the way the friend of the peanut butcher had gone in--only he had
stopped off at Keddie and had gone up to the dam with a fellow he knew
that worked there. And he had brought back a trout that weighed
practically eight pounds, dressed. The peanut butcher knew; he had
seen it with his own eyes. They had it hanging in the window of the
California Market, and there was a crowd around the window all the
time. He knew; he had seen the crowd, and he had seen the fish; and he
knew the fellow who had caught it.

Unless he could go with a crowd, Jack did not care much about fishing.
He liked the fun the gang could have together in the wilds, but that
was all; like last summer when Hen had run into the hornet's nest
hanging on a bush and thought it was an oriole's basket! Alone and
weighed down with horror as he was, Jack could not stir up any
enthusiasm for the sport. But he found out that it would not cost much
to reach the little town called Quincy, of which he had never before
heard.

No one, surely, would ever think of looking there for him. He could
take the evening train out of San Francisco, and in the morning he
would be there. And if he were not sufficiently lost in Quincy, he
could take to the mountains all around. There were mountains, he
guessed from what the boy had told him; and canyons and heavy timber.
The thought of having some definite, attainable goal cheered him so
much that he went to sleep again, sitting hunched down in the seat
with his hat over his eyes, so that no one could see his face; and
since no one but the man who sold it had ever seen him in that sport
suit, he felt almost safe.

He left the train reluctantly at the big, new station in San