Soon the surge heaved in again, to swell and
growand mount high, and go crashing to ruin. He turned clear over in the air, and
slid down into the sea.
With our luck and the changeof weather we were once
more happy fishermen.
Inlife these teeth had the physical property of
moving to and fro, like theteeth of a reaper.
The depth therecould scarcely have exceeded a foot.
Nor were theysinging for any other reason save the joy of life!
I have heard some fish stories in my day, and this
one ranks high. The sun shone now and then, the wind blew a gale about as often. He
bitreadily; nevertheless I could not hook him. Then on a low, level slope Iflushed a
skylark out of the grass. It sort ofaggravated me to watch these boats run away with
a fish. I had imagined the northeast trade-wind ofthe Gulf to be about the
worst.
I have known such strange facts myself, really
stranger thanany homespun fabrications.
Such a game fish should be giventhe same sporting
chance afforded to others. He bitreadily; nevertheless I could not hook him. By
handling him gently I savedboth fish and line.
This mighthave been accident; but I was not one who
could deem it so.
The most bewilderingly preposterous andstunning
fish stories sometimes are true.
Ominous clouds inthe west loomed up, however, and
in the night a heavy storm broke.
I whooped my congratulations ending with, Lucky
Mitchell!
He turned clear over in the air, and slid down into
the sea. As Itrolled along, suddenly I espied an albatross wheeling and sailing
aroundour boat. I hurried out there, and found they were doing as I had seen mostof
these New Zealand boatmen do.
He tore free from thehook, and in plain sight took
another bait thrown to him. Following that we espied a hammer-head fin.
My Marlin swam on with the big bait plainlyvisible
between his jaws. From a fishermans standpoint, how was I ever going toovercome such
monumental handicaps? There was one lonesome horse on the island, and I appeared
always toencounter him on my walks.
All this happened in a half a minute or
so.
At any rate, they arrived and they were hungry. I
reeled inthe long line without saying a word. We had one fairly good day,
comparedwith the last week or so, but that was not by any means calm.