coiled in the harpoon tub had run out, Ned
had seized the tub, which was floating near him when he came to the
surface.

The end of the line was fast to the tub and when it was reached Ned
was hauled through the water by the fish. If Ned had been built like
a canoe, he would probably have caught the whip-ray, but the drag of
the boy in the water was too much for the hold the iron had in the
body of the creature, and the harpoon tore out. The boys managed to
rock the water out of the canoe, but swamped it several times while
trying to get in it without going ashore. After they had succeeded,
Dick took the harpoon, while Ned sat in the bottom of the canoe with
his paddle.

"Now go ahead and harpoon your fish and I'll show you how to keep a
canoe trimmed. What you really need is a scow," said Ned.

"If I couldn't throw a harpoon over the side of a canoe without
going over the other side myself, I'd give up fishing and try
farming. Now just paddle softly in the wake of that big fin. Know
what it is? I thought not. Well, it's the bayonet fin of the tarpon,
my son, and if you'll paddle quietly and stay inside the boat, you
shall have the fun of your life."

The tarpon was tame, and Ned paddled within twenty feet of it
without frightening it, but Dick made a poor shot. The back of a
tarpon is narrow and a small mark for a harpoon when thrown from
behind the fish, and Dick's weapon grazed its side, while the pole
fell across the back of the tarpon, causing it to give one wild leap
and depart for regions unknown. Dick was now out for tarpon, and
paid no attention to smaller fish, many of which came within
striking distance. Tarpon were scarce that day, and Dick's next
chance was an hour in coming, and then the fish happened to be
headed for the canoe. The boy had not learned the difficulty of
throwing an iron through the coat of mail of a tarpon excepting from
abaft the beam of the fish, and he drew in his harpoon with a
beautiful four-inch scale fixed on its point.

"Take the harpoon, Ned. I couldn't hit a house."

"Yes, you could. You hit that tarpon. Only trouble was, you didn't
know where to hit it. Keep on practicing. You said I'd have the fun
of my life, and I'm having it."

[Illustration: "THE STRICKEN TARPON LEAPED SIX FEET IN THE AIR"]

Half an hour later Dick made a beautiful, long throw of nearly
thirty feet, and the stricken tarpon leaped six feet in the air. For
two hundred yards the frantic fish towed t