Then all in the same instant the reel begins to scream and your heart to beat like a trip-hammer. Up comes the anchor, the Indians paddle over to one side of the river, and you manfully keep the rod pointing upward, clutching it with your left hand above the reel, the end of the butt pressed against your waistcoat buttons, and your right hand ready to reel in line if the fish comes toward you or sulks at the bottom. All at once something happens which takes away your breath. Right before your eyes the great fish leaps four feet from the water, his writhing body curved like a silver bow, and glistening in the sunlight until he falls back with a splash that almost makes your heart stop beating, for fear he has broken loose. But no! You instinctively lowered the tip of your rod when he jumped, and he did not fall upon a taut line, as he hoped, and break away. The reel screams again as the salmon darts off down river; and as the canoe-men paddle after, you think of the Indian who lassoed the locomotive. Perhaps he will rush through the lower rapids into the pool below. Never fear! He is well hooked, and the strain of the rod is telling. Backward and forward he darts, while the line cuts the water, now sulking quietly, again startling you by a wild leap. At last he begins to yield. The canoe-men paddle you to a beach where you cautiously step out, keeping your face to the foe. Slowly, carefully you reel in line, straining the fish toward you. The Indians wait with the gaff, a large steel hook in the end of a stout pole. Now the salmon makes a despairing run, then, growing weaker, he obeys your strain. You can see him plainly as he comes into shallow water. What if you should lose him now! The Indians, bent double, ankle-deep in water, watch his every motion. One strikes at him, but misses, and the gallant fish makes another fight for life. But now he is within reach. The gaff is raised carefully, you hold your breath, and this time the steel pierces that silvery side, and out of the foaming water the gaff draws a noble salmon, your first—and let me hope a forty-pounder. Perhaps twenty minutes have passed since you hooked him,—perhaps an hour; but you have lived an age. May all the boy readers of ST. NICHOLAS some time know such thrilling sport as this! And the girls, too, may emulate their brothers, and each some time land a salmon. At least they can have the sport without holding the rod. One of the prettiest sights which I saw on the Restigouche was the eager face of a little girl in a canoe, with her father, who was fighting a twenty-five-pound salmon. Looking at her parted lips and wide-open eyes, I felt sure that girls as well as boys could feel the fascination of that most exciting of all forms of angling, salmon-fishing. [Illustration] [2] Verrazani, a Florentine navigator, is now believed to have been the original discoverer of the Hudson, about 1525.