their haste, the boys could not resist the temptation to drop their hooks
in promising pools as they moved along. Without half trying, they
accumulated a dozen fine trout. The smaller ones they carefully unhooked
and threw back into the stream.

They passed through the gap in the mountain and started to cross the
bottom to the fire trail. At the brook in the middle of the valley they
paused to make one last cast in an especially inviting pool. At that
moment two men came out of a near-by thicket. Both were smoking. They were
equipped like fishermen, though they had no fish. They were rough looking,
with hard faces. One of them had an ugly scar above his right eye and
showed a mouthful of gold teeth when he took his cigar from his mouth, as
he asked, "What luck?"

"We've got a few," replied Charley, extending his creel for their
inspection.

The man looked at the fish and swore savagely. "These kids have fished
the brook out," he growled. "There's no use trying this stream. We'll have
to go on to the next valley."

Charley was in a quandary. These men, with their cigars, were a menace to
the forest. It made him nervous merely to look at the glowing tobacco and
the careless way the men flicked the ashes about. He was almost
panic-stricken at the idea of their passing into his own valley while he
was absent. He did not know whether to tell them the truth about his fish
or remain silent. But he remembered that his watch in that valley was
supposed to be a secret one, and he said nothing. Afterward he was glad
that he had remained silent.