iend,
in relating the episode in camp, said I implored him to row me down in
the middle of the lake that I might have room to manoeuver my fish. But
the slander has barely a grain of truth in it. The water near us showed
several old stakes broken off just below the surface, and my fish was
determined to wrap my leader about one of these stakes; it was only for
the clear space a few yards farther out that I prayed. It was not long
after that my friend found himself in an anxious frame of mind. He
hooked a large trout, which came home on him so suddenly that he had
not time to reel up his line, and in his extremity he stretched his tall
form into the air and lifted up his pole to an incredible height. He
checked the trout before it got under the boat, but dared not come down
an inch, and then began his amusing further elongation in reaching for
his reel with one hand while he carried it ten feet into the air with
the other. A step-ladder would perhaps have been more welcome to him
just then than at any other moment during his life. But the trout was
saved, though my friend's buttons and suspenders suffered.

We learned a new trick in fly-fishing here, worth disclosing. It was not
one day in four that the trout would take the fly on the surface. When
the south wind was blowing and the clouds threatened rain, they would
at times, notably about three o'clock, rise handsomely. But on all other
occasions it was rarely that we could entice them up through the twelve
or fifteen feet of water. Earlier in the season they are not so lazy and
indifferent, but the August languor and drowsiness were now upon them.
So we learned by a lucky accident to fish deep for them, even weighting
our leaders with a shot, and allowing the flies to sink nearly to the
bottom. After a moment's pause we would draw them slowly up, and when
half or two thirds of the way to the top the trout would strike, when
the sport became lively enough. Most of our fish were taken in this
way. There is nothing like the flash and the strike at the surface, and
perhaps only the need of food will ever tempt the genuine angler into
any more prosaic style of fishing; but if you must go below the surface,
a shotted leader is the best thing to use.

Our camp-fire at night served more purposes than one; from its embers
and flickering shadows, Uncle Nathan read us many a tale of his life
in the woods. They were the same old hunter's stories, except that they
evidently had t