NOT ALL OF FISHING TO FISH 269 



catching and landing without a net some of the most 

 beautiful and gamy fish that ever moved fin — comes 

 back to me as vividly as though at this moment the 

 four walls of my room were the forest-circled shores of 

 that far-away pond, and I stand in that leaky boat, 

 almost ankle deep in the water that Frank, the guide, 

 has no time to bail, occupied as he is in watching my 

 casts and admiring my whip-like rod during the play 

 of a fish, or fishes, and in turning the boat's gunwale 

 to the water's edge to let my trout in when they are ex- 

 hausted. It is sharp, quick work, and the blue-bodied 

 fly is always first of all the flies composing the cast to 

 get a rise, until I take off all but the one kind, and 

 then one after another I see them torn, mutilated and 

 destroyed. Later they will be put away as warriors gone 

 to rest and the epitaph written on their wraj)pings : 

 " Thy work was well done ; thy rest well earned." 

 Now there is no time to mantle the fallen or sing 

 paeans to the victors ; the action is at its height. I put 

 my last blue fly on my leader and cast it again and 

 again with success, before those dark open jaws, that 

 come out of the water every time it falls on the surface, 

 have destroyed its beauty forever. Frank says the time 

 is up and we must go. 



The boat, propelled with broken oars, is headed for 

 the landing-place, and I sit back in the stern admiring 

 those sleek beauties that lie in the bottom, and that have 

 fought so well and so vainly. My rod is inclined over 

 my shoulder and the blue fly is trailing on the water 



