hanked, brown-winged fellows that leap
like kangaroos, and fly like birds, and sing KRI-KAREE-KAREE-KRI in
their flight.

It is not really a song, I know, but it sounds like one; and, if you had
heard that Kri-karee carolling as I chased him over the rocks, you would
have been sure that he was mocking me.

I believed that he was the predestined lure for that ouananiche; but it
was hard to persuade him to fulfill his destiny. I slapped at him
with my hat, but he was not there. I grasped at him on the bushes, and
brought away "nothing but leaves." At last he made his way to the very
edge of the water and poised himself on a stone, with his legs well
tucked in for a long leap and a bold flight to the other side of the
river. It was my final opportunity. I made a desperate grab at it and
caught the grasshopper.

My premonition proved to be correct. When that Kri-karee, invisibly
attached to my line, went floating down the stream, the ouananiche was
surprised. It was the fourteenth of September, and he had supposed the
grasshopper season was over. The unexpected temptation was too strong
for him. He rose with a rush, and in an instant I was fast to the best
land-locked salmon of the year.

But the situation was not without its embarrassments. My rod weighed
only four and a quarter ounces; the fish weighed between six and seven
pounds. The water was furious and headstrong. I had only thirty yards of
line and no landing-net.

"HOLA! FERDINAND!" I cried. "APPORTE LA NETTE, VITE! A BEAUTY! HURRY
UP!"

I thought it must be an hour while he was making his way over the hill,
through the underbrush, around the cliff. Again and again the fish ran
out my line almost to the last turn. A dozen times he leaped from the
water, shaking his silvery sides. Twice he tried to cut the leader
across a sunken ledge. But at last he was played out, and came in
quietly towards the point of the rock. At the same moment Ferdinand
appeared with the net.

Now, the use of the net is really the most difficult part of angling.
And Ferdinand is the best netsman in the Lake St. John country. He never
makes the mistake of trying to scoop a fish in motion. He does not grope
around with aimless, futile strokes as if he were feeling for something
in the dark. He does not entangle the dropper-fly in the net and tear
the tail-fly out of the fish's mouth. He does not get excited.

He quietly sinks the net in the water, and waits until he can see the
fish