Big Two-Hearted River by Ernest Hemingway

Word Count: 8,021

PART I

The train went on up the track out of sight, around one of the hills of burnt timber. Nick sat down on the bundle of canvas and bedding the baggage man had pitched out of the door of the baggage car. There was no town, nothing but the rails and the burned-over country. The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.

Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there. It swirled against the log spires of the bridge. Nick looked down into the clear, brown water, colored from the pebbly bottom, and watched the trout keeping themselves steady in the current with wavering fins. As he watched them they changed their again by quick angles, only to hold steady in the fast water again. Nick watched them a long time.

He watched them holding themselves with their noses into the current, many trout in deep, fast moving water, slightly distorted as he watched far down through the glassy convex surface of the pool its surface pushing and swelling smooth against the resistance of the log-driven piles of the bridge. At the bottom of the pool were the big trout. Nick did not see them at first. Then he saw them at the bottom of the pool, big trout looking to hold themselves on the gravel bottom in a varying mist of gravel and sand, raised in spurts by the current.

Nick looked down into the pool from the bridge. It was a hot day. A kingfisher flew up the stream. It was a long time since Nick had looked into a stream and seen trout. They were very satisfactory. As the shadow of the kingfisher moved up the stream, a big trout shot upstream in a long angle, only his shadow marking the angle, then lost his shadow as he came through the surface of the water, caught the sun, and then, as he went back into the stream under the surface, his shadow seemed to float down the stream with the current unresisting, to his post under the bridge where he tightened facing up into the current.

Nick's heart tightened as the trout moved. He felt all the old feeling. He turned and looked down the stream. It stretched away, pebbly-bottomed with shallows and big boulders and a deep pool as it curved away around the foot of a bluff.

Nick walked back up the ties to where his pack lay in the cinders beside the railway track. He was happy. He adjusted the pack harness around the bundle, pulling straps tight, slung the pack on his back got his arms through the shoulder straps and took some of the pull off his shoulders by leaning his forehead against the wide band of the tump-line Still, it was too heavy. It was much too heavy. He had his leather rod-case in his hand and leaning forward to keep the weight of the pack high on his shoulders he walked along the road that paralleled the railway track, leaving the burned town behind in the heat, and shell turned off around a hill with a high, fire-scarred hill on either side onto a road that went back into the country. He walked along the road feeling, the ache from the pull of the heavy pack. The road climbed steadily. It was hard work walking up-hill His muscles ached and the day was hot, but Nick felt happy. He felt he had left everything behind, the need for  thinking, the need to write, other needs, It was all back of him. 

From the time he had gotten down off the train and the baggage man had thrown his pack out of the open car door things had been different Seney was burned, the country was burned over and changed, but it did not matter. It could not all be burned that. He hiked along the road, sweating in the sun, climbing  to cross the range of hills that separated the railway from the pine plains.

The road ran on, dipping occasionally, but always climbing hill. He went pm up Finally the road after going parallel to the burnt hill he reached the top. Nick leaned back against a stump and slipped out of the pack harness. Ahead of him, as far as he could see, was the pine plain. The burned country stopped of off at the left pith the range of hills. 011 ahead islands of dark pine trees rose out of the plain Far off to the left was the line of the river. Nick followed it with his eye and caught glints of the water in the sun.    

There was nothing but the pine plain ahead of him, until the far blue hills that marked the Lake Superior height of land. He could hardly see them faint and far away in the heat-light over the plain. If he looked too steadily they were gone. But if he only half-looked they were there, the far-off hills of the height of land.

Nick sat down against the charred stump and smoked a cigarette. His pack balanced on the top of the stump harness holding ready, a hollow molded in it from his back. Nick sat smoking, looking out over the country He did not need to get his map out. He knew where he was from the position of the river.

As he smoked his legs stretched out in front of him, he noticed a grasshopper walk along the ground and up onto his woolen sock. The grasshopper was black. As he had walked along the road, climbing, he had started  grasshoppers from with dust. They were all black They were not the big grasshoppers with yellow and black or red and black wings whirring out from their black wing sheathing as they fly up. These were just ordinary hoppers, but all a sooty black in color. Nick had wondered about them as he walked without really thinking about them. Now, as he watched the black hopper that was nibbling at the wool of his sock with its fourway lip he realized that they had all turned black from living in the I burned-over land. He realized that the fire must have come the year before, but the grasshoppers were all black now. He wondered how long they would stay that way.

