Little Tim's blood was up.
"Think you're smart, don't you," he cried, "shooting my fish. Here, gimme that. What do you think you're doing?"
But Benny Ellison, holding the big pickerel away from Tim, showed no intention of giving it up.
"Who told you it was your fish?" he replied, sneeringly. "I shot it. It's mine."
"Give me back that fish!" repeated Little Tim. "I'll tell Harvey on you. You'll get another ducking."
He seized Benny Ellison by an arm, but the other, bigger and stronger, pushed him back roughly.
"Go on," he said, and added, while a grin overspread his fat face, "That's no fish, anyway. Whoever heard of catching fish in trees? That's a bird, Timmy, and I shot it. See its tail-feathers?"
He swung the fish and gave Little Tim a slap over the head with the tail of it, that brought the tears to Tim's eyes.
"Go on, tell Harvey," he said. "This bird's mine."
Dangling the pickerel by the gills, and shouldering his gun, he pushed on upstream through the alders, leaving Little Tim angry and smarting.