A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 53 



to the seams till we reached this lake. When I knelt 

 down in it for the first time and put its slender ma- 

 ple paddle into the water, it sprang away with such 

 quickness and speed that it disturbed me in my seat. 

 I had spurred a more restive and spirited steed than I 

 was used to. In fact, I had never been in a craft that 

 sustained so close a relation to my will, and was so 

 responsive to my slightest wish. When I caught my 

 first large trout from it, it sympathized a little too 

 closely, and my enthusiasm started a leak, which, how- 

 ever, with a live coal and a piece of rosin, was quickly 

 mended. You cannot perform much of a war-dance 

 in a birch-bark canoe : better wait till you get on dry 

 land. Yet as a boat it is not so shy and " ticklish " 

 as I had imagined. One needs to be on the alert, as 

 becomes a sportsman and an angler, and in his deal- 

 ings with it must charge himself with three things, — 

 precision, moderation, and circumspection. 



Trout weighing four and five pounds have been 

 taken at Moxie, but none of that size came to our hand. 

 I realized the fondest hopes I had dared to indulge in 

 when I hooked the first two-pounder of my life, and 

 my extreme solicitude lest he get away I trust was par- 

 donable. My friend, in relating the episode in camp, 

 said I implored him to row me down in the middle of 

 the lake that I might have room to manoeuvre my fish. 

 But the slander has barely a grain of truth in it. The 

 water near us showed several old stakes broken oif 

 just below the surface, and my fish was determined to 

 wrap my leader about one of these stakes ; it was only 

 for the clear space a few yards farther out that I 

 prayed. It was not long after that my friend found 

 himself in an anxious frame of mind. He hooked a 

 large trout, which came home on him so suddenly that 



