“Well, let us put in, then, boys,” responded Gaut Gurley. “I am as much for the go-ahead principle as the best of you. Let us try the motion, and _earn_ the good supper, whether we get it or not. But, to make the supper quite the thing for the occasion, it strikes me we ought to have something a little fresher than our salt junk.” “True, O King, and Great Mogul of the lubber-lifts,” rejoined the trapper; “thou talkest like one not altogether without knowledge of the good living of the woods. That something fresher we will have, if it be only a mess of fish, which I think I can take out of that stream in a short time after we get there.” “That could be done as we go along, if these lakes are as well stocked with large trout as they are reputed,” observed Carvil, in the calm, deliberate manner which characterized him on all occasions. “But we mustn’t stop for that,” said the trapper. “There is no need of stopping,” quietly replied the former. “That’s a queer idea,” said the trapper, evidently at fault. “How are we to put in and wait for bites, without stopping, I would like to know?” “Perhaps I may be able to demonstrate the matter, as we proceed on our way. At all events, since the question is raised, I will try,” replied Carvil, drawing from his pocket a roll of small silk cord, to which a fish-hook, without any sinker, was attached. “Can any of you handily get at your pork, so as to cut off and throw me a small bit? There, that will do,” he continued, taking the proffered bit of meat, and baiting his hook with it. “Now, the experiment I propose to try is what in my region we call ‘troulling,’ which consists of throwing out a baited hook and paying out, as the boat moves on, a hundred feet, or so, of line, that is left to trail, floating on the surface of the water behind; when most large fish, like bass, or trout, especially if you make a sharp tack, occasionally, so as to draw the line across an undisturbed portion of the water, will see, and, darting up, seize it, and hook themselves. And, if you have many large trout _here_, and they are any related to those I have found in the Great Maguntic, and other large bodies of fresh water, they will some of them stand a pretty good chance to be found adding to our supper to-night.” “Sorry to hear it,” said the trapper, “for I have always considered the trout a sensible fish, and I should be sorry to lose my respect for them. But, if they will do that, they are bigger fools than I took them to be. But you’ll find they just won’t.”