The Trout of Los Laurelles 93 



and watched him leap and pirouette along the surface, 

 nearly throwing me as I stepped upon a moss-grown 

 stone. 



Just then I heard a laugh, and turning, there, on the 

 sands, sat a boy with a long willow pole and a string of 

 trout hung upon a willow wisp. 



" You're havin' the time of your life, mister ; wanter buy 

 my trout ? " he said. 



A moment before, I would have taken affidavit that I was 

 alone, seventeen miles from a postoffice or telegraph sta- 

 tion, seventeen miles from anywhere; alone in the heart of 

 a little river, shut in by almost impenetrable trees. One 

 might think, that here man would be safe from the tempta- 

 tions, allurements and follies of the world; yet in the very 

 heart of this angling paradise, in the very temple of Nature, 

 this tempter appeared, armed with the most infallible and 

 seductive lure that ever laid an angler low. Shades of 

 Junipero! there is graft even in the shadow of San Carlos 

 Borromeo. 



In ample time the trout came in, and he being of goodly 

 size, as became so sturdy a fish, I waded down shore to a 

 certain alder tree, where I had hung my various trout (hav- 

 ing forgotten my creel) ; they were gone ! I ran over in my 

 mind the possible enemies of game of this kind: 'coons, 

 otter, eagles, ravens, wood rats; and then my eye fell upon 

 a single small Robinson Crusoe-like human footprint on the 

 sands, and I saw it all — the boy had borrowed my trout to 

 sell them to me. I had resisted the temptation (knowing 

 I had a good string), but it was a grave mistake. I should 

 have bought those trout. 



A friend of mine, a clergyman, once asked me to send 

 him some suggestions for a '' nature sermon." So I found 

 a comfortable place among the trees and jotted down the 

 incident, which involves a great moral principle somewhere, 

 exactly where, he will doubtless be able to discover; and 

 perhaps some angler will be there, and derive solace and 



