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and white on the other - perfect reproductions of the land fruit,
except that there were no leaves, and the stem was all pipy and
slimy.

"Don't tech 'em! Slat 'em off. Don't -"

The warning came too late. Harvey had picked them from the hook,
and was admiring them.

"Ouch!" he cried, for his fingers throbbed as though he had
grasped many nettles.

"Naow ye know what strawberry-bottom means. Nothin' 'cep' fish
should be teched with the naked fingers, dad says. Slat 'em off
ag'in' the gunnel, an' bait up, Harve. Lookin' won't help any.
It's all in the wages."

Harvey smiled at the thought of his ten and a half dollars a
month, and wondered what his mother would say if she could see him
hanging over the edge of a fishing-dory in mid-ocean. She suffered
agonies whenever he went out on Saranac Lake; and, by the way,
Harvey remembered distinctly that he used to laugh at her
anxieties. Suddenly the line flashed through his hand, stinging
even through the "flippers," the woolen circlets supposed to
protect it.

"He's a logy. Give him room accordin' to his strength," cried Dan.
"I'll help ye."

"No, you won't," Harvey snapped, as he hung on to the line. "It's
my first fish. Is - is it a whale?"

"Halibut, mebbe." Dan peered down into the water alongside, and
flourished the big "muckle," ready for all chances. Something
white and oval flickered and fluttered through the green. "I'll
lay my wage an' share he's over a hundred. Are you so everlastin'
anxious to land him alone?" Harvey's knuckles were raw and
bleeding where they had been banged against the gunwale; his face
was purple-blue between excitement and exertion; he dripped with
sweat, and was half blinded from staring at the circling sunlit
ripples about the swiftly moving line. The boys were tired long
ere the halibut, who took charge of them and the dory for the next
twenty minutes. But the big flat fish was gaffed and hauled in at
last.

"Beginner's luck," said Dan, wiping his forehead. "He's all of a
hundred."

Harvey looked at the huge grey-and-mottled creature with
unspeakable pride. He had seen halibut many times on marble slabs
ashore, but it had never occurred to him to ask how they came
inland. Now he knew; and every inch of his body ached with
fatigue.

"Ef dad was along," said Dan, hauling up, "he'd read the signs
plain's print. The fish arc runnin' smaller an' smaller, an'
you've took baout as logy a halibut's we're apt to find this trip.
Yesterday's catch - did ye notice it? - was all big fish an' no
halibut. Dad he'd read them signs right off. Dad says everythin'
on the Banks is signs, an' can be read wrong er right. Dad's
deeper'n the Whale-hole."

Even as he spoke some one fired a pistol on the "We're Here", and
a potato-basket was run up in the fore-rigging.

"What did I say, naow? That's the call fer the whole crowd. Dad's
onter something, er he'd never break fishin' this time o' day.

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