that, when the canoe
dropped into the comparative stillness of the pool, the line was
stretched, taut and quivering, across the foot of the left-hand fork
and straight up into the current of the right-hand fork. "He's gone up
the other branch," shouted Chichester, above the roar of the stream,
"we must follow him! Push across the rapids! Push lively!" So the men
seized their setting-poles and shoved as fast as they could across the
foot of the rapids, while the rushing torrent threatened at every
moment to come in over the side and swamp the canoe. There was a
tugging and a trembling on the line, and it led, apparently, up the
North-East Branch, past Brackett's Camp. But when the canoe reached the
middle of the rapids P'tit Louis uttered an exclamation, leaned over
the bow, and pulled up the end of a tree-top, the butt of which was
firmly wedged among the rocks. Around the slender branches, waving and
quivering in the current with life-like motion, the line was looped.
The lower part of it trailed away loosely down the stream into the
pool.

Chichester took in the situation in a flash of grieved insight. "Well,"
he said, "that is positively the worst! Good-by, Mr. Salmon. Louis,
pull out that-er, er--that branch!" and he began slowly to reel in the
line. But old Louis, in the stern of the canoe, had taken hold of the
slack and was pulling it in hand over hand. In a second he shouted
"_Arretez! Arretez! M'sieu, il n'est pas parti, il est la!_"

It was a most extraordinary affair. The spring of the flexible branch
had been enough to keep the line from breaking. The salmon, resting in
the comparatively still water of the pool, had remained at the end of
the slack, and the hook, by some fortunate chance, held firm. It took
but a moment to get the line taut and the point of the rod up again.
And then the battle began anew. The salmon was refreshed by his fifteen
minutes between the halves of the game. No centre in a rush-line ever
played harder or faster.

He exhausted the possibilities of attack and defence in _La Fourche_,
and then started down the rapids again. In the little pot-hole in
mid-river, called _Pool a Michel_, he halted; but it was only for a
minute. Soon he was flying down the swift water, the canoe after him,
toward the fierce, foaming channel which runs between the island and
the eastern bank opposite the club-house. Chichester could see the
Colonel and the Doctor at the landing, waving and beckoning to h