CONFIDENCE MISPLACED There was sliding mist in the Somasco valley, and the pines were dripping when Alton and Miss Deringham stood upon a slippery ledge above the river.

Just there it came down frothing into a deep, black pool, swung round it white-streaked, and swept on with a hoarse murmur into the gloom of the bush again.

A wall of fissured rock overhung the pool on the farther side, and a fallen pine wetted with the spray stretched across the outflow and rested on one jagged pinnacle.

A wet wind which drove the vapours before it called up wild music from the cedars that loomed through them on the side of the hill.
"I'd cast across the rush at the head of the pool and let the fly come down," said Alton.

"There's generally a big trout lying in the eddy behind the boulder." The girl nodded, and the line sweeping back towards the pines behind her went forward again.