Moreover, the gale was abating somewhat, though the big waves still kept chasing each other in and springing high on the rocks. She became more eager about getting the fish. Hitherto, she had been rather excited and bewildered, and intent only on doing what she was bid; now the prospect of really landing the salmon had become joyful. ’But how shall we ever get him to come in here?’ she said. ’He’s bound to come, if the tackle holds; and I’m thinking he’s well hooked, or he’d been off ere now, with all this scurrying water.’ She shifted the rod to her right hand; her left arm was beginning to feel the continued strain. ’Has the other boat been out?’ she asked. ’No, no,’ said he, and then he laughed. ’It would be a fine thing if we could take back a good fish. I know well what they were thinking when we let the boat drift down the second time—they were thinking we had got the line aground, and were in trouble. And now they canna see us—it’s little they’re thinking that we’re playing a fish.’ ’We’ and ’us’ he said quite naturally; and she, also, had got into the way of calling him Ronald—as every one did. Well, that was a long and a stiff fight with the salmon; for whenever it found that it was being towed into the shallows, away it went again, with rush on rush, so that Miss Carry had her work cut out for her, and had every muscle of her arms and back aching. ’Twenty pounds, you’ll see,’ she heard the lad Johnnie say to his companion; and Ronald answered him— ’I would rather than ten shillings it was.’ Twenty pounds! She knew that this was rather a rarity on this loch—ten or eleven pounds being about the average; and if only she could capture this animal—in the teeth of a gale too—and go back to the others in triumph, and also with another tale to tell to Lily Selden! She put more and more strain on; she had both hands firm on the butt; her teeth were set hard. Twenty pounds! Or if the hook should give way? Or the line be cut on a stone? Or the fish break it with a spring and lash of its tail? Fortunately she knew but little of the many and heart-rending accidents that happen in salmon-fishing, so that her fears were fewer than her hopes; and at last her heart beat quickly when she saw Ronald take the clip in his hand.