THE NAMELESS CREEK. 67 



neither trout nor venison, and I am hungry enough 

 to eat those two pounds of pork alone, if I once 

 get fairly at it, and there goes the sun back of 

 the tree-tops now ? " " Well, unstrap your rod and 

 select youi- flies," responded he, " and we will see 

 what we can find. I don't mean to have you wrap 

 yourseK around that piece of pork to-night any 

 way." I did as requested. For the tail fly I 

 noosed on a brown hackle, above it I tied a killer, 

 and for the dapper I hitched on a white moth. 

 Taking the bow seat, John paddled straight for the 

 west shore of the lake, and the light boat, cutting 

 its way through the lily-pads, shot into a narrow 

 aperture overhung with bushes and tangled grass, 

 and I saw a sight I never shall forget. We had 

 entered the inlet of the lake, a stream some twenty 

 feet in width, whose waters were dark and sluggish. 

 The setting sun yet poured its radiance through the 

 overhanging pines, flecking the tide with crimson 

 patches and crossing it here and there with golden 

 lanes. Up this stream, flecked with gold and bor- 

 dered with lilies as far as the eye could reach, the 

 air was literally full of jimiping trout. From amid 

 lily-pads, from under the overhanging grass, and 

 in the bright radiance poured along the middle of 

 the stream, the speckled beauties were launching 

 themselves. Here a little fellow would cut his 

 tiny furrow along the surface after a fluttering 

 gnat; there a larger one, with quivering fin and 



