a trout-pole."

"Could you do it?" inquired Harry, struggling hard to suppress a
laugh.

"Do it? I _have_ done it many a time. But is there any hunting around
here?"

"Plenty of it."

"Well," continued Charles, "I walked all over the woods this morning,
and couldn't find any thing."

"It is not the season for hunting now," said George; "but in the fall
there are lots of ducks, pigeons, squirrels, and turkeys, and in the
winter the woods are full of minks, and now and then a bear or deer;
and the swamps are just the places to kill muskrats."

"I'd just like to go hunting with some of you. I'll bet I can kill
more game in a day than any one in the village."

The boys made no reply to this confident assertion, for the fact was
that they were too full of laughter to trust themselves to speak.

"I'll bet you haven't got any thing in the village that can come up to
this," continued Charles; and as he spoke he raised a light,
beautifully-finished rifle from the bottom of the boat, and held it up
to the admiring gaze of the boys.

"That is a beauty," said Harry, who wished to continue the
conversation as long as possible, in order to hear some more of
Charles's "large stories." "How far will it shoot?"

"It cost me a hundred dollars," answered Charles, "and I've killed
bears and deer with it, many a time, as far as across this river
here."

Charles did not hesitate to say this, for he was talking only to
"simple-minded country boys," as he called them, and he supposed he
could say what he pleased and they would believe it. His auditors, who
before had been hardly able to contain themselves, were now almost
bursting with laughter. Frank and George, however, managed to draw on
a sober face, while Harry turned away his head and stuffed his
handkerchief into his mouth.

"I tell you," continued Charles, not noticing the condition his
hearers were in, "I've seen some pretty tough times in my life. Once,
when I was hunting in the Adirondack Mountains, in the northern part
of Michigan, I was attacked by Indians, and came very near being
captured, and the way I fought was a caution to white folks. This
little rifle came handy then, I tell you. But I must hurry along now;
I promised to go riding with the old man this afternoon."

And he dipped the oars into the water, and the little boat shot
rapidly up the river. It was well that he took his departure just as
he did, for our three boys could not possibly have contain