It was ten days after he got there that I saw him first, and I'll be darned if he was any human sachet, even then. But after hearing his story I knew that time would once more make him fit for human association. He told me his story with much feeling this time and he told it to me about once a week for three months after he got here--pieces of it at a time. It used to cheer me a lot. He was always remembering something new. He said he liked the great silence and peace of this spot. You couldn't tell him to this day that his belief about the savage hill tribes ain't sound. He believes anything "can happen" in that country down there. Doctor Hong Foy never paid him the twenty-five, of course, though admitting that he would of done so if the animal had not escaped, because he was in such good condition, for a skunk, that he was worth twenty-five dollars of any doctor's money. I don't know. As I say, they're friendly little critters; but it's more money that I would actually pay for one. Through two closed doors the whine of the fiddle still penetrated. Perhaps Lew Wee's recent loss had moved him to play later than was his custom, pondering upon the curious whims that stir the gods when they start to make things happen. But he was still no cynic. Over and over he played the little air which means: "Life comes like a bird-song through the open windows of the heart." IX THE TAKER-UP On a tired evening, in front of the Arrowhead's open fire, I lived over for the hundredth time a great moment. From the big pool under the falls four miles up the creek I had landed the Big Trout. Others had failed in years past; I, too, had failed more than once. But to-day! At the hour of 9:46 A.M., to be exact, as one should in these matters, I had cast three times above the known lair of this fish. Then I cast a fourth time, more from habit than hope; and the fight was on. I put it here with the grim brevity of a communique. Despite stout resistance, the objective was gained at 9:55 A.M. And the Big Trout would weigh a good two and one half--say three or three and one quarter--pounds. These are the bare facts. Verily it was a moment to live over; and to myself now I was more discursive. I vanquished the giant trout again and again, altering details of the contest at will--as when I waded into icy water to the waist in a last moment of panic. My calm review disclosed that this had been fanciful overcaution; but at the great crisis and for three minutes afterward I had gloried in the wetting. Now again I three times idly flicked that corner of the pool with a synthetic moth. Again for the fourth time I cast, more from habit than hope. Then ensued that terrific rush from the pool's lucent depths--