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There were nine Snells, all relatives, in the patriot ranks; so far as I can remember, there were five Bellingers, five Seebers, five Wagners, and five Wollovers and it may well be five of more than one other family. The men of the different settlements formed groups by themselves at the first, and arranged their own separate camping-places for the night.
But no fish can shake out a hook well sunken in mouth or gills, though two-thirds of the barb be filed away. For mascalonge or pickerel I invariably use wire snells made as follows: Lay off four or more strands of fine brass wire 13 inches long; turn one end of the wires smoothly over a No. 1 iron wire and work the ends in between the strands below.
Why, I'd never hearn on 'em, and Josiah hadn't either, though he acted dretful knowin', and put on a face of extreme enjoyment and appreciation. And he sez, "How a man duz enjoy seein' such things that he's ust to and knows all about!" And I sez, "What do you do with squids, anyway, or gaffs, or snells?" "Why," sez he, "I should snell with 'em, and gaff, and squid. What do you spoze?"
"Just then, down came the women folk and all the family of the Snells, and the old woman made right at me, as cross as a bear that has cubs, she looked like a perfect fury. "'You good-for-nothin' young scallowag, said she, 'is that the way you take care of that poor dear little boy, to let him fall into the pond, and get half drowned?
I took off the fly from my line, and fastened upon it half a dozen snells with bare hooks, attached a small sinker, and dropped quietly among them. A large fellow worked his way lazily above where the hooks lay on the bottom, eying me, as if laughing at my folly in attempting to deceive him, with fly or bait. I jerked suddenly, and two of the hooks fastened into him near the tail.
The pouch has a sheath strongly sewed on the back side of it, where the light hunting knife is always at hand, and it also carries a two-ounce vial of fly medicine, a vial of "pain killer," and two or three gangs of hooks on brass wire snells of which, more in another place. It is about as handy a piece of woods-kit as I carry.
There were shot-guns in rows, their gray barrels looking like so many organ-pipes; sheaves of fishing-rods, from the four-ounce whisp of the brook-trout up to the rigid eighteen-ounce lance of the king-salmon and sea-bass; showcases of wicked revolvers, swelling by calibres into the thirty-eight and forty-four man-killers of the plainsmen and Arizona cavalry; hunting knives and dirks, and the slender steel whips of the fencers; files of Winchesters, sleeping quietly in their racks, waiting patiently for the signal to speak the one grim word they knew; swarms of artificial flies of every conceivable shade, brown, gray, black, gray-brown, gray-black, with here and there a brisk vermilion note; coils of line, from the thickness of a pencil, spun to hold the sullen plunges of a jew-fish off the Catalina Islands, down to the sea-green gossamers that a vigorous fingerling might snap; hooks, snells, guts, leaders, gaffs, cartridges, shells, and all the entrancing munitions of the sportsman, that savored of lonely canons, deer-licks, mountain streams, quail uplands, and the still reaches of inlet and marsh grounds, gray and cool in the early autumn dawn.
And then there wuz trollin' spoons of all kinds and shapes, in all kinds of metal, and trollin' squids I'd never hearn of that name before squid! but they had 'em of all kinds; and tackle boxes, and floats, and landin' nets, and gaff hooks; there is sunthin' else I never hearn on gaff hooks! and snells, and gimps, and spinners.
"Thanks for your trouble, Steve; you'll save me doing it later," spoke up Toby, graciously. "When you fellows are off I'll wrestle with the dishes and cooking outfit. After that I've got several things I want to fix about my fishing tackle some snells to tie fresh after heating them in boiling water; and hooks that need filing about the points, as they seem a bit dull.
I told them of the shooting and capture of Paris and the death of Eisenlord. My news created no impression, apparently. Our minds were saturated with horror. Of the nine Snells who came with us, seven were said to be dead already. The storm stopped as abruptly as it had come upon us. Of a sudden it grew lighter, and the rain dwindled to a fine mist.
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