ut! You're going to drag your
bait in front of the leaders this time!"

That had not happened yet. I glowed in spite of the fact that I was
steeped in gloom. We were indeed heading most favorably for the leaders.
Captain Dan groaned. "Never seen the like of this!" he added. These
leaders were several yards apart, as could be told by the blunt-nosed
ridges of water they shoved ahead of them. That was another moment added
to the memorable moments of my fishing years. It was strained suspense.
Hope would not die, but disaster loomed like a shadow.

Before I was ready, before we expected anything, before we got near
these leaders, a brilliant, hissing, white splash burst out of the sea,
and a tuna of magnificent proportions shot broadside along and above the
surface, sending the spray aloft, and he hit that bait with incredible
swiftness, raising a twenty-foot-square, furious splash as he hooked
himself. I sat spellbound. I heard my line whistling off the reel. But I
saw only that swift-descending kite. So swiftly did the tuna sound that
the kite shot down as if it had been dropping lead. My line broke and my
rod almost leaped out of my hands.

We were all silent a moment. The school of tuna showed again, puttering
and fiddling around, with great blue-and-green flashes caught by the
sun.

"That one weighed about two hundred and fifty," was all Captain Dan
said.

R. C. remarked facetiously, evidently to cheer me, "Jakey, you picks de
shots out of that plue jay an' we makes ready for anudder one!"

"Say, do you imagine you can make me laugh!" I asked, in tragic scorn.

"Well, if you could have seen yourself when that tuna struck you'd have
laughed," replied he.

While Dan steered the boat R. C. got out on the bow and gaffed the kite.
I watched the tuna tails standing like half-simitars out of the smooth,
colored water. The sun was setting in a golden haze spotted by pink
clouds. The wind, if anything, was softer than ever; in fact, we could
not feel it unless we headed the boat into it. The fellow below us was
drifting off farther, still plugging at his tuna.

Captain Dan put the wet kite on the deck to dry and got out another
silk one. It soared aloft so easily that I imagined our luck was
changing. Vain fisherman's delusion! Nothing could do that. There were
thousands of tons--actually thousands of tons of tuna in that three-mile
stretch of ruffled water, but I could not catch one. It was a settled
conviction. I