and turned his eyes to his corks, while the pickaninny squatted behind him and
Chad climbed up and sat on the bank letting his legs dangle over. When Dan
caught a fish he would fling it with a whoop high over the bank. After the
third fish, the lad was mollified and got over his ill-temper. He turned to
Chad.

"Want to fish?"

Chad sprang down the bank quickly.

"Yes," he said, and he took the other pole out of the bank, put on a fresh
wriggling worm, and moved a little farther down the creek where there was an
eddy.

"Ketchin' any?" said a voice above the bank, and Chad looked up to see still
another lad, taller by a head than either he or Dan--evidently the boy whom he
had seen rigging a pole up at the big house on the hill.

"Oh, 'bout 'leven," said Dan, carelessly.

"Howdye!" said Chad.

"Howdye!" said the other boy, and he, too, stared curiously, but Chad had got
used to people staring at him.

"I'm goin' over the big rock," added the new arrival, and he went down the
creek and climbed around a steep little cliff, and out on a huge rock that
hung over the creek, where he dropped his hook. He had no cork, and Chad knew
that he was trying to catch catfish. Presently he jerked, and a yellow mudcat
rose to the surface, fighting desperately for his life, and Dan and Snowball