Lee Henly and Carl Mills knew this, and they had been learning more and more of the habits of this particular maskinonge. In every new thing that they learned, they felt that they had one more aid toward the final capture of Old Muskie and the realization of Lee's ambition for college that year.
Lee had learned that hooking the big fish was the easiest part of the work of capturing him. He decided that he must provide by every possible means against the entanglement of his casting-bait.
With this in view, he made a wooden casting-minnow himself. He took a spinner and the glass eyes from an old one he had used, and from a bit of red cedar he whittled out the shape for the body. He had bought a very heavy, although not a very large, hand-forged treble hook. He took a heavy, spring-steel wire, and had the old blacksmith at Kessler's Corners weld an eye in it through the eye of the treble hook. He put on the back spinner, and passed the wire through the wooden minnow. He used no front spinner, as it might catch in the rushes.
The front eye he made in the wire himself by bending and twisting till he was sure beyond all question that it was safe. Then he fastened his copper leader into this eye, put the glass eyes into the head of the minnow, and with careful painting his bait was complete.
The season was now growing late. College was to begin September 23d. On Tuesday, September 9th, Carl and Lee set out at daybreak on their quest. They fished long and carefully, but got no strike. They left the cove for half an hour, then tried again. This time the great fish struck, but was not hooked. Soon Forest Lodge was astir, and fishing for Old Muskie ended for that day.
Then came the last day. Carl was to leave for college the following Monday. "We just must get him this morning!" he said, as they pushed out from the landing with the first glow of daylight. They knew a little later in the day would be better, but they felt that they must lose no time.
Carl worked the canoe down the shore, the little craft slipping through the water as quietly as a floating swan. Lee outdid himself in length of cast, for he did not wish Old Muskie to take fright because they were too near.
At the fifth cast the big fish hit the bait. He rushed savagely at it, and closed his jaws down squarely upon it. Lee struck as if for his life, and drove the hooks deep into the fish's jaw, and with click and drag both on the reel and his thumb adding to the pressure, he pulled all he thought his tackle would bear—pulled straight back toward the treetops, which he was most anxious to avoid.
Stubbornly the big fish pulled in the opposite direction, and with a rush started across the cove. So fast did the line run out that Lee's thumb was almost blistered, but he held it hard against the spinning reel, and the fish rushed on across the cove.
Straight through the forest of rushes he dashed, and Lee and Carl held their breath, as the line cut through the water. Lee held the rod high, Carl sent the canoe along the track taken by the fish; and in a few dizzy seconds Old Muskie was through the rushes and out into the open lake. And now Lee made no effort to check him, but let him run as far as possible from the shore, although he continued his mad rush till less than thirty feet of line remained on his reel.