“Yes; there are some good-sized fish, Pete.”
“And either of ’em would make uz a dinner if we’d got a line.”
“And bait, Pete.”
“Oh, I’ll manage a bait, Master Nic. Dessay they’d take a fly, a beetle, or a berry, or a worm, but I aren’t got neither hook nor line. I’m going to have one, though, zoon, for the way I’m thinking o’ cold zalmon is just horrid. I could eat it raw, or live even, without waiting for it to be cooked. These aren’t zalmon, but they’re vish.”
Nic said little, for he could think of nothing but the overseer coming into sight with musket and dogs, and his eyes were constantly directed up the river.
But Pete took it all more calmly. He had dragged the boat beneath the shade of the overhanging tree, secured it to one of the boughs with the remains of the rope, several feet having fortunately been passed through the ring-bolt to lie loose in the bottom; and while Nic kept watch he roughed out something in the shape of a couple of basket-like caps, wove in and out a few leaves, and ended by placing them before his companion.
“They aren’t very han’some, Master Nic,” he said, “but they’ll keep the zun off. What do you zay now to lying down and having a nap while I take the watch?”
“No, no,” cried Nic excitedly; “let’s go on at once.”
“I’m ready, Master Nic, but, if you could take both oars, I’ve been thinking that I could cut off one sleeve of my shirt, loosen and pull out the threads, and then twissen ’em up into a sort o’ fishing-line, paying it over with some of the soft pitch here at the bottom of the boat, so as it would hold together a bit.”
“And what about a fish-hook?” asked Nic.