nough to sink the line directly. John waited and
allowed it to settle until the hooks were flat on the bottom on the
farther side of the pool. He looked down on the water and saw the
silvery mass divided in two sections, as though the line had cut it. The
keen eyes of the fish, heedless as they usually are in the spring run,
had now grown more suspicious, and they settled apart as the line came
across them, visible against the sky as they looked up from below.

John made no motion for a time; but at last, as the fish began to settle
back, he gently raised the tip of the rod, and began to work the hooks
toward him across the pool in short, steady jerks. At first the line was
too low to pass near the main body of the fish, but as it shortened the
hooks began to travel up through the depth of the pool. Then, all at
once--he never knew how, exactly--something startling happened. There
was a sudden breaking of the surface of the pool into a shower of spray,
and with a mad rush a big salmon twelve or fifteen pounds in weight
nearly jumped into his face as he stood at the edge of the water.

Frightened, he dropped the tip of the rod, and every boy present gave an
exclamation of surprise. The words were not out of their mouths before,
suddenly, the water on the far side of the pool was broken and the spot
at John's feet was vacant. The fish, swift as lightning, had tumbled
back after its leap across the pool and gone up on the other side in an
attempt to escape the hooks, one of which, by chance, had fastened in
the lower jaw. Therefore, as the fish could keep its mouth closed, it
was ready for as fair a fight as though it had taken the fly, although
little can be said in praise of foul-hooking a fish under any
circumstances save those such as now existed, for these boys were in
need of food.

John had caught trout before, and had seen many a good fish handled on a
fly-rod. After the first rush or two of the fish he gathered in the line
rapidly with his left hand and put a strain on the rod. The salmon at
first did not attempt to repeat its earlier mad rushes, but in fright
began to circle the pool, scattering all the other fish into a series of
silver splashes as they spread this way and that.

Having got in touch with the fish, and finding that the hook still held,
John now reeled in all the slack and settled down to a workman-like
fighting of the fish, the others standing near him and volunteering
suggestions now and then