autiful
fish herein described as grayling was on a day many months previous
to our former party camping on Scarr's Creek. We had camped on a creek
running into the Herbert River, near the foot of a range of wild, jagged
and distorted peaks and crags of granite. Then there were several other
parties of prospectors camped near us, and, it being a Sunday, we were
amusing ourselves in various ways. Some had gone shooting, others were
washing clothes or bathing in the creek, and one of my mates (a Scotsman
named Alick Longmuir) came fishing with me. Like Gilfillan, he was a
quiet, somewhat taciturn man. He had been twenty-two years in Australia,
sometimes mining, at others following his profession of surveyor. He
had received his education in France and Germany, and not only spoke
the languages of those countries fluently, but was well-read in their
literature. Consequently we all stood in a certain awe of him as a man
of parts; for besides being a scholar he was a splendid bushman and
rider and had a great reputation as the best wrestler in Queensland.
Even-tempered, good-natured and possessed of a fund of caustic humour,
he was a great favourite with the diggers, and when he sometimes "broke
loose" and went on a terrific "spree" (his only fault) he made matters
remarkably lively, poured out his hard-earned money like water for
a week or so--then stopped suddenly, pulled himself together in an
extraordinary manner, and went about his work again as usual, with a
face as solemn as that of an owl.

A little distance from the camp we made our way down through rugged,
creeper-covered boulders to the creek, to a fairly open stretch of water
which ran over its rocky bed into a series of small but deep pools. We
baited our lines with small grey grasshoppers, and cast together.

"I wonder what we shall get here, Alick," I began, and then came a tug
and then the sweet, delightful thrill of a game fish making a run. There
is nothing like it in all the world--the joy of it transcends the first
kiss of young lovers.

I landed my fish--a gleaming shaft of mottled grey and silver with
specks of iridescent blue on its head, back and sides, and as I grasped
its quivering form and held it up to view my heart beat fast with
delight.

"_Ombre chevalier!_" I murmured to myself.

Vanished the monotony of the Bush and the long, weary rides over the
sun-baked plains and the sound of the pick and shovel on the gravel in
the deep gullies amid