an and a
fly-rod, they knew him not, nor was there much chance for casting a
line, because the water everywhere flowed under weeds, arched thickets
of brier and grass, and leafy branches criss-crossed above.

"This place is impossible," said Selwyn scornfully. "What is Austin
about to let it all grow up and run wild--"

"You _said_," observed Eileen, "that you preferred an untrimmed
wilderness; didn't you?"

He laughed and reeled in his line until only six inches of the gossamer
leader remained free. From this dangled a single silver-bodied fly,
glittering in the wind.

"There's a likely pool hidden under those briers," he said; "I'm going
to poke the tip of my rod under--this way--Hah!" as a heavy splash
sounded from depths unseen and the reel screamed as he struck.

Up and down, under banks and over shallows rushed the invisible fish;
and Selwyn could do nothing for a while but let him go when he insisted,
and check and recover when the fish permitted.

Eileen, a spray of green mint between her vivid lips, watched the
performance with growing interest; but when at length a big, fat,
struggling speckled trout was cautiously but successfully lifted out
into the grass, she turned her back until the gallant fighter had
departed this life under a merciful whack from a stick.

"That," she said faintly, "is the part I don't care for. . . . Is he out
of all pain? . . . What? Didn't feel any? Oh, are you quite sure?"

[Illustration: "Eileen watched the performance with growing
interest."]

She walked over to him and looked down at the beautiful victim of craft.

"Oh, well," she sighed, "you are very clever, of course, and I suppose
I'll eat him; but I wish he were alive again, down there in those cool,
sweet depths."

"Killing frogs and insects and his smaller brother fish?"

"Did he do _that_?"

"No doubt of it. And if I hadn't landed him, a heron or a mink would
have done it sooner or later. That's what a trout is for: to kill and be
killed."

She smiled, then sighed. The taking of life and the giving of it were
mysteries to her. She had never wittingly killed anything.

"Do you say that it doesn't hurt the trout?" she asked.

"There are no nerves in the jaw muscles of a trout--Hah!" as his rod
twitched and swerved under water and his reel sang again.

And again she watched the performance, and once more turned her back.

"Let me try," she said, when the _coup-de-grace_ had been administered
to a lusty