42 HILLS AND LAKES 



for this involuntary voyage, and as we were in no 

 hurry, having no notes to pay by a given hour, nor 

 railroad station to reach by a given minute, we re- 

 signed ourselves to our fate, and floated quietly on. I 

 had a long line, such as is used in trolling, and we 

 imused ourselves by sounding the depth of the lake. 

 We found it varying from thirty to some eighty feet. 

 When near the centre of the lake it occurred to me, 

 that perhaps in the deep water the great trout, the 

 aristocratic portion of the finny tribe, might hold their 

 court. Do you remember that in one of Cooper's 

 novels, I can't tell which, the old fisherman of the 

 Otsego discourses about the patriarch of the salmon- 

 trout, the old "mossy back," the largest and cunning- 

 est trout in all the lake, the "Sockdolager," as he 

 called him? Well, I thought of the "Sockdolager," 

 and that it might be, that just beneath me, he of the 

 Indian Lake might be reposing ; so I fastened a small 

 trout I had caught near the shore, to the large hook 

 at the end of my trolling-line, and having fastened 

 several bullets to the line by way of sinker, threw out. 

 It had scarcely reached to the depth of sixty feet t 

 when I felt a jerk, which the fisherman knows is not 

 made by any of the " small fry." Hand over hand I 



