“Well,” said Jack, “there’s another new fish. I never heard of bull trout before, and I don’t know what it is.”
“I don’t either,” said Hugh, “except that I know that it’s a trout that we have in these Northern waters and that I never saw in the Rocky Mountains, south of here. I never saw one south of Milk River ridge, I think.”
“When I first got hold of it,” explained Jack, “I thought for a minute that maybe it was the Eastern brook trout, but it’s a very different fish.”
“They are mighty good eating,” declared Hugh, “but I don’t know that they are any better than the regular trout, that fellow with black spots.”
“All trout are good enough,” said Jack.
Presently Jack went over to Joe, who had finished his operations with the leaves, and asked him what it was that he had been doing, and why he did not wear his net.
“Trying to keep the flies off,” said Joe. “There’s a kind of a weed that grows in the wet places and I’ve heard that it’s good medicine against flies, so I gathered a lot of the leaves and rubbed them up and then rubbed them over my skin, and it seems to me that the flies don’t bother me as much now. That net I don’t like. I can’t see when I wear it.”
“That’s so,” said Jack. “It does seem mighty warm and sort of takes my breath away, but it isn’t as bad as the mosquitoes. What’s the weed you’ve got?”
Joe showed him the plant, but Jack did not know it.
As they sat about the fire that evening after supper, the insects no longer troubled them, for it was very cold; almost freezing. They had had a hearty meal and were feeling as lazy and comfortable as could be. Not much was said, but once in a while some one would make a remark which required no reply.