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Page 51
Bright moonlight, the early morning after the sun is up, and from a
couple of hours after mid-day until the mountain-shadows strike the
water in the evening, are the best times to troll for bass. If so
minded, they will rise to a fly at such times in the rapids; but no
allurement excepting the troll will bring them to the surface in still
water. When the river is rising, or the water is clouded with mud or
drift, bass scorn all surface-diet; but the live minnow or crawfish,
hellgramite or fish-worm, will capture them on trout-line or hook
attached to the soul-absorbing bob. A clothes-line wire cable, furnished
with well-assorted hooks baited with cotton, dough, and cheese well
mixed together, and stretched in eddy-water when the river is muddy,
will give fine reward in carp, white perch, catfish, turtles, garfish,
and sweet revenge on the bait-stealing guana.
After nooning, lunch, and a quiet loaf, the party sped homeward with the
current, handling rods and trolls as salmon and bass demanded lively
attention. Shooting a rapid, and out into a deep pool at its foot, the
Doctor's boat struck a snag, and he, having a resisting power equal to
that of a billiard-ball, put his heels where his head had been, and
disappeared under the water, to pop up again instantly, sputtering and
spitting, like a jug full of yeast with a corn-cob stopper.
"Oh, Hickey! Whoop!" exclaimed Martha, as she went off in wild screams
of laughter. "Kin you swim?" she asked, with the coolness of the
mountain-maiden she was.
"No, no," sputtered the Doctor.
"I reckon you'll tow good. Jest gimme your han', an' keep your feet
down, an' me an' Alec 'ill tow you ashore to dreen. Hit's like you're
purty wet."
He was soon landed by the stalwart Martha and Alec, and, while he
attitudinized for draining, the Professor amused himself with taking an
instantaneous photograph.
"By gum! he mought hev drownded," said Tim Price to the Professor. "The
Doctor hain't a good shape fer towin', but he floats higher than any
craft of his length I ever seed on Elk River."
Just as the golden light of evening cast its sheen upon the river the
camp-tents came in sight, where a group of natives stood waiting the
arrival of the fishers to "hear what luck they'd hed."
Colonel Bangem and Bess carried off equal honors in greatest
count,--sixty-two bass and five salmon each. Martha, with her
five-pounder, was weight champion. Mrs. Bangem had the only blue pike.
The Professor claimed that, besides his twoscore fish, he had
illustrations enough for a comic annual; and the Doctor asserted that he
knew more about bass than any of them, for he had been down where they
lived, and was of the opinion that he had swallowed a couple.
Bess Bangem said to the Professor, as they went up the bank together, "I
had a great mind to count you in with my fish, to beat father; but I
caught you long ago, so it would not have been fair."
TOBE HODGE.
ON A NOBLE CHARACTER MARRED BY LITTLENESS.
As Moscow's splendors trench on narrow lanes,
The wonder, brimming every traveller's eyes,
To disappointment's sudden darkness wanes
At finding meanness near such grandeur lies.
O human city! built on Moscow's plan,
Thy great and little touch each other so,
Let me forbear, and, as an erring man,
Make my approaches wisely, from below,
Hasting through all the narrow and the base
Before I stand where all is high and vast:
After the dark, let glory light my face,
Thy shining greatness break upon me _last_.
CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES.
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