Days in the Open

by Lathan A. Crandall

By the second morning he had reached the pond, and found himself among strangers. It did not take long for him to become involved in a scrap with a trout of about his own size from which he quickly emerged triumphant. Had the pond not furnished seemingly unlimited supplies of fat chubs he would have proceeded to give free rein to his cannibalistic inclinations; but as it was less trouble to catch the chubs than his own blood relations, he filled himself with the former, and then took a nap under the shadow of a big stump, the top of which stood a little way out of the water.

A little before sundown, when he was quite refreshed and had begun to think of taking a little turn about the pond in search of adventure, he heard the sound of many voices, and, looking out from his hiding-place, saw a company of trout moving in his direction. In the lead was his foe of the morning. There, surrounded by an admiring crowd, came the biggest trout that Bully had ever seen. His under jaw projected far beyond its mate and had an ugly upward curve. He was broad across the back and thick through and moved with all the pride of a conquering hero. “Where is he? Show him to me. I’ll make mincemeat of the insolent intruder.” The booming voice of the big fellow left the Bully in no doubt as to the identity of the approaching monster. It was the fighter of whom he was in search.

The Bully would have been scared if that possibility had not been denied him. Instead of fleeing in fear he came out from under cover and shouted: “Are you talking about me? You big bluffer! I’ll make you food for the crows.” If the truth must be told, both the combatants used language that was not only exceedingly scurrilous, but shockingly profane. In this gentle exercise the Bully had the best of it and the pond trout became so enraged that he dashed at his enemy with jaws extended. The Bully was so busy swearing that he came near losing his life. As it was, he dodged just in time to prevent those powerful jaws from closing upon him, but not quickly enough to escape a slashing from two big teeth which laid his side open in deep gashes. He was a surprised Bully, but not dismayed.

The battle that followed had no historian. Of much that took place, the whirling and darting, the snapping and struggling, the reports that have come down through the years are somewhat confused and even contradictory. It seems clear that at the first the Bully had the worst of it. Besides the gashes received in the first attack, he lost one fin and a piece of his tail early in the fray. The pond trout had all the advantage in size and was cheered on by his friends; but the Bully’s gymnastic exercises, fighting with the rapids, stood him in good stead now. His muscles were steel, while those of the pond trout had grown somewhat flabby since he had come to content himself with life in the still water. As they feinted and charged and whirled about, the pond champion began to grow short of breath and found increasing difficulty in meeting the rushes of the Bully, who seemed to grow more agile as the battle raged. Then there came a moment when the Bully feinted for his opponent’s tail, and, when the pond trout turned suddenly to guard his caudal extremity, he left his throat unguarded for an instant—and it was all over. Once the Bully had set his teeth into the white throat he shook and raged and tore while the life-blood of his foe gushed out, and the denizens of the pond saw their supposedly invincible warrior die before their eyes.

Nothing is known, certainly, of the Bully’s life after this up to the day that he met his death. It is whispered that before leaving the pond he undertook to capture a white miller that came fluttering over the surface of the water just at dusk one night and found himself fast at the end of a line as in his boyhood. Some even assume to say that after vainly flinging himself into the air in the effort to shake the miller out of his mouth, he said goodbye to those who had been drawn about him by his struggles, and was about ready to give up hope when one last struggle took him over and under a root and he found himself free. They even go so far as to say that for many a day after that the miller stuck to the Bully’s jaw, and that from it floated a fine, white thread.

Another unsupported rumour has it that as he was going up stream one day in a narrow part of the stream he found a fine bunch of branches and leaves, and gladly pushed in among them when he heard a disturbance in the water back of him. No sooner had he entered this refuge than it began to rise out of the water, and he shortly found himself on shore and being handled by an animal that resembled the boy who had given him so much trouble years before, only much larger. Even then he would not give up without an effort, and, summoning all his strength, he gave a mighty squirm and escaped out of his captor’s hands. He struck on the gravel, gave two or three tremendous leaps and was in water again, free.

