“Oh, I do wish you’d try and take it differently,” I said, looking pleasantly at him the while. “Now, look here, I’m going to catch a fish.”
As I spoke, I put a large bait on the strong hook I had ready, threw it over the side, and twisted the stout cord round my hand, while the boy sat watching me.
“Well, you have got a bit better,” I said to him; “the other day you always wanted to bite. Do try and come round, because you’re not a slave, after all. Oh!”
I uttered a yell, as I started up to pay out line, for, as we floated gently down stream, there was a tremendous tug which cut my hand, and seemed ready to jerk my arm from out its socket.
But I had so twisted the line that I could not pay it out, and as I stood, there came another so fierce a tug that I lost my balance, caught at the boy to save myself, and the light boat careened over, and seemed to shoot us both out into the river.
For a few moments the water thundered in my ears; the great fish, which must have been a gar pike, tugged at my hand, broke away, and I was swimming with the black head of the boy close by me, as we struggled as quickly as we could to the bank, reached it together, climbed out, and I dropped down into a sitting position, with my companion staring wonderingly at me.
His aspect was so comical, and his eyes sought mine in such a wondering way, as if asking me whether this was the way I went fishing, that I burst out into an uncontrollable roar of laughter, when, to my utter astonishment, the sad black face before me began to expand, the eyes to twinkle, the white teeth to show, and for the first time perhaps for months the boy laughed as merrily as I did.
Then, all at once, I remembered the boat, which was floating steadily away down stream toward the big river, and pointing to it, I ran as far as I could along the bank, and plunged in to swim out and secure it.
There was another plunge and the boy was by my side, and we swam on, he being ready to leave me behind, being far more active in the water than I. But he kept waiting for me, till I pointed on at the boat, and he seemed to understand, and went on.
The boat had gone into a swift current, and it was a long way from where I swam, and by degrees I began to find that I had rather miscalculated my strength. I was only lightly clad, but my clothes began to feel heavy, the banks to look a long way off, and the boat as far; while all at once the thought struck me, after I had been swimming some time, that I should never be able to reach the boat or the shore.