low where your fish leads. It would of course be different if wading were possible, but the water is generally too deep for that sort of fishing-altogether the most artistic and fascinating where practicable. As the General could not wade, he was forced to take to his canoe, which he did with great promptness and dexterity, but not an instant too soon. A delay of the twentieth part of a minute would have left him fishless and mortified. When thus again master of the situation, the contest was resumed by both parties with great vigor. No angler since the days of Nimrod ever played a fish more skillfully, or more fully enjoyed the exercise; but it was not until after a two hours' fight, extending over a distance of more than a mile, that he was brought to gaff. He weighed thirty-four pounds, and was the harbinger of many others like him captured in these pools during the period we remained at the Forks.

I repeated a hundred times during my first day here what the poet says of those athirst in midocean: "Water, water every where, but not a drop to drink." The cause of this despairing cry on my part arose from the fact that while salmon were leaping all around me I could not, by any art or cunning at my command, lure one to my fly. At least twenty large fish were thus disporting themselves within easy cast, but no change of fly and

no sleight in casting was of the least avail. They seemed impelled by mere exuberance of spirits. Sometimes I could see insects moving about in their neighborhood; but oftener nothing whatever appeared to justify or excuse their tantalizing friskiness. The novel spectacle, however, was entertaining, and was kept up for several hours without intermission. It is possible that some sort of fly would have lured them, but as nothing I had proved a success, I could only watch and wait. I tried to "jig" them—that is, to strike them with my hook while they were leaping, but I only succeeded in scratching the side of one of them as he was returning to his native element. This tantalizing sport continued so long that I had become weary of it, and I was ready to retire when one of the "gay gamboliers" took compassion upon me, and struck at my fly with such spirit as convinced me that I had some lively work before me. He was evidently quite as much surprised and startled as I was when he found himself under arrest. For when he first felt the sting of the hook he held himself as motionless as a log, as if cogitating upon the probable cause of the new sensation. But his cogitations were of short duration. Before I had time to up anchor and get properly braced for the encounter, he concluded to "go," which he did in the handsomest manner possible. He confined

himself, however, to the pool, shooting back and forth with a rapidity and frequency which rendered it very difficult to keep a taut line upon him. I supposed, of course, that the disturbance would put a stop to the leaping which had been in progress through the entire morning. But it did nothing of the kind. While I was busy with my fish others were as busy jumping as before, and they continued to jump, often within a few feet of my canoe, during the whole of the protracted struggle. After a half hour's sulking, and a few vigorous attempts to break loose, he quietly succumbed. He was of medium weight - eighteen pounds—but he was only the forerunner of two others of more stately proportions that were brought to gaff before the going down of the sun.

The pool directly at the Forks the intersection of the "salmon" and the "lake" branches of the river— should, from its position, be the very best between tide-water and the Falls. But it is not, probably because the pool itself changes with every spring freshet. Three of us had tried it faithfully in vain, and voted it barren, when DUN demonstrated his superior skill or luck by taking four fine fish from it after all the rest of us had utterly failed. It was neither the first nor the last time that his unwearied patience had its reward; and it was his patience quite as much as his skill which enabled

him to generally lead all of us in the count. An essay on the advantages of this virtue, in every department of life, would be appropriate just here. But it would be a work of supererogation so far as my readers are concerned; for those who have followed me thus far through these rambling notes must possess the virtue in superabundance.

We had studied salmon pools in all their aspects, externally their surroundings, their apparent depths, their currents, their counter-currents, their eddies and the particular spots within their circumference where salmon would be most likely to congregate. But we had never been able to peer down into their hidden depths to see the fish in their favorite haunts. To be sure, in passing up and down the river, now and then one would cross the vision like a silver ray. But, as a rule, they never came into view, even where we knew they lay in great numbers within easy cast. During the day they were hidden by the ripples caused by the currents and by the dark depths of the water, as securely as if they were "in the deep bosom of the ocean buried." There was but one mode by which we could obtain the view we coveted, to wit: by the use of the flambeaux, which the Indians use in their night-spearing forays, and by which, properly placed in the canoe, the water, to its lowest depths, becomes perfectly illuminated, and every object, to