“It’s the back-snap that does it, Rod,” he explained. “Don’t swing your whole arm so hard; use your wrist more. If you can get a good sharp back-snap and time the forward movement of your hand properly, you’ll catch on pup-pretty soon. You don’t want to cast out as hard as you bring the line back, for if you do you’ll snap the fly like a crack of a whip, and you may even snap it off. Watch me now.” Rodney watched and saw his companion send the fly soaring far out on the water with a double movement of the wrist, sharp and then gentle, and scarcely any movement whatever of the shoulder. “It sure looks right simple,” confessed the Texan. “I can do it fairly well with a short bit of line, but I get plenty balled up when I try to let it out and make a longer cast.” Phil reeled in and gave a demonstration of the proper manner to whip a line out by repeated casts, drawing off more and more from the reel with the left hand and holding the slack until the proper moment to let it run. Indeed, as Grant had said, it seemed an extremely simple thing to do, and Rodney, being an apt pupil, soon began to get the knack of it, and was not discouraged, although he repeatedly made a failure right on the heels of a very praiseworthy effort. “You’re getting it all right,” encouraged Springer. “You’re doing sus-splendidly.” “There I go into a bush,” said Rod, as his fly caught in some shrubbery at a distance behind him. “Never mind that. You’ll need pup-plenty of room at first, and you’ll keep forgetting every little while to make your back cast good and sharp and your forward cast easy. The two movements must be tut-timed just right, too.” “It must be right good sport when there are fish to catch, but we don’t seem to get any bites.” “There are fuf-fish enough in the lake,” declared Phil. “Wait till we find them. It’s only the real true fisherman who has plenty of pup-patience and perseverance; the ordinary fellow gets tired and quits after a short time. He seems to think he ought to find fuf-fish anywhere and everywhere. Perhaps the flies we have on are not right, and we’ll try some others as we mum-move along.” In the east the pearly gray light was taking on the tint of pink coral, and gradually this deepened, until it displayed the tone of a red-cheeked apple dangling from an orchard branch in autumn. Presently the white cross marking the cliff called “Lovers’ Leap” at the further side of the lake gleamed out golden bright, like the spire of a church. The morning air was clear and sweet with the faint odors of the woods, and it seemed to effect the boys like wine, filling their bodies with vibrating energy and tingling enthusiasm. [Illustration: THERE WAS A SWIRL, A SNAP AT THE LINE, A SHARP BENDING OF THE ROD—THE FISH WAS HOOKED. —Page 63. ]