Just then Brazier returned from the boat with the cartridge-pouch and examining the breech of his gun, after which he walked slowly to the corner of the green opening and took his place close to the edge of the river, where he was partly hidden by some pendent boughs, while Rob, Joe, and Shaddy got on board the boat again, and were soon fitting up a line with an orange bait.
“May as well fish from the boat, my lads,” said Shaddy; “it’s peaceabler and comfortabler. What do you say?”
“No,” said Joe, “but one from the boat, and one from the other corner there. If we fish together we shall get our lines tangled.”
“Right, my Hightalian man o’ wisdom,” said Shaddy. “There you are, then,” he continued, as he fixed the half of an orange as securely as he could; “you begin there, and Mr Rob will try up yonder, while I’ll go to and fro with the gaff hook ready to help whichever of you wants a hand.”
“Hi! you chaps,” he shouted to the men in their own tongue, as they were settling themselves down for a long sleep, “make that fire up again; we’re going to stop here to-night.”
“I wish I could speak their language, Shaddy,” said Rob, as the men deliberately began to pile some of the wood they had collected on the embers.
“You’ll soon pick it up, my lad. It’s soft and easy enough. Not as I speak it, you know, because I’m so rough and keep chopping in broken English. They’re not bad fellows. But now look here,” he continued, as they reached their corner where the stream flowed very deep and made quite an eddy; “it strikes me that the best thing we can do is to try a different bait, one as will tempt the fish that don’t care so much for flesh. What do you say to a quarter of a biscuit?”
“Too hard, and will not stick on.”
“Get soft in the water; and it will stick on, for I shall tie it with some thin string, making quite a net round it.”
“That will do then,” said Rob, who felt some compunction at trying for fish which had been lunching off a large cat; and in due time the bait was carefully bound on.