for nothing smaller could have given a yank like that; besides,
in the glimpse I had of him he looked exactly like pictures I have seen
of the leviathan who went into commission for three days to furnish
passage for Jonah and get his name in print. I found myself suddenly
grabbing at things to hold on to, among them being Eddie's long-handled
net, which was of no value as ballast, but which once in my hand I could
not seem to put down again, being confused and toppling.

As a matter of fact there was nothing satisfactory to get hold of in
that spot. I had not considered the necessity of firm anchorage when I
selected the place, but with a three-ton trout at the end of a long
line, in a current going a thousand miles a minute, I realized that it
would be well to be lashed to something permanent. As it was, with my
legs swinging over that black mill-race, my left hand holding the rod,
and my right clutching the landing net, I was in no position to
withstand the onset of a battle such as properly belongs to the North
Pacific Ocean where they have boats and harpoons and long coiled lines
suitable to such work.

[Illustration: "I remember seeing the sluice, black and swift, suddenly
rise to meet me."]

Still, I might have survived--I might have avoided complete disaster, I
think--if the ends of those two logs I selected as a seat had been as
sound as they looked. Of course they were not. They were never intended
to stand any such motions as I was making. In the brief moment allowed
me for thought I realized this, but it was no matter. My conclusions
were not valuable. I remember seeing the sluice, black, and swift,
suddenly rise to meet me, and of dropping Eddie's net as I went down.
Then I have a vision of myself shooting down that race in a wild
toboggan ride, and a dim, splashy picture of being pitched out on a heap
of brush and stones and logs below.

When I got some of the water out of my brains so I could think with
them, I realized, first, that I was alive, still clutching my rod and
that it was unbroken. Next, that the whale and Eddie's landing net were
gone. I did not care so especially much about the whale. He had annoyed
me. I was willing to part with him. Eddie's net was a different matter.
I never could go back without that. After all his goodness to me I had
deceived him, slipped away from him, taken his prized net--and lost it.
I had read of such things; the Sunday-school books used to be full of
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