"So will men," said Bess, as she threw her troll into the water to do fresh duty.
"You're p'intedly keerect," said Tim Price. "I got the sack four times, an' hed right smart mittens, afore I cotched a stayin' holt on my old woman."
Shout after shout waked the mountain-echoes, as fish were held up in triumph, and as the boats glided over the smooth water of the eddy. Ahead was a mass of foam and a long dash of water down a shoal.
"Yere's where me and the colonel catches 'em lively when I pull him," said Martha to the Doctor. "They bite yere ez lively ez a stray pig in a tater-patch. Whoop! I've got him! He pulls like a mule at a hitchin'-rope. Keep your boat head to the current, Alec, an' pull hard, er we'll drift down on him an' I'll lose him. Whoop! May I never! A five-pounder! I'll slit him down the back an' brile him fer breakfast. Whoop! In you come!"
The boatmen pulled hard against the fierce current at the foot of the shoal, crossed and recrossed, circled, and at it again, until a score or more of noble bass were hooked from the swirl, and Colonel Bangem led the way up the rapids. Then the oarsmen leaped into the water and towed the boats through the wild current, until the eddy at the top of it allowed them to take oars again.
"Preacher, kin you paddle?" asked Tim Price of the Professor, as he drained the water from his legs before getting into the boat. "Ef you air a hand at it, take an oar an' paddle a bit astern: there'll be white peerch an' red-hoss lyin' yere at the head uv the shore."
The Professor took an oar and paddled, while Tim Price poised himself in the boat, spear in hand and the long rope from its slender shaft coiled at his feet. He peered intently into the water as the boat moved slowly along. Presently every muscle of him was set: he bent backward for a cast, pointed his spear with steady hands to a spot in the river, and quick as a flash it pierced the water until its ten-foot shaft was seen no more. As quickly was it recovered by Tim's active hands catching the flying line to haul it in; and on its prongs squirmed a monstrous fish of the sucker tribe,—a red-horse,—pinned through and through by his unerring aim.
Shoal and eddy, swirl and silent pool, yielded good sport and harvest, as haunts of bass and salmon were entered and passed, until the inviting mouth of Little Sandy Creek suggested rest for the boatmen and a stroll for the fishers. A neat hotel, clean and well kept for so wild a region, harbors lumbermen, rivermen, and those who love the rod and gun. There are many such attractive centres along the banks of Elk, with charming camping-grounds, where neighboring hospitality abounds, and chickens, eggs, milk, corn, and bacon are abundant and cheap, and the finest bass-and other fishing possible, from Queen's Shoal—four miles away—to the old dam above Charleston. Above Queen's Shoal the region increases in wildness and attractiveness for traveller or sportsman. Trout in plenty find homes in the mountain-tributaries of Upper Elk; deer abound, and all manner of smaller game. Where nature does her best work, man is apt to do but little. Nature farms the Elk country.
Bright moonlight, the early morning after the sun is up, and from a couple of hours after mid-day until the mountain-shadows strike the water in the evening, are the best times to troll for bass. If so minded, they will rise to a fly at such times in the rapids; but no allurement excepting the troll will bring them to the surface in still water. When the river is rising, or the water is clouded with mud or drift, bass scorn all surface-diet; but the live minnow or crawfish, hellgramite or fish-worm, will capture them on trout-line or hook attached to the soul-absorbing bob. A clothes-line wire cable, furnished with well-assorted hooks baited with cotton, dough, and cheese well mixed together, and stretched in eddy-water when the river is muddy, will give fine reward in carp, white perch, catfish, turtles, garfish, and sweet revenge on the bait-stealing guana.
After nooning, lunch, and a quiet loaf, the party sped homeward with the current, handling rods and trolls as salmon and bass demanded lively attention. Shooting a rapid, and out into a deep pool at its foot, the Doctor's boat struck a snag, and he, having a resisting power equal to that of a billiard-ball, put his heels where his head had been, and disappeared under the water, to pop up again instantly, sputtering and spitting, like a jug full of yeast with a corn-cob stopper.