With Gun & Rod in Canada 



was no wind the surface of the water was otherwise 

 quite unruffled. I immediately stopped the engine 

 and circled the boat around, and watched. Two more 

 monster fish broke water: then a third and fourth. 

 There was a pause, and while I waited in excitement and 

 suspense, a big tail flipped out of water within a foot 

 of the boat and as high as the rail. Having a creel half 

 full of speckled trout that I had caught that afternoon 

 just below the Hopper, I reached quickly into the basket, 

 picked up a fish and tossed it overboard. There was 

 a swirl and a snap, and the tail half of the trout was seen 

 whirling around in the diminishing eddy. But for an 

 instant only. There was another rush and splash, and 

 the remains of the trout disappeared. Curious to get 

 a better look at the voracious monster that could make 

 two bites of a two-pound trout, I tossed three fish over- 

 board, one after another. 



Snap ! Splash ! Snap ! Splash ! Snap ! Splash ! All 

 three fish had vanished. The water for half a minute 

 had seemed to be alive with shark-like, finny bodies. 

 It was now so dark that I could not make out either 

 their colour or size. But the performance reminded me 

 of a time when I had seen a salt-water fisherman throw 

 overboard half a tub of spoiled herring, and a school of 

 dogfish had fought over the odoriferous delicacy. In 

 the eerie half-light, this astonishing demonstration of the 

 hitherto unguessed fact of there being fresh-water sharks 

 in the old lake made me nervous. Having no tackle 

 heavy enough to catch them and no harpoon, I gave the 

 fly-wheel of the engine a flip, and chugged busily for 

 Lowe's Landing and the camp. 



The combination of bright moonlight and the ripple 

 made by the motor-boat produced weird effects astern. 

 As the wake of the boat would for an instant uncover a 

 barely submerged ledge, it gave the effect of a black, 



72 