Carefully he reached his hand down and took hold of the hopper by the wings. He turned him up, all his legs walking in the air, and looked at his jointed belly. Yes, it was black too, iridescent where the back and head were dusty.

"Go on, hopper," Nick said, speaking out loud for the first time "Fly away somewhere."

He tossed the grasshopper up into the air and watched him sail away to a charcoal stump across the road.

Nick stood up. He leaned his back against the weight of his pack where it rested upright on the stump and got his arms through the shoulder straps. He stood with the pack on his back on the brow of the hill looking out across the country, toward the distant river and then struck down the hillside away from the road. Underfoot the ground was good walking. Two hundred yards down the fire line stopped. Then it was sweet fern, growing ankle high, walk through, and clumps of jack pines; a long undulating country with frequent rises and descents, sandy underfoot and the country alive again.

Nick kept his direction by the sun. He knew where he wanted to strike the river and he kept on through the pine plain, mounting small rises to see other rises ahead of him and sometimes from the top of a rise a great solid island of pines off to his right or his left He broke off some sprigs of the Leathery sweet fern, and put them under his pack straps. The chafing crushed it and he smelled it as he walked.

He was tired and very hot, walking across the uneven, shadeless pine pram. At any time he knew he could strike the river by turning of f to his left It could not be more than a mile away. But he kept on toward the north to hit the river as far upstream as he could go in one day's walking. For some time as he walked Nick had been in sight of one of the big islands of pine standing out above the rolling high ground he was crossing. He dipped down and then as he came slowly up to the crest of the bridge he turned and made toward the pine trees. There was no underbrush in the island of pine trees. The trunks of the trees went straight up or slanted toward each other. The trunks were straight and brown without branches. The branches were high above. Some interlocked to make a solid shadow on the brown forest floor. Around the grove of trees was a bare space. It was brown   and salt underfoot as Nick walked on it. This was the over-lapping of the pine   needle floor, extending out beyond the width of the high branches. The trees   had grown tall and the branches moved high, leaving in the sun this bare   space they had once covered with shadow. Sharp at the edge of this extension   of the forest floor commenced the sweet fern.     

Nick slipped off his pack and lay down in the shade. He lay on his back and   looked up into the pine trees. His neck and back and the small of his back   rested as he stretched. The earth felt good against his back. He looked up at   the sky, through the branches, and then shut his eyes. He opened them and   looked up again. There was a wind high up in the branches. He shut his eyes   again and went to sleep.     

Nick woke stiff and cramped. The sun was nearly down. His pack was heavy   and the straps painful as he lifted it on. He leaned over with the pack on and   picked up the leather rod-case and started out from the pine trees across the   sweet fern swale, toward the river. He knew it could not be more than a mile.     

He came down a hillside covered with stumps into a meadow. At the edge of   the meadow flowed the river. Nick was glad to get to the river. He walked   upstream through the meadow. His trousers were soaked with the dew as he   walked. After the hot day, the dew halt come quickly and heavily. The river made no sound. It was too fast and smooth. At the edge of the meadow,   before he mounted to a piece of high ground to make camp, Nick looked   down the river at the trout rising. They were rising to insects come from the   swamp on the other side of the stream when the sun went down. The trout   jumped out of water to take them. While Nick walked through the little   stretch of meadow alongside the stream, trout had jumped high out of water.   Now as he looked down the river, the insects must be settling on the surface,   for the trout were feeding steadily all down the stream. As far down the long   stretch as he could see, the trout were rising, making circles all down the   surface of the water, as though it were starting to rain.     

The ground rose, wooded and sandy, to overlook the meadow, the stretch of   river and the swamp. Nick dropped his pack and rod case and looked for a   level piece of ground. He was very hungry and he wanted to make his camp   before he cooked. Between two jack pines, the ground was quite level. He   took the ax out of the pack and chopped out two projecting roots. That   leveled a piece of ground large enough to sleep on. He smoothed out the   sandy soil with his hand and pulled all the sweet fern bushes by their   roots. His hands smelled good from the sweet fern. He smoothed the uprooted   earth. He did not want anything making lumps under the blankets. When he had the ground smooth, he spread his  blankets. One he folded double, next to the ground. The other two he spread on top.     

