canoe up from below, to be ready for the next turn in the
contest.

The salmon was now sulking at the bottom, with his head down, balanced
against the current, and boring steadily. He kept this up for a quarter
of an hour, then made a rush up the pool, and a sidelong skittering
leap on the surface. Coming back with a sudden turn, he threw a
somersault in the air, close to the opposite shore, sank to the bottom
and began jigging. Jig, jig, jig, from side to side, with short, heavy
jerks, he worked his way back and forth twice the length of the pool.
Chichester knew it was dangerous. Any one of these sharp blows might
snap the leader or the hook. But he couldn't stop it. There was nothing
to do but wait, with tense nerves, until the salmon got through
jigging.

The change came suddenly. A notion to go down stream struck the salmon
like a flash of lightning; without a moment's warning he took the line
over his shoulder and darted into the rapids. "_Il va descendre! Vite,
vite! Le canot! Au large!_" shouted the two Louis; but Chichester had
already stepped into his place in the middle of the canoe, and there
were still forty yards of white line left on the reel, when the narrow
boat dashed away in pursuit of the fish, impelled by flashing paddles
and flinging the spray to right and left. There were many large rocks
half hidden in the wild white water through which they were plunging,
and with a long line there was danger that the fish would take a turn
around one of them and break away. It was necessary to go faster than
he went, in order to retrieve as much line as possible. But paddle as
fast as they could the fish kept ahead. He was not towing the boat, of
course; for only an ignoramus imagines that a salmon can "tow" a boat,
when the casting-line that holds him is a single strand of gut that
will break under a strain of ten pounds. He was running away, and the
canoe was chasing him through the roaring torrent. But he held his
lead, and there were still eighty or ninety yards of line out when he
rushed down the last plunge into _La Fourche_.

[Illustration: A notion to go down stream struck the salmon.]

The situation was this: The river here is shaped like a big Y. The
salmon went down the inside edge of the left-hand fork. The canoe
followed him down the outside edge of the same fork. When he came to
the junction it was natural to suppose that he would follow the current
down the main stem of the Y. But instead of