"Then you shall stay with Sydney," decided Hope. "But I am only going to fish a little while, anyway, because I've got something else I want to do." She looked up at Livingston, who had come near her, and laughed. "Yes, you may go with me if you will show me how to cast a fly. Sydney says you are an expert fisherman, but I don't know the first thing about it. We will walk up the creek and fish down, because the boys are fishing down here." She called to the boy, who was walking toward the stream: "I'll be ready to go home in about an hour, wait for me!" He nodded in reply. "Come on," she said to Livingston. They had fished in silence some minutes, far up the stream at an open point where several other smaller streams joined this, forming a broad group of tiny, gravelly islands. "I do think," said the girl finally, "that this is great sport, though I cannot haul them out like you do. Now it must be luck--nothing more, for we both have exactly the same kind of flies." "You leave your fly too long in the water," said the man. "You should cast more--like this." "But I can't for the life of me get the hang of it," she exclaimed, making a desperate attempt. "Not like that," said Livingston. "Look, this is the way. There, you've caught yourself!" "Yes, how foolish," laughed the girl. "It's in there to stay, too!" "Wait, I will assist you," he said, leaping across the stream which separated them, and coming to her side. "I think I can get it out all right," she said, throwing down her pole, and using on the entangled hook more force than discretion. She laughed in a half-vexed manner at her attempts, while Livingston stood near watching, his eyes earnest, intent, his face illumed by a soft, boyish smile of quiet enjoyment. "If I had another hook I'd cut this off and leave it in there," she said, "but the fishing is too fine to leave now. No, wait a minute," motioning him back with the disengaged hand while she tugged vigorously at the hook with the other. "I can do it. If only the material in this waist wasn't so strong, I might tear it out. How perfectly idiotic of me to do such a thing, anyway!" Her cheeks were aflame with the exertion. "You see," she continued, still twisting her neck and looking down sideways at the shoulder of her gown where the hook was imbedded, "I don't want to break it because we'd have to go way back to the camp and start in over, and then it would be too late in the day. I don't see what possessed that fish to get away with my other hook! But this goods simply won't tear!" "There's no other way," declared Livingston, with conviction. "You will have to let me help you. I'll cut it out. See," he scrutinized the hook very closely, while Hope threw down her arms in despair, "it's only held by a few threads. If you don't mind doing a little mending, I will perform the operation in a moment to your entire satisfaction." "Well, hurry, please, because we are certainly wasting good time and lots of fish."