12 THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 
water toward the alluring log. He wore no boots, and the cold caused 
him to yell as he advanced. His shouts were an accurate register of 
the depth of the water. They increased proportionately. It was funny, 
very funny, for me. I laughed boisterously, but he who laughs last 
laughs best. Gibb would splash out into the deep water, cast feverishly 
beyond the log, where the trout were rolling over one another as they 
fed, lose a hook, just as I had been doing, and then plunging to shore 
like a scared moose, would stand for a second hugging his knees in an 
effort to renew his numbed circulation, re-rig his tackle and again 
take to the water. 
My third cast with the dry flies was rewarded by a vigorous tug, to 
which I responded with one equally as vigorous. I reasoned that with 
the fish on the other side of the log, the odds were a hundred to one 
in his favor, and my flies were suffering at a rate which bid fair to 
work an early conclusion of my activities. So, before he had time to 
follow the example of his predecessors, I gave him such a long pull 
and a strong pull that he came flopping over the obstruction and 
darted into the tangle of weeds on the inside. But matters were not 
greatly improved. A little submarine maneuvering on his part so 
laced my line in and out through the weeds that I appeared to be 
pulling at a bale of hay. “This thing must stop,’ quoth I, “at any 
hazard,” so I started back across the prairie, dragging what appeared 
to be a liberal slice of the bottom of the river, but from which I could 
catch, now and then, the gleam of an exceptionally big trout. How 
the tiny dry fly held I do not know. But it did. The rod, however, 
did not. I was excited like most fishermen when they hook a big 
trout. I was cold, too, and exasperated at the afternoon’s luck. But 
at that, my performance was very unorthodox and quite inexcusable. 
The last heavy tug which brought the fish and his garnishment of 
weeds to shore, snapped the rod at the tip end of the middle joint. 
I was for quitting then as it had begun to rain in earnest, and this 
shortly changed to a heavy fall of big wet snow flakes. But Jack, 
the long-legged youthful member of our party, was taking fish from a 
point some fifty yards above, and he urged me to try a cast there. 
Being able to fix the rod after a fashion by scrapping down the broken 
end of the joint and forcing it into the ferrule, I half heartedly 
consented. 
The submerged log lay just at the mouth of a small dead water 
stream, which emptied into the river at that point, and Jack had 
leaped this water course. I sized it up. It was about six feet wide 
and four deep. I learned later that it was also very cold. 
I say, Jack had leaped it. Now, it must be remembered that Jack 
has two very long legs and that he did not wear hip boots. And let it 
be further understood that while I am blessed with a couple of the 
former, which on many similar occasions have served me well, I was 
heavily encumbered by a pair of the latter. 
But you already suspect what is to follow. Why postpone the 
inevitable? What matter though I sought a point favorable to the 
leap? What matter though I carefully measured the distance with 
my eye? What matter though I selected a particular little hummock 
extending rather beyond the common margin of the stream, as the 
point from which I should essay the running jump. These things are 
of no consequence. The fact remains that the hummock was a de- 
lusion and a snare. It proved nothing more substantial than an over- 
hanging bunch of grass. Gibb, my erstwhile friend, proved a heartless 
villain. He roared with mirth. And the water proved of a greater 
depth than I had thought, and of a temperature which Gibb’s contor- 
tions did not even faintly suggest. 
