On the moment Chad was alert again—­somebody was fishing down there—­and he sprang from his perch and ran toward the fish just as a woolly head and a jet-black face peeped over the bank.

The pickaninny’s eyes were stretched wide when he saw the strange figure in coonskin cap and moccasins running down on him, his face almost blanched with terror, and he loosed his hold and, with a cry of fright, rolled back out of sight.  Chad looked over the bank.  A boy of his own age was holding another pole, and, hearing the little darky slide down, he said, sharply: 

“Get that fish, I tell you!”

“Look dar, Mars’ Dan, look dar!”

The boy looked around and up and stared with as much wonder as his little body-servant, but with no fear.

“Howdye!” said Chad; but the white boy stared on silently.

“Fishin’?” said Chad.

“Yes,” said Dan, shortly—­he had shown enough curiosity and he turned his eyes to his cork.  “Get that fish, Snowball,” he said again.

“I’ll git him fer ye,” Chad said; and he went to the fish and unhooked it and came down the bank with the perch in one hand and the pole in the other.

“Whar’s yo’ string?” he asked, handing the pole to the still trembling little darky.

“I’ll take it,” said Dan, sticking the butt of his cane-pole in the mud.  The fish slipped through his wet fingers, when Chad passed it to him, dropped on the bank, flopped to the edge of the creek, and the three boys, with the same cry, scrambled for it—­Snowball falling down on it and clutching it in both his black little paws.

“Dar now!” he shrieked.  “I got him!”

“Give him to me,” said Dan.

“Lemme string him,” said the black boy.

“Give him to me, I tell you!” And, stringing the fish, Dan took the other pole and turned his eyes to his corks, while the pickaninny squatted behind him and Chad climbed up and sat on the bank letting his legs dangle over.  When Dan caught a fish he would fling it with a whoop high over the bank.  After the third fish, the lad was mollified and got over his ill-temper.  He turned to Chad.

“Want to fish?”

Chad sprang down the bank quickly.

“Yes,” he said, and he took the other pole out of the bank, put on a fresh wriggling worm, and moved a little farther down the creek where there was an eddy.

“Ketchin’ any?” said a voice above the bank, and Chad looked up to see still another lad, taller by a head than either he or Dan—­evidently the boy whom he had seen rigging a pole up at the big house on the hill.

“Oh, ’bout ’leven,” said Dan, carelessly.

“Howdye!” said Chad.

“Howdye!” said the other boy, and he, too, stared curiously, but Chad had got used to people staring at him.

“I’m goin’ over the big rock,” added the new arrival, and he went down the creek and climbed around a steep little cliff, and out on a huge rock that hung over the creek, where he dropped his hook.  He had no cork, and Chad knew that he was trying to catch catfish.  Presently he jerked, and a yellow mudcat rose to the surface, fighting desperately for his life, and Dan and Snowball yelled crazily.  Then Dan pulled out a perch.