92 Fish Stories 



the other fell upon the hook, yet was so small that my rod 

 literally carried him through the air behind me ; so I dropped 

 him back, forgetting that this size trout, at least at Los 

 Laurelles, cooked in olive oil, rolled in the white of an Qgg, 

 in powdered cream crackers, is a viand fit for the gods ; and 

 that I had been asked to catch the supper in that particular 

 size. 



Taking two or three trout at a time is possible here, but 

 this is merely an angling extravaganza, a triple duel; so I 

 stripped off two of the flies, and prepared for another six- 

 pounder. The little reach where my game escaped led 

 through the brush where there was a pronounced rapid, 

 perhaps the one I had heard, and here the stream dashed 

 over small boulders and ran down beneath the alders and 

 willows with loud acclaim, the water foaming capriciously. 

 I pushed through the brush that met here and there, and 

 came to a widening, spreading rapid, a long reach of splen- 

 did water crested with molten silver, with walls of emerald, 

 against which the slope of the mountain rose. Midway in 

 this, I cast, sending the diminutive " Coachman " — an allur- 

 ing thing for dark waters, thirty or more feet up the rapid, 

 dropping it just at the fall. 



What prearrangement of fate, what lucky star ordained 

 it, I do not know, but the fly fell just where a trout was 

 lying vigorously stemming the current, waiting for the very 

 thing that came promptly on time, as perhaps preordained 

 a million years ago, and then a new sound joined the strange 

 melody of king fishers, a plumed quail and meadow larks: 

 a quick st-:;-^-:^-:^, the staccato of a little reel that buzzed 

 its clicking notes on the perfumed air, and the fish took ten 

 or twenty feet of line, and fled up the leafy cafion away 

 into the crystal waters of the pool beyond, where, having 

 room to spare — a veritable sea in this little river — I let 

 him go, following slowly, and played him from the gravelly 

 reaches near shore. Then, insistent, he took me out in 

 mid-stream, toward an old root; but this I gently foiled, 



