336 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



Impatient youth proverbially is, and I fretted at the 

 imprisonment that the weather imposed upon me; but 

 to some extent I was consoled by learning that when the 

 spate cleared out, the sea-trout would be on the take, and 

 that I should have a chance of trying my skill with a 

 nobler foe than those that had previously fallen to my 

 prowess. 



At length the late rain-gorged hill-sides had returned to 

 their normal condition, and the mud-stained stream had 

 gradually reverted to its proper colour. The time had 

 come for me to prove my skill. Nor long was I kept in 

 doubt; the fourth, or fifth, or sixth throw hooked a fish, 

 such a fish as never before had made me feel diffident, or 

 previously made me doubt the seasoning and strength of 

 my rod. No sooner had the barbed hook fastened in its 

 insidious hold, and the impaled monarch learned that he 

 was captive, than every effort of his lithe and agile frame 

 was brought into play to recover freedom. In every 

 struggle, in every effort to burst the bonds that made him 

 captive, there was an utter recklessness of consequences, a 

 disregard for life that was previously unknown, as from side 

 to side of the pool he rushed, or headlong stemmed the 

 sweeping current. Nor did the hero confine hims> ][' to his 

 own element ; again and again he burst from its surface 

 to fall back fatigued but not conquered. The battle was 

 a severe one, a struggle to the death ; and when my landing- 

 net placed the victim at my feet, I felt he had died the 

 <]r;ith of a hero. Such was my first sea-trout, no gamer 

 truly than hundreds I have captured since ; but what can 

 be expected of a race of which every member is a hero? 



