SPECKLED TROUT 



be near nightfall and the gloom already deepening 

 in the woods comes freshly to mind, and he 

 presses on, wary and alert, and speaking to his 

 companions in low tones. 



After an hour or so the trout became less abun- 

 dant, and with nearly a hundred of the black sprites 

 in our baskets we turned back. Here and there I 

 saw the abandoned nests of the pigeons, sometimes 

 half a dozen in one tree. In a yellow birch which 

 the floods had uprooted, a number of nests were 

 still in place, little shelves or platforms of twigs 

 loosely arranged, and affording little or no protec- 

 tion to the eggs or the young birds against incle- 

 ment weather. 



Before we had reached our companions the rain 

 set in again and forced us to take shelter under a 

 balsam. When it slackened we moved on and soon 

 came up with Aaron, who had caught his first trout, 

 and, considerably drenched, was making his way 

 toward camp, which one of the party had gone for- 

 ward to build. After traveling less than a mile, we 

 saw a smoke struggling up through the dripping 

 trees, and in a few moments were all standing 

 round a blazing fire. But the rain now commenced 

 again, and fairly poured down through the trees, 

 rendering the prospect of cooking and eating our 

 supper there in the woods, and of passing the night 

 on the ground without tent or cover of any kind, 

 rather disheartening. We had been told of a bark 

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