AN OCTOBER PIKE 335 



Twenty minutes' fight makes it clear that his lord- 

 ship of the pool is at end, though when he leaps 

 up and tries to fall backward on the line, he strikes 

 us as a monster of at least ten pounds. We will not 

 say what the scales make of him. His weight is 

 destined to vanish under that test as his silver and 

 old ivory marked with splashes and stripes of deep 

 olive-green and the golden bronze of his gills vanish 

 when life goes out of him. So, much as he is 

 admired when, an hour after dark, he is shown to 

 those who had ordered his capture, none but ourselves 

 can kno\v the full glory of our October pike. 



