thout a
sinker?"

The luck seemed to be going directly against him. Even the
Cocahutchie, at his left, had dwindled to a mere crack between bushes
and high grass, as if to show that it had no room to let for fish to
live in--that is, for fish accustomed to having plenty of room, such as
they could find when living in a mill-pond, lined around the edges with
boys and fish-poles.

"That's a whopper!" suddenly exclaimed Jack, with a quick snatch at
something that alighted upon his left arm. "I've caught him!
Grasshoppers are the best kind of bait, too. I'll try him on, sinker
or no sinker. Hope there are some fish, down here."

The line he unwound from his rod was somewhat coarse, but it was
strong, and so was his hook, as if the fishing around Crofield called
for stout tackle as well as for a large number of sportsmen. The big,
long-limbed, green-coated jumper was placed in position on the hook,
and then, with several more grumbling regrets over the absence of any
sinker, Jack searched along the bank for a place whence he could throw
his bait into the water.

"This'll do," he said, at last, and the breeze helped him to swing out
his line until the grasshopper at the end of it dropped lightly and
naturally into a dark little eddy, almost across that narrow ribbon of
the Cocahutchie.

Splash--tug--splash again--

"Jingo! What's that? I declare--if he isn't pulling! He'll break the
line--no, he won't. See that pole bend! Steady--here he comes.
Hurrah!"

Out he came, indeed, for the rude, strong tackle held, even against the
game struggling of that vigorous trout. There he lay now, on the
grass, with Jack Ogden bending over him in a fever of exultation and
amazement.

"I never could have caught him with a worm and a sinker," he said,
aloud. "This is the way to catch 'em. Isn't he a big fellow! I'll
try some more grasshoppers."

There was not likely to be another two-pound brook-trout very near the
hole out of which that one had been pulled. There would not have been
any at all, perhaps, but for the prevailing superstition that there
were no fish there. Everybody knew that there were bullheads, suckers,
perch, and "pumpkin-seeds" in the mill-pond, and eels, with now and
then a pickerel, but the trout were a profound secret. It was easy to
catch another big grasshopper, but the young sportsman knew very well
that he knew nothing at all of that kind of fishing. He had made his
first cast perfectly