t.

"That's better. Now we'll cross the field and take a nice quiet walk.
And if anyone ever asks you where we went you remember to say that we
walked down the Silver Cove road as far as the branch and came back
again. We went very slow, remember, and were gone about an hour."

[Illustration: "It was unlocked and the crimson sweater lay in the top
of the till."]

But once on the road, instead of following it toward the village they
crossed it and made up through the woods. When they reached the creek
they turned up it and went stealthily, keeping a sharp lookout for
Chub and Roy. As it was, in spite of their caution, they very nearly
walked on to them at the deep pool, and had they not fallen instantly to
the ground would have been detected. Afraid to move away lest the
rustling of the branches prompt the others to investigate, they had to
lay there for fully a quarter of an hour while Chub whipped the pool and
Roy went off to sleep. Then they saw Chub wind in his line, glance at
Roy and move toward them. Luckily for them, however, Chub took it into
his head to try the opposite side and so crossed over on the stones and
passed them by. They waited until he had slowly taken himself
downstream. Then Horace sat up and saw the idle pole lying on the ground
almost at Roy's feet. It was Otto who finally, after much persuasion and
threatening, crept over and secured it without arousing the sleeper.
Then, making a little detour, they went on up the creek.

Five minutes brought them to the edge of Farmer Mercer's property and in
view of a placard threatening dire punishment to trespassers. Horace now
donned the crimson sweater, threw his coat to Otto and jointed up the
pole.

"Wish I had a line and fly," he muttered. "They'll think he was a crazy
sort of fisherman, I guess."

Leaving Otto at the wall, he clambered over and stole on. A couple of
hundred yards further on there was a place where the meadow came down to
the stream and where there were neither bushes nor trees to screen it.
It was in full view of Farmer Mercer's big white house which lay perhaps
an eighth of a mile away across the meadow. Here Horace, a
readily-distinguished crimson spot against the green of the farther
trees, halted and went through the motions of casting his line. But all
the time, you may be sure, he kept one eye on the white house. He had
landed just one mythical trout and was preparing to cast again when his
eye caught a dark figure steal