sea, where the creek entered it over a wide flat of shingle. John
was able to keep his feet in the hurried rush along shore, and he kept
touch with the fish all through the narrows and until it had reached the
shallows, where the flats were now covered two or three feet deep with
the advancing tide. Here the last inch of his line was exhausted, and he
himself, desperate in his anxiety to keep his fish and to save his rod,
followed until he was waist deep in the sea. The salmon did not swerve,
but headed straight for some distant haunt which perhaps it remembered
as existing out there in the ocean.

At length John could go no farther with safety, and in desperation gave
the fish the butt, as an angler says. The rod bent up into a splendid
arch, all its strength being now pitted against the power of the
swimming fish.

The latter, somewhat tired by its long flight, felt this added
resistance of the rod, and unable to gain any more line, since there was
no more to gain, and to ease itself of the strain, flung itself high
into the air just as the last limit of the rod was reached. Down it came
with a splash, but this time apparently confused; for as it fell on the
water and chanced to head up-stream, it started directly back over the
course it had come. The long slack of the line could not be recovered
fast enough to follow it, but the hook held. A moment later the fish
was back in the pool, the line back on the reel, and John, perspiring
and flushed, was still master of the situation.

After that matters were simpler. The fish was more tired, and its leaps
into the air were shorter and more feeble.

Without advice from any one, Skookie now ran out into the grass and
found his long salmon gaff. Wading at the edge of the pool, he made one
or two ineffectual attempts to gaff the salmon; then flinging the pole
across the creek to the others, again he plunged in, swam across, and
took up his stand near John, who by this time had shortened the line and
was fighting the fish close in.

"Now we'll get him!" cried Rob. "Go slow there, John. Don't let him
break away. He's headed in now. Just lead him in. There!"

With a swift, sure movement the Aleut boy had gaffed the salmon, and an
instant later it was flapping high and dry at the top of the bank. It
seemed to them this was a better fish than any they had taken directly
with the snagging-pole, although, as a matter of fact, it was the latter
implement, after all, which had l