The third time Elmer looked it was perhaps an hour after Adam had started fishing, and he saw that a change had come over the manner of the young Teuton. He was no longer casting out again and again with a great splashing of the water. On the contrary, he sat astride the tree trunk that jutted out some eight feet above the water. His line ran downstream and the float could be seen bobbing in the midst of the little bubbles that marked an eddy below.
Elmer watched him closely for five minutes, and not once in all that time did he see the other move in the least.
"Well, I declare, I believe the fellow's gone to sleep!" he laughed. "I reckon Adam isn't used to camping out, and on that account he's had poor rest these two nights. And that hot sun is enough to make any fellow feel drowsy, too. Whew, what if he nodded too hard and just dropped off there! Perhaps I'd better go and wake him up. And while I'm about it I can just give him a few pointers as to how he'll have at least a decent chance to coax a few bass to his bait."
Filled with this feeling of comradery toward the new recruit, whom he was fast learning to like because of his constant good-nature and really witty remarks, Elmer started away from the camp.
It just chanced that instead of heading directly for Adam, he walked first of all out to the river bank. Looking downstream he could just see Ted busily engaged in landing a fish that seemed to be fighting hard, and this told that the bass were "on the feed," if only one knew how to attract them.
The idea of that sleepy Adam dozing there and letting the golden harvest time slip by unheeded made Elmer laugh again. He even allowed himself to imagine that it would just about pay Adam right if he crept up and gave his line a sudden tug, to make him think he had a bite.
Just then something moving attracted his attention. It was directly below the boy who sat astraddle of the projecting log, and a little farther downstream.
Ty, why of course it was that party, though minus his distinguishing red sweater, which was now, alas, no more. But what under the sun was he doing there? As near as Elmer could see he appeared to be industriously attaching some bulky object to the end of a line!
All at once what seemed to be the truth burst upon the patrol leader. Ty had also noticed the sleeping Dutchman, and was bent upon having a little joke at the expense of Adam. Yes, he had managed to draw the line of the fisherman in, by the aid of a long stick that had a crotch at the end, and was now fastening a bunch of hemlock browse, done up to represent a big fish, to the end of the same.
When all was ready and the current pulled strongly at the bulky object, possibly the additional strain might arouse Adam, who would immediately think he had hooked a monster bass, and doubtless the ensuing excitement would tickle the joker to the top of his bent.