A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 69 



to the seams till we reached this lake. When 1 knelt 

 down in it for the first time and put its slender ma- 

 ple paddle into the water, it sprang away with Buch 



quickness and speed that it disturbed me in m\ 

 I had spurred a more restive and spirited Bteed than I 

 was used to. In fact, I had never been in a craft that 

 sustained so close a relation to my will, and was so 

 responsive to my slightest wish. When 1 caught i 

 first large trout from it, it sympathized a little t<>>. 

 closely, and my enthusiasm started a leak, which, how* 

 ever, with a live coal and a piece of rosin, was quickly 

 mended. You cannot perform much of a war-dance 

 in a birch-bark canoe: better wait till you get <;n dry 

 land. Yet as a boat it is not so shy and k * ticklish'' 

 as I had imagined. One needs to be on the alert, as 

 becomes a sportsman and an angler, and in his deal- 

 ings with it must charge himself with three things, — 

 precision, moderation, and circumspection. 



Trout weighing four and five pounds have been 

 taken at Moxie, but none of that size came to our hand. 

 I realized the fondest hopes I had dared to indulge in 

 when I hooked the first two-pounder of my life, and 

 my extreme solicitude lest he get away 1 trust was par- 

 donable. My friend, in relating the episode in cam]). 

 said I implored him to row me down in the middle of 

 the lake that T might have room to manoeuvre my fish 

 But the slander has barely a grain of truth in it. The 

 water near us showed several old stakes broken «>it 

 just below the surface, and my fish was determined to 

 wrap my leader about one of these stakes ; it was only 

 for the clear space a few yards farther out that I 

 prayed. It was not long after that my friend found 

 himself in an anxious frame of mind. He hooked a 

 iarge trout, which came home on him so suddenly that 



