THE BOOK OF THE TARPON 



while I was nearly exhausted. He leaped time 

 after time at the end of the hundred yards of 

 line I had lost to him. The Camera-man was 

 unhappy over the loss of so much good material 

 and I was chagrined at my failure to hold the 

 fish. The captain warned us that we were be- 

 ing carried towards the breakers and would be 

 among them in two minutes. 



"But these are only baby breakers, compared 

 to those we pulled through," said I. 



"The canoe is all right," he replied. "It's the 

 Green Pea I'm thinking of." 



But the Green Pea refused to leave us and 

 soon both boats were being tossed about by the 

 rough water where the rollers from the Gulf met 

 the tide from the pass. The canoe rode the 

 waves as gracefully as a swan might have done, 

 but the motor boat pounded badly and couldn't 

 be kept in position for photographing. The tar- 

 pon jumped several times without giving the 

 camera a chance while water from every wave 

 spattered over it. Soon the fish became too 

 feeble to jump half its length out of water and 

 as the end was so near the Camera-man started 

 for shore. As the Green Pea made slow prog- 



64 



