While they were waiting for Ned’s hand to get well, Dick got out the fly-rod and cast-net that came with his canoe and spent all his spare time trying to learn to throw the net.  Johnny had given him a few lessons, until he thought he had learned to cast it.  It was the kind of net which is used by the Florida Cracker, to the knowledge of which he is born, which he can cast when he leaves his cradle.  The net was conical, six feet long with a ten-foot mouth, lined with leaden sinkers.  The top of the net was closed, excepting for a small hole in which was fitted a small ring, through which puckering strings led from the mouth of the net to a 25-foot line, which was to be fastened to the fisherman’s wrist.

For casting, about half of the net is thrown over each wrist and one of the sinkers held between the teeth.  The net is then swung behind the fisherman, thrown forward with a whirling motion, the sinker in his mouth released at exactly the right instant and the net falls in an almost perfect circle wherever, within thirty feet, the fisherman wishes.  That is the way the net behaved when Johnny threw it.  And when Johnny arranged the net on Dick’s arms, told him just what to do and watched him, Dick made some respectable throws, and thought he had learned the game; but now, away from his teacher, when he tried to cast it, net and leads went out in a solid mass that never could have caught anything, though it might have killed a fish by knocking it in the head.  Dick, however, was bound to learn, and practiced by the hour, without seeming to make any progress, when suddenly the net began to go out in circles and his casts became creditable.  He was so fearful of losing his new-found facility that he practiced for the rest of that day, and lay down at night with what he called the toothache in every muscle.

But from that day fish was on the bill of fare of the young explorers.

When Ned’s hand was well enough to be used a little, he began by fishing, sitting in the bow of the canoe, with the fly-rod, while Dick paddled.  He caught several of the big-mouthed black bass, often called in the South fresh-water trout, and other small fish which they saved for the pan.  Then the line was carried out with a rush by a fish that twice jumped one or two feet in the air.

“Got a tarpon, sure,” said Ned, who had never taken one, and he became most anxious lest the fish escape.

For nearly half an hour he carefully played the fish, which never jumped again.  When the tired fish was ready to be landed Ned found that his prize, instead of a tarpon, was a ten-pound fish which he did not recognize, but which he afterwards learned was a ravaille.

“Well, it was mighty good fun, almost as exciting as if it had been a tarpon,” said Ned, who didn’t know how foolishly he was talking.

They were down the river bright and early the following morning but, for the first hour, failed to hook any of the fish that struck.  Then the hook was snatched and instantly a silver, twisting body shot ten feet up in the air.  As it fell back in the water, the reel began to buzz and Ned’s fingers were burned where the line touched them.  Again and again the great fish leaped high in the air, while the line ran low on the reel.