been looking on; and
"ha-ha-ha-a-a," said we all, echo included. He approached a second
time, but not so closely, and when I began to creep back toward the
shore with my heavy craft, pawing the water first upon one side, then
the other, he followed, and with ironical laughter witnessed my efforts
to stem the current at the head of the lake. I confess it was enough to
make a more solemn bird than the loon laugh, but it was no fun for me,
and generally required my last pound of steam.

The loons flew back and forth from one lake to the other, and their
voices were about the only notable wild sounds to be heard.

One afternoon, quite unexpectedly, I struck my big fish in the head of
the lake. I was first advised of his approach by two or three trout
jumping clear from the water to get out of his lordship's way. The
water was not deep just there, and he swam so near the surface that his
enormous back cut through. With a swirl he swept my fly under and
turned.

My hook was too near home, and my rod too near a perpendicular to
strike well. More than that, my presence of mind came near being
unhorsed by the sudden apparition of the fish. If I could have had a
moment's notice, or if I had not seen the monster, I should have fared
better and the fish worse. I struck, but not with enough decision, and,
before I could reel up, my empty hook came back. The trout had carried
it in his jaws till the fraud was detected, and then spat it out. He
came a second time and made a grand commotion in the water, but not in
my nerves, for I was ready then, but failed to take the fly, and so to
get his weight and beauty in these pages. As my luck failed me at the
last, I will place my loss at the full extent of the law, and claim
that nothing less than a ten-pounder was spirited away from my hand
that day. I might not have saved him, netless as I was upon my cumbrous
raft; but I should at least have had the glory of the fight, and the
consolation of the fairly vanquished.

These trout are not properly lake trout, but the common brook trout.
The largest ones are taken with live bait through the ice in winter.
The Indians and the _habitans_ bring them out of the woods from here
and from Snow Lake, on their toboggans, from two and a half to three
feet long. They have kinks and ways of their own. About half a mile
above camp we discovered a deep oval bay to one side of the main
current of the river, that evidently abounded in big fish. Here the