126 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



We stayed a week at Moxie, or until we became 

 surfeited with its trout, and had killed the last 

 merganser duck that lingered about our end of the 

 lake. The trout that had accumulated on our hands 

 we had kept alive in a large champagne basket sub- 

 merged in the lake, and the morning we broke camp 

 the basket was towed to the shore and opened ; and 

 after we had feasted our eyes upon the superb spec- 

 tacle, every trout — there were twelve or fifteen, 

 some of them two-pounders — was allowed to swim 

 back into the lake. They went leisurely, in couples 

 and in trios, and were soon kicking up their heels 

 in their old haunts. I expect that the divinity 

 who presides over Moxie will see to it that every 

 one of those trout, doubled in weight, comes to our 

 basket in the future. 



