94 OLD BLACK BASS 



once. Pressure was brought to bear where 

 it would do the most good ; and the flow of 

 brown poison was stopped. 



Old Black Bass did not know who had 

 befriended him; but the sweet water came 

 again and he breathed it deep. Friendly 

 righted herself and took up again her high 

 vigil above her nest. Dead fish no more 

 floated above them, for Lone Pine had been 

 purified. 



While, of course, Old Black Bass did not 

 know it, yet in the streams of a thousand 

 rivers this poison is let loose through greed ; 

 and to the fish hawk and the mink, the 

 muskrat and the snake, the frog and the 

 turtle, is added another enemy of the bass 

 the enemy of Greed. 



And this enemy, because of its insidious 

 nature and its seeming economic justifica- 

 tion, is the Great Destroyer of the waters. 

 It is the Black Death of the fish. But some 

 day the friend will be as powerful as the 

 foe, and Man will intervene to prevent the 

 extermination of a species. The Spirit of 

 the Fisherman will rejoice to see that good 

 day. 



The little school placed safely, Old 