With the ax he slit off a bright slab of pine from one of the stumps and split it   into pegs for the tent. He wanted them long and solid to hold in the ground.   With the tent unpacked and spread on the ground, the pack, leaning against a   jackpine, looked much smaller Nick tied the rope that served the tent for a   ridge-pole to the trunk of one of the pine trees and pulled the tent up off the   ground with the other end of the rope and tied it to the other pine. The tent   hung on the rope like a canvas blanket on a clothesline. Nick poked a pole he   had cut up under the back peak of the canvas and then made it a tent by   pegging out the sides. He pegged the sides out taut and drove the pegs deep,   hitting them down into the ground with the feat of the ax until the rope loops   were buried and the canvas was drum tight.     

Across the open mouth of the tent Nick fixed cheesecloth to keep out   mosquitoes. He crawled inside under the mosquito bar with various things   from the pack to put at the head of the bed under the slant of the canvas.   Inside the tent the light came through the brown canvas. It smelled pleasantly   of canvas. Already there was something mysterious and homelike. Nick was   happy as he crawled inside the tent. He had not been unhappy all day. This   was different though. Now things were done. There had been this to do. Now   it was done. It had been a hard trip. He was very tired. That was done. He   had made his camp. He was settled. Nothing could touch him. It was a good   place to camp. He was there, in the good place. He was in his home where he   had made it. Now he was hungry.     

He came out, crawling under the cheesecloth. It was quite dark outside. It   was lighter in the tent.     

Nick went over to the pack and found, with his fingers, a long nail in a paper sack of nails, in the bottom of the pack. He drove it into the pine tree, holding   it close and hitting it gently with the flat of the ax. He hung the pack up on the   nail. All his supplies were in the pack. They were off the ground and sheltered now.     

Nick was hungry. He did not believe he had ever been hungrier He opened   and emptied a can at pork and beans and a can of spaghetti into the frying pan.     

"I've got a right to eat this kind of stuff, if I'm willing to carry it, Nick said.  

His voice sounded strange in the darkening woods. He did not speak again.     

He started a fire with some chunks of pine he got with the ax from a stump.   Over the fire he stuck a wire grill, pushing the tour legs down into the ground   with his boot. Nick put the frying pan and a can of spaghetti on the grill over   the flames. He was hungrier. The beans and spaghetti warmed. Nick stirred   them sad mixed them together. They began to bubble, making little bubbles   that rose with difficulty to the surface- There was a good smell. Nick got out   a bottle of tomato catchup and cut four slices of bread. The little bubbles   were coming faster now. Nick sat down beside the fire and lifted the frying   pan off. He poured about half the contents out into the tin plate. It spread   slowly on the plate. Nick knew it was too hot. He poured on some tomato   catchup. He knew the beans and spaghetti were still too hot. He looked at the   fire, then at the tent, he was not going to spoil it all by burning his tongue. For   years he had never enjoyed fried bananas because he had never been able to wait for them to cool. His   tongue was very sensitive. He was very hungry. Across the river in the   swamp, in the almost dark, he saw a mist rising. He looked at the tent   once more. All right. He took a full spoonful from the plate.      "Chrise," Nick said, "Geezus Chrise," he said happily.     

He ate the whole plateful before he remembered the bread. Nick finished the   second plateful with the bread, mopping the plate shiny. He had not eaten   since a cup of coffee and a ham sandwich in the station restaurant at St.   Ignace. It had been a very fine experience. He had been that hungry before,  but had not been able to sat- it. He could have made camp hours before if he   had wanted to. There were plenty of good places to camp on the river. But   this was good.     

Nick tucked two big chips of pine under the grill. The fire flared up. He had   forgotten to get water for the coffee. Out of the pack he got a folding canvas   bucket and walked down the hill, across the edge of the meadow, to the   stream. The other bank was in the white mist. The grass was wet and cold as   he knelt on the bank and dipped the canvas bucket into the stream. It bellied   and pulled held in the current. The water was ice cold. Nick rinsed the bucket   and carried it full up to the camp. Up away from the stream it was not so   cold.     

Nick drove another big nail and hung up the bucket full of water. He dipped   the coffee pot half full, put some more chips under the grill onto the fire and   put the pot oil. He could not remember which way he made coffee. He could   remember an argument about it with Hopkins, but not which side he had   taken. He decided to bring it to a boil. He remembered now that was   Hopkins's way. He had once argued about everything with Hopkins. While he  waited for the coffee to boil, he opened a small can of apricots. He liked to  open cans. He emptied the can of apricots out into a tin cup. While he   watched the coffee on the fire, he drank the Juice syrup of the apricots,   carefully at first to keep from spilling, then meditatively, sucking the apricots   down. They were better than fresh apricots.     

