“That’s—all—right!” approved the boy. “Now—let’s see. A Silver Doctor—this fellow? Don’t you think? I’ve had great luck with that fly. It’s a pretty decent fly.” The owner of the fly-book took his orders and annexed the Silver Doctor to the leader.
“Now—tail-fly. That’s important. Let—me—see.”
But the willing horse suddenly took the bit in his mouth. Bradlee pointed out a patch of scarlet with his forefinger. “I want that one,” he stated.
The boy laughed. “The Scarlet Ibis?” he inquired, like a kind but pitying father. “That wouldn’t do, I’m afraid. That’s too—crude, you see. That’s good for very dark days and very wild waters, where no one has ever fished, and they’re not educated. I’m afraid they’d know better than a Scarlet Ibis at Profanity Pool.”
But the man, so docile up to now, acquired a setness about the mouth. “I want the Scarlet Ibis. I like the name of it, and red is the color I like, and I have an idea it will bring me luck.”
There was something in the large m’sieur, when he spoke in this way, which made one see that he was accustomed to manage things; this was different from the meek scholar of the kindergarten class in fishing. Jack yielded at once and with cordiality.
“Of course, if you’ve got a hunch,” he agreed with his young-elderly benevolence. “Maybe it will bring you luck.”
And the large m’sieur, smiling inwardly, felt that he had been allowed the Scarlet Ibis by an indulgent superior, yet liked the lad no less.
When the thick mists that had blanketed the lake all night were blowing in streamers along the shore and curving to the alders in the damp morning wind; when the forest was a black mass below, but dividing above into spires of spruce-trees under the mystical glow which fast loosed the night-bound shadows; when the grasses in the little beaver meadows were stiff with cold, wet silver, the man and the boy, leaving the guides in camp, started up-stream to Profanity Pool. It was hard to follow the portage at first, so dark it was; a hush was through the woods; no breeze stirred here away from the lake; no little beast rustled; no bird fluttered; the underworld was fast asleep. One felt like a knight of Arthur adventuring into a Merlin-guarded forest.
Even when the two fishermen reached the pool it was dark enough to make the footing uncertain as one crossed from rock to rock, to the sand-bar where the Indian tea-bushes grew, their small old-rose-colored blossoms frosted with dew, and over them in the dim light the same mysterious stillness, as if the night’s sleep were not yet ended. Also it was very cold; the chill crept through sweaters and flannel shirts, through flesh and blood and into the bones and the marrow, as they sat down to put the rod together. Instinctively they spoke in low voices, not to waken the drowsy forest. Then arrows of sunlight shot and caught in the tops of the spruces and crept ever downward. One could see the quiet pool now, and the dark, wet log lying lengthwise, and the brown water; not a stir of life on that level surface, yet under it the great trout must be waking.