“Oh, you’re his pal, eh?” laughed the man. “Well, come on and get the same. I’ll teach you young whelps to know better. I’ll—.”
But he neither had time to administer the same nor to finish his speech. The agile Amos with the water running from his clothes and mouth, had recovered himself and with head down lunged forward. The next instant both boy and man were locked together and almost submerged in the sluggish current.
As they rolled over and over Morey made desperate efforts to stop the struggle. But he only complicated matters. Slipping, he fell upon the two combatants. Cold water, however, is a great cooler of angry passions. Without knowing just how it happened, in a moment, the man and the two boys were standing in mid-stream, sputtering and gasping for breath. Morey still gripped his rod, the man was glancing dejectedly toward his own broken pole, now well down the creek and Amos was gripping a moss-covered rock dug up from the bed of the creek.
“I suppose you know you are trespassing on private property?” began Morey, forgetting, in his indignation, that the creek no longer was a part of his mother’s plantation.
The man, shaking himself, turned as if surprised.
“This boy is my servant. Have you any explanation to make?”
The man’s surprise increased to astonishment. After another look at Morey’s ragged garments he fixed his eyes upon the lad’s face.
“He was seining trout—” began the stranger indignantly.
“Da’s a lie,” exclaimed Amos.
“He was fishing for suckers,” explained Morey.