The others also voted to try their luck as disciples of Izaak Walton, and presently, with rods and lines, having dug some worms where Mr. Floyd showed them a place, they were patiently waiting on the bank of the stream that flowed away from the waterfall.
Camp Surprise was situated amid one of the wildest and most desolate parts of the mountains west of Chelton. It was remarkable, in a way, that such a lonesome place could be found so close to such a number of large and thriving towns and villages. But it was this wildness and isolation that gave it the peculiar charm, and which had led the land company to establish a number of camps and bungalows in the vicinity.
So rugged and diversified was the scenery, that, with the exception of the two bungalows occupied respectively by the boys and girls, no other two buildings were in sight of each other. Though not far removed from one another the dwelling places were off by themselves, giving a seclusion so often demanded by those who go to summer resorts.
At present, as the season had hardly opened, there were no other visitors at Camp Surprise, though many were expected later in July and August. Camp Surprise was not the real name of the place, which was called by the development company, Mountain View. But Camp Surprise had been applied because of the queer happenings, as has been intimated, though so far our friends had seen no occasion for such appellation.
The waterfall and the stream which flowed from it divided practically in half the area of land owned by the Mountain View Company. Having its origin some miles back in the mountains, the stream was augmented by brooks, creeks and other streams until, on reaching Camp Surprise, it had become almost a river.
Flowing along peacefully, through green meadows, or down the slope of some rocky hill, the river came suddenly to a great cleft in the hills, and down this it plunged in a most beautiful fall, from a height of about fifty feet, and perhaps a hundred feet in breadth.
At the foot of the fall was a deep pool, worn in the limestone rocks by the erosion of the falling water, and there the white foam boiled and bubbled in a miniature whirlpool and rapids until the stream slipped farther on down the side of the mountain, in a series of little cascades, in which were, so it was said, many fishes.
The boys had selected as their spot a quiet one, where a sort of eddy, or back-water, made a quiet pool that looked, as Jack said, “like a regular bachelor apartment for fish.”
“Keep still! Don’t move!” called Belle, as she and her chums, now with all their “war paint on,” as Walter hinted, approached the three young men.
“What is it—the ghost or the furniture mover?” asked Walter.