SALMON-FISHING. 91 



at last of my hardly-earned victory. No such heart- 

 breaking disaster awaits me. Ole, creeping and 

 crouching like a deer-stalker, extends the fatal gaff, 

 buries it deep in the broad side, and drags him, for 

 he is, in very sooth, too heavy to lift, unwilling and 

 gasping to the shore, where, crushing flat the long 

 grass, he flops and flounders till a merciful thwack 

 on the head from the miniature policeman's staff, 

 which I always carry for this purpose, renders him 

 alike oblivious and insensible to past suffering or 

 present indignity. And now I may calmly survey 

 his vast proportions and speculate on the possibility 

 of his proving too much for my weighing machine, 

 which only gives information up to fifty pounds. 

 To a reasonable-sized fish I can always assign an 

 approximate weight, but this one takes me out of 

 the bounds of my calculation, and being as sanguine 

 as Ole is the reverse, I anxiously watch the deflection 

 of the index as Ole, by exercising his utmost 

 strength, raises him by a hook through his under 

 jaw from the ground, with a wild sort of hope still 



