166 FISHING WITH THE FLT. 



and after a night or two of experience, would lie just 

 beyond reach of whatever member his better half could 

 disentangle with which to punch him. First, his Kev- 

 erence would be summoned ; but he slept the sleep of 

 the just. Then cries for Ah Yang and the others would 

 follow. Yang was too wise a Chinaman to awaken. 

 Jack sometimes rolled over and kicked the Doctor till 

 he roused, and the good lady hearing his exclamations, 

 claimed his assistance ; but sometimes Jack also shed 

 his blankets and relieved the massive limbs from a state 

 of suspension. 



With content Jack rolled himself in the hammock. 

 Never had he slept in such profound solitude. The 

 nearest camp was far away down the valley ; and to- 

 wards the east, beyond the mountain-barrier, nothing 

 but the wild desert, and solitary, sage-clad hills of 

 Nevada. 



The river murmured over the pebbles, the pines 

 faintly whispered, and that was all. For once he was 

 alone, and oh ! the peace of it ! "Was it such a night as 

 this that tempted men to leave their fellows for a her- 

 mitage ? Such visions came to him as seldom visit men 

 beneath a roof. At last he slept, and dreamed of the 

 first trout he had killed in a little New England 

 meadow-brook. He was filling a creel with bass from a 

 fair Wisconsin lake. He was in a plunger off Montauk 

 Point, striking the blue-fish. He was trolling for pike 

 through Champlain, and casting a fly from a canoe on 

 Adirondack waters. 



