226 THE MISTASSINI EIVEE AND ITS FIFTH FALLS 



will fight harder and more madly than any fish its size, and will 

 exhibit more tricks to expel the fly, or to free itself from the im- 

 paling fangs of the troll, than fancy itself can promise. Over and 

 over again have I sought to kill two, that weighed a pound or over 

 each, at one cast, and have failed. I have taken the best nine-foot 

 salmon leaders tested at eleven pounds and, tying a loop about 

 six feet from one end, have tied a fly on each end, and then have 

 made my cast. I have seen the flies taken by le beau saumon, which 

 rose in the air as though hurled from a catapult, and then the rod 

 would straighten and the line come back with leader and flies gone, 

 the great leader snapped like a linen thread by the simultaneous leap 

 of two fishes into the air. 



" Standing upon a rock at the very foot of the Great Falls, with a 

 Wood rod, reel, and cast, in all weighing fourteen ounces, I stabbed 

 the ouananiche and gave the rod to the Lady Cecilia Rose, to play 

 and land the quarry. I have seen her gasp with delight as, half- 

 blinded by the spray, she barely saw the leap of the ouananiche 

 from the foamy waters. Many a time did her ladyship let the 

 quarry escape, because her fear of the frail quality of the rod made 

 her lower the tip when she should have given the butt. . . . No- 

 where that I have ever pitched my tent may compare with the 

 beauty, picturesqueness, and grandeur of the island in the Mistas- 

 sini. Truly it is a rough diamond set where the waters are silver. 

 The sport had been enjoyed, the game tested. The angler had not 

 come in vain, and all was indeed well." 



