if he deemed this
retreat secure. But when he felt a motive power, over which he had no
control, gently drawing him by the head from his old abode, and the
consequent slight, shooting pang of the hook, away he flew, right up
towards the pram, flapped his tail furiously to the right and left, and
then bounced about his native pool, indignant of the vile trick that had
been played him. R----, was soon rowed to the bank, and I stood by his
side gaff in hand.

"Look out," said R----, in an under tone; and, turning up the sleeve of
my coat, I gave the gaff the full length of the handle. The fish,
however, saw me move, and like a flash of lightning, clove the water to
its lowest depth. The line passed with such rapidity between R----'s
thumb and forefinger, that it almost cut them off.

The manoeuvring of ten minutes more brought the salmon within a few
feet of the bank, and crawling through the rushes, I remained ready to
perform my part of the tragedy. Near and nearer, turned on his back, and
panting laboriously, the fish allowed himself to be drawn towards the
shore. Lowering the gaff slowly into the stream, till I guessed it was
two or three inches below the fish, and then making a sudden lunge, I
pierced the soft part of the stomach a little behind the two fore fins,
and lifted the salmon from the water.

"You did that devilish well," exclaimed R----, hurrying up to remove the
hook. The salmon plunged in every direction violently; and it was with
great difficulty I could keep my hold of the gaff.

"Make haste," I said, "or he will be off the gaff; see, how the flesh of
the stomach is ripping!"

And so it was. The weight of the salmon was sufficient to tear the
tender part of the flesh under the stomach, and the longer I held the
fish from the ground to allow R---- to remove the hook, the more
probable it appeared, that, the salmon by his furious struggles, would
lacerate and divide the flesh, and fall from the gaff.

"Poor wretch!" said R----, as he strove to unfasten the hook from the
ligaments of the jaw, "I am keeping him in his pain a long time; but I
can't help it."

"I must put him on the ground," I observed, when the fish by its
struggles nearly twisted the gaff from my hand.

"No; for heaven's sake, don't!" exclaimed R----. "He'll knock both of us
into the water if you do. There," continued R----, holding the hook, at
last, in his hand, and cleansing it from slime and gore on the cuff of
his coat, "put