d him on, though all the while he seemed to have a tragedy
taking place before his eyes--of one Max Blande, visitor from London,
slipping from a rock out in the midst of that rushing river, and being
rolled over and over in the foam, tossed here, banged there against
projecting masses of rock, gliding round and round in smooth black
whirlpools, and finally being fished out a mile below, dead and cold,
and with his clothes clinging to him.

He was just about to get on to the imaginary scene of his own funeral
being conducted in the most impressive manner, when the voice of the
forester made him start.

"Gude--gude--gude!" he cried. "Why, ye can leap frae stane to stane as
weel as young Scood."

The praise acted like a spur, and Max pressed on over the rest of the
rocks till he came to the last, quite a buttress nearly in the middle of
the stream.

"Ye'll no' go farther," cried Tavish.

Max did not intend to try, for the next step would have been into the
cold boiling water.

"Got one yet, Max?" shouted Kenneth, his voice sounding weak and faint
in the roar of the hurrying stream.

Max shook his head without daring to turn, as he stood there with the
foaming, glancing water all round, steadying himself, and forgetting all
about the object for which he had come, his one idea being that his
object there was to balance himself and to keep from falling.

"Noo," shouted Tavish, and his voice electrified Max, who nearly dropped
the rod. "That's the way, laddie. Tak a good grip o' the butt and mak'
your first cast ahint that black stane. She shall hook a fush there.
Leuk, did ye see the fush rise?"

Max was trying to make out among scores the black stone "ahint" which he
was to throw his "flee," and in a kind of desperation he gave the rod a
wave as if it was a great cart-whip, and threw.

That is to say, he did something, but where the ornamented hook fell, or
whether it fell at all, he had not the slightest idea.

"A coot cast!" cried Tavish; "richt for the spot, but not long eneuch.
Pull oot some more line, laddie, and do't again."

Max obeyed, trying to repeat his former performance in the same blind
fashion, and involuntarily he cast the fly in the very pool the forester
had pointed out, the eddy catching it and giving it a swirl round before
carrying it out of the smooth black water and then away down-stream.

"There, she will hae the fush directly. See her rise?"

Max made no reply, but let the fly r