"Well, it can't be
helped; we've got to go on watching him every evening till he does. If
he's poached once, he'll poach again."

"Look!" said Erebus, gripping his arm.

Sir James had stopped fishing and was walking back to the boundary
fence. He stood for a while beside the gap in it, hesitating, scanning
the little valley down which the stream ran, with his keen hunter's
eyes. It is to be feared that he had been too long used to the
high-handed methods that prevail in the ends of the earth where big
game dwell, to have a proper sense of the sanctity of his neighbor's
fish. Moreover, Mr. Glazebrook was guilty of the practise of netting
his water and sending the trout, alive in cans, to a London restaurant.
Sir James felt strongly that it was his duty as a sportsman to give
them the chance of making a sportsmanlike end.

But Mr. Glazebrook was an uncommonly disagreeable man; and since
Glazebrook farm marched with the western meadows of the Morgans, the
Morgans and the Glazebrooks had been at loggerheads for at least fifty
years. Assuredly the farmer would prosecute Sir James, if he caught
him poaching.

Yet the valley and the meadows down the stream were empty of human
beings; and as for the wood, there would be no one but his own keeper
in the wood. Doubtless that keeper would, from the abstract point of
view, regard poaching with abhorrence. But he would perceive that his
master was doing a real kindness to the Glazebrook trout by giving them
that chance of making a sportsman-like end. At any rate the keeper
would hold his tongue.

Sir James climbed through the gap.

The Twins breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief; and Erebus said in a
tone of triumph: "Well, he's gone and done it now."

"Yes, we've got him all right," said the Terror in a tone of calm
thankfulness.

Fortune favored the unscrupulous; and in the next forty minutes Sir
James caught three good fish.

He had just landed the third when the keen eyes of Erebus espied a
figure coming up the bank of the stream two meadows away.

"Look! There's old Glazebrook! He'll catch him! Won't it be fun?"
she cried, wriggling in her joy.

The Terror gazed thoughtfully at the approaching figure; then he said:
"Yes: it would be fun. There'd be no end of a row. But it wouldn't be
any use to us. I'm going to warn him."

With that he sent a clear cry of "Cave!" ringing down the stream.

In ten seconds Sir James was back on his own land.

The