me in those four days, struck a
rock and turned over. Nor would the men of the party, all powerful
swimmers, have had any more chance than I.

We were a little nervous that afternoon. The canon grew wilder; the
current, if possible, more rapid. But there were fewer rocks; the
river-bed was clearer.

We were rapidly nearing the Middle Fork. Another day would see us there,
and from that point, the river, although swift, would lose much of its
danger.

Late the afternoon of the third day we saw our camp well ahead, on a
ledge above the river. Everything was in order when we arrived. We
unloaded ourselves solemnly out of the boats, took our fish, our poles,
our graft-hooks and landing-nets, our fly-books, my sunburn lotion, and
our weary selves up the bank. Then we solemnly shook hands all round. We
had come through; the rest was easy.

On the last day, the river became almost a smiling stream. Once again,
instead of between cliffs, we were traveling between great forests of
spruce, tamarack, white and yellow pine, fir, and cedar. A great golden
eagle flew over the water just ahead of our boat. And in the morning we
came across our first sign of civilization--a wire trolley with a cage,
extending across the river in lieu of a bridge. High up in the air at
each end, it sagged in the middle until the little car must almost have
touched the water. We had a fancy to try it, and landed to make the
experiment. But some ungenerous soul had padlocked it and had gone away
with the key.

For the first time that day, it was possible to use the trolling-lines.
We had tried them before, but the current had carried them out far ahead
of the boat. Cut-throat trout now and then take a spoon. But it is the
bull-trout which falls victim, as a rule, to the troll.

I am not gifted with the trolling-line. Sometime I shall write an
article on the humors of using it--on the soft and sibilant hiss with
which it goes out over the stern; on the rasping with which it grates on
the edge of the boat as it holds on, stanch and true, to water-weeds and
floating branches; on the low moan with which it buries itself under a
rock and dies; on the inextricable confusion into which it twists and
knots itself when, hand over hand, it is brought in for inspection.

I have spent hours over a trolling-line, hours which, otherwise, I
should have wasted in idleness. There are thirty-seven kinds of knots
which, so far, I have discovered in a trolling-line, a