30 Fly-rods and Fly-tackle. 



started to walk it on our way to the pool below. Show 

 covered the slippery logs, by no means improving the 

 footing ; so, gingerly and with the utmost caution, I es- 

 sayed the perilous passage. I don't know how it hap- 

 pened, one moment I was on the boom, the next I was 

 up to my ears in the icy flood, and scrambling for the 

 bank without unnecessary delay. But I clung to my 

 rod, and, with everything but my ardor chilled to the 

 bone, betook myself to the pool. There, standing beside 

 the fire that the ready axe of my guide quickly made, 

 I began the last day's fishing of the year. A bitter 

 wind drew down the valley, and my hands, covered by 

 a pair of fingerless gloves now sopping wet, ached in 

 a manner that soon became intolerable. I had cast for 

 about five minutes in vain when I essayed to remove 

 them, my fly lying on the water and sinking below the 

 surface. Something told me to strike, I know not what, 

 for I saw nothing; but strike I did, with a vigor accent- 

 ed by my personal discomfort, and proportioned to the 

 sunken line to be moved. Had I struck the dam itself 

 the resistance could not have been more stubborn and 

 unyielding. But, alas ! I held him but for the moment. 

 I cast till noon, then to camp, changed to dry clothes, 

 dined, and back, and hammered away at that pool till 

 dark, and never got a rise from a fish of over two pounds. 

 I believed then, and I still believe, that with a prop- 

 erly constructed hook, barring accidents of a different 

 kind, he would have been mine. But I knew the hook 

 was one calculated to rake its way out of a fish's mouth 

 rather than to bury and hold. I took the risk and I paid 

 the penalty. Those who have been in a like position, 

 and after a day and a half's unremitting and unrewarded 

 labor, with a ducking in ice-water, ruin of fly-book, etc., 



