“We don’t want those alligators,” the boy remarked, when the trapper threw several of the gars into the boat. “They have a long snout and are covered with horny plates just like alligators,” the boy continued. “They surely would be alligators if they had legs. I couldn’t eat them.”
“That’s all right,” Barker laughed. ”You needn’t. Most white men throw them away, but I learned from the Indians how to fix them. You pour boiling water on their plates and they come off in big pieces. Their meat has a fine flavor and they don’t have any sharp little bones like pickerel and most of the suckers. I think you’ll eat them after they are smoked or fried.”
CHAPTER X—CATCHING A MONSTER
Bill helped Tatanka and Barker to smoke the fish they had caught and then was ready for another trip.
“Can’t we go again, before it gets too cold?” he asked. “Let us go again, Mr. Barker, this meat won’t last long. I just wish Tim could go, too!”
The old trapper himself had also caught the fever. “I reckon, boy,” he admitted, “we ought to make another haul or two, but the next time we’ll take a seine. Did you ever fish with a seine! It is more fun than with a gill-net, but we must go soon, before the water gets too cold, for in seining, the fisherman gets as wet as the fish.”
On the next warm day, Barker remarked at breakfast: “Bill, this looks like a good day. I guess we’ll be off right away.”
The two fishermen rode down stream to a place where a deep bayou or slough joined the main river. They started to seine half a mile up the bayou. One end of the seine was tied to a stout pole driven into the bottom of the bayou. The other end, they swung around in a half-circle, Bill rowing the boat and the trapper managing the seine from the stern of the boat. They caught all kinds of fish in the same manner that boys and fishermen catch minnows. Their troubles began when they started to make a haul in a strong current in deep water near the mouth of the bayou. The net caught on a submerged stump and could not be pulled off against the current.
“I reckon we’re stuck,” said Barker, as he found it impossible to move the seine either one way or the other.
“Let me dive in and fix it,” begged the boy, as he began to strip. Barker thought the water was too cold, but Bill said he wouldn’t mind it, and it wouldn’t take long to try it.