Before starting back, I noted particularly the outline against the sky which our hill and its neighbours formed, thinking I might be much in need of some such guide when I came to go further from home. Then I drove my craft with all the speed I could force. Her prow was slightly above the glass-like surface and the water swashed backward from her keel with a sound that stirred me to immoderate delight in this my supreme achievement. The oars were heavy and the row-locks a trifle awkward; we rolled a bit to one side and I was obliged to keep fetching her nose about to port at every dozen strokes, but I made satisfactory time and just before she shot across the last fifty feet of water and rammed up high on the shore, a startled fish of some description, leaped bodily out of the water and darted off in affright. My friends gave forth various notes of alarm and fell back quickly to the shelter of the trees. I was not at all certain whether they were most afraid of the fish or of me and the magic which they seemed to think I possessed. Fatty, however, was too glad to get me back to care for anything else. He fell headlong over the boat in his crazy endeavour to get his paws upon me and to roll on top of my feet. Inasmuch as the day was too far advanced to permit of any extended explorations, I decided to try for a bit of sport. “Boys,” said I, remembering an old-time joke, “which would you rather do or go fishing?” I got them to fetch me a long line, made of thongs tied firmly together, while Fatty got a bird for bait and I cut a tough hard hook out of wood. For this I chose a V-shaped crutch, one leg of which became the shank, while the other was cut off shorter, sharpened and formed like a barb. With the line tied to this, a rock for a sinker and a piece of the bird spitted on my hook, I got out at the end of the boat and heaved the tackle out as far as the cord would permit. I pulled it back with no result, save for a nibble when I had taken it almost in. I thought the fish must be small and near the shore. However, I tried again. The result was the same, only that I got two nibbles instead of one. The third cast was an aggravation, for some miserable sprat got my bait. We put on a fresh piece and tied it in place. “Now,” I grunted, as I threw the line again, “we’ll see if you young sardines will—” A sudden, hard jerk on the line nearly dragged me overboard, neck and crop. I had a bite which felt big enough to indicate a whale.