The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1895-03-23
SECRET.

lnwlse enough to take the Ceinture
.ailway round Paris. But Tom and I
Jaw George In the full possession Of
lis secret for two, long June days,
hat secret which set him on a pima
lie higher than the kings Of the earth,
and as Tom can never hear it alluded
o much less allude to it himself, with
out becoming blasphe1nous, it Is left
or me to recount it's manifestations.
1t was on this wise:
Tom is fonder of fishing than any
one else l have ever seen, and l am
much more devoted to fishing than
Tom. Therefore, it happened that n
.ong vacation we rushed away from
Cambridge as soon as term was over
% a stream which I shall call Euph-
.ates, because it Is a river of Paradise.
Pison. the first river of paradise Is in
Ross-shire and the salmon of Pison are
IS stron as bullocks and as pink as the
,osy-fngered morn. Gihon Is in Nor
way, and the salmon there are as
strong as the four-year old bulls and
Is uODly UOll as lAc Aduy oAaAo VSA0
le We're, and the salmon trout are as
he sand of the sea for number.
Hiddekel Is in Hampshire, and the
trout Of Hiddekel are as shy as the
led deer on the mountains over Gil
non; yet if you go like Agag, delicately,
hey will yield themselves over to the
Try fly, that giren In whose hands even
Ulysses would have been as wax.
V1-A TN.~>~ a., no10~chis0 on6
he man who has not yet finished Eu-
pirates in June knows not the joys OF
he rivers of Paradise. Brawling down
between the knees and elbows Of Ex-
moor it goes, and it knows not drought
lor dearth. Here it burrows between
walls Of good bed rock, chatting for the
sea, and here it lies with a stretch of
meadow land on each side, and over
lung with alders and slim poplar trees
offering along from shallow to wier,
N the fat meadowy land, and all
down to the pool, and it is below the
vier in the fiat meadowy land, and all
down the pools to where they begin
20 break into foam and ripple again
that the big trout lie.
Far be it from me to speak against
The dry lly-for have I not fished in
Hiddekel?-yet, in many moods, wet
1y fishing pleases me more. With the
Try fly, you spy your trout as If he
were a stag, and then proceed to in
veigle him. What you gain in diplo-
macy you lose in mystery. But in the
Euphrates you may cast your fly upon
The waters blindly and at random.
There are many trout in all the pools,
and big mes in each, and who knows
out that each cast may not be just over
The snout of some giant intent on feed
ing? But though the trout of Euph-
rates will take the wet fly we'll and
eagerly they are no fools.
The fly must be cast to their liking;
It must touch the water with less
aoise than the echo of a dream, its
touch must be as light as 1itania's
Kiss, or they will have none of 1t, and
the gut must be a. fine as gut can be-
for there is nothing finer than gut.
Such at least were the demands OF
Euphrates trout, before Georges Sc
,ret revolutionized their habits, and
such are their demands now that
George has lost his secret. But for
two days the laws Of the Modes and
Persians were repealed. George re-
pealed them, and the annoying thing
about 1t is that he has not the least
idea what laws he substituted for
them.
George had never fished before, he
told us, and when we saw him be.
gin we saw no reason to doubt his
word. The e It evening We were there
we rushed out for an hour or two
out George said he would only come
and watch us. He attached himself
to me and hardly took the trouble tc
conceal his contempt when I caught
nothing for ten minutes. He also be
gan pitching pebbles into the water
until he was stopped. However. in thu
course Of an hour I caught six, ant
George said he thought it looked pretty
easy. Next morning after breakfas'
we all went down to the stream.
was u few minutes behind the others
and when l got down George had pu'
On his waders and was Just steppins
INTO the water. l asked him wha
lies ne had on, and he said he didn'
know their names. My horror was In
Itensified, when I saw attached to
cope Of gut a blue bottle, a thing lik,
4 hornet, and a sort Of tortoise-shel
butterfly. At the same time I excuse,
linn for not knowing their names, 70
hey were unnamable. He said he ha,
bought them in Manchester.
l told him he might as well fish witt
a couple Of kittens and a retrieve
puppy; but he laughed s%cornfully. Mex
moment the tortcise-shell butterh,
Whisked by my rose. and it. the blue
oottle and the hornet fell sonorouslv o.
the water. I took off my boots in orde
to get into my waders. Then I hear
George calling to me.
1--WE just caught something's h
. sale. he , I to &
"It's a snag," I called out, III you
flies won't come loose. you must wad
/ out and disentangle them"
I heard him splashing about in tn
stream, and thanked my stars I wa
going to fish above him, and, havin;
: got my waders on, I went into tn
water to cross over to the other side
George was just poking about with
landing net a few yards below me, an,
waited.
Something splashed OH the top Of tn
water. and George swoOped at 1t IS
, he were catching butterflies. I stun
bled down to- him. seized the landin
, aet from him. and landed his fish. !
: was one of the finest fish I had eve
: taken in Euphrates. and it's upper Ii
:, was firmly impaled on the tortoise
= shell butterfly.
"How did this get here? 1 aske,
l George stern'y.
IT don't know" said George. II
seems to have taken my fly"
: But it's impossible I said. IN
: self-respecting fish would take tina
| thing"
II know nothing of it's character. m
dear fellow" said George, but I fame
1t will taste the same"
The idea of a fisherman thinking o
, the taste of his flesh was bad enough