She came around to the side nearest the wagon and here, because it seemed like her own ground, and the sand shelved gently out into the water, she ran boldly in half way to the centre of the pond and grabbed at the pole as it went shooting by. The first time she missed it in her eagerness and nearly fell into deep water. But she got her footing again and waited. Once the pole sailed by well out of her reach, but the next time as the fish circled he swerved sharply after he had passed Augusta and his quick turn slewed the broken end of the pole around almost to her hand. She grabbed it and ran, literally ran, out of the pond and up the bank, dragging after her by main strength the pole, the line and the fish. It was a most unsportsmanlike and unfair procedure. The fish could have had her haled before any angler's court and condemned by all the laws and canons of the sport. But Augusta ruthlessly dragged him up through the sand and the dust to the grass. When she thought that he was safely far enough from the water, she turned to look at her prize. Donahue, too, sniffing interestedly came ambling along for a view of the happenings. The sight of the fish did not please Augusta. He was black and dirty and he squirmed disgustingly. And he had covered himself with a loathesome coating of muddied dust. Her idea of a fish in captivity was of one frozen restfully in colors into the middle of a block of ice in a butcher's window. When she looked closer at the fish she saw that he was bleeding dirtily from the gills. She turned weakly sick and remorseful. "I'm sorry!" she cried. "Oh, I'm so sorry! Please go back. Please! And I'll never fish again!" She dropped limply down to the ground and began to cry bitterly. The fish was flopping his blind way back to the pond, when Donahue, with every appearance of studied intention, dropped a blundering foot upon the dragging line, and stood still contemplating affairs--thereby saving Jimmie's breakfast. So Jimmie, getting sleepily down from the wagon to investigate the commotion, found his wife sitting disconsolate and soggy on the grass, her face streaked with muddy tears, the accomplished Donahue standing foolishly ruminative in the middle of the picture, and a very dirty fish fighting for liberty at the end of the line. Jimmie hurried Augusta to the wagon for repairs, and took charge of the fish. He cooked it and had to eat it all himself while Augusta sipped remorsefully at the milk and eggs which Jimmie hated. Now if Augusta had known the reason why her bass had struck so quickly, and so viciously, at her baited hook she would have been much more disturbed and remorseful than she actually was.