floating down the river, and the boys nabbed that. A fust-rate boat,
only it leaked like a sieve."

"Leaked? Doesn't it leak now?"

"No?" said Link, stoutly. "They hauled it up, and last winter they
worked on it, odd spells, and now it don't leak a drop."

Jack was surprised to hear of so much enterprise in the Betterson
family, and asked,--

"Stopped all the leaks in the old boat! They puttied and painted it, I
suppose?"

"No, they didn't."

"Calked and pitched it, then?"

"No, they didn't."

"What did they do to it?"

"Made kindling-wood of it," said Link, laughing, and hitching up his one
suspender.

Jack laughed too, and changed the subject.

"Is that one of your brothers with a gun?"

"That's Wad; Rufe is down on the grass."

"What sort of a crop is that,--buckwheat?"

Link grinned. "There's something funny about that! Ye see, a
buckwheat-lot is a great place for prairie hens. So one day I took the
old gun, and the powder and shot you gave me for carrying you home that
night, and went in, and scared up five or six, and fired at 'em, but I
didn't hit any. Wad came along and yelled at me. 'Don't you know any
better 'n to be trampling down the buckwheat?' says he. 'Out of there,
quicker!' And he took the gun away from me. But he'd seen one of the
hens I started light again on the edge of the buckwheat; so he went in
to find her. 'You're trampling the buckwheat yourself!' says I. 'No, I
ain't,' says he,--'I step between the spears; and I'm coming out in a
minute.' He stayed in, though, about an hour, and went all over the
patch, and shot two prairie chickens. Then Rufe came along, and he was
mad enough, 'cause Wad was treading down the buckwheat. 'Come out of
that!' says he, 'or I'll go in after ye, and put that gun where you
won't see it again.' So Wad came out; and the sight of his chickens made
Rufe's eyes shine. 'Did ye shoot _them_ in the buckwheat?' says he.
'Yes,' says Wad; 'and I could shoot plenty more; the patch is full of
'em.' Rufe said he wanted the gun to go and shoot ducks with, on the
river; but he didn't find any ducks, and coming along back he thought he
would try _his_ luck in the buckwheat,--treading between the spears! He
had shot three prairie chickens, when father came along, and scolded
him, and made him come out. 'I've heard you fire twenty times,' says
father; 'you're wasting powder and ruining the crop. Let _me_ take the
gun.' 'But _you_ mustn't ruin the crop,' says Rufe.