She reeled in rapidly. The fish came up from the deep.
“Only a poor little four pound pike,” she sighed as she shook him free.
The little pike had three brothers; at least she hooked that number and threw them back.
Then came a sudden shock. It was as if a powerful man had seized her lure and given it a terrific yank.
“That’s the big boy again, or his brother.” She was thinking of that other night with Jeanne. She set her shoulders for a tussle. “If it is—” She set her teeth tight. “Watch me land him!”
The “tussle” never rightly began. With a suddenness beyond power to describe, a voice in her very ear said:
“So! Now I have you!”
It was the man who meant to murder the aged moose. In his two gnarled hands he gripped a stout ashen oar. The oar was raised for a blow.
What had happened was this. Her mind fully occupied with the fishing adventure, the girl had allowed her boat to drift farther and farther into the bay. She had at last come within the stranger’s view. Still angry because of his interrupted piece of vandalism, he had pushed off from the shore and, by using an oar for a paddle, had stolen upon her unobserved.
That there would be a battle the strong girl did not doubt. How would it end? Who could say? Her pulse pounded madly as she reached for her own oar.