Adventure Magazine Cover — page 111: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Gran’ Mobi’s Jest and a few rods beyond this point Pierre La- roche came across a weed-grown ditch. Here he parted the reedy tangle and brought to view a cypress pirogue, filled to the brim with dried palmetto-leaves. These he swept out deftly, stowing rod and basket into the little dugout. From a recess in the ditch-bank he drew out a short paddle and a long pirogue pole with broad, forked tip. Stepping into the stern of the pirogue he seized the pole and propelled his craft along the ditch, which was so narrow that it gave him a scant half-foot clearance on either side. Less than half a mile farther along the ditch gave out upon a broad canal; and, seating himself, Pierre paddled west here, searching the bank. At length he found the mouth of a second ditch, and up this, pole in hand, ke made his way. At irregular intervals the ditch widened out into a broad pool, the ditch-diggers of a bygone time having taken advantage of the presence of a chain of such pools to lessen their labors. At the first of these pools Pierre paused and, jointing his rod, cast about for the game green trout which might be lurking there. Meeting with no success he changed bait, and jerked a few fat, buttery goggle-eye and one or two sacola out of the water. It was fair sport upon which to whet one’s appetite for trout, and Pierre might have remained a little longer but for the descent upon the pool of a cloud of mosaui- toes. When one ot those clouds approached there was safety only in flight. Hastily Pierre shipped his fishing-tackle and poled away. Even so he was caught by the vanguard of the cloud, as half a dozen white lumps on his bare forearms attested. Like every city dweller Pierre Laroche was very sensitive to the poison of the swamp mosquitoes. Every bite raised a white lump of irritation from the poisoned skin. At the third pool Pierre found green trout in abundance. The whereabouts of this chain of pools was one of Pierre’s pet secrets, and few indeed were the fishermen whovisited it. In one or another of the pools there was always sure to be good fishing in plenty. With the first whirring cast of the wooden minnow among thé reed stems near the bank there came a rush through the water, and amid a silver shower the trout struck. So surprizingly swift was the rush that it caught Pierre off his guard, and the deft Io! wrist stroke which should have driven home the barbs merely served to jerk the bait away from its intended victim. Smashingly eager, however, the trout struck again immediately, and this time Pierre’s answering tug on the line made the big fish fast. The battle was too furious to be of long duration, and the shimmering green trout soon flopped about in the bottom of the pirogue. At once Pierre sent his dugout to the marshy edge of the pool, where he beached it securely and stepped out into the swamp. Here was good sport and he might well stay a while to enjoy it. Two more trout he landed as he began a slow circuit along one side of the pool; but on the third cast of the lure there was a rush and a strike which betokened some- thing other than trout. Automatically Pierre had jerked back his wrist in the swift movement that fastened the barbs, -and the rush which followed almost tore the rod from his grasp. Straining, dropping the tip of his rod cunningly along the fish’s line of flight when necessary, Pierre fought the battle. Alert to take in the least hint of slack as the big fish came to a rest or “back-tracked,” he nevertheless had to permit his catch time and again to make a wild dash away while the reel shrilled its high spinning song out over the swamps. Slowly, almost imper- ceptibly, the big fish began to tire. Shorter and shorter became the dashes, while the amount of slack which could be taken up by the reel increased correspondingly. ‘Must be a whale,” grunted Pierre after the fashion of fishermen the world over. “Feels like he weighs a ton.” One more half-hearted dash for freedom, and the big fish gave up the fight. Slowly, sulkily, but none the less steadily, he was reeled up to the bank. It was with a snort of disgust that Pierre Laroche greeted his first view of the prize. ‘““A choupique!” he exclaimed as he saw the blunt head, the broad, mud-colored back scales, and the short, choppy tail, that distinguished the carrion-fish. ‘‘By all that wears fins and scales, it’s a choupique! To think of me wasting a good half-hour over that!” He addressed the big fish scornfully. “If it weren’t for my bait that you’ve got in that ugly mouth of yours, I’d bust this line and let you swim off and starve.” GOMIGoOO S C@ iin