Presently he was out of the thicket and before him lay a small clearing in which waist-high bushes and trailing briars ran riot. The brook spread itself out into a shallow stream and meandered off toward the river, its course marked by small willows, alders, and rushes. Chub found a clear spot in the shade of a viburnum and built a fire of dry grass and twigs, adding dead branches as the flames grew. Fuel wasn’t very easy to find, but by prospecting around he eventually had a good-sized blaze. Then, warm and panting, he sat down out of the range of the heat and prepared his trout. By the time it was ready the fire had subsided to a bed of glowing coals. Wrapping the fish in leaves he laid it on the embers and watched it carefully, turning it over and over and raking the hot coals about it. After fifteen minutes of cooking he took it off and laid it on a stone which he had meanwhile washed in the brook. Then, with a couple of sharpened sticks he scraped away the ashes and coals, and began his luncheon. Trout without any other seasoning than wood smoke isn’t awfully appetizing, as Chub speedily discovered, and he would have given a whole lot for a pinch or two of salt. But it partly satisfied his hunger, and after he had taken a drink of cold water from the brook he felt good for another two or three hours’ fishing. He was determined not to go home until he had something to show. He stretched himself out in the shade for a while and rested. Then, picking up his rod once more, he returned to the stream and sought a likely spot.
His search led him across the clearing and into a dense woods beyond. Here the stream narrowed again and deepened, and he put another fly on and tried his luck, wandering along from place to place. Twice, inquiring fish nibbled at his fly, and once he hooked a small trout only to lose it from the hook in landing. Then a full hour passed without any results. It was almost three o’clock. The woods were very warm and very still, only the ripple and plash of the brook breaking the mid-afternoon silence. Even the birds were hushed. But the mosquitoes, at least, were active, and Chub, hot and discouraged, brushed them away and sighed for a breeze. Finally he sat down on the ground and for the twentieth time viewed the contents of his fly-book in perplexity. It seemed as though it contained every sort of fly that the heart of trout could desire.