CHAPTER XII

MOSTLY FISHING

With Harmon at the wheel, closely watched by an anxious Tim, Pud settled himself at the stern and wrote a letter to his mother. Despairing of being able to narrate all the happenings of the past forty-eight hours, he decided to narrate none, or almost none. When completed, the letter conveyed hardly more than the bald information that they had spent Tuesday night at Aunt Sabrina’s, that they had bought some more food supplies, that they were now on the way up the Fox River to fish for bass, and that they were all well. Elated by the escape from Gladys Ermintrude and by this recent performance of his duty, Pud dug out the damp and crumpled pirate emblem and once more displayed it from the stern. Tim viewed the flaunting skull-and-cross-bones doubtfully, but Harmon grinned approval, accepting it as evidence that the piratical life was at last about to begin.

The Flat, a marsh-bordered lake formed by the junction with the river of Two-Pond Run and Turtle Creek, was nearly a mile long and about half a mile wide. It held two small islands and was in most places bordered by rushes and pond weeds. Beyond The Flat, Fox River bore to the right for three miles and was there joined by the Little Fox. Between Two-Pond Run and the Fox, northward, lay what was called River Swamp, a territory of swamp and hummock, twisting waterways, and numerous ponds. The ponds and streams held many fish, and in season water fowl congregated there in numbers. It was a favorite hunting ground with the adventurous, but one needed to know it well in order to navigate its confusing thoroughfares. Many tales were told of hunters or fishermen who had lost their way for days amidst that watery labyrinth. Somewhere beyond the dark cedar swamps and the oak and maple-clad hummocks lay that community of ill-repute, Swamp Hole, but outsiders were careful not to approach very closely to it, since it was well known that the Swamp-Holers considered fishing and hunting in River Swamp a privilege confined to themselves and had more than once shown resentment at the incursion of strangers. So thoroughly was this conviction of theirs respected that few persons throughout the State could boast of having seen Cypress Lake, a three-mile body of water lying north of Swamp Hole. Wonderful stories were told of Cypress Lake; of its unfathomable depths, of the huge fish that lived there, of the mysterious disappearance of certain bold spirits who had unwisely sought to explore it. It got its name from a considerable growth of bald cypress which bordered it, and it was claimed that not for more than seventy miles farther south could a cypress tree be found again.

Just above Corbin the river narrowed somewhat and the trees gave place to thickets of alder and witch-hazel and storax. Here and there black oaks, pond pines, or ash trees formed small islands of verdure above the level of grassy bog, and occasionally a group of black willows hung over the water. The launch nosed its way into the unruffled water of The Flat an hour or so before noon and Pud dropped the little anchor off the lower end of the nearer island. Already there were a number of fishermen on hand. One or two occupied skiffs, but most dozed from the sterns of flat-bottomed punts. Several shanty-boats were in sight where the river entered and where the absence of weeds offered access to the shore. Some forty yards away from where the launch had anchored floated a dilapidated punt occupied by a man and a yellow hound. The man, who was simply attired in a cotton shirt and a pair of khaki trousers, and who wore a conical-crowned, broad-brimmed straw hat turned down over his lean face, glanced at them briefly and returned at once to his observation of the cork float that depended from the end of a long bamboo pole. The dog wagged his tail in friendly fashion and sniffed in their direction. Then he, too, went back to watching the bob.

They had bought a dozen small green frogs on the landing at Corbin, and now they proceeded to bait up. Neither Pud nor Tim had had any experience in bass fishing, and at once they were faced by the problem of depth. They had anchored in about twelve feet of water, and now whether to put sinkers on or allow their frogs to choose their own positions below the surface bothered them. Harmon didn’t approve of frogs, anyway, and was pessimistic from the start.

‘If’n I had me a good ol’ worm,’ he muttered, ‘I’d sure catch me somethin’, but I ain’ ’spectin’ much of these here hop-frogs.’

Pud and Tim sought to learn how their neighbor’s line was furnished, but as it remained quietly in the water they failed. Finally Pud elected to fish without a lead and Tim decided to use one. Harmon, who was using a home-made rod of his own devising, merely tied some ten feet of line to the tip, impaled Mr. Frog on a leaderless hook and dropped him overboard. Then he lay back on the stern seat, cocked his right leg over his left knee, rested the pole between his first and second toes and fixed himself for a nap. After that quiet fell over the scene. The sun was almost overhead and the breeze was of the faintest. Now and then, acting on the advice of the man from whom they had purchased the bait, Pud and Tim drew their frogs from the water and allowed them to take some more air aboard. A half-hour passed. Harmon was breathing loudly in the stern, fast asleep. Then there came a sound from the nearby punt. The yellow hound was peering over the stern and wagging his tail deliriously. The big cork float had disappeared and the man was gingerly paying out on a taut line. Pud and Tim, forgetting their own fortunes, watched absorbedly.

