We had seen no sign of the bear, or whatever it was, all day, and it seemed likely we were not to be again disturbed.  But a most mysterious thing occurred that very night.

As I have said, we had caught no fish.  The lake was full of them.  We sat on a bank that evening and watched them playing leapfrog, and talked about frying them on red-hot stones, but nothing came near the hairpin.  At last Tish made a suggestion.

“We need worms,” she said.  “A grasshopper loses all his spirit after he’s been immersed for an hour, but a worm will keep on wriggling and attracting attention for half a day.”

“I wanted to bring a spade,” said I.

But Tish had read of a scheme for getting worms that she said the game warden of some place or other had guaranteed officially.

“You stick a piece of wood about two feet into the ground in a likely spot,” she said, “and rub a rough piece of bark or plank across the top.  This man claims, and it sounds reasonable, that the worms think it is raining and come up for water.  All you have to do is to gather them up.”

Tish found a pole for the purpose on the beach and set to work, while Aggie and I prepared several hooks and lines.  The fish were jumping busily, and it seemed likely we should have more than we could do to haul them in.

The experiment, however, failed entirely, for not a single worm appeared.  Tish laid it to the fact that it was very late and that the worms were probably settled down for the night.  It may have been that, or it may have been the wrong kind of wood.

The mysterious happening was this:  We rose quite early because the tepee did not seem to be well anchored and fell down on us at daybreak.  Tish went down to the beach to examine the lines that had been out all night, and found nothing.  She was returning rather dispirited to tell us that it would be rabbit again for breakfast, when she saw lying on a flat stone half a dozen beautiful fish, one or two still gasping, in our lost kettle!

Tish said she stood there, opening and shutting her mouth like the fish.  Then she gave a whoop and we came running.  At first we thought they might have been jumping and leaped out on to the beach by accident, but, as Tish said, they would hardly have landed all together and into a kettle that had been lost for two nights and a day.  The queer thing was that they had not been caught with a hook at all.  They hadn’t a mark on them.

We were so hungry that we ate every one of them for breakfast.  It was only when we had eaten, and were sitting gorged and not caring whether the tent was set up again or not, that we fell to wondering about the fish.  Tish fancied it might have been the driver of the spring wagon, but decided he’d have sold us the fish at thirty cents a pound live weight.

All day long we watched for a sign of our benefactor, but we saw nothing.  Tish set up more rabbit snares; not that she wanted rabbits, but it had become a mania with her, and there were so many of them that as they grew accustomed to us they sat round our camp in a ring and criticized our housekeeping.  She thought if she got a good many skins she could have a fur robe made for her automobile.  As a matter of fact she found another use for them.