YELLOWSTONE LAKE 149 



I knew well it was useless. I am no fisherman, 

 though I have the fisherman's temperament. I 

 can sit and watch a line as long as any one, if the 

 bait hold out.' Years of unvarying disappoint- 

 ments have steeled me to it. I know I shall 

 never get a fish over the gunwale of the boat. 

 But I am lucky on bites. I have as many bites 

 to my record as any fisherman of my years. 

 And, after all, how much better that is. I am no 

 murderer. No fish can point the finger (excuse 

 me, the fin) of scorn at me and say: "There goes 

 the man that killed my dad." 



I have all the delicious thrill that the most 

 scientific disciple of Walton ever had. I feel the 

 pole bend; the line burns through my fingers; the 

 reel sings its high cicada-like note; I have a bite. 

 That is all. I never land him; but what matters 

 that. I can buy all the fish I want to eat — fish 

 that some heartless man has pulled up on the bank 

 and watched their iridescent, gleaming scales fade, 

 gloated over their death agony, strung them in a 

 row, and gone about bragging how many there were, 

 and how much they weighed. I love to fish, but 

 my temperament is too gentle to catch them. 