Presently the man began to take in on the line, drawing it to him through a guide at the end of the pole and coiling it between his feet as methodically and calmly as though a hard-fighting bass was not on the other end of it. The hound’s excitement increased and he began to bark ecstatically. If Pud could have barked, he would probably have joined in with the dog! Then, some ten feet from the punt, something flashed for an instant in the sunlight. But the fisherman was still coiling the line between his feet, and now the long pole was bending at the end and he was shortening his hold on it. Then, while the water swirled close to the punt, up went the end of the bamboo, a fat, fourteen-inch bass gleamed in air and disappeared into the boat. Whereupon the hound, barking more furiously than ever, sprang upon it, his tail wagging delightedly. The man spoke quietly to the hound, who promptly backed off; then he unhooked the fish, observed it appraisingly, rebaited his hook, cast out again, and once more became motionless. Beside him, the yellow dog again gave all his attention to the float.

Pud pulled up his line and fastened a lead four feet short of the hook, for that was where the successful neighbor had his. Tim pulled up and set his weight back another foot. Harmon slumbered on. The sun got hotter and hotter, and Pud looked enviously at his neighbor’s broad straw hat. He and Tim discussed the catch in low tones. Pud thought it might weigh a pound and Tim said a pound and a half. Anyway, it proved that there were fish to be caught there. Presently Tim spoke insinuatingly of food and Pud consulted his watch and agreed that it would be well to awaken Harmon. Just then, however, his bob acted queerly and he forgot all about food. The bob nodded at him, first, and then it started away as though having business at the other side of the lake. Pud’s eyes grew very round and his hands trembled. Suddenly the bob stopped traveling and floated tranquilly again. Tim spoke scathingly.

‘Pshaw,’ he said, ‘why didn’t you strike? He was on there. Bet you he got your frog!’

‘He wasn’t on,’ replied Pud bitterly. ‘He was just mouthing it. Suppose I don’t know? Maybe he did get my frog, but――’

Pud was drawing his line out as he spoke.

‘No, he didn’t,’ said Tim. ‘I can see it. It’s still on.’

‘You sure?’ asked Pud anxiously. ‘I don’t see――Oh, yes, there it is!’

He had brought the frog almost to the surface, and suddenly, just as he was starting to lower it again, there was a bronze-and-silver flash in the water and things began to happen!

‘He’s on!’ shouted Tim. ‘Hold him!’

‘I am――a-holdin’ him!’ gasped Pud, doing nothing of the sort for the reason that he had lost his line and it was paying out at a great rate. All Pud was doing was holding the rod and groping wildly for the line. He got it finally when it caught about his foot, but by that time the fish had had a full forty feet of run and was thinking things over somewhere. Pud disentangled the line and began to reel nervously. _Click-click-click_――Then _cli-i-ick!_ and out spun the line again!

‘Gee, he must be a whale!’ panted Pud. Tim, in a spasm of nervous excitement, hopped about behind him.

‘Never mind the reel,’ he sputtered. ‘Get hold of the line and work him in that way. That’s the ticket! He’s coming!’

‘You――you’d better get your line up out of the way,’ said Pud. ‘He might get tangled――’

‘It is up! Lookout! Don’t give him slack!’

Something huge broke water a dozen feet away, sending the silvery drops high in air, and disappeared again with a mighty tug at the line. Pud yielded a few inches and then recovered them. The captive swerved toward the stern, circled back again and tried to head away. Suddenly there was a yelp from Harmon.

‘I got me one!’ he cried. ‘I got me a basses!’

He was still on his back, holding hard to his pole which was buckling over the edge of the boat.

‘Please, sir, Mister Tim, lay ahold of it till I gets up!’

‘You fool nigger!’ stormed Tim. ‘You’ve gone and got your line tangled with Pud’s! And he’s got a bass as big as a house on! And if he loses him――’

‘What you wan’ I should do?’ begged Harmon. ‘Wan’ I should leggo?’

‘Yes! No! I don’t know! Gosh, if we only had a landing-net, Pud! Can you get him closer?’

