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John. He moved his tip toward my bank and cautiously checked the line. The current swung the trout toward me and it passed over my net. I raised the rim quietly and slowly and the next instant the trout was doubled up in my deep-bellied net and I was holding the top shut with both hands while the fish, galvanized into a furious flurry, splashed water in my face as I strove to get my feet under me. John picked his way slowly down the still water, reeling up as he came, stumbling and slipping on the stones like an utterly weary man. I killed the trout with my pliers and laid it on the grass as he came up beside me and stood watching it with bent head and sagging shoulders for a long while. "To die like that!" he said, as if thinking aloud. "Murdered – nagged to death; he never knew he was fighting for his life until he was in the net. He had strength and courage enough to beat the pair of us, but we robbed him a little at a time until we got him where we wanted him. And then knocked him on the head. I wish you had let him go." The twilight fishing, our favorite time, was upon us, but he started for the car and I did not demur. We began to take off our wet shoes and waders. "That's just what this depression is doing to me!" John burst out suddenly as he struggled with a shoelace. "Niggling me to death! And I'm up here fishing, taking two days off in the middle of the week, instead of doing something about it. "Come on; hurry up. I'm going to catch the midnight to Pittsburgh; I know where I can get a contract." And sure enough, he did. Note: Alfred W. Miller took up the non de plume Sparse Grey Hackle during the 1930s and '40s when he was writing articles and columns about fishing on his beloved Catskill streams. "Murder" was among a collection of his most popular stories in Fishless Days, Angling Nights, first published in 1971 by Crown Publishers in New York. Fishing Days, Angling Nights was recently reprinted by Skyhorse Publishing. The hardcover book retails for $29.95. "Murder" is reproduced by permission of Skyhorse Publishing Inc. and is © 1971, 2011, The Estate of Alfred W. Miller. SPO R TIN G CL ASSICS 135