196 BOONEVILLE TO SARATOGA. 



waters regarded the proceedings as a violation of the fitness 

 of tilings, and parted companj- with iis after a brief ac- 

 quaintance. We started camp-ward, and while passing by 

 moonlight between a certain island and the near-at-hand 

 sliorc, a tingerling bass, in its flight from an enemy beneath 

 the surface, leaped from the water and struck the boat. 



" Hold on, John! 1 nuist have a cast here! " 



" What! l)y moonlight ?" said .lohu, in surprise. 



" Yes, I have taken bass by moonlight ^^'hen I couldn't 

 see my flies strike the water under the shade of the trees." 



I cast, and the fly was taken bj" a fish that instantly 

 showed his vigor. John watched the bold leaps and play 

 of the bass, untill I finally swung the line around to him, 

 and he took off two bass, one weighing a pound and a quar- 

 ter, and the other half a pound. That satisfied John, and 

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

 sleep without dreams, no matter how pleasant. 



\\ hen I sleepily opened my eyes in the early morning, 

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

 rock jutting out into the lake, making a careful ^jos/ mortevi 

 examination of the stomachs of the ])ass we had taken the 

 night before. VVhile he cooked them he told me more, I 

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

 ever learned from original investigation. As we ate the 

 delicious fellows, I })arti ally forgave John for being a party 

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

 adding one more enemy to the precarious existence of 

 salnto foiUinaUs. That the lake was pretty well stocked 

 was evident from our own experience and that of other 



