FISH SKETCHES AND FISH STORIES 373 



have fished with angle-worms, grubs, helgramites, 

 crawfish, frogs, and minnows, alive and dead, but 

 never before did I use twelve-inch trout for bait. 



Scarcely had my guide paddled our canoe into 

 the rapids before I felt a mighty strain on my 

 line. "Hold on a minute, Stanley; my hooks are 

 fast to the bottom!" I cried. 



"WULL, PULL THE BOTTOM ABOARD, 



then," was the complacent reply I received. But 

 now my line was crossing the stream at right angles, 

 and my reel was singing like an August cicada in 

 a phoebe-bird's mouth, and I knew that even the 

 bottom of an eccentric Rocky Mountain stream 

 could not yank a line around like that; my poor 

 little fly-rod was bending like a rib of a seventy- 

 five-cent umbrella in a gale. 



"Don't paddle so blamed fast!" I shouted. But 

 Stanley knew his business; the canoe was almost 

 stationary, and it was only the swiftly flowing water 

 which gave the appearance of speed to the craft, 

 and deceived me into thinking that the canoe was 

 rapidly traveling up-stream. To tell the truth, I 

 had not had much confidence in my guide's plans, 

 and the strike took me so completely by surprise 

 that it is a wonder that 



I HOOKED THE FISH. 



But after the first shock of astonishment was over 

 I entered the fight with my frame thrilling with the 



