232 

THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF EVERYTHING REALLY WORTH 
WHILE AT AVALON TAKES PLACE HERE 
thin, a bar of blazing pink, white and gray 
was gaffed. It was thrown into the great 
fish-pen, forward, destined to be brimful 
that night as it had never been before. 
‘““Where there is honey, there will be 
bees also,” the philosophers were wont 
to say. All the boat-craft available seemed 
to have swarmed to the place, every one had 
a fish; lines tangled, sides bumped, the 
occupants wrangled and grew acidly per- 
sonal. The town was out en. masse, the 
rumor of a ‘“‘beat” had reached to the 
limits of the village. Old Captain Wash- 
burn couldn’t seem to strike the luck; his 
party apparently indulged in depreciating 
comments as Ted rudely hooked a second 
fish, a tartar this time, squarely beneath 
the “Magic Isle,” the captain’s well-known 
launch. This fish displayed an amazing 
wit; as a tactician he soon established his 
standing. 
The first fish hooked had never relaxed 
an effort from the go-off and Lyte had been 
very much occupied. Rush after rush, 
veering off to right and left, ‘marking 
time,” robbing the reel of hard-won line, 
feinting a dash into the great kelp gardens, 
now hurling itself headlong out to sea, the 
- doughty fish had called forth all its human 
antagonist’s resources, but yielded after 
twelve minutes’ play—atwenty-seven-pound 
package of concentrated devilment, the 
California yellowtail. 
This was a great streak of luck and Lyte 

RECREATION 
TTI 
§ 4 
rebaited, with that flush of 
success that only anglers 
know. 
The cry ‘‘White bass!” 
came from a flat-bottomed 
dory near at hand; an an- 
gler in another yonder held 
up a shapely, symmetrical 
form like the Atlantic 
weakfish. Still a third had 
already one of these delec- 
table beauties some four 
feet long gilled with the 
painter and hanging over 
the bow. Plainly a school 
of these rare nobles were 
charging the bait-millions 
and the ultima thule of the 
light rod, a bout with white 
sea-bass (Cynoscion nobile) 
was about to be offered to all. This was 
indeed a golden moment; not for six years 
had such a scene been paralleled. 
As Ted’s fish reluctantly surrendered, 
after a vicious sprint across the surface 
and a swirl of tossing waters, Lyte’s rod 
bowed gracefully. The reel yapped like 
an irritated puppy, he struck back to im- 
plant the hook and—tost his fish. 
“That was a bass, me boy,” called the 
boatman. ‘‘Give ’im a minute or two to 
say ‘Thank ye’ before ye fire off like that. 
They don’t snatch —— out ofa bait like a 
yellowtail; give ’em time.” So admonish- 
ing, the excited worthy drew over the gun- 
wale the twenty-five-pound bass that Ted 
had just mastered. 
The varied directions in which arts fish 
pressed his running fight led the boat 
hither and thither across the face of the 
harbor, but never without the wide field of 
battle. Now close inshore a wilful white 
bass was dexterously guided among the 
maze of anchor-buoys that dotted the 
smiling surface like water-lilies. Again, 
drawn to the exquisite sunken sea-gardens, 
to gaze with rapture into the blue crystal 
depths—a roofless palace, whose botanical 
apartments swayed and undulated listlessly, 
with gold-brown draperies, mottled-green 
pillars and fantastically friezed portiéres. 
Sea anemones, tinted the delicate mauve 
of the Japanese wisteria, were sprinkled 
about floor and rock-wall, while scintillating 

