106 AN OPEN CREEL 



expected March browns, this was a capital beginning, 

 and we went on up in good spirits. 



The next pool or so yielded only a few short rises. 

 Then came another bit of luck, an umbrageous corner 

 giving me four fish over the requisite three ounces in 

 quick succession, and two or three smaller ones, which 

 were returned. After that a sprinkling of March browns 

 appeared, but for a time little fish seemed to pre- 

 dominate, and the basket got no heavier. Still, fish 

 by fish the tale mounted until lunch-time, when Tom 

 had to leave me happy in the possession of a dozen, 

 which was as many as I had dared to hope for. When 

 he had gone the idea came to me that if I was quick 

 about it I might achieve a dozen and a half, so I 

 hurried over the sandwiches and fell to work again 

 literally, by reason of a rotten bank. Luck was still 

 with me, and from one small pool I secured four out 

 of the necessary six, and the fifth in a run just above. 

 The sixth took some catching, but not nearly so much 

 as the next brace, for which I toiled when the desire 

 for twenty had entered into my soul. The rise proper 

 was then over. I had fished up as far as time per- 

 mitted, and had to turn my face downstream. Number 

 nineteen came pretty soon, but over and over again 

 number twenty turned out to be too small, and it took 

 more than a mile of water before a fair quarter- 

 pounder seized the March brown and completed the 

 round number. There I might well have rested 

 content, for twenty had been the figure concerning 

 which I had prophesied at breakfast; but now it 

 seemed inadequate. 



Two dozen was the basket for me, a determination 



