A haddock bearing the teeth-marks of the halibut that had tried to swallow him after he was caught came next. Then followed cod, cod, cod, so fast that by the time the trawl was half hauled, dory No. 6 was deep in the water and her crew did not dare to put another fish into her. They were in fine spirits over their good-luck, as they buoyed the trawl and pulled back to the schooner to get rid of their load before attempting to finish the haul. By this time a stiff northerly breeze was blowing, and the _Vixen_ had swung with the change of wind, so that she now lay stern to them. This made their pull much shorter than it otherwise would have been. Owing to this they had the satisfaction of pitching the first fish of that cruise on the schooner’s deck. This greatly disappointed Hank Hoffer, who came up a minute later in dory No. 5, and who had fully expected to be able to claim the honor of “first fish.” He began to make ugly remarks to the effect that if they had waited to get a full load they would not have been back so quickly. This time the skipper cut him short with, “Look to your own load, Hank. If you’d ’a’ waited to make it as big as the one these lads have brought in, you wouldn’t have come for half an hour yet.” As soon as the fish had been unloaded from dory No. 6, and the two tubs of trawl already hauled had been lifted out, the boys returned for the rest of their catch. They had hardly got the buoy aboard, and were just beginning to haul in the remainder of the trawl, when suddenly the most surprising thing occurred. The dory was at once, and without the slightest warning, lifted bodily several feet into the air, and both its occupants were flung down, Wolfe striking and breaking a thwart in his fall. Immediately afterwards the dory slid on its side, and apparently downhill, into the water. It was only by scrambling hastily to the upper gunwale that the boys kept it from capsizing. As it was, it was half full of water before they succeeded in righting it. At the same moment they heard a loud rushing sound like escaping steam, a column of spray was thrown high in the air, and they caught a glimpse of a huge black object sinking out of sight but a short distance from them. As it disappeared, their boat was rocked violently on the waves that surged over the place where it had been. Both the boys were terribly startled, and for a moment greatly frightened, by this mysterious occurrence. They had instinctively begun bailing the water from the dory almost as soon as they found that she still floated right side up. Breeze was the first to recover the breath which had been nearly driven from his body by the shock of his overthrow, and now he gasped out,