With a bundle of sandwiches and their tackle, the fishing party got away from camp in the early morning, planning to spend the better part of the day in enticing the denizens of the deep to nibble at their flies. Then the return to camp could be made in the cool of the evening between sundown and dark.
By nine o’clock they were seated on the bank of the stream, poles in hand, and lines cast far out into the stream.
At first the girls kept up an incessant chatter, in spite of the warning from Jim and Gerald that if they did not stop they would scare the fish away.
“Nonsense!” cried Molly, laughing aloud at the warning. “Fish can’t hear.”
At this Jim and Gerald exchanged glances of amused tolerance.
“Told you we should have left ’em at home,” said the latter.
“I knew it,” Jim replied. “It was only through the kindness of my heart that I agreed to let them come.”
This statement only served to amuse Dorothy and Molly, and their laughter rang out over the water so loudly, that Jim and Gerald, with sighs of resignation, began winding in their lines with the evident intention of departing.
At first this increased the merriment of the girls. But when they saw the boys taking their poles apart, and stowing the sections away in their fishing bags, they realized that they had really incurred the displeasure of their young friends by what they had intended as a joke.
“Come,” said Dorothy, soberly. “You boys are not going home?”