adventer I had with a trout, five year ago, here on the Upper
Saranac. I was livin' over on the _Au Sable_ then, and came over to
these parts to spend a week or so, and lay in a store of jerked
venison and trout for the winter. I brought along a bag of salt, and
two or three kegs that would hold a hundred pound or so apiece, and
filled 'em too with as beautiful orange-meated fellows as you'd see in
a day's drive. The trout were plentier than they are now. They hadn't
been fished by all the sportin' men in creation, and they had a chance
to grow to their nateral size. You wouldn't in them days row across
any of these lakes in the trollin' season without hitchin' on to an
eight, or ten, and now and then to a twenty-pounder.

"Wal, I was on the Upper Saranac, up towards the head of the lake, ten
or twelve miles from here, trollin' with an old-fashioned line, about
as big as a pipe stem, a hundred and fifty feet long, and a hook to
match. Nobody in them days tho't of sich contrivances as
trollin'-rods, reels, and minny-gangs. You held your lines in your
fingers, and when you hooked a fish, you drew him in, hand over hand,
in a human way. It was in the latter part of June, and the way the
black flies swarmed along the shore, was a thing to set anybody a
scratchin' that happened to be around. It was a clear still mornin',
and the sun as he went up into the heavens, blazed away, and as he
walked across the sky, if he didn't pour down his heat like a furnace,
I wouldn't say so. I had tolerable good luck in the forenoon, and
landed on a rocky island to cook dinner. I made such a meal as a
hungry man makes when he's out all alone fishin' and huntin' about
these waters, and started off across the lake, with my trollin' line
to the length of a hundred feet or more, draggin' through the water
behind me. The breeze had freshened a little, and my boat drifted
about fast enough for trollin', and feelin' a little drowsy, I tied