SOME FOREIGN RELATIVES 125 



promise. But I had to sit tight, with wrists, arms, back, 

 and shoulders strained and aching by the efforts to 

 keep the taut line free of the canoe. Everything held 

 firm, and, all told, there was a merry half hour between 

 the first leap and the end. For I may here remark, in 

 the light of subsequent experience, that the lunge is 

 a gamer fish than the pike, while its invariable 

 habit of leaping out of the water adds greatly to the 

 sport. To return to our particular fish, little by little 

 the rod was shortened and the triumph of rod and 

 line was complete. How sincerely did I welcome the 

 great shining bronze back when it wallowed on the 

 surface only a few yards from the canoe Yet it 

 seemed that the real difficulty was now to begin. 



It was a bigger fish than we had supposed, and 

 my friend in the stern had never used a gaff. The 

 boatman behind me was occupied with his oars, and 

 had it been otherwise my small rod could not have 

 brought the fish up to him. The gaff, according to 

 the custom of the country, was rankly barbed, and it 

 proved our salvation. The handle, wrongly tapered, 

 was smallest at the end where it ought to have 

 afforded a grip to the hand; and when my friend 

 thrust the coarse barbed meat-hook firmly into the 

 fish, having had no experience of the strength of 

 such customers, the handle slipped out of his hand at 



