over and cooked on the other. While the cooking had been going on, Bill had peeled pieces of birch-bark, and when the fish were done he had some clean, fresh-looking, sweet-smelling plates all ready to receive them.
"Now, help yourselves, boys," said Jerry, as he transferred the contents of the rude gridiron to the dishes and seized upon a tempting morsel himself; but dropped it as quickly as though it were a red-hot iron.
"Jerusha, isn't it hot though?" he exclaimed, alternately blowing and sucking his fingers; "guess we'll have to wait for them to cool a little."
In time, however, even red-hot trout will cool, and we boys enjoyed a hearty supper. There was a lack of salt and seasoning, but voracious appetites made up for that. "Now, chaps," said Bill, as he finished his last fish, "it's time for us to be traveling, and we've got to do some fast walking if we want to get home by bedtime; it isn't a very easy road following the brook down; but I'm afraid we'll lose the way if we don't keep near it, especially if that fog comes up here, for then it will be as dark as a stack of black cats."
We discarded our fish-poles, rolled up our fish-lines and put them into our pockets, then, taking our heavy string of fish, started down the mountain. It was a rough path, and as it grew darker and darker we had much trouble in clambering over the obstacles in our way. As we feared, the fog crept up the mountain, and ere we were half way home it was so dark that we could scarcely see fifteen feet ahead.
But the brook served as a guide to our course, and we followed it till we came to a clearing about two-thirds of the way down.
"I guess this is Deacon Jones's field," says Jack, as he comes to the fence, "and I think we'd better go 'cross-lots the rest of the way.".
"I'm a little suspicious we'll get lost in this thick fog; but at any rate it's better than tumbling and straddling around among the rocks and bushes over there by the brook."
