A few paces farther on, creeping forward under the willow branches, they came to a spot where the creek banks were clear of brush along a narrow grassy strip, which, however, was screened from the mountainside by a growth of taller trees. Here Deveril went to work on his improvised fish-hook. One hairpin he put carefully into his pocket; the other he bent rudely into the required shape, making an eye in one end by looping and twisting. The other end, that intended for the hungry mouth of a greedy trout, he regarded long and without enthusiasm.
"Too blunt, to begin with; next, no barb, too smooth; and, finally, the thing bends too easily. Hairpins should be made of steel!"
But at least two of the defects could be simply remedied up to a certain though not entirely satisfactory point. He squatted down and, employing two hard stones, hammered gently at the malleable wire until he flattened out the end of it into a thin blade with sharp, jagged edges. Then, using his pocket-knife, he managed to cut several little slots in this thin blade, so that there resulted a series of roughnesses which were not unlike barbs; whereas he could put no great faith in any one of them holding very securely, at least, taken all together, they would tend toward keeping his hook, if once taken, from slipping out so smoothly. He re-bent his pin and suddenly looked up at her with a flashing grin.
He robbed one of his boots of its string; he cut the first likely willow wand. Without stirring from his spot he dug in the moist earth and got his worm. And then, motioning her to be very still, he crept a few feet farther along the brook, found a pool which pleased him, hid behind a clump of bushes and gently lowered his baited hook toward the shadowy surface. And before the worm touched the water, a big trout saw and leaped and struck ... and did a clean job of snatching the worm off without having appeared to so much as touch the bent hairpin!
Three quiet sounds came simultaneously: the splash of the falling fish, a grunt from Deveril, a gasp from Lynette. Deveril, thinking she was about to speak, glared at her in savage admonition for silence; she understood and remained motionless. Slowly he crept back to the spot where he had dug his worm, and scratched about until he had two more. One of them went promptly to his hook, while he held the other in reserve. Again he approached his pool, again he lowered his bait about the bush. This time the offering barely touched the water before the trout struck again. Now Deveril was ready for him, deftly manœuvring his pole; his string tautened, his wallow bent, the fat, glistening trout swung above the racing water.... Lynette was already wondering how they were going to cook it!... There was again a splash, and Deveril stood staring at a silly-looking hairpin, dangling at the end of an absurd boot-lace. For now the hairpin failed to present the vaguest resemblance to any kind of a hook; the trout's weight had been more than sufficient to straighten it out so that the fish slipped off.
Gradually, moving on noiseless feet, the girl withdrew; her last glimpse of Deveril, before she slipped out of sight among the willows, showed her his face, grim in its set purpose. He was trying the third time, and she believed that he would stand there without moving all day long, if necessary. In the meantime she was done with inactivity and watching; doing nothing when there was much to be done irked her.
Withdrawn far enough to make her certain that no chance sound made by her would disturb his trout, she went on through the grove and across little grassy open spaces flooring the cañon, making her way further up-stream. When a hundred yards above him, she turned about a tangled thicket and came upon the creek where it flashed through shallows. All of her life she had lived in the mountains; as a little girl, many a day had she followed a stream like this, bickering away down the most tempting of wild places; and more than once, lying by a tiny clear pool, had she caught in her hands one of the quick fishes, just to set him in a little lakelet of her own construction, where she played with him before letting him go again. To-day ... if she could catch her fish first! While Deveril, man-like, taking all such responsibilities upon his own shoulders, cursed silently and achieved nothing beyond loss of bait and loss of temper!
Up-stream, always keeping close to the merrily musical water, she made her slow way until she found a likely spot. At the base of a tiny waterfall was a big smooth rock; the water from above, glassily smooth in its well-worn channel, struck upon the rock and was divided briefly into two streams. One of them, the lesser, poured down into a small, rock-rimmed pool; the other, deflected sharply, sped down another course, to rejoin its fellow a few feet below the pool.
It was to the pool itself, half shut off from the main current, that Lynette gave her quickened attention. She crept closer, noiseless, peeping over. A sudden dark gleam, the quick, nervous steering of a trout rewarded her. She stood still, making a profound study of what lay before her; in what the rock-edged pool aided and wherein it would present difficulties. Scarcely more than a trickle of water poured out at the lower side; she could hastily pile up a few stones there, and so construct a wall insurmountable to the trout if minded to escape down-stream. Then she looked to the far side, where the water slipped in. She could lay a few broken limbs across the rock there and build up a rampart of stones and turf upon it, and so deflect nearly all of the incoming water. Both these things done, she could, if need be, bail the pool out, and so come with certainty upon whatever fish had blundered into it. She began to hope that she would find a dozen!
Twice, standing upon the glassy rocks, she slipped; once she got soaking wet to her knee; another time she saved herself from a thorough drenching in the ice-cold stream only at the cost of plunging one arm down into it, elbow-deep. She shivered but kept steadily on.