Arrived at a spot where the pond dug into a soft green bank, rounding into a beautiful semi-circular basin, brother and sister there camped. Ted insisted that Nancy take the choicest seat, a smooth spot on the big tree that must have been felled years before, and which had found comfortable quarters on the edge of the jolly little stream. Sympathetic ferns stretched their soft green fronds along the sides of the naked wood, as if they wanted to supply the fallen tree with some of the verdure of which it had been cruelly bereft, and even a gay, flowering swamp lily, that wonderful flaming flower that holds its chalice above all other wood blooms, bent just a little toward the one branch of that tree that still clung to the parent trunk. Nancy squatted down expectantly. Ted had baited her hook and she was now casting out her line in the smooth, mysterious stream, clear enough on the surface, but darker than night beneath. She had removed her "sneaks" and stockings, so that she might enjoy the freedom of dipping her toes into the little ripples that played around the log. "I don't care whether I catch anything or not," she remarked, "it's lovely just to sit here and fish." "We'll catch, all right," Ted assured her. "This is a great place for fish--regular nest of them in under these rocks." He shifted a little on his perch, which was on a live tree that leaned out of the stream. Presently Nancy developed a song from the tune she had been humming: "Singing eyly-eely-ho! Eyly-eely-ho!" "Got to keep quiet when you fish," Ted interrupted her. "All right," agreed Nancy affably. "But that tune has been simmering all day and I just had to let it light up. Say Ted," she began all over again, "did you hear about your friend, Mr. Sanders, getting rich?" "Rich? I'm glad of it. He's all right," the boy declared, flipping his line to a new spot. "Yep-py, rich," Nancy repeated. "He's living at the hotel." "Oh, I knew that," scoffed the boy, airily. "Did you? Then why didn't you tell me?" "Secret," snapped Ted, shutting his lips with a snap that even a venturesome fish might have heard. "And the Townsends--they are quite prosperous too," Nancy pressed further. "Ye-ah." Ted was not encouraging the confidence. For a few moments neither of them spoke again. Then Nancy's line began to draw, to pull out into a straight line. "Easy!" whispered Ted. "You've got a bite! Don't yank it. Wait until he's on, good and tight!" They waited, breathless. Then Ted, the experienced, gave the signal, and Nancy, the amateur, drew very gently on her pole. Up, up, but still under water, until suddenly the water surface freed the capture, and something black, shiny, snaky, dangled violently from the upheld line! "Oh, Ted, quick! It's a snake! Look a snake!" cried Nancy, getting to her feet finally, after slipping several times on the smooth log.