, CHAPTER II. 



The rain came down in torrents all night, to the very hest 

 of it. miasnmmer ability under the specially 1-avoring influ- 

 ences of a forest and mountain region. Boisterous West 

 Canada Creek was swollen to a mad river. We sat and 

 conversed under the wood shed, all the forenoon; and whde 

 the rain still poured we smoked our pipes, told fishing and 

 hunting stories, whittled, and took our turns around the 



smudge kettle. 



At noon the rain dwindled to a drizzle, and I, the neophyte 

 of the party, horn and reared in a land of minnows, hull- 

 heads dace and. suckers, went up a little stream nearby, 

 •uKl with an extemporized rod and baited hook caught m> 

 first brook-trout! It flashed upon my recollection, (or might 

 appropriately have done so) at the instant of my hvst 

 ''strike " that there were several quick things,-lightnmg. 

 for instance,-the kick of an ugly cow at a milk pad,-the 

 descending blow of a school-teacher's ferule upon the 

 iuvenile palm,-the young skater's first somersault, -the 

 bashful boy's blush when the pretty girl of the school 

 smiles on him, and all that sort of thing,-but this trout 

 was a little ahead of them all. In an instant I had him fast 

 upon the barbed hook. The little spirit of activity at the 

 end of the line fairly efl'ervesced ; the small pool boiled like a 

 teapot, for there was a tempest in it of one frightened, crazy 



