Sure enough, in about two minutes the candle gave a last convulsive flicker, and in the twinkling of an eye thick darkness reigned as absolutely over the professor and the fish trap as elsewhere.
"Boys," said Mose, in a tone of voice loud enough for the professor to hear him, "there ain't no use wadin' in this water any longer; let's go back an' git our cloze."
Seating themselves on a log, they sat perfectly silent for a while—long enough, as they thought, for it to have taken them to go back to where they commenced their drive, dress themselves, and reach that point on their return—when they got up and resumed their progress upstream.
On reaching the trap, they found the professor on shore, and though he had completed his toilet, his teeth were chattering together worse than a pair of castanets rattling off a quickstep march.
"We'll have to try it over ag'in some other time," said Mose, "and fetch more candles with us. I thought we had plenty this time, but we didn't. I guess I'll bring enough next time."
"Why didn't you fellows hurry up?" said the professor. "What made you come so slow?" the chattering of his teeth as he spoke causing him to cut the words into more than the legitimate number of syllables to which they were entitled.
"Couldn't come no faster," said Mose. "The water was so thunderin' cold the fish wouldn't drive fast."
Satisfied with this explanation, the professor fell into ranks as the boys filed off in the direction of home. The exercise of walking soon brought a reaction in his system, the first effect of which was to put a stop to the music of the castanets, and on reaching home he pronounced himself all right again.
Sometime during the ensuing week Mose Howard informed the professor that they were going to try the fish trap again the following Saturday night, and asked him if he didn't want to go along.