Pluck on the Long Trail; Or, Boy Scouts in the Rockies — John Shaqi
Pluck on the Long Trail; Or, Boy Scouts in the RockiesSabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
General
Pluck on the Long Trail; Or, Boy Scouts in the Rockies
Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
Boy Scouts of America -- Juvenile fiction; Hiking -- Juvenile fiction; Rocky Mountains -- Juvenile fiction
Jed showed us how he had worked. He hadn't raised anything in the first
hole, by the bank, and he had gone on to another place that looked good.
Lots of people had fished this second place; there was a regular path to
it through the weeds, on the shore side; and below it, along the
shallows, the mud was full of tracks. But Jed had been smart. A trout
usually lies with his head up-stream, so as to gobble whatever comes
down. But here the current set in with a back-action, so that it made a
little eddy right against the bank--and a trout in that particular spot
would have his nose _downstream_. So Jed fished from the direction
opposite to that from which other persons had fished. He went around,
and approached from up-stream, awfully careful not to make any noise or
raise any settlings. Then he reached far and bounced his hopper from the
bank into the edge--as if it had fallen of itself--and it was gobbled
quick as a wink and the old trout pulled Jed in, too.
So in fishing as in other scouting, I guess, you ought to do what the
enemy isn't expecting you to do.
My trout was just a minnow beside of Jed's; and the two of them were all
we could eat, so we quit; Jed and I stripped off our wet clothes and
took a rub with a towel and sat in dry underclothes, while the wet stuff
was hung up in the sun. We felt fine.
That was a great dinner. We rolled the trout in mud and baked them
whole. And we had fried potatoes, hot bread (or what people would call
biscuits), and wild raspberries with condensed milk. General Ashley and
Kit Carson had brought in a bucket of them. They were thick, back in the
burnt timber, and were just getting ripe.
After the big dinner and the washing of the dishes we lay around
resting. Jed Smith and I couldn't do much until our clothes were dry. We
stuffed our boots with some newspapers we had, to help them dry. (Note
19.) While we were resting, Fitzpatrick made our "Sh!" sign which said
"Watch out! Danger!" and with his hand by his side pointed across the
beaver pond.
We looked, with our eyes but not moving, so as not to attract attention.
Yes, a man had stepped out to the edge of the timber, at the upper end
of the pond and across, and was standing. Maybe he thought we didn't see
him, but we did. And he saw us, too; for after a moment he stepped back
again, and was gone. He had on a black slouch hat. He wasn't a large
man.
We pretended not to have noticed him, until we were certain that he
wasn't spying from some other point. Then General Ashley spoke, in a low
tone: "He acted suspicious. We ought to reconnoiter. Scouts Fitzpatrick
and Bridger will circle around the upper end of the pond, and Scout Kit
Carson and I will circle the lower. Scouts Corporal Henry and Jed Smith
will guard camp."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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