y, might be counted upon to bring him
his meed of appreciation.

Good Indian and Jack, sitting side by side upon the porch and saying
very little, he passed by with a careless nod, as being not worth his
attention. Saunders, glancing up from the absorbing last chapter of
"The Brokenhearted Bride," also received a nod, and returned it
apathetically. Pete Hamilton, however, got a flabby handshake, a wheezy
laugh, and the announcement that he was down from Shoshone for a good,
gamy tussle with that four-pounder he had lost last time.

"And I don't go back till I get him--not if I stay here a week," he
declared, with jocular savagery. "Took half my leader and my pet fly--I
got him with a peacock-bodied gray hackle that I revised to suit my own
notions--and, by the great immortal Jehosaphat, he looked like a whale
when he jumped up clear of the riffle, turned over, and--" His flabby,
white hand made a soaring movement to indicate the manner in which the
four-pounder had vanished.

"Better take a day off and go with me, Pete," he suggested, getting an
unwieldy-looking pipe from the pocket of his canvas fishing-coat, and
opening his eyes at a trout-fly snagged in the mouthpiece. "Now, how
did that fly come there?" he asked aggrievedly, while he released it
daintily for all his fingers looked so fat and awkward. He stuck the
pipe in the corner of his mouth, and held up the fly with that interest
which seems fatuous to one who has no sporting blood in his veins.

"Last time I used that fly was when I was down here three weeks ago--the
day I lost the big one. Ain't it a beauty, eh? Tied it myself. And, by
the great immortal Jehosaphat, it fetches me the rainbows, too. Good
mind to try it on the big one. Don't see how I didn't miss it out of my
book--I must be getting absent-minded. Sign of old age, that. Failing
powers and the like." He shook his head reprovingly and grinned, as if
he considered the idea something of a joke. "Have to buck up--a lawyer
can't afford to grow absent-minded. He's liable to wake up some day and
find himself without his practice."

He got his fly-book from the basket swinging at his left hip, opened
it, turned the leaves with the caressing touch one gives to a cherished
thing, and very carefully placed the fly upon the page where it
belonged; gazed gloatingly down at the tiny, tufted hooks, with their
frail-looking five inches of gut leader, and then returned the book
fondly to the basket.

"Thin