Tragic Fishing Moments 



a two-seated spring wagon that was always busy dur- 

 ing the fishing season. 



If there was a cloud in my life those days it was 

 .that I caught no big fish, and it was not because they 

 were not there, nor because they did not rise, for 

 almost daily I saw three and four pound natives taken, 

 sometimes off the same riffle where I faithfully and 

 carefully fished from June ist to October 3Oth, and 

 was one day humiliated by seeing an Eastern boy of 

 about my own age, who had never fished for trout 

 before, land a seven and one half pound trout. Why 

 was it? And what was wrong? The answer lies 

 in the mysterious happenings of the god of chance. 



Up to the afternoon of which I intend to tell I 

 had never in my life caught a two pound trout. Bear 

 this in mind, for unless you do most of the " Tragedy " 

 will fail to appear to you. 



Most of the guests had gone. The early Septem- 

 ber frosts had turned the aspen leaves, though not 

 the willows or cottonwoods, along the streams; the 

 beaver were busily cutting their winter's supply of 

 wood for food; grouse were working in the service 

 berry patches; and on the hills deer and elk were 

 bunching up, preparatory to their trip to the foothills. 

 There remained at the hotel one man, a lawyer by 

 the name of Hall, and his son Bobbie, a boy of about 

 ten. The evening before his departure he came to 

 me and asked me to take them where the best fishing 



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