So it was arranged, and after dinner Giant sallied forth, with the axe, which had not been confiscated, and his fishing lines and such bait as he could scrape together.
As Giant had found his former fishing place a good one he went to the same spot again. The snow was deep and he had to sweep it away with a spruce branch he cut for that purpose. Then he chopped a round hole in the ice as before, and sat down on some snow and the tree branch to wait for a bite.
Fishing proved slow, and it was a good quarter of an hour before he got a bite and then the fish slipped the hook just as he was hauling the catch to the surface. But he kept on and in an hour had a catch of three, all of fair size.
After that, however, try his best, he could not get another bite. Then he determined to go further down the lake, where there was another cove.
"There ought to be fish at the bottom of that cove," he told himself.
"And if there are, I am bound to have some."
Finding a spot that suited his fancy, he again swept off the snow and began to cut a hole in the ice. This proved quite a task, and by the time he had finished he was pretty well winded. He baited up and sat down on a bank of snow he had swept together.
Just then some noise reached his ears, and he looked around and listened. But the noise was not repeated.
"What could that have been?" he mused. "Some bird?"
He strained his ears, but the stillness of the forest lay all around the lake. Of a sudden Giant began to feel lonely, and he gave a little shiver. Then he braced up.
"Pshaw, I'm getting as nervous as a cat," he murmured. "And all on account of nothing. I'd better go to fishing and forget it."