“Now, then,” he said to Dick and Tom, “Cal will show you how to do the thing. I’ll sail the boat back and forth through the schools, spilling wind so as to keep speed down. Oh, it’s great sport.”
“Well, you shall have your share of it then,” said Dick, carefully coiling his line. “After I’ve tried it a little, and seen what sort of sailing it needs, I’ll relieve you at the tiller and you shall take my line.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Cal with a slower drawl than usual by way of giving emphasis to his words. “Not if I see you first. After Larry has run us through the school two or three times, missing it more than half the time, I’ll take the tiller myself and give you a real chance to hook a fish or two.”
Dick knew Cal well enough to understand that he was in earnest and that there would be no use in protesting or arguing the matter. Besides that, he hooked a big fish just at that moment, and was jerked nearly off his feet. The strength of the pull astonished him for a moment. He had never encountered a fish of any kind that could tug like that, and for the moment he forgot that the dory was doing most of the pulling. In the meanwhile he had lost his fish by holding his line too firmly and dragging the hook out of its mouth.
“That’s your first lesson,” said Cal, as deliberately as if there had been no exciting sport on hand, and with like deliberation letting his own line slip slowly through his tightened fingers. “You must do it as I am doing it now,” he continued. “You see, I have a fish at the other end of my line and I want to bring him aboard. So instead of holding as hard as a check post, I yield a little to the exigencies of the situation, letting the line slip with difficulty through my fingers at first and long enough to transmit the momentum of the boat to the fish. Then, having got his finny excellency well started in the way he should go, I encourage persistency in well doing on his part by drawing in line. Never mind your own line now. We’ve run through the school and Larry is heaving-to to let Tom and me land our fish. You observe that Tom has so far profited by his close study of my performance that—yes, he has landed the first fish, and here comes mine into the boat. You can set her going again, Larry; I won’t drag a line this time, but devote all my abilities to the instruction of Dick.”
On the next dash and the next no fish were hooked. Then, as the boat sailed through the school again, Dick landed two beauties, and Tom one.
“That ends it for to-day,” said Larry, laying the boat’s course toward the heavily wooded mainland at the point where Cal had suggested a stay of several days for shooting.
“But why not make one more try?” eagerly asked Tom, whose enthusiasm in the sport was thoroughly aroused; “haven’t we time enough?”
“Yes,” said Larry, “but we have fish enough also. The catch will last us as long as we can keep the fish fresh, which isn’t very long in this climate, and we never catch more fish or kill more game than we can dispose of. It is unsportsmanlike to do that, and it is wanton cruelty besides.”