Part 11 (1/2)

”Now,” he ordered, as he turned around and started back toward the net, ”beat the water with that pole and make as much noise as you can.”

Very soon the two men could see streaks in the smooth water. ”Oh, I see,” exclaimed Bill, as he splashed the water to right and left, ”we're trying to drive them into the net. There, we've got one! See the float go down. There's another one. Watch the big one! He isn't going in. Look at him. See him run along the net. Look at him! He's run around the net and is going down the river like a streak!”

”He is a big old buffalo-sucker,” the trapper laughed. ”He is too wise to be caught in a gill-net.”

”Say, Mr. Barker,” the boy asked, ”can fish think?”

”I reckon some of the old ones can,” Barker answered. ”Well never catch that big fellow. I think he weighs fifteen pounds, I reckon his nose has touched a net before.”

The net was literally filled with fish of many kinds, suckers, pickerel, pike, ba.s.s, big sunfish, and fierce-looking gars.

”We don't want those alligators,” the boy remarked, when the trapper threw several of the gars into the boat. ”They have a long snout and are covered with h.o.r.n.y plates just like alligators,” the boy continued.

”They surely would be alligators if they had legs. I couldn't eat them.”

”That's all right,” Barker laughed. ”You needn't. Most white men throw them away, but I learned from the Indians how to fix them. You pour boiling water on their plates and they come off in big pieces. Their meat has a fine flavor and they don't have any sharp little bones like pickerel and most of the suckers. I think you'll eat them after they are smoked or fried.”

CHAPTER X-CATCHING A MONSTER

Bill helped Tatanka and Barker to smoke the fish they had caught and then was ready for another trip.

”Can't we go again, before it gets too cold?” he asked. ”Let us go again, Mr. Barker, this meat won't last long. I just wish Tim could go, too!”

The old trapper himself had also caught the fever. ”I reckon, boy,” he admitted, ”we ought to make another haul or two, but the next time we'll take a seine. Did you ever fish with a seine! It is more fun than with a gill-net, but we must go soon, before the water gets too cold, for in seining, the fisherman gets as wet as the fish.”

On the next warm day, Barker remarked at breakfast: ”Bill, this looks like a good day. I guess we'll be off right away.”

The two fishermen rode down stream to a place where a deep bayou or slough joined the main river. They started to seine half a mile up the bayou. One end of the seine was tied to a stout pole driven into the bottom of the bayou. The other end, they swung around in a half-circle, Bill rowing the boat and the trapper managing the seine from the stern of the boat. They caught all kinds of fish in the same manner that boys and fishermen catch minnows. Their troubles began when they started to make a haul in a strong current in deep water near the mouth of the bayou. The net caught on a submerged stump and could not be pulled off against the current.

”I reckon we're stuck,” said Barker, as he found it impossible to move the seine either one way or the other.

”Let me dive in and fix it,” begged the boy, as he began to strip.

Barker thought the water was too cold, but Bill said he wouldn't mind it, and it wouldn't take long to try it.

Bill splashed some water over himself and then swam quickly to the spot where the net was caught. He dived, opened his eyes and could see clearly every mesh of the net as it was held fast by the current over a sharp stump. He lifted it off quickly and threw it over the stump down stream and struck out for sh.o.r.e. His skin was blue and his teeth chattered as he hurriedly got into his clothes. Then he ran back and forth on the sand a few minutes to get warm.

”Now, Mr. Barker,” he said, ”let's make the haul and see what we get out of this deep hole. There ought to be some big ones in it.”

Both men slowly pulled the seine through the deep hole, where by means of small leads attached to the lower edge of the seine, the big drag-net swept the bottom, driving all deep-water fish before it.

As the bag-like middle part of the seine slowly crept into shallower water on a rising sandbank, there was a great stir in the enclosed pool.

Big fish of several kinds came to the surface. Some showing a silvery flash for just a moment, dived again to the bottom in their attempt to escape, others, bolder or made more desperate, shot with a loud splash over the seine back into free water.

Bill pulled as he had never pulled on anything before.

”Pull, Mr. Barker, pull!” he shouted. ”We've got a wagon-load of big ones, but they're breaking away.”

The old trapper pulled as hard as Bill, but he didn't hear what Bill called to him, for the fish in their last desperate effort to escape made a deafening confusion and noise with splas.h.i.+ng, jumping and flapping about. The big bag was alive with a wildly struggling ma.s.s of fish of all sizes; and so heavy was the catch that the two fishermen could not move the net another inch.