sneak!"

We sneaked, and I sank down just back of the edge of the bank. Jonathan
crouched some feet behind, coaching me:--"Now--draw out a little more
line--not too much--there--and have some slack in your hand. Now, up-stream
fifteen feet--allow for the wind--wait till that gust passes--now! Good!
First-rate! Now let her drift--there--what did I tell you? Give him line!
_Give_ him line! Now, feel of him--careful! You'll know when to strike {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
there!{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Oh! too bad!"

For as I struck, my line held fast.

"Snagged, by gummy! Can't you pull clear?"

"Not without stirring up the whole pool. You'll have to do the fishing,
after all."

"Oh! _too_ bad! That's hard luck!"

"Not a bit. I like to watch you do it."

And so indeed I did. Once having realized that I was temporarily laid by,
Jonathan put his whole mind on the pool, while I, being honorably released
from all responsibility, except that of keeping my line taut, could put my
whole mind on his performance. There is a little the same sort of pleasure
in watching the skillful handling of a rod that there is in watching the
bow-action of a violinist. Both things demand the utmost nicety of
adjustment: body, arm, wrist, fingers uniting in an interplay of
efficiency exactly adapted to the intricately shifting needs of each
moment.

Thus I watched, through the typical stages of the sport: the delicate flip
of the bait into the current at just the right spot; its swift descent,
imperceptibly guided by the rod's quivering tip; its slower drift toward
deep water; its sudden vanishing, and the whir of the reel as the line
goes out; then the pause, the critical moments of "feeling for him"; at
last the strike {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} and then, a flopping in the grass behind me, and
Jonathan crawling back to kill and unhook him.

"Don't get up. There's probably another one," he said; and soon, by the
same reptilian methods, was back for another try. There was another one,
and yet another, and then a little fellow, barely hooked. "That's all,"
said Jonathan, as he rose to put him back into the pool, and we watched
the pretty spotted creature fling himself upstream with a wild flourish of
his gleaming body.

"Now I'll get you clear," said Jonathan, wading out into the water, and,
with sleeves rolled high, feeling deep, deep down under the opposite bank.
"He had you all right--it's wound round a root and then jabbed deep into it
{~HO