we had not caught a dozen between us where we usually fish close to the
town, and after our long walk we have not had even a bite."

"I fancy, Tompkins," Ned said, "that we are a couple of fools. I know it
is trout that they catch in this stream, and of course, now I think of
it, trout are caught in clear water with a fly, not with a worm. Father
said the other day he would take me out some Saturday and give me a
lesson in fly fishing. How he will laugh when I tell him we have wasted
all our afternoon in trying to catch trout with worms!"

"I don't see anything to laugh at," Tompkins grumbled. "Here we waste
a whole half holiday, and nothing to show for it, and have got six or
seven miles at least to tramp back to school."

"Well, we have had a nice walk," Ned said, "even if we are caught in the
rain. However, we may as well put up our rods and start. I vote we try
to make a straight cut home; it must be ever so much shorter to go in a
straight line than to follow all the windings of this stream."

They had long since left the low lands, where trees and bushes bordered
the stream, and were in a lonely valley where the hills came down close
to the little stream, which sparkled among the boulders at their feet.
The slopes were covered with a crop of short wiry grass through which
the gray stone projected here and there. Tiny rills of water made their
way down the hillside to swell the stream, and the tinge of brown which
showed up wherever these found a level sufficient to form a pool told
that they had their source in the bogs on the moorland above. Tompkins
looked round him rather disconcertedly.

"I don't know," he said. "It's a beastly long way to walk round; but
suppose we got lost in trying to make our way across the hills."

"Well, just as you like," Ned said, "I am game to walk back the way we
came or to try and make a straight cut, only mind don't you turn round
and blame me afterward. You take your choice; whichever you vote for I
am ready to do."

"My shoes are beginning to rub my heels," Tompkins said, "so I will take
the shortest way and risk it. I don't see we can go far out of our way."

"I don't see that we can," Ned replied. "Marsden lies to the east, so we
have only to keep our backs to the sun; it won't be down for another two
hours yet, and before that we ought to be in."

By this time they had taken their rods to pieces, wound up their lines,
and were ready to start. A few minutes' sharp climb