sailed the trout from under the bank, but
stopped before reaching the sinking worm. There was a certain something
in his action which seemed to indicate a disgust at the sight of such
plebeian food, and a fear seized me that he might now swim off, and pay
no further attention to my varied baits. Suddenly there was a ripple in
the water, and I felt a pull on the line. Instantly I struck; and then
there was a tug. My blood boiled through every vein and artery, and I
sprang to my feet. I did not give him the butt; I did not let him run
with yards of line down the brook; nor reel him in, and let him make
another mad course up stream; I did not turn him over as he jumped into
the air; nor endeavor, in any way, to show him that I understood those
tricks, which his depraved nature prompted him to play upon the angler.
With an absolute dependence upon the strength of old Peter's tackle, I
lifted the fish. Out he came from the water, which held him with a
gentle suction as if unwilling to let him go, and then he whirled
through the air like a meteor flecked with rosy fire, and landed on the
fresh green grass a dozen feet behind me. Down on my knees I dropped
before him as he tossed and rolled, his beautiful spots and colors
glistening in the sun. He was truly a splendid trout, fully a foot long,
round and heavy. Carefully seizing him, I easily removed the hook from
the bony roof of his capacious mouth thickly set with sparkling teeth,
and then I tenderly killed him, with all his pluck, as old Peter would
have said, still in him.

I covered the rest of the fish in my basket with wet plantain leaves,
and laid my trout king on this cool green bed. Then I hurried off to the
old man, whom I saw coming out of the woods. When I opened my basket and
showed him what I had caught, Peter looked surprised, and, taking up
the trout, examined it.

"Why, this is a big fellow," he said. "At first I thought it was Barney
Sloat's boss trout, but it isn't long enough for him. Barney showed me
his trout, that gen'rally keeps in a deep pool, where a tree has fallen
over the stream down there. Barney tells me he often sees him, and he's
been tryin' fur two years to ketch him, but he never has, and I say he
never will, fur them big trout's got too much sense to fool round any
kind of victuals that's got a string to it. They let a little fish eat
all he wants, and then they eat him. How did you ketch this one?"

I gave an account of the manner of the