A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 125 



to my will, and was so responsive to my slightest 

 wish. When I caught my first large trout from it, 

 it sympathized a little too closely, and my enthusiasm 

 started a leak, which, however, with a live coal and 

 a piece of rosin, was quickly mended. You cannot 

 perform much of a war-dance in a birch-bark canoe ; 

 better wait till you get on dry land. Yet as a boat it 

 is not so shy and " ticklish " as I had imagined. One 

 needs to be on the alert, as becomes a sportsman and 

 an angler, and in his dealings with it must charge 

 himself with three things, precision, moderation, 

 and circumspection. 



Trout weighing four and five pounds have been 

 taken at Moxie, but none of that size came to our 

 hand. I realized the fondest hopes I had dared to 

 indulge in when I hooked the first two-pounder of my 

 life, and my extreme solicitude lest he get away I 

 trust was pardonable. My friend, in relating the 

 episode in camp, said I had implored him to row me 

 down in the middle of the lake that I might have 

 room to manosuvre my fish. But the slander has 

 barely a grain of truth in it. The water near us 

 showed several old stakes broken off just below the 

 surface, and my fish was determined to wrap my 

 leader about one of these stakes ; it was only for the 

 clear space a few yards farther out that I prayed. It 

 was not long after that my friend found himself in 

 an anxious frame of mind. He hooked a large trout, 

 which came home on him so suddenly that he had 

 not time to reel up his line, and in his extremity he 



