"Grey, Zane - Betty Zane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grey Zane)

"Was not that delightful?" she asked, with just a little conscious pride
glowing in her dark eyes.

"Miss Zane, it was more than that. I apologize for my suspicions. You have
admirable skill. I only wish that on my voyage down the River of Life I could
have such a sure eye and hand to guide me through the dangerous reefs and
rapids."

"You are poetical," said Betty, who laughed, and at the same time blushed
slightly. "But you are right about the guide. Jonathan says 'always get a good
guide,' and as guiding is his work he ought to know. But this has nothing in
common with fishing, and here is my favorite place under the old sycamore."

With a long sweep of the paddle she ran the canoe alongside a stone beneath a
great tree which spread its long branches over the creek and shaded the pool.
It was a grand old tree and must have guarded that sylvan spot for centuries.
The gnarled and knotted trunk was scarred and seamed with the ravages of time.
The upper part was dead. Long limbs extended skyward, gaunt and bare, like the
masts of a storm beaten vessel. The lower branches were white and shining,
relieved here and there by brown patches of bark which curled up like old
parchment as they shelled away from the inner bark. The ground beneath the
tree was carpeted with a velvety moss with little plots of grass and clusters
of maiden-hair fern growing on it. From under an overhanging rock on the bank
a spring of crystal water bubbled forth.

Alfred rigged up the rods, and baiting a hook directed Betty to throw her line
well out into the current and let it float down into the eddy. She complied,
and hardly had the line reached the circle of the eddy, where bits of white
foam floated round and round, when there was a slight splash, a scream from
Betty and she was standing up in the canoe holding tightly to her rod.

"Be careful!" exclaimed Alfred. "Sit down. You will have the canoe upset in a
moment. Hold your rod steady and keep the line taut. That's right. Now lead
him round toward me. There," and grasping the line he lifted a fine rock bass
over the side of the canoe.

"Oh! I always get so intensely excited," breathlessly cried Betty. "I can't
help it. Jonathan always declares he will never take me fishing again. Let me
see the fish. It's a goggle-eye. Isn't he pretty? Look how funny he bats his
eyes," and she laughed gleefully as she gingerly picked up the fish by the
tail and dropped him into the water. "Now, Mr. Goggle-eye, if you are wise, in
future you will beware of tempting looking bugs."

For an hour they had splendid sport. The pool teemed with sunfish. The bait
would scarcely touch the water when the little orange colored fellows would
rush for it. Now and then a black bass darted wickedly through the school of
sunfish and stole the morsel from them. Or a sharp-nosed fiery-eyed
pickerel--vulture of the water--rising to the surface, and, supreme in his
indifference to man or fish, would swim lazily round until he had discovered