ngs, and, plunging into the
river, began to engage in the very unsportsmanlike pastime of tickling
trout. They paddled cautiously upstream, putting their hands under
every likely stone till they felt a fish, then, very gently moving
their fingers along until they had him by the gills, would manage with
a quick jerk to toss him out of the water on to the bank. Linda and
Sylvia followed along the side, much excited at this new form of
fishing, and gathering up the trout placed them in one of the lunch
baskets. The boys had succeeded in catching five or six, which lay
shining and silvery, gasping their last, and they were both trying for
a particularly big one which they could see lying in the cranny of a
rock.

"He'll be a tough subject," said Oswald. "I'll do my best, but you be
ready to make a grab if I miss him!"

Oswald stealthily put forward his hand, but the trout was on the
alert, and long before he could reach its gills it had darted into the
pool, escaping Artie also, who nearly fell into the water in his
efforts to secure it.

"Missed him! What a shame! And he was such a beauty!" cried the
disconsolate boys.

"Now then, what are you doing there, you young poachers?" shouted a
voice from the opposite bank, and, looking up, the children saw a tall
man, in a corduroy velveteen suit and a soft round hat, frowning at
them with a most unamiable expression of countenance.

They were so astonished that none of them knew what to say.

"Come out of that stream this minute!" he commanded the boys, who
obeyed, but naturally on the side where Linda and Sylvia were standing
looking rather frightened at such an unexpected and angry visitor. The
man, who had the appearance of a gamekeeper, crossed the river easily
by jumping from stone to stone, and striding up to the little girls,
peeped inside their basket.

"As I thought!" he remarked. "Now, you young rascals, do you know that
I can take you all up and send you to prison for poaching?"

"Why," gasped Oswald, "we were only catching some trout!"

"Only catching some trout! He says he was only catching some trout!"
echoed the man, as if he were appealing to an imaginary companion. "I
suppose he wouldn't call that poaching? Oh, no!"

"We get them like this in our own stream at home," said Artie.

"That's quite a different matter. Because you get bread and butter at
home's no reason why you should walk into my house and take mine, is
it? This fishing happens to be p