I had as my immediate companion an enthusiastic angler in all waters, but who had not as yet had the good fortune to take a salmon. The flood had somewhat receded; but it was still necessary to place our canoes in the eddies, and cast crosswise into the edges of the current. I had landed a fish of moderate size, and was watching my friend trying his 'prentice hand, at salmon casting, occasionally directing him by my fancied superior knowledge of the art, when a very large fish rose to his fly, and he struck him with a suddenness and force which was certainly complimentary to his muscle if not so illustrative of his skill. For it is always dangerous to strike too hard. It does not require a great pressure to force the barb home, while a heavy strike or a too sudden twitch is apt either to break something or tear the hook from the fish's jaw. In this case the hook held. For a moment fish and fisher seemed alike astonished, and neither stirred; but it was only for a moment. Directly away flew the fish--the line spinning from the reel as if harnessed to a locomotive. Fortunately the eddy, which made out from the point of an island, extended some quarter of a mile, and before it was passed over, the Judge began to appreciate the situation, the magnitude of the work in hand, and the difficulties he was likely to encounter before he could call the fish his own. He held him with a steady hand. He answered every call for line with a promptness and caution which indicated great tact, and he lost no opportunity to reel in when practicable. For a time it seemed probable that he would kill his fish without being carried into the central current. But no such luck awaited him; for after two hours of patient waiting and working--of rushing, and leaping, and sulking--the frenzied fish made for the centre of the river with such impetuosity that it would have been as easy to stop the flow of the river itself as to check him in his mad career. Where he led the canoe was obliged to follow; and follow it did for more than two miles, with occasional respites at available eddies, and occasional dashes up stream, putting the canoe men to their best trumps to prevent the reel from becoming exhausted by these upward flights.