Tom Ross cut the slim pole that he had already picked out and measured with his eye, took squirming bait from the soft earth under a stone, just as millions of boys in the Mississippi valley have done, and started for the creek, Paul being delegated to accompany him, while Henry, Long Jim and the shiftless one proceeded to build a fire in the most secluded spot they could find. There was danger in a fire, but they could shield the smoke, or at least most of it, and the risk must be taken anyhow. They could not eat raw the fish which they did not doubt for a moment Tom Ross would soon bring. Meanwhile Paul and Tom reached the banks of the creek, which was all the silent one had claimed for it, fifteen feet wide, two feet deep, clear water, flowing over a pebbly bottom. Tom tied his string to the pole, and threw in the hook and bait. "You watch, I fish," he said. Paul, his rifle in the crook of his arm, strolled a little bit down the stream, examining the forest and listening attentively for any hostile sound. Since it was his business to protect the fisherman while he fished, he meant to protect him well, and no enemy could have come near without being observed by him. And yet he had enough detachment from the dangers of their situation to drink deep in the beauty of the wilderness, which was here a tangle of green forest, shot with wild flowers and cut by clear running waters. But he did not go so far that he failed to hear a thump where Tom Ross was sitting, and he knew that a fine fish had been landed. Presently a second thump came to his ear, and, glancing through the bushes, he saw Tom taking the fish off the hook, a look of intense satisfaction on his face. Then the silent fisherman threw in the line again and leaned back luxuriously against the trunk of a tree, while he waited for his third bite. Paul smiled. He knew that Silent Tom was happy, happy because he had prepared for and was achieving a necessary task. Paul went on in a circuit about the fisherman, crossing the creek lower down, where it was narrower, on a fallen log, and discovered no sign of a foe, though he did come to a bed of wild flowers, the delicate pale blue of which pleased him so much that he broke off two blossoms and thrust them into his deerskin tunic. Then he came back to Silent Tom, to find that he had caught four fine large fish, and, having thrown away his pole, was winding up his line. "'Nuff," said the silent one. "I think so, too," said Paul, "and now we'll hurry back with 'em." "Look like a flower garden, you!" "If I do I'm glad of it." "Like it myself." "I know you do, Tom. I know that however you may appear, and that however fierce and warlike you may be at times, your character rests upon a solid bedrock of poetry."