footfalls of
his horse and the easy creaking of leather under him, the drip of dew
overhead and the running of water below. Now and then he could see the
same slender foot-prints in the rich loam and he saw them in the sand
where the first tiny brook tinkled across the path from a gloomy ravine.
There the little creature had taken a flying leap across it and, beyond,
he could see the prints no more. He little guessed that while he halted
to let his horse drink, the girl lay on a rock above him, looking down.
She was nearer home now and was less afraid; so she had slipped from the
trail and climbed above it there to watch him pass. As he went on, she
slid from her perch and with cat-footed quiet followed him. When
he reached the river she saw him pull in his horse and eagerly bend
forward, looking into a pool just below the crossing. There was a bass
down there in the clear water--a big one--and the man whistled cheerily
and dismounted, tying his horse to a sassafras bush and unbuckling a tin
bucket and a curious looking net from his saddle. With the net in one
hand and the bucket in the other, he turned back up the creek and passed
so close to where she had slipped aside into the bushes that she came
near shrieking, but his eyes were fixed on a pool of the creek above
and, to her wonder, he strolled straight into the water, with his boots
on, pushing the net in front of him.

He was a "raider" sure, she thought now, and he was looking for a
"moonshine" still, and the wild little thing in the bushes smiled
cunningly--there was no still up that creek--and as he had left his
horse below and his gun, she waited for him to come back, which he did,
by and by, dripping and soaked to his knees. Then she saw him untie the
queer "gun" on his saddle, pull it out of a case and--her eyes got big
with wonder--take it to pieces and make it into a long limber rod. In a
moment he had cast a minnow into the pool and waded out into the water
up to his hips. She had never seen so queer a fishing-pole--so queer
a fisherman. How could he get a fish out with that little switch, she
thought contemptuously? By and by something hummed queerly, the man gave
a slight jerk and a shining fish flopped two feet into the air. It was
surely very queer, for the man didn't put his rod over his shoulder and
walk ashore, as did the mountaineers, but stood still, winding something
with one hand, and again the fish would flash into the air and then
that hummi