But it was only an old shoe!
“Say, what’s the matter here, anyhow?” demanded Ted.
“Ha! Ha!” laughed his sister. “What funny fish!”
“Look at Ted’s funny fish!” chuckled Trouble.
CHAPTER XII
FLIP-FLOPS
Pulling up a rubber boot in place of a fish wasn’t strange for the first time, since Ted had before this done much the same thing when out for a day’s sport. But when, the second time, he hooked an old shoe, it was too much!
If he had been fishing with some of the Cresco lads he would have suspected a trick, for often one of them would slip away, reach for a chum’s hook in a spot where he couldn’t be observed, and fasten on the hook some queer object, putting it softly back into the water again and waiting for the fun that was sure to follow.
But Ted knew none of his chums were with him now, and Janet, though she sometimes played tricks, was too far away, looking after Trouble, to have put the boot and shoe on his hook.
“Of course I might have picked them up off the bottom, but I don’t believe it,” thought the Curlytop lad. “I’m going to watch.”
“I got a better fish than yours!” boasted Trouble, holding up a small “sunny,” which had rashly nibbled at his hook.