50 SUMMER DAYS ON 



the leader with his tail all proved of no avail. Admiration for 

 his pluck almost made me regret his fate ; but Enoch's relentless 

 gaff quivered for one moment only above his victim ; then instantly 

 with unerring aim the bright steel was buried in the shining side,, 

 and the metallic body was laid bright and beautiful amid the rushy 

 sedges on the shelving shore. Here indeed was a good fish saved 

 that but for Enoch's vigilance I might never have made acquaint- 

 ance with. ' Kiver the whole pool ' is an excellent axiom when 

 you angle for a salmon. 



Enoch on occasion is good at a yarn, and as we sit in the shade 

 enjoying the afternoon pipe he loves to recall stories of ' the Old 

 Hunter ', a retired colonel who once fished this river with a very 

 long rod (18 ft.), bearing inverse ratio to the quality of his temper. 

 ' Rest his soul, he's dead and gone ; he was the best sportsman 

 as ever fished in these parts,' was Enoch's epigrammatic verdict on 

 him who proved Walton's rule concerning the peaceable mild spirits 

 of anglers by affording a most notable exception. 



' Onc't,' continued Enoch, ' he was wexed by a sportsman 

 casting into his water from the opposite bank. He said nothing, 

 but managed to cross the man's line and tied it to the bushes. 

 Didn't it sarve the man right ? Onc't he thrashed two Indians 

 within an inch of their lives for stealing a jug of old Jamaica rum 

 cached at one of his camps for winter moose-hunting. Another man 

 annoyed him by unlawful fishing. He found out where the critter 

 hid his spears and dip-nets and other things that are a hurt to the 

 river. One day he found a 5o-fathom net with a leader, besides 

 spears and bags and triangles. Lord, it was wild ! and the Colonel 

 he gets wild too, and goes to a magistrate and slaps the fine on 

 him. But that did no good. So the next time he found this man 

 poaching he took off his coat, for he had wexed him too bad this 

 time to stand it any further. Instead of slapping on the fine this 

 time, he says to the poacher, " If we have a law let it be a law, 

 and we must fight it out betwixt us right here and now". The 

 man was a shocking big brute of a fellow, but did not stand up for 

 long before the Colonel ; after three rounds he was on the ground 

 howling with pain. He limped home to his wife, very badly hurt, 

 they told me and ever after the Colonel had no trouble on that 

 river when they knew he was out for his sport. Onc't he fit a duel 

 in Halifax because some big man sent a favourite rod back he had 

 loaned him with a broken tip. And onc't when he was commanding 

 at a sham-fight on the common, on the Queen's birthday, he was 

 wexed because a company of blacks under a white officer, wheeling 

 to the left instead of the right by mistake in the word of command, 

 came up right in front of a troop of horse artillery. The Colonel 



