THE DOG STAR


It commenced the day after we took old man Stumpton out codfishing. Me
and Cap'n Jonadab both told Peter T. Brown that cod wa'n't biting much
at that season, but he said cod be jiggered.

"What's troubling me just now is landing suckers," he says.

So the four of us got into the Patience M.--she's Jonadab's catboat--and
sot sail for the Crab Ledge. And we hadn't more'n got our lines over the
side than we struck into a school of dogfish. Now, if you know anything
about fishing you know that when the dogfish strike on it's "good-by,
cod!" So when Stumpton hauled a big fat one over the rail I could tell
that Jonadab was ready to swear. But do you think it disturbed your old
friend, Peter Brown? No, sir! He never winked an eye.

"By Jove!" he sings out, staring at that dogfish as if 'twas a gold
dollar. "By Jove!" says he, "that's the finest specimen of a Labrador
mack'rel ever I see. Bait up, Stump, and go at 'em again."

So Stumpton, having lived in Montana ever sence he was five years old,
and not having sighted salt water in all that time, he don't know but
what there IS such critters as "Labrador mack'rel," and he goes at 'em,
hammer and tongs. When we come ashore we had eighteen dogfish, four
sculpin and a skate, and Stumpton was the happiest loon in Ostable
County. It was all we could do to keep him from cooking one of them
"mack'rel" with his own hands. If Jonadab hadn't steered him out of the