The coffee boiled as he watched. The lid came up and coffee and grounds ran   down the side of the pot. Nick took it off the grill. It was a triumph for   Hopkins. He put sugar in the empty apricot cup and poured some of the   coffee out to cool. It was too hot to pour and he used his hat to hold the   handle of the coffee pot. He would not let it steep in the  pot at all. Not the   first cup. It should be straight Hopkins all the Hop deserved that. was a very   serious coffee drinker. He was the most serious man Nick had ever known.   Not heavy, serious. That was a long time ago Hopkins spoke without moving   his lips. He had played polo. He made millions of dollars in Texas. He had   borrowed carfare to go to Chicago, when the wire came that his first big well   had come in. He could have wired for money. That' would have been too slow. They called Hop's girl the Blonde Venus. Hop did not mind because she   was not his real girl, Hopkins said very confidently that none of them would   make fun of his real girl. He was right. Hopkins went away when the telegram came. That was on the Black River. It took eight days for the telegram to reach him. Hopkins gave away his 22 caliber Colt automatic pistol to Nick.   He gave his camera to Bill, It was to remember him always by. They were all   going fishing again next summer. The Hop Head was rich. He would get a   yacht and they would all cruise along the north shore of Lake Superior. He   was excited but serious. They said good-bye and all felt bad. It broke up the trip. They never saw Hopkins again.. That was a long time ago on the Black   River.     

Nick drank the coffee, the coffee according to Hopkins. The coffee was bitter   Nick laughed.   It made a good ending to the story. His mind was starting to work. He knew he could choke it because he was tired enough. He spilled the   coffee out of the pot and shook the grounds loose into the fire. He lit a   cigarette and went inside the tent. He took off his shoes and trousers, sitting   on the blankets, rolled the shoes up inside the trousers for a pillow and got in   between the blankets.     

Out through the front of the tent he watched the glow of the fire when the   night wind blew.  It was a quiet night The swamp was perfectly quiet. Nick   stretched under the blanket comfortably. A mosquito hummed close to his   ear. Nick sat up and lit a match. The mosquito was on the canvas, over his   head Nick moved the match quickly up to it. The mosquito made a   satisfactory hiss in the flame. The match went out. Nick lay down again under   the blanket. He turned on his side and shut his eyes. He was sleepy. He felt   sleep coming. He curled up under the blanket and went to sleep. 
                                                                                      
 PART II

In the morning the sun was up and the tent was starting to get hot. Nick   crawled out under the mosquito netting stretched across the mouth of the   tent, to look at the morning. The grass was wet on his hands as he came out.   The sun was just up over the hill. There was the meadow, the river and the   swamp. There were birch trees in the green of the swamp on the other side of   the river.     

The river was clear and smoothly fast in the early morning. Down about two   hundred yards were three logs all the way across the stream. They made the   water smooth and deep above them. As Nick watched, a mink crossed the   river on the logs and went into the swamp. Nick was excited. He was excited   by the early morning and the river. He was really too hurried to eat breakfast,   but he knew he must. He built a little fire and put on the coffee pot.     

While the water was heating in the pot he took an empty bottle and went   down over the edge of the high ground to the meadow. The meadow was wet   with dew and Nick wanted to catch grasshoppers for bait before the sun dried   the grass. He found plenty of good grasshoppers. They were at the base of the   grass stems.  Sometimes they clung to a grass stems. They were cold and wet   with the dew, and could not jump until the sun warmed them. Nick picked   them up, taking only the medium-sized brown ones, and put them into the   bottle. He turned over a log and just under the shelter of the edge were   several hundred hoppers. It was a grasshopper lodging house. Nick put about   fifty of the medium browns into the bottle. While he was picking up the   hoppers the others warmed in the sun and commenced to hop away. They   flew when they hopped. At first they made one flight and stayed stiff when   they landed, as though they were dead.     

