"Look at Bumpus, would you?" exclaimed Step Hen; "he's gone clean dippy, that's what? Thinks he's out on the lake, and these fish are swimming down there waitin' to bite at his bait! Poor old Bumpus, that knock on the head was too much for him!"
"Was, hey?" snapped the object of this commiseration, as he went on unreeling his line; "you just wait and see whether I've lost my mind, or if I ain't as bright as a button. See that buster of a trout alying there on top? Well, that beats the record so far; and if I can only tip my hook under his gill I'm meaning to yank him up here the quickest you ever saw. Guess the rules and regulations of our watch only said a fellow had to catch his fish with hook and line; it never told that they had to be alive, and swimming, not a word of it. You watch me win that championship right here!"
"There's a fish pile down in the cellar," spoke up the rival of Bumpus, indignantly, "and what d'ye think, Bumpus here means to fetch up a lot of 'em with his hook and line, and count the same against me. Hey! guess two can play at that sort of game, if there's going to be anything in it; so look out; because I'm after that same big trout myself."
Twice Bumpus managed to get his hook where it seemed to catch upon the monster trout's exposed gill, and with a cry of triumph he started to pull in; but on one occasion the slender hold his hook had taken broke away; and the second time it chanced that Giraffe had managed to fasten his barb somewhere about the dorsal fin of the fish, so that there was an immediate struggle for supremacy, with the usual result in such cases that the anticipated prize fell back, and was lost to both contestants.
"Tell them to let up on that silly business, and let's get out of here, Thad," said Step Hen, when this thing had gone on for some time, with no result save a weariness to the two rivals.
"But seems to me," Dave put in just then, "that couple of them same trout and white fish would be mighty tasty dish for a bunch of scouts I know of who always carry their appetites with them."
When Giraffe heard him say that, he suddenly seemed to lose all his fierceness as a contestant for honors.
"Here, let's stop this business, Bumpus, because I ain't agoing to let you grab up any fish that easy like; and I reckon you feel the same way about me. Anyhow, I leave it to Thad here if it's a sportsmanlike way of scoring in our game? If he says no, why I'm willing to let you hook up some of the beauties for our dinner; or to make things more lively I agree to climb down that greasy old ladder and put 'em on the hook for you. How about it, Mr. Scout-master; is it fair?"
"Perhaps the letter of the law might favor such a course," he said, solemnly; "but we pretend to be sportsmen, all of us, and as such we go farther than that. And Bumpus, you know very well that nothing of this kind was thought of when you made your wager with Giraffe. As I was counted on to be the umpire I say now and here that the fish taken have to be alive at the time they are hooked, and swimming in the lake."
"Then that settles it, Thad," chuckled Bumpus, with a grin; "anyhow, I was only fooling, and wouldn't want to count honors won so cheap as this. But drop down there, Giraffe, since you were so kind as to promise, and hook me on that gay fellow I nearly had two different times. Let me feel how heavy he is? I'd go myself, but chances are I'd sure collapse down there, because already I'm feeling weak again, and that's the truth."