and had a three-inch shank. A stiff, moderately low boat was used, and the lines were attached to swivel reels to run them on and off. Herrings were taken for bait. We started off and soon reached the ﬁshing ground. Presently one of the ﬁshermen casting nets nearby called out to us, ‘Halloa, boys! here’s a fellow!’ meaning an albacore, followed by a shout from another, and still another that they were about their boats; so we slowly moved outside the range of the boats, throwing over a herring every few yards to toll them along with us. When far enough away we secured the reel to the boat athwart, for we were a bit afraid of the ﬁsh we expected to grapple with. Then I threw over a herring to see if there were any albacores near us, and to our delight a monster rushed for it just under the surface, so I threw another loose herring, and then one attached to the hook. He rushed for the ﬁrst one, whirled and took hold of the other, and we had hold of him. Then for a few minutes we had a good imitation of the antics of a wild prairie horse when ﬁrst haltered. He jumped his full length out of the water, which gave us a very vivid idea of the monster we were attached to; then he started at an awful pace across the harbor. The line was running out swiftly, so that we had to move as quickly to get it into the notch in the stern, which we had wisely thought to make. Then I seized an oar and placed it for steering, while we both got positions to trim the boat. We feared something might break if the boat remained motionless; so to obviate this my friend succeeded in grasping the line partially, and thereby gradually started the boat, while I helped by sculling, so that by the time it was all off the reel, she was moving faster than ever she did before. The ﬁsh kept up the pace for at least ten minutes, towing us directly into the harbor; then he made a jump, turned and took us straight back to the ﬁshing grounds. The men in ﬁshing boats had been watching us with great interest, not supposing for a moment they were to have any part in it; but when they saw us going directly for them, the shouting and hooting and swearing that suddenly started from them would have been laughable to disinterested spectators. We could see plainly that if he continued the course he was then taking us, nothing short of a collision with one or more of the boats would follow.

” Pandemonium appeared about to reign. The boats were very near. We were all greatly excited, for we realized there was danger of foundering. I jumped with my knife to free the ﬁsh. In the rush my foot slipped, and I went headlong on my mate, the knife ﬂying overboard. Before anything could be done to free the

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