At last we turned the boat round and went home, the fish swimming alongside, with its mouth open.  And there Aggie, who is occasionally almost inspired, landed the fish by the simple expedient of getting out of the boat, taking the line up a bank and wrapping it round a tree.  By all pulling together we landed the fish successfully.  It was forty-nine inches by Tish’s tape measure.

Tish did not sleep well that night.  She dreamed that the fish had a red mustache and was a spy in disguise.  When she woke she declared there was somebody prowling round the tent.

She got her shotgun and we all sat up in bed for an hour or so.

Nothing happened, however, except that Aggie cried out that there was a small animal just inside the door of the tent.  We could see it, too, though faintly.  Tish turned the shotgun on it and it disappeared; but the next morning she found she had shot one of her shoes to pieces.

III

It was the day Tish began her diary that we discovered the red-haired man’s signal.  Tish was compelled to remain at home most of the day, breaking in another pair of shoes, and she amused herself by watching the river and writing down interesting things.  She had read somewhere of the value of such records of impressions:—­

  10 A.M.  Gull on rock.  Very pretty.  Frightened away by the McDonald
  person, who has just taken up his customary position.  Is he reading
  or watching this camp?

  10.22.  Detective is breakfasting—­through glasses, he is eating canned
  corn.  Aggie—­pickerel, from bank.

  10.40.  Aggie’s cat, beside her, has caught a small fish.  Aggie declares
  that the cat stole one of her worms and held it in the water.  I think
  she is mistaken.

  11.  Most extraordinary thing—­Hutchins has asked permission to take pen
  and ink across to the detective!  Have consented.

  11.20.  Hutchins is still across the river.  If I did not know differently
  I should say she and the detective are quarreling.  He is whittling
  something.  Through glasses, she appears to stamp her foot.

  11.30.  Aggie has captured a small sunfish.  Hutchins is still across the
  river.  He seems to be appealing to her for something—­possibly the
  underwear.  We have none to spare.

11.40.  Hutchins is an extraordinary girl.  She hates men, evidently.  She has had some sort of quarrel with the detective and has returned flushed with battle.  Mr. McDonald called to her as she passed, but she ignored him.

12, noon.  Really, there is something mysterious about all this.  The detective was evidently whittling a flagpole.  He has erected it now, with a red silk handkerchief at end.  It hangs out over the water.  Aggie—­bass, but under legal size.

  1.15 P.M.  The flag puzzles Hutchins.  She is covertly watching it.  It is
  evidently a signal—­but to whom?  Are the secret-service men closing in
  on McDonald?