196 BOONEYILLE TO SARATOGA. 



waters regarded the proceedings as a violation of the fitness 

 of tilings, and parted company with us after a brief ac- 

 quaintance. We started camp ward, and wliile passing by 

 moonlight between a certain island and the near at hand 

 shore, a tingrrlmg bass, in its flight from an enemy beneath 

 the Mil-face, leaped from the water and struck the boat. 



"Hold on, John! 1 must have a east here!" 



"What! by moonlight ? " said .John, in surprise. 



" Yes, I have taken bass by moonlight \\hen 1 <-ouldn't 

 866 my (lies strike the water under the -hade of the trees." 



I cast, and the fly wa- taken by a fish that instantly 

 showed his vigor. John watched the bold leaps and play 

 of the bass, untill 1 finally ^\\ mi'.! the line around to him. 

 and he took off two bass, one weighing a pound and a qnar 

 ter. and the other half a pound. That -atistied .John, and 

 we hastened on to camp and went to bed. wholly content to 

 <leep without dreams, no matter how pleasant. 



When 1 sleepily opened m\ rye* in the early morninu'. 

 and put aside the flap of the tent, I saw John on a broad 

 rock jutting out into the lake, making a careful /><>( nior'<-iii 

 examination of the stomachs of the ba<s \\e had taken the 

 night before. While he cooked them he told me more. 1 

 confess, about their food than I, an old bass fisherman, had 

 ever learned from original investigation. As we ate the 

 delicious fellows. I partially forgave John for being a party 

 to the iniquity of storking these waters with bass, and thus 

 adding one more enemy to the precarious existence of 

 xtilnto fonliiHilt*. That the lake was pretty well stocked 

 was evident from our own experience and tliat of other 



