"I'll get even with you, Benny Ellison," called Tim; but the other only laughed and went on.
Tim slowly unjointed his rod, tied the pieces together in a compact bundle, gathered up his string of remaining fish and started homeward. When he had gone on about a quarter of a mile, however, he suddenly paused and stood for a moment, considering something. Then he looked about him, stepped into a little thicket where he hid his pole and fish carefully from sight, then retraced his steps upstream.
He went on through the alders and brush, till presently he heard the report of the gun. Guided by the sound, he continued on for a little way, then shinned into the branches of a tall cedar, heavily wooded, and from there got a view upstream. Several rods away, he could see the alders move, thrust aside by Benny Ellison. Little Tim seated himself amid the branches, safely hidden, and waited.
Some ten or fifteen minutes passed, and then the snapping of underbrush told of the approach of Benny Ellison, on his return. That his shot had told was evidenced by another pickerel which he carried, hung by the gills on the crotch of an alder branch, together with the big fellow that Little Tim had caught. Tim's eyes snapped as he saw the fish.
Benny Ellison, chuckling to himself, passed the tree where Tim crouched, high above him. Almost within the shadow of it, he stopped and laughed heartily, as he glanced down at the big pickerel.
"It's a bird," he cried. "Shot it in a tree—what luck!"
Not until he had gone some distance did Little Tim emerge from hiding, scramble to the ground and follow. Dodging from tree to tree, and pausing frequently, he saw Benny Ellison finally seat himself on a log beside the stream. Tim waited. Then a smile of satisfaction crossed his freckled face as Benny Ellison began stripping off his clothes for a swim.
Little Tim, crouching low, almost crawling, crept closer.
Benny Ellison stood on a bank by the edge of a deep pool, a favourite swimming-place, where he and his cousins, and Little Tim, too, had had many a swim. The water was inviting, with the sultriness of the afternoon. Tim's heart beat high as he saw Benny Ellison plunge headforemost into the pool.
Then Tim's hopes were realized. Benny Ellison, a good swimmer, struck out into midstream toward a reef that protruded a few feet above water.