"Oh, I have one! I have one!--a fish! What kind is it?" screamed Bess Bangem, who was the Professor's companion, as her light trout-pole bent from a sudden tug, and the reel whirred as the line ran off. "Stop him, hold on to him, wind him in, and I will tell you," answered the Professor, laughing. Bess was a practised hand, and loved the sport; but, woman-like, she always paused to wonder what she had caught before proceeding to find out. "It will be the subject of a lecture for you, whatever it is," replied Bess, with a saucy shake of her head, as she wound in the line and guided the playing fish with well-managed pole. Her fine face flushed with the excitement of the run and leap of her prey, as it came nearer and nearer, until Tim slipped the landing-net quietly under it and landed a beauty in the boat. "Poor fellow! I wonder if I hurt him?" said Bess. "Not much, if any," remarked the Professor. "I never was a fish, and consequently never was foolish enough to jump at a bunch of hooks; but, as the cartilage of a fish's mouth is almost nerveless, there is but little pain from a hook diet. Bass, salmon, pike, and other gamey fish will often keep on biting after they have been badly hooked." "So will men," said Bess, as she threw her troll into the water to do fresh duty. "You're p'intedly keerect," said Tim Price. "I got the sack four times, an' hed right smart mittens, afore I cotched a stayin' holt on my old woman." Shout after shout waked the mountain-echoes, as fish were held up in triumph, and as the boats glided over the smooth water of the eddy. Ahead was a mass of foam and a long dash of water down a shoal. "Yere's where me and the colonel catches 'em lively when I pull him," said Martha to the Doctor. "They bite yere ez lively ez a stray pig in a tater-patch. Whoop! I've got him! He pulls like a mule at a hitchin'-rope. Keep your boat head to the current, Alec, an' pull hard, er we'll drift down on him an' I'll lose him. Whoop! May I never! A five-pounder! I'll slit him down the back an' brile him fer breakfast. Whoop! In you come!" The boatmen pulled hard against the fierce current at the foot of the shoal, crossed and recrossed, circled, and at it again, until a score or more of noble bass were hooked from the swirl, and Colonel Bangem led the way up the rapids. Then the oarsmen leaped into the water and towed the boats through the wild current, until the eddy at the top of it allowed them to take oars again. "Preacher, kin you paddle?" asked Tim Price of the Professor, as he drained the water from his legs before getting into the boat. "Ef you air a hand at it, take an oar an' paddle a bit astern: there'll be white peerch an' red-hoss lyin' yere at the head uv the shore."