“Quick, Poetry, give me your knife,” Circus ordered.
“What for?” Poetry said, and at the same time shoved his fat hand in his pocket and pulled out his official boy-scout knife and handed it over to Circus, who quick opened the heavy cutting blade and started ripping open the sewed-up stomach of a big northern pike which he’d just pulled out of the sack.
“There’s no sense in carrying home a six pound northern pike with only a quarter of a pound of twenty dollar bills in it,” Circus said, and I knew he was right, ’cause it was a long way back to our camp, and if for any reason we had to run fast, we could do it better without having to lug along those great big fish, especially the biggest one.
I didn’t bother to watch Circus though, ’cause right that second I started peering through the foliage of some oak undergrowth back toward the lake, just as I saw a man come swishing around the corner of the icehouse and stop in front of the opened door.
“Hey _look!_” Dragonfly said to us, “he’s got a big string of big fish.”
Little Jim, who was beside me, holding onto his stick which he always carried with him when we were on a hike or out in the woods, whispered close to my ear and said, “I’ll bet he’s got a lot more money sewed up in a lot more fish, and is going to bury it in the sawdust where these were.”
I happened to have my high-powered binoculars with me so I quick unsnapped the carrying case they were in, zipped them out, raised them to my eyes and right away it seemed like I was only about one-third as far away as I was. I gasped so loud at what I saw--or rather _who_ I saw--that my gasp was almost like a yell.
“SH!” Circus said to us, just like he was the leader of our gang, which he wasn’t, but I was myself--that is, I was _supposed_ to be, ’cause our real leader, Big Jim, wasn’t with us, but was back at camp with Little Tom Till, the newest member of our gang.
“It’s Old Hook-nose, all right,” I said, and knew it was. I could see his stoop-shoulders, dark complexion, red hair, bulgy eyes, bushy eyebrows, and his hook nose.
“What if he finds we’ve dug up part of the fish and run away with them?” Little Jim asked in a half-scared voice.
“Maybe he won’t,” I said, and hoped he wouldn’t.