THE EMPTY CREEL 189 



undisturbed equanimity. What matter if the 

 long shadows failed to usher in feeding time, and 

 my watch admonished me to make haste to the 

 station in order to catch my train? Had I not 

 had my day? Had I not practised fly-casting in 

 ideal conditions? Once again I had faced and 

 failed to solve a trout-problem. Puzzled, yet en 

 rapport with my environment, I reached the little 

 hesitation station well ahead of the train and 

 was whirled away home, satisfied with my unseen 

 and unseeable catch. To-day, as I sit here at 

 the typewriter, looking back over the many years 

 of an angler's life, that fishless day looms large, 

 a red-letter experience. Verily, "It is not all 

 of fishing to fish." 



THE FULL CEEEL 



The scene shifts. It is mid- August of a later 

 year and I see myself standing upon the banks 

 of a world-famous trout stream, before me the 

 graceful lines of a canoe and the swarthy face 

 of my guide. The air shimmers with excessive 

 heat. Birds are silent. Only the soporific hum 

 of lazy insects is heard. The retiring flowers of 

 spring-time have disappeared; in their stead 

 stand assertive goldenrods and black-eyed susans, 

 while in moist places regal cardinal flowers lift 



