one of these days--not `crackers', but
true ones."

"That'll be nice! Now, we're close to the sea-pool; but the tide's too
far in to fish that just now, so we'll go up to the next one, if you
like."

"By all means, my boy. You know the river, and we don't, so we put
ourselves entirely under your guidance and orders," replied Jackman.

By this time they had reached the river at the upper end of the loch.
It ran in a winding course through a level plain which extended to the
base of the encircling hills. The pool next the sea being unfishable,
as we have said, owing to the state of the tide, Junkie conducted his
companions high up the stream by a footpath. And a proud urchin he was,
in his grey kilt and hose, with his glengarry cocked a little on one
side of his curly head, as he strode before them with all the
self-reliance of a Highland chieftain.

In a few minutes they came to the first practicable pool--a wide,
rippling, oily, deep hole, caused by a bend in the stream, the
appearance of which--suggestive of silvery scales--was well calculated
to arouse sanguine hopes in a salmon fisher.

Here Quin proceeded to put together the pieces of his master's rod,
while Jackman, opening a portly fishing-book, selected a casting line
and fly.

"Have you been in India, too?" asked Junkie of Quin, as he watched their
proceedings with keen interest.

"Sure, an' I have--leastways if it wasn't dhreamin' I've bin there."

"An' have _you_ killed lions, and tigers, and elephants?"

"Well, not exactly, me boy, but it's meself as used to stand by an'
howld the spare guns whin the masther was killin' them."

"Wasn't you frightened?"

"Niver a taste. Och! thriflin' craters like them niver cost me a
night's rest, which is more than I can say of the rats in Kinlossie,
anyhow."

A little shriek of laughter burst from Junkie on hearing this.

"What are ye laughin' at, honey?" asked Quin.

"At you not bein' able to sleep for the rats!" returned the boy. "It's
the way with everybody who comes to stay with us, at first, but they get
used to it at last."

"Are the rats then so numerous?" asked Jackman.

"Swarmin', all over! Haven't you heard them yet?"

"Well, yes, I heard them scampering soon after I went to bed, but I
thought it was kittens at play in the room overhead, and soon went to
sleep. But they don't come into the rooms, do they?"

"Oh, no--I only wish they would! Wouldn't we have a jolly hunt if they
did?