"I guess he knew there was just no use trying to hold you back, Tony. Say, Larry, are you going to try for fish this evening?" Phil called out.
"I'm ready right now, with some of those nice fat grubs Tony caught me," replied the other, coming out of the boat with dry clothes on.
"Well," continued Phil, "I wanted to say that after all that row here, the chances are you'd never get a bite in a coon's age. If I were you I'd just go up the shore a bit."
"Why up instead of down?" asked Larry, always curious to know the why and wherefore of everything, as a budding lawyer should.
"For one thing, you muddied the water below," Phil went on. "Then again, perhaps you noticed that the old mossback headed downstream; and so the chances are the fish might be scared away for some distance."
"Oh! now I catch on to what you mean, Phil," Larry spoke up. "But you see, there are so many things I don't know about woodcraft, that I've just got to keep asking questions. Then I'll go upstream, and try my luck."
"Be careful not to get out of sight of the boat," warned the other.
Larry looked a bit dubious at these words. He stood there for a minute as if hesitating whether to go or not. But like most boys he disliked to have a chum imagine he were capable of showing the white feather; so presently he sauntered off.
Phil had been observing him out of the corner of his eye, and chuckled a little at noting how loth Larry seemed to be to depart. But Phil did not mean to let the other get out of his sight at this interesting stage of the game. Larry had a weakness for doing just the things he ought to avoid. He could get lost, or fall overboard, or even tumble into a bed of soft ooze, quicker than any one Phil knew.
So, in a few minutes he picked up the gun, and said in a low tone to Tony, who was doing something aboard the boat: