is steep,_
_And the rocks rise grim and dark,_
_With the swirl and sweep of the rapids deep,_
_And the joy of the racing bark._

Chapter Seventeen

We established a good camp on the Shelburne and remained in it for
several days. For one thing, our canoes needed a general overhauling
after that hard day on the rocks. Also, it rained nightly, and now and
then took a turn at it during the day, to keep in practice.

We minded the rain, of course, as it kept us forever cooking our
clothes, and restrained a good deal of activity about the camp. Still,
we argued that it was a good thing, for there was no telling what sort
of water lay ahead and a series of rock-strewn rapids with low water
might mean trouble.

On the whole, we were willing to stay and put up with a good deal for
the sport in that long pool. There may be better fishing on earth than
in the Shelburne River between Irving and Sand lakes, but it will take
something more than mere fisherman's gossip to convince either Eddie or
me of that possibility. We left the guides and went out together one
morning, and in less than three hours had taken full fifty fish of a
pound each, average weight. We took off our top flies presently and
fished with only one, which kept us busy enough, and always one of us
had a taut line and a curved rod; often both at one time.

We began to try experiments at last, and I took a good fish on one of
the funny little scale-winged flies (I had happily lost the Jock Scott
with two hooks early in the campaign) and finally got a big fellow by
merely tying a bit of white absorbent cotton to a plain black hook.

Yet curious are the ways of fish. For on the next morning--a perfect
trout day, with a light southwest wind and running clouds, after a night
of showers--never a rise could we get. We tried all the casts of the day
before--the Parmcheenie, the Jenny Lind, the Silver Doctor and the Brown
Hackle. It was no use. Perhaps the half a hundred big fellows we had
returned to the pool had warned all the others; perhaps there was some
other unwritten, occult law which prohibited trout from feasting on this
particular day. Finally Eddie, by some chance, put on a sort of a Brown
Hackle affair with a red piece of wool for a tail--he called it a Red
Tag fly, I think--and straightway from out of the tarry black depths
there rose such a trout as neither of us had seen the day before.

After that, there was nothing the matter with