where he had fixed me for
my fishing. He was soon out of my sight, and his warning to me to stay
in that spot went out of my mind before the rumble of his wagon had
died away. Had he turned at the bend he would have seen me lying flat
on my back on the bridge, unbalanced by the eagerness with which I had
answered the first tug at the hook.

I could have landed a shark with the strength which I put into that
wild jerk, but I saw only the worm bait dangling above my astonished
face. With my second cast I lifted a trout clear of the water; then
caught my line in an overhanging branch and saw my erstwhile prisoner
shoot away up-stream. The tangled line led me from my post of safety.
Had I returned to it; had I remembered the admonition of the cautious
James, and held to the station to which he had assigned me--my life
might have run its course in another channel. Now, as I look back, it
seems as though my story became entangled with my line in that
overhanging branch, as though there I picked up the strong, holding
thread of it, and followed its tortuous windings to this day.

My blood was running quick with excitement. I had no fear. A
wonderful catch, a game fish six inches long filled me with the pride
of achievement, and with pride came self-confidence. The stream lured
me on. The rapids snapped up my hook, and with many a deceitful tug
enticed me farther and farther into the woods. The brush shut the
bridge from my view, but I knew that it was not far away, and that a
voice so mighty as James could raise would easily overtake my slow
course along the bank. So I went from rock to rock with one hand
guiding my precious rod, and the other clutching overhanging limbs and
bushes.

What sport this was for a lad of ten who had known only the placid
brook in the open meadow and the amiable moods of its people! How many
a boyish shout I muffled as I made my cautious way along that
boisterous stream and pitted my wits against its wary dwellers! I
wormed through an abatis of laurel; I scampered over the bared and
tangled roots of a great oak; I reached a shelf of pebbly beach.
Around it the water swept over moss-clad rocks into a deep pool; above
it the arched limbs broke and let in the warm sunlight, making it a
grateful spot to one chilled by the dampness of the thicker woods.
Eager to try my luck in that enticing pool, I leaped from the massed
roots to the little beach without troubling to see what others might