leaming curve of silver to the sunlight. The splash of the big
fish seemed an invitation, and Duncan was all anxiety to teach the
stranger, who, as he fancied, knew nothing about throwing a fly.
Ingram lay down on a rock some little distance back from the banks,
and put his hands beneath his head and watched the operations going
forward. But was it really Duncan who was to teach the stranger? It
was Sheila who picked out flies for him. It was Sheila who held the
rod while he put them on the line. It was Sheila who told him where
the bigger salmon usually lay--under the opposite bank of the broad
and almost lake-like pool into which the small but rapid White Water
came tumbling and foaming down its narrow channel of rocks and stones.

Then Sheila waited to see her pupil begin. He had evidently a little
difficulty about the big double-handed rod, a somewhat more formidable
engine of destruction than the supple little thing with which he had
whipped the streams of Devonshire and Cornwall.

The first cast sent both flies and a lump of line tumbling on to the
pool, and would have driven the boldest of salmon out of its wits. The
second pretty nearly took a piece out of Ingram's ear, and made him
shift his quarters with rapidity. Duncan gave him up in despair. The
third cast dropped both flies with the lightness of a feather in the
running waters of the other side of the pool; and the next second
there was a slight wave along the surface, a dexterous jerk with the
butt, and presently the line was whirled out into the middle of the
pool, running rapidly off the reel from the straining rod.

"Plenty o' line, sir, plenty o' line!" shouted Duncan in a wild fever
of anxiety, for the fish had plunged suddenly.

Ingram had come running down to the bank. Sheila was all excitement
and interest as she stood and watched every slackening or tightening
of the line as the fish went up the pool and down the pool, and
crossed the current in his efforts to escape. The only self-possessed
person, indeed, was Lavender himself, who presently said, "Miss
Mackenzie, won't you take the rod now and have the honor of landing
him? I don't think he will show much more fight."

At this moment, however, the line slackened suddenly, and the fish
threw himself clean out of the water, turning a complete summersault.
It was a dangerous moment, but the captive was well hooked, and in his
next plunge Lavender was admonished by Duncan to keep a good strain