410 Fly-rods and Fly-tackle. 



heavy with fish? and how much would the watchmaker's 

 bill be? But before a satisfactory solution to any of 

 these questions could be reached, the rock came to an end, 

 or rather I came to the end of it, and dropping over the 

 brink, stood up to my chin in the inclement pool below. 

 Before I had walked the three miles which intervened 

 between the scene of the immersion and my temporary 

 home, I had given considerable thought to the question 

 of a secure footing in wading. And by the time I had 

 paid for a new fly -book, and the watchmaker had in- 

 fused new life into my watch and his demands had been 

 satisfied, I had absorbed a strong prejudice against hob- 

 nails. Since then the small round-headed nails before 

 alluded to have been my dependence in wading, and they 

 have never played me false. 



I have never since, while angling, encountered a rock 

 so treacherous as that in Pennsylvania, and I believed 

 it unique until last fall. 



John and I were returning from a trip of several days' 

 duration, having gone north through the woods from 

 Parmacheene Lake into Canada, then east to the head- 

 water of Dead River, then down the Seven Pond Valley 

 to Kennebago Lake, and we were now bound across-lots 

 back to Parmacheene. Our way had been through an un- 

 broken forest, a large portion of the time relying on the 

 compass and sun alone to direct our steps, where no in- 

 dication^ showed that white men had ever before set foot. 

 We had backed our heavy packs to the very summits 

 of the loftiest peaks of the Boundary Range, and follow- 

 ing the ridge for miles, had seen stretching away into 

 space the gap through the otherwise unbroken wilder- 

 ness which marks the dividing line between Canada and 

 the United States. More than forty years before, and 



