Mr. Holwell took a fancy to try the fishing himself that morning.
“Not that I lay much claim to being a master-hand at angling, you understand, boys,” he apologized, when making up the party. “But those bass do taste so fine that I’d like to say I had pulled a few of them in myself. Once upon a time, away back, I can remember as a barefooted boy going after bass along the Susquehanna river. Yes, and seldom coming home without a nice string, too. But in those days my rod was one I’d cut myself in the woods; and I had no reel, or even a modern snell attached to the hook. But I took the fish.”
Dick was one of those who went out in the boat. Mr. Holwell asked him to join them, for he said he would need the advice of an “expert,” as he neither knew where the bass were likely to be found during the hot weather, nor how to manipulate his line when he had a strike.
“Just as likely as not,” he explained, “I should jerk the bait away when by rights I ought to give the bass a certain amount of time to turn it in his mouth. I know there are a great many things connected with fishing that a tyro does not understand; though when I was a lad I must have been acquainted with the habits of the tricky bass, or I never could have had the good luck I did.”
Some of those left ashore had portioned out the morning for various tasks or pleasures. It was a part of the plan that there should not be too much labor attempted while they were in camp. They had come all this way from home not so much to work, as to have a delightful time, although certain camp duties had to be observed, for those in charge would allow no shirking.
For instance, Clint Babbett and other photographers were allowed to prowl around and take as many pictures as they chose. If they preferred it, they could learn where certain small animals, such as raccoons or opossums or squirrels or possibly even a mink, had a home, so that they might plan the arranging of a camera and taking a flashlight picture of some animal tugging at the bait left exposed.
Then there was Dan. Nobody was to bother him as long as he wished to sit and ponder and figure with pencil and paper. It was known that Dan was trying to get up some wonderful scheme whereby the monster with the thieving instincts of the monkey race might be entrapped and made captive.
Everybody would, of course, feel greatly relieved could this be attained, and for that reason, if no other, the camp director wished Dan to have all the opportunity possible to expand his scheme.
The anglers were not quite so successful as on former occasions. Dick knew that black bass could be considered whimsical, in that they often refused to take any sort of bait, even when the wind, the water, and other conditions made it an apparently ideal day for fishing.
“Nobody understands just why they act as they do,” he told Mr. Holwell, when the bites were few and far between. “I’ve been fishing most of the day, with never a strike. Then about four o’clock the clouds would come up and the wind shift to a new quarter, when it seemed as if every bass in the whole lake must be fairly wild to get something to eat. You never can count on bass.”