Guns and Snowshoes | Page 2

camping out last summer was immense. If only we have half as much fun this winter!"
"We will have, Giant," broke in the boy called Whopper. "Didn't I tell you I was going to bring down sixteen deer, twenty bears, two hundred wild turkeys, a boatload of wolves, and--"
"Phew, Whopper! Every time you name 'em over the list gets longer!" cried Charley Dodge. "If you bring down so much game there won't be anything left for other hunters."
"Well, I'll leave you a bear or two," said Whopper cheerfully.
"Thanks awfully."
"Leave me one lone wild turkey, Whopper dear," came mournfully from Shep Reed.
"Say, if you're going to talk like that I won't leave anything," burst out Frank.
"Whopper may bring down all the game, but I'll wager he can't throw a snowball as straight as I can," said Charley, taking up some snow. "See that spot on the fence yonder? Here goes for it!"
The snowball was launched forth with swiftness and with a thud struck the spot directly in the center.
"Hurrah! A bull's-eye for Snap!"
"Humph! I can do that too!" cried Whopper, and forthwith proceeded to make a good hard snowball. Then he took aim, let drive, and the ball landed directly on the top of the one Charley had thrown.
"Good for you, Whopper!" said Charley enthusiastically.
"Ah, I could do that a thousand times in succession," answered the youth given to exaggeration, coolly. "Why, don't you know that one day there were six Tom cats on a fence and I took a snowball and hit 'em all?"
"What, with one snowball?" queried the little lad called Giant.
"Sure thing, Giant."
"But how?"
"Why, I made the snowball bounce from the head of one Tom cat to the head of the next," answered Whopper, unabashed.
"Well, if that isn't the worst yet!" roared Shep. "Say, we ought to roll Whopper in the snow for that!"
"Right you are!" cried Snap. "Come on!"
"Hi! hold on!" yelled Whopper in alarm, but before he could resist he was landed on his back in the snow, and the others proceeded to roll him over "good," as Shep expressed it. The rolling process at an end, a general snowball fight ensued between all of the boys, and also several others who chanced to be passing.
The scene was the town of Fairview, a place containing a main street and also another thoroughfare running to the tidy little railroad depot, where eight trains stopped daily. The town was made up of fifteen stores and shops, three churches, a hotel, and a livery stable, while just outside were a saw mill and several other industries. The place was located on the Rocky River, which, ten miles below, flowed into a beautiful sheet of water called Lake Cameron.
To those who have read a previous volume of mine entitled, "Four Boy Hunters," the lads skylarking in the snow need no special introduction. For the benefit of others let me state that Charley Dodge was the son of one of the most influential men of that district, a gentleman who was a school trustee and also part owner of a big summer hotel and one of the saw mills. Sheppard Reed was the son of the best-known local physician, and he and Charley,--always called Snap, why nobody could tell--were such chums they were often spoken of as the Twins.
Frank Dawson had come to Fairview a little over two years before, and had speedily made himself a prime favorite. As we have seen, he loved to exaggerate when telling things, yet with it all Whopper, so called, was as truthful as anybody. As Snap said, "you could always tell Whopper's whoppers a mile off," which I think was something of a whopper in itself, don't you?
The youngest lad of the four was Will Gaslette, always called Billy or Giant. He was the son of a French widow lady, who thought the world of her offspring. Although Will was small in size, he was sturdy and self-reliant, and promised to become all that his mother hoped for him.
During the previous summer the four boys had organized the Fairview Gun Club and obtained permission to go camping for a few weeks in the vicinity of Lake Cameron. They had started in high spirits, and after a number of minor adventures located on the shore of the lake. From this spot, however, they were driven by a saw mill owner named Andrew Felps, who ran a company that was a rival to the concern in which Mr. Dodge had an interest. The boys were made to give up their comfortable camp, and then they went to Firefly Lake, a mile away. Here they hunted and fished to their heart's content, being joined in some of their sports by Jed Sanborn, an old hunter and trapper who lived in the mountains between the lakes. They had some