Pud’s rod was bending threateningly and Harmon’s maple pole was giving forth sickening cracking sounds. Beside the launch, the water was boiling as the fish tugged and dived. Then Tim acted on the impulse. Leaning far down over the side of the boat, at the risk of a bath, he seized a line and heaved upward. Over the gunwale and into the launch came, not one bass, but two!

There was a shout of triumph from Harmon. ‘What I done tell you?’ he insisted. ‘What I done tell you? I knowed I got me a basses! One of ’em’s mine, ain’ it, Mister Pud? What I done tell――’

‘Shut up,’ commanded Tim breathlessly, ‘and get out of the way. Put your foot on that one, Pud! Gosh, they’re snarled up so’s we’ll _never_ get ’em off!’

Snarled they were, indeed! Not only in Pud’s line and Harmon’s, but in Tim’s as well, for he had left his rod leaning against the engine and the flopping fish had already added his line to the others in which they were tangled! It took them a good five minutes to unravel the situation after the two bass had been finally subdued. Pud’s trophy was a whopper, weighing all of two pounds, while Harmon’s, though fully as long, lacked in girth and so in weight. In the midst of the excitement Harmon discovered that one of the frogs had survived the ordeal and was hopping about underfoot, and with a yell he went after him, catching one bare foot in a coil of fish-line and coming a cropper against the fly-wheel. The frog, doubtless completely unnerved by recent experiences, gave way to panic and disappeared through a hole in the floor!

All thought of luncheon was gone now. The three went back to fishing, Pud resolved to duplicate his triumph, Tim determined not to be beaten, and Harmon hopeful of landing a ‘basses’ as big as Pud’s. They had lost sight of their solitary neighbor during the recent period of agitation, but now they discovered him still motionless in the stern of the punt, as unheeding of their presence as ever. Pud would have liked to exhibit his catch and call attention to its size, but the neighbor seemed such an unfriendly chap that he hadn’t the courage. They fished on for another hour without so much as a nibble, and by that time their hunger insisted on being attended to. So, while Tim took Harmon’s pole, the latter prepared a hurried and rather sketchy repast of crackers and bananas and the last two bottles of tonic, and they ate with their several gazes fixed sternly the while on the floats. Probably the preparations aboard the launch reminded the solitary occupant of the punt that it was time for dinner, for presently he took a tin box into his lap and fed slices of bread and what looked to be cold bacon to himself and the dog. He did not, though, try to combine eating with fishing, but carefully laid aside his pole, coiled his line on the floor, and hung the frog over the side between gunwale and water. So far as Pud could observe the man had never once glanced in the direction of the launch since the latter had arrived on the scene.

After their quick lunch, Pud, Tim, and Harmon went back in earnest to their fishing, but when the most of two hours had passed without so much as a nibble, they began to grow impatient. Pud was now on his third frog, having drowned his second, but the luck supposed to attach to Number Three failed him. The sun, although somewhat nearer the western horizon, seemed to glow even more fiercely than at noon. At last Pud said, _sotto voce_, to Tim: ‘I’m going to ask him where’s a good place to catch them.’

Tim glanced doubtfully across and shook his head. ‘He’s probably deaf,’ he answered, ‘but you can try.’

Pud tried. ‘Mister, where’s there another place to fish?’ he called.

The man looked across at them slowly and, for a long moment, appeared disinclined to answer. Finally, though, he spoke in a thin, drawling voice. ‘There’s right smart o’ fish up to Turtle Pond,’ he said.

‘Where is that?’ inquired Pud.

‘Close on three miles up yander.’ The man waved a hand vaguely. ‘I’d go there myself if I didn’t have to row. Right good fishin’, up there.’

‘Bass?’ asked Pud.

‘Uh-huh; bass and pickerel. Big ’uns, too.’

‘Do we go up this stream here?’

‘Uh-huh, up Turtle Creek ’bout three miles. Right smart o’ fish up there.’

They conferred. Pud had meant to inquire as to other fishing localities here in The Flat, but three miles wasn’t far, and if there were more fish in Turtle Pond they might as well go there and try it. Besides, they had already decided to put in another day hereabouts and it would be well to find a camp-site soon, for the marshy border of The Flat held little invitation to them. So Harmon pulled up the anchor and, after several failures, Pud got the motor started. Turtle Creek led out of The Flat at the far end, and the launch went on past the two islands and was speedily lost to sight of the man in the punt. As the _chug-chug_ of the little engine died away, the man pulled up his own anchor and rowed to where the launch had floated. There he dropped the anchor back and settled himself again in the stern. As he did so he winked gravely at the yellow hound, and, while it sounds improbable, it really did look as if the hound winked back!