SISTER ELLEN'S FISH STORY 175 



your tremulous little twitches, but a masterful tug, 

 a disdainful wrench that bent my pole and sent 

 the blood back into my heart ! 



I lifted with might and main. The whisk of 

 a finned tail, a fleeting glimpse of dusky scales' 

 and scarlet speckles, became suddenly correlated 

 in my mind with the fact that one of my boots 

 was full of water, and my line was swinging high 

 in the air, — the hook gone, the gut leader nipped 

 off short. 



It was a small chore to go to the tent for the 

 other pole. One does not expect all luck to be 

 good luck in fishing. "As long as there is light 

 there is hope," I philosophized. To my father's 

 query I replied that I had lost something, and 

 was going back to find it. 



From my stone perch I cast the second' grass- 

 hopper to the place where the first had disap- 

 peared. It was undisturbed. The sound of an 

 approaching wagon caught my ear, and a moment 

 later I heard an exchange of friendly greetings. 

 Listening intently, I recognized the voices of a 

 hunting party we had met twice before among the 

 mountains. They were all mighty men of valor 

 with rod and gun, and were on their way to the 

 Ten Sleep country, a veritable happy hunting 

 ground, if reports could be believed. 



I heard my father say that I had gone fishing. 

 An impulse to make one last effort seized me, as 

 the night came down. I flung my line into the 

 air at random, and the bait struck the water just 

 below the little cataract. A tug, mighty as the 



