tuna will not only rest, too, but he will
take more and more line. The method is a long, slow lift or pump of
rod--then lower the rod quickly and wind the reel. When the tuna is
raised so high he will refuse to come any higher, and then there is a
deadlock. There lives no fisherman but what there lives a tuna that can
take the conceit and the fight out of him.

For an hour I worked. I sweat and panted and burned in the hot sun; and
I enjoyed it. The sea was beautiful. A strong, salty fragrance, wet and
sweet, floated on the breeze. Catalina showed clear and bright, with
its colored cliffs and yellow slides and dark ravines. Clemente Island
rose a dark, long, barren, lonely land to the southeast. The clouds in
the west were like trade-wind clouds, white, regular, with level
base-line.

At the end of the second hour I was tiring. There came a subtle change
of spirit and mood. I had never let up for a minute. Captain Dan praised
me, vowed I had never fought either broadbill or roundbill swordfish so
consistently hard, but he cautioned me to save myself.

"That's a big tuna," he said, as he watched my rod.

Most of the time we drifted. Some of the time Dan ran the boat to keep
even with the tuna, so he could not get too far under the stern and cut
the line. At intervals the fish appeared to let up and at others he
plugged harder. This I discovered was merely that he fought the hardest
when I worked the hardest. Once we gained enough on him to cut the
tangle of kite-line that had caught some fifty feet above my leader.
This afforded cause for less anxiety.

"I'm afraid of sharks," said Dan.

Sharks are the bane of tuna fishermen. More tuna are cut off by sharks
than are ever landed by anglers. This made me redouble my efforts, and
in half an hour more I was dripping wet, burning hot, aching all over,
and so spent I had to rest. Every time I dropped the rod on the gunwale
the tuna took line--zee--zee--zee--foot by foot and yard by yard. My
hands were cramped; my thumbs red and swollen, almost raw. I asked Dan
for the harness, but he was loath to put it on because he was afraid I
would break the fish off. So I worked on and on, with spurts of fury and
periods of lagging.

At the end of three hours I was in bad condition. I had saved a little
strength for the finish, but I was in danger of using that up before the
crucial moment arrived. Dan had to put the harness on me. I knew
afterward that it saved the day. By the a