was at the bottom of the ocean. He was just as unattainable as the
bottom of the ocean. But there are ethics of a sportsman!

Inch by inch and foot by foot I pumped up this live and dragging weight.
I sweat, I panted, I whistled, I bled--and my arms were dead, and my
hands raw and my heart seemed about to burst.

Suddenly Captain Dan electrified me.

"There's the end of the double line!" he yelled.

Unbelievable as it was, there the knot in the end of the short six feet
of double line showed at the surface. I pumped and I reeled inch by
inch.

A long dark object showed indistinctly, wavered as the swells rose, then
showed again. As I strained at the rod so I strained my eyes.

"I see the leader!" yelled Dan, in great excitement.

I saw it, too, and I spent the last ounce of strength left in me. Up and
up came the long, dark, vague object.

"You've got him licked!" exclaimed Dan. "Not a wag left in him!"

It did seem so. And that bewildering instant saw the birth of assurance
in me. I was going to get him! That was a grand instant for a fisherman.
I could have lifted anything then.

The swordfish became clear to my gaze. He was a devilish-looking
monster, two feet thick across the back, twelve feet long over all, and
he would have weighed at the least over four hundred pounds. And I had
beaten him! That was there to be seen. He had none of the beauty and
color of the roundbill swordfish. He was dark, almost black, with huge
dorsal and tail, and a wicked broad sword fully four feet long. What
terrified me was his enormous size and the deadly look of him. I
expected to see him rush at the boat.

Watching him thus, I reveled in my wonderful luck. Up to this date there
had been only three of these rare fish caught in twenty-five years of
Avalon fishing. And this one was far larger than those that had been
taken.

"Lift him! Closer!" called Captain Dan. "In two minutes I'll have a gaff
in him!"

I made a last effort. Dan reached for the leader.

Then the hook tore out.

My swordfish, without a movement of tail or fin, slowly sank--to vanish
in the blue water.

* * * * *

After resting my blistered hands for three days, which time was scarcely
long enough to heal them, I could not resist the call of the sea.

We went off Seal Rocks and trolled about five miles out. We met a
sand-dabber who said he had seen a big broadbill back a ways. So we
turned round. After a while I saw