It happened while he was hunting through Mystery Grove, as he called it, for a new hole to fish. The creek was high, and in this place, it plunged through the tall timber, so dense with fallen logs and undergrowth that he had to fight for an opening into the thicket. With rod held like a guiding spear in one hand, and with a string of fish in the other, the lone fisherman made his way yard by yard along the foaming creek. Finally he spied a promising place some rods ahead; but he could not get at it from that side of the stream.
How to cross was a problem. Nature came suddenly to his help to solve it. A few steps farther on, three trees, washed loose by the water, had fallen. Two of the trees were saplings. They reached clear over the stream. The other was a larger log, but it came only partly across. Fred figured that if he could get to the biggest tree, he would have a safe bridge the rest of the way.
With gingerly steps, he balanced along the swaying saplings till within stepping distance of the largest tree, then he stepped confidently, throwing his full weight upon it. Down it sank with him into the angry stream.
How he did it, he never could tell, but as he went down, he flung fish and rod to the bank and just saved himself from being washed under by catching his arms across the log. And there he hung, legs and body under, head and arms above, hooking on to the log, while the stream swirled and swished about him. He struggled to get back out of the strong, sucking current. It seemed impossible. Once he almost decided to let go and trust to luck to bring him out of the waves on the other side; but just below the logs, the stream dived with angry hiss and roar under great clawing roots. To have become entangled in those horrid, watery claws was death itself.
Breathing a silent prayer for help, he tried once more. One lunge brought him back a little, another and another put him partly above the fallen trees, and then he slowly lifted himself with greater ease to safety. He crawled along the poles to the bank where he lay for a few moments, and then, without even a glance at the new trout hole, he gathered up his few fish and his tackle and made his way painfully out of the woods. He had fished enough for that day.
But the surprises that the old stream gave him were not all so fearful. A few days after his mishap he had another experience that remained with him a golden memory always.
He was fishing the ripples just above Shadow Pool, eager to catch a big trout he had seen there many times, marked by a black spot just behind its gills, when he was startled by a splashing in the stream just above him. Whirling suddenly, he found himself facing Alta Morgan on her dapple-gray pony. Her bright eyes were laughing as she called out cheerily, “Good morning! What luck?”
“Haven’t counted yet; about a dozen, I guess.”
“Surely not; where?”
“Oh, you think I’m telling fish stories, do you? Well, I’ll show up.” He stepped to a shady side pool, and lifted from it a long willow, strung with speckled beauties.