"Think you're smart, don't you," he cried, "shooting my fish. Here, gimme that. What do you think you're doing?" But Benny Ellison, holding the big pickerel away from Tim, showed no intention of giving it up. "Who told you it was your fish?" he replied, sneeringly. "I shot it. It's mine." "Give me back that fish!" repeated Little Tim. "I'll tell Harvey on you. You'll get another ducking." He seized Benny Ellison by an arm, but the other, bigger and stronger, pushed him back roughly. "Go on," he said, and added, while a grin overspread his fat face, "That's no fish, anyway. Whoever heard of catching fish in trees? That's a bird, Timmy, and I shot it. See its tail-feathers?" He swung the fish and gave Little Tim a slap over the head with the tail of it, that brought the tears to Tim's eyes. "Go on, tell Harvey," he said. "This bird's mine." Dangling the pickerel by the gills, and shouldering his gun, he pushed on upstream through the alders, leaving Little Tim angry and smarting. "I'll get even with you, Benny Ellison," called Tim; but the other only laughed and went on. Tim slowly unjointed his rod, tied the pieces together in a compact bundle, gathered up his string of remaining fish and started homeward. When he had gone on about a quarter of a mile, however, he suddenly paused and stood for a moment, considering something. Then he looked about him, stepped into a little thicket where he hid his pole and fish carefully from sight, then retraced his steps upstream. He went on through the alders and brush, till presently he heard the report of the gun. Guided by the sound, he continued on for a little way, then shinned into the branches of a tall cedar, heavily wooded, and from there got a view upstream. Several rods away, he could see the alders move, thrust aside by Benny Ellison. Little Tim seated himself amid the branches, safely hidden, and waited. Some ten or fifteen minutes passed, and then the snapping of underbrush told of the approach of Benny Ellison, on his return. That his shot had told was evidenced by another pickerel which he carried, hung by the gills on the crotch of an alder branch, together with the big fellow that Little Tim had caught. Tim's eyes snapped as he saw the fish. Benny Ellison, chuckling to himself, passed the tree where Tim crouched, high above him. Almost within the shadow of it, he stopped and laughed heartily, as he glanced down at the big pickerel. "It's a bird," he cried. "Shot it in a tree--what luck!" Not until he had gone some distance did Little Tim emerge from hiding, scramble to the ground and follow. Dodging from tree to tree, and pausing frequently, he saw Benny Ellison finally seat himself on a log beside the stream. Tim waited. Then a smile of satisfaction crossed his freckled face as Benny Ellison began stripping off his clothes for a swim. Little Tim, crouching low, almost crawling, crept closer.