Rex went on teasingly: “I assure you it was embarrassing, when the pheasants were bursting cover, to be under the necessity of inquiring at the nearest house if those were really pheasants or only Chinese hens.”
“Rex,” exclaimed Ruth, indignantly, “I hope you don’t think I believe a word you are saying.”
They had stopped to rest beside the stream, and now the colonel sauntered into view, his hands full of wild flowers, his single eyeglass gleaming beside his delicate straight nose.
“Do you know,” he asked, strolling up to Ruth and tucking a cluster of bluebells under her chin, “do you know what old Hugh Montgomery would say if he were here?”
“He’d say,” she replied promptly, “that ‘we couldn’t take no traout with the pesky sun a shinin’ and a brilin’ the hull crick.’”
“Yes,” said Rex. “Rise at four, east wind, cloudy morning, that was Hugh. But he could cast a fly.”
“Couldn’t he!” said the colonel. “‘I cal’late ter chuck a bug ez fur ez enny o’ them city fellers, ’n I kin,’ says Hugh. Going to begin here, Rex?”
“What does Ruth think?”
“She thinks she isn’t in command of this party,” Ruth replied.
“It will take us until late in the afternoon to whip the stream from here to the lowest bridge.” Rex smiled down at her and pushed back his cap with a boyish gesture.