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It is a long smooth rapid, with a channel on one side running close to the high gravelly bank, evidently cut away by spring freshets. On the other side comes in a rushing brook or small river called the Patapedia. Rodman took the head of the pool, and I the middle ground.
He jigged away past all three of the inlets of the Patapedia, and at last, in the still, deep water below, after we had laboured with him for half an hour, and brought him near enough to see that he was immense, he calmly opened his mouth and the fly came back to me void. That was a sad evening, in which all the consolations of philosophy were needed. Sunday was a very peaceful day in our camp.
'My m m mouth is full of guts, was all that I could say; and the girl would never speak to me afterward." Rodman. "That was lucky, for you got a wife better able to bear with your little foibles." Kingfisher. "I did, sir." July 8. Rodman and I were to take the Upper Indian-house Pool to-day, the others going to the Patapedia.
On days like this, if a stray fish rose, it was hard to land him, for he was usually but slightly hooked. I remember one of these shy creatures which led me a pretty dance at the mouth of Patapedia. He came to the fly just at dusk, rising very softly and quietly, as if he did not really care for it but only wanted to see what it was like.
Bent on salmon-killing, I was off this morning at five, hoping to bring home a fish for breakfast. The Upper Indian-house Pool is for Rodman and me to-day, the others going to Patapedia, three miles above.
Hardly have we laid them away in the ice-box, when Favonius comes dropping down from Patapedia with three fish, one of them a twenty-four pounder. And so the morning's work is done. In the evening, after dinner, it was our custom to sit out on the deck, watching the moonlight as it fell softly over the black hills and changed the river into a pale flood of rolling gold.
At intervals a larger stream, reaching away back among the mountains like a hand with many fingers to gather "The filtered tribute of the rough woodland," delivers its generous offering to the main current. The names of the chief tributaries of the Ristigouche are curious. There is the headstrong Metapedia, and the crooked Upsalquitch, and the Patapedia, and the Quatawamkedgwick.
We step into them and push off, Favonius going up the stream a couple of miles to the mouth of the Patapedia, and I down, a little shorter distance, to the famous Indian House Pool. The slim boat glides easily on the current, with a smooth buoyant motion, quickened by the strokes of the paddles in the bow and the stern.
Rodman got another this evening, and Kingfisher brought seven from the Patapedia, and the Colonel one. Thirteen is our score to-day. July 9. Rodman and I went this morning to the Patapedia, but raised no salmon. Either some one had been netting the pool that night, or Kingfisher had killed all the fish yesterday.
To-day Kingfisher and the Colonel take the Upper Indian-house Pool, and Rodman and I go to the Patapedia. We start at 4 A. M., so as to get the early fishing, always the best. It takes an hour to pole up the three miles, the current being very strong, and when we arrive the pool is yet white with the morning mist.
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