Rob Harlow's Adventures Part 3

The Italian lad showed his teeth.

"You don't know how to fish," he said.

"You'd better try yourself," said Rob. "You people talk about the fish in the Parana, but I've seen more alligators than sprats."

"Shall I catch one?" said the new-comer.

"Yes; let's see you."

The lad nodded and showed his white teeth.

"Give me an orange," he said.

Rob rose and stepped softly to the awning, thrust his hand into a basket beneath the shelter, and took out three, returning to give one to the young Italian and one to Shaddy, reserving the last for himself and beginning to peel it at once.

Giovanni, alias Joe--who had pa.s.sed nearly the whole of his life on his father's schooner, which formed one of the little fleet of Italian vessels trading between Monte Video and a.s.suncion, the traffic being largely carried on by the Italian colony settled in the neighbourhood of the former city--took his orange, peeled it cleverly with his thin brown fingers, tossed the skin overboard for it to be nosed about directly by a shoal of tiny fish, and then pulled it in half, picked up the gimp hook and shook his head, laid the hook back on the thwart, and pulled the orange apart once more, leaving two carpels, one side of which he skinned so as to bare the juicy pulp.

"The hook is too small," said the boy quietly.

"Why, it's a jack hook, such as we catch big pike with at home. But you're not going to bait with that?"

"Yes," said the lad, carefully thrusting the hook through the orange after pa.s.sing it in by a piece of the skin which, for the first time, Rob saw he had left.

"I never heard of a bait like that."

"Oh, I dunno, my lad," said Shaddy. "I've caught carp with green peas and gooseberries at home."

"Orange the best bait for a dorado," said the Italian softly, as he placed the point of the hook to his satisfaction.

"Dorado? That ought to be Spanish for a golden carp," said Rob.

"That's it. You've about hit it, my lad," cried Shaddy, "for these here are as much like the gold-fish you see in the globes at home as one pea's like another."

"Then they're only little fish?" said Rob, with a contemptuous tone in his voice.

"Oh yes, only little ones, my lad," said Shaddy, exchanging glances with the new-comer, who lowered the baited hook softly over the side of the boat, and rapidly paid out the line as the orange was borne away by the current.

"There, Rob, you fish!" the Italian said. "Hold tight if one comes."

"No; go on," replied Rob. "I'm hot and tired. Bother the flies!"

The young Italian nodded, and sitting down, twisted the end of the stout line round a pin in the side of the boat, looking, in his loose flannel shirt and trousers and straw hat, just such a lad as might be seen any summer day on the river Thames, save that he was bare-footed instead of wearing brown leather or canvas shoes. Excepting the heavy breathing of the sleepers forward, there was perfect silence once again till Shaddy said,--

"Wind to-night, gentlemen, and the schooner will be off the bank."

"The pampero?" said Giovanni--or, to shorten it to Rob's familiar nickname, Joe--quietly.

"Looks like it, my lad. There you have him."

For all at once the line tightened, so that there was a heavy strain on the side of the boat.

"That's one of them little ones, Mr Rob, sir."

Joe frowned, and there was a very intense look in his eyes as the line cut the water to and fro, showing that some large fish had taken the bait and was struggling vigorously to escape.

Rob was all excitement now, and ready to bewail his luck at having given up the chance of holding so great a capture on the hook.

"To think o' me not recollecting the orange bait!" grumbled Shaddy.

"Must have been half asleep!"

Those were intense moments, but moments they were; for after a few rushes here and there the taut line suddenly grew slack, and as Rob uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n expressive of his disappointment Joe laughed quietly and drew in the line.

"Look," he said, holding up the fragment of gimp attached by its loop to the line. "I knew it was not strong enough."

"Bit it in two," said Shaddy. "Ah, they have some teeth of their own, the fish here. Ought to call 'em dogfish, for most of 'em barks and bites."

While he was speaking Joe had moved to the side of the dinghy, reached over to a little locker in the stern, opened it, and returned directly with a big ugly-looking hook swinging on a piece of twisted wire by its eye.

"They will not bite through that," he said as he returned.

"Oh, but that's absurdly big," said Rob, laughing. "That would frighten a forty-pound pike."

"But it wouldn't frighten a sixty-pound dorado, my lad," said Shaddy quietly.

"What?" cried Rob. "Why, how big do you think that fish was that got away?"

"Thirty or forty pound, perhaps more."

By this time the young Italian was dividing the orange which Shaddy had laid upon the thwart beside him, and half of this, with the pulp well bare, he placed upon the hook, firmly securing this to the line.

"Now, Rob, your turn," said Joe; and the lad eagerly took hold, lowered the bait, and tossed over some twenty yards of line.

"Better twist it round the pin," said his companion.

"Oh no, sir; hold it."

"Well, then, let me secure the end fast."

Rob was ready to resent this, for he felt confidence in his own powers; but he held his tongue, and waited impatiently minute after minute, in expectation of the bite which did not come.

"No luck, eh?" said Shaddy. "I say, I hope you're not going to catch a water-snake. I'll get my knife out to cut him free; shall I? He might sink us."

"Do be quiet," said Rob excitedly. "Might have one of those John Doreys any moment."

But still the minutes went on, and there was no sign.

"How are you going to manage if you hook one?" said Joe quietly.

"Play him till he's tired."