BRANDY BROOK TROUT.— DOWN THE RIVER. 339 



family, and forge a chain of logic which, 1)}' all precculents, 

 they could not break; the Sheriff, with grim grit and mul- 

 titudinous tackle, might hunt them with the detective's re- 

 lentless vigilance and sagacity; but it was all in vain. 

 Those noble fellows of Brandy Brook leaped and rolled 

 their broad, spotted, shining sides in the sun, andgandioled 

 like lambs on the hill-side; but the}^ refused, with an an- 

 chorite's virtue, every tempting oifer, flapped their tails at 

 logic, and eluded the stealthy hunt with double the (h'tec- 

 tive's skill. Rarely, to be sure, one was cnught. and upon 

 examining his stomach to learn what his royalty fed upon 

 tliat he had grown so great and so hauglitily indifferent, it 



was found to contjun nothing The Captain, to this 



day, with a slow and significant shake of the head, main- 

 tains that the mysterious conduct of a Brandy Brook trout 

 " beats all!" 



But it is comforting to believe that every evil fortune 

 has its compensations. The ill-luck of the Grass River 

 expedition and tlie taiilaiizing failures at Brandy Brook 

 gave us both food for wise meditation and a broad and 

 shapely cloud U)V the silver lining that we were about to 

 behold— besides fvu-nishiug a new illustration of proverbial 

 fisherman's luck. 



Some of our party had been to the river below the lake 

 and reported, on their return, successes which inspired a 

 general exodus from tlie home-camp. The next morning 

 after the Grass River experience, five of us, Avith guides, 

 went down the lake and below the dam foi- two days' fish- 

 ing; leaving the Captain and the Sheriff in camp, still un- 



