For nearly half an hour Prescott saw nothing of his friends.
Then Dave and Greg came in sight. d.i.c.k held up a string now numbering eleven trout, some of them unusually large.
For answer Greg held up a crotched stick with not a single trout dangling therefrom.
"There"s more knack to this game than I can catch," muttered Darry disconsolately, "but I"d give a good deal to get the knack of it."
"No man save the first trout fisherman of all ever learned without a teacher," d.i.c.k a.s.sured his chum. "Greg, you take a place farther down the stream, and I"ll stay with Dave and try to show him some of the tricks. You may have my pole and line, Greg, for I shall be busy watching Dave."
Many a pull at his line had Darrin, and many a fish was lost ere, under Prescott"s patient instruction, he managed to land a trout weighing about a pound.
"Whew!" muttered Dave, mopping his brow. "At this moment I believe I feel prouder than any general who ever captured a city."
"You"ll soon have the hang of it, now, Dave," was his chum"s encouraging a.s.surance. "Now, I"m going to hunt up Holmesy, and see if I can show him some of the knack."
Greg proved a grateful though not very clever pupil. He was all enthusiasm, but the art of landing a trout appeared to him to be one of the most difficult feats in the world.
"I don"t believe I"ll ever land enough to fill a frying pan,"
he said dejectedly. "d.i.c.k, the fellows are depending upon you.
Take this pole and use it for the next hour."
Later in the forenoon Greg had one small trout on a stick he had cut and trimmed for himself. Dave Darrin looked almost triumphant as he displayed three of the speckled ones. Both stared in envy at d.i.c.k"s string of thirty-four trout.
"Of course it"ll take a few days of patient study of the game to enable you to make big catches," was d.i.c.k"s consoling a.s.surance.
"I"d put in all summer, if I were sure I could master the trick in the end," said Dave.
Greg said nothing, but felt less resolute about it than Darrin did.
"Why, it"s only fifteen minutes before noon," cried Dave, glancing at his watch.
"Then it"s high time to be going back," nodded d.i.c.k, "in case the fellows are depending upon us for their meal. If Tom has a lot of ba.s.s, though, we can store these trout in our new ice box---the cave."
"And let the Man with the Haunting Face slip in there, after dark, and help himself!" grumbled Darry. "Somehow that idea doesn"t make any hit with me."
"Then we"ll have to put in the afternoon," proposed Prescott, "in building a log-lined pit in the ground and moving ice from the cave to fill it. Then we can keep our fish supplies right up under our noses in front of the tent."
"That"s a little more satisfactory in the way of an idea," nodded Darry.
For the purpose of taking a short cut they soon left the brook, going through a stretch of woods on their way to camp.
Hardly had these high school boys entered the woods when they halted, for an instant, in intense consternation.
On the air there came to them a sudden scream.
"That was a girl"s voice!" gasped Greg.
"Or a woman"s," nodded d.i.c.k. "We"ve got to-----"
Again a piercing scream, then more screams in two voices.
"Hustle!" finished d.i.c.k, as the three boys broke into a run in the direction whence the sound of the voices came to them.
CHAPTER XVI
THE CAMP INVADED AND CAPTURED
Clad in their long fishing boots, none of the boys made anything like his usual speed in running.
Grumbling inwardly at their clumsy gait, all three hurried as fast as they could into the near-by stretch of forest.
There, in a path, they came upon a middle-aged woman accompanied by four girls, all of whom showed signs of unusual alarm.
"Oh, Dave," called Belle Meade, "I"m so glad to see you!"
"You usually are," laughed Darrin, "but I never knew you to make so much noise about it before."
"What"s the trouble?" d.i.c.k inquired, after a hasty greeting to Mrs. Bentley, Laura Bentley, Belle Meade, Fannie Upham and Margery White, the latter four all Gridley High School girls.
"A man---he must have been crazy!" replied Laura. Her voice shook slightly, and she was still trembling, though the color was beginning to return to her face.
"Did he offer to molest you?" flared d.i.c.k.
"No, indeed!" replied Mrs. Bentley promptly and laughing nervously.
"In fact, I think we must have frightened the man, for his desire seemed to be to get away from us as fast as he could."
"But that face!" cried Miss f.a.n.n.y. "I never want to see it again."
"It must have been our Man of the Haunting Face," murmured d.i.c.k, turning to his chums.
"That was he---just who it was!" declared Belle, with emphasis.
"I don"t know whom you"re talking about, but "haunting face"
just describes the man who frightened us."
"It was so silly of us!" murmured Laura Bentley. "It was clear nonsense for us to be so frightened, but when, we saw that face peering at us from behind a tree we simply couldn"t help screaming."
"Are you alone?" demanded Prescott in some astonishment, for these were carefully brought-up girls, and it was not like their parents to let them go into the woods without other guard than that of a chaperon.
At that instant d.i.c.k"s question was answered by the appearance of Dr. Bentley, who, on account of his weight, panted somewhat as he ran.
"Did---these---young men frighten---you so badly---that you---made such a commotion---and caused me nearly to breathe---my last in running to---your aid?" demanded the good doctor gaspingly, his eyes twinkling.
"No, sir; we came, like yourself, when we heard the girls scream,"
d.i.c.k Prescott explained.
Then, amid much talking, and with as many as three people speaking at once, the story was quickly recounted for Dr. Bentley.