“You’ll have to pull him,” Jack shouted. “He’ll be under that cake in another minute.”
Bob, realizing the truth of Jack’s statement, quickly lowered the light rod and caught hold of the line. Now it was simply a question of the strength of the line. Would it hold or would it break?
“It’s a good thing that’s a new line,” Jack cried, dancing about in his excitement as Bob began to pull in carefully, hand over hand.
“Nothing very sportsmanlike about this way of landing a fish,” he declared. “But we need that fellow for dinner.”
Slowly, foot by foot, the fish came in until finally it was flapping at their feet.
“Eight pounds if he’s an ounce,” Jack declared, as he picked the fish up by the gills and held it out at arm’s length.
For nearly two hours they fished, watching their chance whenever an open space gave them opportunity to cast. They lost several on account of the ice closing in before they could get them out, but more were landed successfully and by ten o’clock they had enough for dinner for the crew. They were all good-sized fish, none weighing less than three pounds, but the first one caught remained the prize of the lot by a good margin.
“Now I guess it’s up to us to clean ’em,” Jack said, as he reeled in his line. “That’s a dandy mess if I do say it.”
They had thrown the fish as they unhooked them into a packing box, and each taking hold of an end, they started for the mess house. They had stepped from the wharf when Jack chanced to look back toward the lake.
“What’s that out there?” he cried, setting his end of the box down on the snow.
“Looks like a man,” Bob replied, as he followed suit with his end.
“I’ll get the glasses,” Jack shouted, starting on the run for the office only a few rods away.
He was back in almost no time and, running to the end of the wharf, quickly raised the glasses to his eyes.
“It’s a man all right,” he declared after a moment, as he handed the glasses to his brother.
The man was probably a mile and a half from the shore, on a cake of ice about twenty feet in diameter. Bob could see that he was sitting in the center of the cake.
“I can’t see him move a bit,” he said, as he lowered the glass from his eyes.
“Don’t suppose he’s dead do you?” Jack asked anxiously.