y for him,--to meet and shoot successfully the rapids of
the river. In the long stillnesses he paddled hour upon hour, not only
to make time but to find an outlet for his surging energy. His old-time
woodsman's pleasures were recalled again: shooting waterfowl for their
mess in the still dawns, racing the swimming moose when they ran on him
in the water. One day, fish hungry, he rigged up the elementary fishing
tackle that they had brought from Saltsville and tried for a salmon.

To a long, tough rod cut on the river bank he attached thirty feet of
cheap, white cord, and to the cord he fastened a bright spoon hook--the
spinner that salmon fishers know. He had no leader, no reel, no
delicately balanced salmon rod--and Ezram was full of scorn for the
whole proceeding. And it was certainly true that, by all the rules of
angling, Ben had no chance whatever to get a bite.

The cord was visible in the clear water, and the spoon itself was
scarcely more than twenty feet from the rear of the boat. But this
northern stream was not at all like the famous salmon rivers known to
sportsmen. In years to come, when the lines of communication are better
and tourist hotels are established on its banks, the river may then
begin to conform to the qualifications of a conventional fishing stream,
and then Ben's crude tackle will be unavailing. But at present the
salmon were not so particular. As fishermen came but rarely, the fish
were in countless numbers; and in such a galaxy there were bound to be
few misguided fish that did not know a sportsman's tackle from a dub's.

The joy of angling, once known, dwells in the body until death, and Ben
was a born fisherman. The old delight that can never die crept back to
him the instant he felt the clumsy rod in his hands and the faint throb
of the line through the delicate mechanism of his nerves. And
apparently for no other reason than that the river hordes wished to
welcome him home, almost at once a gigantic bull salmon took his spoon.

Ezram's first knowledge of it was a wild yell that almost startled him
over the side--the same violent outcry that old anglers still can not
restrain when the fish takes hold, even after a lifetime of angling.
When he recovered himself he looked to see Ben kneeling frantically in
the stern, hanging for dear life to his rod and seemingly in grave
danger of being pulled overboard.

No man who has felt that first, overpowering jolt of a striking salmon
can quest