// fpn source for With Rod and Line in Colorado Waters, by Lewis B. France
// last edit: 23-May-2014
.dt With Rod and Line in Colorado Waters, by Lewis B. France
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[Illustration]
WITH
ROD AND LINE
IN
COLORADO WATERS.
DENVER:
CHAIN, HARDY & CO.
BOOKSELLERS & PUBLISHERS.
1884.
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[Illustration: North-western Colorado.]
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WITH
ROD AND LINEINCOLORADO WATERS.
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“Wha ever heard o’ a gude angler being a bad or indifferent man?”
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—Noctes.
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DENVER
CHAIN, HARDY & CO.,
Booksellers and Publishers.
1884.
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Entered according to act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and
eighty-four, by
CHAIN, HARDY & CO.,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
DAVID ATWOOD,
PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER,
MADISON, WIS.
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CONTENTS.
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| PAGE.
Many Years Ago | #7#
Over the Range | #14#
Fisherman’s Luck | #22#
Agapae | #31#
Black Lake in 1878 | #38#
Egotism and—Rods | #51#
Troublesome | #57#
Meteorological | #64#
Mules | #71#
Music and Meteorology | #77#
Philosophy | #85#
An Idle Morning at Grand Lake | #93#
Camping with Ladies and—the Baby | #99#
Boys and Burros | #107#
He’s No Sardine | #124#
Under Difficulties | #131#
His Sermon | #141#
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“Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels
With the burs on his legs and the grass at his heels;
No Dodger behind, his bandannas to share;
No Constable grumbling: ‘You must n’t walk there!’”
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—Holmes.
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.pn 7
.h2 nobreak
MANY YEARS AGO.
.di i-009.jpg 100 116 1.3
Forty years ago—a big
slice off the long end of
one’s life! A broad river
with its low-lying south
shore heavily timbered
and rich in early summer
verdure; a long bridge
with a multitude of low
stone piers and trestle-work
at top; in midstream,
two miles away,
the black hull and tall
masts of a man-o’-war, lying idly; between and beyond,
the smooth bosom of the blue expanse dotted with fishing
sloops under weather-beaten wings, moving lazily
hither and yon; to the north, but invisible save a straggling
outer edge of tumble-down houses—a possibility
then—now, “they tell me,” a magnificent city; a decayed
wharf with no signs of life, and draped in tangled
sea-weed that came in with the last tide, the jagged and
blackened piles stand brooding over the solemn stillness
like melancholy sentinels sorrowing over a dead ambition.
The ripple of the waves is a melody and the air
is fragrant with a brackish sweetness.
.pn +1
It has been a bright day, and the afternoon shadows
are beginning to lengthen. They suggest to some another
day’s work nearly finished, another week drawing
to a close; Saturday night, home and rest. To others
they suggest—well, let that pass. To a little fellow,
barefoot, coatless and with a ragged straw hat, who
crawls out from one of the center piers of the old bridge,
these shadows of the closing May day are ominous, yet
his forebodings are not unmixed with the rose-hued
pleasure of a day well spent. He did think of that river
below him, twenty-five feet deep, but that was an attraction.
He did think of the very near future and—but
no matter; his thoughts were bright enough as he
hauled up after him a string of perch as long as his
precious body, and as a fit climax to his magnificent
catch, an eel at least two and a half feet long and thick
as his captor’s arm. What a struggle he had enjoyed
with that eel before he got it to the top of the pier. His
hand-line was a hopeless snarl; twice he had come
within a hair’s-breadth of going overboard, but the unfortunate
eel had succumbed to juvenile activity and
zeal. What ten-year-old could boast comparison, as
with the day’s trophies over his shoulder he plodded his
way home? He felt himself an object of interest and
envy to his fellows, and told with condescension, not
arrogance, his experience with that eel.
Success will often take an old boy, let alone a young
one, off his feet; it sometimes leads to indiscretion and
results in worse than failure, and again is the cornerstone
of a noble monument. That boy had fished
with success off that pier more than once, but had kept
his fishpole and had left the evidences of his disobedience
.pn +1
at a friendly neighbor’s. This day he marched
straight home, fishpole and all. The sable ruler of the
kitchen confirmed, upon sight, the lurking apprehension
that would not down in spite of triumph.
“Ah, honey! Whar’s you bin dis livelong day? Miss
Mary’s gwine to give it to you. We’s been ahuntin’ an’
trapsin’ all ober dis here town, an’ yo’ pa—he was jes’
gwine——.”
But the “ambiguous givings out” of the sable goddess
were cut short by the appearance of Miss Mary in
person. She was a stately dame in those days, with a
wealth of dark hair and with brown eyes that had in
them, ah, such a world of love for that barefoot, white-haired
urchin. And she had, too, a quiet way of talking
that went right into the little fellow’s ears and down
about his heart and lingered there. No need to ask
him where he had been; she only looked at him and the
fish, a serious, yet a loving look withal, took his hand
and led him in to the head of the family. Court was at
once convened.
“What shall we do with this boy?”
He to whom this inquiry was addressed took in the
situation at a glance. The glance was a dark one, but
it quickly showed the silver lining.
“Wash him, and give him some clean clothes.”
“But,” she remonstrated, “this will never do; he will
be drowned some day. How often must I forbid you
going near the river?”
“I dun’no, mother.”
“What is that round your leg?”
“An eel skin.”
“Why did you tie it there?”
.pn +1
“To keep off cramp.”
“Keep off cramp! What does the boy mean?” There
was a look of wonderment in the brown eyes, and of
merriment in the grey. The colored member of the
court volunteered an explanation, and wound up with
the prophecy:
“Dat chile’ll neber be drownded, Miss Mary; I tell
you so long as he wear dat eel skin he’ll nebber hab de
cramp, an’ he kin swim; you ha’ar me, Miss Mary.
Why, bless yo’ stars, honey, dat chile done swim dat
ribber las’ Saturday, he did; I heerd ’em tellin’ it.”
“Heard who telling it?” broke in the president.
“Why, de chillun, ob cose. Dat Buckingham boy
he bantered the chile an’ took his close ober in de skiff,
and Mar’s Lou, he done follered, he did, an’ dat ribber
a mile wide.”
The animated and confident manner of Jane did not
lessen the anxious, even horrified, expression in the
brown eyes, but the grey were a study as the owner
drew the abashed urchin to him, with the inquiry:
“Is it true, my boy?”
“Yes, father.”
“Go bring me your fishing tackle.”
It was a sorry looking outfit—a fraction of a cane
pole, about ten feet of a common line, and an indifferent
hook looped on the end. The hand line was of
better material, but a wreck—a very Gordian knot.
They were dubiously but promptly passed over for inspection.
“Throw these into the stove—and, Jane, you make
kindling wood of this pole.”
“Oh, father!” The boy’s lips quivered, the eyes
.pn +1
filled, but the owner of the grey eyes gently held back
the appealing hand that would have rescued the precious
treasures.
“Hold on, my boy; do not misunderstand; papa will
trust you; you shall have the best tackle in town.”
“Why do you deal with the boy in this way?” remonstrated
the mother.
“Why? Because I myself was a boy once, and I
don’t want to forget it.”
The grey eyes were the first to close—it is many a
long year since—and the old boy’s fill a little now, as
he reverently thinks of that day.
But the boy drifted with the tide, over the Blue
Ridge and the Alleghenies, and twenty odd years ago
he anchored in the wilderness, where Denver now
stands, to surprise you folks from down East.
Do we have fishing in the Rocky Mountains? Aye,
that we do, and right royal sport it is.
One day, nineteen years ago this summer, a neighbor
came into my cabin and wanted to know of a young
married woman there if she could not spare her Benedict
for, say three days. He was fish hungry, this
neighbor; was going off into the mountains, and
wanted company. Of course she could; was glad to be
rid of him. And so early next morning old Charlie
was hitched to the buckboard. At five o’clock that
same day there was a tent pitched in a little valley upon
Bear creek, thirty-five miles from home, with two pairs
of blankets, a coffee pot, two tin cups and a frying pan;
not a soul or a habitation within twenty miles of us; a
beautiful mountain stream, clear as crystal, cold as ice,
and teeming with trout. What would you have,
.pn +1
money? Why, bless your soul, money was at a discount;
there were acres of it a little way off, only for
the digging.
In those days fishing tackle was scarce, and a plum-bush
pole and linen line were the best in the land.
Flies were a novelty to me, but my friend had a
dozen or so, some that he had saved over from more
civilized times, and that had got out here by mistake.
He divided with me, told me to fasten one upon the
end of my line and “skitter it over the water.” This
was my first and only instruction in trout fishing.
“Skittering” was as novel to me as the fish, but my
Professor was a Cambridge man with glasses, and I did
not want him to feel that my education had been entirely
neglected. I took my pole and instruction in
silence, and walked a quarter of a mile up the creek.
Pure instinct? Yes, I walked up stream for the single
purpose of fishing down; it came just as naturally as
swimming in deep water. I found a place clear of bushes
for a few rods, where the current swept directly into my
shore and out again, forming an eddy. I thought it a
“likely place.” I gave that plum sapling a swing and
landed the fly, in which I had no confidence whatever,
just at the edge of the swirl. It had no sooner touched
the water than I saw a salmon-colored mouth, felt a tug,
and the following second my first trout was flying over
my head. I deliberately put down that pole and walked
out to investigate. There was no doubt about it; there
he lay, kicking and gasping his life out on the green
grass, his bright colors more beautiful by the contrast.
He was near a foot long, and I put my hand upon him as
gently as though he had been an immortal first born. It
.pn +1
was not a dream. When he was dead I strung him upon
a forked stick, went back to the eddy and caught three
others, and wondered if all the trout in that stream were
twins. I had already become gentler, too, even with the
unwieldy plum sapling. I found their mouths were
not made of cast iron nor copper lined. By the time I
had fished down to camp, and with my ten trout, I felt
equal to the business of the morrow. My friend, of
course, had better luck, having passed his novitiate, but
he complimented me in saying that I “took to it naturally.”
Camping out was no novelty, but fresh trout was a
revelation, and that night we had no bad dreams under
our canvas. The next evening found us preparing
nearly, what a Yankee would call, two patent pails, of
trout to take home to our friends and neighbors.
And here I am moved to say that ours is a noble fellowship;
it is a gentle craft we cultivate, one that should
beget brotherly love and all things charitable; and if
any of you have, as I hope you have, a little white-haired
tot who seems inclined to follow you down stream upon
summer days, do not say nay, but let your prayer be:
“Lord, keep my memory green.”
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.pn +1
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.h2
OVER THE RANGE.
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Of course it is never agreeable to
go camping; it is not convenient
to carry about with one
bedsteads, chairs, bureaus, wash-stands,
bath-tubs, and such like
plunder deemed essential to comfort.
And then again it is not
comfortable to live out doors like a tramp. It is either
too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet,—that is for a
certain large class of human beings. They wonder
why one will forego the comforts of our civilized ways
for those of the Ute. But perhaps we may get to the
solution of the problem further on.
It was dusty when our party left Idaho for a fifty-mile
drive to Hot Sulphur Springs. Of course it was
dusty; the dust was in the road, in our eyes and mouths,
throats and lungs, just for our discomfort, and the toll-road
companies were never known to keep sprinklers.
So we traveled in a cloud for half an hour, then it began
to rain. Of course it did; the first rain-storm for
three weeks; we got damp, then we forgot the dust, and
were doggedly satisfied that if pleasure had not been
one of our objects in going camping it would not have
rained. We got to Empire; it rained till dark, and
.pn +1
everybody said the rainy season had begun in earnest;
that it was liable to keep on raining for three weeks to
get even with the “dry spell,” and we went to bed feeling
very much encouraged. There is an exasperating
sententiousness about the mountain weather prophet
that prevails nowhere else on the globe, I verily believe;
when he tells you what the weather is, or is going to
be, you must believe him. You dare not even express
a hope that he may be mistaken. But even this gentry,
one soon begins to believe, is essential to comfort; the
weather prophet is the means of agreeable disappointment.
Our weather prophet was the most entertaining
old liar that ever contributed to the misery of a tenderfoot
or the mortification of a moss-back. The sun
never broke over the eastern hills more gloriously than
on the eventful next morning; he seemed to come up
in a spirit of exultation, as if aware that the prophet
at Empire had been maligning him. But the prophet
was not overcome; far from it; the appearance of the
sun was a “weather breeder,” and the cheerful old atmospheric
vaticinator swore that before we could reach
the summit of the range it would and must rain, and
snow and hail and freeze and thaw and blow and
the ——. We bade him good morning sadly, and took
the road with a determination to wrest comfort, if
necessary, from the worst “spell of weather” the range
could boast.
The rain of the day before was the first element to
lend its influence to the day’s enjoyment; it had sweetened
the air, if Colorado mountain air is ever otherwise;
it had laid the dust, and the road was a marvel of excellence—for
a toll road; it had sharpened the fragrance
.pn +1
of the pines, and the wild flowers, lacking in perfume,
made amends by such a wealth of beauty that one
became lost in the multitude of bright colors.
We were a happy party that rode up through the
Devil’s Gate to encounter punishment. Leaving the
magnificent mass of granite cliffs reaching a thousand
feet high, and wondering if he who should follow next
would experience the same degree of veneration for the
mighty pile, we began the ascent of Berthoud Pass.
We did not climb; there is no climbing to be done,
except one escapes over a precipice, and has an ambition
to get back. Strolling leisurely along, the white-capped
range would, from time to time, reveal itself
through the green of the pines, while to the left of us
plunged down from the snowy heights the beautiful
mountain stream, here not degraded and a satire on its
name. Its banks are fringed with rich-colored mosses
and decked with flowers, and the beautiful firs, waved
by the gentle breeze, seem to be bowing an accompaniment
to the music of the crystal waters at their feet.
As we go on, the sharp ridge of Red Mountain comes
into view, guarded on the east by a monster hill, which
none of our ingenious explorers, so generous in giving
names, have condescended to dignify with a title. Its
broad base washed by the rushing torrent, its sides
clothed in a mantle of living green away up to the
sharp line which marks the limit of the timber growth,
and yet on and up the eye glances over the granite,
with its azure background, until the vast pile is diademed
with a fleecy cloud. It is a noble mountain, and
involuntarily I took off my hat to it, wondering if the
civil engineers, explorers, and the like, had really the
.pn +1
monopoly of the love and veneration for the beautiful.
Red Mountain! a carmine-colored excrescence dignified
with a name, and this overtopping evidence of God’s
handiwork, like a giant overlooking a pigmy, without
anything to distinguish it from its surroundings, except
its own magnificence. Well, that is enough.
But at this rate we will never get into that “infernal
spell of weather” we are seeking. Up the gorge on
the right, toward the summit, an ominous cloud begins
to creep upon the blue, and we begin to think the prophet
will, after all, command respect, but are doomed
to disappointment. As the black mass rises over the
summit we notice a rift in its center, soon it widens,
goes to the right and left, the blue expands, and we are
not deprived of a minute’s sunshine. We look down
into the gorge and see the beautiful stream dancing
through the firs, so far below its breadth is shrunk to a
hand-span, looking now like an emerald ribbon flecked
with white, and its rude noise dies into a gentle murmur
as a turn in the road shuts it out from sight. On
and up; disappointed about the storm nearing the
summit, reaching out for the snow and the Alpine primrose,
gorgeous in crimson and royal purple; finding
the flowers, but the snow, alas that has been gone this
three weeks, except a dirt-begrimed bushel or so a few
rods from the station.
It is high noon, and, for the first time, I stand upon
the “backbone of the continent,” and a good deal of a
backbone it is, here only eleven thousand four hundred
and odd feet high. There must have been trouble in
the neighborhood when the continent got its back up
to this extent; the agitation experienced in the framing
.pn +1
and signing of the Declaration of Independence was
evidently trifling in comparison. I did not look down
into the Pacific, but saw where the waters start that go
that way. Never having seen any of them before, I
took a mouthful, and from my recollection of those on
the Atlantic side I thought I detected a resemblance.
The mercury stood at 55° and we had lunch, taken with a
healthy appetite sharpened by a three miles walk in the
pure light air. Among the grand mountains of the
snowy range to the north, I thought I recognized at
least one familiar peak, but there was considerable difference
of opinion in the party, including Gaskill, the
only resident on the summit. This lack of absolute
certainty struck me as a little extraordinary, because
everybody is usually filled with correct information, and
a mountaineer by instinct; I sighed for a tenderfoot.
Lunch concluded, we continued on our way. About
three miles by the road, down the western slope, a
pretty mountain brook comes tumbling down from the
range, and on the bank, surrounded by wild flowers, I
noticed an oblong heap of stones—the rude monument
of an unfortunate Swede who perished near by
early in the spring of the previous year. Frank, our
driver, told us how the ill-fated Norseman had started
with a companion from Billy Cozzens’ at the head of
the Park. They carried nothing save their blankets
slung over their shoulders. It was afternoon, and they,
had “struck out” for the summit, but were met by a
blinding storm; how they succeeded in making their
way to within a couple of miles of their destination
and safety, when the unfortunate, exhausted and discouraged,
sank down into the huge drifts and to sleep;
.pn +1
how the other, stronger and more resolute, yet powerless
to arouse his dying friend, floundered back to a deserted
cabin, built a fire and kept himself from freezing,
unable to procure assistance till the following day.
But when the news reached Cozzens’ there was no
lack of quick and experienced effort, though they felt,
those strong hearts, as they labored on and up through
the great masses of snow, that they were going not to
the rescue of a life. They hoped he might have been
wise and strong enough to burrow into the drifts, but
they found him with one arm clasping a small dead
pine, just where his companion had left him, covered
partly by the white mantle that had proved his death
and his winding sheet. They who loved him best
would not have selected a more inviting spot for his
sepulture than did those strangers.
From this Frank drifted off to an adventure of his
own and his cousin Glenn, on this same range, a few
winters before. They were both mere boys, of sixteen
and eighteen, “shoeing it,” each with a light pack, and
determined to make the head of the Park before sundown.
With the mercury rapidly going down with
the sun, the lads started cheerfully over the crust and
had got near the spot where the cabin was built, when,
by some accident, one of Frank’s shoes snapped in two,
and he plunged into the drift. The loss of a snow shoe
at such a time and place was a mishap that was by no
means trivial. It was simply impossible to go on; to
remain, of course, was almost certain death. The boys
set their wits to work, without shedding any tears.
Fortunately, one of them had several balls of sacking
twine, which he had bought and was carrying into the
.pn +1
Park. Upon that slender thread hung the safety of one
at least. Frank laid down on the snow, to get as much
surface as possible upon the treacherous crust, and held
on to the end of the string while his cousin went on till
it was all paid out. Then the cousin slipped off the
shoes, tied them to his end, Frank drew them up to
himself, get on them, went on down past his cousin,
leaving him an end of the line. When he reached his
limit, he slipped off the shoes in turn, the cousin
hauled them up, and so alternating, they worked their
way down to the foot of the range, where the trail was
partly broken.
“You bet, I was glad to see that trail,” he concluded,
with a smile that had something serious in it.
