so nice as being all alone when you hook a salmon.  No gillie to scream out contradictory orders.  He is taking it very easy, but suddenly he moves out a few yards, and begins jiggering, that is, giving a series of short heavy tugs.  They say he is never well hooked, when he jiggers.  The rod thrills unpleasantly in my hands, I wish he wouldn’t do that.  It is very disagreeable and makes me very nervous.  Hullo! he is off again up-stream, the reel ringing like mad:  he gets into the thin water at the top, and jumps high in the air.  He is a monster.  Hullo! what’s that splash?  The reel has fallen off, it was always loose, and has got into the water.  How am I to act now?  He is coming back like mad, and all the line is loose, and I can’t reel up.  I begin pulling at the line to bring up the reel, but the reel only lets the line out, and now he is off again, down stream this time, and I after him, and the line running out at both ends at once, and now my legs get entangled in it, it is twisted all round me.  He runs again and jumps, the line comes back in my face, all slack, something has given.  It is the hook, it was not knotted on firmly to start with.  He flings himself out of the water once more to be sure that he is free, and I sit down and gnaw the reel.  Had ever anybody such bad fortune, but it is just my luck!

I go back to the place where the reel fell in, and by pulling cautiously I extract it from the stream.  It shan’t come off again; I tie it on with the leather lace of one of my brogues.  Then I reel up the slack, and put on another fly, out of my cap, a Popham.  Then I fish down the rest of the pool.  Near the edge, in the slower part of the water, there is a long slow draw, before I can lift the point of the rod, a salmon jumps high out of the water at me,—­and is gone!  I never struck him, was too much taken aback at the moment; did not expect him then.  Thank goodness, the hook is not off this time.

The next stream is very deep, strong and narrow; the best chance is close in on my side.  By Jove, here he is, he took almost beside the rock.  He sails leisurely out into the strength of the stream, if he will come up, I can manage him, but if he goes down, the water is very swift and broken, there are big boulders, and then a sheer wall of rock difficult to pass in cold blood, and then the Big Pool.  He insists on going down, I hold hard on him, and refuse line.  But he leaps, and then, well he will have it; down he rushes, I after him, over the stones, scrambling along the rocky face; great heavens! the top joint of the rod is loose; I did not tie it on, thought it would hold well enough.  But down it runs, right down the line; it must be touching the fish.  It is; he does not like it, he jiggers like a mad thing, rushes across the Big Pool, nearly on to the opposite bank.  Why won’t the line run?  The line is entangled in my boot-lace.  He is careering about; I feel that I am trembling like a leaf.  There, I knew it would happen; he