“I know better,” he said.
“Indeed? What kind of a fly would you advise as a lure to a human salmon?”
“That is a pretty serious question. It is to be a male salmon, I presume. What would I rise to? Money, good looks, character, position.”
“I might suggest a killing combination fly,” she returned.
“That reminds me pleasantly of my old guide, Tom Dunham, who used to go with me on Lake Superior. He was an old beaver-trapper. Once I asked him how he baited his traps. He said, ‘Women beavers is easy satisfied with one thing for a bait, but men beavers is best took with two or three kinds, all just sot to one, in a bait.’”
“I don’t see the moral.”
“Oh, that is a matter of choice. The beaver, once in the trap, has leisure to select the moral.”
“Rather. How interesting these guides must be! The lonely life in the woods must result in the making of some singular characters. Or do they all become dull and taciturn?”
“Some do. Tom was a most amusing person. I remember we were lying one night at the Pictured Rocks, on the south shore. I can see now the dim line of cliffs, and the camp-fire, and the loons on the lake, taken by the broad red band of ruddy light flashing far over the waters. Tom was talking beaver. At last I told him a beaver story out of one of Buckland’s books. It doesn’t bore you?”
“Oh, no. I love stories.”