"I s'pose you expect to tear your clo'es and want something to wear back to town that's decent," he growled.
"Well, I want to look half way respectable," laughed Ruth, as they set forth.
The damp smell of thawing earth greeted their nostrils as they left the house. No plowing had been done, save in very warm corners; but the lush buds on the trees and bushes, and the crocuses by the corner of the old house, promised spring.
A clape called at them raucously as he rapped out his warning on a dead limb beside the road. A rabbit rose from its form and shot away into the dripping woods. The sun poked a jolly red face above the wooded ridge before the two runaways left the beaten track and took a narrow woodpath that would cut off about a mile of their walk.
It was a rough way and the pace Curly set was made to force Ruth to beg for time. But the girl gritted her teeth, minded not the pain in her side, and sturdily followed him. By and by the pain stopped, she got her second wind, and then she began to tread close on Curly's heels.
"Huh!" he grunted at last, "you needn't be in such a hurry. The dam will stay there—and so will the fish."
"All right," responded Ruth, still meekly, but with dancing eyes.
The fishing place was reached and while yet the early rays of the sun fell aslant the dimpling pools under the dam, the two threw in their baited hooks. Curly evidently expected to see the girl balk at the bait, but Ruth seized firmly the fat, squirmy worm and impaled it scientifically upon her hook.
She caught the first fish, too! In fact, as the morning drew leisurely along, Ruth's string splashing in the cool water grew much faster than Curly's.
"I never saw the beat of your luck!" declared the boy. "You must have been fishing before, Ruth Fielding."