On down the glorious mountain road we make our
way at a lively trot, marking the increase in the volume
of the Frazier as the range is left behind. After descending
some four thousand feet or more, we enter
upon an avenue over a mile in length, straight as an
engineer can run a line, and adorned on either side with
stately pines, that keep off the heat. At the other end
we discern the comfortable cabin of Cozzens, and as we
emerge from the shelter of the trees the head of the
Park is spread out into a broad valley before us, guarded
by low-lying hills, while here and there against the
clear blue sky looms up an occasional snow-capped peak.
Bright colors everywhere—the green of the meadow
and the darker shade of the pine, the silver-lined leaf of
the white-trunked aspen, and flowers countless as the
stars, reposing tranquilly under the slanting rays of the
afternoon sun. A picture to defy the skill of the artist,
but to fill him with admiration.
.pn +1
We must remain over night; of course; because the
team needs a rest, and the twenty odd miles to our destination
will be an easy day’s drive for the morrow.
And to stop means fresh trout for supper and breakfast,
with nice cream in the coffee, helped out with light
bread and sweet butter; perhaps an elk steak, or a tit-bit
from a mule deer cooked to a turn—“a righteous
man regardeth the life of his beast.” Besides the fortieth
parallel is to be crossed, before we reach the Springs,
and the magnificence of that must be reserved for daylight
inspection.
.il fn=i-023.jpg w=237
.pn +1
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.h2
FISHERMAN’S LUCK.
.sp 2
.di i-024.jpg 148 142 1.3
The distance between Cozzens’
and Hot Sulphur
Springs was accomplished
without accident, and in time
for dinner. Camp made, the
Springs, in which my comrade,
the Doctor, took much
interest, were inspected. The
curative properties of the waters have been much talked
of and written about, but not overestimated; they are
helpful and invigorating for the invalid, and a source of
gratification, if not a novelty, to the pleasure seeker.
The Indians hold them in great veneration; this of itself
is a recommendation, for, as a rule, the Ute has no liking
for water. The Doctor labored under the impression
that I needed a bath; a hot bath, and said so unequivocally;
besides, not to take a bath, even if the bath took
your hide, would be a violation of the sacred rule of the
place, and subject one to the charge of eccentricity. I
do not fancy eccentric people nor enthusiastic folk; beside,
every acquaintance I might meet would be sure to
exclaim with marked astonishment: “What! didn’t
take a bath!” The thing would become monotonous.
I consented to take the bath.
.pn +1
The Doctor went ahead like one accustomed to the
treatment. It was night; the place was provided with
a single lamp that made the darkness unearthly; the
fumes of the sulphur were strong and suggestive; I
looked down into the steaming pool with the trepidation
that must come over a sinner in the heat of an
orthodox revival. The Doctor waded out like a minister
at the ordinance of baptism, and called to me to
“come down.” I said I was coming. I went. The
steps were very firm, clean and provided with a strong
rail, but I didn’t hurry. I put one foot in and took it
out right away; when I found it was not raw I put it
back, and concluded as the Doctor was not yet parboiled
I might put in the other foot; but I did not go in a
foot at a time, only about an inch. Then I asked the
Doctor what church he belonged to, and started to go
out when he said he was a Methodist. I sat down on
the steps, inhaled the sulphur and looked at him floundering
round in that pool like a school of porpoises out
at sea. He told me to try it again. I said I was sleepy
and wanted to go to bed. Then he said it would make
my hair grow, and I told him I didn’t want any hair,
that I had had it pulled out on purpose before I was
married. Then he said it would make me fat; I told
him I was dieting to take off superfluous flesh. Then
he said he would tell what he insinuated was generally
suspected, that I was afraid of water; I told him I didn’t
care. Finally he swore that if I did not get off that
perch and come down into the bath, he’d destroy the
commissaries and refuse to show me any of the trout-pools
in the Park. I was inspired to say I’d try it
again; he had been there five minutes at least and was
.pn +1
not cooked, and if he could stand it that long with his
religious training, I thought I might venture on as
many seconds. But I made haste slowly, got in by degrees
and laid down. Then the Doctor got under the
“shower bath,” where the water tumbles, six feet or
more in a great stream, into the pool; he wanted me to
try that. But I told him I was very well satisfied where
I was, and that I did not approve of shower baths, any
way; then I went on to explain to him the deleterious
effects of too much bathing, and of shower baths in particular.
I talked to him as well as I could for ten minutes,
sitting the while upon the bottom of the pool
with the water up to my chin; but he would not be
convinced. I think the situation and the noise of the
water-fall may have detracted somewhat from the force
of my argument. The Doctor said it was time to get
out, but having become warmed up on the subject, I
deemed this a mere evasion, and told him not to hurry;
that I could convince him of the correctness of my
theory inside a half hour. He said he had no doubt of
it if I remained where I was for that length of time.
He had, to some extent, won my confidence; by his
combined advice and threats he had enabled me to realize
an ideal, and at the same time be in the fashion, and
this not in the days of miracles. When I got out of
that bath I felt as I have heard men say they felt after
a hard day’s work. I took my blankets, laid on the
ground and slept the sleep of godliness. Some of those
fellows whose consciences are demoralized had better try
this medicine instead of opium; it is at least a safer
narcotic. One can go to bed with better assurance that
in a day or so a servant will not be peering over the
.pn +1
transom and finding a subject for the coroner. It is
more satisfactory, too, in such emergencies, in that it
removes the doubts of friends, if one has any, as well
as of the public, as to “the cause,” and entitles one to
Christian burial.
Awakened the next day by that invaluable servant to
us all shining in my face, I reminded the Doctor of his
promise concerning the trout pools. So we were up
betimes, had breakfast, the horses saddled, and with
creels capable of fourteen pounds each, and a stock of
tackle sufficient to start a store, we were off across the
Grand, and over the hills for the anticipated pleasure
down stream, to a place where the Doctor was sure no
one had been. The horses of tourists and amateur fishermen
usually buck and raise the devil when starting
out on such a jaunt, and I was disappointed that the
Doctor’s animal did not bow his back, go up, and come
down stiff-legged. I like to see a horse buck when
somebody else is on him, and I like to hear the man
pray, if he is able, when he feels the ground and glances
round to see who is laughing at him. An even-tempered
gentleman like the Doctor would have afforded an
enviable example of Christian fortitude under such
circumstances—his horse did not buck, but led the
way over the hills as quietly as a cow going out to
pasture.
We kept away from the river, traveled over high
ground, and through an upland of black sage brush
that would rival the mesa between Pueblo and Cañon.
We followed an Indian trail, and followed it so long
that I began to inquire when we were to reach my
much coveted destination. The Doctor called my attention
.pn +1
to a belt of timber some distance ahead, and said
we were “going up there.” I asked him if he expected
that trout roosted like sage hens, and informed him
that if such had been his experience, it had not been
mine, and that I was going to find water. He told me to
do as I pleased, so I struck off toward the Grand—I like
to be independent sometimes. My horse went scrambling
through the thick sage brush, catching his toes in
the roots and threatening to throw me over his head
every few minutes, until finally he stopped at the bank of
the river. It was fifty feet, at least, down to the water.
I looked up stream half a mile, then down to the belt of
timber, and that same bank presented itself at an aggravating
angle of about ninety degrees. I don’t like
Indians, nor any of their belongings, as a general rule,
but I went cheerfully back to that trail, and quietly
followed in the Doctor’s wake. When I caught up, the
Doctor said in a mild sort of way that it was generally
safe to keep on the trail. We walked our horses to the
timber and into it, the Doctor in the lead. We got
about half way round the mountain with a thousand
or fifteen hundred feet of earth, rocks and trees below
us, and as many above, when the Doctor discovered a
“cut-off.” He led the way for a few rods, when a tree
about three feet in diameter barred further progress in
that direction. We could not turn round, nor could
we go on, so we got off, and persuaded the horses to
climb perpendicularly fifty feet up to the trail. I was
satisfied in my mind that the Doctor was more than
ever convinced of the safety of keeping on the trail,
but he did not say so to me.
We kept on to Williams’ Fork, and picketed our
.pn +1
horses about half a mile from the month. The Doctor
then proposed that we “hoof it” over more hills. I
began to be disgusted, but was away from home and at
the mercy of this new-fangled fisherman. I didn’t
know an Indian trail from a cow path, and was as
likely to get into one as the other. A trail, like
the road of a civilized brother, leads to some place, but
a cow path,——. I puffed on behind, up a high ridge
of rocks, and as soon as I could get the breath, told the
Doctor I was obliged to him. We stood upon a Grand
Cañon in miniature. I want to describe it, but I can’t.
After dreaming over it awhile, the Doctor told me am
incident in his experience concerning the ledge where
we had precarious foothold, looking down into the
seething waters several hundred feet below. The Doctor,
Wm. H. Beard, the artist, Bayard Taylor and a
prospector and mining man came over the trail a few years
before on horseback, the Doctor in the lead, then the
prospector, and, finally, the artist and the great traveler
bringing up the rear. When the prospector passed the
narrow ledge, barely sufficient in width to allow a
horseman to squeeze along, where one has to hang, as
it were, like a fly on a wall, he became conscious that
his saddle girths needed tightening. With the recklessness
peculiar to his craft, he slipped off his mule,
and was engaged in the necessary adjustment of his
belly-band when Beard reached the narrow ledge and
had to stop. The first intimation the Doctor had of
anything wrong came in the way of an emphatic adjuration,
that might have been heard half a mile, for
the blessed prospector to get out of that. The Doctor
said he was glad the artist was not given to profanity,
.pn +1
though he said a great deal to the miner that the Doctor
could not understand; it did not sound like English nor
Dutch, nor any language the Doctor had ever heard, but
hurled at the head of the miner from a two-foot trail
hanging over five or six hundred feet of perpendicular
granite, it seemed to have an accelerating effect. The
miner led his mule to more convenient quarters without
finishing his task, and the artist followed, not in
silence, however: he did not seem to be able to get
through his business with that miner for an hour.
Looking down into the chasm, I suggested that it did
not seem particularly “pokerish.” The Doctor said it
was well enough to say so when one was afoot, “but
just try it horseback,” in that ambiguous sort of way
that always rouses one’s determination to undertake it.
I did a few days after, but in returning I led my horse.
Getting through with his anecdote, the Doctor
pointed to another pile of rocks half a mile further up
the stream, and called my especial attention to a pool
beneath, which, even at that distance, placed me under
conviction that I could see trout therein, two feet long
at least. I started to get some of them. Arrived there,
we shipped our tackle, and I selected a spot under a
pine-tree on one side of this pregnant pool, while the
Doctor took the other. I made a cast with an anxiety
indescribable; I knew I would have the first strike, and
I did; the fly caught in the luxuriant foliage overhead.
I tried to coax the blasted thing loose, but the more I
prayed and persuaded the more obstinately the line interlaced
itself. If there is anything more exasperating
than to get a line fastened in a pine-tree, I want to
know what it is; a “picked-up dinner” on wash-day
.pn +1
is bliss in comparison. Not being able to untangle the
line, I tried to pull down the tree; then I took a seat on
the bank and patiently renewed my leader. Meanwhile
the Doctor was threshing the peaceful waters industriously.
I asked him if he had caught anything; he
said he was going to very soon, and threshed away.
When I got my line fixed I murmured, “but deliver us
from evil,” and got out of the reach of that pine, when
I labored faithfully for full fifteen minutes, till finally
we scared up a trout about six inches long. He came
browsing around with his head half out of water and
an inquiring expression plainly visible in his bright
eyes, then he disappeared wiggling his tail in derision.
We worked away in hope of bringing the scaly monster
once more to the surface. A second sight of him
would have been comforting; but his curiosity was evidently
satisfied. I asked the Doctor if this was one of
the trout pools he had been bragging about, and he said
it was; he had always caught trout out of that hole,
and the stories he told me of the numbers he had lifted
out of that place “in the short space of an hour,”
were marvelous. While listening and trying to believe
him I felt a sudden jerk at my rod. Up to that moment
I had entertained no special antipathy to stop-reels.
But with one leader unattainable in the profuse growth
overhead, and another serving as a sort of submarine
union-jack to an unknown denizen of the pool, with no
prospect of satisfaction, I felt—not like Patience.
The trout must have been a monster, of course, or he
never would have snapped that gut with so little ceremony.
I shall not soon forget the sensation; it was a
single and sudden blow without pause for a second pull,
.pn +1
as though his troutship in passing that way had
snapped up that fly and gone on about his business or
pleasure, without realizing in the remotest degree that
he had done anything more than take a midge floating
on the surface of his habitation. To avoid a repetition
of the calamity, I cheerfully tied the check to a crossbar
of the reel, looped on another leader, and resumed,
with an angler’s vow registered in heaven, which I have
religiously kept.
With that commendable resignation born of experience,
I worked that pool for half an hour, gave up in
disgust and started down stream—the Doctor followed
in humiliation. We whipped every foot of the way
down through the cañon to our horses, but not a fin
rewarded our efforts. The forenoon was gone; I felt
sorry for the Doctor; my sympathies went out to him
as they always do for the under dog in the fight. I had
no heart to express anything but unbounded satisfaction
for the morning’s enjoyment. But I believe he
thinks to this day I was lying.
.il fn=i-032.jpg w=123
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
AGAPAE.
.sp 2
.di i-033.jpg 223 151 1.3
Did you never go fishing when a boy, and
come home at the close
of a Saturday without so
much as a single chub
dangling on a string to
console you for the anticipated
dressing because
of your interdicted absence? I have. But the chagrin
of the ten-year-old is nothing in comparison to the
mortification of the middle-aged boy under similar circumstances.
However, there were no inquisitive bores
in our camp. The Doctor was determined to again try
his luck in Williams’ Fork; nothing but the remembrance
of my early experience could have induced me
to join him.
The day after our successful failure, equipped as before,
we took our way over the hills and through the sage
brush, reaching our destination about nine o’clock. The
tackle was quickly adjusted, and keeping out of the way
of that infernal pine, I dropped a brown-bodied gray
hackle gently upon the placid water. The fly had
hardly touched the surface, when suddenly from out the
depths there flashed an open-mouthed beauty, and that
hackle disappeared as, turning head down and revealing
.pn +1
his glittering side, its captor plunged again into the till
then silent pool. It made my pulse throb a little quicker,
but I was not paying as much attention to that as to the
trout. He made a dart up stream with the hook firmly
fixed; I brought him gradually round and coaxed him
to the surface to ascertain what sort of a leviathan I
had encountered; then I got excited and felt that if I
did not get him ashore very soon he was not my trout.
Just below the pool, ten yards or so, was a shelving
beach a few feet in length, and I gradually worked my
way to it, keeping a taut line on my bonanza. While
I was doing this I remembered having read a whole column
of imagination, written by somebody named Murray,
wherein he described his “happiness” under like
circumstances; cracking bamboo and spinning silk,
with a half dozen Johns with landing nets, were the
burden of his effusion, and he wound the matter up after
a three hours’ fight, with a trout seventeen inches long,
when I expected to learn at least of a ten-pound salmon
lifted out by one of the Johns above mentioned. I
wanted to hit the fellow with a club for making an ass
of himself. I was hungry for trout, and inside five
minutes I had drawn my prize up to and on that gravelly
beach, had him by the gills, and he was seventeen
inches flush, big as Mr. Murray’s and no fuss about it.
Just as I got my fish secured I heard the Doctor threshing
round in the willows, about two rods away, and in
a moment after he held up to my envious gaze more
than a match for my capture. Our exchange of congratulations
was hurried; the Doctor cast in his hopper;
I stuck to the gray hackle, and inside half an hour I had
landed a dozen good-sized trout, and the Doctor had
.pn +1
“yanked out” as many more. The pool and the Doctor
were redeemed; we had not quite “fished it out,” had
only taken those with sharp appetites. But that kind of
success demoralizes one for the time being, so we moved
off down the creek, trying the eddies and below the
riffles; now and again dropping the fly under the lee
of the larger boulders in mid stream, with varying success,
until we reached our horses. Our creels were
full enough to carry with comfort and we started for
camp, discussing the causes of the failure of the day before,
but arriving at no satisfactory solution.
The rapidity with which news of success in trouting
will travel through the various camps in one’s vicinity
is somewhat singular, and is only equaled by the celerity
with which the reports of the quantity captured is multiplied.
Having more than we could consume, we gave
some to our nearest neighbor, who came over to see our
catch. We learned the next day that we had caught
anywhere from twenty-five pounds to a hundred, and I
am unable to say how many went exploring for trout on
the day following. That some were unsuccessful I know,
because several swore to me that there was not even a
minnow in Williams’ Fork. There was one young
gentleman in particular who appealed to me in a tone of
remonstrance after a day spent in unsuccessful labor
down the Grand. He was dressed in light drab pants,
cheviot shirt, and a broad-brimmed felt hat, the band of
which was stuck full of flies of all sizes and a multitude
of colors. He had a fifty-dollar rod and a fifteen-dollar
reel of wonderful combination; his eyes, emphatic with,
disgust, glaring through his glasses, he avowed there
were no fish in the Park. He held up a crimson fly that
.pn +1
would have driven crazy any fish except a sucker, and
would have scared a sucker if sunk to his level, and
wanted to know of me if I didn’t think it a fine fly. I
told him I did. He said he had whipped five miles of
water with that fly and could not get a rise. I told him
that the trout was a queer fish, and that perhaps he had
better try a blue flannel rag, and offered to give him a
piece of my shirt, but he got mad, tore around, and
threatened, in popular parlance, to take off the top of
my head. Believing this to be a more painful operation
than scalping, I apologized, and the difficulty was
promptly adjusted. Then I gave him a gray hackle and
told him that that was to the trout what bread was to
civilized man, a staple article of which he seldom grew
tired, or if he did, to try the brown hackle, which, still
like the bread, was a wholesome change; that if he
could get neither the gray nor the brown, then to take
a grasshopper, pull off his legs and wings, and string it
upon a number six Kirby; that such a hook would take
a three ounce or a three pound trout with equal facility.
The next evening I saw my new acquaintance; his
drab pants were ruined, his rod had been shivered into
kindling wood, his reel lay in a pool of the Grand twenty
feet deep. He had cast that gray hackle with a brown
body into that pool; it had been seized upon by a trout
something “near a yard long;” the angler had succeeded
in landing its head upon the rocks, then his rod gave way
and he fell on the fish, rolled into the river, lost the
remains of his tackle and his hat with the flies, and
some other tenderfoot who happened providentially
that way, had pulled him out by the collar. He was
happy, and said he would write to his mother, for which
.pn +1
I commended him. This morning I saw him following
a trail down the Grand; he had provided himself with
some hackles and had a pole cut from a plum bush. I
predicted for him success or a watery grave.
In tender consideration of the tyro in these waters, I
may be permitted to make a few suggestions as to tackle,
based upon my own experience. In the matter of lures
the taste of the trout must be considered; as to all else
you may consult your own. It is well to have in your
fly-books a little of everything, but of gray and brown
hackles, as already intimated, coachmen and professors,
an abundance. The best reel is one that combines
lightness and durability, and is incapable of fouling
your line, no matter how negligent you may be; a click
reel of hard rubber and metal, with a revolving disk,
the handle fixed upon the outer edge, and weighing,
with thirty yards of line, about five ounces, will answer
well. For lines there is, to my mind, nothing equal to
the braided and tapered water-proof silk (size F); being
the best, they are the cheapest, easily managed, and less
liable to snarl or call for a tax upon your patience.
