262 I GO A-FISHING. 



have always with you a boy who carries a small barrel in 

 which it is his duty to keep the fish alive until they are 

 transferred to the tank which every inn keeps stocked 

 with plenty of trout. It had gotten to be quite dark, and 

 I was casting a large white moth across the swift current, 

 when I got the heaviest strike, with one exception, that I 

 ever felt from a trout in Europe. He made a splendid 

 struggle; but the little Norris rod did its duty, and I 

 brought him to barrel in a few minutes — that is to say, I 

 landed and unhooked him, and handed him to the boy 

 while I hurried to cast again. I had made only one cast 

 when the boy shouted, ' He's too big for the barrel ;' and 

 I turned to laugh at his vain endeavors to crowd his tail 

 into the hole. He was, in fact, two inches longer than 

 the barrel, which had not been made in expectation of 

 such fish. So I slipped him into his short quarters, and 

 gave up the sport, and in five minutes he was the admira- 

 tion of a crowd in the kitchen of the Golden Cross, swim- 

 ming around in a small tank into which cold spring water 

 poured a steady stream. He weighed only two and three 

 quarter pounds English; but Mr. Sarsteiner told me that, 

 though he had seen larger trout there, he was one of the 

 largest, if not the largest, that he had ever known taken 

 with a fly in the Tyrol. All the way up the river to Lake 

 Haldstadt there are plenty of fine trout, and I have en- 

 joyed many a day's sport along the beautiful stream.*' 



"Now for the exception." 



" What exception ?" 



" You said it was the heaviest strike, with one excep- 

 tion, that you ever felt in Europe." 



" I'm a little ashamed of that other. You remember 

 the Rhine above the falls, from Schaffhausen to the Cha- 

 teau Laufen ? I was fishing it one evening, years ago, in 



