yed Peter
cried, "Lameau!" which is Mic-mac for salmon. He had seen the rise of
the fish, which I had not. And here I may observe that good eyes are
necessary to make a salmon-fisher, and a near-sighted person like the
Scribe can never greatly excel in this pursuit. All the salmon which I
hooked fastened themselves: I had only this part in it, that I was the
fool at one end of the rod. I waited five minutes, according to rule,
and cast again. "Habet!" There can be no mistake this time: my eyes were
good enough to see the savage rush with which he seized my fly and
plunged with it down to the depths.

"Hold up your rod!" cries Peter, who saw that, taken by surprise, I was
dropping the point of it. I raised it nearly upright, and this, with the
friction of the reel, caused the fish, which had started to run after he
felt the prick of the hook, to stop when he had gone half across the
river, and make his leap or somersault.

"A twenty-pounder," said Mike.

When he leaped I ought to have dropped my point, so that he should not
fall on the line, but I did nothing of the sort. I felt much as I once
did in the woods of Wisconsin when a dozen deer suddenly jumped up from
the long grass all about me, and I forgot that I had a gun in my hands.
I had so much line out that, as it happened, no bad consequences
followed, and the fish started for another run, at the end of which he
made his leap, and coming down he struck my line with his tail, and was
gone! Slowly and sadly I wound up my line, and found the gut broken
close to the hook, and my beautiful "Fairy" vanished.

Then I looped on another insect phenomenon, and went on casting. Rodman,
I perceived, was engaged with a salmon on the other bank. Presently I
raise and hook another, but he directly shakes out the hook.

I move slowly down the pool, casting on each side--which I find is hard
work for the back and shoulders--when, just opposite the big rock where
Kingfisher raised his second fish yesterday, I feel a pluck at my fly
and see a boil in the water. The robber runs away twenty yards and
leaps, then turns short round and comes at me, as if to run down the
canoe and drown us all. I wind up my line as fast as possible, but,
alas! it comes in, yard after yard, so easily that I perceive all
connection between the fish and me is at an end.

"He got slack line on you," said Peter.

By this time it was seven o'clock, and I returned home to breakfast with
what appetite I h