For a rod always select one of three joints; they hang
more evenly and have a “better feel.” Ash butt and
second joint, with lancewood tip; Greenheart or Bethabara;
try any and all; break them on the least
provocation, which means a ten-inch trout or less, but
wreck two or three by the “yanking process,” or otherwise.
Then, when you feel that you can handle a rod
with the same deftness a mother her first-born, save up
your money and buy a first-class split bamboo. When
you get it have faith in it, for if properly made it will
bend, if necessity demands, till the tip touches the butt,
.pn +1
yet do not needlessly try that conclusion with it; neither
must you attempt to lift your fish out of the water
with it. When you have fairly exhausted your trout,
take the line in your disengaged hand; there are moments
between struggles when you can swing your
catch safely to land, without a movement on his part;
when he will came out as straight as the plumb line
Amos saw. If in his struggles his troutship should
clear the water, something I never saw a trout do, bow
the rod to him, of course, as he returns, so that he may
not get his unsupported weight upon the beautiful toy.
Keep a taut line upon your prey—by this I do not
mean that you should give him no line, but let the
strain be steady, giving only when you must. After
the first few rushes, you may generally with safety
press your thumb upon the line, and let him feel the
spring of your rod; that will kill him quickly. The
climax in the poem of trouting is the spring of the
split bamboo. In striking, remember you have not a
plum bush sapling and that it is not incumbent upon
you to bail the stream with an artificial fly; let it be
done with a quick motion of the wrist; a motion which,
if you should miss the game, would move your fly but
a little way. If your catch is too large to lift out as I
have suggested, in the absence of a landing net, you
can generally find a place, always down stream, where
you can safely, if you go about it gently, snake him
out, or get your finger under his gills. Much more
might be written, and what I have said is by no means
new, but the purpose is to put you in the way merely
of avoiding the calamity that befell the tackle of my
acquaintance in the drab pants. Have a taste for the
.pn +1
sport, “let your own discretion be your tutor,” and
you will work out your own salvation more surely than
by a library of directions, remembering this for an
axiom, that: The true sportsman does not go down
stream and afield for the mere love of killing something.
.il fn=i-039.jpg w=212
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
BLACK LAKE IN 1878.
.sp 2
.di i-040.jpg 183 203 1.3
Two or three years since, a
couple of divines, imbued,
doubtless, with a spirit of
adventure, found their way
up one of the tributaries of
the Blue. They discovered a
lake nestled away in the
grand old hills, and in about
the last place one would
think of looking for a lake. They called it Black Lake,
very appropriately, and when they made known their
discovery there were found some of those disagreeable
two-legged animals who are never surprised at anything,
and who knew, of course, that “the lake had
been there all the time.” The ministers, however, took
away with them the credit of the discovery, though but
few people manifested any interest in the matter. As
a result of the indifference, the merits of the lake have
been but little talked about, and when mentioned at
all, it has been treated with a sort of indefiniteness, as a
place that had been heard of, but was not known, except
that it was “up there, somewhere,” in the rugged
range of the Blue. One was, and is, also, always reminded
by the would-be informant that “a couple of
.pn +1
preachers found it;” in that particular sort of tone that
at once conveys the impression that, because a preacher
was instrumental in making the discovery, it must be
a kind of slough of despond, or an eight-by-ten waterhole,
or a beaver pond, with a few decayed water-lilies
mourning round the margin. It may be that there is
much skepticism hereaway concerning the general
level-headedness of gentlemen in orders, where our
mountain scenery is involved. Your “rugged frontiersman”—to
whom these grandeurs are every-day affairs,
still new every day, and not the less revered—worships
in silence, and is apt to think your enthusiast off his
tender feet the moment he opens his mouth. “There
is no use trying to do the subject justice by attempting
to describe what you see. Just look about you, realize
that you are not the greatest thing in creation, and,
with a chastened spirit, go tell your friends to come and
see and worship.” So your gentlemen in flannel shirt
and foxed breeches would recommend, and they mean
well. But if enthusiasm is pardonable at all, it may be
overlooked in a man fresh from his books and his
daily, dull routine, suddenly set down in the midst of
such evidences of God’s handiwork as one finds here.
The ordained discoverers of Black Lake did not, evidently,
adopt the reticent method of expressing their
veneration for the grand surroundings, and their delight
at the beautiful lake so unexpectedly revealed to them.
They were unquestionably very enthusiastic, and consequently
more the object of doubt. If they had said
simply: “We found a lake up there, just under the
base of that cone-shaped peak,” and pointed out the
mountain, there would have been a dozen visitors to
.pn +1
the spot before the end of the summer. Your pioneer
would have told it that way, and that would have been
notoriety. As it was, Grand Lake, the Twin Lakes,
and other known lakes in the mountains, made Black
Lake a possibility. A few have taken the trouble to go
in search of it, the Doctor, who is no tenderfoot, and
myself, a little younger, among the number.
The trip determined upon, the next step was to make
preparation. The experience of my indefatigable Mentor
enabled him to speedily devise all plans and complete
them. A pack animal was at once forthcoming, and
upon it were secured four days’ provisions, a coffee pot,
frying-pan, two tin cups, a pair of blankets and a
rubber poncho; the limited number of utensils inculcating
a lesson in economy—a practical illustration of
what we need and what we think we must possess to be
happy. With our four days lares and penates thus secured
and armed with our fishing tackle, a bright August
morning saw us in the saddle and on the road.
The first few miles of our route were by the Indian
trail, already familiar as far as Williams’ Fork, thence
up the long mesa bordering that stream, toward Ute
Mountain. Bands of antelope frequently starting up
and scampering away refuted the insinuation of another
young gentlemen in glasses and lavender pants who had
been hunting up and down the high roads for a week,
within half a mile of the Springs, and “couldn’t find
any game in the Park.” The same young gentleman
told me that he had seen what he understood to be sage
hens, but could not kill them with a rifle—he must
have something larger—and then wanted to know of
me if there were no “sage roosters.” I told him there
.pn +1
were, lots of ’em; that they were web-footed, had ruffles
round their necks and wore lavender-colored legs at
this season; whereat he expressed himself satisfied and
said he would find one. I expect to see him chased into
camp some day by a mountain woodchuck—then we’ll
have another bear story. While I am writing this, that
same young man is fishing in the Grand in sight of my
tent; he has waded out and is standing knee deep,
whipping the stream just where a hot sulphur spring
bubbles up throwing the steam above the surface. He,
too, has a valuable rod. I wish he had to stay there enjoying
his homeopathic sulphur bath till the fellow
with the club could come along and kill him.
Looking round after the antelope resulted in our
losing the trail. We started in the direction to cross
it, but, with the exasperating contrariness peculiar to
the country, traveled parallel with it for more than a
mile, and until we ran into a body of timber which the
Doctor knew the trail had nothing to do with. Then
we struck off at right angles. I told the Doctor that
he was heading for camp; he said he intended to make
camp about six o’clock. I urged him not to be discouraged,
that we might yet reach our destination, and
that I did not like to be disappointed. But he trotted
on, in silence, found the trail within two hundred yards
and turned into it. By this time I did not know Ute
Mountain from Gray’s Peak. We jogged on to the
timber clothing the hills on the north side of Ute Pass,
crossed a little brook, left a blind trail to the right, recrossed
the brook, and in about five minutes we were
playing circus among a lot of fallen timber, with no
.pn +1
more sign of a trail in sight than there was a prospect
of our getting out of the blasted place inside a week.
Had the devil been really a man of genius, instead of
covering Job with boils, destroying his flocks and killing
his relatives, he would some forenoon have inveigled
that much abused patriarch up a steep mountain side
and deposited him in about forty acres of fallen timber.
Then when Job’s dinner-hour came round he would
have tried to get out of that, and after about ten minutes
of that kind of pastime he would have begun to
realize that old Mrs. Job would be looking for him with
the same kind of disposition they keep dinner waiting
for us in these days. Just then the devil would have
gained his point.
I ventured to ask the Doctor, while he and his horse
were crawling through a symmetrical masterpiece of accidental
log-architecture, if he knew where the trail was.
I was deferential, knowing the subject of trails was to
him a delicate one. He said, of course, he knew where
it was; on the other side of the brook. Encouraged by
his affability, I then inquired why he had left it; he said
there were some rough places ahead of us, and that he
wanted to drill the horses a little before we reached them.
Then I asked him if he didn’t think we had better go
back to the Springs and give me an opportunity to employ
a broncho breaker to drill my horse; he said if I
did not break my dashed neck before I got out of that I
might do so. All this time I was trying to follow him
round, between, under and over dead tree, wondering
what sort of battle-field was in store for me if this was
only a parade ground. We finally, deployed by a
.pn +1
perpendicular-horizontal-right-and-left-oblique, gained the
other side of the brook and the trail. Then the Doctor
said that we were all right, in a tone that carried conviction.
We jogged on, up hill and down, through timbered
land and little meadows, by the sides of deep gorges and
under huge cliffs, now in the sunlight and again through
such dense forests of heavy firs that night seemed to have
set in, until we reached the summit of the Pass, and
looked beyond upon the massive and frowning Blue
River range, riven in mighty fissures, its sharp peaks
kissing the azure sky, its great gorges filled with the
eternal snows, now rosy under the rays of the setting
sun, and over all brooding a solemn stillness that bade
the heart bow in humility and reverential awe. In such
a presence if a man does not realize his own utter insignificance,
he is justified in believing that “all things are
created for him,” even office. Toiling slowly down, we
reached the Blue, now, however, yellow with the work
of the gold hunter, crossed it, and made camp before
dark. After supper, and tired with our day’s ride, we
spread our blankets under the great roof fretted with
golden fire, and slept the sleep of the weary.
The sun was scarcely out of bed next morning before
we were astir, and on the road to Roaring Fork.
A boisterous name, truly, and indicating nearly five miles
of cascade. Since the discovery of the lake it is sometimes
called Black Lake Creek, but the noisy name is
more apt. Crossing the Fork we followed up the right
bank, without any trail, for about four miles, at which
point we deemed it advisable to camp, picket our horses
.pn +1
and proceed on foot. We reached the lake after a tiresome
climb of a few hundred yards, afterwards, of
course, discovering a much easier route from our camp,
and over which we might have ridden the horses to our
destination.
The lake is about a mile by three-quarters in size, a
narrow point jutting out at the foot giving it somewhat
the shape of a crescent. Along the margin,
when the lake is perfectly calm, the bottom seems to
shelve to irregular distances, when the light color of
the crystal water suddenly changes to a hue almost
black, at once suggestive of precipitous and tremendous
depths, and which, no doubt, prompted the giving
of its name. To the left, its base lapped by this gem
of the mountains, rises a cone-shaped spur of the range
with summit far above timber-line, and its rugged clefts
filled with snow. In front of you the main range,
seemingly lower only because more distant, with rocky,
snow-crowned heads overtopping the velvety-looking firs
that reach down to the western margin; and from out the
dense foliage coming and receding upon the pure air is
the music of falling waters. For there is hidden there
a beautiful fall, with its source far away in front of
you in those great snow fields; in one place having a
perpendicular descent of fifty feet or more, and in another
dashing and tumbling down its precipitous bed
over huge boulders for hundreds of feet, like a great
artery pouring crystal life and beauty into the little
queen below. And on the right, yet another mighty
mountain, with verdant base and snow-crowned head,
sloping gradually away behind the nearer hills. It
.pn +1
must, indeed, have been a revelation and a glad surprise
to the man who first discovered it, as it was to
us who went not to be surprised, but for another
pleasant purpose.
We found on the point of land and down near the
water’s edge, a shelter of canvass and pine boughs, a
Dutch oven, tin cans empty and full, an old pair of
boots, some fishing tackle and other evidences of man’s
presence. Besides there was a boat and a couple of
rafts moored to the beach and a fish box anchored a
short distance out. We contented ourselves with looking
over these desecrations, which had on first view
taken nine-tenths of the romance out of the picture,
and walked back to camp, intent only upon the
quantity of trout we were to take out of the prolific
depths.
The first hour’s effort after dinner produced only disappointment.
I could see nothing of the Caliban of
the Point, and was loth to touch his property, feeling
that most men under like surroundings are always ready
to grant favors and equally quick to resent a liberty.
Casting the fly from the shore resulted in only an occasional
strike, while all parts of the lake were being
aggravatingly broken into circles by the leaping trout.
Finally I worked round the point toward the outlet,
somewhat disgusted but determined to exhaust all my
temptations. The first cast there, with a red-bodied
gray hackle, brought an instant rise, and I was kept
busy for half an hour, the fish varying but little in size,
running from ten to twelve inches. I did not make
slow work of my part of the business, and in less than
.pn +1
an hour had about eight pounds of the little fellows in
my creel. The Doctor had found quarters where equal
success had attended him, so far as quantity was concerned,
but as usual, he had to catch one fine fellow
larger than any I could boast. The bright salmon color
of the beauty flashed upon me irritatingly not five rods
away as he was seized upon and held up exultantly by
my companion.
Satisfied with our afternoon’s sport, we returned to
camp with the prospect of a wetting from overhead.
The clouds continued to thicken; we got supper—coffee,
bread and trout. You of Denver, who get trout
only in the market, have yet to learn the exquisite flavor
of the fish. The first time you eat one, properly prepared,
within an hour from the time of his capture, you
will wager on your ability to eat trout only, three times
a day for a month; believe me, and I am no particular
lover of fish diet either, as you may have readily
concluded. The rain had not begun yet, and the Doctor,
full of resources, had improvised a shelter out of the
rubber poncho, and with our blankets spread under it,
and a bright camp fire to take off the chill of the night
air, we realized the comforts of roughing it in genuine
style. But it did not rain, and we went to sleep; I maturing
ways and means to discover the owner of the
property on the Point.
About noon next day I discovered my man, in buckskin,
and lost no time in making his acquaintance. We
intended to start upon our return trip at four o’clock;
as yet, that morning, I had enticed out of the lake barely
eight trout, and had but little time left to remunerate
.pn +1
myself for a thirty-five mile ride. He said if I would
be patient till he got some dinner he would take me out
on a raft and teach me to catch trout. I said I was willing
to learn, and he asked me to dine with him, which
I did, off bread and butter and stewed blackberries with
lake water for grog, and I have made worse meals. Then
we went down and got on board one of those rafts; it was
constructed of four logs each about six inches in diameter
and eight feet long, held together by cleats and
wooden pins—a rollicking craft to put to sea in. Notwithstanding
its questionable appearance, I took my
seat on a soap box to which I was invited, and my chaperone
seized his paddle and pushed the machine from the
shore into deep water. I would rather it had not been
so deep, and as I tried to see bottom and couldn’t, I
thought it would be less disagreeable to drown in ten
feet of water than two hundred—your friends could
find your precious remains so much easier, and would
not be debarred the luxury of a funeral. While there
was conviction in the assurance of the captain that “the
old thing” was safe, I nevertheless handled myself gingerly.
I cast my fly upon the waters with immediate
success. The skipper, inspired by my example, dropped
his paddle, and attempted competition. After a few
minutes of unavailing effort, during which time I had
all I could attend to, he looked down at me with a puzzled
expression in his gray eyes, and exclaimed:
“Why, Mister, you beat all the men to catch trout I
ever see; what kind of fly you got?”
I gave him the infallible gray hackle with the red
body; he took it doubtingly, while I bore my honors
.pn +1
meekly. After landing half a dozen trout in quick succession,
the doubter again broke silence:
“I say, Mister, have you got any of them flies to
spare?”
I told him I had, and he was happy.
The Doctor had gone round to the inlet upon our arrival
in the morning, and was apparently busy when I
started on my voyage. We were about an hour in
reaching him, when he informed us that he had all he
could carry. My own creel was nearly full, and before
we got back to our starting point it was running over,
and I dropped the surplus in the fish-box with which
the raft was provided, that the skipper might be helped,
as he was fishing for market, and doing it in a legitimate
way.
I had flattered myself that in previous years, in some
of our virgin streams, I had enjoyed the sport, but the
hour and a half spent upon Black Lake demonstrated
that, as to the race against time, my previous seasons
had been failures. A man under such circumstances is
tempted to make a “trout hog” of himself, and I told
my new acquaintance that I’d like to stay with him a
week.
“Just fetch your traps right up here, Mister, I’d be
mighty glad to have you,” was his cordial response.
But I was obliged to decline; it was too much of a good
thing.
That afternoon the Doctor and I again made our
camp on the banks of the Blue. I had had three days
of genuine enjoyment, but when I laid down that night
the heavens were overcast. We were to experience the
.pn +1
felicity of sleeping with the rain pelting on us. I wished
for a tent, a tree, a clump of willows, but it was too late;
we had made our bed and must lie in it; there was no
shelter anywhere, nor even the means to erect the poncho,
so we spread it on top of us. When the drops began
to fall, I pulled it over my head, and as they came
thicker and faster, thought of “The Rain on the Roof,”
and in about half an hour felt a chill on my weather
side, put my hand down to straighten the cover and felt
a pool of water. It crept up that side and under me. I
told the Doctor of my condition. He said it was nothing;
that it would do me good, in fact. I told him I
thought I’d get up. He wanted to know where I would
go. I said I did not know. Then he advised me to go
to sleep. I asked him if he was under water, but he said
he was dry as a bone and warm. I offered to change
places with him, but he said he was sleepy, and that I
had better say my prayers and go to sleep as he was
about to do. I thought of all I had heard of the danger
of damp sheets, of rheumatisms, fevers—chills I had—colds,
and other ills resulting from such exposure; then
of the men who had slept that way and lied about the
comfort of it; then I wished it was day, and wondered
how many hours I would have to lie there; then I felt
that Coates Kinney was a fraud, and his “Rain on the
Roof” a satire, and registered a vow that if I ever allowed
myself to be again caught in such a d—amp fix,
I hoped some fellow would hit me with a club; then I
went to sleep, and awoke at sunrise. I would have had
no reluctance in moving about had my clothes been dry,
but the sensation to me of the clinging garments was—well,
.pn +1
we kindled a fire; I got a cup of hot coffee under
my waistband and felt better, and have been feeling
better ever since. We reached the Springs about four
o’clock, tired, of course, but with the memory of a four
days’ jaunt to look back upon that half-a-dozen rainstorms
could not wash out.
.il fn=i-052.jpg w=224
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
EGOTISM AND—RODS.
.sp 2
.di i-053.jpg 159 247 1.4
A writer in The Angler, I think,
apologized for giving his personal
experiences, in that they savored of
egotism. To my mind he should
not have done so. What a world
this would be if every man kept
his personal experience to himself.
Egotism may not perhaps be a
cardinal virtue; but good may
come out of Nazareth. One’s personal experiences are
more novel than romances; the egotist need not necessarily
be a follower of Des Cartes. If my egotism affords
a brother a few moments’ pleasure, or he is in any
way profited, then my life has not been a total failure.
Then, again, what is the use of apologizing for a
universal weakness. If we do not talk about ourselves,
we are always tickled to have others talk of us, and
many would rather be abused than not be noticed at all.
