“Why were you hiding in those bushes?” demanded the leader, of Frank.
“We were watching those two men,” Frank returned promptly, indicating Jed and his companion.
“Watching them? Helping them, you mean.”
“We don’t know yet what they were up to. We were watching the Shore Road for automobile thieves and we saw those men going down into the woods, so we followed them.”
The boys were still completely mystified. Just what errand had brought Jed and the other man to this lonely place at that hour of night, and just who were their captors, remained a puzzle to them.
“You didn’t come here to spear fish?”
“Spear fish?” exclaimed Frank.
“Don’t be so innocent. You know Jed and this fellow were coming down to spear fish by night-light, and it’s against the law!”
The whole situation was now clear. Frank and Joe felt supremely foolish. Instead of trailing two automobile thieves, they had merely been following two farmers of the neighborhood who had been engaged in the lawless activity of spearing fish by night. This explained the mysterious conversation and their allusions to fearing capture. The other men were nothing more or less than game wardens.
“We didn’t know,” said Frank. “We thought perhaps they were the auto thieves.”
The game wardens began to laugh.
“You were on the wrong track that time, son,” said one. “I guess they’re all right, Dan. Let them go.”
The man who had stumbled on them in the bush released Frank reluctantly.
“They gave me a start,” he said. “Hidin’ there so quiet. I was sure they were with this other pair.”
“Never saw either one of them before,” repeated Jed.
“Well, if you stand up for them, I guess they’re telling the truth. You boys beat it out of here and don’t go interfering with our work again. You might have scared these two away if they’d caught sight of you.”
“I wish we had seen ’em,” said Jed. “We wouldn’t be in this mess now.”
“You’d have been caught sooner or later. You’ve been spearing fish in the brooks and ponds around here for the past three weeks, and you know it. You’ll stand a fine in police court tomorrow.”
The Hardy boys did not wait to hear the rest of the argument. Sheepishly, they left the group, thankful to be at liberty again, and retraced their steps up the trail through the wood until they again reached the road. Neither said a word. This inglorious end to the adventure had left them crestfallen.
They mounted their motorcycles and drove back to Bayport. The house was in darkness. Quietly, they went up the back stairs and gained their bedroom.
“Spearing fish!” said Frank in a disgusted voice, as he began to unlace his boots.
He glanced at Joe, who was grinning broadly. Then, as they thought of their cautious pursuit of the two fishermen and of their certainty that they had found the automobile thieves at last, they began to laugh.
“The joke is on us,” snickered Joe.
“It sure is. I hope the game wardens don’t tell anyone about this.”
“If Chet Morton ever gets hold of it we’ll never hear the end of the affair.”
But Chet, who had a way of picking up information in the most unexpected quarters, did hear of it.
XI
Fish
One of the game wardens chanced to live near the Morton farm, and as he was on his way into Bayport next morning to give evidence against the two men arrested, he fell in with Chet and in the course of their conversation chanced to mention the two boys who had so neatly blundered into the trap the previous night.
“Said they were lookin’ for auto thieves,” he chuckled.
“What did they look like?” asked Chet, interested.
“One was dark and tall. The other was about a year younger. A fair-haired chap.”
Chet snorted. The Hardy boys! No one else.
“What are you laughin’ about?” asked the game warden.
“Nothing. I just happened to think of something.”
On his way to school, Chet stopped off at a butcher’s shop long enough to purchase a small fish, which he carefully wrapped in paper. He was one of the first students in the classroom and he watched his opportunity, putting the parcel in Frank Hardy’s desk. Then, before the Hardy boys arrived, he put in the time acquainting his chums with the events of the previous night, so that by the time Frank and Joe came in sight there was scarcely a student in the school who did not know of their blunder.
“It sure is one on the Hardy boys,” remarked Tony Prito.
“I’ll say it is,” returned Biff Hooper. “They don’t usually trip up like that.”
“Trip up? They never do—that is, hardly ever,” put in another pupil.
“They are the cleverest fellows in this burg,” came from one of the other students. “Of course, everybody falls down once in a while.”
“Just the same, it must gall them to think of how they were fooled.”
“You bet.”
Frank and Joe did not at first notice the air of mystery and the grinning faces, as they entered the school yard, but they were soon enlightened. A freshman, apparently very much frightened, came over to them at Chet’s bidding.
“Please,” he said, “my mother wants to know if you’ll call at our house after school.”
“What for?” asked Joe.
“She wants to know if you have any fish to sell.”
Whereupon the freshman took to his heels. There was a roar of laughter from a group of boys who were within hearing. The Hardy boys flushed. Then Chet approached.
“Hello, boys,” he said innocently. “You look sleepy.”
“Do we?”
“What’s the matter? Been up all night?”
“No. We got lots of sleep.”
“Fine. Little boys shouldn’t stay out late at night. It’s bad for ’em. By the way,” continued Chet airily, “I’m going out fishing tonight. I wonder if you’d like to come and sit on the shore and watch me.”
Frank took careful aim with an algebra and hurled it at the jester, but Chet dodged and took to flight, chuckling heartily.
“Fish!” shrieked Jerry Gilroy, from a point of vantage on the steps.
“Fresh fish!” roared Phil
