the trout will hook
himself, in rapid water, eight times out of ten. For playing him, if
you follow my directions, you 'll be all right. We will try the pool
tonight, and hope for a medium-sized fish."

Cornelia said nothing, but smiled and nodded. She had her own thoughts.

At about nine o'clock Saturday night, they anchored their boat on the
edge of the shoal where the big eddy swings around, put out the lantern
and began to fish. Beekman sat in the bow of the boat, with his rod over
the left side; Cornelia in the stern, with her rod over the right side.
The night was cloudy and very black. Each of them had put on the largest
possible fly, one a "Bee-Pond" and the other a "Dragon;" but even these
were invisible. They measured out the right length of line, and let
the flies drift back until they hung over the shoal, in the curly water
where the two currents meet.

There were three other boats to the left of them. McTurk was their only
neighbour in the darkness on the right. Once they heard him swearing
softly to himself, and knew that he had hooked and lost a fish.

Away down at the tail of the pool, dimly visible through the gloom, the
furtive fisherman, Parsons, had anchored his boat. No noise ever came
from that craft. If he wished to change his position, he did not pull
up the anchor and let it down again with a bump. He simply lengthened or
shortened his anchor rope. There was no click of the reel when he played
a fish. He drew in and paid out the line through the rings by hand,
without a sound. What he thought when a fish got away, no one knew,
for he never said it. He concealed his angling as if it had been a
conspiracy. Twice that night they heard a faint splash in the water
near his boat, and twice they saw him put his arm over the side in the
darkness and bring it back again very quietly.

"That's the second fish for Parsons," whispered Beekman, "what a
secretive old Fortunatus he is! He knows more about fishing than any man
on the pool, and talks less."

Cornelia did not answer. Her thoughts were all on the tip of her own
rod. About eleven o'clock a fine, drizzling rain set in. The fishing was
very slack. All the other boats gave it up in despair; but Cornelia said
she wanted to stay out a little longer, they might as well finish up the
week.

At precisely fifty minutes past eleven, Beekman reeled up his line, and
remarked with firmness that the holy Sabbath day was almost at hand and
they ought to g