The raid which Larkins’s dog made upon our camp was amusing rather than annoying.  He was a very friendly and intelligent shepherd dog, probably a collie.  Hardly had we sat down to our first lunch in camp before he called on us.  But as he was disposed to be too friendly, and to claim too large a share of the lunch, we rather gave him the cold shoulder.  He did not come again; but a few evenings afterward, as we sauntered over to the house on some trifling errand, the dog suddenly conceived a bright little project.  He seemed to say to himself, on seeing us, “There come both of them now, just as I have been hoping they would; now, while they are away, I will run quickly over and know what they have got that a dog can eat.”  My companion saw the dog get up on our arrival, and go quickly in the direction of our camp, and he said something in the cur’s manner suggested to him the object of his hurried departure.  He called my attention to the fact, and we hastened back.  On cautiously nearing camp, the dog was seen amid the pails in the shallow water of the creek investigating them.  He had uncovered the butter, and was about to taste it, when we shouted, and he made quick steps for home, with a very “kill-sheep” look.  When we again met him at the house next day, he could not look us in the face, but sneaked off, utterly crest-fallen.  This was a clear case of reasoning on the part of the dog, and afterward a clear case of a sense of guilt from wrong-doing.  The dog will probably be a man before any other animal.

VII

SPECKLED TROUT

I

The legend of the wary trout, hinted at in the last sketch, is to be further illustrated in this and some following chapters.  We shall get at more of the meaning of those dark water-lines, and I hope, also, not entirely miss the significance of the gold and silver spots and the glancing iridescent hues.  The trout is dark and obscure above, but behind this foil there are wondrous tints that reward the believing eye.  Those who seek him in his wild remote haunts are quite sure to get the full force of the sombre and uninviting aspects,—­the wet, the cold, the toil, the broken rest, and the huge, savage, uncompromising nature,—­but the true angler sees farther than these, and is never thwarted of his legitimate reward by them.

I have been a seeker of trout from my boyhood, and on all the expeditions in which this fish has been the ostensible purpose I have brought home more game than my creel showed.  In fact, in my mature years I find I got more of nature into me, more of the woods, the wild, nearer to bird and beast, while threading my native streams for trout, than in almost any other way.  It furnished a good excuse to go forth; it pitched one in the right key; it sent one through the fat and marrowy places of field and wood.  Then the fisherman has a harmless, preoccupied look;