g to any other fly that he had ever tasted. It
disappeared as suddenly as it had come, and the Trout sank back to the
bottom of the pool.

But presently three more flies came down together, and lit in a row, one
behind another. They were different from the first, and he decided to
try again. He chose the foremost of the three, and found it quite as
ill-tasting as the other had been; but this time he didn't spit it out,
for the stinger was a little too quick for him, and before he could let
go it was fast in his lip. For the next few minutes he tore around the
pool as if he was crazy, frightening some of the smaller fishes almost
out of their wits, and sending them rushing up-stream in a panic. He
himself had more than once been badly scared by seeing other trout do
just what he was doing, but he had never realized what it all meant. Now
he understood.

The first thing he did was to go shooting along the surface for several
feet, throwing his head from side to side as he went, and doing his best
to shake that horrible fly out of his mouth. But it wouldn't shake, so
he tried jumping out of the water and striking at the line with his
tail. That wasn't any better, and next he rushed off up the stream as
hard as he could go. But the line kept pulling him round to the left
with gentle but irresistible force, and before he knew it he was back in
the pool again. Wherever he went, and whatever he did, it was always
pulling, pulling, pulling--not hard enough to tear the hook away, but
just enough to keep him from getting an inch of slack. If there had been
any chance to jerk he would probably have got loose in short order. He
rushed around the pool so hard that he soon grew weary, and presently he
sank to the bottom, hoping to lie still for a few minutes, and rest, and
perhaps think of some new way of escape. But even there that steady
tugging never ceased. It seemed as if it would pull his jaw out of his
head if he didn't yield, and before long he let himself be drawn up
again to the surface. Once he was so close to the shore that the angler
made a thrust at him with the landing-net, and just grazed his side. It
frightened him worse than ever, and he raced away again so fast that the
reel sang, and the line swished through the water like a knife.

[Illustration: "_He tried jumping out of the water._"]

The other two flies were trailing behind, and the short line that held
them was constantly catching on his fins and twisting