To-day ’Possum professed herself as very willing to join the fishing party: and they set off happily, laden with baskets and quart-pot, to the boat-shed, where Tom dealt mysteriously with the motor. The launch was only a tiny one, fitted up by Mr. Gordon for his fishing expeditions: five or six people filled it comfortably, and it drew so little water that it could be run into the shallowest of bays and creeks.  Tom settled ’Possum and Aileen comfortably in the stern, and Garth took up his usual position, as far out of the bow as he could hang his small person with safety.  Bran whined distressfully on the shore. Ordinary boating-trips were permitted him; but to bring leaping fish into the boat upset all his calmness, and sent him into such paroxysms of barking that when fishing was part of the programme he had been condemned to remain at home.  Garth sorrowed over it, and talked severely to him on the subject of gaining more sense: orations which Bran heard with respect, but which had so far produced no effect.