"Ugh!" grunted the professor, as he reached the trap and placed the lantern in the position indicated, "this water is cold as ice. I want you boys to make haste."
"You'll hear us hollerin' as we come," said Mose, and off they started down the creek in a trot.
As soon as they got out of sight their gait slackened to a walk, which they kept till they reached a point some four hundred yards distant from the trap, when, seating themselves on a log, they began the most uproarious din of yelling and howling that had ever awakened the slumbering echoes of those old woods since the aborigines had vacated the premises.
After about an hour spent in this way the boys got up and advanced slowly up the bank of the stream about a hundred yards, when they seated themselves on another log, where they continued to whoop and yell like so many wild Indians.
After another hour thus spent they made another advance which brought the professor and the fish trap within their range of vision, though, owing to the darkness, they were not visible to him.
"Hurry up, boys!" he shouted. "I'm nearly froze, and the candle's nearly out."
That was what they were waiting for--the candle to burn out--so that their failure to catch fish could be laid to the absence of the light.
"Yes, sir!" they shouted back; "we're hurrying as fast as we can!"
And renewing their yells, they advanced slowly--very slowly--up the stream.
"Hurry up! hurry up!" again shouted the professor. "The candle will be out in two minutes."
"Ay, ay, sir!" shouted Mose back; "but you must stop hollerin', or you'll skeer the fish."
Sure enough, in about two minutes the candle gave a last convulsive flicker, and in the twinkling of an eye thick darkness reigned as absolutely over the professor and the fish trap as elsewhere.
"Boys," said Mose, in a tone of voice loud enough for the professor to hear him, "there ain't no use wadin' in this water any longer; let's go back an' git our cloze."
Seating themselves on a log, they sat perfectly silent for a while--long enough, as they thought, for it to have taken them to go back to where they commenced their drive, dress themselves, and reach that point on their return--when they got up and resumed their progress upstream.