THE OTTER'S STONE POOL 305 



" Dodsake, aye ! The laddie has a fush on t 

 This often happens at that bend." 



Off they went to the assistance of the laddie. The 

 difficulty into which he had fallen was explicable at 

 a glance. The Otter's Stone Pool has two almost- 

 rectangular bends. Apparently the three game- 

 keepers had been fishing it from the top, and, in the 

 course of their harling, had disappeared behind the last 

 corner when Miss Winsome and I ensconced ourselves 

 in the fir-tree. Evidently, also, the youngest gillie 

 had been told to bring the boat to the head of the 

 pool again. He had left a line out, and while he 

 was turning the corner, below which he had been keep- 

 ing in the slowly-running water on the near side, the 

 lure had been carried by the current into a place over 

 which the boat had not passed, and had been taken 

 by a fish. What a predicament ! Even at summer 

 level, the Tay is not to be compared with the puny 

 Tiber or with the Thames. In many places, being 

 a river with large margins, it is shallow and wimpling 

 at the sides ; but through the middle of every pool 

 it pours a powerful flood. Had the laddie kept to 

 the oars and on his course, the rod would have been 

 overboard the moment all the line was out. It was, 

 therefore, the rod he was attending to. The oars 

 were hanging on their pins. The boat was drifting, 

 helpless. Within two or three minutes it was beyond 

 the turn of the river, and all that was left to us of 

 the stirring scene was the salmon-rod wrigglingly 

 erect above the bank. 



This was our opportunity. We used it with 



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