The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-08-06


ished pine roots and messed and slip
perry stones to be tackled on an Incline
toward the water, which was not COM
Portable in that less than half light;
and the dull CLEAN of the dark pools
beneath, smeared heavily with foam at
their beginning and their end, showed
through the trellis of dWarfed birch and
ash which powered the water. In full
sunshine / had gone but once hitherto
to this particular pool under MacTav-
ish's careful and sober guidance, and
he had then exp ltiated about the dan
gers of the path. ''Ye'n please to put
your foot there, sir he had said at in
tervals. ITS an awful bad spot. and
ever since an Edinburgh clergyman
that was drooned in it and just bobbed
up and doom with the suck, We kin, so
as I thought we'd never get his corp
for his wife, poor body, crying her eyes
DOT on the edge yonder-ever since,
there's no visitor that dares to touch
ii. It's what folks call whirlpool. If
We go in We go under; then We go roond
and roond and get dancit UP when it s
least expectit, and before a body can
get a snatch at We, ye're doom again.
Eth. sir, it's a gey queer spot, is the
Black Pool And eighteen feet deep
straight from the edge. just!" So much
for MacTavish's daylight and intelli-
gent appreciation Of our pool. But now,
at a quarter TO eleven at night, in
cloak Of confounding gloom, shadows
and midges, with nearer pint than
half pint of Scotch whisky in him, he
slipped and scrambled obliquely among
the pine roots and the two-inch foot
holes, with never a word of warning for
me, and, so it seemed never care,
h iC in a
uncanny descent like the born artist in
fishing that he was nothing but the
second nature which is a kind of gen.
ius kept him from enmeshing its point
or breaking il among the trees and
bushes.
Looking Into the Pool.
At the bottom of the drop the rocks
lay in a subl,mely picturesque confu-
sion, studded with biIberry green and
birch tufts. wedgelike peninsula OF
rock sharp edge uppermOst. Drotruded
toward the cascade, from the other side
Of which the bank was a red and gray
wall. with black frs and oak studding
| it, some at clean right angle out from
the rock. The pool itself, perhaps 120
yards in area, filled the hollow. I was
still many vertical feet from its lip,
hanging onto roots and things and
sweating with anxiety, heat and the ir-
ritation of the midges, when MacTav-
ish cried up from his perch, For Gods
sake, mind what ye're ABBOTT. Stay
where We are or yell be in the water.
It's the minnow that's got to do the
| trick this time" he added, as an incon-
seduent corollary. with a curious
change of tone from the fiercely admOn-
| itOry to the intimately reflective. And
| then I SWeated with rather more VigOr
than before as my feet went through a
narrow ledge of rotten moss, heather
and bTacken roots, and | realized that
MacTavishs eyes had a wonderful
keenness Of vision. He had discerned
my peril in the nick of time. The black
water was underneath me, and but for
the strength of the roots in my clutch l
should have gone down like a lead
| plummet, and made acquaintance on the
instant with the maelstrOm of the Black
Pool in which the historic clergyman of
Edinburgh had "bobbit up and doom
| for hours ere he was gated by the aid
of two Joined brOOmsticks and dragged
| TO land for the one connubial satisfac-
ton that remained to his widow. And
| even while | was taking my bearings,
with half fresh foothold secured and
my handhold still good. MacTavish
Ebellowed loud above the crash of the
cascade, I'm onto himl" I looked, and
even I'm that dim light saw the point of
his rod bent like a bow as the reel
whirled. The man himself had his feet
set on either side of his razor edge of a
| perch, his face was outlined family
| against the further background of cliff,
and he bore his head erect and no long
| er at a tipsy angle. ITS fish," ne
cried up; mon, it's a fish, The en-
phasis he gave to the fish" is not 10 be
conveyed by printers italics. In a min
ute or less | had swung up and
sprawled down, hanging onto roots and
! bracken at a venture, had got support
! for back and feet. and from point
some fifteen feet only above the enrap-
tured MacTavish could watch him and
| his work with a very fair surplusage of
energy to devote to admiration of him
and the surprising briskness of his
success in doing that which he had been
! determined to do, at no matter what
| cost.
| For a spell the Black Pool echoed
with other noises than the threshing
of the water cast back by that I'M
| yielding cliff beyond. "DIdna I tell
| YEP" cried MacTavish. THE little min
now's the laddie for the work. Eth,
mon, it's a grand fish! I've had a sight
of him, and he's a twenty punder if
! he's an ounce. Can ye no see how he
| fetches at the rod? | feel him doom
TO my very hand. mon.
He's dOur, but he's a fine fish. / can
ma stir him." His remarks followed
on each others heels like the bullets
of a repeating rifle. To my eyes the
Black Pool seemed unconcerned by the
adventure going on in its sOmbre
depths, but MacTavish could see the
| fish whenever he had a mind to do so,
until it had got into its dour fit. 1t
rushed about, he said, and it jumpit, .
and it came up to ascertain what kind
of a man had hooked him, and tried all
| the lodges Of a fish with the spawn?
| ing instinct and its own powers vigOr-
Gus in it; and finally 1t went to the
| funnel-shaped bottom of the pool and
| lay there 1T. kens it's met its master!"
cried MacTaVish. TN get it if / die
| for it, but it's a gey bad spot, and
theer's no gaff, and how the deevil I'm
to work him in and handle him I'll be
damned if l know" Ny own excite
ment was less than his, but it was a
measurable quantity. 'Tll come down
somehow" l called TO him. stay
where We are, mani" cried he. I'm
! telling We, as sure as death, if We slip
we're into 1t, and there's no soul living
will land you. Dinna fash; leave him
| to me. I've never lost a fish since /
was laddie, and I'm not going to lose
| this one Mon, but he's dourl" well,