backward, and then away once more between
walls of green, billowing into the sunset--away, away to Jeremy's Bay!

The sun was just on the horizon when we reached there--the water already
in shadow near the shore. So deep and vivid were its hues that we seemed
to be fishing in dye-stuff. And the breeze went out with the sun, and
the painted pool became still, ruffled only where the trout broke water
or a bird dipped down to drink.

I will not speak of the fishing there. I have already promised that I
would not speak of fishing again. But Jeremy's Bay is a spot that few
guides know and few fishermen find. It was our last real fishing, and it
was worthy. Then home to camp, between walls of dusk--away, away from
Jeremy's Bay--silently slipping under darkening shores--silently, and a
little sadly, for our long Day of Joy was closing in--the hour of return
drew near.

And postpone it as you will, the final moment must come--the time when
the rod must be taken down for good; the leaders stripped and coiled in
their box, the fly-book tenderly gone over and the last flies you have
used fitted into place and laid away.

One does not go through that final ritual without a little sentiment--a
little tugging about the heart. The flies were all new and trim and
properly placed when you set out. They were a gay array and you were as
proud of them as of a little garden. They are in disarray now. They have
an unkempt look. The shells are shredded, the feathers are caked and
bitten, the hackle is frazzled and frayed out. Yet you are even more
proud of them than in the beginning. Then they were only a promise, fair
and beautiful to look upon; now they conjure up pictures of supreme
fulfillment--days and moments so firmly set upon the past that they
shall not soon fade away. That big Silver Doctor--from which the shell
has twice been broken, and the feathers wrapped and rewrapped--that must
have been wound with a special blessing, for when all else failed it was
a certain lure. The big trout below Loon Lake rose to that fly, and
accordingly this battered thing will forever be preserved. This scarlet
Breck, with almost every gay feather gone and the silver wrapping
replaced with tinfoil--even when it displayed a mere shred of its former
glory it proved far more fatal than many a newer fly. How vividly it
recalls a certain wild pool of strange, dim lucence where, for me, the
trout would take no other lure. And this Montreal--it has becom