Doubtless vanity and egotism are at the bottom of most
of the good things of this life, just as discontent is the
father of perfected things.
De Quincey would make a martyr of Judas; looked
at from the De Quincey stand-point, Judas was a broad-gauge
man. If so eminent a scholar may make a nobleman
.pn +1
but of the King of Traitors, as we have been taught
to regard him, certainly one, even so poor as I, may
take up the cudgels in defense of mine own and my
brother’s folly. I flatter myself, too, that I should be
more successful in carrying conviction than the learned
author of “murder considered as a fine art.” He combated
a prejudice; I should tickle the tender side of
nine out of ten—if the nine would only confess.
The pronoun I is the straightest letter in the alphabet;
the only one independent of curves or angles for
support; for this reason it is entitled to every man’s
respect.
But I do not intend to enter into a defense of egotism
at this writing; this is only to express a willingness to
enter the lists should occasion demand, and to admonish
the man who would deprecate egotism that he himself
is full of that commendable weakness. I wish to give
my experience, a very limited one, with rods.
An immediate change from a three pound plum bush
pole to an esthetic split bamboo rod of a few ounces
would drive a man crazy. It would be like putting a
delicately turned Kirby into the hands of a pot hunter
of the stone age. As the Kirby would compare with
a bone sharpened at the ends, and a hole in the middle
for the raw hide line, so the little bamboo with the plum
bush. No doubt the prehistoric angler and his descendant
of the nineteenth century would look, if they
could, each upon the implements of the other with
curiosity and utter lack of faith. But faith comes with
education, and when the labor of learning is a labor of
love, education becomes easy.
My experience with the plum bush was not
.pn +1
satisfactory. Early in the “sixties,” depending on ox teams
for bacon and flour, fishing rods were not counted as
merchandise or articles of freight. Necessity therefore
required, that, to indulge my liking, I must exert my
skill, so that when I got back from Bear creek and my
memorable first trouting, I made a rod; my first rod.
A piece of pine for the butt, cedar, straight grained
and without flaw, for the second joint. A well selected
hickory whip handle furnished the timber for a tip. A
jack knife, glass and sand paper served for tools; and
excellent tools they are with patience for capital.
I shall not say how many days I exhausted in working
up those three sticks into satisfactory shape.
As to mounting, I had neither tools or metal, nor the
genius of Tubal Cain, so I applied to a tinker of watches,
made known my difficulty, and he fitted me out with
two sets of ferrules and half a dozen guide rings for the
modest sum of seven dollars in gold dust.
Drug stores and whisky shops get to the frontier
with equal facility, so there was no scarcity of oil,
shellac and alcohol. The wrapping of the rings was
followed by the oil and shellac, and when I strung that
rod together, and, in the privacy of our cabin, submitted
it to the inspection of the madam, it was pronounced
“just perfect.”
The verdict was no less delightful than the rod and
the jury of one.
During the winter that marvel of excellence and
beauty was subjected to weekly examinations and comment.
The anticipated pleasures of the coming summer,
because we were “both going,” were the prime subjects
of evening conversations over the kitchen stove. There
.pn +1
never had been, nor could there ever be, vouchsafed to
any other couple the amount of enjoyment banked up
and ready to draw upon, than was stored away during
that memorable winter, and the rod was the pole star,
so to speak. Everything pointed to that. But disappointments
make life worth living; while they are sometimes
severe, there is yet a genuine pleasure in setting
one’s foot on their necks.
I never flourished my master-piece of mechanical
skill over anything save the weeds and the few straggling
vegetables that decorated our back yard. The rod
was too good to keep. I lost it early, just as the good
children die.
I had, and yet have, a friend, whom I’ll call Sam, because
that is his name. About a month before the time
fixed for our departure to the hills, Sam came over and
told me I had a fishing rod, as though I had been the
only man in town unacquainted with the fact. He said
he wanted to borrow it for a few days, he wanted to go
fishing and hoped I’d accommodate him! Think of
loaning your watch to a two-year-old for a day or so.
He promised, of course, to bring it back in good order;
I expected no less—than the promise, I mean, and cheerfully
allowed him to walk off with it. I never saw it
again, but I am glad to say I saw Sam. He came back
in about a week; there was nothing the matter with
him, his bones were whole, he hadn’t got drowned, nor
been bitten by rattlesnakes, nor chased by bears, nor
clawed by mountain lions, nor lost his scalp. The mosquitoes
had been a little troublesome; there was some
comfort in that, but not enough to speak of. He had
come over to see me, he said, about “that fishing rod.”
.pn +1
“Yes, the fact is, I found an old friend on South
Boulder, and he took such a fancy to that rod, that I
could do no less than make him a present of it. It’s a
splendid rod, that’s a fact, and I don’t know exactly how
I can replace it, just now; I’m sorry you’re disappointed
at my not returning it, but I don’t see—”
We were not a very ceremonious community in those
days, though kindly disposed. At the outset I was on
the point of telling Sam to say his shortest prayer, if
he had more than one, but changed my mind and told
him not to say any more about it. It was some time
before he would be convinced that I was not mad.
That summer I fished with a clear conscience and a
plum bush pole and had a good time.
By the time the season was over Sam came round
again. He brought with him a rod; it had four joints
and an extra tip; it was of ash and lance wood. Sam
had sent to the states for the treasure by ox team, and
had ordered a reel in addition. These he informally
turned over to me, still doubtful of my condition of
mind. I tried to make him understand that from the
first I had felt that his love for me had prompted him
to treat my property as his own. He finally caught the
idea, and the first trout I caught on that rod was twenty
inches long.
I have the rod yet, with one of the original tips; I
have used it every summer since; if no accident happens
it may last forever. A few years since I changed the
reel seat, put the whole concern through a whip-wrapping
machine, and think I have improved it. I have
never weighed it, and I do not intend to say how many
pounds of trout it has been fatal to. In accordance
.pn +1
with the frontier rule “she” has a name: “the old
reliable.”
Since the rod has been put into shape for this summer’s
trip I have been made happy—No! it’s not a
new baby, but the next thing to it—a split bamboo. I
have it in my mind, that an old fellow capable of being
made the recipient of a split bamboo, a genuine split
bamboo (the donor for my guaranty), with the name of
the maker upon it as a warrant to all the world, will be
elevated in your estimation. I am that he. With this
poem in my hand I yet felt as of the stone age. I have
not been educated up to this standard. I don’t know
what to do with it. I never felt just exactly the same
way but once before, that was a little short of a year
after I was married, and I thought I had got used to
that sensation, but when my generous friend put into
my hands this miracle of grace and artistic skill, the old
feeling came back, and I was “two inches taller.”
That, I believe, is the orthodox expression for such
occasions.
It is said that hope ends in fruition; except in the
matter of babies and split bamboos, I believe this to be
true.
If you are bored with this effusion, lay it to my split
bamboo, upon that hint I spake; for the rod, you know,
is an emblem of affliction, save in your own hand.
.il fn=i-058.jpg w=240
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
TROUBLESOME.
.sp 2
.di i-059.jpg 228 239 1.3
Tony Weller tells us
of a friend he had, who,
becoming misanthrope,
went for revenge and
kept a “pike,” in this
country, commonly
called a toll-gate. The
frequency of toll-roads
and the rates of toll in
Colorado would make the state a paradise for misanthropes.
One gate may be located every ten miles, so
the law provides, and you are sure to find them if you
travel ten miles on any road. Some fellow has said
that all roads lead to Rome, but in this country all
roads lead to turnpikes. It was a delightful conceit of
old Tony’s, but if I wanted to reach the seventh heaven
of revenge I’d hunt out a location on any road five
miles from a toll-gate and open a house of entertainment
for man and beast. The entertainment for the
beast would be a mere poetic license, a sort of wild
fancy, and consist of illimitable acres of rocks and pine
brush; a picket pin and a lariat, if the beast was to
grow gaunt. Leave out the picket pin and the beast
would entertain himself by running away; but it would
.pn +1
be my custom, nevertheless, to charge fifty cents per
head “all the same,” and get it, because no one in this
country ever thinks of disputing the landlord’s demands.
I’d say to you, “Thar was the pastur; you
turned your hoss in thar; ef he’s strayed, that’s your
lookout, not mine; I’ll claim a lien on the one that’s
left, for the feed of both.” The law allows it and the
court awards it. No use to suggest that the horse may
not have been in the “pastur” half an hour; “the
pastur was thar, prepared for the hoss, and ef the hoss
strayed, that’s your lookout, not mine.” If you were
reasonable I would give the remaining horse the run of
the “pastur” and charge you for it while you hunted
up the stray. If you’d “kick” there might be trouble,
and trouble under the circumstances in this country
might be serious. But the cream of the business of
wayside entertainment would be in the cooking, and
the results of it thrown together for the man. I’d fry
everything; would rack my ingenuity for a method of
frying the chicory. Two dishes for flitch and potatoes,
rolling-prairie-dried-apple-pie and griddle cakes would
be a red-letter day in the calendar of any tenderfoot
who chanced my way. If a man hinted at a teaspoon
to eat his blasted blackberries, I’d wither him with a
glance of my frontier eye, and ask him if he thought I
kept a Denver restaurant. Tony Weller’s friend no
doubt did the best “according to his lights,” and opportunities,
but the capabilities of my plan, with study,
are boundless. Imagination runs riot on the theme,
and the only wonder to me is that some fellow, misanthropically
inclined, has never adopted this method of
making his fellows happy. Perhaps there are no misanthropes
.pn +1
in Colorado. At least I am away from them,
toll-roads and wayside houses; in the land of the
mosquito and the trout; and the meadow larks perch
upon my tent top and “give salutation to the morn,” by
conjugating the to them familiar Greek verb—at least
it strikes me so.
Mosquitoes are among the blessings of this life; they
prepare us for the robes of immortality, by teaching us
patience under affliction. If there is anything I love
better than a mule, it is a mosquito. There is poetry
in his flight and music in his song. Never having concealed
my love, I think it got abroad and preceded me
this trip. I found him and his family here, on the
banks of the Troublesome; there is quite a number of
him, so to speak, and he keeps one’s five senses actively
employed at once, while he inculcates prudence and
fortitude. I met a man from the mouth of Troublesome,
and he told me he had seen but one mosquito,
and “he was very wild.” That is the one I have been
looking for; I long to cultivate him, on the same principle
that a fellow wants the girl, not the whole family.
The Mississippi gallinipper is adolescent compared to
the Troublesome mosquito. Yesterday I saw one stick
his bill into a gallon jar and take a drink without any
apparent effort. If I had anticipated the pleasure, I
would have borrowed some foils and got up a few fencing
matches. I wouldn’t under any consideration suggest
broadswords or cavalry sabres, for that might prove
dangerous. I am maturing a plan to submit to the
Secretary of War, whereby I think the mosquitoes of
this immediate vicinity may be advantageously organized
.pn +1
in a campaign against the Utes. Judiciously maneuvered,
they’d exterminate the Indian. West Point
can boast of no such natural drill-masters. Their individual
proficiency in this regard makes me itch to present
my project to the department at Washington. All
they need for effective service is regimental discipline,
and I have no doubt our representatives in Congress
can find some of their unemployed military constituents
at the Capital who would prove excellent and willing
disciplinarians. Salary, of course, would be of no
consequence; love of country, something to do except
turning up their toes in her service, would be ample
pay. The more I reflect upon this project of mine, the
better I think of its possibilities, and, but that this
world is given to ingratitude, the debt that Belford and
our two Senators would owe me for thus opening one
channel for their relief would be great. I believe
“there’s millions in it.”
But how about the trout fishing? you ask. Well,
the trout fishing is good. I have met the usual tourist,
with cod hooks, chalk lines and wagon poles, with an
occasional hatful of highly colored flies; the fellow
with the hundred dollar rig and helmet hat, apparently
all “fly,” and I have seen them belabor the beautiful
Grand for a mile at a stretch, my mind dwelling on
murder. The “swish” of their poles through the air
sounds like the sough of an amateur cyclone, and the
fall of the lines upon the water as though some indignant
father were having an interview in the woodshed
with his first born, and nothing handy but a quarter
strap. Could the fishing be otherwise than good?
.pn +1
Good for the fishermen because it gives them plenty of
exercise, and as half at least of the pleasure of this life
is made up of anticipation, these fellows keep thinking
all the time that they are going to catch something,
and they do—cold. Good for the trout because they
are never caught, and good for the sportsman who
knows their ways, though they be like the “way of the
serpent upon the rock”—past finding out. The instinct
of the trout is akin to the sense of the human
sucker, and I have sometimes wondered if they did not
entertain a pretty fair idea of our lunatic asylums, and
gain the impression that at certain seasons there was an
exodus; that the inmates escaped into the wilderness
and deployed along the mountain streams; that these
people were the descendants of farmers and laborers
opposed to the probable innovations of threshing machines,
and esteeming the ancient flail above all other
methods, thus expressed their hallucination. It requires
no stretch of the imagination to thus consider.
There is no genuine enjoyment in the easy achievement
of any purpose; there is no bread so sweet as
the hard-earned loaf of the man who works for it. The
rule holds good in the school of the sportsman. The
fellows I have been writing of, had they their way,
would become mere engines of destruction; they would
catch, not for the pleasure of catching, but because they
could, and a universe of trout would not satiate them.
Sportsmen are not made of that kind of material. A
little horse sense goes a great way in all things, trouting
not excepted; it is an indispensable foundation to
success. Avarice must be ruled out; your genuine
.pn +1
angler has none of it, but will insist on his neighbor
having at least as good as he, if not better.
I said awhile ago that I was away from toll roads and
wayside houses of entertainment. I’m stopping with
a friend, a genuine angler, whom I have seen walk in
the wake of one of those threshing machines, with a
rod light as a buggy whip, and with a twist of the wrist
drop a fly upon the water thirty or fifty feet away, and
as it settled gently down, as falls the snowflake upon
the bosom of the stream, there would come a rush and
struggle that denoted the fishing was really good to
him who had achieved the art of casting a fly. He is
no seeker after distinction, and I shall not give you his
name. He does not read Horace, nor does he understand
the thirty-nine articles of the established church,
as some of our amateur Christians do, but he knows
how to treat his friends, which is better. I had been
tickling my vanity with the belief that I knew something
about trout fishing, but I have found out that
my acquirements were, by way of comparison, merely
with the escaped lunatics. He sends me out to “take
the cream off” a pool, or out of it, and when I’d be
ready to swear there was not another left, he’ll make
me bear witness to my own lack of faith by striking as
many, if not more, than I had brought to creel. He
thinks I’ll learn to handle a fly rod after awhile, and I
have hope; besides I am learning to cultivate all the
virtues. Think of me with the mercury at seventy or
more at high noon, rubber boots with tops to my hips,
thick breeches, woolen shirts and a duck coat, my intellectual
head swathed in a net and my horny hands
.pn +1
encased in buckskin gauntlets, a ten-ounce fly rod, and
ten pounds of trout brought to basket at my back, perspiration
exuding in streams; outside that net nine thousand
mosquitoes to the square inch, yet I’m happy—going
to school, and have the best of the vermin.
.il fn=i-065.jpg w=272
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
METEOROLOGICAL.
.sp 2
.di i-066.jpg 220 228 1.3
Hot weather is pleasant to
have—in Denver—and
I didn’t escape because of
hot weather. But I have
lived there a long time
and know a number of
people, and every time I
met a fellow on the street
he was sure to say: “Hot,
ain’t it?” Five minutes
after, if I met the same man, he would pull off his hat,
mop his head with a handkerchief, and as if it had
just occurred to him, tell me the same thing, with an
emphatic prefix. By way of change it is interesting to
see a couple of fellows meet on the sidewalk, shake
hands, and hear them tell each other “it’s hot.” The
amount of information mutually imparted is gratifying,
and makes one think, at first, that life is worth living.
But when this delight is experienced a hundred times a
day for a couple of weeks, one begins to sigh for the
old stand-by: “What’s new?” “Nothing.” The monotony
becomes exasperating, and even one not given to
profanity stands in imminent peril of falling into the
prevailing habit. Shakespeare, Mother Goose, or some
.pn +1
other mortal plethoric with wisdom, has informed us
that evil associations corrupt good manners. I was
being led astray; I knew it, in fact.
The air was becoming thickly freighted with expletives;
heat and profanity, as I had been taught to
believe, before “the new version,” were inseparable.
The maternal admonition came back to me in all its
bitter sweetness, and I had the fortitude to shun the
temptation. In the classic language of this age, “I
lit out” for lighter air and a purer atmosphere; I did
not find what I wanted until I got beyond Golden.
When the train entered the cañon the sublime grandeur
of—but I promised not to say anything about Clear
Creek Cañon, as that has been written about once before.
I took it all in, however, cinders included; all
except “that mule.” I have never been able to find
“that mule.” Several years since I was advised of the
existence of “the mule,” and though I firmly believed
at the time that my informant was only trying to make
himself agreeable, I have, upon every occasion, faithfully
looked out from the mouth of the cañon to Beaver
Brook for the picture of that much-abused hybrid.
The nearest approach to success in my efforts was a
spotted cow, three years ago, browsing among the
rocks—but she is not there now.
At Dumont a friend of mine climbed on the train,
and the first thing he said to me was: “It’s hot in
Denver.” He did not speak interrogatively, but the remark
was affirmative, in a tone of defiance. I asked him
if he had ever heard of Billy the Kid. He said he had
and that he was dead. I told him that was a mistake,
“He is not dead,” said I, “he’s on the train with me. I
.pn +1
have hired him to go as far as Empire to kill the first man
who says the word ‘hot’ to me. There he sits,” and I
pointed to our very sedate fellow-townsman, Judge ——,
who sat behind us deeply immersed in a formidable
bundle of law papers.
“The devil!” said my friend.
“Yes, he is, and a dead shot; let me introduce you—come.”
“Excuse me, my wife is in the other car, just up from
Denver, and I havn’t seen her for a week. Some other
time I’ll be happy.”
I do not understand why it is that this generation is
so given to lying. That friend of mine is not married,
and he must know that I am aware of it; yet he slid
out of the car with all the bustle of a conscientious man
of family. In fact he was too anxious, except for a
Benedict in the honey-moon. When he left I went
over and sat down by the Judge. In the meantime the
latter had folded up his papers and wanted to know of
me, first thing, if I had ever read Pompelli or some
other fellow, who had traveled in Abyssinia, where the
mercury stood habitually at 150°, when you could find
a shady place for the thermometer; where the natives
cut steaks out of the live oxen, sewed up the wounds
and cooked the meat in the sun; where these same
natives went about naked with raw hide umbrellas, and
each fellow carried a pair of tweezers in his pocket to pull
the cactus thorns out of his feet. While being entertained
with these veracious statements, I discovered that
our car had suddenly become quite full, and that the
Judge and I were objects of interest. Just then the
engineer sounded the whistle for Empire, and I gathered
.pn +1
up my creel and grip-sack of commissaries, and made
for the door. As I got off the platform I heard one
passenger tell another that “the reward is $2,000,” and
as the train started on I noticed the Judge in animated
conversation with a burly fellow whose prominent
features were a heavy moustache and a square jaw. The
Judge is a good man—physically, I mean—but I shall
not see him again for a month, and if it comes to the
worst, roughing it in the hills has a tendency to take off
flesh and put on muscle. I take comfort in the reflection.
