Inside they crossed a stream dashing between tanks set with fern and
tall silver birches.

"Hurryon Brook," she said. "Isn't it a beauty? It pours into the Gray
Water a little farther ahead. We must hasten, or it will be too dark to
see the trout."

Twice again they crossed the rushing brook on log bridges. Then through
the trees stretching out before them they caught sight of the Gray
Water, crinkling like a flattened sheet of hammered silver.

Everywhere the surface was starred and ringed and spattered by the
jumping fish; and now they could hear them far out, splash! slap!
clip-clap! splash!--hundreds and hundreds jumping incessantly, so that
the surface of the water was constantly broken over the entire expanse.

Now and then some great trout, dark against the glimmer, leaped full
length into the air; everywhere fish broke, swirled, or rolled over,
showing "colour."

"There is Scott," she whispered, attuning her voice to the forest
quiet--"out there in that canoe. No, he hasn't taken his rod; he seldom
does; he's perfectly crazy over things of this sort. All day and half
the night he's out prowling about the woods, not fishing, not shooting,
just mousing around and listening and looking. And for all his
dreadfully expensive collection of arms and rods, he uses them very
little. See him out there drifting about with the fish breaking all
around--some within a foot of his canoe! He'll never come in to dress
for dinner unless we call him."