But the big old black fellow, still lurking down there somewhere in the shadows? What of him? At once Johnny was alert. Drawing in his line, he offered up one more precious soft craw on the altar of a fisherman’s hope.
Down, down went the craw-dad. Down, down sunk the line. But what was this? Of a sudden the line shot away. Startled, eyes bulging, Johnny watched his line play out, a yard, two, three, four, five, all but the length of the pool.
Then, “Now!” he breathed once again. And—what? Was he snagged on a rock? It seemed so. But who could be sure? He strained at his line cautiously. It did not budge.
“Fellow’d think it was an alligator,” he whispered. He put a little more strain upon his line. It gave to his touch. Then, of a sudden it went slack.
“Dumb! Got off! He—”
At that instant the pole was all but jerked from his hand and at precisely the same instant, the most magnificent fish he had ever seen leaped clear of the water. He leaped again and yet again. Johnny’s heart stood still. Then as he saw the fish vanish, felt the tug and knew he still had him, his heart went racing.
It was at this precise second in the long history of the world that Johnny’s ears were smitten by an unearthly scream. It came from the direction of that other pool, the foreigner’s death pool, the haunted pool. The scream was repeated not once but twice. It was followed by a loud splash.
There could be but one conclusion. Someone had been about to fall into the pool. That someone could not swim. Someone HAD fallen into the deep pool.
Johnny dropped his pole, heaved a sudden sigh of regret and at the same time dashed through the bushes. Arriving breathless at the edge of that other pool, he saw a head rise partially above the water. A mass of crinkly brown hair floated on the surface. Without further thought, Johnny plunged, clothes and all, into the pool, to begin an Australian crawl toward the spot where the head had been. But where was it? For a space of ten seconds, he could not locate it. When at last his racing gaze came to rest, it was upon a spot close to the opposite bank. The head was there, also a pair of fair, round shoulders.
Johnny paused in his swimming to see a girl, of some sixteen summers, emerge, fully clothed and dripping, from the pool.