"Well, I don't know about that, now. I am not so sure but there may be something in it," remarked the hunter, who had been listening to Carvil with evident interest. "Though we have never tried that method in this region, to my knowledge, yet my experience rather goes to confirm the notion. I remember to have caught several fine trout, when I had laid down my pole, and was moving off with my boat, but had left my line trailing behind. Those great fellows are not very bashful about seizing any thing they think they can eat, which they can see on the surface. I have known them do a stranger thing than to come up and seize a piece of pork." "What was that?" asked the trapper. "Well, I don't know as you will believe the story," answered the other, "but it will be equally true, if you don't. Some years ago I was out on the Umbagog, for a mess of trout, but couldn't get a bite; and, seeing a flock of black ducks in a neighboring cove, I hauled in my line, and rowed off towards them, thinking I might get a shot, and so have something to carry home, by way of mending my luck at fishing. But, before I got near enough to count with much certainty on the effect of a shot, if I fired, they all flew up, but one, which, though it seemed to be trying hard enough, could not raise its body out of the water. As my canoe drifted in nearer, I once or twice raised my rifle to fire at it; but it acted so strangely, flapping the water with its wings, and tugging away at swimming, without appearing to gain scarce a single foot, that I soon laid down my piece and concluded I would try to take it alive, supposing it must have got fast tangled with something, but with what, I was wholly unable to conceive. So, taking up my oar, and gunning my canoe, so as to send it by within reach of the bird, I gave two or three strong pulls, threw down the oar, put out my hand, and sat ready for the grab, which the next moment I made, seizing the panting and now sinking duck by one of its outspread wings, and pulling it in, with a big trout fastened to its foot and leg so tight by the teeth that the hold did not give way till the greedy fish was brought slapping over the side, and landed safely in the bottom of the canoe. That trout, when I got home, weighed just seven pounds and nine ounces." "Wheugh! whiz! kak! ke-o-ho!" exclaimed, whistled, and crowed Comical Codman. "I do not doubt it in the least," said Carvil. "Nor can I, of course, on Mr. Phillips' statement," added Mark Elwood; "but, if I had not known his scrupulousness in matters of fact, I should not have believed that so strange a circumstance had ever happened in the world."