During the next few days I had nothing to do but make myself miserable while the other rods caught the fish that were served up three times a day until the boys grew tired of them. I was glad when Joe said that it was time to start for home, but sorry for the disappointment he met when he got there. Uncle Joe, who was to have taken them upon an extended tour, “either East or West, they didn’t know which,” had suddenly been called away on important business, and the probabilities were that if they took their contemplated trip at all it would not be until near the end of the vacation; and then it would have to be a very short one. But Joe didn’t get sulky, as some boys would have done under like circumstances. He wrote to his uncle, found out when he was coming home, and suggested an immediate return to Indian Lake. Arthur and Roy were delighted with the proposal, and I was at once given into the hands of a skilled mechanic, who in two days’ time mended my broken joint so neatly that no one could tell, even with the closest scrutiny, that there had ever been any thing the matter with it. Joe came after me on the afternoon of the second day, and when he carried me to his room and stood me in the corner where I was to stay until something that he called “ferrule cement” had had time to harden, whom should I see but my old friend, the canvas canoe, occupying his usual place in the recess, and looking none the worse for his forced sojourn among the Indian Lake vagabonds.
“Well, I swan to man!” I exclaimed, unconsciously making use of an expression which I had heard so often that I had become quite familiar with it. “How in the name of all that’s wonderful did you get back?”
“Glad to see you, old fellow,” replied the canoe, in his jolly, hearty fashion, “but sorry to hear that you got crippled. Where have you been?”
“Just got back from the doctor’s shop. I am all right again, or shall be in a few days. When and how did you return?”
“Came yesterday. Mr. Swan brought me. Found me hidden under a pile of brush, not more than twenty feet from the place where he and his party stood when they burned the squatter’s shanty. I saw and heard every thing that happened there.”
“Well, tell us all about it. I know you must have had some adventures during your absence.”