LETTER XIII. 149 



and the fish not very unreasonable, so that after 

 five or six minutes he came sailing up to my 

 feet a great bar of crimson. I hardly knew what 

 I had got hold of, for though a salmo fontinalis 

 is very brilliant, I had never seen anything like 

 this before, a fish red all over as the leaf of a 

 sugar maple in September. I have learnt since, 

 however, that all the big trout of the Skagit (of 

 which the stream I was fishing is a tributary) 

 are of this brilliant hue. In spite of his colour, 

 he was a true trout, and hung at my saddle-bow> 

 I should think, a good four pounds, the best fish 

 I ever caught in America. The rod lies some- 

 where amongst the bushes by the burn-side, 

 buried as it were on the field of victory. There 

 was not enough of it whole to make it worth 

 further carriage. The rain came down after this 

 and kindly veiled the miseries and regrets of my 

 horse and myself, even affording consolation in 

 the thought that the prudent man would have 

 been as wet as the rash one. Dripping and 

 hungry we reached the fourteen-mile house, where 

 horse and man were well fed, the man appre- 

 ciating the wisdom of the American host who 

 gives a glass of whisky (as a prelude to dinner) 

 to every guest who pays for a meal at his 

 table. 



It wanted but an hour and a half at most to 



