Billy bends toward the fire. Dick gets you your
dry clothes. Nobody says anything, for everybody is hungry. No one asks
you any questions, for on the River you get in almost any time of
night.
Finally, as you are hanging your wet things near the fire, you inquire
casually over your shoulder,--
"Dick, have any luck?"
Dick tells you. You listen with apparent interest. He has caught a
three-pounder. He describes the spot and the method and the struggle.
He is very much pleased. You pity him.
The three of you eat supper, lots of supper. Billy arises first,
filling his pipe. He hangs water over the fire for the dish-washing.
You and Dick sit hunched on a log, blissfully happy in the moments of
digestion, ruminative, watching the blaze. The tobacco smoke eddies and
sucks upward to join the wood smoke. Billy moves here and there in the
fulfilment of his simple tasks, casting his shadow wavering and
gigantic against the fire-lit trees. By-and-by he has finished. He
gathers up the straps of Dick's creel, and turns to the shadow for your
own. He is going to clean the fish. It is the moment you have watched
for. You shroud yourself in profound indifference.
"_Sacre!_" shrieks Billy.
You do not even turn your head.
"Jumping giraffes! why, it's a whale!" cries Dick.
You roll a _blase_ eye in their direction, as though such puerile
enthusiasm wearies you.
"Yes, it's quite a little fish," you concede.
They swarm down upon you, demanding particulars.
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