Nevertheless Uncle Joe seemed to be in just as great a hurry to eat his breakfast and be off as his nephew was. Ten minutes sufficed to satisfy their appetites, and in ten minutes more we were on the outskirts of the village, and moving up an old log road toward the spring hole, where I was to make my first attempt to take a fish. I dreaded the ordeal, for I did not have as much confidence in myself as I would have had if my master had not spoken so slightingly of me.
How far it was from the village to the spring hole, I am sure I don’t know. It seemed like a long journey to me, although it was enlivened by stories of travel and adventure from Uncle Joe, in which I became deeply interested. Presently Joe, who was leading the way, pushed aside the bushes in front of him, disclosing to view a small body of water fringed with lily-pads and surrounded on all sides by high and thickly wooded hills; and I knew instinctively that we had reached the end of our tramp, and that the time had come for me to show what I could do. There seemed to be abundant opportunity for me to do good work if I was capable of it. While I was being taken out of my case, I noticed that now and then there was a slight commotion in the water, just outside the lilies, and I knew it was occasioned by trout jumping from the water, even before Joe Wayring said so.
“Just look at them!” he exclaimed, in great excitement. “They are having a high old time among themselves. I wouldn’t take a dollar for my chance of going home with a full creel. There! Did you see that whopper?”
“Put on a white miller and a brown hackle, and give me your rod as quick as you can,” answered his uncle. “I saw him, and if he comes up again within seventy or eighty feet of us, I will make an effort to take him.”
“Do you mean to say that you can throw a fly as far as that?” inquired Joe.
“That depends upon the rod. I’d like to have the first try with it, if you have no objection, for I want to see whether or not you’ve got a good bargain.”
Of course Joe had no objection. As soon as I was ready for business he passed me over to his uncle, and when I felt his strong fingers close around me, I knew that I was in the hands of one who would make me show off to the best possible advantage.
“There he is again! Give him the flies, quick!” cried Joe, suddenly.
Uncle Joe’s movements were characterized by what sportsmen are wont to call “deliberate quickness”. He was so very deliberate, in fact, that his nephew began to show unmistakable signs of impatience; but still he did not waste a single second of valuable time. Reeling off as much line as the close proximity of the bushes behind would permit him to use, Uncle Joe gave me a smart upward and backward fling and then struck down toward the water. This movement caused the line to fly through the air like a whip lash, only it grew in length all the while; and when the flies were directly over the swirl the trout had made when he went down, the motion of the reel was stopped by a slight pressure of the angler’s thumb, and the tempting lures settled upon the water as lightly as a couple of feathers.
“I never can learn to do that,” said Joe, despondingly. “It requires altogether too much skill for my clumsy—Well, sir, you’ve got him as sure as the world.”