At Empire I found my conveyance awaiting me—a
light wagon and a pair of playful mules; little fellows
with coats of satin and gentle eyes. Some fellow would
say they had “sinews of steel,” but these mules were not
built that way; they were the natural sort. I dearly
love a mule, and were I a poet, would write a sonnet to
a mule’s eye. I admire a mule’s eye; always feel interested
in that portion of his anatomy, and, as one likes
to be in the vicinity of that which is pleasing, so I, when
I have any business with a mule, find his head the attractive
feature. These mules behaved remarkably well;
they took us to the top of Berthoud Pass in about three
hours, and climbed over each other only twice during
the trip. That, however, was only in playfulness; they
pretended to be frightened, in one instance at a laborer’s
coat lying by the roadside, and in the other at an empty
fruit can. I thought on both occasions that the mountain
side was steeper, the gulch ever so many million
feet deeper, and the road narrower than any other place
I had ever been in. But as the mules were only in fun,
I did not feel scared. After the first exhibition of hilarity
.pn +1
the driver told me that the last stranger who rode
behind those mules had his neck broken by jumping out
of the wagon. I know the driver to be an innocent
young man, unversed in the wicked ways of this world,
and it was comforting to be in congenial company.
On the summit Captain Gaskill handed me his thermometer.
I don’t know why he did it; I had not said
anything about the temperature. But I saw the mercury
rise in the tube the moment I touched it; I told
him to take the blasted thing away or I would melt right
there; with my heavy overcoat on I would have been a
mere spot in ten minutes. He hung the agitator on the
side of the house, and it registered 45°. I felt cool, and
he took me to the fire. No one that I know of except
Hamlet’s father has returned to give us any authentic
information from beyond the sea; and how it was ascertained
that “in the twinkling of an eye” we mortals
should realize the end of our journey from this shore, I
am not prepared to say. But I can vouch for the fact
that it was just eight hours from Denver to happiness.
If dissatisfied humanity demands a country better
adapted to its wants than Colorado, it will have to die
to find it.
Upon a former occasion several years ago, I took upon
myself to say publicly through the columns of a Denver
daily, that I thought Coates Kinney’s “Rain on the
Roof” a satire. But the night before I had lain in a
pool of water on the banks of the Blue with nothing
between me and the angry heavens except my prayers
for daylight; they, of course, were thin but earnest.
This night, however, I had, as the preacher used to say,
“a realizing sense” of the effect of surrounding circumstances,
.pn +1
repented me of my harsh verdict, and hope to
be forgiven. I had supper, a not uncommon event on
the top of the range at this particular point. Thanks
to the mules (they had allowed me to walk a mile or
more) and the light air, and wholesome food well cooked,
and the obliging host and his wife (think of their hibernating,
the snow level with the ridge-pole, and never
a soul to visit them except the mail carrier on snow-shoes),
I had an appetite, and made good use of it, while
the clouds gathered outside for a jubilee. After supper
came the indispensable pipe and chat, and then to bed,
right under the rafters, with the rain pattering on the
shingles.
.nf b
“It seemed as if the music
Of the birds in all the bowers,
Had been gathered into rain-drops
And was coming down in showers.”
.nf-
There is only one line of Kinney’s poem that ever
troubled me (the foregoing is not his):
.nf b
“Then in fancy comes my mother.”
.nf-
When I was a boy I didn’t fancy my mother coming
around my bed after I had crawled into it. It meant
something besides prayers for me; we had hard timber
in the country where I was born and bred,—how pliant
the young twigs were! Coates must have been a good
boy, especially with such a name; I can solve the mystery
in no other way. But all that about “another,”
.nf b
“With her eyes delicious blue,”
.nf-
will do “passing well,” except the color; mine were not
blue, and she played the same game on me.
.pn +1
With the “patter of the soft rain overhead,” I soon
forgot all about the thermometer and the other misfortunes,
being wrapped in—forty pounds of blankets.
Having gone to bed, it is a very good place to stop;
and as to the trip down to the Springs, if those mules
give me any trouble I will let you know about it.
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
MULES.
.sp 2
.if h
.di i-073.jpg 227 245 1.3
The morn, in russet mantle
.if-
.if t
“The morn, in russet mantle
.if-
clad, walks o’er the
dew of yon high eastern
hill.” That was my
matutinal orison as I
tumbled out of bed at
Gaskill’s. The air was
fragrant with the perfume
of the pine, and
the hardy wild flowers
were brilliant in liquid
diadems. Some other fellow would say that he ”drank
in the life-giving tonic“; but I don’t drink, so I
breathed it, with my head out of the garret window,
and felt as though this world has some things to enjoy,
and that fresh air is one of them. The blue seemed
nearer, and as I looked over into the Park, and over the
fir-crowned hills to the majestic piles of granite, everywhere
set off with a background of azure, I felt as
though there was a mistake somewhere in my make-up.
I ought to have been born with a gift to make the
whole world feel as I did then—happy but humiliated
among these magnificent monuments of Divine
greatness. I’m not a self-made man, that’s the trouble;
if I’d had the ordering of it, I’d have got up a success.
.pn +1
There is nothing like success, even in a fraud, until it
stands face to face with such evidences of the sublime
handiwork as I looked out upon that bright morning;
then the “uses of this life” seem “flat, stale and unprofitable,”
as we use them.
But I must not forget the mules. Gaskill has a
couple of cinnamon bears, in a room at the end of the
barn. I can’t say that the Devil got into the mules, because
the Devil is now ruled out; without a hell to put
him in, he is no longer of any earthly use. I am sorry
to lose him, because under certain circumstances I am a
believer in intimidation; it is wholesome. I have
known a single quiet and orderly hanging in a summary
way, to make a neighborhood that would have terrorized
Satan himself, as nice and well behaved as a
community of Quakers. I heard one of our Denver
preachers once say—and we all loved him—that there
was “a certain class of mortals whom it was necessary
to take by the neck and choke before they could be
made ready for conviction.” The Devil has always
been useful for that purpose, and I think he could be
made available yet.
But I started to say something concerning those
mules. The Devil, as I have said, did not get into the
mules, but they got scent of those bears, and I venture
the assertion that the bears discounted the Devil in his
palmiest efforts, as heretofore reported. To speak without
exaggeration, those mules were frightened; the
bears were in their heads, heels, hair and eyes; inside
and out, above and below, and all around, were bears.
To those mules, it rained bears, and the atmosphere was
pregnant with bears about to be delivered. If those
mules had been human I would have thought it the
.pn +1
worst case of delirium tremens that ever racked a
diseased imagination. As the driver expressed it: “they
was plumb crazy.” There was no crookedness about it;
they were frightened horizontally as well as straight up
and down, as I suppose the driver meant to be understood.
It is impossible for me to tell what they did or
attempted. They seemed capable of any extravagance
except dying. I like to ride after mules in that condition;
there is something exhilarating in dashing down
a mountain road with one’s hair straightening out behind
as though it would disappear by the roots; careening
around short curves and making lightning-like
estimates of the thousands of feet to the bottom of the
gulch; picking out the softest rocks upon which to fall;
flying over boulders and becoming entangled in tree
tops fifty feet in the air, there to remain a torn and
wretched monument of indiscretion. It wouldn’t be
much of a monument, but enough to tell the tale. I
thought how grand it would be, and told the driver that
I preferred to have him pick me up whole some distance
down the road; I felt confidence in my ability to
control my own legs; the air was just right for a brisk
morning walk; besides, much of the pleasure of the ride
would be denied me by reason of my not having any
hair to speak of that might stream in the wind. I made
these suggestions and started. I believe the driver
thought I was afraid to ride after those mules; but that
was a mistake. I intended to ride after them provided
there was anything to ride in when he should catch up
to me, if he ever did. About two miles down the range
I sat on a log and waited for the wreck. Presently I
heard the rumbling of the wagon; soon it came in
sight, the driver sitting at his post singing, as well as
.pn +1
the roughness of the road would permit: “I want to be
an angel.” I certainly thought he did, and asked him
if the mules had not tried, at least, to run away, when
they were being harnessed.
“Oh, no; they was too bad scared. You see, when
they get that way they want to stay right with me; a
mule is an obstinate cuss, you know, and only runs
away for fun.”
Just then the ears of the off mule stuck out straight
as the prongs of a magnified clothes pin, and she began
to dance. This time it was a ground squirrel, not much
larger than a lead-pencil. But the brake had to come
down before the mule did. Shortly after, the nigh
mule went through a like performance for a similar
cause, and then they both waltzed to the music of the
Frazier. I was sorry when we got as far as Cozzens’,
because there it was plain sailing, with plenty of room
to turn round and run away in, and yet those delightful
mules trotted right along twenty-two miles to the
Springs, regardless of gophers, old clothes, tin cans and
two badgers. If Gaskill’s bears had got in the way, I
firmly believe those mules would have trotted over
them, or kicked them out of the road. Kick! They
could kick in pure cussedness. “I should say so.”
A mule is a natural kicker, as a rule, but this pair had
so improved upon nature’s gift, by constant practice,
that they had reduced the accomplishment to an exact
science. “They can fetch anything they go for, from a
gnat on a stall post to a self-confident hostler.” “The
nigh mule can take a fly off her right ear with her nigh
hind foot.” I can’t describe how she does it, not having
seen the feat performed, but the driver explained it
to me so that I understood it. From my confidence in
.pn +1
the veracity of the driver, but especially from my
knowledge of the mule, I am ready to be sworn. But
it is about time these mules were lost.
We have the usual complement of campers and tourists
in the Park this season. The former are mostly of
our own mossbacks; but it will not do to call the tenderfoot
by any less dignified title than a tourist. I saw
one of the latter start out the other morning for a day’s
sport. He had a rifle and a shot-gun, a game-bag, a
fishing rod and creel; he remarked to me, as he climbed
up on the off side of his horse, that he was pretty well
fixed for a day’s campaign. I told him I thought he
was, but suggested that he ought to take along a bass
drum to beat up the game, and, do you know, the fellow
got mad and made me apologize. If he had only kept me
in front of his infernal arsenal, I never would have modified
my suggestion, but he threatened me over his
shoulder, and that looked dangerous. He came back at
night, to my surprise, but brought neither fish, flesh
nor fowl; it is perhaps needless to say he was the only
disappointed party in the Park.
A strict enforcement of the game and fish law would
be an advantage to this vicinity. The Park is easy of
access, and when the railroads, or either of them now
under construction, shall be completed, the Park and
its surroundings, a very paradise for sportsmen, can be
made the most attractive resort in the state. Why, it
is worth a day’s journey to sit where I do now, under
the shadow of a pine whose every sigh in the cool
breeze is freighted with fragrance, and feast on the
massively beautiful scenery. A foreground of a mile
or two of meadow rich in green and gold; the beetling
lava cliffs on the left, and the brown hills, studded with
.pn +1
great piles of granite, sloping gently down to the
margins of the Grand. The noble stream flecked with
silver, rolling majestically along and keeping time to
its own melody, while away beyond lies the range for a
background, with Long’s Peak, o’ertopped with fleecy
clouds to serve him as a diadem, to be changed to a turban
of rainbow tints for evening dress. And the sunsets
that gather about the head of the rugged giant!
You who view them from the other side should sit
under the shadow of Mount Bross and see the cloud
tints that crown His Majesty. Your view from the
eastern side shows but the work of a tyro; from this
the accomplished task of the master. If I had the gift
I spoke of, you should see it as I do; as it is, there is
nothing left but to come over and take it in for yourself.
You can have a change of programme every day,
and when you tire of the pictures, if you can, it is easy
climbing a few hundred feet to find a dozen others just
as grand and no twins. I suppose many a fellow has
glanced over his shoulder up the Grand and seen a
mountain with a notch in it, no more, not even a patch
of color. But ten to one of these have seen something
more and yet made a hearty meal of flitch and potatoes.
.il fn=i-078.jpg w=205
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
MUSIC AND METEOROLOGY.
.sp 2
.di i-079.jpg 130 188 1.5
Without fair success with rod and
line, a camping trip, to some at
least, would be a failure. The
weather giving fair promise, I
started over the divide below the
Springs to revisit several familiar
pools and riffles down the Grand,
in anticipation of a good morning’s
sport. The forenoon was expended
with half a dozen trout and as many miles’
tramp as the result. Life is not worth living without
a disappointment now and then. I met with a decided
failure where I had rarely had anything but success,
and it sharpened my appetite—for dinner.
A day or two after I was joined by my familiar and
guide, the Doctor, who is an animated encyclopedia not
only of the Park, but of the state, and we forthwith
put up a job, as it were, upon the denizens of Williams’
Fork. Nine o’clock found us on the banks of that
beautiful stream, our horses picketed and we ready to
meet any emergency that might arise—that’s a new
name for ’em. The Doctor started up stream and I
took to the bed of the creek about half a mile from its
mouth. Twenty minutes and not the sight of a fin. I
.pn +1
also began to think that Williams’ Fork was depleted.
Brown hackles and gray, and a half dozen other newfangled
varieties not named to me, had no more effect
than the wiles of a three-card-monte dealer have upon
one who “has been there.” I thought of lying down
upon the bank and seriously playing with the garter
snakes, but changed my mind and put on a gray hackle
with a peacock-body. Result, a trout. I had found the
color to tickle their fancy for the day.
Trout and—and—women are very much alike; few
men know much about either, unless you take their
own words for it. Both are handsome, of course, delicate
in taste, fickle as to ornament, not otherwise, and
always too confiding in that which is least to be relied
on. I felt sorry for that trout as I slipped her into my
creel; they are such short-sighted fish—I’ll not say
why—but they exact the angler’s care, and carry out
the simile admirably. Had I offered that trout a worm
for breakfast, the chances are ten to one she would
have inquired whether I took her for a sucker. But it
occurs to me all at once that I am on delicate ground—the
current runs five miles an hour, the water is above
my knees and the rocks are slippery; to fall is easy as—lying;
the fate of our common ancestor is a warning.
By the time I had reached the Grand I had about
seven pounds of fair-sized trout, besides having returned
with all possible gentleness to the water a number
of small-fry. I did not consider it much of a catch,
as upon more than one occasion over the same ground
I had filled my fourteen-pound creel in the same time.
The Grand looked tempting as I waded out into the
deep, clear current at the confluence of the streams, and
.pn +1
dropped the peacock as far out in the deep pool as I
could. I took that fly out in a hurry as I saw the gaping
mouth of a leviathan, to my imagination, about to
take it off. I speedily had the fly changed to one upon
which I could rely, and commissioned it to that pool on
business of moment. It had no sooner touched the surface
than the glistening sides of my much-coveted triumph
shone in the brilliant sunlight, clear of the water,
as he darted for the fly and—missed. I thought the fish
a little nervous, and I sent the falsehood over into the
pool again; as soon as it touched the tiny wavelets that
roofed the haunt of his excellency he was again visible,
shooting from out the depths straight to his destiny.
He reached it, and for a second lay poised as if in inquiry,
and then, realizing that he had “struck it,” disappeared
as suddenly as he had come. I realized, too,
that I had struck it. There was music in the air—the
music of the reel—and that trout danced to the measure
with fifty feet of line before he allowed an inch of
slack. He was nervous; there was plenty of water, a
hundred feet at least, to the opposite bank, and miles
up or down stream; there was no reason whatever for
uneasiness—on the part of the fish I mean. But he
seemed as much disturbed as ever when the slack was
all in, and I, quietly and in as dignified but determined
a manner as smooth stones and rubber boots would permit,
backed up to the dry beach. Exhibiting the utmost
reluctance to being thus led by the nose, he suddenly
took it into his head to come voluntarily, started
my way, but as suddenly changed his mind; the reel
accommodated his whim and played a waltz; the old
fellow, however, soon got giddy and asked for a rest;
.pn +1
there could be no bar to so reasonable a request, paradoxical
as it may seem; I immediately relieved him of
the weight of the loose silk and gave him the privilege
of a closer inspection of the gentleman at my end of
the line. Had any other man been in my place, I should
have concluded that the fellow on the fly was not favorably
impressed, as he started with celerity on another
trip across the Grand. Being myself a man of benignant
appearance, I concluded, of course, that he had
become enamored of the sound of the reel and was delighted
that I had taken a hand in the revelry. Humanity,
however, has not the monopoly on making mistakes,
and as the reel was evidently taking a turn—this time
at a dead march—I towed the gentleman round and
gently drew him out on the clean gravel. He measured
just nineteen inches; when I first saw him I thought he
was “a yard long,” but even with his nineteen inches
his capacity for conferring happiness was immeasurable.
As I relieved his mouth of the hook, the Doctor, who
had come down to me unawares, startled me with the
remark, “You seem to take a heap of delight in catching
a sucker.” There was a maliciousness in his tone
that led me at once to inquire what success he had met
with; his open creel disclosed three only, that would
not weigh half as much as my capture; they were the
result of his morning’s work. My own dignity will
sometimes get the better of my reverence, and I read
him a homily on envy.
The next day the Doctor proposed a visit to Grand
Lake. I suggested that it threatened rain, and he replied
that he who went fishing must expect to get wet. The
retort, I told him, was dry with age; but the mules were
.pn +1
hitched,—they have not been lost,—and we started up
the Grand Valley in the sunshine, but had not been
long on the road before it began to rain. Rain is a good
thing in the mountains; it freshens up the earth,
brightens the wild flowers, fills the air with a new fragrance,
makes the grass grow, and I like it. I told the
Doctor how much I enjoyed it coming down in vast
sheets, but he did not say anything, only smiled. I’ve
seen that smile before; in a fighting man it is dangerous.
I didn’t say anything more about the rain, but tried to
impress him with my knowledge of locations for dairy
farms, and the excellence of the neighborhood for the
growth of turnips and potatoes for winter food, without
irrigation. Toward noon we came to a stream, and he
told me it was North Fork; it rained at North Fork.
I asked him where the other prongs were. He said there
was but one other, “up yonder.” I told him the style
of fork was long out of date. He stopped the mules.
I noticed that smile again, and immediately changed the
subject by asking him how far it was to the lake. He
said it was about a mile in a direct line, but we did not
go that route. About an hour afterwards I asked again
how far it was, and he said it was half a mile in a direct
line. I was about to inquire why he didn’t take the
“direct line,” but changed my mind, and reflected upon
the uncertainty of distances in this light air, and the
gratifying exactness of the information one derives from
being told something is “up yonder.” It rained. Sometime
during the afternoon we came to what appeared to
me a long line of embankment of gravel and boulders
that might have been thrown up by the Titans for a
railroad bed in the long ago. We had passed a number
.pn +1
of railroad grade stakes, and I inquired if the embankment
was the road-bed of the Denver, Utah and Pacific.
