hing, but never had a chance
to see how it was done," Steve went on to say.

"Tell us some more about it, won't you, Max?" Bandy-legs pleaded as well
as a fellow could who was swallowing his supper in gulps.

"If ever you eat p-p-pickerel like you're chokin' things d-d-down right
now," Toby hastened to say, "you'll have a n-n-nice lot of pitchfork
b-b-bones stuck in your throat, b-b-believe me, Bandy-legs."

"Oh! guess I've eaten pickerel lots of times," retorted the other,
indignantly; "I always go slow when I'm on a fish diet, and don't you
forget it. But, Max, tell us about what you saw that time. We don't get
such fishing around here."

"Glad of it," muttered Steve. "There must be mighty little sport fishing
through the ice when it's bitter cold; and I reckon all they do it for
is the market."

"You're wrong there," Max advised him, promptly; "for while some men
fish on the ice as a business, and make fair wages, many others do the
same because they like it. They even keep a little stove or a fire of
some sort going in those cabins and tents; and let me tell you it's
some exciting watching the tip-ups signal here and there, when the fish
are hungry, and biting fast and furious."

"Tip-ups, you call them; that has to do with the lines, don't it?" Steve
asked.

"Yes, every line is rigged so that when a fish is caught the fisherman
is notified in some way or other," Max went on to explain. "Some use
little bells that tinkle with a bite; others have red strips of cloth
that are pulled up to the top of a short stick; but the common way is to
make a crotch cut from a branch of a tree answer. It tilts up when the
line is tugged, and so you know that you ought to hurry there and get
your prize. That's how they came to be called tip-ups."

"Well, as the ice has long ago gone out of the ponds around Carson I
reckon we won't get any chance to try that queer sort of pickerel
fishing," Steve observed; "but I brought my minnow seine along, so we
ought to scoop up plenty of live bait, and they take with pickerel every
time. You can trust Uncle Steve for bringing in an occasional mess of
fresh fish."

"H-h-how about h-h-hunting!"

"Is the law on everything, Max?" questioned Bandy-legs.

"Pretty near everything," came the reply; "we'll look up the game laws
in the morning, and see how we stand. I like to hunt as well as the next
one, but all the same I don't believe in shooting game out of season,
and I'd only do it if