556 The Halcyon in Canada. 



being unable to find it, shouted desperately for Joe, who came hur- 

 rying back, excited before he had learned what the matter was. 

 The net had been left at the lake below and must be had with the 

 greatest dispatch. In the meantime, I skipped about from bowlder to 

 bowlder as the fish worked this way or that about the pool, peering 

 into the water to catch a glimpse of him, for he had begun to yield 

 a little to the steady strain that was kept upon him. Presently I saw 

 a shadowy, unsubstantial something just emerge from the black 

 depths, then .vanish. Then I saw it again, and this time the huge 

 proportions of the fish were faintly outlined by the white facings of 

 his fins. The sketch lasted but a twinkling ; it was only a flitting 

 shadow upon a darker background, but it gave me the profoundest 

 Ike Walton thrill I ever experienced. I had been a fisher from my 

 earliest boyhood ; I came from a race of fishers ; trout streams 

 gurgled about the roots of the family tree, and there was a long 

 accumulated and transmitted tendency and desire in me that that 

 sight gratified. I did not wish the pole in my own hands ; there 

 was quite enough electricity overflowing from it and filling the air 

 for me. The fish yielded more and more to the relentless pole, till 

 in about fifteen minutes from the time he was struck, he came to the 

 surface, then made a little whirlpool where he disappeared again. 

 But presently he was up a second time and lashing the water into 

 foam as the angler led him toward the rock upon which I was 

 perched, net in hand. As I reached toward him, down he went 

 again, and, taking another circle of the pool, came up still more 

 exhausted, when, between his paroxysms, I carefully ran the net over 

 him and lifted him ashore, amid, it is needless to say, the wildest 

 enthusiasm of the spectators. The congratulatory laughter of the 

 loons down on the lake showed how even the outsiders sympathized. 

 Much larger trout have been taken in these waters and in others, 

 but this fish would have swallowed any three we had ever before 

 caught. 



"What does he weigh?" was the natural inquiry of each; and 

 we took turns "hefting" him. But gravity was less potent to us 

 just then than usual, and the fish seemed astonishingly light. 



'* Four pounds," we said ; but Joe said more. So we improvised 

 a scale. A long strip of board was balanced across a stick, and our 

 groceries served as weights. A four-pound package of sugar kicked 



