"What's that stuff?" Gay asked.
"Red-deer fat."
"What for?"
"To make the line float. We're fishing with a dry-fly, you know."
Gay noticed that the line was tapered from very heavy to very fine.
"Why is that?" she asked.
"It throws better—especially in a wind. The heavy part will carry a fly out into half a gale."
He reeled in the line and made his leader fast to it with a swift, running hitch, and to the line end of the leader he attached the fly which they had chosen. Upon this tiny and exquisite arrangement of fairy hook, gray silk, and feathers, he blew paraffin from a pocket atomizer that it might float and not become water-logged.
"Do we fish from the shore or the boat?" Gay asked.
"From this shore."