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Our Camp in the Woods

sible moment:

On looking into the tent, we found that lated Dearborn so profoundly that he Fred had filled it, while we were gone wished to try his luck at luring the fishing, to the depth of two or three feet "speckled beauties" at the earliest poswith pine boughs. On this natural mattress our blankets were spread; and here, "At the Upper Dam you throw your not much later, we bestowed ourselves fly on top of the white water, and have it for the night. A bit of candle was set up seized by a ten-pounder, instead of a baby in a candlestick contrived of a split stick trout six inches long; you strike hard stuck in the ground and a strip of white and the fish darts away, while fathom birch bark; and the tent-flap was drawn after fathom of your line unreels, and and buttoned. you begin to tremble for fear he will Talking went on for a while, then died never stop; he turns, and you begin to out. The frogs peeped and growled. We reel in, carefully and watchfully, keeping all thought that we should soon fall asleep. his head well up to the surface, and after But we did not for some reason, -the many moments of exciting anxiety you oddity of the thing, very likely. I could get him near enough to successfully use hear my fellow-travellers turning over your net. It is no small job to take an and over. Then Stein got up to make eight- or ten-pound trout out of swift some improvement in his part of the bed. water, with a light rod, and not break "Good many ribs in this mattress of yours, your rod or lose your line. It requires Fred," he observed. skill, patience, and practice to do it; but Rike, too, got up to improve, and drew isn't it sport? How your eyes sparkle, out a thick pine-branch from beneath his your cheeks flush, and how you quiver with the excitement of the moment, while back.

Upon that we all fell to talking again, battling with one of these gigantic speciand I think it was one o'clock before sleep mens!" fairly reigned supreme in that tent.

One comrade more than hinted that we But we slept late enough the next had not fished Metaluk Brook correctly; morning to make it up. and he proceeded to read us a section of When I waked it was light, and evi- instructions from a Fisherman's Manual, dently late; but it was raining softly on which he had brought: the tent outside. All hands were snoring "Questions in relation to fishing up or away as for dear life. A wonderful down a stream should be decided by the drowsiness brooded over that interior; condition of the stream and its borders. next moment I had surrendered to it While casting from the shore, it makes again, and we came near sleeping over very little difference which way the stream that day. Fred waked us at last. He is fished; but in wading it is best to fish was getting those beans out of the hole up stream, because it does not roll the where the kettle had stewed all night. water, and there is not so great liability The odor roused us out at once. That is to alarm the fish. In making a cast, it is the way to cook beans. always best to draw the fly across the It had nearly ceased raining, and after current, for then the drop-flies will play breakfast we set sail for Upper Dam to clear of the casting-line. This is the fish for trout again. The following para- opinion of most good fly-fishers. First, graph from Mr. Farrar's book had stimu-cast up stream along the shore, and, if the stream be not too wide, cast to the far-grin spread over her smooth cheeks. She ther shore, drawing your flies across the was all smiling, and presently, as the stream, but not too fast, lest the trout breeze dimpled her, all a-snicker up into become suspicious. In striking you can- the roots of her hair, up among her forest not be too quick, when fishing up a tresses. Mollychunkamug! Who could stream. Cast first near the shore; then a be aught but gay-gay even to the farciyard or two farther off; next across the cal-when on such a name? Is it Indian? stream. If you get not a rise, take a step Bewildered Indian, we deem it-transor two up the stream and repeat. Con- mogrified somewhat from aboriginal tinue doing so until a doubt arises as to whether the trout admire your cast; then replace one fly by another of different color from any on your cast. If that does not take, after presenting it several times, take it off and try another extreme in color. Keep changing until you hit the fancy of the trout." ee The wind was fresh from the south, and we had a fine sail of four or five miles to the Dam.

That portion of the lake above the "Narrows" is called the Upper Richardson, or Mollychunk-