At last, after nearly two hours, the two boys came to the banks of the stream, which was about a quarter mile wide at this point, and seemed not too deep, at least near the shore. Now it was Jon's turn to become the most excited. He ran to the edge and peered into the shallow depths, then called out delightedly at seeing dozens of darting forms of some type of marine life in the clear waters. "You watch while I fish," he commanded, dropping his gun and the two hare-like creatures. He took the carrying case from his shoulder, opened it and in moments had his rod, reel and line ready. "Yippee!" he yelled as he got an immediate strike on his first cast. With true fisherman's skill, he played the now fighting, swiftly darting denizen of the river. Carefully he reeled in his catch, giving line when the fish ran or plunged, reeling in when he felt the least bit of slack, exerting only enough pressure to force the fish-thing in toward him without losing it. Soon the wriggling creature was in shallow water, and Jon waded out with his landing net. A quick, darting movement with hand and net, and he had his first catch. He took it carefully from the net and held it aloft, examining and admiring it, while Jak danced about on the shore near him, uttering shrill yelps of triumph. They could see that Jon's catch was streamlined almost like a trout or barracuda. It was nearly fifteen inches long, and very slender. There seemed to be no scales--the skin was more like that of an eel or bullhead. "Fish or snake?" Jak asked. "Don't know for sure." Jon was still studying it. "Think it's a fish, all right, but it hasn't any fins, and swims with the same wriggles a snake uses. I think it's more eel than snake, though, and I'm quite sure it'll be good eating." The mouth was large and ran back almost three and a half inches. When Jon pried it open to remove his hook he saw there was a triple row of needle-sharp teeth, so quickly took a pair of pliers from his tool belt, and used these to remove the deeply swallowed hook. The eel-fish freed, he dropped it into his creel, then cast again. It was apparent these water denizens were unused to lures, for hardly had his spinner touched the surface of the water than he had another strike. As swiftly as he could reel in and remove one from his hook and cast again, Jon brought in fish after fish. All this time Jak was dancing about, now as excited as his brother at this prospect of fresh food to replace for the time the nourishing but hardly-delectable concentrates and frozen foods on which they had been living for so long. But when Jon finally was satisfied with the size of his catch, he found that leaving the river was not to be a simple matter of wading ashore. So intent had he been on his fun he had not noticed that his feet were sinking further and further into the bottom.