His departure was a serious loss to me. Among his other accomplishments, Mattie was the best salmon fisher I have ever known. His eyes were like a hawk's, and he could distinguish salmon in the water which were quite invisible to me. When he cast, the wind ceased to blow. From whatever quarter it came, it seemed to have no effect on his long straight line or on his perfectly placed fly. Sometimes when I had failed to get a fish up, he would take my rod and, without moving, he would raise three salmon not allowing them to touch the fly. He would then hand the rod back and say, "Dere, I show you three fish, you ought to get one." Once, when I was casting over a still, glassy pool at noonday when not a fish would look at a fly, Mattie stepped from rock to rock with his gaff in his hand. Balancing himself on a small rock well out in the pool he regarded the water intently, then, with a movement almost too swift to be followed by the eye, he plunged his gaff into the water and tossed a fifteen-pound salmon at my feet, observing, "Dere's more ways dan one to kill a salmon."