He said it was a moraine. I thought he was joking, but
he always laughs when he gets off a good thing, and he
looked as sober as a hired mute at a pauper funeral. I
meekly suggested that we had already had more rain
than—. He stopped me and the mules right there; said
the lake was just over that bank, and had no bottom;
that I deserved to be drowned, and wanted to know my
weight. I told him that under ordinary circumstances
not very heavy, too light to sink, at least, but when wet
I swelled. He concluded to go on. It rained, and after
awhile we reached the town of Grand Lake. It is hid
from the lake, and I was thankful; for I could climb
over the moraine—what a handy word for such
weather—and look out upon a beautiful sheet of water
nearly three miles long by half that in width, guarded
at the east and south by mighty hills, while to the
southwest I could have recognized Powell Mountain,
the grand, with lower hills for distant foreground, and
forget the two saloons, the saw mill, tavern and a few
slab shanties that were hidden from view—by the moraine—while
the clouds hid everything else; and it
rained.
We crossed the north inlet and pitched our tent, at
the recommendation of a friend, in the midst of a grove
of young pines, where the ground was soft with the
dead needles from the protecting branches. The
couch was delightfully tempting, on the very margin
of the lake, with the gentle murmur of the
miniature breakers to lull us to sleep. But it
rained; I think, however, I have mentioned that fact;
.pn +1
there was another drawback, or rather a number of
them—ticks. The next morning another friend exhibited
to our wondering gaze about two quarts of fish,
something less than a hundred to the quart, and said he
caught ’em with grasshoppers. I asked him if the
grasshoppers were small. He said they were ordinary
grasshoppers. Then I asked him if he had to rip any
of them open, and he wanted to know for what, and I
said to take the fish out of them, of course. He was a
polite friend, and he laughed, but I know him for a
mimic. He said the fishing was splendid, and I did not
tell him of my nineteen-inch prize, lest he might for
the first-time doubt my veracity.
After breakfast, it looked as though we might have
some “falling weather,” and, while I am partial to a little
rain after a very long dry spell, I suggested to the
Doctor that, considering we had to do some fording, we
had better get to the Springs while we might. He went
right off and hitched up those mules; never said a word;
didn’t even ask me to help him. He wanted me to
carry away a pleasant remembrance of the lake, so he
drove round to the south side. Then it began to rain.
It is raining yet, and, to all appearances, is settled
weather.
I have been sitting under my canvas roof this blessed
day, looking at the rain and watching the meanderings
of the tiny rivulets outside, and the midges that congregate
about their margins. They stand on the current
and ride off, and I sometimes think they come back
again to “keep the mill going,” as you and I did on the
ice when we were younger boys than now. The ground
squirrels and chipmunks come out of their holes to pay
.pn +1
me brief visits and then scud back. The little chips
are cunning chaps, their motions are agile, their eyes
are bright, and the glistening rain drops that soak all
else, leave no impression upon their glossy fur. They
run up the stalks of the wild rye, nibble off a head and
drop to the ground as quickly as falls the severed top,
and then to shelter under the lee of a log or a projecting
rock, to feast. One other visitor I have had to-day—a
solitary blackbird with feathers awry and tail bedraggled.
He had a melancholy look in his white eyes
as he cocked his head despondingly, and his forlorn
condition made me think he might be, in miniature, the
larcenous and unfortunate jackdaw of Rheims, suffering
under the Cardinal’s curse. His wretched condition
was contagious, and I myself was about to request him
to “move on,” when one of his brethren, dressed in
blue and sable, a policeman, evidently, in their community,
ran him in, or off. For aught I know he may be
now before His Honor on the general charge of vagrancy,
with a prospect of a fine and costs, or in default
of means, with a term in the blackbird jail staring him
in the face.
I want to go home. The Grand is brown, Williams’
Fork is gold color; the Troublesome is so thick that
you can stick a knife into it, turn it round and see the
hole. Trout fishing this side Egeria Park is not to be
thought of, for it seems to have been raining as it never
rained before. As if ’twould keep on raining, evermore.
.il fn=i-078.jpg w=205
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
PHILOSOPHY.
.sp 2
.di i-087.jpg 167 249 1.3
Upon the contingency of a
rainy day it is always pleasant
to have something to
read in the mountains. A
friend of mine gave me a
pamphlet written by one
Herbert Spencer, entitled
“Education.” A level-headed
appreciative friend who
understands one’s needs, is a
good thing to have. Education was my necessity.
After being educated I became hungry for more. My
friend had said there were “some good things in Herbert;
that he was a philosopher, but given to infidelity.”
I discovered that Herbert had written a library; I had,
then, so to speak, the wide world from which to choose.
I am a seeker after happiness, so I selected “Social
Statics, or the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness.”
If there is any one thing that I enjoy more
than another, it is happiness. Having secured the key
to the “Essential Conditions,” I felt as I imagine a
hungry and ragged prospector feels when the assayer
tells him he has “struck it,” and drew heavy drafts on
the future, just as any prospector does. The “Essential
.pn +1
Conditions” being philosophy, is not dry reading as you
may imagine, that is on a rainy day in camp. It is
good as a comedy.
Dickens tells us that the editor of the Etanswille
Gazette employed a savan to write an article on Chinese
Metaphysics, and that the learned gentleman did it after
this fashion: He consulted the Encyclopedia Britannica,
first under the title “Chinese,” and second under the
title “Metaphysics,” and combined his information.
The editor gravely informed Mr. Pickwick that the
essay caused a sensation, as no doubt it did, and Her
Majesty’s minions were put on the lookout for an
escaped lunatic. Sometimes, while studying the “Conditions”—you
study and do not read philosophy—I
thought Herbert, when he labored on the “Conditions,”
must have been a very old man, in his second childhood,
for instance, and troubled with dyspepsia. Sometimes
that he must have been young, very young, staggering
under a heterogeneous load of information that had got
the better of his mental calibre; that his mind, so to
speak, was in the condition of a few acres of undergrowth
just after a hurricane—demoralized, as it were.
Sometimes—when his arguments reminded me of a
horde of inebriated aborigines, each ready to kill his
neighbor—that he must have been in good condition,
with a view to sensation and ducats, and that if his
theories, conceding he had any, could, by any conceivable
method be put into practice, it would be when
“chaos was come again,” but that his Christian readers
wouldn’t see the joke, would take him to be serious, and
advertise him with abuse.
“There are some good things in Herbert,” of course;
.pn +1
I enjoyed them; unless a thing is good you cannot enjoy
it; the only one to doubt this would be Herbert.
He himself is an argument against total depravity, yet
if you can find that he admits the contrary as to all
humanity, except Herbert, call me Ananias, and his
wife too.
What has Herbert Spencer got to do with Middle
Park and trout fishing? you inquire. Not anything,
except that he says no fellow has a right to own a
mine; that if he—the fellow, I mean—finds a good
mine, it belongs to everybody, and he must ask everybody’s
permission to work it and convert the proceeds
to his own use. I wish I were everybody, or “Society,”
as Herbert calls it, I’d go right over to Leadville or
Rabbit Ear Range and assert my rights. Being everybody,
nobody else would be around to say anything, except
the fellow who had the mine. If he undertook to
draw his gun, I’d stand up in front of him and argue
the point, while I went round behind him and took
away his six-shooter. Being everybody, this would be
easy to do. Then I’d let the fellow go find another
mine, and everybody would go and tell him he was a
claim-jumper and “must light out;” and I’d keep on
until I had corraled all the good mines in the state.
Then I’d go down to New York and interview Mr.
Vanderbilt and other millionaires, and convince them
that they entertained a mistaken notion as to the ownership
of the many odd millions of government securities
and sundry moneys and valuables, real and personal,
said to be in their names. When I’d got all that, I’d
buy—no, I wouldn’t—I’d take possession of New
.pn +1
York; after that I should be capable of anything—except
managing Mr. Conkling.
But I hear you inquire again: What has all this to
do with Middle Park and trout fishing? Not anything.
But that I am puzzled to know, under the circumstances,
what I am to do with the gentleman last
above named. If Herbert were only here he could,
perhaps, help me out of my dilemma; he can set up a
dilemma and help himself out of it as easy as—falling
off a precipice, and there is nothing hard about that
till you get to the bottom. It must be because his
dilemmas are all imaginary, or that mine is not a dilemma.
Let us see what he says of one of his: “Of
this (dilemma) nothing can be said, save that it seems
in part due to the impossibility of making the perfect
law recognize an imperfect state, and in part to that
defect in our powers of expression. As matters stand,
however, we must deal with it as best we may.” See
how he has helped himself out of that! There is a
world of wisdom in it all, especially the last sentence, I
know, if I could only find it. But that’s the trouble
with Herbert—You ask him for bread and he gives
you a stone. I know I can do as best I may, but I
want to know what to do with Conkling; I cannot go
on and perfect my monopoly according to Herbert’s
philosophy without disposing of Roscoe. This planet
is not big enough for both. I am in possession of all
worth having. It is well demonstrated that two bodies
cannot occupy the same space. He is too old to educate.
I am, as Herbert’s disciple, opposed to coercion.
Everybody, that’s me, is entitled to his own free will,
.pn +1
but here I can’t have mine. He says that nothing can
be said, and yet all the newspapers of the country, for
three or four months, have been saying a great deal.
Then he tells me of the difficulty of making the perfect
law—that’s me, again—recognize the imperfect state—that’s
Roscoe. But the latter makes me recognize him.
What use is there in telling me I may deal with him as
best I may? I didn’t need a philosopher to tell me
that. I want that impossible possibility of Herbert’s—a
perfect law. I am in some degree mercenary; everybody
is. If I had that law it would be a curiosity,
valuable as some of the mines voluntarily surrendered,
as already stated, and particularly valuable at this crisis.
I want to know how to dispose of Conkling.
You ask me again: What has this to do with trout
fishing and Middle Park? and what good is it? Nothing,
except it is some of Herbert’s philosophy considered
in a light atmosphere; where the air is thin, and
you can see a great way, it is easier discovering obscure
objects in the distance. Herbert could not have expressed
himself more clearly.
Well, all right; I’ll stop right here. But I would
like to say just a word about Herbert’s style. I like
his style—when I can understand what it is. His arguments
are something between black-letter Norman-French
and a fashionable bonnet. The one is
incomprehensible to the ordinary mind, and the other
is a delightful combination of vagaries. Good-bye,
Herbert. I hope you will have a good time. But if
you don’t find it harder work traveling over your own
turnpike with the load you have on than driving a jack
train over a blind trail, you can set me down for a fool
.pn +1
or a philosopher—the difference is so slight that one
may be happy as either.
The conditions essential to happiness are three, and
may be described thus: Two primary, and one primary
and secondary, or primary or secondary, depending altogether
upon the existence of the two primary. Thus:
the first condition essential to happiness is—that
is human happiness; “I do not wish to be misunderstood,”
nor have the happiness of which I am now
writing “confounded (nonsense! No, sir) with some
other” happiness—an appetite; this is the first primary.
(No, sir! I am not a ward politician.) Let me
repeat: the first condition essential to happiness is an
appetite. The second primary condition essential is a
good digestion. Dependent upon these two is the third
condition essential, which may be called something to
eat. Thus, if the appetite and digestion are good, the
third—something to eat—becomes an essential condition
and primary. If the appetite and digestion, or
either, is impaired, the third essential condition becomes
secondary or useless, so to speak. These, the essential
conditions, concurring in one man, he is capable of happiness,
mental and physical, otherwise not. Observe, I
do not affirm he will be or is happy, but that he is capable,
merely, of happiness. The conditions essential
must concur, however, and in one man. This is a necessity
more than a condition, and may be called properly
a concurrent necessity, rather than a condition essential.
But the appetite requires food. I mean by this
that the appetite of the man—and the term is used in
a generic sense and includes women—the most superficial
thinker will concede without argument that there
.pn +1
must be a man to have the appetite; the man, therefore,
will be understood, thus: The appetite of the man requires
food. If he have the appetite and not the food,
the conditions are non-concurrent. If he have the
food and not the appetite, there is a similar, but not
exactly parallel, non-concurrence. If he have the appetite
and the food and the dyspepsia, which is the corollary
of indigestion, and the opposite of good digestion,
or equivalent to no digestion at all, there is a lack of
the conditions essential. It would seem, therefore, that
there are only three conditions essential, but those three
must necessarily concur in one man before he can be
happy.
I like positive people with positive opinions, not
people who are perpetually preferring exceptions.
Now I have one of those non-committal mortals, who is
willing to admit that my conclusion is correct, indisputable
in fact, except that I have not taken into consideration
the possible non-concurrence of the conditions
essential in the event that the food, admitted, has not
been properly prepared. While I am free to admit that
I have not as yet discovered anything esthetic about the
mere operation of eating, and, farther, that it is purely
an animal necessity, yet I must contend that the preparation
of the food is so far secondary as to be a condition
non-essential, as I will now proceed to——.
Well, just as you say; I’m never disposed to bore one
if I can help it, though you might have so augured in
the premises, after reading the title. Do not swear. I
give Herbert up with regret; the sun has come out
after the rain, and it is delightful outside this canvas
.pn +1
house of mine. The air is fresh with the new dampness,
and the rain-drops will not linger long in the shirt
fronts of the mountain daisies. What could I have
done this afternoon if not for Herbert?
.il fn=i-094.jpg w=312
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
AN IDLE MORNING AT GRAND LAKE.
.sp 2
.di i-095.jpg 149 238 1.3
From under the shelter of a
friendly pine I look out upon a
long stretch of water, two miles
and more, to a sloping beach of
a few yards in width, and then
a belt of young trees growing
back to a rugged mountain
gorge. The bright green of the
growth contrasts with the
time-stained hues of the great
piles of rock, and these grow
more wild as the eye follows up the defile. Then a
white patch, the length of a man’s arm and the breadth
of a hand, glistens in the rays of the morning sun, here
inaudible, but there a roaring waterfall a hundred feet
high.
The gorge widens and drifts away to the right and
left, but reaching high, with irregular outlines traced
against the blue sky; the tints of brown and gray and
green intermingle in bountiful confusion, but never
wearisome; then, seemingly, blocking up the gorge in
huge and awe-inspiring massiveness, a dome-shaped
mountain, with miles of base and height far reaching
above the growth of vegetation; just below its summit
.pn +1
a bed of snow, shaped like a dove, defying the hot rays
of an August sun, sparkles like a jewel on the mountain’s
brow. Silent and grand, it o’ertops the beautiful
lake, mirrors its rugged outlines upon the calm surface,
and faintly tints the clear waters with the colors of its
robes. To the right and left the nearer and lower-lying
pine-covered hills reach round and down to the water’s
edge.
And the lake, a gem in the mountain fastness, how
calm it is! There is no melody in the pines this morning,
their sighing is hushed, and the lake is still, its
smooth surface only dotted here and there with the
widening rings made by the leaping trout. How deep
it is no man knows; how cruel it has been is the subject
of many a story within the experience of the whites
about its shores, and legends not a few among the red
men. Seductive it is in its silent beauty, and treacherous
as grand. Cold and relentless as fate, “it never surrenders
its dead.” The Ute cannot be induced to
approach it, and mentions its name with a shudder,
while ye gentle angler commits his frail bark to its
bosom with commendable prudence. There is no telling
when a storm may come; the clouds are not always
the harbingers of a gale; it may come when the sky is
clearest, and the awkward skiffs that prevail hereabout
are not the safest, even under skilful hands.
But, as the sun puts behind him the early morning
hours, the dark tints of the smooth waters change, and
a mile or more away a ray of silver flashes across the
lake; its outer line moves my way, and as the tiny
waves reach my shore, the breeze that moved them
brings the sound of the waterfall. I listen to the melody
it sings, always mellowed in its highest notes by the
.pn +1
distance, and then dying gradually away as if sighing
the requiem of the lost lying buried here, or as fade the
last moments of a weird dream.
And, while I am dreaming, a friend of mine, to whom
this ripple is a never-failing sign, pulls out into the
lake. I mark the long, steady stroke, and wonder how
it is that one so long out of practice can feather his oars
so well, when he catches sight of me, idling away the
time, and stops. But I wave him on, and watch him as
he makes for a point on the western shore that we both
know; where the light tint of the water changes suddenly
to a hue almost black; where the depth on one
side the boat is six feet and on the other may be six
hundred; where the trout are large, and where we have
had many a good fight. In a few minutes he has business
on his hands. I can see his rod, against the dark
background of the adjacent pines, bend and spring back,
and bend again, and then the flash of silvery spray as
the stricken trout breaks the surface in his vain effort
to free his mouth from the cruel barb. But a few moments,
and the mastery is awarded to human skill, and
I see my friend hold up his capture for my delectation.
In his enthusiasm he does not stop to consider that I
have to take a great deal for granted, that I can at best
see only a minute something glisten in his grasp; but
he takes off his hat, waves it over his head, and I conclude
he has a pounder at least. It turned out to be a
little short of double that.
As I lazily wave a response of appreciation my boot-heel
comes in contact with a small stone. Something
in its shape leads me to pick it up; I find it scarred, and
know enough to understand that it is a scratched stone
from the till. And so my eyes wander from this product
.pn +1
of nature’s great lapidary over to the waterfall and
the mountain gorge, which had been his workshop, how
many thousand years ago, who can tell? The beautiful
waterfall is all that remains of him, but his handiwork
is abundant.
Stretching along the east shore lies a great lateral
moraine, even now twenty, and, in places, thirty feet
high, made of great rocks, thousands of tons in weight,
down to mere grains of sand. How many generations
of pines have found precarious foothold there and died,
may be conjectured only. But a new growth is springing
up, as if it were the pleasure of the present to keep
green the grand monument of the dead glacier.
On the narrow beach, with its background of new
growth, smolder the dying embers of a camp-fire. My
eyes follow the thin column of blue smoke that rises
and wreathes itself among the tree-tops, and floats
away to where desecration has stepped in. The suggestion
of primitive life is dispelled by the ridge pole
of a mean house obtruding itself above a depression in
the moraine, and I know that this is but the best of a
number of slab shanties. They are hidden from my
sight, but I recognize them as one does a boil.
The first step into the wilderness of life is filled with
bright anticipations, and lack of restraint makes one’s
happiness as limitless as the great unknown into which
one is traveling; the second step is monotonous, and
one sighs for the promises of the end. The camp-fire,
emblematical of the first step, is passing away; the
slab shanty, the sordid, hard existence that makes life
a burden, is the second step, and one longs for the
third, that may, if nature must feel the weight of our
sacrilegious hands, give us the ashler, graceful roofs,
.pn +1
broad porches, and the comforts of a new life. Pioneers
are lauded for “subduing the wilderness,” but deliver
me from witnessing the progress of subjugation.
I want to be the first, or, that being impossible, the
next best thing to do is to wait till the ruin is complete.
One can then imagine what the surroundings
were; but in the middle period no room is left for imagination,—one
can neither wonder what it was or will
be, and the only thing left is to “unpack my heart with
words, and fall a cursing like a very drab.”
While my mental anathemas and I are holding high
carnival, I am conscious of the presence of something
besides the figures of my imagination. Looking around,
I discover a dark-complexioned woman, with hair black
as night, when cats most do congregate; eyes like jet,
square face, all one color—parchment; a mouth that
shuts like a steel-trap. Her hair brushed smoothly back,
and gathered behind in a great coil, is beautiful; that is
all the beauty I see, except, perhaps, a dainty buttoned
boot with a high instep. In one hand she holds the
end of a small chain, at the other end of which is—yes,
a monkey! This predecessor of the missing link looked
at me in a sort of dreamily sympathetic way, and I at
him. Our commiseration was mutual, and I felt inclined
to shake hands with him. His owner was a
French woman, of course; I do not think a woman of
any other nation, except as a matter of business, would
go wandering round among the Rocky Mountains with
a monkey. If she had had a hand-organ strapped to
her back, I could have forgiven her, even if grinding
out “Days of Absence.” About the time I had “doffed
my old felt,” we were joined by the other member of
.pn +1
the family; he looked like an Egyptian three thousand
or more years old. Not understanding French, I
stepped into my boat and joined my friend.
