“Hold her, Polycarp,” said the bowman. “I will make a smudge.” And in a moment a thick smoke was whirling from the beach, and cast around her by the rising wind. Then, of a sudden, the smudge, blown into ruddy flame, sent a long flare of light across the water. In an instant the line came home.
“He is gone!” cried Rose, in accents of despair.
“No! no!” cried Carington, from the beach: “reel!”
The fish, caught by the light, had rushed wildly toward it, and run his nose onto the shore. The bowman, catching first a handful of gravel, seized it by the tail, and threw it high up onto the shore, the rod-tip snapping as Rose threw it back of her.
“Did any one ever see the like?” said Carington.
“Me see—twice—two time,” said the Indian, as he took the spring balance from the fishing-basket.
“Oh, this is fishing!” cried Rose. “It must be quite two hours! I know what papa will say. He will say, ‘Bad fishing!’”
“But I assure you,” said Carington, from the darkened shore, eight or ten feet away, “I can assure you no one could have handled that fish better!”
At this Rose was struck silent, and now she wanted to get a good look at this eccentric bowman.
“No see,” said Polycarp; “’bout twenty-nine pound; got match?”