ad, a sadder if not a wiser man. Rodman brought in a
nine-pound fish, and Kingfisher had three--thirteen, ten and twenty-one
pounds. The Colonel had made a successful _debut_ with a fifteen-pound
fish.

As we sat at breakfast Rodman asked, "How many salmon did you ever kill
in a day, Kingfisher?"

_Kingfisher._ "I once killed thirty-three in one day: that was in the
Mingan, a North Shore river, where the fish are very numerous, but
small--not over ten pounds on an average. I knew a man once to kill
forty-two in a day there, but he had extra strong tackle, with double
and treble gut, and being a big strong fellow he used to drag them out
by main force."

_The Colonel._ "If he had played his fish as you do here, there would
not have been time in the longest day to kill forty-two. You average
half an hour to a salmon, which would have taken twenty-one hours for
his day's work."

_Kingfisher._ "True enough, but those little fellows in the Mingan can
be killed in ten or fifteen minutes."

_Rodman._ "And what was the longest time you ever spent in killing a
salmon?"

_Kingfisher._ "Once fishing in the Moisie, where the fish are very
large, I hooked a salmon at five in the morning and lost him at six in
the evening: he was on for thirteen hours, but he sulked at the bottom
most of the time, and I never saw him at all."

_Scribe._ "Perhaps it was no fish at all."

_Kingfisher._ "It might have been a seal, but Sir Edmund Head, who was
with me, and I myself, thought it was a very large salmon and hooked
foul, so that I could not drown him. I think from his play that it was a
salmon: he ran many times round the pool, but swam deep, as heavy fish
are apt to do. How do you like the cooking of this salmon?"

_Scribe._ "I think it is perfect. The salmon have been growing better
ever since we entered the Dominion, but we have reached perfection now.
Is this the Tweedside method?"

_Kingfisher._ "It is. Put your fish in boiling water, well salted, boil
a minute to a pound, and when done serve it with some of the water it
was boiled in for sauce. You can't improve a fresh-caught salmon with
Worcestershire or Harvey."

The day proving very hot, we stayed in camp till evening, when
Kingfisher and the others went to the nearest pool for salmon, and I
went trout-fishing to the little rapids and took a dozen of moderate
size. Kingfisher brought in four fish--seven, ten, seventeen and
eighteen pounds; Rodman got two--twelve and