However, neither cared. The weather figured little, and they were more concerned over the immediate future than over the present.
“I bet you we don’t get a thing except dog-fish!” commented Hal, discouragingly.
“Oh, yes, we will,” returned Ned, with more hope. “That is,” he added, “unless the turtles and gars rob the hooks as fast as we bait up.”
“Well, may be; Sam and Joe seemed to think we would, anyway,” admitted Hal, blowing the beads from the tip of his nose.
They glided in against the raft, and Ned, reaching over, grasped the line.
“Feel anything?” queried Hal, eagerly, as Ned paused a moment.
“Seems kind of like it,” said Ned, fingering the line. “But perhaps it’s only the current jerking.”
He lifted the line and laid it across the bows; and squatting on the combing, beside it, gently pulled the boat, hand over hand, toward the first hook.
“Nothing on that hook,” remarked Hal, as presently the bit of cord by which it was suspended rose, slack and lifeless, out from the water. Then the hook itself dangled into view. No, it had nothing on it—not even bait.