THE YELLOW FLY. 115 



est expedition, and in going to fish an unknown sheet of 

 water one might almost as well leave his rod behind him 

 as these tools. There are ways of getting on without the 

 auger, but a raft lashed together with withes is a danger- 

 ous craft. I have had such a one part with me in mid- 

 lake, while I swam ashore with my rod in my hand, los- 

 ing even the fish I had taken. In the present case I had 

 both tools. The construction of the raft was very simple. 

 Two pine-trees supplied six logs, each about a foot in di- 

 ameter, which were rolled into the water and floated side 

 by side, a few inches apart. Across these smaller tim- 

 bers were laid, the axe shaping them down flat where 

 wooden pegs were driven in auger-holes through them 

 into the heavy logs. It was but little over an hour's 

 work to complete it, for the timber was at hand in good 

 size and quantity. Then we covered the raft with balsam 

 boughs, to stand or sit or lie down on, and a couple of 

 long poles finished the furniture of the vessel on which 

 we pushed out at the inlet of the lake. The day was so 

 much more beautiful than the previous one that the lake 

 appeared like a new place, and the trout were rising on 

 the surface here and there in a way which indicated that 

 the warm sunshine had brought out some small flies, in- 

 visible to the eye at a distance, but satisfactory as indi- 

 cating that the fish were on the feed. It was nearly ten 

 o'clock when I began casting. But nothing rose to my 

 flies till I had changed them twice or oftener, and had on 

 at length three small gnats, a dun, a yellow, and a black, 

 and then came the first strike at the yellow, a half-pound 

 fish soon killed. Another at the yellow again, a some- 

 what larger fish, gave me some slight work, and a third 

 took the yellow once more, and thereupon I changed : the 

 dropper yellow, the tail-fly yellow, and intermediate a 



