some big trout. I was there one night, some two weeks later, trying to
catch some of the big trout for my next breakfast.

Those were wise fish. It was of no use to angle for them by day any
more. They knew all the flies in my book; could tell the new Jenny Lind
from the old Bumble Bee before it struck the water; and seemed to know
perfectly, both by instinct and experience, that they were all frauds,
which might as well be called Jenny Bee and Bumble Lind for any sweet
reasonableness that was in them. Besides all this, the water was warm;
the trout were logy and would not rise.

By night, however, the case was different. A few of the trout would
leave the pool and prowl along the shores in shallow water to see what
tidbits the darkness might bring, in the shape of night bugs and
careless piping frogs and sleepy minnows. Then, if you built a fire on
the beach and cast a white-winged fly across the path of the firelight,
you would sometimes get a big one.

It was fascinating sport always, whether the trout were rising or not.
One had to fish with his ears, and keep most of his wits in his hand,
ready to strike quick and hard when the moment came, after an hour of
casting. Half the time you would not see your fish at all, but only hear
the savage plunge as he swirled down with your fly. At other times, as
you struck sharply at the plunge, your fly would come back to you, or
tangle itself up in unseen snags; and far out, where the verge of the
firelight rippled away into darkness, you would see a sharp wave-wedge
shooting away, which told you that your trout was only a musquash.
Swimming quietly by, he had seen you and your fire, and slapped his tail
down hard on the water to make you jump. That is a way Musquash has in
the night, so that he can make up his mind what queer thing you are and
what you are doing.

All the while, as you fish, the great dark woods stand close about you,
silent, listening. The air is full of scents and odors that steal abroad
only by night, while the air is dew-laden. Strange cries, calls,
squeaks, rustlings run along the hillside, or float in from the water,
or drop down from the air overhead, to make you guess and wonder what
wood folk are abroad at such unseemly hours, and what they are about. So
that it is good to fish by night, as well as by day, and go home with
heart and head full, even though your creel be empty.

I was standing very still by my fire, waiting for a big trout that h