“Friend, I’ll say!” Ken joyfully shouted as he scrambled over the remaining boulder, and found, as he had suspected, a fisherman standing on the brink of the stream casting a tempting fly. On the bank at the side of the young giant, lay at least two dozen of the shining trout that would be so delicious when fried.
“Shall I keep quiet?” the boy asked, his eyes sparkling as he looked at the catch, but the fisherman shook his head and drew in his line.
“No, sonny, indeed not. You have only a few moments to stay, for the days are short now. The darkness drops down almost as soon as the sun is set. So-ho, you have a book for me? A ponderous volume, indeed! Wells? Great! I’ll enjoy reading that. How long may I keep it?”
“I—I don’t know. I—I didn’t ask teacher.” Then the boy grinned as he seated himself astride a rock near one on which Frederick Edrington sat turning the pages of the book.
Looking up suddenly, the young engineer asked, “Why so merry?” Then, closing the volume, he queried with interest, “What did you tell your teacher about me?”
“I tried not to tell her any lies,” Ken declared, “but I’m afraid she sort o’ got the idea that you’re a real old man, and, ’cause I said that you liked to read history, she took the notion that you’re a hermit-professor, and that you’re living up here to study out something, rocks or fossils, whatever that may be.”
The young man, with hands folded behind his thick, waving chestnut-brown hair, laughed as he replied, “I’m glad she does, although I can’t see quite how she can reconcile that image of me with the name of my choice.”
“Oh, I know now!” cried the boy, springing up in his eagerness. “Miss Bayley thinks you’re a very old man, ’most a hundred, who is a naturalist, and she wanted me to ask you if you’d like to have her new book on the snakes that inhabit these mountains.”
“Indeed I would! It doesn’t matter what—er—your teacher suggests sending to me, Ken, tell her I’ll be delighted to have it.” The boy, who, just to keep his hands occupied, had started whittling, looked up when his companion hesitated. Little did he dream that on the tip of Frederick Edrington’s tongue had been “vision of loveliness,” but, since only two days before the engineer had declared that he had never been in love, and never would be in love, he did not wish to awaken in the lad’s mind even a suspicion of the real interest with which the “old hermit” regarded the young teacher. Rising, the fisherman selected twelve of the largest of the small trout. “Ken, old pal,” he said, “would it be too much to ask you to take these to your teacher? I’d like to have her see them just as they are, with their glistening scales still on, but, when she has admired them, will you prepare them for her, that she may fry them for her supper?” The boy had also risen and his eyes were glowing. “Bet you, I will,” he declared. “That’ll be a jolly fine way for you to say thanks for the book.” Then, after promising to return the following Saturday, the boy took up the string of fish, shook the big hand of the tall friend whom he so admired, and started, half-running, half-sliding down the trailless side of the mountain, turning back every few moments to wave to the young man who stood, with arms folded, watching until the lad disappeared over the crest of the lower mountain on the other side of which lay the small hamlet of Woodford’s.
Then, reseating himself, Frederick Edrington again opened the big book. As he did so, a kodak picture fluttered to the ground.