that he'd been asleep and dreamed the whole thing--the
wireless, and my sitting on the hole in the canoe, and the wind tossing
it about, and everything--only, of course, there was the tea and the
canned corn!

We did our first fishing the next day. Hutchins had got the motor boat
going, and I put over the spoon I had made from the feather duster.
After going a mile or so slowly I felt a tug, and on drawing my line in
I found I had captured a large fish. I wrapped the line about a part of
the engine and Tish put the barrel hoop with the netting underneath it.
The fish was really quite large--about four feet, I think--and it broke
through the netting. I wished to hit it with the oar, but Hutchins said
that might break the fin and free it. Unluckily we had not brought
Tish's gun, or we might have shot it.

At last we turned the boat round and went home, the fish swimming
alongside, with its mouth open. And there Aggie, who is occasionally
almost inspired, landed the fish by the simple expedient of getting out
of the boat, taking the line up a bank and wrapping it round a tree. By
all pulling together we landed the fish successfully. It was forty-nine
inches by Tish's tape measure.

Tish did not sleep well that night. She dreamed that the fish had a red
mustache and was a spy in disguise. When she woke she declared there was
somebody prowling round the tent.

She got her shotgun and we all sat up in bed for an hour or so.

Nothing happened, however, except that Aggie cried out that there was a
small animal just inside the door of the tent. We could see it, too,
though faintly. Tish turned the shotgun on it and it disappeared; but
the next morning she found she had shot one of her shoes to pieces.

III

It was the day Tish began her diary that we discovered the red-haired
man's signal. Tish was compelled to remain at home most of the day,
breaking in another pair of shoes, and she amused herself by watching
the river and writing down interesting things. She had read somewhere of
the value of such records of impressions:--

10 A.M. Gull on rock. Very pretty. Frightened away by the McDonald
person, who has just taken up his customary position. Is he reading
or watching this camp?

10.22. Detective is breakfasting--through glasses, he is eating canned
corn. Aggie--pickerel, from bank.

10.40. Aggie's cat, beside her, has caught a small fish. Aggie declares
that the cat stole one of her worms an