"Guess you know enough about automobiles, Whittington, to handle this engine. Keep the sloop close by and watch me haul. You can take your turn when I get tired."
Gaffing the buoy aboard, he pulled up the anchor, and soon was hauling in the trawl over the wooden roller on the starboard bow. Percy watched with all his eyes. This was real fishing.
As the line came in Jim coiled it smoothly down into an empty tub on a stand in the bow. The first three hooks were skinned clean.
"Something down there, at any rate," he commented.
The trawl sagged heavily.
"First fish, and a good-sized one! Pretty logy, though! Feels like a hake!"
Percy stared down into the blackish-green water. Out of its gloomy depths rose an indistinct shadow, gradually assuming definite shape. A blunt, lumpy head with big, staring eyes broke the surface; two long streamers hung from beneath the lower jaw.
Jim reached for his gaff.
"Hake! And a good one, too!"
Striking the sharp iron hook through the fish's gills, he lifted the slimy gray body over the gunwale, unhooked it, and slung it, floundering, over the kid-board into the empty space amidships.