The Bully had grown to be the biggest trout in all that stretch of water, and his under jaw protruded as far and was quite as hooked as had been that of his vanquished enemy of the pond. An August morning found him well up the river in the dense woods where the water was cool and food was abundant. He had found a place where the water was some four feet deep, and a fallen tree-top made the finest kind of a hiding-place. Just above him was a clear space some two feet in diameter where now and then he could take a bug or a foolish miller. Lying at his ease, he thought with satisfaction of his numerous victories over other trout and of his good fortune in escaping those strange beings which prowled along the shore and threw enticing flies or worms into the stream. Just then—but, before we tell of this incident, we must bring in another story. That morning four men had broken camp some miles down the stream and started on a sixteen-mile tramp back into the woods, where they were to spend a month on the shore of a lake, fishing and hunting. The duffle was piled upon a rude sled drawn along the trail by a horse. When two of the party were ready to start ahead of the others, the guide, Fide Scott, said to one of them, the Preacher, “We’ll follow the river for more than half the way, and if you fellows can catch some trout we’ll have ‘em for dinner.”

The Preacher already had hooks and a line in his pocket, and at once added a supply of fat angle worms from the common stock. They had walked for an hour or more when they came to a point on the river where a tree had fallen across the stream. Just below this natural bridge the water was deep and still, and a great mass of brush seemed to promise an ideal hiding-place for trout. To make conditions exceptionally favourable there was a good-sized open place in the centre of the brush where one might drop his lure without the absolute certainty of getting snagged. The line came out of the Preacher’s pocket in a hurry, the hook was tied on and two exceedingly well-developed worms were looped in such a way as to be as enticing as possible. A piece of alder, six feet or so in length, was pressed into service and everything was ready for the piscatorial adventure. But the pole was too short. Doing his best, the fisherman could not stand on the shore and drop his bait into that open spot in the brush. Only one thing remained, and that was to walk out on the log, from which the bark had dropped away, leaving it as slippery as the cellar door down which the Preacher had been wont to slide as a boy. Slowly and with exceeding caution the adventurer made his way inch by inch along the log until he had reached a point from which he could drop his hook into that most attractive opening in the brush. Balancing himself carefully, he allowed that mass of wriggling worms to touch the surface of the water when—but now we’ll go back to the Bully.

When he saw that bunch of angleworms just above him he forgot the crooked worm which had pricked him in his childhood. He was sure that here was the most satisfying morsel that had ever come his way and rushed for it. He closed his jaws on only a part of the mass, and the rest disappeared, much to his disappointment. What he secured made him eager for more. It was distinctly more palatable than anything he had tasted for many a moon. Just as he was longing for more of the same kind—behold! another bunch of wriggling, squirming worms appeared in almost the same spot. This time he did not propose to lose any of this meal so providentially provided, and he made a rush that enabled him not only to grab the entire mass, but to get it well back in his mouth. Then came that upward pull which he had felt in former experiences. He kicked and struggled and threshed, making the water boil about him. For a little his upward progress seemed to be stayed and he imagined that he would get free after all. Then his ascent began again and continued, despite all his mighty protests, until he felt himself enwrapped and almost smothered by something, he knew not what. The Bully of the Upper Oswe-gatchie never knew what happened after that. He could not see the painfully anxious face of the Preacher endeavouring to balance himself on a peeled log and haul a big trout out of the brush by a sheer pull. He had no knowledge of the fervour with which the Preacher embraced him, or of the perilous journey to the shore along that treacherous pathway. He could not see the comrade of the Preacher when, excited by the splashing made by the Bully in his efforts to get off the hook, he jumped into the stream in his anxiety to be of help.

When the rest of the party came up, there upon the grass lay a noble fish, and the proud Preacher was fairly sizzling with eagerness to tell all about the capture. There was nothing with which to weigh the Bully, but he measured a plump twenty-two inches in length and Fide Scott placed his weight at a good five pounds. That Preacher fairly split the buttons from his coat, swelling with pride when the guide exclaimed: “I’ve lived along the Oswegatchie for fifty years and he’s the biggest trout I ever saw took out of the river.”