354 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



difficult to avoid them, it was difficult to guide the 

 fish; in some parts he would not, in some he could 

 not, rest, owing to the force of the current ; and it 

 was only the great strength of our tackle, and con- 

 stant unremitting laborious care on our part, which 

 kept us together. 



AVe knew that a couple of hundred yards or so 

 below where we were was a very bad bit of ground : 

 a liigh steep bank, rocky and thick with trees, had 

 to be passed ; and we were by no means sure, con- 

 sidering the heavy flood, that we should be able to 

 get along the top as quick as the fish went below, 

 for of course the least check would be fatal. 



Johnnie's conduct at this critical period was any- 

 thing but what it ought to have been. "\Ve wanted 

 him to be at hand to pull down a sapling or a branch 

 when necessary, or to take the rod for a moment in a 

 bad place ; but when we looked round for him he 

 was sitting on the bank with a countenance which 

 expressed every phase of fear and misery, taking off 

 actually taking off his boots ! In ordinary cir-> 

 cumstances he would have scorned to stay a moment, 

 even if his stockings had been full of red-hot shot 

 or tenpenny nails, but now fear had worked upon 

 him to such an extent that (to be away from the fish) 

 he had sat down under the miserable excuse of ex- 

 amining them for stones, and was pretending busily 

 to pick them out. Violent and shrill remonstrances 

 from us at length brought him up, and with great 



