526 



Sea -Trout Fishing. 



Great Bear just 

 over the tent 

 stealing into the lingering 

 twilight, and call David to make a "smudge" 

 inside the canvas that may completely clear 

 it of mosquitoes, and to tie down the flaps, shutting you in for the 

 night. On Sundays, the stream runs undisturbed. Reading, jour- 

 nalizing, and repairs of many kinds fill the time. Last summer, the 

 Government guardian, an old acquaintance, chanced to arrive on 

 Saturday night, and camped near us, — perhaps needlessly suspicious 

 of a breach of Sunday close-time. 



His business at this season was to examine and clear the port- 

 ages, several of which are blazed along the river-side at points made 

 impassable for canoes by the roughness or sudden fall of the rapids. 

 The rapids vary greatly as to depth, height, and length. Some 

 cover a rod of slightly broken water with small stones ; some race 

 for a quarter of a mile in surges over clay bottom, scooped and 

 beaten as hard as rock, while others toss and dash on a sharp de- 

 scent for twice that space out and in among a maze of granite bowl- 

 ders. Up and down these last, and around some steep falls, the 

 canoe must, of course, be coaxed with a line, the guide either wading 

 and steadying her or stumbling alongside ashore. Running a rapid 

 is really piloting, for the natural fall, the lay of the rocks, and the best 

 water between them, remain always nearly the same. Many a jagged 

 old sunken lump or bowlder-head just above the surface, worn glassy 

 smooth, with long weeds streaming like hair from it, looks familiar 

 to the angler year after year. Most of the rapids may be waded 



