Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/117

 head with loose line and he'd be off.

He circled away from me again, and back he rushed. Then I realized that this was deliberate strategy to keep me too busy to torture him with the rapping.

"Hah!" he said, "I can do this forever."

"So can I," I lied.

"Don't try to fool an old river fish," he sneered. "You have to clear out an hour after sundown, and you know it."

I said nothing, and he must have sensed that he had me. "Tell you what I'm going to do," he said with a flip of his dorsal fin. "We larger fish generally stick pretty well together, but under the circumstances I think I'm entitled to do a little stooling. After all, it's my life or theirs, maybe."

"Whose life?" I suckered.

"Those trout. Those eighteen-inchers up in the next pool, just above the falls. There are nine of them up there, big fat fellows on their way down to Hell's Gate country. They were the only sizable fish I passed on the way down here. I heard them say they were holing up until dark to wait for the females to catch up to them. The ladies had a little business up-stream and fell behind."

I caught my breath. Eighteen-inch rainbows! I've often dreamed of catching such fish, but a 12-incher has been my top fish in the past. And nine of them!

But I was leery. "Why should I turn loose a 24-inch fish to go after—"

"I'm 26 inches, fellow, and don't you forget it," he interrupted sharply. "And if you were going to pull that old saw about a bird in the hand, don't bother. I've tried to demonstrate that I am not in your hand by a long shot." To prove it he slogged down to the bottom again.

"If I turn you loose," I asked suspiciously, "how do I know you won't swim up there and alert them?"

He rose to the surface, rolled over on his silvery side and gaped open his mouth. "On my gill's honor I won't," he swore solemnly.

He gave a little impatient splash and egged me on. "Of course, you aren't going to take them standing here playing tic-tac-toe with me all day. There's a mighty fine afternoon's fishing up there. I'd suggest you make your first cast just below the mossy rock at the lower end of the pool and play them down this way. You might get all of them that way, if you don't make them FISH TALK