For about ten minutes I had no run.

I had twice tried the same water without success; nothing would admire my charming bait; when, just as it had reached the favorite turning-point at the extremity of a rock, away dashed the line, with the tremendous rush that follows the attack of a heavy fish.

Trusting to the soundness of my tackle, I struck hard and fixed my new acquaintance thoroughly, but off he dashed down the stream for about fifty yards at one rush, making for a narrow channel between two rocks, through which the stream ran like a mill-race.

Should he pass this channel, I knew he would cut the line across the rock; therefore, giving him the butt, I held him by main force, and by the great swirl in the water I saw that I was bringing him to the surface; but just as I expected to see him, my float having already appeared, away he darted in another direction, taking sixty or seventy yards of line without a check.

I at once observed that he must pass a shallow sandbank favorable for landing a heavy fish; I therefore checked him as he reached this spot, and I followed him down the bank, reeling up line as I ran parallel with his course.