Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/399



HE boats made an early start the next morning, and reached the pond at nine o'clock. Half an hour later they had crossed it, and were moving up the creek where I performed my first exploit, and Joe Wayring so narrowly escaped capture by Matt Coyle and his boys. It annoyed me to think that the squatter and his family had enjoyed so good a supper, and that I had unwittingly provided it for them. It would not have soothed my feelings much if some one had told me that, although that was the first meal I had caught for them, it would not be the last.

"Now, then," said Mr. Swan, after he and his party had listened to Joe's description of the exciting incidents that happened in the creek on the evening of the previous day, "we will divide ourselves into two fleets and take