CHAPTER XII.
A Deer-Hunt on the Water.
The next morning, after breakfast, Frank and his cousin, accompanied by the dogs, got into the skiff, and pulled up the creek, on a "prospecting expedition." They had started for the swamp, which lay about two miles and a half from the cottage, to see what the prospects were for a good muskrat-hunt in the spring.

This swamp covered, perhaps, five hundred acres, and near its center was a small lake, which emptied into Glen's Creek.
A few moments' pulling brought them to this lake, and Frank, who was seated at the helm, turned the boat's head toward a high point that projected for some distance out into the lake, and behind which a little bay set back into the land.

This point was the only high land about the swamp, and stretched away back into the woods for several miles.

It was a favorite place for sunfish and perch; and the boys landed, and were rigging their poles, intending to catch some for their dinner, when they heard a strange noise, that seemed to come from the bay behind the point.

They knew in a moment that it was made by a duck, but still it was a sound they had never heard before, and, hunter-like, they determined to discover where it came from.