Part 4 (1/2)

”Do as you like. You can handle him. Just watch and wait--feel him all the time. Ah-h-h! For Heaven's sake don't let him into that jam! There he goes up stream! That's better! Good!”

”Don't get so excited! Don't yell so!” again admonished Mandy. ”Tell me quietly.”

”Quietly? Who's yelling, I'd like to know? Who's excited? I won't say another word. I'll get the landing-net ready for the final act.”

”Don't leave me! Tell me just what to do. He's getting tired, I think.”

”Watch him close. Wind him up a bit. Get all the line in you can.

Steady! Let go! Let go! Let him run! Now wind him again. Wait, hold him so, just a moment--a little nearer! Hurrah! Hurrah! I've got him and he's a beauty--a perfectly typical Rainbow trout.”

”Oh, you beauty!” cried Mandy, down on her knees beside the trout that lay flapping on the gra.s.s. ”What a shame! Oh, what a shame! Oh, put him in again, Allan, I don't want him. Poor dear, what a shame.”

”But we must weigh him, you see,” remonstrated her husband. ”And we need him for tea, you know. He really doesn't feel it much. There are lots more. Try another cast. I'll attend to this chap.”

”I feel just like a murderer,” said Mandy. ”But isn't it glorious? Well, I'll just try one more. Aren't you going to get your rod out too?”

”Well, rather! What a pool, all unspoiled, all unfished!”

”Does no one fish up here?”

”Yes, the Police come at times from the Fort. And Wyckham, our neighbor.

And old man Thatcher, a born angler, though he says it's not sport, but murder.”

”Why not sport?”

”Why? Old Thatcher said to me one day, 'Them fish would climb a tree to get at your hook. That ain't no sport.'”

But sport, and n.o.ble sport, they found it through the long afternoon, so that, when through the scraggy pines the sun began to show red in the western sky, a score or more l.u.s.ty, glittering, speckled Rainbow trout lay on the gra.s.s beside the shady pool.

Tired with their sport, they lay upon the gra.s.sy sward, luxuriating in the warm sun.

”Now, Allan,” cried Mandy, ”I'll make tea ready if you get some wood for the fire. You ought to be thankful I taught you how to use the ax. Do you remember?”

”Thankful? Well, I should say. Do YOU remember that day, Mandy?”

”Remember!” cried the girl, with horror in her tone. ”Oh, don't speak of it. It's too awful to think of.”

”Awful what?”

”Ugh!” she shuddered, ”I can't bear to think of it. I wish you could forget.”

”Forget what?”

”What? How can you ask? That awful, horrid, uncouth, sloppy girl.” Again Mandy shuddered. ”Those hands, big, coa.r.s.e, red, ugly.”

”Yes,” cried Allan savagely, ”the badge of slavery for a whole household of folk too ignorant to know the price that was being paid for the service rendered them.”

”And the hair,” continued Mandy relentlessly, ”uncombed, filthy, horrid.

And the dress, and--”