OG WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 



"making the water boil" with their sportive antics, my fly 

 dropped in the very center of their circle, and was taken be- 

 fore it had fairly touched the water. The movement of 

 fisher and fish was spontaneous. But the fish had the ad- 

 vantage. The lake gave him "scope and verge enough" to 

 do his best, while I stood poised upon a structure so frail 

 that its dislocation and engulf ment was threatened by the 

 slightest motion. To play the fish was not so difficult, but 

 how to land him without toppling over was a problem whose 

 solution troubled me not a little. But it was accomplished 

 not once, but many times in quick succession. If con- 

 science makes cowards of us all, impunity often makes us 

 inexcusably presumptuous. My good luck had this effect 

 upon myself, and while playing what afterward proved 

 to be a two-pound trout, I found the two sticks which 

 formed my raft slowly diverging. Here was a di- 

 lemma. It wouldn't do to drop my rod and risk 

 the loss of my fish ; nor would it do to allow either log 

 to take its departure without an effort to prevent it. I soon 

 discovered that one of the withes had broken, and my only 

 hope was to use my feet to hold the raft together until I 

 could finish my fight and paddle ashore. But my efforts in 

 this direction rather tended to widen the breach than close 

 it, and while my fish was at. his best I found myself in the 

 attitude of the Colossus of Rhodes or the American eagle, 

 who stood with one foot on the Pacific and the other on the 

 Atlantic while he dipped his beak in the majestic Missis- 

 sippi. My straddle was simply prodigious, and it contin- 

 ued to broaden with ever-increasing momentum until my 

 feet seemed as remote from each other as the Hebrides from 

 the Rocky Mountains. There was, in short, a great gulf 

 between them, and I was rather pleased than otherwise 

 when J found them once more brought into close proximity 

 and rendering me useful service in my efforts to swim 

 ashore which, in this instance, I found to be even more 

 easy than "rolling off a log." But during all these novel 

 experiences and unexpected mishaps the "ruling passion" 

 did not forsake me. I may not have been able all the timo 



