After having led an active life among the hills, lakes and forest streams almost ever since I could remember, you may be sure that I did not relish treatment of this sort. After doing my level best for my master, and landing more than one fish for him that he ought to have lost because he handled me so awkwardly—after going with him through some of the most exciting scenes of his life, and submitting to treatment that would have used up almost any other rod, must I be laid upon the shelf in a dark closet and left to my gloomy reflections, while a new favorite accompanied my master to the woods, caught the trout for his dinner, slept under his blanket, and listened to the thrilling and amusing stories that were told around the camp-fire? I resolved to prevent it, if I could; so when my master took me out of my case one day to assist him in catching a muskalonge he had seen in the lake back of his father's house, I nerved myself to do valiant battle, hoping to show him that there was plenty of good hard work left in me, if he only knew how to bring it out.
The muskalonge, which was lurking in the
