“Together,” I decided. “If we go two ways there’s no telling when I’ll ever see you again.”
“Yes, there is: when I’m hungry.”
“No; some time after you’ve noticed you’re hungry.”
“Now, if we had watches it would be so much simpler: we could meet here at, say, one o’clock.”
“Simple, indeed! When did you ever look at a watch when you were fishing, unless I made you? No, my way is simple, but we stay together.”
Of course, in river fishing, “together” means simply not absolutely out of sight of each other. Jonathan may be up to his arm-pits in mid-current, or marooned on a rock above a swirling eddy, while I am in a similar situation beyond calling distance, but so long as a bend in the river does not cut us off, we are “together,” and very companionable togetherness it is, too. When I see Jonathan wildly waving to attract my attention, I know he has either just caught a big bass or else just [pg 146] lost one, and this gives me something to smile over as I wonder which it is. After a time, if I am catching shiners and no bass, and Jonathan doesn’t seem to be moving, I infer that his luck is better than mine, and drift along toward him. Or it may be the other way around, and he comes to look me up. Bass are the most uncertain of fish, and no one can predict when they will elect to bite, or where. Sometimes they are in the still water, deep or shallow according to their caprice; sometimes they hang on the edges of the rapids; sometimes they are in the dark, smooth eddies below the great boulders; sometimes in the clear depths around the rocks near shore. Each day afresh,—indeed, each morning and each afternoon,—the fisherman must try, and try, and try, until he discovers what their choice has been for that special time. Yet no fisherman who has once drawn out a good bass from a certain bit of water can help feeling, next time, that there is another waiting for him there. That is one of the reasons why he is always hopeful, and so always happy. The fish he has caught, at this well-remembered spot and that, rise [pg 147] up out of the past and flick their tails at him; and all the stretches between—stretches of water that have never for him held anything but shiners, stretches of time diversified by not even a nibble—sink into pleasant insignificance.
We banked our fire, stowed everything in the tent that a thunderstorm would hurt, and splashed out into the river. There it lay in all its bright, swift beauty, and we stood a moment, looking, feeling the push of the water about our knees and the warmth of the sun on our shoulders.
“It makes a difference, sleeping out in it all,” I said. “You feel as if it belonged to you so much more. I quite own the river this morning, don’t you?”
“Quite. But not the bass in it. Bet you don’t catch one!”
“Bet I beat you!”