300 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 
action of the water and the strain it had so lately success- 
fully withstood. To get my line clear away to the requi- 
site length I threw across the surging portion of the stream 
and dipped my tip, to prevent any unnecessary delay when 
I reached my friend’s ambush; a couple of casts brought 
me to the spot, and with careful, steady hand and measured 
throw I placed my fly, straight as a bee-line* a few yards 
above where my prey was supposed to be lodged; and with 
that regular motion that resembles the passage of a shrimp 
through the water I brought the bright, fascinating decep- 
etion toward me, the current at the same time carrying it 
downward. Description, particularly if you enter into de- 
tail, is always longer than action. My handsome imitation 
—of what? for a similar living fly I never saw—was a foot 
or two above the desired eddy, when a splash, a flourish of 
a broad dark tail, answered by my quick, nervous hand giv- 
ing an electric strike, fastened me to a splendid fish. As 
man and animals choose different methods of assault or de- 
fense, so this salmon selected a different course to free him- 
self. The hook had scarcely been in him when four times 
he sprang with determined energy from his watery home, 
each spring causing me, in courtesy, to lower the point of 
my weapon, as an inferior would salute a senior officer; 
but this steeple-chase escapade had not the desiréd effect, 
and the salmon, comprehending this, altered his plan of 
combat, and settled down deep in the pellucid river, although 
far from conquered. An occasion of this kind is a trying 
ordeal, and often as dangerous to the tackle as any strata- 
gem that is put in practice; in fact, I have thought that it 
is pursued for the purpose of rubbing their snouts on the 
rocks or gravel, as frequently I have found, after killing a 
*A common Americanism, originating from loaded bees always flying 
straight to their home. 
