IN

N northern waters, where streams are whipped with fantastic and artificial flies, the bait-catcher is comparatively an unimportant personage. The possession of certain grim secrets regarding the haunts of live bait is his sole claim upon the angler, and the most fervent votary of the rod and line would scarcely clothe him with professional dignity, or view him in the light of a picturesque feature of the general surroundings.

NETS FOR MULLET.

Such, however, are the attributes of our bait-catcher of the outer reef. Tall, blithe, prolific of speech, wit, and humor, Paublo strides along the ideal fisherman of the Keys. He nods recognition to the passing pelican; the laughing gulls utter their shrill ha-ha at his call; and all the secrets of the reef are his. The feeding-grounds of the mullet and the hardhead, the lurking-places of the tarpon, the great coral heads about which the gray snapper loves to hide, the deep lairs of the barracuda and the kingfish - all are familiar to this dark confidant of nature.

Over one arm is slung a cast-net, while in the other hand he bears a long two-pronged pair of grains. As he moves along the white coral sands, which send out a metallic ring, his keen eye scans the reef in search of the rippling mullet, while from his ample lips rise melodious strains, the music of intuition.

fied among the Florida Keys. Each is provided with the tackle of his choice- handlines with long copper wire leaders, and a heavy bass rod with massive reel. Evidently a test of merit is to be the outcome of the day's sport.

The fishermen were wending their way along the shores of Long Key, a narrow strip of coralline sand about a mile in length and one hundred feet in width, which formed with Garden Key the center of the Dry Tortugas group, the key of the Gulf, one hundred and twenty miles from the mainland of Florida. The sun was well up, and as far as the eye could reach the blue waters of the Gulf stretched away like a sea of glass. The divide between water and sky was lost in the perfect stillness, and even the Physalia were becalmed, and floated listlessly, their fairy sails raised to their utmost tension. Far to the north Sand, Middle, and East keys rested on the glassy surface like white gulls, their tops capped with green vestures of live oak and mangrove. To the right Bush Key, with its ragged trees and pelican nests, seemed to hang in mid-air, and here began the great sea-wall, or half-submerged reef, that swept away for miles to the south, surrounding coral groves and deeply cut channels of vivid bluethe paradise of the fisherman.

A motion of the bait-catcher caused a halt, and in the direction of his pointed finger, about thirty feet from shore, were seen a few ripples and a dark shadow-like spot on the white reef.

"Dey 's too sizable fo' castin'," he said. Dropping the net, he seized the spear and cautiously waded towards the school until waist deep; then placing the butt of the long grains in his palm, he hurled it not at the fish but high into the air. The pole rose like an arrow until it reached an altitude of thirty feet, then, hovering for a second over the spot, it turned Copyright, 1891, by THE CENTURY Co. All rights reserved.

Following the jovial bait-catcher are two patrons of the rod and line, one a disciple of the rod and reel in all contingencies, the other a claimant for the recognition of the experts of the hand-line and grains-at least as exempli