any
rate, we did not see any or get any bites.

Then I began to fish for bonefish in front of my cottage. Whenever I
would stick my rod in the sand and go in out of the hot sun a bonefish
would take my bait and start off to sea. Before I could get back he
would break something.

This happened several times before I became so aroused that I
determined to catch one of these fish or die. I fished and fished. I
went to sleep in a camp-chair and absolutely ruined my reputation as an
ardent fisherman. One afternoon, just after I had made a cast, I felt
the same old strange vibration of my line. I was not proof against it
and I jerked. Lo! I hooked a fish that made a savage rush, pulled my
bass-rod out of shape, and took all my line before I could stop him.
Then he swept from side to side. I reeled him in, only to have him run
out again and again and yet again. I knew I had a heavy fish. I expected
him to break my line. I handled him gingerly. Imagine my amaze to beach
a little fish that weighed scarcely more than two pounds! But it was a
bonefish--a glistening mother-of-pearl bonefish. Somehow the obsession
of these bonefishermen began to be less puzzling to me. Sam saw me catch
this bonefish, and he was as amazed as I was at the gameness and speed
and strength of so small a fish.

Next day a bonefisherman of years' experience answered a few questions I
put to him. No, he never fished for anything except bonefish. They were
the hardest fish in the sea to make bite, the hardest to land after they
were hooked. Yes, that very, very slight vibration of the line--that
strange feeling rather than movement--was the instant of their quick
bite. An instant before or an instant after would be fatal.

It dawned upon me then that on my first day I must have had dozens of
bonefish bites, but I did not know it! I was humiliated--I was taken
down from my lofty perch--I was furious. I thanked the gentleman for
his enlightenment and went away in search of Sam. I told Sam, and he
laughed--laughed at me and at himself. After all, it was a joke. And I
had to laugh too. It is good for a fisherman to have the conceit taken
out of him--if anything can accomplish that. Then Sam and I got our
heads together. What we planned and what we did must make another story.

IX

SWORDFISH

_From records of the New York Bureau of Fisheries,
by G. B. Goode_

The swordfish, _Xiphias gladius_, ranges along the