through and through, but that novel proceeding did not occur to me until it was too late.  I would have taken a Sam Patch leap into the water, and have wrestled with my antagonist in his own element, but I knew the slack, thus sure to occur, would probably free him; so I peered down upon the beautiful creature and enjoyed my triumph as far as it went.  He was caught very lightly through his upper jaw, and I expected every struggle and somersault would break the hold.  Presently I saw a place in the rocks where I thought it possible, with such an incentive, to get down within reach of the water:  by careful manoeuvring I slipped my pole behind me and got hold of the line, which I cut and wound around my finger; then I made my way toward the end of the log and the place in the rocks, leading my fish along much exhausted on the top of the water.  By an effort worthy the occasion I got down within reach of the fish, and, as I have already confessed, thrust my thumb into his mouth and pinched his cheek; he made a spring and was free from my hand and the hook at the same time; for a moment he lay panting on the top of the water, then, recovering himself slowly, made his way down through the clear, cruel element beyond all hope of recapture.  My blind impulse to follow and try to seize him was very strong, but I kept my hold and peered and peered long after the fish was lost to view, then looked my mortification in the face and laughed a bitter laugh.

“But, hang it!  I had all the fun of catching the fish, and only miss the pleasure of eating him, which at this time would not be great.”

“The fun, I take it,” said my soldier, “is in triumphing, and not in being beaten at the last.”

“Well, have it so; but I would not exchange those ten or fifteen minutes with that trout for the tame two hours you have spent in catching that string of thirty.  To see a big fish after days of small fry is an event; to have a jump from one is a glimpse of the sportsman’s paradise; and to hook one, and actually have him under your control for ten minutes,—­why, that is paradise itself as long as it lasts.”

One day I went down to the house of a settler a mile below, and engaged the good dame to make us a couple of loaves of bread, and in the evening we went down after them.  How elastic and exhilarating the walk was through the cool, transparent shadows!  The sun was gilding the mountains, and its yellow light seemed to be reflected through all the woods.  At one point we looked through and along a valley of deep shadow upon a broad sweep of mountain quite near and densely clothed with woods, flooded from base to summit by the setting sun.  It was a wild, memorable scene.  What power and effectiveness in Nature, I thought, and how rarely an artist catches her touch!  Looking down upon or squarely into a mountain covered with a heavy growth of birch and maple, and shone upon by the sun, is a sight peculiarly agreeable to me.  How closely the swelling umbrageous heads of the trees fit together, and how the eye revels in the flowing and easy uniformity, while the mind feels the ruggedness and terrible power beneath!