JOE'S DOUBLE CATCH 



By DON CAMERON 



Illustrations ly G. Ryder 



OT a trout raised to the 

 flies which, I flatter my- 

 self, I sent with no little 

 • skill, fluttering and skip- 

 ping over the rifts where 



visible through a small grove of trees 

 scarcely half a mile away. I watched 

 it with a feeling akin to that of a 

 person who knows he is about to re- 

 ceive a great pleasure, and is in no 

 the clear sparkling waters hurry to begin, lest it be too soon 

 played, or over the more over. For many times had I fished the 



stream, and always I stopped at this 

 point to rest and smoke and watch the 

 farmhouse. And always I picked up 

 my basket and rod and walked across 

 the pasture to the low, rambling struc- 

 ture, built many years ago, where lived 

 old Joe Multer, an honest, humorous, 



quiet surfaces of the log- 

 rimmed pools. Even the 

 little nooks, half hid by 

 water-washed bushes, re- 

 mained unbroken after the coachman 

 and brown hackle had dropped with a 



lifelike quiver lightly on the quiet 



water, and, with dainty little ripples, old farmer, a veteran of the great war 



struggled shoreward. So interested was and, above all, an expert trout fisher- 



I in making the leader obey my man. 



slightest wish, and dodge in and out 

 among the roots, logs and bushes, and in 

 keeping the dainty bunch of bright 

 •feathers in lifelike motion, that I had 

 not noticed the hot June sun high in 

 the heavens ; the bright light penetra- 



The hours of my mid-day wait were 

 always short when spent in his com- 

 pany. His home was the abiding place 

 of rustic comfort and content ; his cel- 

 lar was full of good things to eat, and 

 aplenty of amber cider which he alone 



ting every nook and crevice of the knew how to preserve and keep the 



stream bed, but when the brilliancy of flavor and tang during the summer 



the light caught my attention, I stopped months. In spite of my city clothes 



fishing immediately, for years of care- and mannerisms, he and his good wife 



ful study of trout habits had taught took a great interest and delight in my 



•me that the King of Fishes likes not the comfort. Joe was ever a quiet man, 



bright light of mid-day, which exposes who never told much of his past life, 



'him to every enemy. 



Deep in the shade of a huge elm I 

 sat down and opened my basket to ex- 

 amine and, I must confess, to admire the 

 morning's catch. Twelve beauties lay 

 side by side on the clean grass, while 

 I prepared a damp bed in the basket 

 to keep them cool and sweet until my 

 fishing day was ended. 



There was nothing to do but wait 

 until the sun dropped low in the West, 



but something about me, perhaps it is 

 a certain faculty developed with long 

 newspaper work, won his confidence 

 and in his quaint way, he told me 

 many incidents of his long march with 

 Sherman to the sea ; of his boyhood, 

 and of his fishing trips. 



Joe helloed at me from the barn as 

 I came up the lane, and joined me in 

 the springhouse, where I stopped for 

 a long drink of the coldest and finest 



and the long shadows stole over the spring water in the world. His greet- 



water. Then, with his morning's meal ing was short and friendly as ever, 



digested, Mr. Trout would think it safe He peeped into my creel with the curi- 



to venture from his hiding place. osity of a child. 



An hour I rested and smoked, watch- "Gee, got 'em, didn't ye ! You can 



ing the while a white farmhouse just feed Jack while I go up to the house a 



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