April 26, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
529 
SMAMDISIMIISffnSMlSKEI 
A Day Spoiled 
I SUPPOSE it is because “Angling.” as 
Piscator informs us, “is a harmless recre¬ 
ation—a recreation that invites to con¬ 
templation and quietness”; and as the Ettrick 
Shepherd avers, “It’s a maist innocent, 
poetical, moral and religious amusement”; and 
because my incursions into “God’s ancient 
sanctuaries” were mainly in quest of “peace, 
good health and much good fish,” I never had 
in my woods experience any very thrilling ad¬ 
ventures by flood or field. 
An avocation that is “maist innocent," and 
that invites to “contemplation and quietness,” is 
not likely to furnish any of the hair-raising es¬ 
capades that in the ordinary way fall to the lot 
of those who go far afield seeking big game. 
Nevertheless, when I was a lad in my teens, I 
was a participant in a little drama that nearly 
ended in a tragedy, and that at the time thrilled 
me as I have seldom been thrilled since. 
As a result of many weeks’ planning, Sam, 
a school-fellow of mine some years older, and 
I found ourselves one lovely summer morning, 
shortly after sunrise, at the foot of Ocean Pond, 
which is situated in a remote outport, some 
distance from the nearest village. As all the 
inhabitants were fisher folk and were engaged 
in their various occupations at the seashore, 
we were as remote and much alone as if in 
the heart of Africa. 
“Ye’ll have the wind down from the ‘sou’ 
sou’west’, and ’twill be a grand day for the 
traouts. If you go up to the head of the pon’ 
where the Willow Brook runs in, you’ll get ’em 
there as plenty as caplin, and as big as dogs”; 
thus Uncle Pierrie delivered himself the night 
before, when we called on him to arrange about 
getting his boat. His weather prognostications 
were verified to the letter, and we were now 
about to test his prophecies about the “traouts.” 
Uncle Pierrie’s boat lay on the bank. He 
had cautioned us to be careful of ourselves, as 
she was easily capsized. She was a locally 
made clinker-built flat, just as cranky as they 
make them, and when Sam eyed her, he said, 
“Look-a-here, laddie, don’t you sneeze or look 
crooked aboard of this one, or I am a gone 
goose. You can swim all right, but if she goes 
over. I’m done—I’ll go to the bottom like a 
killock.” 
I promised to be careful, and we shoved off 
and boarded her. There were three thwarts in 
her, and Sam sat on the forward one and took 
the paddles. 
Now a most uncommon thing happened me 
that day, and it afterward proved Providential 
for Sam. I had a bran new silk line and had 
not taken it out till this morning. I started to 
get it on my reel. It became more hopelessly 
tangled than ever I saw a line tangled since or 
By W. J. CARROLL 
before, and it took me an unreasonably long 
time to take the kinks out of it. The lake was 
very large and deep, dotted with islands here 
and there. Sam rowed up a good bit, and at 
last got hot and tired, so I proposed to beach 
the boat on a rocky islet ahead, and he could 
rest and fish, while I straightened out my line. 
We came to the islet and hauled the boat 
up on a flat ledge that ran out a few feet. Sam 
slipped ashore and held the boat, while I walked 
the length of the boat and got out over the 
bow. We then hauled her up till she was 
about three parts high and dry. The water was 
very deep and dark all around the rock, and as 
it looked a likely spot, Sam threw out, while 
I still struggled with my line. 
Generally when I go fishing my line and 
gear are made ready days before, so that very 
few minutes after we strike the chosen waters 
my flies are skimming the surface. I was very 
impatient now, and in my hurry once more 
verified the old adage, “the more haste, the less 
speed.” However, all things on this sublunary 
sphere come to an end, and after what seemed 
to me to be an interminable delay, I at last 
got everything ready and threw out. 
In the meantime Sam had hooked a nice 
mud-trout and had made the rounds of the 
islet, which was only a few feet in extent. I 
went to the point furthest from the boat and 
soon hooked a splendid one. Sam was now im¬ 
patient to get to the head of the pond, and 
while trouting, kept on urging me to come 
along. 
All the boys with whom I ever fished have 
a standing joke at my expense. They say if I 
get a single bite in a place I want to live there 
forevermore. Of course, this is exaggeration. 
But one tells how on an occasion when four of 
us were camped near a pond, and had Irish 
pig’s head. New English potatoes and new 
American cabbage for dinner, which event was 
scheduled for six o’clock. The whole camp, 
being sick and tired waiting, had to turn out at 
ten o’clock and come down to the lakeside 
where I was getting an odd bite and compel 
me to haul up by firing stones into the water 
all around where I was fishing. Another tells 
about the day they had to send a search party 
from the steamer up the river at four o’clock 
in the evening to force me aboard to my break¬ 
fast, which meal I had forgotten to take before 
we left in the morning. So the yarns go. 
This time I was about to move on, but was 
having “just one more throw to get the Lord 
Mayor of Ocean Pond” before I boarded the 
boat, when I had the experience that made my 
hair actually and literally stand on end. I was 
facing up the pond, the boat was on my right- 
hand side and Sam was sitting in the stern 
with his line out. While the boat was beside 
me and not in my direct line of vision, yet 
through the corner of my eye I could see her. 
Suddenly I saw the regular movement of Sam’s 
rod cease, and I said to him, “Have you struck 
another one?” 
He not answering, I turned right around 
and looked squarely at him. The sight that 
met my eyes caused my hair to suddenly stiffen 
and my heart nearly cease beating. His body 
was shaking violently, his eyes were bulging 
out of his head, and he was frothing out of the 
mouth. I was struck dumb with wonder and 
amazement, and while I was yet gazing at him 
speechlessly, the rod shook out of his hand, and 
he slowly fell head foremost out over the stern 
of the flat into the dark deep water. 
Then I awoke like a flash. I sprang aboard 
the boat and ran the length of her on the 
thwarts, and just as he was leaving the boat, I 
pinned him to the edge of the rail and held him. 
I could get no grip on his coat, which had 
tightened, to haul him in, so I ran my hand 
down his back, under the water, and hooked 
my forefinger into the collar of his coat and 
hooked him back into the boat. It then flashed 
on me that if I fooled with him in the boat she 
would soon slip off the rock and both of us 
would be drowned sure. In my excitement I 
put my two hands under him, lifted him as if 
he were a year-old baby, stepped over the 
thwarts with my burden as lightly as a cat and 
laid him on his back on the smooth part of the 
rock. 
It was then I was in a quandary. It sud¬ 
denly dawned on me that I had heard that 
Sam was subject to fits of some kind. I did not 
know what to do. However, I laid him flat 
on his back, opened his neckwear, chafed his 
hands and wiped his mouth. After what seemed 
to me to be hours of anxiety, he came to a 
little and sat up. 
I breathed freely once more and was thank¬ 
ing my stars that I was well out of an awk¬ 
ward predicament, when my sudden hopes were 
dashed to despair. As he opened his eyes, I 
saw the light of reason had left them; he looked 
uncanny, and when I talked to him he answered 
wildly and incoherently, or muttered unin¬ 
telligibly. It was then that I realized that I 
was marooned on a remote rock, single-handed 
with a companion who had gone suddenly in¬ 
sane. I had no means of binding or securing 
him, and if he had shown the least violence, the 
result probably would have been the drowning 
of us both. I had nothing but the two trout 
lines to tie him if he had got obstreperous, and 
I soon decided that for this purpose these were 
useless. 
After a time, seeing that he was quiet and 
