“Yes ma’am,” replied the guide. “Or it will be when I’ve boiled it.”
“I’m too thirsty to wait for it to boil,” she objected picking up the dipper. “Won’t somebody else have some?—Mrs. Hawarden?”
“’Tisn’t healthy to drink water from forest springs till it’s been boiled,” put in the guide. “It’s likely to be all chock-full of germs. Boilin’ kills em,” he added, proud of his scientific lore.
“I’d as lief be a germ aquarium as a germ cemetery,” decided the girl, drinking deep of the cold, limpid water, “Is there any fishing in this pond, I wonder?”
“Well,” drawled the guide, piqued that his medical advice should have gone for naught, “there’ll be better fishin’ to-night than there is just now. There’s pretty sure to be a heavy mountain fog after a day like this. And those fogs get so thick, around here, sometimes, that the fish can’t tell the difference between the fog and the water. And they swim right up into the tents. I’ve caught ’em that way dozens of times. Forrest Bird and ‘Smiling’ Kelly was telling me they came here once and—”
“Was it that sort of a bait you used?” asked Desirée innocently, pointing to a flask-neck that had worked its way into view from the pocket of the guide’s jacket as he leaned over the fire.
He shoved back the offending flask; grinning sheepishly.
“Because” went on Desirée with the same wide-eyed innocence, “I’ve always heard it attracted more snakes than fish. Isn’t it lucky there are no snakes in the Adirondacks?”
Rex sniffed longingly at the candy-box lying on the pile of wraps near the fire. Then he looked at Desirée and waved his tail with an air of disinterested friendliness. After which he resumed his study of the box.
“It will make you quite ill if you eat candy before dinner, Rexie,” the girl told him.