“No, but one of these shoes has rubbed my heel till it’s sore,” fretted Steve, taking off his shoe to sympathetically rub that portion of his pedal extremity. “If I expect to be able to toddle around, and have any sort of fun while we’re up 27 here I ought to keep quiet the balance of the day; and also put some sort of lotion on my heel that’ll start it to healing.”
“I can’t go with you, Toby,” Jack went on to say, “because I have planned to take advantage of this clear day to snap off a few pictures, just to get my hand in, you see. My old camera wasn’t good enough, the lady said, and so she had me step in and buy the finest in Chester. It looks like a dandy box, and I aim to pick up a lot of mighty smart photographs while we’re up in this neck of the woods.”
“Any objections then to my going off alone, Jack?”
Toby asked this with such an appealing look on his face that Jack could not find it in his heart to put any obstacle in the way.
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t take a little tramp by yourself if you feel that you just can’t wait until tomorrow, Toby,” he told the other. “Only be careful not to get lost. I’ll loan you my map, which you can study while waiting for a bite; and then again, you must carry the compass along, too. I reckon you know something about telling the points of the compass from the green moss or mould on the northwest side of nearly every tree-trunk. Yes, go if you feel disposed, but start back an hour or so before dark.”
“Just when the fishing is bound to be at its best, too,” complained Toby; “but then after I know the way, and have broken a regular trail to and 28 from the river, I can stay later. I dug a lot of worms in our garden, and picked up some whopping big night-walkers besides, so I’m all fixed for bait, I reckon.”
Eagerly then Toby secured his jointed rod, and the little canvas bag in which he kept all his paraphernalia, such as hooks, sinkers, extra lines and many other things without which a fisherman’s outfit would not be complete.
Taking his quota of bait in an empty can that had contained some Boston baked beans which the three lads had eaten cold for lunch, Toby started gaily forth, whistling as he went.
“You said the river must lie directly west of here, Jack,” he called back ere plunging into the woods; “so I’m heading that way now. I expect to take notice of everything that looks at all queer, as I go along, and make as broad a trail as I can, so I’ll have no trouble about coming back the same way I go. Steve, wish me luck, because I know you just love fried black bass.”
Thereupon Steve waved both hands after him as if in blessing.