The A.P. had toiled to the top of an adjacent mound, from which, like Moses of old, he "surveyed the landscape o'er." "Come on," he shouted valiantly.
"Well," said the Junior Watch-keeper, "Vive le sport! If there were no fools there'd be no fun." He shouldered his strange impedimenta and joined the A.P.
Away to their left a glint of water showed intermittently as the river wound between clumps of low bushes and hillocks. Patches of level ground covered with reeds and coarse grass fought with the sand-dunes, and stretched away in dreary perspective to the hills. Briefly they arranged their plan of campaign: the Junior Watch-keeper was to fish up-stream, the other two meeting him about five miles inland in a couple of hours' time. They separated, and the Junior Watchkeeper dipped behind a rise and was lost to view.
It is not recorded what exactly the snipe were doing that day. The Young Doctor had it that they were "taking a day off," the A.P. that they had struck the wrong part of the country. But the melancholy fact remains that two hours later they sat down to share their sandwiches with empty bags and clean barrels. A faint shout from out of the distance started them again into activity.
"He's fallen in," suggested the Young Doctor with cheerful promptitude.
"Sat on the hook, more likely." There was grim relish in the A.P.'s tone. Neither was prepared for the spectacle that met their astonished eyes when they reached the river.
Standing on a partly submerged sand-bank, in the middle of the stream, dripping wet and "full of strange oaths," was the Junior Watchkeeper. The point of his rod was agitated like the staff of a Morse signaller's flag, while a smother of foam and occasional glimpses of a silver belly twenty yards up-stream testified that the age of miracles had not yet passed.
"Play him, you fool!" yelled the A.P.
"Can't," wailed the Junior Watch-keeper, battling with the rod. "The reel's jammed!"
"Look out, then!" shouted the Young Doctor, and the safety-catch of his gun snapped. "Let me have a shot——"