you up there before it gets too late."

So the rascal had taken advantage of my brief absence and slipped off
from me. In his guilty haste he had grabbed the first landing net he had
seen, never suspecting that I was using the other. Clearly I was the
injured person. I regarded him with thoughtful reproach while he begged
me to get my rod and come. He would take nothing, he said, but a net,
and would guide for me. I did not care to fish any more that day; but I
knew Eddie--I knew how his conscience galled him for his sin and would
never give him peace until he had made restitution in full. I decided to
be generous.

We made our way above the dam, around an old half-drained pond, and
through a killing thicket of vines and brush to a hidden pool, faced
with slabs and bowlders. There, in that silent dim place I had the most
beautiful hour's fishing I have ever known. The trout were big, gamy
fellows and Eddie was alert, obedient and respectful. It was not until
dusk that he had paid his debt to the last fish--had banished the final
twinge of remorse.

Our day, however, was not quite ended. We must return to camp. The
thicket had been hard to conquer by daylight. Now it was an impenetrable
wall of night and thorns. Across the brook looked more open and we
decided to go over, but when we got there it proved a trackless, swampy
place, dark and full of pitfalls and vines. Eddie, being small and
woods-broken could work his way through pretty well, but after a few
discouragements I decided to wade down the brook and through the shallow
pond above the dam. At least it could not be so deadly dark there.

It was heart-breaking business. I went slopping and plunging among
stumps and stones and holes. I mistook logs for shadows and shadows for
logs with pathetic results. The pond that had seemed small and shallow
by daylight was big enough and deep enough now. A good deal of the way I
went on my hands and knees, but not from choice. A nearby owl hooted at
me. Bats darted back and forth close to my face. If I had not been a
moral coward I should have called for help. Eddie had already reached
camp when I arrived and had so far recovered his spiritual status that
he jeered at my condition. I resolved then not to mention the sluice and
the landing net at all--ever. I needed an immediate change of garments,
of course--the third since morning.[5] It had been a hard, eventful day.
Such days make camping remembered--and worth while.

F