“Say, my lad, how would you like to see some baby kingfishers?”
“Fine!” answered Van Horn. “Where are they?”
“Well, cut over a few points toward the shore, and we’ll just stop in up the creek a ways. They have their nest in a hollow stump. We’ve got plenty of time to take a look, if we hurry.”
Dirk pulled on his oars with renewed vigor, and the boat headed toward the reed-masked inlet of the marshy creek that cut into the camp side of the lake. He was already getting the knack of handling the little craft with greater ease, so that they slipped softly under an overhanging maple branch and entered the weed-bordered reach of water without a splash.
“That’s right!” whispered Brick. “Keep quiet, or you’ll scare ’em. Say! Who’s that guy?” He pointed.
Dirk clumsily shipped his oars, and at the sound a man on a little hillock above them wheeled sharply and stared, at the same time whipping one hand behind his back. The keel of the boat grated on the shore, barely missing a slender bamboo fishing rod that lay there neglected.
The man ran toward them.
“Sorry, sir!” cried Dirk cheerily. “We seem to have spoiled your fishing for you.”
The stranger did not return his smile. He stared for a second, then queerly enough, exclaimed: “Why, if it ain’t young Van Horn!”
For a space there was silence, except for the resounding thuds of axes on wood and the far shouts of boys toward the head of the creek where, Dirk recalled, a woodcraft squad was building a bridge of birch-trunks. He surveyed the unknown fisherman. The man was short and slender; and his dress was poorly adapted to the waterside, for he wore a suit of creased and dusty serge, and thin-soled, pointed low shoes. A cloth cap was pulled down over his pale face, almost hiding a pair of the steeliest blue eyes Dirk had ever seen, that stared at him coldly all the while as the man stood, hands behind back, biting his lip as if he would have cut short his surprising cry of recognition.