he often said, of course in fun, he was “dreadfully afraid of wasting away to just skin and bone.”

“The simplest tip-up,” said Phil, “consists of a crotch with two short prongs and one longer one. The line is tied to this in such a way that a jerk causes the longer prong to dip down into the hole, though the crotch cannot be wholly drawn through, care being taken to have it too large for that. Of course this tells the watchful fisherman to hurry his stumps and take his catch off.”

“Show me how to cut one of those same crotches the first thing in the morning, will you, Phil?” asked Lub; “while the rest of you are building our shack I might as well busy myself out there on the ice gathering in a mess of pickerel and pike, for I reckon both of them live like cousins in our lake.”

Phil accordingly agreed to this, and so Lub presently crept off to lie down in his selected place. They heard his deep breathing shortly afterwards, and knew he had passed into the land of dreams.

“I hope Lub doesn’t get to hauling in big fish while he’s asleep,” complained X-Ray Tyson; “I’ve known him to do the silliest things in his dreams, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find him trying to hug me in the night, under the belief that he had hooked a monster sturgeon or muscalonge that was trying to get away from him. If you hear me let out a yell, pull him off, boys, please.”

Of course both Phil and Ethan promised faithfully that they would accommodate him, though possibly they were half hoping something of the sort might occur, because it would be a ludicrous sight to see Lub with his arms wrapped around the more slender comrade, who would be gasping, and trying to break away.

“There, it was certainly a wolf let out that wailing howl!” declared Phil, as they were about to follow the example of the fat chum, and crawl into their already arranged blankets.

“Ef I had a bawbee for every one o’ the creatures I’ve heard howl I’d nae doot be fixed for life,” The McNab assured them.

“Then it is a wolf, a genuine one, that howled, is it?” asked X-Ray.

“Hoot mon! it could no’ be annything else.”

“Would they dare attack your ponies, Mr. McNab?” continued Ethan.

“I dinna ken, laddie; but the baith of them have been accustomed to takin’ care o’ themselves ever sin’ they were knee-high to a duck. I would peety the wolf that was brash eno’ to tackle the heels o’ my ponies.”

The thought appeared to amuse McNab, for he continued to chuckle for some little time after he had snuggled into his waiting blanket.

It was a long night, yet nothing happened to disturb the campers. Phil slept in what he was pleased to call “detachments”; that is, he would lie there for an hour or so, and then raise his head to listen, perchance to crawl noiselessly out from his snug nest so as to place more fuel on the smoldering fire; and then under the belief that it would keep going for another spell again seek the warmth of his covers.

At last came the peep of dawn in the east. Phil saw it first, but he did not immediately arouse the others, for they were in no especial hurry, and his fellow campers seemed to be sleeping so soundly it was a pity to disturb them.

Indeed breakfast was well on the way when Lub came crawling out, blinking his heavy eyes, and looking as though he had only burst the bonds that fettered his senses with a great effort.

“What’s this I see and smell?” he exclaimed in a voice loud enough to awaken the Seven Sleepers. “Gone and stole a march on me, hey? Got breakfast started, and without calling on the head chef either? All right, go ahead; if I see you making any amateurish mistakes pardon me if I correct you. We want things done according to Soyer’s Cook Book in this camp. That’s what I’m studying at home, you know. He’s simply great. F’r instance, when he starts to tell you how to make rabbit stew he says: ‘First, get your rabbit! See how pointed his directions are? Now a lot of cook-books ignore that fundamental condition altogether. They seem to think rabbits grow on bushes, and all you have to do is to put out your hand and pull one in. First get your rabbit! That’s sound common sense for you!”

The others began to make their appearance and by the time breakfast was fully prepared all of them were ready to do justice to the spread.

“Are these real eggs, Phil, or the sawdust kind?” demanded X-Ray.

“Well, that hardly needs an answer,” he was told; “they may be able to condense eggs in a small compass like dust, but no man who ever lived could put them together again once they are broken, and the yolk runs into the white, Didn’t you learn that ‘all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again’? which meant that it was an egg fell from the wall.”

After breakfast McNab hitched up and said good-by to his boy friends.

“Depend on it, laddies,” he said, after shaking each one by the hand, “if so be ye dinna arrive at my h’use in twalve days I’ll be for startin’ up this way once mair till fetch ye back. That is the compact I make ye this day. And the best o’ luck be with ye, amen!”

They were sorry to see McNab go, for he was good company; but there was plenty to engross their full attention. Ethan and X-Ray had already begun to use the two camp axes, and the merry sound of their lusty blows was as music to the ears of Phil, who soon had a picture of Camp Brewster in the making, to add to his collection.

Then there was Lub who had hurried through the clearing up of the breakfast things in order to get at that fishing through the ice. They took a hatchet with them so Phil could cut the first hole. After that he showed the fat chum just what kind of a crotch to select from the scrub growing near the shore, and how to fashion it so that it would answer the purpose.

“If we had live minnows I think it would be much better than this bought bait that is said to be extra good for pickerel fishing,” Phil told him; “but we couldn’t very well fetch such things away up here. Where fishermen make this ice fishing a regular business they keep a big supply of minnows in a spring hole that does not freeze over in winter; and each day they use a quantity until all have been put on the hooks. I don’t know much about this patent bait, but it is said to answer a long-felt want.”

Lub worked industriously indeed. When he had six good tip-ups made he proceeded to cut five more openings, about fifty feet away from each other. Then he began to bait his hooks, and set the lines.

Before he had the third hook baited he was thrilled to discover the first tip-up trying to get into the hole; and when he saw it moving he hurried over to ascertain whether he really had caught his first fish, or if it was going to turn out a false alarm.

A vicious tug at the line assured him he had something worth while at the other end, and hand over hand Lub pulled a wriggling captive in, finally tossing out on the ice a pickerel weighing at least seven pounds.

No wonder he gave a shout of joy and proceeded to dance around, holding up his glittering barred prize. The others called out to congratulate him on his work. “Do it some more, Lub, and we’ll have all the fish chowder we can eat!” Ethan told him; whereupon the delighted fisherman once more started in to finish his line of holes through the ice, working with a will.

The fish must have been pretty hungry in that Canadian lake, or else the “bought” lure that Phil had fetched along with him had some magical properties about it to attract the finny denizens. Certainly they kept Lub hopping from one place to another, amidst frequent bursts of joy, and also considerable puffing; for it must be remembered that the boy was excessively fat, and this action made him short of breath.

The results must have gladdened his heart. Every time he took a pleased look at the stack of