I took my larger net into my boat and rowed out with it and anchored it with a stone at the end of a rope of skin above a deep place in the lake where I knew the pike were most abundant. I let down the net, which was a pouch-like thing, baited in the centre and which would upon the swift pulling of a cord of hide enclose whatever was close above it. It was lined with many sharp barbed hooks, to assist the chance of capture in the struggles of the fish to break away. I waited a time for the bait fastened upon the hoop-net to attract the fish, and then lifted the net sharply. It came only a little way; it had somehow caught upon the bottom. I was enraged at the happening. Pull strongly as I dared, I could not release the net. There was but one thing to do: I must dive from the boat and free the thing, no feat for one who could swim like a beaver. The day was very warm; I was impatient and excited; I could dry happily, when I rose, in the sun, and so I dived with my tough garb still upon me. Down to the net I went and learned in a moment what had happened. There was some sort of narrow jagged opening, reaching downward perhaps a yard in the rocky bottom, and into this hole the net had fallen, catching and entangling itself upon the spurlike protuberances which extended from the sides of the little chasm. It appeared to be twisted, and impaled about and upon two of these. I tugged and strained, but my efforts at its dislodgment failed, while my breath was almost exhausted. I must go to the top for air before I could do more. Then, as I made one last desperate attempt before rising, my foot slipped with the effort and I slid downward into the hole and into the anchored net itself! I was suffocating; I strove to swim upward, but was held back; the strong sharp hooks had caught in my clothing in a score of places, at which I plucked with the fierceness of despair. Then I strived to tear away my skin garments, but was already too weak for that. I could endure the strain upon my lungs no longer. I opened my mouth gaspingly, and the water rushed in. I was drowning! I yet struggled for a moment or two, and then became quiescent, I know not why. A thousand thoughts came to me. I had heard it said--and the wise ones of the tribe said--that it had been so from the beginning, that to the drowning always comes in an instant the memory of all things of importance which may have happened in his lifetime. It was so with me. How many things I had forgotten! I lived my life over again in what must have been but a moment. Then came the present. I thought of my immediate clan--ill could they afford the loss of Scar, the hunter--I thought of the black sorrow of Elka. I thought of my people and of the time when they would so increase that all men would be lifted, because men had come together in a city--the first the world had ever known! Of things such as these I thought. Then all became dreamy and very pleasant. CHAPTER XI THE ARMOURERS