I have been making an effort to secure for you a picture
of the lake, and though the photographer has been
about here frequently, my success has been indifferent.
Every view worth having is sure to have a foreground
of one or more of the lords of creation, “bearded like
the pard,” with an arsenal strapped around their bodies,
and an expression beaming out from under their broad-brimmed
hats that would drive an ordinary man clear
into the ground in sheer humiliation. Think of these
addle-pated asses posing for exhibition amid scenes that
should awaken naught but wonder and admiration,
blended with that reverence one must feel in the presence
of the Father’s works, and have charity if you can.
The very boulders against which they lean are satires
that will endure the tread of the centuries long after
this world shall have forgotten that such fellows or
their seed had ever incumbered the earth.
.il fn=i-100.jpg w=221
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
“CAMPING WITH LADIES” AND—THE BABY.
.sp 2
.di i-101.jpg 152 182 1.3
Before the little narrow gauge
engines of the Denver, South Park
and Pacific with their trains of baby
cars went thundering up through
the cañons, reaching out for Leadville,
the trouting in the Platte
was prime. Following the sinuous
track, first on one side of the
river, then on the other, you can look out to the right
and see your engine going west while your car is going
east, then your engine starts east or north and you go
south or west. Now you crane your neck to catch the
top of some overhanging cliffs a thousand feet high, and
are suddenly jerked around a curve into a little glade of
a dozen acres with a little brook running through it;
then you are as quickly yanked into another cañon. If
one were drunk no doubt, the road would be straight.
But thirty-five or forty miles from Denver the cañon
grows familiar. Buffalo Creek comes tumbling out
from the south, and presently the brakeman puts his
head in at the door and shouts: “Pine Grove!” This
is the Pine Grove known to travelers who go by rail,
but the Pine Grove of twenty odd years ago was six
.pn +1
miles away from the river, and the railroad Pine Grove
was Brown and Stuart’s ranche, the owners of which
drove a thrifty traffic in hay.
In August, 1868, I made acquaintance first with the
pools and riffles in the vicinity of the old Brown and
Stuart’s ranche. I clambered up and down the cañon
for five or six miles east and west. The rush and the roar
of the crystal waters made glorious music, and an hour’s
fishing would send me laden back to camp. But for all
the grand surroundings, the fresh air, the wild flowers
and the trout, there was weariness of heart for her and
me who made our camp on the margin of the then
beautiful stream. There had a little while before crept
over our threshold a shadow we all dread, and which had
gone out again leaving a wound that would not heal.
But later on, when the cloud with the silver lining
had turned a little of its brighter side our way, there
came out to us one of your down-east girls, to whom
the “Great American Desert” was a revelation, and
these grand old mountains an epic. It was the season
for camping, and she was stricken with the mania at
once. She approached the subject tenderfootedly, but
being assured that nothing was easier, nothing better
for city folks, ecstacy was the consequence. Then
there suddenly arose an insurmountable barrier.
“What will you do with the Governor?”
“Take him along, of course.”
“What! baby sleep in a tent? Be eaten by mosquitoes,
rained on and bitten by snakes?”
The prospect was appalling; but then I assured her
that fresh air never hurt babies; that mosquitoes were
unknown, in August, at least; that rain was such a
.pn +1
rarity that I was compelled to go to the creek for moisture,
and as for snakes, the rattlers, at least, they never
got beyond the foot hills; the little gart—a-hem—striped
snakes were pleasant to have around, and were
cleaner than flies. Besides it was confidently anticipated
that baby was about to distinguish himself, and
there was no panacea so efficacious for teething babies
as the mountain air. That settled it.
The first thing to be looked after was the mess kit—known
among the cow-boys as the “chuck box.” Mine
would fit neatly into the tail end of a wagon; was
about two feet and a half from top to bottom, and
about twelve inches deep; had racks for cups, saucers,
plates, knives and forks, and plenty of room for two
weeks’ supplies of flour and other necessaries. When
we wanted to lunch it was an easy matter to drop the tail
gate of the wagon, let down the side of the mess kit, and
we had a good table; the whole thing was as handy as a
pocket in a shirt, and its capacity marvelous. An ordinary
lumber wagon with spring seats, an A tent, 7 × 7,
for the women folks, plenty of rubber ponchos, a
change of clothing, wool, of course, all round. All
together making an abundance for comfort, and a light
load with which the horses could trot along and not
half try.
About the hour that Hamlet’s father was wont to
render himself up to “sulphurous and tormenting
flames,” we were astir, and before the sun was up we
were away. Fifteen miles to the foot hills and Turkey
Creek cañon. Towards noon the sun beats down hotly
on the plains, and I always make it a point to get to the
cañon by ten o’clock at the outside. And this morning
.pn +1
we passed Harriman’s before ten, and from our shelf
on the mountain side we could look out east till plains
and sky came together.
Down below us, on the left, six or eight hundred feet,
the little creek looked about as wide as one’s finger.
The road is fairly wide enough for the wagon, with here
and there a “turn out,” to accommodate passing teams.
To the right a perpendicular wall running up a hundred
feet; to the left—well, our visitor said she was tired of
riding and would like to walk a little; the road was
smooth as a floor, and the grade easy. I suggested that
horses rarely cut up capers in such places, but the effect
of a wrecked wagon and the remains of a mule lodged
against a granite boulder half way down the mountain
was not to be overcome by any assurance of mine; and
walk she did; so did the baby’s mother and maid, taking
turns in carrying his majesty for a couple of miles.
Not having any hills to climb the inconvenience is not
so great; but, take a twenty-five pound youngster in
your arms, at an elevation of, say nine thousand feet,
and undertake to walk up hill; a half mile seems
twenty, and at the end of three-quarters you want to
lie down, wondering if your lungs are larger than the
universe. But like everything else in this life, it becomes
easy when you get used to it.
Our first objective point on this trip was Reed’s Mill,
about thirty miles from home. No trout, but wild raspberries,
now in their prime. Did you ever eat any? If
not, the first one you put on your tongue will make you
“wish your throat a mile long and every inch a palate,”
with accessible untold acres of berries. There is about
them a tenderness and luscious delicacy, a fragrance and
.pn +1
even beauty, that makes a cultivated brother look and
taste in comparison like a combination of mucilage and
sawdust. The “Shepherd” thought when Tom Moore
was penning his Loves of the Angels, that he “fed upon
calf foot jeelies, stewed prunes, the dish they ca’ curry,
and oysters.” But I don’t believe it. Tom was in
America once, and I believe he strayed this way, and
was inspired by mountain raspberries, with cream so
thick “a spider might crawl on’t.” I do not believe
Tom was so much of an animal as Hogg, by his wit,
would make him.
But the fruit season is brief, and three or four days
in the berry patch set me yearning for running waters,
and the delicate salmon-colored fins. So we broke
camp and turned into the road for Pine Grove and the
Platte. By five o’clock we were fixed to stay, with
plenty of pine knots for the camp fire and quaking asp
to cook with, our only neighbors a couple of “English
cousins,” owners of the ranche, from whom we could
get cream, and butter and milk, and who helped make
our evenings “jolly.”
Everything being in trim for the proper conducting
of household matters, I received orders to “catch a
mess for supper.” Right in front of our tent, two rods
away, a gravelly bar reached from the bank to the
water, and the opposite side, fifty feet about, the river
ran deep and rapidly. I had never failed securing a
trophy from that swirl, and I sent a gray hackle on its
mission as near the opposite willows, and as deftly as
my skill would permit. I “struck it rich” the first
cast; the fraud had barely touched the water before I
saw the jaws of a beautiful trout close upon it, and felt
.pn +1
his strength at the same instant. Since last summer’s
experience I have wished more than once that I had
been on that occasion the owner of a split bamboo.
As it was, the sport resolved itself into a mere trial of
strength between tackle and fish. In three seconds he
was ignominiously snaked out on the beach, a three-pound
trout, the largest I have ever caught, and enough
for supper.
The whole family had “swarmed up” the bank, as
Dickens would say, to enjoy my discomfiture, but the
contemplated taunts were never given breath. I stood
in my tracks and landed three more, and, will heart
of man believe it? they complained because the three
last were not as large as the first. But my merit was
established; when I came home empty handed, which
was hard to do, any explanation of mine was “confirmation,
strong as proof of holy writ,” that the trout
would not rise for anything. So much for reputation!
I wonder how many fellows there are in the world who
enjoy it who are no more deserving than I?
One morning I started down the stream; it was my
birthday, and though nothing had been said about that
momentous epoch in my history, I felt it incumbent
upon me to achieve something out of the ordinary. I
did. I fell off a log, head first, into a hole four feet
deep. Cold? well, yes! I thought I had struck a moderate
sized Arctic winter. But there was no one “there
to see,” and I uttered my benison on the man who invented
the sun, as I crawled out to the warmth of our
daily servant and friend. My creel was not empty and
I saved everything, even my temper. When I got
back to camp, she who had taken “the long path with
.pn +1
me” suggested that I was wet, that an immediate
change of garments was imperative. But, having an
exasperating disposition to stubbornness, I insisted that
every thread must dry where it was, and it did, without
even a sneeze, to punish me for not taking a woman’s
advice. I had been there before.
It was determined that baby and I should tend camp
for half an hour or so that afternoon, while the three
natural guardians wandered off to the adjacent hillside
for wild flowers wherewith to deck the tea-table. This
was no new business to us. The young man with a pillow
at his back, seated in the middle of a blanket rubbing
his face with a teaspoon; I lying prone three feet
away with my toes beating an occasional tattoo on the
soft sward, my chin in my hands and brier-root between
my teeth, watching him. There was a bright light in
his eyes, and his cheeks were rosy, soft as velvet, yet
firm and cool. What is there like the touch of a baby’s
cheek pressed against your own! You must turn and
kiss it, just as you did its mother’s the first time you
had a right to. But is there anything more ridiculous
in life than to see a baby attempt to put a spoon into
his mouth before he has got the knack of it? See him
hit himself in the eye with it, pretty much as a drunken
man would knock a fly off his nose; smear it down his
face, with his mouth wide open and turned up like a
young robin’s, but it misses the place on the way down;
he takes it with both chubby fists, looks at it with dignified
surprise, as though for the first time aware of its
presence, lets go one hand, whacks the spoon against
his ear and drags it across his cheek with the same result.
But persistence is characteristic of this baby, a
.pn +1
quiet determination that has something appalling about
it. If there were any raspberry jam on that spoon his
face would look worse than a railroad map of the State
of New York. Finally, and as it would seem, after all,
more by accident than design, the spoon reaches the
right place; he twists it round to the distortion of his
rosebud mouth; then he looks at me, sees me laughing;
the fun seems to dawn upon him; he takes the spoon
out of his mouth, pounds the blanket with it, and smiles
back at me, and the smile resolves itself into a well-defined
laugh.
The sun has just disappeared behind the range, but
there is a mellow ray of golden light that lingers about
the baby’s head that makes me think—think of the one
so like him, and from the base of the hill, with her hands
full of wild flowers, the tallest of the three starts toward
me, and I remember only the sunshine of the long
path.
But I forgot to tell you about my camp stove: it is a
piece of sheet iron, eighteen inches square, with a hole
in the centre, eight inches in diameter; set upon four
stones, it makes a first-class stove.
.il fn=i-108.jpg w=133
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
BOYS AND BURROS.
.sp 2
.di i-109.jpg 174 214 1.3
From my outlook under the
shade of the old pine I see a
familiar and massive pile of
granite over fourteen thousand
feet high, and a bit of
the range, with patches of
last winter’s snow glistening
in the sunlight. The brown
and gray of the lofty peaks
are contrasted with the mist-covered
blue of the lower mountains. Then comes the
furthest glimpse of the beautiful river rolling out from
the beautiful cañon of lava cliffs. Then the meadow
for a foreground, its rich green tinted here and there
with the gold that denotes the coming sickle time.
Then the quiet, straggling village of log houses, with
its tavern perched upon a hillside, and down by the
river bank the smith’s shop, where seems the only sign
of life. The ring of the “ten-pound-ten,” as it comes
up to me clear and resonant upon the pure air, does not
mar the harmony of the river’s melody, nor taint the
romance of the scene. But a boy, taking his afternoon
nap astride a shingle horse on the shady side of a cabin,
does; he is suggestive of some of the realities of life, and
.pn +1
is recuperating for my benefit. That shingle horse is
to him a bed of roses, and the hard log of the old cabin
a pillow of down. He can sleep standing on his head,
I believe; I know he can crosswise or tangled up. I
am not near enough to see, but I know that his cheeks
are red, his face tanned to russet, his hands dirty, his
clothes ragged, and—his pulse regular. I know exactly
what he will do when he awakes; he’ll whistle,
whistle for me, but not for my benefit. If he’d only
whistle Put Me in My Little Bed, Yankee Doodle, or
other soul-moving melody, his music would not be so
much a burden. But he cannot distinguish between
Gray Eagle and the Doxology; he could whistle a stave
from a barrel sooner than a bar from an opera. He
whistles to make a noise; and, not content with ordinary
methods, he sticks his fingers in his mouth, and
awakens the echoes down the cañons until you would
think the Utes had escaped from the Reservation and
were round hunting scalps.
How did I come by him? Why, through his mother,
of course; did you ever know of a boy being round to
make life a joy forever, without his mother being at the
bottom of it? I had an interest in the boy; his mother
is a near relative of mine, and hearing that I was to
have a short vacation in the mountains, she thought it
a splendid idea, if you know what that is, to have him
spend his vacation with me instead of running round
the streets. I told her I was going a great way off, into
a rough country where the mosquito and buffalo gnat
were rampant, to sleep upon the bare ground, to live
upon flitch and potatoes with flap-jacks fried in grease,
and she said that was just what he needed, fresh air and
.pn +1
plain food. I told her that where I was going the
boys were wicked and the men drank and swore like
pirates, and there were no Sabbath schools; she said he
would never be good for anything were he not thrown
in the way of temptation, and as to the Sabbath school,
I could take along a Testament and read to him; that
would be novel to myself and amuse the boy. I told
of high mountains and dangerous trails to be traversed,
of deep caverns and antres vast, of swift rivers, and Utes
whose heads were filled with vermin, “the chief end and
market of whose time” was to capture and torture boys.
She said he would have something to tell about when
he came back, and as to the vermin, I could have his
head mowed with a clipping machine. I swore I
wouldn’t take him; but she said she knew I would, and
was right, because I always like to, and do, have my own
way, except—.
Yes, he is waking up and looking round in search of
his Barlow, perhaps. I saw him stabbing the shingle
horse with it when he went to sleep. No, he is not
looking for his Barlow, but another fellow of later date.
There goes his hand to his mouth; I knew it.
“Hello, old fellow! here I am under the old pine.”
“All right,” came back to me, in confidence of my
ability to take care of myself, while he had me in sight.
“Can I come up there?” and he granted his own request,
as usual.
“What’s that thing over there?”
“What thing, and where do you mean?”
“Why, that thing over yonder; it looks like a man.”
“I don’t see anything that looks like a man.”
“Why, don’t you see that thing up against that mountain
.pn +1
that runs down to the river? It looks like a man
with his fist doubled up goin’ to hit somebody.”
“I see a brown patch against the mountain side surrounded
by green that has something the shape of a
man—is that what you mean?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“A patch of brown surrounded by grass or bushes.”
“Well, what does it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did it come there?”
“Because the grass or bushes grew around it, I suppose.”
“Well, but I mean does it mean anything? It looks
like a big man.”
“Life is short, little boy. But if it means anything,
it is the photograph of the presiding genius of the Hot
Sulphur Springs.”
“What’s a presiding genius?”
“Little boy, did you say that you would like to ride
horseback? Yes—well go over and tell the man at the
barn that you want the pony.”
I am a great lover of ponies, they give one a rest. In
fact, if it were not for this particular pony, the only
non-bucking broncho in the vicinity, I should be constrained
to leave. I have been anxious to go down the
river to the house of a friend and have a week’s fishing,
but I dare not go away from that pony. I am
afraid the owner of that pony is mercenary; he refuses
to hire him for a week; I think he knows that I want
to go fishing, and has possessed himself of the idea that
I cannot fish without the pony. He told me only yesterday
that he commonly fished off that pony’s back; in fact
.pn +1
that it was “the best way to fish anyhow.” It may be
a good method; I never tried it; the novelty of the
thing is something of an inducement. But the man
asks too much, I am satisfied; the pony is not worth
more than thirty dollars, but the owner demands fifty.
He says I can sell him again, and I have no doubt of
that. But what can I get for him? Well, he don’t know,
but he’s sure I “won’t lose nothin’;” he might take a
notion to buy him back, at a discount, of course. I
offer to pay him the “discount” for the pony’s use, and
also tender references as to my integrity. But he
“don’t know nothin’ about references—there’s the
pony, sound in wind and limb, and so gentle a child
can ride him, and the best pony to fish off’n I knows
on; you can take him, or leave him.”
I have concluded to take him; an indifferent saddle
and bridle, ten dollars—total, sixty dollars. The boy
takes the outfit under his immediate supervision and
we go down to the house of my friend.
Here we found another boy a couple of years
younger. I did not know of this boy save by report,
but now I do. This last boy is sedate; sometimes I
think he is about sixty, but his father is not that old,
and it bothers me occasionally to determine which is
the father and which the son. They call him Judge,
and it’s worth half a dollar to hear him call me counselor—the
title with which he dubbed me on our introduction.
“Counselor, I’m glad to see you; the fishing is good;
the mosquitoes are a little troublesome for this time of
year; but we can give you a net, and I’ll show you
where to fish.”
.pn +1
His hair is curly, and lie has what the mother of the
boy in charge of me would call a “sweet face.” I was
about to take him in my arms, but I took off my hat
instead, and introduced him to my boy; they looked at
each other, grinned and shook hands; then I knew he
was a boy, and again wanted to take him in my arms,
but dared not. That evening I sat on a stool mending
a broken leader, and the Judge sat opposite in a high
chair.
“Counselor,” said he, “you are not tying that knot
square; that knot will slip; bring it here and let me
tie it for you.”
I obeyed reverently; he accomplished the trick deftly
and handed back my leader in silence.
“Judge, can you tie a fly?”
“Not very well; but I will some day, and then I’ll
make the trout round here think they are eating
candy.”
“By the way, Judge, do you like candy?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
I was glad of that, because I’m fond of candy myself,
though I never before took any on a camping trip.
We have been at my friend’s house nearly a week.
