It was little wonder that the display excited the boy’s admiration. The huge muscles stood out like immense cords as the two men strained with all their might to upset each other. Pulling and pushing they whirled about on the smooth snow, neither seeming to be able to gain the advantage. Once Jean slipped, and the boys thought that he was going down, but he quickly recovered his footing and, in a second, seemed on even terms again. Both men were breathing hard and it seemed as though one or the other must yield soon, but as to which one it would be there was no indication. Then suddenly the end came. The boys saw Jean’s powerful arms creep upward, then quickly he bent his back, and Pierre, taken by surprise, flew over his head, landing on his back nearly ten feet away. For a moment he lay there striving to regain his breath, which had been driven from his body. Then eager hands pulled him to his feet and he ran for Jean, who was already pulling on his shirt. “Dat one ver’ bon hold,” he said as he grasped the victor by the hand. “Oui, she one ver’ fine hold,” Jean agreed, accepting the outstretched hand with a broad grin. “I thot you had me one time,” he added as he drew on his mackinaw. “Oui, I ver’ near geet you,” Pierre grinned as he began to dress. “It’s fine that those men can go through a match like that and still be good friends,” Bob declared as he and Jack hurried away to the wharf. Even they, accustomed as they were to the rapidity with which the ice breaks up when it once starts, were surprised at the change which one short hour had wrought. What had been a broad expanse of frozen surface now was a heaving mass of huge cakes of ice, interspersed with stretches of open water. “Isn’t it wonderful?” Jack asked as he gazed at the sight. “Nothing finer,” Bob agreed. “But come on, let’s get the rods and try for trout in some of those open stretches.” The finest fishing in the lakes of northern Maine is just as the ice goes out. Then the big trout are hungry after the long winter beneath the ice, and lucky is the fisherman who is there at the time. As the boys returned to the wharf with their rods it happened that there was an open space just out in front. Bob was first to have a fly lazily floating on the surface of the water, but it had hardly struck the surface before it disappeared and a tug at the line told the boy that he had hooked the first fish of the season. From the way the reel whined as the line ran out he knew that it was a big one. He pressed on the drag as hard as he dared but it seemed to have little effect. “You’ll have to make it snappy or you’ll lose him,” Jack shouted. “That opening’s going to close in a minute or two, and if he gets under the ice, good night.”