Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

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Young Knights of the Empire

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and sat down to wait for the birds to drift to us. Slowly they came nearer and nearer, but it was very slow work. It became slower and slower as the breeze dropped and at last died away when they were not twenty yards away. [Illustration: "FISHING" FOR DUCK.] Then George--again as a good scout would--invented a plan. He took my rod and began to fly-fish for the ducks! That is, he threw the line over a duck, and then gently drew it in so that the hook caught in the bird's feathers. In this way he "caught" both of them in turn and dragged them ashore. From the open high ground we gradually descended to lower heights. First we came among scattered birch trees, and below these we entered pine and fir woods, and through them we came steadily down to the level of the valley in which lay the great lake. Just before getting to the valley we dipped once more into our gorge where it finally left the mountains, and it was a grand sight. The cliffs rose sheer up a hundred feet on either side, even overhanging in some places, and the opening between the cliffs was quite narrow, where the stream in a dense body of water rushed its way through in a roaring cascade. It was a magnificent scene. Just below the cascade the gorge opened out, and the stream spread itself over a shallow, stony bed, in many courses, till it joined the main river in the valley. George and I clambered down the last cliff, and close to the cascade I made the fire while he went and caught a couple of trout for lunch (we were going to keep those duck for supper at the saeter), and we were very glad of the lunch and a rest. Then we turned for home by a new road, walking round the foot of the mountain over whose back we had come. But we turned for home in another sense, for that was the turning point of my trip in Norway; I had to go back home to England from there. On our way back we passed great swamps where there were duck, but we had had enough of them to last us for the present. In one part of the swamp we came upon the spoor of elk. The elk, you know, is a great big stag--the same as a moose in Canada; a very lanky animal, as big as a horse, with a very blobby nose, and heavy, flat-spread antlers. It was, of course, very good to learn that there really were elk in the neighbourhood, but it only made me the more unhappy at having to leave the country. George, who had no Boy Scouts demanding his presence, was going to stay on there, so everything that made me more sad made him all the happier--the unfeeling brute! Still, I can't complain. I think in the few weeks that I was in Norway I had had as good a time as anyone could possibly have. There is no better fun on earth than living in the open and catching and cooking your own grub, in doing mutual good turns with a good comrade in camp, and in recognising God's handiwork in the mountains and forests around you. * * * * * HOW TO FISH. George and I would have gone pretty hungry in our camp and on our tramps while in Norway had we not both been able to catch fish, for there was little else in the woods to eat besides blue-berries (we were now too high up for the wild raspberries which are so good in the valleys). Every Scout must know how to fish, otherwise he would feel so silly if he died of starvation alongside a stream full of trout. And fishing--like shooting, or cooking, or swimming, or anything else--is not a thing that you can do straight off without having practised it beforehand; so my advice to Tenderfoots is to take every chance of learning how to fish, so that they may be able to do it when they may be in need of fish for food. Sea fishing, as you know, is generally done with a long line from a boat, with a good lump of lead on the end of the line, and a number of hooks every foot or so up it, baited with strips of fish with the silvery skin left on them. Then in rivers and lakes you fish with rod and line, with a float to hold the bait at the right distance above the bottom. The hook is on a yard or so of gut line, which is invisible to the fish; this is weighted with split shot or small bits of lead, and the bait is usually a worm, or a grub, or a little bit of bread paste. This kind

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