174 



THE BROOK BOOK 



opposite the brook. A fringe of willows, inter- 

 spersed with the silvery foliage of the buffalo 

 berry, leaned over the water. It was a wide 

 stream, and so shallow that my rubber boots were 

 quite unnecessary, as I stepped from stone to 



stone. But in mid- 

 stream the strong 

 current had cut out 

 a narrow channel, 

 and I paused just 

 where it jumped 

 down into a dark 

 pool. Three pieces 

 of granite thrust 

 their noses out of 

 the water above 

 this little Niagara, 

 and they looked so 

 stable that I relied 

 upon them. With 

 a foot on each of 

 the highest two, I 

 cast my line val- 

 iantly from me, up 

 stream ! I knew in 

 a moment that that 

 was the wrong way, for the current bore my grass- 

 hopper right back. An eddy curled it in behind a 

 rock, where it seemed to catch on something. Be- 

 fore I could make a move to disentangle it, a thrill, 

 the like of which I had never felt before, reached 

 my nerve centers, via the pole I It was none of 



"the whisk of a finned tail" 



