starin' at us over the bushes yonder?"

"No, Master Trench, I do not; but it looks marvellously like a deer of
some sort," said Paul, as he hastily fitted an arrow to his bow. But
before he could discharge it the animal wisely retired into the shelter
of its native wilds.

By this time, having walked smartly, they had gained the crest of one of
the lower ridges, or plateaus, that rose in gentle slopes from the rocky
shore, and there, as had been anticipated, they found a small rivulet,
such as Americans would call a creek, and Scotsmen a burn. It flowed in
a north-easterly direction, and was broken by several small rapids and
cascades.

With a little shout of satisfaction, Oliver ran down to its banks,
getting his hooks out as he went. Arriving at the margin of a deep
pool, he bent over it and gazed earnestly down. The water was as clear
as crystal, showing every stone at the bottom as if it had been covered
merely with a sheet of glass, and there, apparently undisturbed by the
intruder, lay several large fish.

What they were he knew not--cared not. Sufficient for him that they
seemed large and fat. His first impulse was to turn and shout the
discovery to his companions; but seeing that they had already set to
work to cut firewood a little higher up the stream, he checked himself.

"I'll catch a fish first maybe," he muttered, as he quickly adjusted to
his piece of cord one of the smallest cod-hooks he possessed. A few
minutes sufficed for this; but when he was ready, it occurred to him
that he had no bait. He looked around him, but nothing suitable was to
be seen, and he was about to attempt the all but hopeless task of
tearing up the soil with his fingers in search of a worm, when his eyes
fell on a small bright feather that had been dropped by some passing
bird. "Happy thoughts" occurred to people in the days of which we
write, even as now, though they were not recognised or classified as
such.

Fly-fishing was instantly suggested to the eager boy. He had often
tried it in Old England; why not try it in Newfoundland? A very brief
period sufficed to unwind a thread from the cord, and therewith to
attach the feather to the hook. He had no rod, and neither time nor
patience to make one. Gathering the cord into a coil, such as wharfmen
form when casting ropes to steamers; he swung it round his head, and
hove his hook half-way across the glassy pool.

The fish looked up at him, apparently in calm su