94 CANADIAN NIGHTS 



round the neck, allowed little of the fisherman's 

 face to be seen, except a nose, purple with cold, 

 from which hung a little icicle, and a pair of eyes 

 gazing intently at the hole in the ice over which he 

 stooped. Patiently he crouched over his fishing 

 hole, occasionally stirring up the water to keep it 

 from freezing, holding in his hand a fishing-rod in 

 the shape of a stick about a foot long, from which 

 depended a piece of thick twine attached to a hook 

 armed with the eye of a deceased trout as a bait. At 

 intervals he would twitch out a fish, pull him violently 

 off the hook — a man cannot employ much delicacy 

 of manipulation when his hands are encased in thick 

 fingerless mittens — and throw him on a heap of his 

 forerunners in misfortune, where he speedily froze 

 solid in the very act of protesting by vigorous con- 

 tortions against his cruel fate. We caught I should 

 be ashamed to say how many dozen trout on that 

 occasion. I know we had the best part of a sack- 

 ful, but as to the exact size of the sack I propose to 

 retain a strict reserve, lest I should be accused of 

 taking a mean advantage of that noble little fish the 

 trout. 



On the way home we shot a mountain sheep. 

 We came suddenly and unexpectedly upon three of 

 them, started our host of the ranch Griff Evan's 



