ankly; "but it's cruel all the same. Oh,
look! Look!"

They were about fifty yards from where the line with its buoy had been
put over the side, and as Tom had casually looked back he had seen the
bladder give a bob, and then begin to skim along the surface.

"Well, I can see," said Dick, "it's the gudgeon swimming fast."

"Nay," said Dave, ceasing to pull; "something's got it. I shouldn't
wonder if it's the big pike."

The lads breathlessly watched the bladder go skimming along. Every now
and then it gave a bob or two, and then on it went farther and farther
from them toward a patch of reeds all broken down and shattered by the
wind and lying by itself quite a hundred yards from where the bait had
been dropped in.

"Is it the big pike, Dave?" said Dick eagerly.

"Dunno," was the laconic reply. "Mebbe 'tis, mebbe 'tisn't."

"You'll give it time, Dave," cried Tom excitedly, forgetting all his
previous qualms.

"Ay, we'll give him time," said Dave with his face tightened so that the
ruddy portion of his lips had disappeared, and his mouth was represented
by what seemed to be a scar extending right across the lower portion of
his countenance. "Who's going to hook him out?"

"I will," cried Dick quickly. "No, you shall have first go, Tom."

"May I?" cried the lad, flushing.

"Yes; go on. Where's the big hook, Dave?"

"Why, s'pose I forgot it," said Dave slowly.

"You haven't," said Dick. "There's the stick," and he picked up a short
staff.

"Ay, lad, bud there be no hook."

"Now, none of your old games, Dave," cried Dick; "just as if we didn't
know! Come, out with it! You've got it in your pocket."

Dave chuckled, and produced a hook made by bending round a piece of thin
iron rod and sharpening the point.

This hook he inserted in the staff and handed to Dick, who immediately
passed it to Tom, the latter standing up ready to hook the line when the
time should come.

But that was not yet, for the floating bladder was more than a hundred
yards away, and still skimming along.

"Be a long time making up his mind to swallow it," said Dave, slowly and
softly reducing the distance between them and the buoy, and then pausing
while they were still fifty yards away.

"He has stopped now," said Dick in a hoarse whisper as the bladder
gleamed quite white a few yards away from the reeds, and gently rose and
fell in the ripple caused by the wind.

"Why, he's gone!" said Tom in a disappointed tone.