Winona of the Camp Fire Part 41

"He certainly is!" seconded Louise, and began to giggle. "Listen to him!"

It was really impossible to do anything else.

"My geese! My prize geese!" shouted the overalled man, adding what he thought of Tom's and Billy's intelligence. "My pedigreed geese, you young idiots! I'll teach you!"

"You ought to have made 'em wear their pedigrees around their necks,"

Tom shouted back at the man.

"Oh, can they get away?" cried Louise. "Look!"

And Winona, looking, saw that their way back to the canoe was cut off by a dog-the traditional farmer's dog of the comic papers. He was stationed on the bank, eying the canoe and the girls in it in a very threatening way, and most plainly only waiting till the boys came back to bite them.

Winona gave the canoe a determined push which landed it in midstream, and both girls began to paddle back by the way they had come, Winona because she had a plan, Louise because she was following Winona.

"We'll meet them around this point, on the other side," she explained to Louise. "I saw a glimpse of water on the other side, and I think the point of land the farm is on is like a peninsula."

Sure enough, they discovered the criminals crouched romantically behind a clump of trees at the other side of the point of land. They were so well hidden that the girls would never have seen them if Billy had not stealthily waved a red handkerchief which he always carried for wigwagging. The girls paddled up as softly as they could, and the boys crawled out and waded to the canoe, crouching low. n.o.body dared say anything till the canoe and its crew was well out and downstream again, far from farmers with dogs and pitchforks and no desire to listen to explanations.

"And we never even got those geese!" mourned Tom.

"Got those geese!" said Louise severely. "You oughtn't to want to get pedigreed geese that belonged to a farmer-especially a farmer with that kind of a disposition."

"He hasn't any business to let tame geese go prowling around the country that way," growled Billy, "the first day a fellow has leave to go shooting food for the Scouts at home! How were we to know they had a coat-of-arms and a family tree? They ought to have been kept at home, in their ancestral barnyard."

"And we never even got the confounded things!" lamented Tom again. "And we might just as well have, too, because we'll have to go up and pay for them, of course, when Mr. Overalls has calmed down enough not to bite us on sight. They may be worth a thousand dollars apiece, for all we know.

We were the pedigreed geese, I think!"

"Never mind," said Louise soothingly, "be glad Father Goose didn't get you, instead of sorry you didn't get his pets. They probably would have been tough, anyway."

"And we can fish," suggested Winona. "n.o.body's going to jump out of the river and tell us that these are his pedigreed perch."

"The game-warden may, if the river's been stocked lately," said Billy.

"It hasn't," a.s.serted Tom. "Don't you remember? We found out all about that before any of us came up here last year. All these fish are old enough to die. Pa.s.s me the bait, please, Winnie."

"Here you are," said Winona.

She baited a line for herself, dropped it in, and everyone else did the same thing. After that n.o.body said anything for quite a little while, unless an occasional "Confound those geese!" from Tom could count as conversation.

"Got something!" announced Louise at length, jerking in her line.

"What is it?" asked Tom with interest.

"Feels like a perch-or a trout," said Louise pulling in her line rapidly.

"It doesn't _look_ like one," said Winona.

"M'm, not exactly," said her brother. "You ought to be interested in it, though, Win-it's a catfish."

"You can eat catfish," said Louise, quite calmly. "In fact, I believe they're considered very good eating. I don't know but I'd rather have them than trout."

"Especially if you can't get the trout," added Tom.

"If you can't get what you want, you must want what you can get." So she baited her line again.

"Well, what is it this time?" inquired Tom next time she pulled her line in. The rest had had fair luck.

"Probably another p.u.s.s.y-fish," said Louise resignedly. But this time it was a real perch, and after that it was a sunfish, and then two more catfish. And presently there was enough for supper, and by the time they got back they knew it would be supper-getting time. Winona was cooking supper that week. So they put the fish in the empty lunch-basket and paddled for home. Louise took Billy's paddle, and Billy trolled all the way. He didn't get anything, but he enjoyed himself.

"Who's that on the dock?" asked Tom as they neared the Camp Karonya landing. "Are they waiting for us?"

"Tom's afraid the farmer with the ducks has come around the other way,"

said Louise. "No, Tommy, my dear, that's only Mr. Sloane, who is a sort of unofficial uncle to Camp Karonya. We're supposed to have rented that dock from him, but he comes there and fishes just as much as if we hadn't."

"Sort of a fourth sub-mascot?" said Billy. "Yes, I remember-the old man who helped you out about the scows when you were building the float."

"He's the one," said Winona. "He's fis.h.i.+ng."

"And there's Puppums, too," said Louise. "Oh, the dear old doggie! He's come down to the dock to wait for you, Winnie!"

"So he has," agreed Winona. "I wonder if he's been there long."

Puppums liked canoeing very much, and when he thought Winona ought to have taken him and hadn't, he would go down to the dock, trailing her by scent, and sit there hours and hours-merely for the sake of looking reproachfully at her when she did get in, it was thought. Winona always hugged him, and apologized, and took him for a row if possible, and he knew it.

When he caught sight of the canoe (like most dogs, he was short-sighted) he began to bark excitedly and run up and down the dock, and jump wildly about. He did everything but swim out to the canoe. Puppums hated water-which gave rise to a theory that there was a little pug in his ancestry.

Mr. Sloane, too, rose as the canoe came near the landing-place. He did not jump up and down, because he had not been waiting for the canoeing party. He had evidently taken their return as a signal that it was time he went home himself, for he was collecting his rod and bait-can, and his coat, and the other things he had strewn about the dock. Puppums still careered wildly around and around. As Winona stepped ash.o.r.e his excitement grew so intense that he ran full tilt into Mr. Sloane, who was bending over picking something up, and nearly knocked him over.

"W-u-ugh!" said Mr. Sloane, and began to hunt frantically about the dock.

And as the boys and girls gained the sh.o.r.e it became painfully evident that the little dog had jarred out the old gentleman's false teeth.

Mr. Sloane had never made any secret of the fact that he wore "bought teeth"-indeed, he had told Winona and Adelaide, who were his especial favorites, just where he got them and how much they cost, and where others like them could be gotten. But still, when your friend's teeth are knocked out all at once by your family dog, well, you _do_ feel a little embarra.s.sment. With one accord the four looked in the other direction, as Mr. Sloane, with a "Drat that pup!" continued to hunt for his teeth. The boys fussed with the canoe, and Winona and Louise began to hunt for a nonexistent something in the box they used for a locker.

But Puppums was going to be polite at all costs. He trotted over, his tail wagging wildly at the prospect of being able to do something for his mistress, picked up the teeth, and carried them proudly to Winona!

"Oh, Puppums-you _naughty_ dog!" she said, trying to take the teeth away from him as unostentatiously as possible.

But Puppums, realizing from her voice that something was wrong, looked up at her depreciatingly, wagged his tail again, suddenly put his tail between his legs and started for the camp!

It was no use to try to ignore things any longer.

"Oh, Mr. Sloane," Winona cried. "I'm so sorry! He's a bad dog. I'll go straight after him and get them."

"Now, never mind," said Mr. Sloane, kindly if rather indistinctly. He began to laugh. "That dog o' yours certainly is a rip-snorter!" he said.

"Knock a man down an' carry off his teeth!"

By this time the boys had stopped trying not to laugh, and were howling in unison in the background. And little Frances, Adelaide's sister, came up with a nice birch-bark box. She handed it to Mr. Sloane, dropped a pretty courtesy, and ran. And so did the others. The only unembarra.s.sed members of the party were Puppums, who wasn't there, to be Irish, and Mr. Sloane himself.