"What luck?" demanded the gentleman, in a clear, sweetly modulated voice, which made me for a minute forget the colored man's evident ill will.
"Rather poor; nothing to what I was enjoying four weeks ago, before your boat drove all the fish away from the hole where I saw you an hour ago. I have a notion your man had a method in his madness."
The gentleman laughed a laugh so breezy and cheery, that it drew me at once to him.
"Yes, Jim told me of his exploit, and we have come up to invite you back to "our hole" as he calls it."
I could not refuse an offer so cordially extended.
The gentleman as we gently floated down the stream informed me, that Jim had selected "our hole" as one little likely to attract Cincinnati Waltons, and regularly every Friday left in it a fine feed for fish; that Jim was almost amphibious and seemed to know how to draw the finny denizens of the river to whatever spot he selected and at fixed times; that he was surprised to learn I had found fish in the place on Thursday, when there should have been none until Friday; that the sable conjuror was not so much put out, because I had found the spot, as because the fish had lost their reckoning and were a day ahead of time.
"I am supposed to be Jim's boss," he smilingly went on, "but in fact, on the water, am governed by Jim; his rod is one of iron."
At "our hole" we lay to, and in an hour had a fine mess of bass and new lights—as many as we needed.
Felden was the name my new acquaintance gave me as his—"Jack Felden" he said, "and this coon is Jim Madison."
Jim grinned and was the very personification of the free and easy, yet servile southern "body servant."