Nick knew that by the time he was through with breakfast they would be as   lively as ever. Without dew in the grass it would take him all day to catch a   bottle full of good grasshoppers and he would have to crush many of them,   slamming at them with his hat. He washed his hands at the stream. He was   excited to be near it. Then he walked up to the tent. The hoppers were   already jumping stiffly in the grass. In the bottle, warmed by the sun, they   were jumping in a mass. Nick put in a pine stick as a cork. It plugged the   mouth of the bottle enough, so the hoppers could not get out and left plenty of   air passage.     

He had rolled the log back and knew he could get grasshoppers there every  
morning.     

Nick laid the bottle full of jumping grasshoppers against a pine trunk. Rapidly   he mixed some buckwheat flour with water and stirred it smooth, one cup of   flour, one cup of water. He put a handful of coffee in the pot and dipped a   lump of grease out of a can and slid it sputtering across the hot skillet. The   smoking skillet he poured smoothly the buckwheat batter. It spread like lava,   the grease spitting sharply. Around the edges the buckwheat cake began to   firm, then brown, then crisp. The surface was bubbling slowly to porousness.   Nick pushed under the browned under surface with a fresh pine chip. He   shook the skillet sideways and the cake was loose on the surface. I won't try   and flop it, he thought. He slid the chip of clean wood all the way under the   cake, and flopped it over onto its face. It sputtered in the pan.     

When it was cooked Nick regreased the skillet. He used all the batter. It made   another big flapjack and one smaller one.     

Nick ate a big flapjack and a smaller one, covered with apple butter. He put   apple butter on the third cake, folded it over twice, wrapped it in oiled paper  and put it in his shirt pocket. He put the apple butter jar back in the pack and   cut bread for two sandwiches.     

In the pack he found a big onion. He sliced it in two and peeled the silky   outer skin. Then he cut one half into slices and made onion sandwiches. He   wrapped them in oiled paper and buttoned them in the other pocket of his   khaki shirt. He turned the skillet upside down on the grill, drank the coffee,   sweetened and yellow brown with the condensed milk in it, and tidied up the   camp. It was a good camp.     

Nick took his fly rod out of the leather rod-case, jointed it, and shoved the   rod-case back into the tent. He put on the reel and threaded the line through   the guides. He had to hold it from hand to hand, as he threaded it, or it would   slip back through its own weight. It was a heavy, double tapered fly line.   Nick had paid eight dollars for it a long time ago. It was made heavy to lift   back in the air and come forward flat and heavy and straight to make it   possible to cast a fly which has no weight. Nick opened the aluminum leader   box. The leaders were coiled between the damp flannel pads. Nick had wet   the pads at the water cooler on the train up to St. Ignace. In the damp pads   the gut leaders had softened and Nick unrolled one and tied it by a loop at the   end to the heavy fly line. He fastened a hook on the end of the leader. It was a   small hook; very thin and springy.      

Nick took it from his hook book, sitting with the rod across his lap. He tested   the knot and the spring of the rod by pulling the line taut. It was a good   feeling. He was careful not to let the hook bite into his finger.     

He started down to the stream, holding his rod, the bottle of grasshoppers   hung from his neck by a thong tied in half hitches around the neck of the   bottle. His landing net hung by a hook from his belt. Over his shoulder was a   long flour sack tied at each corner into an ear. The cord went over his   shoulder. The sack slapped against his legs.     

Nick felt awkward and professionally happy with all his equipment hanging:   from him. The grasshopper bottle swung against his chest. In his shirt the   breast pockets bulged against him with the lunch and the fly book.     

He stepped into the stream. It was a shock. His trousers clung tight to his legs.   His shoes felt the gravel. The water was a rising cold shock.     

Rushing, the current sucked against his legs. Where he stepped in, the water   was over his knees. He waded with the current. The gravel slipt under his   shoes. He looked down at the swirl of water below each leg and tipped up the   bottle to get a grasshopper.      The first grasshopper gave a jump in the neck of the bottle and went out into   the water. He was sucked under in the whirl by Nick's right leg and came to   the surface a little way down stream. He floated rapidly, kicking. In a quick   circle, breaking the smooth surface of the water, he disappeared. A trout had   taken him.     

Another hopper poked his face out of the bottle. His antennas wavered.  He   was getting his front legs out of the bottle to jump. Nick took him by the   head and held him while he threaded the slim hook under his chin, down   through his thorax and into the last segments of his abdomen. The   grasshopper took hold of the hook with his front feet, spitting tobacco juice   on it. Nick dropped him into the water.     

