Nov. 9, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
741 

Father Macleod’s Salmon. 
All went 
Came a strange fish up the bay. 
well until one day 
Over the strange and mysterious island of 
Newfoundland the summer season brooded with 
far north glamour of sifted sunlight and sea 
loud mistiness. On Avalon peninsula the dense 
‘rowth of pine and spruce, of juniper and larch, 
‘ast an emerald sweep to the west and south, 
‘heir tops carved green against the sky, their 
Jhadowed trunks standing thick and straight as 
issembled warriors. Ferns sprang up, and many 
vild flowers lent their fragrance to the season, 
ind balsam and other evergreen filled the wild 
\ir with pungent aromatic tang. 
St. Mary’s Bay, dotted here and there with the 
‘nowy sails of wandering fishermen, lay to the 
southwest, and its two arms, Salmonier and 
volinet, extended upward into the peninsula, says 
|he Chicago Tribune, with Salmonier River flow- 
ing southwesterly into its salt water harbor. Out 
‘rom toward the head of Salmonier River lay the 
rugged course of an unnamed stream, which cut 
ibruptly into the Salmonier with a great rush 
hf seething water, and a resistless leap and em- 
yrace of foamy waters, and just here, and high 
‘pon a snug slope by a little clearing stood the 
jouse of Father Macleod. 
Just a bit of a cottage perched among the hills, 
l. retreat from the haunts of men, a way station 
for the faithful, a haven for maybe the loggers, 
che fishermen, the farmer. What would you 
aave? Shall a man christen himself when an 
nfant, marry himself in the fire of his twenties, 
or bury himself when the shadows lie longest 
toward the west? Here, where conditions were 
srimitive, men and women mated, died, and gave 
n marriage; and at christening or wedding the 
services of a man of God were a necessity. So 
the good father bided in his white painted little 
home and gave solace and good greeting whether 
to stranger or friend, and the thin, keen spiral 
of his chimney’s signal made a hearthstone wel- 
come to the saint and to the unsanctified. 
For Macleod was a mixture of heartiness and 
asceticism, of jolly good fellowship and_ stern 
integrity, which gave you the clue to his mingled 
ancestral blood. There was a dash of Scotch in 
his blood, a taste of the Irish, and a good strong 
cast of stubborn English traits in his blend, and 
you could not be with him a day, no, nor an 
hour, but these facts of his nature would present 
you each its own particular spark. 






THE THOMAS MCD, POTTER TROPHY. 
For the Largest Red-Button Fish of the Season. 

TUNA CLUB CUPS. 
For Record Black Sea Bass, Tuna, Albacore, Bonito, 
Swordfish, etc. 
Now it might be that those bagpipes in the 
corner of his front room looked out of place if 
you were prone to criticize, and even the eight- 
ounce fishing rod held neatly in place by two 
caribou prongs surely hinted of the sportsman’s 
inclination. And to see the reverend father draw 
his sharp clasp knife from a convenient pocket, 
and carefully slice away at a slab of black 
tobacco, preparatory to filling his short stemmed 
black pipe, was to acquit him of any prejudice 
against that particular failing of mankind. 
But, indeed, there was the saving grace of 
sheer humanity in the man, and those who knew 
him best loved him best for his brotherhood in 
the matter of hobbies. The bagpipes discoursed 
fluently under his skillful touch, and where was 
there a man in the country, aye, or from the 
States, who could cast you so artful a fly, so 
deft an alluring cheat into the waters of Sal- 
monier, or his twin brother of swirling waters? 
In the conjunction of the two currents great 
brook trout lurked, and during the season lusty 
sea trout came up the river, while the lordly 
salmon, king of the tumbling currents, sent its 
barge-like body lazily along when at leisure. or 
took the foam-flecked falls like a pole vaulter. 
Tust to step down to the bank and draw from 
their’ hiding places a brace or so of spotted 
salmon, fontinalis, or to land a fighting, wiry 
gymnast of a six-pound sea trout was ‘almost an 
every other day diversion of Macleod. In slip- 
pers and black canonical trousers, even with his 
cheeks fresh from the clerical razor, he would 
take the eight-ounce rod and a pair of favorite 
flies, and slip down to the river, and before a 
half hour had elasped he would be back with 
the mid-day meal still squirming in the creel. 
Now, on this particular day, as the sturdy 
father related, he reached for the tough. reliable 
rod from its place on his wall) and, clad lightly 
in collarless shirt and dark pantaloons, his feet 
incased in thin slippers, he strode easily and 
vigorously down the slone that led to Salmonier. 
A cup of coffee. a single slice of toasted bread, 
and a mere radish had sfficed for his morning 
meal, for his appetite had Jain dormant for the 
while, and he had, somehow. a mind to the 
enjritual more than to the gastronomic that morn- 
ing. 
It was nearly 9 o’cleck when he whirled the 
fly around over an wnderhanging bush at the 
bank’s edge, and as lightly as‘a shadow the lure 
touched the network of foam that eddied there. 
A rush. an inflection of the trained wrist, and 
the trout was hooked. Here and there it darted, 
leaped, dove and sulked, rose and fenced for 
the liberation of the barb. But Macleod’s prac 
ticed hand, refusing an inch of slack, soon con 
quered the glittering prey. Slowly he guided it 
to the shallows next to the shore, and transferred 
it to his reel on the grassy declivity that rose 
up toward the cottage above him. 
A second cast, and another trout struck and 
was played and landed. They weighed together 
about five pounds. “Enough and to spare,” said 
his reverence. He stood in the sunlight, now 
and then checkered with roving cloud lines, and 
watched the river’s surface, wrinkled at intervals 
by crawling winds, and drank in the primeval 
and wilderness sweep of it all with a hungry eye 
for its beauty. 
He looked at the remaining fly. It was a 
salmon fly. Again he mused, but this time his 
thoughts roved to something more than the love- 
liness of stream and cloud, of wind-woven riffle 
and gliding sunshine. 
“T wonder,” he said, “now I wonder if it be 
that the salmon can have come up? Or maybe 
a sea trout is lying over there.” 
He tied the salmon fly on and made a wide 
and free untrammelled cast over the churning 
waters where they met at the angle of most re- 
sistance; and I promise you a salmon worthy of 
the king’s own rod struck it as swiftly and 
tenaciously as a feathered arrow from an aborigi- 
nal bow might pierce the shoulder of the tower- 
ing reindeer. 
Here was no comparatively insignificant weight 
of square-jawed brook trout; nor rush and volt 
of voyaging sea trout, either. Here was the 
monarch of waters, the salmon himself, stung 
by an inch or so of steel, cheated by a fish of 
. shimmering tinsel, hooked, held for a second by 
that instinctive wrist motion of Macleod, but 
up into the air with a curve of pictured silver, 
and down with a sullen plash that meant a chal- 
lenge to the priestly angler. Macleod was no 
ordinary man, either in spirit or physique. Six 
feet in height. his gray locks floating back in the 
morning wind, and.framing a head and face of 
Beethoven-like ruggedness, he did not hesitate 
an instant as to his ourse. 
“Tnto the water I went, man,” he said, the 
light of reminiscent battle glinting in his eyes 
as he spoke, “and the first thing I lost was my 
slipper. I kicked the other off to feel comfort- 
able.” he continued, “and the fight was on.” 

THE DANIEL M. BURNS 
To be given the Angler who exceeds the Tuna Club 
Record 25l-pound Tuna. 
COL. 
TROPHY. 

