"All of which," remarked the other boy, with a smile, "goes to show that, as Grandfather Armstrong says, it's poor policy to count your chickens before they're hatched; and a fish on the hook isn't always a fish in the boat. Look what I've caught!"
"An eel, and a big one at that!" exclaimed Roger, looking up from examining the point of his hook, which he found to be in excellent condition after all, so that the fault, if any there was, did not lie there, but possibly in his manner of giving the wriggling fish too much slack line. "Better knock him on the head before you take him in, because a slippery customer like that will soon own the whole boat, and drive us over the side, if he gets to whipping around."
This was good advice, as Dick well knew, and, picking up a billet of wood which they used to dispatch their fish in a humane way when caught, he finally succeeded in killing the large fresh-water eel.
But, somehow, that seemed to put an end to the fishing, for, although they tried the most tempting bait, they did not get another nibble. Even the big yellow catfish, for which the Missouri has always been famous, some of them running up to sixty pounds, declined to bite.
Dick grew anxious at the delay, and several times hinted to his cousin that it would be the part of wisdom for them to give up, even though they still lacked three fish. But it was a difficult task to drag Roger from anything he had set out to do, and he kept reminding the other that they had set a limit of five fish, and that the fish were apt to take hold again at any minute; he was sure he had felt a cautious nibble at his bait just then, and, given another chance, they could easily haul in three more, big or little, it mattered not.
Suddenly a gust of wind came sweeping across the river, and made the dugout rock violently. Looking up, the boys saw that already the breeze was whipping the surface of the Missouri into whitecaps, as the squall rushed across.
"We've waited too long, Roger, you see!" declared Dick, calmly; "and now we've got to find some sort of shelter from the storm, on this side of the river!"
[1] The notes will be found at the end of the book.
[3] See "The Pioneer Boys on the Great Lakes."