42 
THE GOLDEN EIVEE. 
uncertainty I made a first cast into the 
unknown. 
I was not kept long in doubt. The spoon was 
swinging round with the stream when the rod 
point was dragged down by something heavy 
and invisible, which tore a few yards off the 
reel, and then kicked itself off. Next cast I 
was into another at once, and the first dorado 
I had ever seen leapt into the air, short and 
thick, glowing with a pure deep gold, his tail 
splashed with a crimson bar. There he was, a 
dorado; a dorado, kicking and bucking and 
glittering in the sun like molten metal. I am 
certain we both yelled. Off he rushed, ripping 
fifty or sixty yards off the reel, jumping and 
swirling and splashing, more in the air than in 
the water. It was a moment of pure delight: 
all doubts were at an end, dorado were there 
and I had hooked one. Then suddenly in one 
of his jumps the spoon came back. He had 
broken the ring which held the hook, a steel 
ring. This was the special wriggly jump of 
the dorado against which I had been warned, 
that jump which has saved the life of many a 
one, when he springs three foot clear, and 
shakes his body madly from head to tail, 
smashing split rings like gingerbread. Perhaps 
I had not got my point down in time : very 
likely not. But I was too excited to mind his 
loss : and anyhow, dorado were there, that was 
the great thing. So a fresh spoon was rigged 
