“Now watch,” said Ben, and taking one of the grasshoppers he threw it down into the pool.

Flashes of gold, pink, silver elicited a yell from the lad. Trout appeared swift as light. There was a smash on the surface of the pool, and a trout as long as Marvie’s arm beat the others to that grasshopper.

“Oh, Lord!” whooped Marvie, and he sat down as if his legs had buckled under him.

“He was a big one, about eight pounds, but there’re some that’ll make him a baby,” announced Ben. “Say good–by to your Christmas–gift tackle.”

Marvie seemed obsessed with the mystery and beauty in the depths of that pool. They were fascinating, and Ben recalled the days when he was Marvie’s age.

“I told Ina I could bank on Ben,” Marvie soliloquized impressively. He was manifestly making a most momentous decision.

“Come on,” called Ben, gayly, rousing the lad. “We’ll climb down up here, and get on that point. It’s the best place, though when I want a trout to eat I just yank him up from here.”

“Yank one of those big ones?” queried Marvie, incredulously.

“No, not the biggest,” laughed Ben. “But the small ones, say one to two pounds, sometimes more. They’re best to eat.”

It was necessary for Ben to help Marvie down the high bank and out to the end of the cape. The footing was precarious, and though Marvie was valiant he did not possess length of limb to conquer certain steps without help. The point, however, afforded a comfortable and safe place from which to fish. Ben did not miss the trembling of Marvie’s hands or the startled, dreamy, expectant light of his eyes.

“Try a worm bait first,” advised Ben. “Then maybe you’ll catch a few before some big lunker takes that outfit away from you.”

Marvie seemed speechless, but he gazed up at Ben with a fleeting glance of ecstasy. Then he baited his hook and cast it out. Scarcely had it time to sink before a trout seized it and ran. Marvie jerked so hard that he pulled the trout unceremoniously out, to drop flopping on the bank, where he and Ben frantically pounced upon it. Ben secured it, a nice fat rainbow about a pound in weight.

“Gee!” whispered Marvie, very low. “Biggest trout I ever caught!”

“Son, he’s a baby,” said Ben, stringing the fish on a willow. “His great–great–great–great–granddad is in that hole.”

“Oh, why wouldn’t Ina come!” cried Marvie, poignantly.

“Wouldn’t she?” asked Ben, in apparent innocence.

“No. Girls are queer. Said she couldn’t run after you. I’ll get her to come yet…. Now, Ben, here goes again. You’ve got me scared stiff. But, oh, this’s heaven.”

Marvie found himself at once attached to another trout, not much larger than the first, but one that got his head and gave the lad some trouble and immense excitement before it was landed.

On a third cast a fish took the wiggling worm right off the surface, exciting Marvie to the extent that he jerked too soon and missed.