The Man Behind the Angler 



one Mateo Brugen, a clever oarsman and gaffer, 

 with a wholesome respect for the big sharks of the 

 Pass that did him credit. The angler appreciates 

 bravery and pluck in a boatman, but not recklessness, 

 and the boatman who takes many and useless chances 

 at the expense of his patron's comfort is the man to 

 avoid. I was struck with the intelligence and cau- 

 tion of Mateo, and found that he was a type of all 

 the watermen there, a faithful jolly lot of men, any 

 one of whom would add to the pleasure of a day's 

 fishing. Mateo was an Austrian, who had followed 

 the sea all his life and could splice the main brace on 

 a three-master in a gale, or for the toothache, it was 

 just as you took him; and when I say that he had 

 me fast to as lively a tarpon as ever bent a twenty- 

 ounce rod, ten minutes after I reached the ground, 

 and repeated the act almost every time I went out, it 

 may be surmised that he was a boatman after the 

 angler's heart. 



The way he managed his light skiff was a pleasure 

 to see. In coming in one afternoon the sea sud- 

 denly picked up in the channel; he rowed in on the 

 lee side of the jetty, and when we reached the end, 

 we had to go out into the channel, but to reach the 

 latter it was necessary to cross a shoal over which I 

 saw that some high rollers were breaking. It was 

 a question of this, or the surf on the beach opposite 

 our island, and I wondered what he would do. He 

 did not hesitate but pulled onto the shoal, and I con- 



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