d not much idea how far we were to climb this water stairway, and
as the climb became steeper, and the water more swift, the guides pushed
and puffed and we gave them a lift over the hard places--that is, Eddie
did. I was too tired to do anything but fish.

As a rule, the water was shallow, but there were deep holes. I found one
of them presently, by mistake. It was my habit to find holes that
way--places deeper than my waders, though the latter came to my
shoulders. It seemed necessary that several times daily I should get my
boots full of water. When I couldn't do it in any other way I would fall
over something and let the river run into them for a while. I called to
Eddie from where I was wallowing around, trying to get up, with my usual
ballast.

"Don't get in here!" I said.

He was helping the boys over a hard place just then, tugging and
sweating, but he paused long enough to be rude and discourteous.

"I don't have to catch my trout in my boots," he jeered, and the guides
were disrespectful enough to laugh. I decided that I would never try to
do any of them a good turn again. Then suddenly everything was
forgotten, for a gate of light opened out ahead, and presently we pushed
through and had reached the shores of as lovely a sheet of water as lies
in the great north woods. It was Tupper Lake, by our calculation, and it
was on the opposite side that Tobeatic Brook was said to enter. There,
if anywhere, we might expect to find the traditional trout. So far as we
knew, no one had looked on these waters since the old lumbering days.
Except for exploration there was no reason why any one should come. Of
fish and game there were plenty in localities more accessible. To me, I
believe the greatest joy there, as everywhere in the wilderness--and it
was a joy that did not grow old--was the feeling that we were in a
region so far removed from clanging bells and grinding wheels and all
the useful, ugly attributes of mankind.

We put out across the lake. The land rose rather sharply beyond, and
from among the trees there tumbled out a white foaming torrent that made
a wide swirling green pool where it entered. We swept in below this
aquarium, Eddie taking one side and I the other. We had on our big flies
now and our heavy leaders. They were necessary. Scarcely had a cast gone
sailing out over the twisting water when a big black and gold shape
leaped into the air and Eddie had his work cut out for him. A moment
later my o