fish
fell a prey to the deadly bait and hook.

"How would you like to try for a salmon?" I asked at last. "They are
running better now than they have done all the year so far."

"All right!" she agreed, with a sigh of pent-up excitement, pulling in
her trout line and running out a thicker one with a large salmon spoon
and a fairly heavy sinker.

I rowed out to the mouth of the Bay, keeping inside the Ghoul Rock;
then I started crossways over to the far point.

We were half-way across, when Mary Grant screamed. The line she was
holding ran with tremendous rapidity through her fingers. I jammed my
foot on the wooden frame lying in the bottom of the boat and to which
the line was attached. I was just in time to save it from following
the rest of the line overboard.

I pulled in my oars and caught up the line.

Away, thirty yards off, a great salmon sprang out of the water high
into the air, performing a half-circle and flopping back with a splash
from its lashing tail.

"She is yours," I cried. "Come! play her for all you can."

But, as I turned, I saw that Miss Grant's fingers were bleeding from
the sudden running-out of the line when the salmon had struck; so I
settled down to fight the fish myself.

All at once, the line slacked. I hauled it in, feeling almost certain
that I had lost my prize. But no! Off she went again like a fury,
rising out of the water in her wild endeavours to free herself.

For a long time I played her. My companion took the oars quietly and
was now doing all she could to assist me.

Next, the salmon sank sheer down and sulked far under the water.
Gradually, gradually I drew her in and not a struggle did she make.
She simply lay, a dead thing at the end of my line.

"She's played out, Miss Grant. She's ours," I cried gleefully, as I
got a glint of her under the water as she came up at the end of my line.

But, alas! for the luck of a fisherman. When the salmon was fifteen
feet from the boat, she jerked and somersaulted most unexpectedly, with
all the despair of a gambler making his last throw. She shot sheer out
of the water and splashed in again almost under the boat. My line,
minus the spoon and the hook, ran through my fingers.

"Damn!" I exclaimed, in the keenest disappointment.

"And--that's--just--what--I--say--too," came my fair oars-woman's
voice. "If that isn't the hardest kind of luck!"

Away out, we could see our salmon jump, and jump, and jump again, o