n miles an
hour brought him to an eddy, into which the salmon had dashed just
before him. Mr Sudberry gave vent to another roar as he beheld the
fish almost under his nose. The startled creature at once flashed out
of his sight, and swept up, down, and across the stream several times,
besides throwing one or two somersaults in the air, before it recovered
its equanimity. After this it bolted into a deep, dark pool, and
remained there quite motionless.

Mr Sudberry was much puzzled at this point. To let out line when the
fish ran up or across stream, to wind in when the fish stopped, and to
follow when the fish went down stream--these principles he had been
taught by experience in trout-fishing; but how to act when a fish would
not move, and could not be made to move, was a lesson which he had yet
to learn.

"What's to be done?" said he, with a look of exasperation, (and no
wonder; he had experienced an hour and a quarter of very rough
treatment, and was getting fagged).

"Pull him out of that hole," suggested George.

"I can't."

"Try."

Mr Sudberry tried and failed. Having failed he sat down on a stone,
still holding the rod very tight, and wiped his heated brow. Then,
starting up, he tried for the next ten minutes to pull the fish out of
the hole by main force, of course never venturing to pull so hard as to
break the line. He went up the stream and pulled, down the stream and
pulled, he even waded across the stream at a shallow part and pulled,
but all in vain. The fish was in that condition which fishers term "the
sulks."

At last Fred recollected to have heard Hector Macdonald say that in such
cases a stone thrown into the pool sometimes had the effect of starting
the sulky one. Accordingly a stone was thrown in, and the result was
that the fish came out at full speed in a horrible fright, and went down
stream, not _tail_ but _head_ foremost. Now, when a salmon does this,
he knows by instinct that if he does not go down _faster_ than the
stream the water will force itself into his gills and drown him;
therefore when he goes down head first, (which he seldom does, except
when on his way to the sea), he goes at full speed, and the fisher's
only chance of saving his fish is to run after him as fast as he can, in
the hope that he may pause of his own accord in some opportune eddy.

A fine open space of bank enabled Mr Sudberry to run like a deer after
his fish for nigh a quarter of a mile, but, at