A FISHERMAN'S FALL 151 



that you see the bottom with no water inter- 

 vening, turns into a raging torrent of tumbling 

 water and foam. It is quite a small river, 

 really, but a somewhat terrifying thing to have 

 the whole of it in a dark room with you, until 

 you get accustomed to it. You cannot close 

 the hatch ; it is out of repair. Below the hatch 

 you can see the water running below you for 

 about three or four yards, then it disappears 

 under the floor. There is your problem. Four 

 yards of river running at your feet, then passing 

 under, say, five or six yards of the floor of a 

 room, then under about two yards of foot- 

 path ; under the path a big trout, inaccessible 

 from below, feeding upon minnows and upon 

 anything else that passes within its vision, 

 well below the surface. So much for the recon- 

 naissance, and now for the plan of campaign 

 of a one-time dry-fly purist. The first operation 

 must be to hook the fish ; let us, lest we fall 

 too low in the scale of sportsmanship, concede 

 one point we must hook the fish on fine gut. 

 The obvious course open to the enemy will then 

 be to pull. We shall find ourselves in a room, 

 fishing over a hole in the floor in a river which 

 then runs through a tunnel, the rod doubled up, 

 a big trout at the end of the line, and not the 

 remotest chance of exhausting him or of hauling 



