Inside at the bottom was the big trout, alive in the water.

Holding the rod, pumping alive against the current, Nick brought the trout in.

He spread the mouth of the sack and looked down in at the two big trout alive in the water.

Holding him near the tail, hard to hold, alive, in his hand, he whacked him against the log.

Nick struck and the rod came alive and dangerous, bent double, the line tightening, coming out of water, tightening, all in a heavy, dangerous, steady pull.

No, the fallow squares of earth will be most frequent⁠—they’ll be along beside the track like dirty coarse brown sheets drying in the sun, alive, mechanical, abominable.

Then it was sweet fern, growing ankle high, to walk through, and clumps of jack pines; a long undulating country with frequent rises and descents, sandy underfoot and the country alive again.

Holding the rod far out toward the uprooted tree and sloshing backward in the current, Nick worked the trout, plunging, the rod bending alive, out of the danger of the weeds into the open river.