“None better.”
Tillie lost her minnow. A second and a third disappeared into that dark expanse.
“Somebody’s stealing my bait.” She selected a very large minnow and hooked it on with meticulous care. Then out into the deep he went to join his comrades.
The manner in which he did this was startling in the extreme. Hardly had he hit the water than Tillie’s reel flew round and round, quite beyond control. With a quick glance toward the sky, she assured herself that some thieving bird had not seized her bait, then she pressed a thumb on her reel as she seized the handle to end its wild flight. Fortunately her line was long and strong. She had the fish under control in another moment.
But to play him, to land him—that was the problem.
“What is he?” Florence asked in an awed whisper.
“Who knows?”
Tillie reeled him in for twenty yards, then let him take the line slowly out.
“Tire him out,” she explained.
This she repeated three times. Then as a look of fixed determination settled on her face she said quite calmly: