554 The Halcyon in Canada. 



The spruce seems to have colored the water, which is a dark 

 amber color, but entirely sweet and pure. There needed no better 

 proof, of the latter fact than the trout with which it abounded and 

 their clear and vivid tints. In its lower portions, near the St. Law- 

 rence, the Jacques Cartier River is a salmon stream ; but these fish 

 have never been found as near its source as we were, though there 

 is no apparent reason why they should not be. 



There is, perhaps, no moment in the life of an angler fraught with 

 so much eagerness and impatience as when he first finds himself upon 

 the bank of a new and long-sought stream. When I was a boy and 

 used to go a-fishing, I could seldom restrain my eagerness after I 

 arrived in sight of the brook or pond, and must needs run the rest of 

 the way. Then the delay in rigging my tackle was a trial my patience 

 was never quite equal to. After I had made a few casts, or had caught 

 one fish, I could pause and adjust my line properly. I found some 

 remnant of the old enthusiasm still in me when I sprang from the 

 buckboard that afternoon and saw the strange river rushing by. 

 I would have given something if my tackle had been rigged so that I 

 could have tried on the instant the temper of the trout that had just 

 broken the surface within easy reach of the shore. But I had antici- 

 pated this moment coming along, and had surreptitiously undone 

 my rod-case and got my reel out of my bag, and was therefore a few 

 moments ahead of my companion in making the first cast. The 

 trout rose readily ; and, almost too soon, we had more than enough 

 for dinner, though no "rod-smashers" had been seen or felt. Our 

 experience the next morning and during the day, and the next 

 morning in the lake, in the rapids, in the pools, was about the same ; 

 there was a surfeit of trout eight or ten inches long, though we rarely 

 kept any under ten ; but the big fish were lazy and would not rise : 

 they were in the deepest water, and did not like to get up. 



The third day, in the afternoon, we had our first and only thor- 

 ough sensation in the shape of a big trout. It came none too soon. 

 The interest had begun to flag. But one big fish a week will do. 

 It is a pinnacle of delight in the angler's experience that he may 

 well be three days in working up to, and, once reached, it is three 

 days down to the old humdrum level again. At least, it is with me. 

 It was a dull, rainy day ; the fog rested low upon the mountains, and 

 the time hung heavily upon our hands. About three o'clock, the rain 



