344 Big Game Fishes 
On these trips I took a rod, hoping to 
catch a bonito, and so it came about that one 
day, I think the fourth of our imprisonment, 
when every one was desperate, that I ran foul 
of the misnamed dolphins. I was sculling along 
to enter a little bay in the gulfweed, when I saw 
a number of large fishes come coursing along, 
charging the weed evidently in search of small 
fry. Quickly taking the rod, which was baited 
with a small flying-fish that had flown aboard 
ship in the night, I cast fairly among them, and 
I have reason to believe that every dolphin in 
the pack—and I say pack advisedly — dashed 
for it. One fortunate fish took it on the run and 
never stopped until two hundred feet of my line 
was unreeled, to such music as I had never heard 
before. The following day, when I took the reel 
apart to see what had happened, I found the 
interior flaked and covered with brass filings, 
which told the story of that rush. The fish was 
followed by the entire school, and when I finally 
checked it, they noted every move until I had the 
gamy creature in the toils. Such rushes in and 
out, such doubling, such sudden stops, were never 
seen. Suddenly with a wild rush the fish would 
encircle the boat, then dash into a mass of weed, 
