“Now we’ll see who catches the first fish!” exclaimed Laddie, as he sat down on the pier.

“I’m not fishing for fish, I’m fishing for crabs,” said Russ.

“Well, in this race we’ll count a crab and a fish as the same thing,” returned Laddie.  “We’ll see who gets the first one.”

The boys waited some time.  Now and then Russ would feel a little tug at his line, as if the crabs were tasting his bait, but had not quite made up their minds to take a good hold so he could pull them up and catch them in the net.  And the cork float on Laddie’s line would bob up and down a little as though he, too, had nibbles.  But neither of them had caught anything yet.

Suddenly Laddie felt a hard tug, and he yelled: 

“Oh, I got one!  I got one!  I got the first bite!”

He yanked on his pole.  Something brown and wiggling came up out of the water and flopped down on the wharf.  At the same time a little dog that had run up behind the two boys and was sniffing around, gave a sudden yelp.

“What’s the matter?” cried Russ.

“He’s bit by a Sallie Growler!  The Sallie Growler you caught bit my dog on the nose!” exclaimed another boy and he began striking at the brown thing Laddie had caught, which was now fast to the nose of the dog that had been eating marshmallows the night before.

CHAPTER XX

THE WALKING FISH

Laddie dropped his fishing-pole.  Russ let go of his crab-line, and they both stood looking at the dog and at the strange boy.  The dog was howling, and trying to paw off from his nose a queer and ugly-looking fish that had hold of it.  It was the fish Laddie had caught and which the boy had called a “Sallie Growler.”

“Cousin Tom told us about them last night,” thought Russ.  “I wonder why they have such a funny name, and what makes ’em bite so.”

But he did not ask the questions aloud just then.  There was too much going on to let him do this.

The dog was howling, and the new boy was yelling, at the same time striking at the fish on the end of his dog’s nose.

“Take him off!  Take off that Sallie Growler!” yelled the boy.

But the brown fish Laddie had caught looked too ugly and savage.  Neither of the little Bunkers was going to touch it and the new boy did not seem to want to any more than did Russ or Laddie.

As for the dog, he could not help himself.  The fish had hold of him; he didn’t have hold of the fish.

Finally, after much howling and pawing, the dog either knocked the fish off his nose, or the Sallie Growler let go of its own accord and lay on the pier.

“Poor Teddy!” said the boy as he bent over his pet to pat him.  “Did he hurt you a lot?” The dog whimpered and wagged his tail.  He did not seem to be badly hurt, though there were some spots of blood on his nose.

“I guess he’ll be all right if the Sallie Growler doesn’t poison him,” said the boy.  “How’d you come to catch it?” he asked, looking from Laddie to Russ.