Here, lacking a leader, their migration came to an end. There seemed no reason to go farther, since here was everything they wanted. The Pup, by this time an expert pursuer of all but the swiftest fish, was less careful now to keep always within his mother's reach, though the affection between the two was still ardent. One day, while he was swimming some little distance apart from the herd, he noticed a black-hulled boat rocking idly on the swells near by. It was too near for his comfort, so he dived at once, intending to seek a safer neighborhood. But as luck would have it, he had hardly plunged below the surface when he encountered an enormous school of young herring. What throngs of them there were! And how crowded together! Never had he seen anything like it. They were darting this way and that in terrific excitement. He himself went wild at once, dashing hither and thither among them with snapping jaws, destroying many more than he could eat. And still they seemed to throng about him ever the more closely. At last he got tired of it, and dashed straight ahead to clear the shoal. The next moment, to his immeasurable astonishment, he was checked and flung back by a fine, invisible barrier. No, it was not quite invisible. He could see a network of meshes before him. Puzzled and alarmed, he shot up to the surface to reconnoitre. As his head rose above the water, his heart fairly stopped for a second with dismay. The black side of the fishing boat was just above him, and the terrifying eyes of men looked straight down into his. Instantly he dived again, through the ever thickening masses of the herring. But straightway again he met the fine, invincible barrier of the net. Frantically he struggled to break through it, but only succeeded in coiling it about him till he could not move a flipper. And while he wriggled there impotently, under the squirming myriads of the fish, he was lifted out into the air and dragged into the boat. Seeing the damage he had wrought in their catch, the fishermen were for knocking their captive straightway on the nose. But as he lay there, looking up with innocent eyes of wonder and appeal through the meshes, something in his baby helplessness softened the captain's heart. "Hold hard, Jim," he ordered, staying a big sailor's hand. "Blamed if the little varmint ain't got eyes most as soft as my Libby's. I reckon he'll make a right purty pet fer the kid, an' kind of keep her from frettin' after her canary what died last Sunday." "He don't much resemble a canary, Ephraim," laughed Jim, dropping the belaying-pin. "I reckon he'll fill the bill fine, all the same," said the captain. So the Pup was carried prisoner to Eastport. CHAPTER II