“One of them has taken my bait.”
It was on Drew’s lips to say, “Washed off by the stream;” but he remained silent as he softly pulled in his own line, to find nothing but the bare hook.
“There! do you see?” he said softly, the sound of his voice passing over the water so that it was like a whisper at his friend’s ear, as he dangled the bare hook.
“Oh yes, I see: fish nibbled it off.”
“Hope you are right,” said Drew softly, as he rebaited, dropped in the white marble of paste, and watched it glide down the stream, drawing out one by one the rings of line which he had carefully coiled up on the rock when he drew it out.
Then stooping and picking a long, heavy, stream-washed, slaty fragment from out of the water by his side, he made the end of his line fast to it and laid it at his feet, so as to have his hands at liberty. With these he drew out a cigarette-case and opened it, but his brow puckered up as he looked disconsolately at its contents.
“The last two,” he said softly. “Better keep ’em. Be more hungry perhaps by-and-by.”
Closing the case, he replaced it in his breast-pocket.
“The hardest job I know of,” he muttered, “practising self-denial.” Then aloud, “Well, Bob, do they bite?”
“No: only suck. Lost two more baits; but I shall have a big one directly.”