was a chance left,
and wandered down-stream to look for an eddy where he might pick up a
small fish. Ferdinand, our guide, resigned himself without a sigh to
the consolation of eating blueberries, which he always did with great
cheerfulness. But I, being more cast down than either of my comrades,
sought out a convenient seat among the rocks, and, adapting my anatomy
as well as possible to the irregularities of nature's upholstery, pulled
from my pocket AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE DALE, and settled down
to read myself into a Christian frame of mind.

Before beginning, my eyes roved sadly over the pool once more. It
was but a casual glance. It lasted only for an instant. But in that
fortunate fragment of time I distinctly saw the broad tail of a big
ouananiche rise and disappear in the swift water at the very head of the
pool.

Immediately the whole aspect of affairs was changed. Despondency
vanished, and the river glittered with the beams of rising hope.

Such is the absurd disposition of some anglers. They never see a fish
without believing that they can catch him; but if they see no fish, they
are inclined to think that the river is empty and the world hollow.

I said nothing to my companions. It would have been unkind to disturb
them with expectations which might never be realized. My immediate duty
was to get within casting distance of that salmon as soon as possible.

The way along the shore of the pool was difficult. The bank was very
steep, and the rocks by the river's edge were broken and glibbery.
Presently I came to a sheer wall of stone, perhaps thirty feet high,
rising directly from the deep water.

There was a tiny ledge or crevice running part of the way across the
face of this wall, and by this four-inch path I edged along, holding
my rod in one hand, and clinging affectionately with the other to such
clumps of grass and little bushes as I could find. There was one
small huckleberry plant to which I had a particular attachment. It was
fortunately a firm little bush, and as I held fast to it I remembered
Tennyson's poem which begins

"Flower in the crannied wall,"

and reflected that if I should succeed in plucking out this flower,
"root and all," it would probably result in an even greater increase of
knowledge than the poet contemplated.

The ledge in the rock now came to an end. But below me in the pool there
was a sunken reef; and on this reef a long log had caught, with one
en