But Colonel Witham did not discontinue his searching. And the mill gave up no secrets.
CHAPTER XII
THE GOLDEN COIN
Mill stream, coming down from afar up the country, on its way to Samoset river and bay, flowed in many moods. Now it glided deep and smooth, almost imperceptibly, along steep banks that went up wooded to the sky line. Again it hurled itself recklessly down rocky inclines, frothing and foaming and fighting its way by sheer force through barriers of reefs. Now it went swiftly and pleasantly over sand shallows, rippling and seeming almost to sing a tune as it ran; again it turned back on its course in little eddies, backing its waters into shaded, still pools, where the pickerel loved to hide.
They were lazy fellows, the pickerel. One might, if he were a lucky and persevering fisherman, take a trout in the swift waters of the brook; but for the pickerel, theirs was not the joy of such exertion. In the dark, silent places along Mill stream, where never a ripple disturbed their seclusion, you might see one, now and then, lying motionless in the shadow of an overhanging branch, at the surface of the water, as though asleep.
They were not eager to bite then, in the warmth of the day. You might troll by the edges of the lily pads for half an hour, and the pickerel that made his haunt there would scarce wink a sleepy eye, or flicker a fin. At morn and evening they were ready for you; and a quick, sudden whirl in the glassy, black water often gave invitation then to cast a line.
In the early hours of a July morning, a little way up from Ellison's dam, a youth stood up to his middle among the lily pads, wielding a long, jointed bamboo pole, and trolling a spoon-hook past the outer fringe of the flat, green leaves. He was whistling, softly—an indication that he was happy. He was sunburned, freckle-faced, hatless, coatless. He wore only a thin and faded cotton blouse, the sleeves of it rolled up, and a pair of trousers, rolled up above his knees—for convenience rather than to protect them, for he had waded in, waist deep.
Tied about him was a piece of tarred rope, from which there dangled the luckless victims of his skill, three pickerel. That they were freshly caught was evidenced by their flopping vigorously now and then, as the boy entered the deeper water, and opening their big, savage looking mouths as though they would like to swallow their captor.
A splash out yonder, just beside the clump of arrow-shaped pickerel weed! Tim Reardon's heart beat joyfully, as he turned and saw the ripples receding from the spot where the fish had jumped. He swung his long rod, dropped the troll skilfully near the blue blossoms that adorned the clump of weed, and drew it temptingly past. The spoon revolved rapidly, gleaming with alternate red and silver, the bright feathers that clothed the gang of hooks at the end trailing after.