CHAPTER XI 



THE JACK 



" But why, good fisherman, 

 Am I thought meet for you, that never yet 

 Had angling rod cast towards me ? " 



Moll Cutpurse (1611). 



LONG JOHN, Bob Rand, Paublo, and Chief, the 

 Seminole, all clever with the grains at long range, 

 and with the cast-line, were the authorities at 

 Garden Key, on the Florida reef, and as I un- 

 folded a rod one evening in their rangy quarters, 

 and announced that I was going to fish with 

 it, they looked at me in such undisguised amaze- 

 ment that I assumed that a piece of " machinery " 

 of the kind had never before been seen on the 

 key of the gulf. In the summer months par- 

 ticularly, the various channels of the reef were 

 the favorite haunts of the jack (Caranx hippos\ 

 one of the gamiest fishes that swims the South- 

 ern seas. 



The keys dotted the blue gulf like emeralds ; 

 masses of green bay cedar encircled with white 



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