Giraffe evidently did not mean to go back on his word; and accordingly he carefully climbed over the edge of the opening, found a resting place for his feet on the top round of the ladder, and then began to slowly descend.
First of all he hooked on the big trout, and gaily Bumpus pulled the prize up, remarking at the time that it felt as though he were lifting a grindstone. When he lowered his line again Giraffe had a splendid fresh looking white fish ready, and this he sent up, after the trout.
"I just can't stand this any longer," the boy below called up; "and I'm acomin' right along with the next one, which ought to be a white fish, I reckon. Oh! my! hope I don't keel over before I get to the top. If I do, please, please don't run away and leave me to my fate, boys!"
Perhaps Giraffe was only joking, but it was noticed that when he hastily clambered out of the fish pit he made a streak for outdoors, still hanging on to his latest capture.
In fact, as they had had enough of that thing, all of them hastened to follow the example set by the tall and lanky scout. Outside they found Allan examining the prize with considerable interest, while Giraffe was fanning himself, and making all sorts of grimaces as he raised first one hand and then the other to his nose.
"I'll step in and take a look now, while we're here," mentioned Allan; "because I may never get another chance to see what a fish poacher's storage place is like."
"Queer where they've gone and hidden themselves," Step Hen remarked, as he looked all around as though half expecting to see a bearded face thrust out of the bushes, or above a pile of rocks near by.
"Well, just now they're in a sort of panic, and hardly know what to try next," Thad told them. "Of course they must see that we're only boys, after all; but from the fact that we wear uniforms they suppose we are connected in some way with the militia, and that perhaps a boatload of soldiers is even now on the way here, obeying some sort of wireless signal we've managed to transmit. They thought to seize Bumpus, and perhaps get us all, one by one; but when they found that he had rendered their boat helpless they just threw up the sponge and quit."
"Well, I kinder feel a mite sorry for the rascals," Step Hen observed; whereupon the usually gentle Bumpus, who could be depended on to forgive the first one of all, fired up, and burst out with:
"Then I ain't, not one whit; and I guess you wouldn't either, Step Hen Bingham, if you had a lump as big as a hickory nut on top of your head, that felt as sore as a boil, and knew one of that crowd did it to you. Ain't they breaking the law of the land; and every fish they take in their illegal nets or seines means one less for the fellow that fishes for sport, or the man that does business according to the rules and regulations. Sorry, well I guess not! And when we move away with their old boat we'll send somebody with brass buttons over to Sturgeon Island to take off the marooners."