"It was about the pointer," said Bert.
"My idea exactly. Godfrey is hiding somewhere in the cane; Dan wanted
to make a little more money without work, so he stole the pointer
and gave him to his father to keep until I offered a reward for him.
David found it out, and to save me from being swindled, he recovered
the pointer and got himself into difficulty by it."
The boys, who were merely guessing at all this, would have been
surprised to know that their surmises were all correct. David and his
troubles, and his manful efforts to better his condition in spite of
his adverse circumstances, afforded them topics of conversation while
they were at work; and when the figure four, on which Bert was
employed, was completed, the mule was harnessed to the wagon, and the
boys drove off to set the half a dozen new traps they had built that
morning. It was twelve o'clock when they returned, and they found
lunch waiting for them. When they had done ample justice to it, they
began making hasty preparations for their visit to the island, and a
quarter of an hour more saw them well on their way up the bayou.
They found to their great delight that the ducks were beginning to
come in now, and Don was kept busy rowing from one side of the bayou
to the other to pick up the dead and wounded birds that Bert brought
out of the numerous flocks which took wing as they approached.
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