“Let them have it a little bit,” advised Ben. “You’re too nervous. Take time, son, take time.”

“Say, if you felt like me!”

Then, in quick succession, Marvie captured three more rainbows, averaging slightly heavier than the others.

“Don’t wake me up, Ben. Let me go on dreamin’.—What a place to fish! This darned hole is deep an’ full of hungry trout…. Now we’ll see…. There! Wow, Ben—I can’t budge him! Am I snagged on a log? Oh no! No!”

“That’s a big loggy one,” shouted Ben. “Play him easy, Marvie. Don’t lift so hard…. See, you pulled the hook out.”

“What’d I do then?” asked Marvie, after a long gaze of realization.

“Too strong. You should have let him run round and round till he was tired.—Don’t look sick, boy. There’s a wagon load of trout like him in that hole. Put on a big grasshopper now, and cast over here under the willows in the shade.”

Marvie did as he was bidden, carefully, earnestly, with bated breath and an air of certain calamity. His education had begun. He realized something electrifying and terrible was about to happen.

Ben saw a huge rainbow gleam out of the black depths and smash a hole in the surface on his rush for the grasshopper. He was so savage and fast that he hooked himself. Out he leaped, two feet long, broad and rainbow–hued, glistening in the sun. Sight of him absolutely paralyzed Marvie. He could not lower the rod, and when the big fish surged down the pool there came a snap. The rod broke in the middle. Marvie presented a spectacle for fishermen. The trout again leaped, headed away. Marvie’s line whizzed off the reel, overrun, tangled. Crack! The reel came off the rod and fell, to bound and dart like a live thing as the big trout dashed on with more line. Then before Ben could move the reel bounced up from the ground, caught against the guides on Marvie’s nodding rod. The line whizzed harder, rasped and twanged. Down jerked the rod. Marvie staggered forward in bewilderment, made a misstep and plunged into the water. Ben leaped to catch his legs and haul him out.

Blinking, disheveled, dazed, the lad got his equilibrium, and gazing from the broken rod and limp line up into Ben’s convulsed face he sputtered: “What—come—off?”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” exploded Ben, shaking with mirth. “Guess the trout come off. And the reel—and line—and you!”

“He got away…. Was that a fish?” murmured Marvie, wide eyes on the pool.

“Son, he sure was a whopper. Twelve or fifteen pounds, I’d say. He wrecked your outfit, and he’d have drowned you but for me. Didn’t you see him?”

“I saw somethin’ with jaws open. Must have been a flyin’ alligator,” returned Marvie, his gaze transfixed on the quiet pool.

“Well, you’ve got a nice mess for supper. Five, and all together they’re heavy enough to lug. Next time fetch a strong outfit or use mine.”