fighting salmon that he properly appreciates their muscular energy and great endurance.

It is not always possible to give a reason for the difference in the play of different fish of the same species. Every one has his theory. One says it is in the sex. Another, that it depends upon their recent or remote advent into fresh water, and others upon where the fish is hooked. It is undoubtedly true that, as a rule, there is more game in the male than in the female salmon, and that fish fresh from the ocean are the most muscular and ferocious. But I have had equal sport with fish of either sex, and have found as tough customers fifty miles from the sea as in close proximity to it. The difference, I fancy, depends upon how and where they are hooked. A barb through the tongue of a salmon is like a curb on the jaws of a horse; he may have the disposition to run, but he doesn't fancy the unpleasant sensation which follows his attempt to do so. Another reason is, the seeming dull perception of some fish. Like some men, it takes them a good while to get over their astonishment at finding something wrong, and before they really comprehend the situation, they lose their advantage and are gaffed.

I had a very interesting illustration of this one day. I was fishing at a point where counter currents met, and where, consequently, it was difficult

to keep out a straight line without constant casting. Becoming weary with this sort of perpetual motion, I allowed my line to slacken and my fly to perambulate at its own sweet will. While they were thus floating in a circle, the fly out of sight, I felt a slight tug and began to reel up leisurely, annoyed that my lure had, as I supposed, been taken by a trout. Every movement, for half a minute, seemed to confirm this impression, and I had stopped reeling to give expression to my disappointment, when the fish started in gallant salmon style, leaped his full length out of water, and gave me all I could do for three hours and twenty minutes before he was brought to gaff, and then he was only struck by a chance blow as he was rushing, in full life, past my canoe in swift water. What I supposed, at first, to be merely a two or three-pound trout proved to be a twentyseven-pound salmon. If I had been in shoal water when I first reeled him up to within twenty feet of my canoe, I might have ended his career in ten minutes. The hook had struck him at some callous point, and he followed the gentle lead I gave him without sense of pain or danger, and only made a dash when he saw the canoe with its threatening surroundings.

In gaffing this fish while on the run in swift water, my Indian guide proved himself an expert

in the most difficult department of the art. The expression of my surprise and admiration made him a happy Indian. He knew he had done. something which deserved commendation, and it pleased him to find that it was observed. In our every day life we are too sparing of our compliments. When any one within the circle of our acquaintance does well-whether hod-carrier or Senator, crossing-sweeper or orator-it does no harm to let him know that his well-doing is recog nized and appreciated. Judicious commendation is a more potent stimulant than we are apt to think. But for it, many who have come to excel in their several vocations would have grown up into the merest mediocrity, while for lack of it, multitudes have ceased to struggle, because they have received no token that their aspirations were approved. A good word, where deserved, costs nothing, but it is often magical in its effects. My simple "Bravo! no Indian on the Cascapedia could have done better," was more to my guide than are the plaudits of the multitude to the orator on the rostrum. I never afterward lost a fish from want of diligence on the part of my gaffer.

But others did. DUN had hooked a very large fish and had fought him bravely for two hours bringing him frequently within the reach of his gaffer, and as frequently was obliged to give him

line to prevent him from breaking off in his fright when foully struck at. Finally the gaffer reached him, struck out wildly, scratched the fish and snapped the leader! The silence which followed was a grand exhibition of fortitude and forbearance. It may have been that my friend could find no words suitable to the occasion; but I preferred to attribute the Christian-like grace with which he succumbed to the inevitable, to the possession of that rare virtue commended by the Scripture: "Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." That gaffer gaffed no more for DUN.

A like misfortune happened to General ARTHUR not long afterward, under even more provoking circumstances. He had hooked his fish, played him with consummate skill and brought him several times to the very feet of his gaffer—the last time seemingly a dead fish and into water not twelve inches deep. But a spell seemed to be on the poor Indian. He struck once, twice, thrice, without effect except upon the leader, which he broke. But even then the fish did not stir, neither did the gaffer. The fish seemed bewildered, as the gaffer certainly was, until the General quietly intimated that as the fish was waiting to be gaffed it would be well to gratify him; when the Indian seemed to comprehend the situation, and pro

ceeded to do what, if he had attempted two seconds sooner, would have been a success. But before the gaff fell where the fish was he wasn't there, and thirty-five pounds of as fine salmon as ever wagged a tail floated off with the current, in all probability to die "unwept, unhonored and unsung." Expletives, like notes in music, are modulated to meet the intensity of the emotions. The General's expletive was pitched on the upper register, and the gaffer would have been pitched into the Cascapedia if he hadn't looked as if that was just what he expected. The explanation was that the water was not deep enough to permit the gaffhook to go under the fish. The consequence was it glanced along its side and back, struck the leader, which it broke, and gave the fish free rein. And yet this mishap occurred to one of the most skillful and careful gaffers on the river. The poor fellow hung his head for a week, but it was the last fish he lost.

If it requires skill to always gaff a fish, it requires equal skill to always properly respond to a fish which leaps while the angler is playing him. To elevate your rod as the fish leaps, and to hold it at the attained elevation as he goes down, is to almost inevitably lose him. All that is necessary to be done at this supremely exciting moment, is to let the tip of the rod descend with the fish.