“Tom, quick! After him!”
The next moment the line came back, slack.
“Oh!” cried Rose, “he is gone!”
“No! no!” shouted Tom. “Reel! reel, sir!” and presently the long, loose line grew tight, for the salmon had turned and made straight for the boat. Now, once more, he broke water, thirty feet away.
“Them long runs tires ’em,” said Tom, “and the jumps tires ’em more. Showed his belly, sir.”
Lyndsay now slowly lifted his rod-tip, throwing it back of him, and then lowering it as he recovered the line.
“Take care, sir!” cried Tom, for once more there was a fierce, short dash across, and again a leap. This time the fish came in slowly, but surely, and Tom took his gaff.
“Can you do it?”
“Yes, sir.” The gaff was in, and the great, flapping fish in the boat, and Rose pretty well splashed with water as Tom cleverly lifted his prey on the gaff-hook.
“A twenty-pounder, Mr. Lyndsay, sure!”