34 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 



places where trout and contemplative anglers are pleased to 

 forgather. 



But this beautiful picture, gorgeous and fascinating as it 

 was, did not fill full the measure of my desire and expecta- 

 tion. While I had been casting and watching the silent 

 march of "the silver empress of the night," the fire had 

 been kindled, the pork had been sliced, and the frying pan 

 irtood ready to do its office, but no trout had been taken. 

 The idea of going supperless to bed was not pleasant. The 

 long tramp and keen mountain air had given me an appetite 

 more biting than the chilly atmosphere with which we were 

 environed. I had resolved to retire discomfited after an- 

 other cast when I bethought me that what the scarlet ibis and 

 brown hackle had failed to accomplish, might, under the 

 favorable conditions of the hour, be effected by a well -poised 

 dusty miller; and I was not mistaken. The first cast was 

 followed by a rise. In five minutes a two-pound trout was 

 ready for dissection, and in twenty minutes, eight others, 

 aggregating nine pounds, had been taken in out of the wet, 

 wherewith I was content and reeled up for the night. 



The repast that followed was fragrant, luscious and abun- 

 dant such a feast as always comes to an honest angler when 

 "good digestion waits on appetite." I cannot, however, 

 say as much for my night's repose. A hastily constructed 

 brush canopy sufficiently protected us from the fast-falling 

 dew, and a thick layer of hemlock boughs emitting an 

 aroma as fragrant as the fabled nectar of the gods was 

 such a couch as kings might envy. When thus disposed 

 sleep always comes to me without wooing, and it would 

 have done so on this occasion but that my inexperienced 

 companion, who had never before camped out, chattered so 

 incessantly that I sought revenge by reciting every blood- 

 curdling story I had ever heard or could invent about the 

 mortal peril that besets whoever has the temerity to invade 

 the haunts of venomous reptiles or ravenous beasts. The 

 brief intervals of silence were broken by mysterious sounds, 

 which I knew to be caused by the flight of prowling night 

 birds, the gnawing and scratching of hungry grubs, or the 