Holding the rod in his right hand he let out line against the pull of the   grasshopper in the current. He stripped off line from the reel with his left hand   and let it run free. He could see the hopper in the little waves of the current. It   went out of sight.     

There was a tug on the line. Nick pulled against the taut line. It was his first   strike. Holding the now living rod across the current, he hauled in the line   with his left hand. The rod bent in jerks, the trout pulling against the   current. Nick knew it was a small one. He lifted the rod straight up in the air.   It bowed with the pull.     

He saw the trout in the water jerking with his head and body against the   shifting tangent of the line in the stream.     

Nick took the line in his left hand and pulled the trout, thumping tiredly   against the current, to the surface. His back was mottled the clear, water-over-   gravel color, his side flashing in the sun. The rod under his right arm, Nick   stooped, dipping his right hand into the current. He held the trout, never still,   with his moist right hand, while he unhooked the barb from his mouth, then   dropped him back into the stream.     

He hung unsteadily in the current, then settled to the bottom beside a stone.   Nick reached down his hand to touch him, his arm to the elbow under water.   The trout was steady in the moving stream resting on the gravel, beside a   stone. As Nick's fingers touched him, touched his smooth, cool, underwater   feeling, he was gone, gone in a shadow across the bottom of the stream.     

He's all right, Nick thought. He was only tired.     

He had wet his hand before he touched the trout, so he would not disturb the   delicate mucus that covered him.  If a trout was touched with a dry hand, a white fungus attacked the unprotected spot. Years before when he had fished crowded streams, with fly fishermen ahead of him and behind  him, Nick had again and again come on dead trout furry with white fungus, drilled against a rock, or floating belly up in some pool. Nick did not like to fish with other men on the river. Unless they were of your party, they spoiled it.     

He wallowed down the steam, above his knees in the current, through the fifty   yards of shallow water above the pile of logs that crossed the stream. He did   not rebait his hook and held it in his hand as he waded. He was certain he   could catch small trout in the shallows, but he did not want them. There   would be no big trout in the shallows this time of day.     

Now the water deepened up his thighs sharply and coldly. Ahead was the   smooth dammed-back flood of water above the logs. The water was smooth   and dark; on the left, the lower edge of the meadow; on the right the swamp.      Nick leaned back against the current and took a hopper from the bottle. He   threaded the hopper on the hook and spat on him for good luck. Then he   pulled several yards of line from the reel and tossed the hopper out ahead   onto the fast, dark water. It floated down towards the logs, then the weight of   the line pulled the bait under the surface Nick held the rod in his right hand,   letting the line run out through his fingers.     

There was a long tug. Nick struck and the rod came alive and dangerous,   bent double, the line tightening, coming out of water, tightening, all in a   heavy, dangerous, steady pull. Nick felt the moment when the leader would   break if the strain increased and let the line go.     

The reel ratcheted into a mechanical shriek as the line went out in a rush. Too   fast. Nick could not check it, the line rushing out, the reel note rising as the line ran out.      With the core of the reel showing, his heart feeling stopped with the   excitement, leaning back against the current that mounted icily his thighs,   Nick thumbed the reel hard with his left hand. It was awkward getting his   thumb inside the fly reel frame.     

As he put on pressure the line tightened into sudden hardness and beyond the   logs a huge trout went high out of water. As he jumped, Nick lowered the tip   of the rod. But he felt, as he dropped the tip to ease the strain, the moment when the strain was too great; the hardness too tight. Of course, the leader had broken. There was no mistaking the feeling when all spring left the line and it became dry and hard. Then it went slack.

His mouth dry, his heart down, Nick reeled in. He had never seen so big a trout.  There was a heaviness, a power not to be held, and then the bulk of him, as he jumped. He looked as broad as a salmon.

Nick's hand was shaky. He reeled in slowly. The thrill had been too muchl. He felt, vaguely, a little sick, as though it would be better to sit down. 

The leader had broken where the hook was tied to it. Nick took it in his hand. He thought of the trout somewhere on the bottom, holding himself steadyover the gravel, far down below the light, under the logs, with the hook in his   jaw. Nick knew the trout's teeth would cut through the snell of the hook. The   hook would imbed itself in his jaw. He'd bet the trout was angry. Anything   that size would be angry. That was a trout. He had been solidly hooked. Solid   as a rock. He felt like a rock, too, before he started off. By God, he was a big one. By God, he was the biggest one I ever heard of.     

