214 WILD LIFE AND THE CAMERA 



very large, it's true, but such a fighter ; so silvery 

 and so clean-cut ; not two weeks from the ocean ! 

 Yes, he was a prize, and I could only regret that he 

 had not fallen to my wife's rod (that sounds 

 well !). 



Now my wife had with her a creel, as she called 

 it, and this creel was of the smallest size that is 

 made — about nine inches long. It was a cause of 

 inuch amusement to ourselves and to anyone who 

 saw it ; but the wife maintained that she had never 

 caught, and never expected to catch, a trout long 

 enough to bend in that creel. All the trout she 

 caught had to be shaken backward and forward in 

 order that head and tail might be said to touch 

 both ends of the basket. In vain had I tried to 

 persuade her not to bring such a ridiculously use- 

 less article with us, but being a woman — well, the 

 basket came anyhow. 



John declared it M^as just about big enough to 

 carry a cast of flies, " if they weren't too large " ; 

 but still the wife insisted that she never expected 

 to catch a trout that could not be put in that 

 basket, and that, too, without its having to be 

 bent. When John pointed to my fish and asked 

 her whether that would go in her creel, she 

 ventured to remind him that she had not caught it, 

 and with that she began to whip the pool with a 

 No. 1 silver doctor. In two or three minutes I 

 heard a shriek of dehght and saw her, with bowed 

 rod, playing a fish, her first decent-sized trout 

 (though she had at various times caught a large 

 number of bass, one of which weighed ten pounds). 

 Her excitement was delightful to watch, and the 



