Part 28 (2/2)
”Purt's day is spoiled,” declared Lance. ”He has come off without his cigarettes.”
”Cigarettes!” exclaimed Jess. ”I thought we had shown him the folly of smoking coffin nails long ago.”
”Oh, he doesn't smoke any,” Lance returned. ”But he always carries a case of them around with him. You know, he bought a thousand once with his monogram printed in gold on them, and he never _will_ get rid of them all. He thought it would be a good thing to bring them to camp with him so as to use them for a smudge to chase off the mosquitoes.”
”And they work all right,” grunted Chet. ”The smoke chases the mosquitoes, you can believe. But then, the smoke chases _us_, too.
Purt's brand of cigarettes is made out of long-filler Connecticut cabbage.”
”That's all right; don't make fun of the poor fellow,” Lance said, with exaggerated sympathy. ”Even if anybody had cigarettes to lend him, he couldn't smoke any with anothah fellah's monogram on 'em, don'tcher know, old top?”
But it came out that there was something else on Purt Sweet's mind. He had a very expensive rod, reel, and book of flies. And to tell the truth, he had never strung a line on such a rod, and did not know any more about using the flies than a baby in arms!
He hated to admit his ignorance, for the boys were not at all tender with the Central High dude. However, Chet and Lance were not ill-natured, and Purt plucked up courage finally to beg Lance to take him privately up stream (when they reached the creek) and give him a lesson in fly-casting.
Lance had already taken Laura under his wing--as was to be expected; but Mother Wit made him give Purt the a.s.sistance he needed. The three wandered up stream, far above the series of quiet pools where the other members of the party were casting for trout, or fis.h.i.+ng for perch.
The trio pa.s.sed a series of rapids, several rods long, and then struck a very beautiful stretch of calm water, with tree-shaded banks, and shallows where the cat-tails and rushes grew in thick cl.u.s.ters.
”I see a sign up yonder,” Laura said to Lance. ”Didn't you say a part of this stream was a private fis.h.i.+ng preserve?”
”So I've been told. We won't go beyond the sign,” said Lance.
He got Laura and Purt properly stationed and then cast, himself. They were having good sport and had landed several beauties, when Billy Long came idly up the stream on the other side.
”h.e.l.lo!” he grunted. ”Everywhere I go, there are girls. Isn't there a place where a fellow can get away from them and fish? They chatter so much that they drive all the fish into the mud, with their fins over their ears--that's right!”
”Horrid thing!” said Laura. ”We can keep just as silent when we're fis.h.i.+ng as any of you boys.”
”Try it, then,” advised Short and Long, gruffly.
He kept on up stream. ”Look out there, Billy,” Lance advised. ”It's posted above there.”
”Posted?”
”Yes. Don't you see that sign?”
”Huh!” said the smaller boy. ”I never _did_ believe in signs. And besides, it says there's no fis.h.i.+ng here--and I believe it! I haven't had a bite all the way up this brook.”
He went on a bit farther and cast his fly again. Quiet fell upon the long pool, where the shadow and suns.h.i.+ne lay in alternate blocks.
Suddenly there was a scrambling through the brush on the side of the stream where Short and Long was standing, and then appeared a big dog and a big man, the latter holding the former in leash. The man was just as ugly looking as the dog--and the Barnacle was a howling beauty beside this dog!
”Hey, you!” exclaimed the man to Short and Long--and he certainly _did_ speak savagely.
CHAPTER XIX
<script>