“Really, you do not know what you are undertaking; but I will tell you what you can do. Go with the two Indians, see how they manage in the first rapid, and then take the place of one and try it.”
To this, after much protest and complaint, Frank and I persuaded him to agree; more, however, as a personal favor to ourselves than on any other ground, and his grumblings of dissatisfaction were loudly audible till we had passed the first rapid; Don neither offered to pole nor grumble afterwards.
The water was very strong, collected in large pools, and then rushing with tremendous force down a confined channel, or else pouring in long exhausting stretches of foaming current over pebbly shallows and amid protruding boulders. At one spot Frank and myself were fifteen minutes, just able to hold our own and not advancing a foot, with the imminent risk of upsetting at any instant; and when I was out of the canoe fishing, he was utterly unable, to the intense delight of the Indians, to stem the rapids at all.
The canoes were small, and the canoe-men had to occupy a most uncomfortable position: kneeling and sitting on their heels, not being able to stand erect as I had often done in larger boats, so that Frank complained of cramp in his legs for days afterwards. Short setting poles were used, and our utmost strength had to be exerted where the current was strong. Of course, the Indians were entirely at home at the work, and although straining their best, enjoyed our deficiencies and shouted over our mishaps; whenever we either caught a trout or came near upsetting our canoe, whenever we had any good luck or any bad luck, and often when we had neither, they roared with laughter. Not appearing to give the fate of their canoe, which was in our hands, a thought, they were intensely amused whenever we brushed against a rock or careened her till the water flowed in. Instead of the proverbial taciturn grimness of the conventional Indian, they were hilarious and loquacious, although their language was a sealed book to us. They were on the best footing, and held animated conversations with our guides, were continually amused at their own witticisms, and when on our return, while descending an unusually dangerous rapid, Frank, distrustful of my judgment, insisted upon taking entire charge of the canoe, and as a natural consequence came very near upsetting and throwing us into the boiling waters, to the peril of our lives and destruction of the boat, they could hardly contain themselves, but made merry over it the entire way home.
The Agawa winds among high, bleak, and sterile hills, is rapid and filled with pools, but has none of those tumbling cascades which give life to the water and wear out deep, dark holes where trout love to congregate in warm weather. The current, stained with the dead leaves and decaying vegetation of the ponds and marshes, where it has its source, is amber-colored, and lends its hue to the pebbly bottom over which it flows. It evidently, throughout its great extent, furnishes admirable spawning-grounds for the fastidious trout, and in cool weather is filled with them in vast numbers. But when a warm season has heated the water, and a drouth has diminished the current, the fish, finding the element unsuited to their comfort or even existence, are compelled to seek the cool, shady caverns of the lake shore.
The river, when we visited it, was in this condition, and there were none but small, dark-colored fish, which, although excellent in the frying-pan, after the excessive exertion of surmounting the rapids had given us an appetite, furnished but tame sport on the line.
Our dinner was pleasant, our trip exciting, the scenery wild, the river interesting, the savages amusing, and ourselves agreeably entertained; but we returned early, possessed of a wretched show of game. We had taken two dozen fish, but none of them were large.
On issuing from the secluded channel of the river, we realized, to our surprise, that a heavy gale was blowing from the south-east. We had not felt the wind till we approached the open water, and emerged from among the hills and trees, but soon found the waves rolling in upon the sand-beach in a way to remind one of the surf on “Old Long Island’s sea-girt shore.”
The waves appeared to drive the trout in from the lake, and towards evening the river near its mouth was alive with them, breaking in every direction; yet, strange to say, although we cast our flies frequently directly over them, and kept on fishing till it was night, not a trout did we take. In all our experience such a thing had never happened, and where they were so numerous, a dozen often being visible at the same instant, so voracious and unaccustomed to the presence of man, it was extraordinary. Fish will frequently, although breaking freely, refuse the fly, but generally a few will be misled, and occasionally one will be caught; but here in the Agawa, a hundred miles from civilization, we saw ten thousand trout in the space of five hundred yards, and after expending skill and patience, failed to take a single one.
No explanation of this phenomenon presented itself; there was nothing in the air, water, or time of day to explain it, and although it was followed during the night by a great change of temperature, there would appear to be no connection between the two events. The fish seemed to be playing rather than feeding like salmon running in from the sea; and, anticipating cooler weather, may have been preparing to ascend the river. And it is proper to mention here that two gentlemen, who fished the river a few weeks afterwards, had remarkably fine sport.