He walked boldly out into the stream, waded down a little way below the ford, on a riffle, till he reached a point where the water was about two feet deep and where it rolled sullenly and gloomily over a series of large bowlders.
Here he made a cast, and his bait had barely touched the water when there was a vicious rush, a swirl and a dash downstream, but the cruel pole was brought to bear in the opposite direction. Then there was a flop, a splash, a hop, skip and a jump, and a three-pound trout took a header and went down into the soldier's haversack.
The bait was renewed, another cast made, and the act was repeated on a half-pounder. Then another weighing one-and-a-half pounds and a couple of about a pound each followed in rapid succession, when this portion of the stream failed to yield, and Westbrook moved on down. I followed along the bank and watched him for half an hour before attempting to rig my tackle at all. To watch the play of the various emotions on his hard, brown, honest face; to study the effect of the intense enthusiasm which possessed him; to note the utter disregard of personal safety and comfort with which he would plunge into the surging rapids and eddies up to his waist, or even to his arm-pits, wherever he thought he could catch a trout by so doing, was a genuine treat.
Finally I went back to the ford, jointed up my rod, put on a gray professor, and walking down the bank to a sudden bend in the river where the current had cut a deep hole near the bank, I made a cast. The fly dropped on the riffle just above the eddy, and as it floated gracefully on the little wavelets down and out upon the bosom of the deep-blue miniature ocean, it turned hither and thither with the capricious currents that played there, for perhaps five minutes. I was just in the act of reeling up for another cast, when a gleam of silvery light flashed upon my vision, flecked with settings of jet and gold. There was a mighty commotion upon the surface and a monster trout leaped full into the air as he seized the feathered bait and then shot down, down into the crystal fluid, leaving the water in the vicinity of his exploit bubbling, effervescing, and sparkling like the rarest old champagne. For the nonce I was paralyzed with the suddenness and viciousness of his coming and going, and my reel was singing merrily when I awoke to a realization of what it all meant.