Nick climbed out onto the meadow and stood, water running down his   trousers and out of his shoes, his shoes squlchy. He went over and sat on the   logs. He did not want to rush his sensations any.     

He wriggled his toes in the water, in his shoes, and got out a cigarette from   his breast pocket. He lit it and tossed the match into the I:ast water below the   logs. A tiny trout rose at the match, as it swung around in the fast current.   Nick laughed. He would finish the cigarette.     

He sat on the logs, smoking, drying in the sun, the sun warm on his back,   the river shallow ahead entering the woods, curving into the woods, shallows,   light glittering, big water-smooth rocks, cedars along the bank and white   birches, the logs warm in the sun, smooth to sit on, without bark, gray to the   touch; slowly the feeling of disappointment left him. It went away slowly, the   feeling of disappointment that came sharply after the thrill that made his   shoulders Iche. It was all right now. His rod lying out on the logs, Nick  tied a new hook on the leader, pulling the gut tight until it crimped into itself  in a hard knot.     

He baited up, then picked up the rod and walked to the tar end of the logs to   get into the water, where it was not too deep. Under and beyond the logs was   a deep pool. Nick walked around the shallow shelf near the swamp shore until   he came out on the shallow bed of the stream.     

On the left, where the meadow ended and the woods began, a great elm tree   was uprooted. Gone over in a storm, it lay back into the woods, its roots   clotted with dirt, grass growing in them, rising a solid bank beside the stream.   The river cut to the edge of the uprooted tree. From where Nick stood he   could see deep channels like ruts, cut in the shallow bed of the stream by the   flow of the current. Pebbly where he stood and pebbly and full of boulders   beyond; where it curved near the tree roots, the bed of the stream was marry   and between the ruts of deep water green weed fronds swung in the current.     

Nick swung the rod back over his shoulder and forward, and the line, curving   forward, laid the grasshopper down on one of the deep channels in the weeds.   A trout struck and Nick hooked him     

Holding the rod far out toward the uprooted tree and sloshing backward in the   current, Nick worked the trout, plunging, the rod bending alive, out of the   danger of the weeds into the open river. Holding the rod, pumping alive   against the current, Nick brought the trout in. He rushed, but always came,   the spring of the rod yielding to the rushes, sometimes jerking under water,   but always bringing him in. Nick eased downstream with the rushes. The rod   above his head he led the trout over the net, then lifted.     

The trout hung heavy in the net, mottled trout back and silver sides in the   meshes. Nick unhooked him; heavy sides, good to hold, big undershot jaw   and slipped him, heaving and big sliding, into the long sack that hung from his   shoulders in the water.     

Nick spread the mouth of the sack against the current and it filled, heavy with   water. He held it up, the bottom in the stream, and the water poured out   through the sides. Inside at the bottom was the big trout, alive in the water.     

Nick moved downstream. The sack out ahead of him sunk heavy in the water,   pulling from his shoulders.     

It was getting hot, the sun hot on the back of his neck.     

Nick had one good trout. He did not care about getting many trout. Now the   stream was shallow  and wide. There were trees along both banks. The trees of the left bank made short shadows on the current in the forenoon sun. Nick knew there were trout in each   shadow. In the afternoon, after the sun had crossed toward the hills the trout   would be in the cool shadows on the other side of the stream.     

The very biggest ones would lie up close to the bank. You could always pick   them up there on the Black. When the sun was down they all moved out into   the current. Just when the sun made the water blinding in the glare before it   went clown, you were liable to strike a big trout anywhere in the current. It   was ahllost impossible to fish then, the surface of the water was blinding as a   mirror in the sun. Of course, you could fish upstream, but in a stream like the   Black, or this, you had to wallow against the current and in a deep place, the   water piled up on you. It was no fun to fish upstream Fitly this much current.     

Nick moved along through the shallow stretch watching the balks for deep   holes. A beech tree grew close beside the river, so that the branches hung   down into the water. The stream went back in under the leaves. There were   always trout in a place like that.     

Nick did not care about fishing that hole. He was sure he would get hooked in   the branches.     

It looked deep though. He dropped the grasshopper so the current took it   under water, back in under the overhanging branch. The line pulled hard and   Nick struck. The trout threshed heavily,  half out of water in the leaves and   branches. The line was caught. Nick pulled hard and the trout was off. He   reeled in and holding the hook in his hand walked down the stream.     

