with me, and not over a half dozen of them are worth the gut tied to them; they are of coarse material, and bad in color. The six decent ones are the work of an artist. I could give his name, but it might look like an advertisement and spoil my yarn. Trout like choice food just as much as human beings. You may stick an oyster shell on a reed and decoy a summer yellow leg, but you can't hook a trout on any kind of a fly. They know a thing or two.

Tyros who angle in a trout country without success go home and say there are no trout. They don't think about conditions of water and weather; about their line lighting in the water before their bait; about their coarse line and poor flies.

Trout are philosophers, not only the educated ones, those which have been hooked and seen others hooked, but trout in general. They're born that way. A young man came up here the other day with an old cane pole, weighing fully three pounds, and a big salt water sinker, and he went away saying there were few

trout in these waters.

I think he had a

float with him, too, but am not sure.

A word or two about appropriate tackle for mountain streams, and I'll put up the pen and joint the rod again. In the city a few weeks ago I proudly displayed a four-ounce, nine-foot lancewood rod, and my friends laughed at me, saying it was too frail for any service. Now, I find this rod, shortened two feet, just the thing for this country where trout run small and where there's no long casting. I frequently run across good anglers here with five-ounce rods, and have seen two four-ounce rods. There is no use for a rod above four ounces in weight and seven feet in length. When I come again I shall use a three-ounce rod. The reel should be the lightest and smallest common click, and the line the finest enameled silk. The flies-here's the main thing-should be the best, and of the smallest brook trout pattern. Next year, when I make up my supply, I'll pack fully two hundred, and they'll be the best. The dearest-priced flies are none too good.

Oh, I must say a word about trout eating before I close. I've tried them in all styles, and the best way, I think, is when they're roasted over a camp fire on a little crotch stick, one prong in the head and the other in the tail. And the worst way, I think, is when they're fried in a pan with bad butter or poor lard.

Blake and I are in our glory. Our only displeasure is in knowing that our perspiring city friends are not as comfortable. The days here are warm and bright-not hot and close-and the nights cool and clear, so that we live merrily all the time.

I went about five blocks down the stream in front of the cabin to two great boulders, one morning, and there, during a little sun shower, took a salvelinus fontinalis that weighed just a little over two pounds and a quarter. He rose to a pinkish, cream-colored fly, with little brown spots on the wings. I forget its name, but it's one of the six really good ones I referred to. Milton Price was with me at the capture, and we decided to keep the fish alive, so I took off one of the cords tied about my trousers at the bot