Of a sudden the line went slack. “Gone!” she exclaimed in consternation.
“No! No! He may—be only—” Katie did not finish. Once again the reel sang. After a rush toward the boat the fish had darted to the right. Once again the girl’s reel was emptied and it was only Katie’s skill with the boat that saved the line.
“Sometimes,” said Florence with a mock-sober look on her face, “I wish we hadn’t hooked that fish.” Rubbing the blood from her knuckles, she began again.
For a time she met with greater success. Nearly all her line was in. The fish was directly beneath them when, with a sudden rush he shot upward. It was as if a spring-board were beneath him, for, as he hit the surface he rose clear of the water.
A blue-black streak of silver, he appeared to hang in air, then, like a depth-bomb shot downward.
“Wha-what a whopper,” Katie cried.
As for Florence, she was too busy saving her bruised knuckles even to think. One thing stood out in her mind, she would not give up. She must have that fish.
Sixty seconds later the fish once again came to the surface, this time forty feet away. He came to the top, head, tail and all. For a split second they were permitted to admire him, then he was down again.
Had Florence been a man, with the strong hard grip of a man in her fingers, the battle must have ended much sooner. As it was, time passed swiftly and as swiftly the big fish battled for freedom.
At last, just as the girl was giving up hope, the fish, with the perversity of his kind, came up beneath the boat, circled twice on a short line, then lay quite still on the surface. It was Katie who put the finishing touch to that bit of drama. Reaching out with her strong arms she gathered the fish, all wet and dripping, to her bosom and “loved him” into the boat. After that for a full minute the two girls sat staring first at each other, then at the fish. He was a forty-pounder, thirty-five at the least; twice as large as any fish caught that season.