Paying the Pike. 



every dodge — in spite of dashing, splashing, stoning to frighten liim 

 up again — he merely sheered over to the other side and kept on. 



J.'s eyes were half out of his head with indignation at the pike's 

 base behaviour. He'd " pay him ; hang him ! " 



" Yes, I'm afraid you will ; and you won't get through after all. 

 I never saw such a dour headed beast ; he's as obstinate as a mule. 

 But he's an awful big 'un," I said, as J. laid the rod well on, and 

 actually checked the fish for a moment, till the big brute fairly lashed 

 the water into foam as he tumbled and walloped on the surface. The 

 next moment, however, he was away again forty miles an hour down 

 to the bucks. 



" I'll pay him. D — n his picture," said J., panting after. " By 

 Gad! he'll beat me after all; he's got into the stream that sets for 

 these pUes, and I can no more stop him than fly. I'll smash the 

 rod. I'U " 



But the next minute the line grated across the outer pile. There 

 was a plunge and a dash ; the rod straightened ; the line floated like 

 a pennant in the wind ; and J. collapsed. 



" Never mind, old man. Take a drop of '34, and never say die You 

 fought him splendidly, and had the water been clear you must have 

 kUled him. 



" Forty pound if he was an ounce," said J. in a hoarse whisper, 

 as he accepted the flask. 



" Getting that way, at any rate, though hardly in the fours." 



Still J. lamented and wouldn't be comforted. " If he'd only killed 

 that fish." 



" "What odds will you lay, old man, you haven't killed him ? " 



"Bet you a new hat." 



" Done with you. You'll have that fish within a week. Hemember 

 there's a float to him with a double hitch, and unless he can jam that 

 very hard somewhere he can't break it, but it will hang up every where 

 and wring his soul out. You'U have him in less than a week." And so 

 he had, for three days after a parcel about four or five feet long, done 

 up in straw, reached his oflS.ce directed to him, and when he opened it it 



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