htens. The little rod, firmly
gripped in my hand, bends into a bow of beauty, and a hundred feet
behind us a splendid silver salmon leaps into the air. "What is it?"
cries the Gypsy, "a fish?" It is a fish, indeed, a noble ouananiche,
and well hooked. Now if the gulls were here, who grab little fish
suddenly and never give them a chance, or if the mealy-mouthed
sentimentalists were here, who like their fish slowly strangled to
death in nets, they should see a fairer method of angling.

The weight of the fish is twenty times that of the rod against which he
matches himself. The tiny hook is caught painlessly in the gristle of
his jaw. The line is long and light. He has the whole lake to play in,
and he uses almost all of it, running, leaping, sounding the deep
water, turning suddenly to get a slack line. The Gypsy, tremendously
excited, manages the boat with perfect skill, rowing this way and that
way, advancing or backing water to meet the tactics of the fish, and
doing the most important part of the work.

After half an hour the ouananiche begins to grow tired and can be
reeled in near to the boat. We can see him distinctly as he gleams in
the dark water. It is time to think of landing him. Then we remember,
with a flash of despair, that we have no landing-net! To lift him from
the water by the line would break it in an instant. There is not a foot
of the rocky shore smooth enough to beach him on. Our caps are far too
small to use as a net for such a fish. What to do? We must row around
with him gently and quietly for another ten minutes until he is quite
weary and tame. Now let me draw him softly in toward the boat, slip my
fingers under his gills to get a firm hold, and lift him quickly over
the gunwale before he can gasp or kick. A tap on the head with the
empty rod-case--there he is--the prettiest landlocked salmon that I
ever saw, plump, round, perfectly shaped and coloured, and just six and
a half pounds in weight, the record fish of Jordan Pond!

Do you think that the Gypsy and I wept over our lost rod, or were
ashamed of our flannel shirts and tweeds, as we sat down to our broiled
chickens and pop-overs that evening, on the piazza of the tea-house,
among the white frocks and Tuxedo jackets of the diners-out? No, for
there was our prize lying in state on the floor beside our table. "And
we caught him," said she, "in the gulls' bath-tub!"

LEVIATHAN

The village of Samaria in the central part of the