Guns and Snowshoes | Page 7

their habit, they laid the blame entirely on others.
As Snap passed the shed both Ham and Carl scowled at him. Then, after he had gone a dozen steps, Ham called out:
"Come back here. I want to talk to you."
"Did you address me?" demanded Snap, wheeling around.
"I did. Come here, I want to talk to you."
Snap did not budge.
"If you want to talk to me you can come where I am," he said.
"Oh, you needn't get so mighty high and loftly!" sneered Ham Spink.
"I am not your servant."
"Nice stories you and your crowd have been telling about me and Carl," went on Ham, coming closer.
"Trying to get us into trouble," put in Carl. "It's a jolly shame and you ought to be thrashed for it."
"See here, Dudder, and you too, Spink," answered Charley firmly, "I want no quarrel with you. Ever since our outing last summer you have been like bears with sore heads. If your camping out was a failure it wasn't our fault. When you hadn't any game we let you have some of ours, and we did a great deal more for you than you deserved. Now--"
"Oh, don't preach!" cried Ham.
"What do you want of me?"
"I want to give you fair warning that neither I nor Carl will stand for the way you are acting. Either you keep your distance, or it will be the worse for you."
"I am not afraid of you."
"Well, you had better be."
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Snap. He fancied there might be some hidden meaning to Ham Spink's words.
"Oh, you'll find out one of these days," came from Carl, significantly.
"If you try any of your underhanded tricks you'll get the worst of it--just as you did up to the camp," answered Snap, and went on his way.
"Oh, I wish I could mash him!" muttered Ham Spink, between his set teeth.
"Yes, and mash the whole crowd of 'em," added Dodder. "I hate the very sight of 'em!"
"Do you know that they are talking about camping out again?"
"What, this winter?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"That I don't know."
"I'd like to spoil the trip for them."
"So would I. Maybe we can do it too, if we watch our chances."
The two talked the matter over for some time and when they separated it was with the fixed determination to play some underhanded trick and do "the Dodge crowd," as they called our friends much harm.
All of the boys who attended the local school had been waiting impatiently to learn when the present session would come to an end. Now it was announced that school would close the following Friday afternoon and remain shut up for three weeks and a half.
"Hurrah! that will give us just time enough for a dandy outing!" cried Whopper.
"You'll have to kill a bear a day to make up the number you said you'd bring down," answered, Giant.
"Pooh! I never kill bears singly," sniffed Whopper. "I always kill them in pairs or by the half dozen."
"We've got to make sure that we can go first," said Shep. "Remember the school averages."
They did remember, and all were very anxious concerning the examinations to come off before the term closed. They studied hard, and came out with an average of eight-eight to ninety-four per cent.
"Good!" said Snap. "Our folks can't find fault with such records." And nobody did find fault. On the contrary, the boys received not a little praise, and permission to go on the winter outing was readily granted.
"Let us start next Monday," said Giant, who was impatient to get away.
"I doubt if we can get ready so quickly," answered Shep. "There is a good deal to do, you know."
"Then make it Tuesday," pleaded Giant.
"The ice on the river is perfect, so it will be the easiest thing in the world to skate to the lake and drag our sleds after us."
It had already been decided that they should go into camp at Firefly Lake, where they had left their summer shelter only a few months before. Firefly Lake was a beautiful sheet of water, or ice, located a mile from Lake Cameron, and about eleven miles from Fairview. To get to this spot they had to go to Lake Cameron first and then along a narrow watercourse which united the two sheets of water.
The news quickly spread through the town that the Gun Club was going away on another outing, and many envied our friends their coming pleasures. Ham Spink and Carl Rudder looked sour over the prospects.
"Where are they going?" asked Carl.
"To Firefly Lake, to their old camp."
After this announcement both boys looked at each other suggestively.
"It will be moonlight to-night, and we can easily skate twenty or twenty-five miles," suggested Ham.
"So we can, Ham. Let us do it, and--fix things."
"We will," said Ham firmly.
As soon as it was settled that our friends were