Out with Gun and Camera | Page 3

at home is dead slow," was the
way one of the lads expressed himself; but for a week or more nothing
was done.
Whistling gaily to himself, Shep Reed hurried down to the lake front.
As he came out on one of the docks he caught sight of Snap,
surrounded by half a dozen other lads, all carrying various bundles, and
all equipped with guns and fishing-rods.
"Ham Spink and his cronies," murmured the doctor's son to himself.
"Wonder where they are bound?"
"Oh, we are going to have the outing of our lives this trip," Ham Spink
was declaring in his usual lordly fashion. "It's going to be the finest
outing ever started from this town."
"Where are you going?" asked Snap curiously.

"Do you suppose we are going to tell you?" demanded another boy, a
lad named Carl Dudder. "Not much! We don't want you to come
sneaking after us, to shoot the game that we stir up."
"We never sneaked after you," cried Snap rather indignantly. "And we
have always been able to stir up our own game."
"Bah! I know better."
"Of course they have taken our game---more than once," came from
Ham Spink. "And if they don't shoot our game they scare it off, so that
we don't have a chance to bring it down."
"What you say, Ham Spink, is absolutely untrue, and you know it," put
in Shep, brushing through the crowd. "We have never in our lives
touched any game that was coming to you or your crowd. We-----"
"Say, do you want to fight?" cried Ham Spink, working himself up into
a quick passion; and he doubled up his fists as he spoke.
"No; but I can defend myself," answered the doctor's son just as quickly.
"I am not afraid of you."
"And we are not afraid of ghosts, either," was Snap's sarcastic
comment.
These last words made Ham Spink and one or two of his cronies
furious. They had been up to the distant lake where the "ghost" had
held forth, and had been so badly frightened that they had come home,
"on the run," as Whopper expressed it now that the matter had been
fully explained, Ham and his followers felt decidedly sheepish over it
consequently, to mention the affair was as bad as to wave a red rag in
front of a bull.
"You shut up about ghosts!" cried Ham, shaking his fist in Snap's face.
"Say, Ham, let us give 'em a dressing down before we leave,"
whispered Carl Dudder. He looked around the dock. "Nobody here but

ourselves."
"That's the talk," put in another of the Spink crowd. "They deserve it
for trying to crow over us."
Shep and Snap heard the talk and looked at each other. They
endeavored to back away in the direction of the street, but before they
could accomplish this the entire Spink crowd threw down their guns,
rods and bundles and advanced upon them.
"Keep back!" cried the doctor's son.
"If you hit us you'll take the consequences!" added Snap.
An instant later Ham Spink and his cohorts closed in. Snap and Shep
were caught, front and back, and several blows were quickly exchanged.
It was an uneven contest, and the doctor's son and his chum might have
fared badly had not a sudden cry rang out:
"Look at that, Giant! They are trying to maul Snap and Shep!" The cry
came from Whopper.
"Let up there!" added Will Caslette. And then, as small as he was, he
ran out on the dock and toward the center of the melee. Frank came
with him, and each caught one of the Spink faction by the arm and
swung him backward.
"Good! Here are the others!" panted Shep. "Give it to 'em, fellows; they
started it!"
The arrival of the pair somewhat disconcerted the Spink crowd, and
they stopped fighting. They were still six to four, but to handle four
was only half as easy as to handle two. The others looked inquiringly at
their leader.
"Give it to 'em!" muttered Ham; but even as he spoke he edged to the
upper end of the dock, past Giant and Whopper.
"Give it to 'em yourself," murmured a follower who had received a

blow in the eye. "I guess I won't fight any more to-day."
As quickly as it could be done, Whopper and Giant ranged alongside of
Snap and the doctor's son. They gazed defiantly at the crowd that
confronted them. For a brief spell there was an ominous silence.
"Say, did we come here to fight or to start on our outing?" asked a lad
of the Spink crowd. He was tall and thin, and evidently very nervous.
He was a newcomer in the town and knew but little about the quarrels
of bygone