“Shucks!” said Roy. “He’s got away from us, after all. Come on!”
They broke into a trot and hurried along, looking sharply to left and to right as they ran. A moment or two later there was a rustling in the woods near the turn of the road and Chub came cautiously out, a broad smile on his face. Remaining in concealment, he watched his pursuers until another turn of the road hid them. Then he cut a branch from a small tree, sharpened one end of it, slit the other, and stuck it in the middle of the road. Searching his pockets he, at length, brought forth a crumpled piece of paper. Smoothing it out, he traced a single word on it and stuck it in the cleft of the stick. Then, chuckling aloud, he crossed the road and disappeared into the woods on the lower side.
Some two hours later Roy and Dick came trudging back. They had five trout between them, but they were all small ones. They were very hungry and somewhat tired, and Roy almost walked into the stick in the road before he saw the piece of paper. When he had read it he laughed and handed it to Dick.
“‘Stung!’” read Dick. He grinned, crumpled it up, and tossed it aside, and they went on for a moment without a word. Then,
“You have to get up pretty early to get ahead of Chub,” said Roy, admiringly.
“Get up early!” quoth Dick. “You have to stay up all night!”
They trudged on home to the camp and dinner.
Meanwhile Chub was having hard luck. Fully a mile away, where a stream rushed down a hill and paused for a while in a broad black pool lined with rocks and alders, he had been fishing diligently for over an hour with no success. He had tried almost every one of his brand-new assortment of flies, but, to use his own expression, he hadn’t even got a bid. It was getting along toward dinner-time, as his hunger emphatically informed him, and he recollected his agreement with regret. It wasn’t that he so much disliked to wash the dishes for once—although as a matter of principle he always schemed to avoid that task—but he hated to have Roy and Dick crow over him. And after the way in which he had fooled them that morning, he had no doubt but that they would crow long and loud!
He sat down on a convenient flat-topped stone and spread his fly-book open beside him. It was a sunny day, but the pool was well shadowed and perhaps, after all, a real brilliant fly wouldn’t be out of the way. So he selected a handsome arrangement of vermilion and yellow and gray—a most gaudy little fly it was—and substituted it for the more somber one on his line. Then he cast again to the farther side of the pool. For a while there was no reply to his appeal, and then the fly disappeared and a moment later a gleaming trout was flapping about under the bushes. It wasn’t such a bad little trout; Chub guessed three quarters of a pound as its weight; and more hopefully now, he flicked the pool here and there. But nothing else happened. At last, discouraged, he reeled in his line and looked at his watch. The time was a quarter past twelve. Even if he started back to the boat now, he would arrive very late for dinner. Besides, he couldn’t face Roy and Dick with only that insignificant trophy to show. If only he had brought a luncheon with him! His eyes fell again on the trout and his face lighted. Dropping his fly-book into his pocket and picking up rod and fish, he turned his back on the pool and followed the stream as best he could, winding in and out of the thickets and clambering over the rocks that strewed the little vale.
Presently he was out of the thicket and before him lay a small clearing in which waist-high bushes and trailing briars ran riot. The brook spread itself out into a shallow stream and meandered off toward the river, its course marked by small willows, alders, and rushes. Chub found a clear spot in the shade of a viburnum and built a fire of dry grass and twigs, adding dead branches as the flames grew. Fuel wasn’t very easy to find, but by prospecting around he eventually had a good-sized blaze. Then, warm and panting, he sat down out of the range of the heat and prepared his trout. By the time it was ready the fire had subsided to a bed of glowing coals. Wrapping the fish in leaves he laid it on the embers and watched it carefully, turning it over and over and raking the hot coals about it. After fifteen minutes of cooking he took it off and laid it on a stone which he had meanwhile washed in the brook. Then, with a couple of sharpened sticks he scraped away the ashes and coals, and began his luncheon. Trout without any other seasoning than wood smoke isn’t awfully appetizing, as Chub speedily discovered, and he would have given a whole lot for a pinch or two of salt. But it partly satisfied his hunger, and after he had taken a drink of cold water from the brook he felt good for another two or three hours’ fishing. He was determined not to go home until he had something to show. He stretched himself out in the shade for a while and rested. Then, picking up his rod once more, he returned to the stream and sought a likely spot.