In particular, the title novella recalls the experiences of a young man in frontier Montana: of his minister father, who taught his sons the ways of grace and fly fishing; of his brother, an artist at trout fishing but less than successful at life; and the swift, cold rivers that ran from the heart of the mountains into the still-mysterious heart of man.

(Key Words: Fiction, Montana, Norman Maclean, American Frontier, Fly Fishing, Memoirs, University of Chicago, Family, Personal Narrative, Short Stories).