“How do you cook the blooming things?” asked Teddy, looking a little dubiously at the array of double hind-legs spread out, in what Dolph considered a most tempting way. “You see, I never yet have tried one, though Amos here says he has, many a time. But they do look kind of nice and clean, just like chicken breast.”
“You’ll say they are like the most tender spring chicken you ever saw,” remarked Dolph. “Of course, there is a suspicion of fish about them, so you must remember that it’s frogs you’re having. How do I cook ’em? Why, exactly like we do trout. Sizzle out some salt pork, and have plenty of the grease, and piping hot. Then wet your frog legs, and roll them in the cracker crumbs. If you haven’t any, corn meal would answer. After that, just let them get as pretty a brown all over as you can; and then start in for a grand time. That’s all. Just hold your horses, and see. You’ll never hear an old granddaddy frog tuning up again, without smacking your lips, and looking around for something to spear him with.”
After a while the cruisers of the Upper Peninsula once more started up the Manistique. The current was getting somewhat less strong now, and hence they did not have to fight quite so hard in order to shove their craft against it.
The time passed as usual. Now they indulged in an exchange of pleasantries, with more or less laughter, that sprang from boyish hearts not yet burdened with the cares and responsibilities of life. Then again they would sing some popular ditty, all of them having fair voices, that seemed to blend splendidly; for Teddy had a high tenor, Amos a baritone, while Dolph could come in with a pretty fair article of bass that added harmony to the whole, though he would never venture it alone.
The sun was now more than half way down its regular afternoon route toward the western horizon.
“We must be getting somewhere near there,” Dolph suggested, as he got on his knees, to change the swing of his stroke, but more because he felt dreadfully cramped sitting in one position so long.
“I was just thinking that way myself, and if I remember the lay of things at all, we ought to glimpse the lake inside of the next ten minutes. How about that, Amos?”
“I think the same way,” replied the woods boy, nodding his head, and smiling.