THE FIEST DAY’S FISHING. 
47 
struggled and sweated was dry land, Pedroso 
pointed out the exact spot where we had been 
caught. From the excitement with which he 
approached it, he clearly expected the fish to be 
still there. 
We pushed the nose of the boat on to the sand 
and sat down and smoked. We were tired and 
disheartened, and we saw the launch coming 
down to pick us up. But Pedroso signed to me 
to have one more cast. I did so, with the 
premonition of tragedy heavy on me. I cast, 
and hooked the biggest dorado of the day. 
He played differently from the others. He 
went off with a heavy run and surged up to the 
top more than once. But he went neither as 
fast nor as far as the others, nor did he jump. 
I got him out of the stream into a swirly hole, 
very deep. There he sounded, sailing round 
and round, hanging all his great weight on the 
line, head downwards. When pulled out of 
the hole he bored downstream sullenly, occa¬ 
sionally dragging off a few yards of line, and 
then letting himself be reeled in. So we went 
on for half an hour down a mile of water. I 
had him hard by the head the whole time; but, 
since he had left the stream, he had not shown 
on the top. Finally he gave one or two of those 
wobbles which every fisherman knows mean that 
the end is near, rolled up to the top, lashed his 
tail, opened an immense mouth, and—the spoon 
came away. 
