Leaving Otto at the wall, he clambered over and stole on. A couple of hundred yards further on there was a place where the meadow came down to the stream and where there were neither bushes nor trees to screen it. It was in full view of Farmer Mercer's big white house which lay perhaps an eighth of a mile away across the meadow. Here Horace, a readily-distinguished crimson spot against the green of the farther trees, halted and went through the motions of casting his line. But all the time, you may be sure, he kept one eye on the white house. He had landed just one mythical trout and was preparing to cast again when his eye caught a dark figure stealing along the porch toward the meadow gate. Out flew the non-existent line. Through the gate hurried Farmer Mercer. Then, as though catching sight of the latter for the first time, Horace became apparently panic-stricken. He dropped his pole, picked it up again, looked this way and that for escape, made as though tossing a trout back into the stream, and finally, when the farmer was less than two hundred yards away, dropped his pole again and plunged into the bushes. "Hi!" shouted the pursuer. "Hi! Come back, you rascal!" But Horace refused the invitation. Instead he made for the spot where Otto was awaiting him, running, however, so slowly that the farmer had him in sight for fully a minute as he threaded his way through the trees along the creek. The farmer's cries continued and the farmer still pursued, trying his best to head off the fugitive. But he was running a losing race, for when Horace picked up Otto they ran in earnest and all the farmer had for his trouble was a discarded fishing pole minus line or hook and a vivid memory of a crimson sweater.