ing to the sea, but in
unwelcome volume and raging with frightful turbulence. The melted snow
was pouring down from the hills in such torrents as to overflow banks
and lowlands, and to preclude all hope of angling until an abatement of
the flood. It only remained for us to imitate the patriotic Germans on
the Rhine, and "watch and wait." And for ten days we watched and waited
with such patience as we could muster, and with such diversion as could
be found in casting for trout in a neighboring brook which found its
way to the river in our immediate neighborhood.

IV.

It was the tenth day of our waiting, and while the river was rushing
with such fury as to render holding a canoe in the current with any
appliances at our command impracticable, that I succeeded in reaching
an eddy caused by a huge bowlder still buried beneath the waters. I
could not anchor, and my frail bark was kept in constant motion by the
swirling eddy, when, after repeated casts, I had a rise. The fish
leaped to such an unusual height, and with such seeming determination
that the lure should not escape him, that I was startled and barely
escaped a backward plunge in my anxiety to make a sure "strike." From
the "feel," which ran like electricity from my submerged fly to the
tips of my fingers, I knew that the hook had effectively performed its
work, and was "fastened in a sure place." With this conviction I felt
bold to begin the work resolutely, although I knew that if I succeeded
in making a capture, I must do so under circumstances more difficult
than any I had ever before encountered in any waters or with any fish.
I was literally hemmed in. I dared not allow the monster to get outside
the restricted circle of the eddy, for if he should reach the current,
which was sweeping downward at the rate of ten miles an hour, I would
be utterly powerless to check him, because it would be impossible to
prevent him from rushing over the boiling rapids, which were thundering
within fifty feet of the lower edge of the eddy. My only hope of fish
or canoe was to hold both under the shelter of the rock which caused
the eddy. To do this required a shorter line than it is ever wise to
retain at the opening of a fight with a thirty-pound salmon. But
everything--fish, rod, and line--had to be risked. It was hold all or
lose everything; and with a shout which made the whole camp lookers-on,
I began the fight; now hopeful, now in despair; now with the fish
leaping wi