his is a pretty brace
of trout, from thirty to forty ounces of thoroughbred fighting pluck,
and the spirit that will not surrender. If they only knew that their
strength would be doubled by acting together, they soon would tangle
your line in the roots or break your rod in the alders. But all the
time they are fighting against each other, making it easy to bring them
up to the net and land them--a pair of beauties, evenly matched in
weight and in splendour, gleaming with rich iridescent hues of orange
and green and peacock-blue and crimson. A few feet beyond you find
another, a smaller fish, and then one a little larger; and so you go on
up the stream, threading the boat through the alders, with patience and
infinite caution, carefully casting your flies when the stream opens
out to invite them, till you have rounded your dozen of trout and are
wisely contented. Then you go backward down the brook--too narrow for
turning--and join the other canoe that waits, floating leisurely on
with the river.

There is a change now in the character of the stream. The low hills
that have been standing far away, come close together from either side,
as if they meant to bar any further passage; and the dreamy river wakes
up to wrestle its way down the narrow valley. There are no long, sleepy
reaches, no wide, easy curves, now; but sharp, quick turns from one
rocky ledge to another; and enormous stones piled and scattered along
the river-bed; and sudden descents from level to level as if by the
broad steps of a ruined, winding stairway. The water pushes, and
rushes, and roars, and foams, and frets--no, it does not fret, after
all, for there is always something joyous and exultant in its voice,
a note of the _gaudia certaminis_ by which the struggle of life is
animated, a note of confident strength, sure that it can find or make
a way, through all obstacles, to its goal. This is what I feel in a
river, especially a little river flowing through a rough, steep
country. This is what makes me love it. It seems to be thoroughly
alive, and glad to be alive, and determined to go on, and certain that
it will win through.

Our canoes go with the river, but no longer easily or lazily. Every
step of the way must be carefully chosen; now close to the steep bank
where the bushes hang over; now in mid-stream among the huge pointed
rocks; now by the lowest point of a broad sunken ledge where the water
sweeps smoothly over to drop into the next pool. T