them that
he had scooted out of the pool and down into the stream. Once the girl
had trailed a piece of flashing red flannel across the water, and
Twinkle-tail could not resist. He leaped for it. A terrible hook
caught him in the side of the mouth! In his fury and terror he dove
and fought until he broke the hook. He had never forgotten that
lesson.

But he was forgetting a little this season. No one came to his pool.
He was growing big and fat, and a little careless.

As he lay there in the warming sand by the cat-tails, the biggest,
juiciest green bottle fly that Twinkle-tail had ever seen came
skimming down to the very line of the water. It circled once.
Twinkle-tail did not move. It circled twice, not an inch from the
water!

A single, sinuous flash of his whole body, and Twinkle-tail was out of
the water! He had the fly in his mouth.

Then the struggle began.

Ruth Lansing sprang up, pole in hand, from the shoulder of the bank
behind which she had been hiding.

The trout dove and started for the stream, the line ripping through
the water like a shot.

The girl ran, leaping from rock to rock, her strong, slender,
boy-like body giving and swaying cunningly to every tug of the fish.

He turned and shot swiftly back into the pool, throwing her off her
balance and down into the water. She rose wet and angry, clinging
grimly to the pole, and splashed her way to the other side of the
pond. She did not dare to stand and pull against him, for fear of
breaking the hook. She could only race around, giving him all the line
she could until he should tire a little.

Three times they fought around the circle of the pool, the taut line
singing like a wire in the wind. Ruth's hand was cut where she had
fallen on the rocks. She was splashed and muddy from head to foot. Her
breath came in great, gulping sobs. But she fought on.

Twice he dragged her a hundred yards down the Run, but she headed him
back each time to the pond where she could handle him better. She had
never before fought so big a fish all alone. Jeffrey or Daddy Tom had
always been with her. Now she found herself calling desperately under
her breath to Jeffrey to come to help her. She bit back the words and
took a new hold on the pole.

The trout was running blindly now from side to side of the pond. He
had lost his cunning. He would soon weaken. But Ruth knew that her
strength was nearly gone too. She must use her head quickly.

She gathered herself o