"Choose your own company and I'll choose mine," answered Bob Bangs, loftily, and stalked away, his nose tilted high in the air. Angry words arose to Randy's lips but he repressed them and said nothing. In a moment more some goods on the dock hid the big boy from view. "Don't you care for what he says," said Jack, quickly. "He thinks a few dollars are everything in this world." "I didn't mind him--much, Jack." "Wanted you to get out of my boat, didn't he?" "Yes. He didn't know I was waiting for you." "That was a good joke on him." "I can't understand why he is so disagreeable." "It was born in him," said Jack, as he leaped into the rowboat and stowed away his fishing outfit. "His father is the same way and so is his mother. They think that just because they have money everybody else, especially a poor person, is dirt under their feet." "Why, Jack, I guess your father is as rich as Mr. Bangs." "Maybe he is." "And you don't put on such airs." "And I don't intend to. Money is a good thing to have, but it isn't everything--that is what my father and mother say." "Bob wouldn't want me out in his boat with him." "Maybe you wouldn't like to go out with him either." "You are right there. I am getting so I hate to speak to him." "Well, I am getting that way, too. Every time we meet he tries to impress it upon me that he is a superior person,--and I don't see it." "Your father and his father have some business dealings, haven't they?" "Yes, they are interested in the same iron company,--and from what father says, I think they are going to have trouble before long." "I hope your father comes out ahead." "It is this way: Father has a controlling interest and Mr. Bangs is doing his best to get it away from him. If Mr. Bangs can get control he will, so father says, join the company of a larger concern, and then father will be about wiped out and he won't get more than half of what is really coming to him." "But wouldn't that be fraud?" "Yes, morally, but not legally--so father says," answered Jack, and heaved a sigh. "I hope it all comes out right." "And so do I--for your sake as well as for your folks," added Randy, heartily. CHAPTER II AT THE FISHING HOLE The fishing hole for which the two boys were bound was on the river about a mile and a half above the town. At this point the stream was thirty to forty feet wide and ten to fifteen feet deep. It was lined on one side with sharp rocks and on the other by thick trees and bushes. At the foot of some of the rocks, where the river made a bend, there was a deep hole, and this some of the lads, including Randy and Jack, considered an ideal place for fishing. The boys did not row directly for the hole, being afraid they might scare the fish away. Instead they landed below the spot, tied fast to a tree root between the stones, and then crawled over the big rocks until they reached a point from which they could cast into the hole with ease.