Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/252

 clothing, provisions and camp equipage, an awning to keep off the sun and a water-proof tent which would keep them dry, no matter how hard the rain came down. With this boat a journey of a hundred miles—that was the distance between Mount Airy and Indian Lake, and there was a navigable water-course almost all the way—was looked upon as a pleasure trip. The boys would have been astonished if they had known what was to be the result of this particular visit to the lake.

That night there were three busy young fellows in Mount Airy, who were packing up and getting ready for an early start on the following morning. If you could have seen their things after they got them together, you might have been surprised to see that there was not a single fowling-piece among them. What was the use of taking guns into the woods during the "close" season—that is, while the game was protected by law? But each boy took with him a weapon which, in his hands, was almost as deadly as a shot gun is in the hands of an ordinary marksman—a long bow with its accompanying quiver full of arrows.