"No boat that I can see," remarked Frank.
"We'll fish from the shore," said Dab. "There's a log that runs away out in. Rocks too."
Rocks and trees and natural ruggedness all around, and some ten or a dozen acres of clear, cold, beautiful water, with little brooks and springs running into it, and a brook running out on the opposite shore that would have to grow considerably before it would be fit for mill-turning.
"Boys," said Dabney, "we've missed it!"
"How's that?" asked Ford.
"Put on the smallest hooks you've got, right away, and try for minnows.
There must be pickerel and bass here."
"Bass? Of course! Didn't he say something about seed-fish? That's what they put in; and they weren't as big as pins when his boys came for 'em."
"Minnow-poles," as they called them, could be cut from the bushes at the margin, and little fish could be taken at the same time that they were trying for large ones. They found too, before long, that sometimes a very respectable perch or bass would stoop to nibble at one of the "elegant worms" with which Dick Lee had provided them.
"No turn of the tide to wait for here, Dab," said Ford, "and no crabs to steal your bait off. Hey! There comes one. Perch! First game for my hook."
"We'll stay till dark, but we'll get a good string. Frank, your cork's under."