l, wading up to his chest or perched on a
bit of boulder above some dark, slick rapid; I preferring water not more
than waist-deep, and not too far from shore to miss the responses of the
wood-folk to my passing: soft flurries of wings; shy, half-suppressed
peepings; quick warning notes; light footfalls, hopping or running or
galloping; the snapping of twigs and the crushing of leaves. Some sounds
tell me who the creature is,--the warning of the blue jay, the whirr of the
big ruffed grouse, the thud of the bounding rabbit,--but many others leave
me guessing, which is almost better. When a very big stick snaps, I always
feel sure a deer is stealing away, though Jonathan assures me that a
chewink can break twigs and "kick up a row generally," so that you'd swear
it was nothing smaller than a wild bull.

So we fished that day. When I caught a bass, which was seldom, I whooped
and waved it at Jonathan, and when I caught a shiner, which was rather
often, I waved it too, just to keep his mind occupied. Hours passed, and
we met at a bend in the river where the deep water glides close to shore.

"Hungry?" I asked.

"Now you speak of it, yes."

"Shall we go back?"

"How can I tell? Now, if we only had that watch we'd know whether we ought
to be hungry or not."

"What does that matter, if we _are_ hungry? Besides, if you'd had a watch,
you'd have had to carry it in your teeth. You know perfectly well you
wouldn't have brought it, anyway."

"Well--then, at least when we got back, we should have known whether we
ought to have been hungry or not. Now we shall never know."

"Never! Oh! Look there, Jonathan! We're going to catch it!" A sense of
growing shadow in the air had made me look up, and there, back of the
steep-rising woods, hung a blue-black cloud, with ragged edges crawling
out into the brightness of the sky.

"Sure enough! The bass'll bite now, if it really comes. Wait till the
first drops, and see what you see."

We had not long to wait. There came that sudden expectancy in the air and
the trees, the strange pallor in the light, the chill sweep of wind gusts
with warm pauses between. Then a few big drops splashed on the dusty,
sun-baked stones about us.

"Now! Wade right out there, to the edge of that ledge--don't slip over,
it's deep. I'll go down a little way."

I waded out carefully, and cast, in the smooth, dark water already
beginning to be rain-pocked. It was surprisingly shivery, that storm wind!
I gl