Ahead, close to the left bank, was a big log. Nick saw it was hollow, pointing   up river the current entered it smoothly, only a little ripple spread each side of   the log. The water was deepening. The top of the hollow log was gray and   dry. It was partly in the shadow.     

Nick took the cork out of the grasshopper bottle and a hopper clung to it. He   picked him off, hooked him and tossed him out. He held the rod far out so   that the hopper on the water moved into the current flowing into the hollow   log. Nick lowered the rod and the hopper floated in. There was a heavy   strike. Nick swung the rod against the pull. It felt as though he were hooked   into the log itself, except for the live feeling.      He tried to force the fish out into the current. It came, heavily.     

The line went slack and Nick thought the trout was gone. Then he saw him,   very near, in the current, shaking his head, trying to get the hook out. His   mouth was clamped shut. He was fighting the hook in the clear flowing   current.      Looping in the line with his left hand, Nick swung the rod to make the line   taut and tried to lead the trout toward the net, but he was gone, out of sight,   the line pumping. Nick fought him against the current, letting him thump in   the water against the spring of the rod. He shilted the rod to his left hand,   worked the trout upstream, holding his weight, fighting on the rod, and then   let him down into the net. He lifted him clear of the water, a heavy half circle   in the net, the net dripping, unhooked him and slid him into the sack.     

He spread the mouth of the sack and looked down in at the two big trout alive   in the water.     

Through the deepening water, Nick waded over to the hollow Iog. He took   the sack off, over his head, the trout flopping as it came out of water, and   hung it so the trout were deep in the water Then he pulled himself up on the log and sat, the water from his trouser and boots   running down into the stream. He laid his rod down moved along to the   shady end of the log and took the sandwiches out of his pocket. He dipped   the sandwiches in the cold water. The current carried away the crumbs. He   ate the sandwiches and dipped his hat full of water to drink, the water running   out through his hat just ahead of his drinking.     

It was cool in the shade, sitting on the log. He took a cigarette out and struck   a match to light it. The match sunk into the gray wood, making a tiny furrow.   Nick leaned over the side of the log, found a hard place and lit the match. He   sat smoking and watching the river.     

Ahead the river narrowed and went into a swamp. The river became smooth   and deep and the swamp looked solid with cedar trees, their trunks close together, their   branches solid.  It would not be possible to walk through a swamp like that.   The branches grew so low. You would have to keep almost level with the   ground to move at all. You could not crash through the branches. That must   be why the animals that lived in swamps were built the way they were, Nick thought.     

He wished he had brought something to read. He felt like reading. He did not   feel like going on into the swamp. He looked down the river. A big cedar   slanted all the way across the stream. Beyond that the river went into the   swamp.     

Nick did not want to go in there now. He felt a reaction against deep wading   with the water deepening up under his armpits, to hook big trout in  places impossible to land   them. In the swamp the banks were bare, the big cedars came together   overhead, the sun did not come through, except in patches; in the fast deep   water, in the half light, the fishing would be tragic. In the swamp fishing was   a tragic adventure. Nick did not want it. He didn't want to go up the stream any   further today.     

He took out his knife, opened it and stuck it in the log. Then he pulled up the   sack, reached into it and brought out one of the trout. Holding him near the   tail, hard to hold, alive, in his hand, he whacked him against the log. The trout   quivered, rigid. Nick laid him on the log in the shade and broke the neclc of   the other fish the same way. He laid them side by side on the log. They were   fine trout.     

Nick cleaned them, slitting them from the vent to the tip of the jaw. All the   insides and the gills and tongue came out in one piece They were both males;   long gray-white strips of milt, smooth and clean. All the insides clean and   compact, coming out all together. Nick took the offal ashore for the minks to   find     

He washed the trout in the stream. When he held them back up in the water, they looked like live fish.  Their color was not goneyet.  He washed his hands and dried them on the log.  Then he laid the trout on the sack spread out on the log, rolled them up in it, tied the bundle and put it in the landing net.  His knife was still standing, blade studk in the log.  He cleaned it on the wood and put it in his pocket.

Nick stood up on the log, holding his rod, the landing net hanging heavy, then stepped into the water and splashed ashore.  He climbed the bank and cut up into the woods, toward the high ground.  He was going back to camp.  He looked back.  The river just showed through the trees.  There were plenty of days coming when he could fish the swamp.