“A long hour by Shrewsbury clock” did Mary Joyce play that salmon. Her gloves were torn to shreds, her hat became a victim to the Shauraunthurga, her sheeny hair fell down her shoulders long below her waist, her boasted boots indicated eruptive tendencies, but the plucky girl still held on. “Let me alone, please,” she would cry as her father or Bingham tendered their services; “I’m not half-tired yet.” The color in her cheeks, the fire in her eye, the delicate nostril expanded, the undulating form—the British subaltern saw all this, and almost envied the fish, inasmuch as it was her centre point of interest. “The landing-net! Quickly! I have him now!” Percy Bingham darted forward, caught his foot in the gnarled root of a tree, and plunged headforemost into the boiling waters. An expert swimmer, he soon reappeared and swam towards the bank, still grasping the net. Finding his right arm powerless, and having succeeded in gaining footing, he placed the net beneath the fish, which with a bound sprang clear, and, breaking the line that Miss Joyce had slackened in her anxiety for the safety of her guest, was, in an exhausted condition, floundering down the stream, when Percy, by a supreme effort, clasped it fiercely in his left arm and flung himself on to the bank. “_Your_ fish after all. But you look ill, Mr. Bingham—dreadfully ill,” cried the agitated girl. “Your arm—” “Is broken,” he said. Assisted by Mr. Joyce and his daughter, and with the fractured limb in a sling constructed of handkerchiefs and fishing-line, poor Bingham returned to the house. He fought bravely against the pain, and attempted one or two mournful jokes upon the subject of his mishap; but every step was mortal anguish, and he expected to feel the serrated edges of the bones sawing out through his coat-sleeve. “I must insist upon being permitted to return to my hotel, Mr. Joyce,” said Percy Bingham when they had arrived. “If you want _every_ bone in your body broken, you’ll repeat that again, Bingham. Here is a room ready for you, and here, in the nick of time, is Doctor Fogarty.” “I cotch him at the crass-roads,” panted the breathless messenger whom Mr. Joyce had despatched in quest of the bone-setter.