The Man Behind the Angler 



me honest and true. It was a hard matter to get 

 whiskey out on the reef at the time I write of, when 

 I first met Long John, Bob Rand, Chief and Bunsby, 

 their real names. One night when I went down to 

 their quarters, I found them sitting around a long 

 table playing " seven up," with a bottle of Perry 

 * Davis' Pain Killer between them. It was a pathetic 

 sight. Long John was nearly seven feet in height, a 

 giant in stature, and as thin as the traditional rail, his 

 face the color of the wattles of a turkey. Bob Rand 

 was very short and stout. Chief was a typical Semi- 

 nole, while Bunsby was an old Scotch man-of-warsman 

 in his adolescence, the possessor of a burr that was as 

 good as a fog horn down the wind. 



All these men were expert fishermen. Long John 

 could toss the grains into a barracuda at longer range 

 than any man I ever saw. Bob knew every coral 

 head on the reef, and all were expert wreckers. John 

 was loquacious. Bob so rarely spoke that I do not 

 recall a dozen sentences, but this very attribute made 

 him a solon, a monument of wisdom in the eyes of 

 his fellows ; he might well have been the original Jack 

 Bunsby. All possessed absolute courage and cool- 

 ness, and were men to be relied upon in trouble of 

 any kind, or on a lee shore. I remember coming in 

 one day with Long John from a fishing trip to one 

 of the outer islands, when the wind suddenly died 

 down to a sudden calm, and we were surrounded by 

 several of the largest waterspouts I had ever seen, and 



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