92 HOW SALMON-POOLS ARE NAMED 



believed, was ever so foolish as to attempt to put a fly- 

 over it ; even had he succeeded in doing so it was obvious 

 that he could not hope to secure a fish, supposing one 

 should hook himself, for the trees grew close and bent 

 low over the current, which sweeps deep and strong 

 along the near bank. 



However, the devil is always at one's ear to suggest 

 easy roads to ruin, and albeit past experience has made 

 one very shy of listening to his suggestions, on this 

 occasion I lent him a willing ear. It would be a grand 

 thing even to raise a salmon where no man had done the 

 like. As to landing him time enough to think of that 

 later. 



Celui qui n'a jamais eu ses moments de folie est 

 mains sage qu'il ne le pense. I felt I was doing a 

 very silly thing. Visions of a good breakfast awaiting 

 me at home presented themselves in glowing colours. 

 The utmost that could result from such a harebrained 

 attempt was to hook a fish and let him break the line, 

 and every angler must answer for himself whether it is 

 better to have hooked and lost than never to have hooked 

 at all. Salmon are probably unanimous against the 

 proposition. But the sun had not yet struck this part of 

 the stream ; it looked uncommonly ' fishy.' I descended 

 the cliff and found myself among the alder stems. By 

 clambering about twenty yards upstream I discovered a 

 grassy ledge in the rock face, about six feet by two, 

 opposite which was an opening in the screen of alders 

 some six yards wide. To cast was impossible, but I 

 managed to flop out enough line to let the current do the 

 rest, and the Black Ranger, which had done much good 

 work already that morning, was presently swimming twenty 



