nd another, and another; these would please the women, being
good eating, and perhaps make them hold their tongues when the men came
home. Now the line jerks heavily; what is coming? A grey shadow comes in
sight. "Here with the gaff!" cries Peer, and Peter throws it across to
him. "What is it, what is it?" shriek the other three. "Steady! don't
upset the boat; a catfish." A stroke of the gaff over the side, and a
clumsy grey body is heaved into the boat, where it rolls about, hissing
and biting at the bottom-boards and baler, the splinters crackling under
its teeth. "Mind, mind!" cries Klaus--he was always nervous in a boat.

But Peer was hauling in again. They were nearly half-way across the
fjord by now, and the line came up from mysterious depths, which no
fisherman had ever sounded. The strain on Peer began to show in his
looks; the others sat watching his face. "Is the line heavy?" asked
Klaus. "Keep still, can't you?" put in Martin, glancing along the
slanting line to where it vanished far below. Peer was still hauling. A
sense of something uncanny seemed to be thrilling up into his hands
from the deep sea. The feel of the line was strange. There was no great
weight, not even the clean tug-tug of an ordinary fish; it was as if a
giant hand were pulling gently, very gently, to draw him overboard and
down into the depths. Then suddenly a violent jerk almost dragged him
over the side.

"Look out! What is it?" cried the three together.

"Sit down in the boat," shouted Peer. And with the true fisherman's
sense of discipline they obeyed.

Peer was gripping the line firmly with one hand, the other clutching one
of the thwarts. "Have we another gaff?" he jerked out breathlessly.

"Here's one." Peter Ronningen pulled out a second iron-hooked cudgel.

"You take it, Martin, and stand by."

"But what--what is it?"

"Don't know what it is. But it's something big."

"Cut the line, and row for your lives!" wailed the doctor's son. Strange
he should be such a coward at sea, a fellow who'd tackle a man twice his
size on dry land.

Once more Peer was jerked almost overboard. He thought of the forest
fire the year before--it would never do to have another such mishap
on his shoulders. Suppose the great monster did come up and capsize
them--they were ever so far from land. What a to do there would be
if they were all drowned, and it came out that it was his fault.
Involuntarily he felt for his knife to cut the line--then t