"Watch me catch a fish," said Jean sturdily. "I used to catch trout at home. Let me see, what can I use for a line?" She thought a minute, then clapped her hands. "I know, you just rest, Kadok, and see what a good fisherman I am!"
She took a pin from her belt, bent it and tied to it a strip of cotton torn from her skirt. This line she tied to a branch from which she stripped the leaves; on them she found some fuzzy caterpillars, one of which she used for bait. Then she threw her line and sat down where the stream turned at right angles and made a deep, quiet pool. She waited a long time. Three or four times she had a bite and failed to land her fish, but just as she was growing discouraged there was a jerk, then a long, steady pull at her line.
"Come help me land him," she called to Kadok, and the boy hastened to her aid. Between them they pulled in their fish, a fine, speckled fellow which Kadok cleaned and roasted on a flat stone heated red hot. The fish was delicious, and there was plenty for both of them, so that they felt far more cheerful as they rolled up their blankets to sleep.
It was Jean's first trial of sleeping in the open, and it was long before she could rest. She lay and watched the stars, of only a few of which she knew the names, though Orion seemed like an old friend and the cloudy path of the Milky Way a broad road to Heaven.
"Little Missa not sleep," said Kadok. "Her 'fraid Debill-debill?"
"No, Kadok, I'm not afraid," she answered.
"Peruna heeal very good spirit, he big man spirit, lives 'bove clouds. He not let Debil-debil loose to-night. Too many twinkle lights. Debil-debil likes darkness. Missa try sleep."
Toward morning Jean was awakened by a crackling in the bushes. "Kadok," she whispered. "Wake up."
"Kadok not asleep, little Missa," he whispered in return.