"Does that look like a stone or a log?" said my friend, pointing to his
quivering line, slowly cutting the current up toward the centre of the
pool.

My skepticism vanished in an instant, and I could hardly keep my place
on the top of the rock.

"I can feel him breathe," said the now warming fisherman; " just feel
of that pole!"

I put my eager hand upon the butt, and could easily imagine I felt the
throb or pant of something alive down there in the black depths. But
whatever it was moved about like a turtle. My companion was praying to
hear his reel spin, but it gave out now and then only a few hesitating
clicks. Still the situation was excitingly dramatic, and we were all
actors. I rushed for the landing-net, but being unable to find it,
shouted desperately for Joe, who came hurrying back, excited before he
had learned what the matter was. The net had been left at the lake
below, and must be had with the greatest dispatch. In the mean time I
skipped about from boulder to boulder as the fish worked this way or
that about the pool, peering into the water to catch a glimpse of him,
for he had begun to yield a little to the steady strain that was kept
upon him. Presently I saw a shadowy, unsubstantial something just
emerge from the black depths, then vanish. Then I saw it again, and
this time the huge proportions of the fish were faintly outlined by the
white facings of his fins. The sketch lasted but a twinkling; it was
only a flitting shadow upon a darker background, but it gave me the
profoundest Ike Walton thrill I ever experienced. I had been a fisher
from my earliest boyhood. I came from a race of fishers; trout streams