I have not as yet had an opportunity to test the qualities
of the pony “to fish off’n,” but the boys corroborate
the stableman’s assertion, and I think that unless
I can get a good price from the man of whom I purchased
him, I shall take him home with me and try
him another season. The idea, however, is not of my
own suggestion; my boy proposed it. Besides, some
day when the boy is at school—blessed be the school,
the school teacher, and not the birch—his mother
.pn +1
might get a chance to ride. The pony could rest at
night, of course. It would only involve a dollar a day
and a side-saddle. Think of a pony eating himself up
once a month! That kind of financiering is what keeps
me a pauper; I shall have to forego the pleasure of
fishing “off’n that pony.”
At my friend’s house our tent is pitched on the bank
of the river. I came away from home to be out. I
have slept in the house for so many years that it has
ceased to be a novelty. The boy and I sleep together;
or rather he sleeps on the same spruce boughs or hay
that I occupy. Perhaps there is nothing in the world
so beautiful as a sleeping child, with the rosy flush of
health mantling brow and cheek, with, may be, a tear
trembling on the closed lashes, the remembrance of a
sorrow that was, but now forgotten. This has been an
inspiration to a multitude of poets, but the inspiration
did not come upon them in camp, nor were the poets
trying to snatch repose in the same bed; they were
lookers on merely, giving the rein to their imagination.
A poem under such circumstances would be a satire,
certainly.
Last night the boy went to bed early, while the pony
sorrowfully partook of his evening meal in my friend’s
meadow. I flattered myself that a good night’s rest
was in store for me, and turned in as the moon came up
over the range. The night was very still, and I was
dozing off under the soothing melody of the swift flowing
river on its road to the sea, when I thought I heard
the distant lowing of a cow; that was no strange matter
in this neighborhood. I forgot it in a moment and was
gone, perhaps five minutes, trout fishing, or eating wild
.pn +1
raspberries with cream, yellow cream, not blue, when I
heard the cow again, then something like three hundred
cows and as many calves, and six hundred cow-boys, all
yelling like a band of Apaches just before day break.
If you never heard an Apache yell, remember, the first
time you do, each particular hair will stand on end—if
you have any left. Each cow bellowed for her calf and
each calf for its dam—how I’d like to put an “n” to
that last word, with cow to top off with—and each particular
cow-boy yelled as though he were six, and interested
in his mission. They were trying to ford the
stream, not a hundred yards from my head. Of course
I was broad awake, expecting every instant that the boy
would start up with the impression that a million Utes
had come down for him. I opened the tent fly, and the
moonlight streamed brightly in upon his sunburned
face; he heaved a long sigh of utter satisfaction, turned
over and snored an accompaniment to the pandemonium
in the road. I gave it up, and prepared to turn
in again just as the rear end of the cavalcade was passing
out of sight.
But not to sleep, just yet. My friend has a dozen or
more burros, and the burro is another of the blessings
of this world for which I possess unlimited love. Their
patient and melancholy looking eyes will excite the
sympathy of any human save the miner; their ears are
a mystery; their song!—Oh for a bard to string his lyre
and sing in poetic numbers his praises of the burro’s
song! I have sometimes thought the burro the Pegasus
of some of our Colorado poets, but that they shunned
their source of inspiration; gave him the cold shoulder,
as it were. Rivalry begets jealousy, and that may account
.pn +1
for it; each individual poet would swear by himself
only, upon the same principle that every fellow
likes to take to himself the credit of all the good things
said and done, forgetting there is nothing new under
the sun.
Well, my friend’s burros had ranged themselves in
line along the inside of the lane fence, and with their
ears sticking straight out a foot or more between the
top rails, seemed to be silently investigating the cause
of the misery in their vicinity. A little blue fellow at
the head seemed to take in the situation, as the last cowboy
galloped by; then he stuck his head through the
fence rails and laughed; his immediate neighbors of
course saw the joke, and joined in. The whole band at
once became inspired, and that infected me. When it
grew monotonous, I began “heaving rocks;” they
pulled their heads in at this unexpected interruption,
backed off a few rods out of the reach of my compliments,
and stared at me with their ears. After apparently
taking in my situation, they began laughing
again. I laid down in disgust, and the boy slept on.
The moon was going down in the West before the serenade
entirely ceased; then I went to sleep, and dreamed—no
wonder, you say—that I was in Ireland. There I met
the Doctor, driving round in an American buckboard,
with no tires on the wheels. I asked him where the
irons were, and he told me the English Government
was covering the Green Isle with railroads as a military
necessity, and was confiscating all the iron. Building
railroads being then my mission, I had a gang of men
at work, when I felt myself suddenly hit in the back
with a spike hammer, whereat I was broad awake in the
.pn +1
tent on the bank of the river, and the boy’s knees
planted in my ribs. I shook him, gently of course,
and asked him why he did it. He said he didn’t know,
but guessed he was asleep; that he could always do it at
home, and strike his knees against the wall. There was
no answer to this, so I told him to go to sleep again,
which he did. In less than five minutes he was lying
crosswise. I straightened him out, gently of course, and
he wanted to know why I did that. My explanation
being satisfactory, he went to sleep again, and I was
getting into a doze when he turned a somersault and lit
with his head in my stomach. I straightened him out
again, gently of course, and asked him if he thought I
was a circus ring. He said he had been dreaming. I
told him he shouldn’t dream; that dreaming was the
peculiar privilege of his elders. I might have read him
quite an essay on dreaming, but he was having out his
morning nap, and I turned out quite refreshed. When
I went to call him to breakfast, he was on his knees
with his face buried in his hands, and his hands on his
pillow. Of course I hesitated to disturb him in that Oriental
attitude of devotion, but I soon discovered he was
asleep, finishing that morning nap. As soon as he was
fairly awake he began to whistle.
The boy, the pony and I went back to the stableman
to-day, and the latter offered me thirty dollars for the
pony, saddle and bridle. I told him I thought thirty
dollars rather an extravagant expenditure for a week’s
use of a pony, but the man seemed to have forgotten
that he had sold him to me. When I reminded him of
the fact, he said he couldn’t buy and sell horses without
making something; that the buying and selling of
.pn +1
horses was his business; that he had a family to support
and expenses to meet; but seeing as how I was, anxious
to sell, though he had no particular use for a pony, and
as long as it was me, he’d give me thirty-two fifty for
the outfit. I had finally learned the value of the pony,
and being loth to impose upon him something that he
did not need, I concluded not to sell, notwithstanding
the side-saddle and the ability of the pony to consume
himself monthly. The boy approved the plan—that
is all this emergency demands. I shall yet “fish off’n
that pony.”
The dining-room of the caravansary where my boy
takes me to get our daily bread is presided over by a
goddess possessed of a pink cotton gown and a Grecian
nose with a mole—an exquisite sorrel mole with two
sable hairs pendant. Looked at from any point of the
compass she resembles a shingle with an old-fashioned
candle extinguisher for a head. The former physical peculiarity
is the result, I presume, of the Mother Hubbard
cut of the cotton robe; the latter, of the manner in
which she dresses her hair. While she served the fried
liver to-day, a pensive sadness lingering about her blue
eyes exaggerated the mole, and it seemed that both the
mole and its owner felt they were out of place. As she
stood over against me, with the stoneware platter of felicity
gracefully poised in her nut-brown hands, hers was
that “far-away look” we read about, and I thought,
.nf b
“The melancholy days have come,
The saddest of the year.”
.nf-
Might she not be a New England school ma’am away
for a vacation? Or perhaps one of our own seminary
young ladies escaped for a holiday. I had heard of such
.pn +1
vagaries in other hill countries further east, and knew
that fashion followed the star of empire rapidly. I had
never met any poets—might she not be one? Her
style of coiffure and number seven boot were suggestive
of something out of the ordinary, to say the least. Presuming
upon the far-away look and my paternal appearance,
I said:
“My dear, can I have a glass of milk?”
The look was not so far away any more—only about
three feet, or less; and to me the little boy appeared
quite as tall as I, as she answered:
“No, sir; we buy our milk.”
I wanted to ask her if I might infer that all else in
that hostelry was stolen, but daren’t. She left me in
this collapsed condition, and the boy then wanted to
know of me who she was. I ventured to tell him she
was the lost pleiad. Then he wanted to know what a
pleiad was. When I had explained as well as my limited
knowledge of mythology would permit, he wanted to
know if the pleiades were in the Milky Way. In my
then condition of mind, the inquiry from any other
source would have proved the proverbial “last straw.”
He pouted on my laughing at him, and threatened to
tell the young woman that I had said her husband was
in hell rolling stones. Only the promised deprivation of
the pony, in such event, averted the calamity.
Sometime during that forenoon my boy picked up a
friend whom he brought into camp behind him on the
pony. This other boy was dressed in the remains of a
shirt, with some other man’s pants, strapped to his arm
pits by a relic of suspender and rolled up to his knees.
The iris of one eye was black, the other gray; his hair
.pn +1
had the withered appearance of having been cured in
the sun; his skin russet and of grain leather texture.
He might have been half a score or three in years; if he
had ever possessed any timidity the sharp edges of it had
been rubbed off years ago. Looking down at me with
a Selkirkian satisfaction, he inquired hoarsely:
“I say, Mister, be you this kid’s dad?”
“His mother says so, and I have no reason to
doubt it.”
“Is she the boss?”
“She is.”
“Thought so; does she chaw gum?”
“No.”
“What! Don’t chaw gum! What kind of a Christian
is she, anyway?”
“A Methodist—an orthodox.”
“Well, so’s mam, and she chaws gum, you bet—see
that”—and he held out a hand that in its normal
state would have rivaled Vulcan’s for color; but the
combination of pitch and dirt exhibited was a marvel
of blackness. “That’s her’n.”
Thinking my turn had come, and taking advantage
of the momentary lull, I inquired his name.
“Tom.”
“What is your surname?”
“My what?”
“Your other name?”
“Oh! Hain’t got none.”
“What is your mother’s name?”
“Mam, you mean?—Jane.”
“Well, what is her other name?”
“Dunno.”
.pn +1
“What is your father’s name?”
“Dad, you mean?—John.”
“Has he no other name?”
“Not that I knows on.”
“What does your mam call him?”
“Don’t call him at all—she blows the horn.”
Upon further questioning I learned that this scion of
a nameless house was a nephew of the young woman
who owned the mole. Also that he had been informed
that I was “one of them newspaper fellers.” I hastened
to convince him that however much I felt honored
I could not lay claim to the distinction. At this he
wanted to know what I was “givin’” him. I disavowed
any intention of giving him anything, unless, indeed,
it might be a taste of the quirt my boy used to tickle
the pony’s ribs. Not having an appetite for that kind
of pabulum, he suddenly slipped off his perch and disappeared;
as he did so the sulphurous fumes from the
Springs were heavier than I had ever known them.
My boy then had an interview with me, amicable, of
course, during which we discussed at length the evil influence
of miscellaneous associations, the Sunday school
mission and kindred subjects. Half an hour afterwards
I saw them together again killing water snakes. I
went immediately and turned the pony into the pasture,
thinking he would need at least three days’ rest; it
proved a specific.
That day at dinner I found a glass of milk awaiting
me, as well as the young woman, with a smile, instead
of the excrescence, being the absorbing feature. Being
neither Mexican nor French, the revolution was a surprise;
I carried that round with me all the afternoon
.pn +1
without knowing what to do with it. Had my boy’s
mother been accessible she could have cleared up the
surprise in five minutes.
In the evening I sat on the tavern porch, enjoying
my brier-root, when I became conscious of the presence
of the cotton gown and its owner. She wanted to
know of me if I were “star gazing.” I began to think
she had taken me for a widower and eligible, so I
hastened to tell her that since my fourth marriage I
had outgrown the sentiment involved in her inquiry.
She nevertheless assured me that she “doted on the
study of the heavenly orbs,” and a minute afterwards
I learned—“Oh, my prophetic soul”—that poetry
was her mission. She said she had been trying to find
out the difference between a spondee and a trochee; I
told her I knew nothing about the former, being a temperance
man; as to the latter, I recommended Brown’s,
and offered her one, as she seemed to need it at the
moment. But she declined, as I thought, in a manner
unnecessarily formal. Then she informed me that she
had no reference to bronchial difficulties or their remedies,
but to feet. I expected no less than a dissertation
on corns, that being a tender subject with me,
and hastened to express my interest. I became convinced
in a moment that I had verily “put my foot in
it” for the second time, when she told me she meant
“poetic feet.” I was about to say something, but felt
out of my depth, and refrained, lest I might disappear,
head and ears. She then informed me that a spondee
was a foot, but whether it was a foot of two short syllables
and a long one, or two long ones and a short one,
was what “bothered” her. I told her the subject was
.pn +1
too long for me to get round, and, in short, that I had
never read any poetry but that of Walt Whitman.
She had never heard of him, and wanted a taste of his
quality; I gave it her:
.nf b
“My head slews round on my neck;
Music rolls, but not from the organ;
Folks are around me, but they are no household of mine”—
.nf-
She interrupted me at this point, and wanted to know
what I was “giving” her, and whether I called that
poetry. It became my duty, of course, to assure her of
my utter inability to express an opinion. Thereupon,
in a burst of confidence, she informed me that, as I had
no appreciation of poetic numbers (though she possessed
“piles of manuscript”), she had just finished
“An Essay on Time.” The subject being prose, and
original, I begged the favor of hearing it. She began
without hesitation:
“Once more has the earth completed its circuit round
the burning and brilliant luminary of heaven; the
wheels of Time still roll on and bury every moment in
the dust the wrecks of former revolutions——”
Just then my boy came with the announcement that
he was sleepy and wanted to go to bed. It is difficult
to resist a boy’s appeal, as a rule; of the sleepy boy an
impossibility. If not yielded to at once, he repeats his
invocation every half minute until success crowns his
efforts. But I could not go without exacting a promise
that, at some future time, when she had time, the
Essay on Time, “whereof by parcels I had something
heard, but not intentively,” she would “dilate” fully.
Of course she promised, but the Arctic smile which
beamed upon the boy would have made his mother
.pn +1
wretched. The next morning at breakfast he complained
to me that his coffee tasted salty. I had learned
of him that he had already that morning corroborated to
the aunt my denial to the nephew of the editorial dignity
charged upon me by that youth the day before. I had
no milk for dinner that day, nor any day thereafter; the
far-away look came back into Merope’s eyes, and, for
me, was stereotyped there. The Essay on Time was
lost; so were I and the boy—at least we seemed to be
the only ones aware of our own presence at meal times.
I always have sympathy for those who realize having, as
it were, “wasted their sweetness on the desert air.” But
the young woman ignored sympathy, and I was made
painfully conscious of my inability to eat her pearls.
One’s pride may sometimes exert the mastery over one’s
appetite, but a boy’s stomach, especially a healthy boy’s,
possesses no such armor. His tyrant began to dictate
to him, and, as tyranny generally begets rebellion in
the subject, there was no alternative but to declare war
or vacate. Being always peacefully inclined, I adopted
the latter, and the boy, the pony and I took our leave.
.il fn=i-125.jpg w=195
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
“HE’S NO SARDINE.”
.sp 2
.di i-126.jpg 138 171 1.5
Wagon Wheel Gap ought to
have been colonized by Frenchmen.
Why, did you say? Well, the Gap
proper is a few hundred feet long.
On the southwest side of the Rio
Grande, a cliff, about six hundred
feet at the base, reaches heavenward perpendicularly
about the same distance. Opposite, and stretching
for two miles or more down the stream, is a beetling
wall, in some places, they tell me, thirteen hundred feet
high. To reach the summit, one must go two miles
up the river to Bellows Creek, strike into a game trail
that leads through numberless little parks, bordered
with mountain pines, and gorgeous with the hues of
wild flowers. If a Frenchman should walk to the summit
of his ambition, he would be too tired to fall off;
if he rode up, being a mercurial creature, he’d have
time to, and would, change his mind, go back to his
family, if he had any, and wonder why he had ever entertained
the notion that this is not a good world to
live in. Looked at from below, there would be such a
fascination in the absolute magnificence of the means to
his end, that when the melancholy fit enraptured him
again, he’d go over the same trail, with the same happy
.pn +1
result. With those cliffs hanging over him, the consequences
of charcoal, morphine, the pistol or the rapier
would become coarse. He would abandon all other
routes to immortality, and finally die in his bed with
the weight of years, like a Christian. That was my
explanation to the Captain, and he believed in it, as we
lay peering over the edge and looking down at our six-feet
friends turned into midgets.
Those friends of ours, good rodsters, all, stood on the
bank of the river, evidently predicting what a day
might bring forth. The Rio Grande was metamorphosed
from a crystal stream into a river of mud.
From our dizzy height, it looked like a demoralized
rope, the impeding boulders in the current making the
frayed patches. We had seen it in that plight and none
other for two weeks. But that we had been assured each
day that there would certainly be a change on the morrow,
we would have sworn its normal condition was
“rily.”
Having been lied to daily for the last fourteen days,
our hope had ended in the faith that inspired our comforters.
“So much a long communion tends to make
us what we are:—even I” promised each newcomer,
anxious to test his skill, that the river would “clear up
to-morrow.” We had heard, too, about four times a
day, of the eight-pound trout captured somewhere in
Antelope Park, on a seven-ounce rod,—the trout I
mean, not the park. I knew all the history of that
trout; it had been skinned and the skin stuffed; I saw
a woman who saw the trout, and I, of course, had no
hesitation in confidently asserting its weight and the
details of its capture.
.pn +1
Our hourly routine had been to go to the river, examine
the color of the water, and the mark that registered
its stage; every fellow said it would “clear up
to-morrow;” then we went back to the house and
smoked.
Being on higher ground, the Captain thought he
would vary the subject, so he said:
“I’d like to catch a pound and a half trout.”
I told him he should have one; that one of eight
pounds had been caught somewhere in Antelope Park,
and that it had been skinned and the skin stuffed; then
he said he felt encouraged. That night the river did
clear a little, and notwithstanding we knew that every
fish in the river was gorged, we could not resist going
down stream. Having floundered round on the slippery
boulders for a couple of hours without sitting
down, we reached a couple of good-sized pools at the
head of a riffle; the Captain took the upper, I the
lower. Making my way out near to mid-stream, I
took up my station behind a large flat rock that stood
about a foot out of water, and busied myself sending a
“coachman” and a “professor” out into my domain
with a little hope that I might induce something out
of the inviting pool. Before I had been there five
minutes a yell from the Captain caused me to look his
way. His Bethabara was beautifully arched, and at the
end of fifty feet of line something was helping itself
to silk.
“I’ve got him—he’s a whopper.”
“That’s the pound and a half I promised you,” I answered,
as a beautiful fellow shot across stream not three
yards above me; “but you’ll lose him in that current.”
.pn +1
“I know it, unless I work him down your way.”
“Come on with him—don’t mind me.” I reeled in,
climbed on the rock, and sat down to see the fun. The
noble fish made a gallant fight, but the hook was in his
upper jaw, and it was only a matter of time when he
would turn upon his side. Working him down stream,
through my pool and round into the quieter water near
shore, was the work of ten minutes at least; the captive,
seeming to readily understand that still water was not
his best hold, kept making rushes for the swift current;
but each time he was brought back, and soon began to
weaken under the spring of the lithe toy in the Captain’s
hand. Fifteen minutes were exhausted when the scale
hook was run under his gills, and he registered one
pound twelve ounces.
Apologizing for creating a row in my quarters, the
Captain went back to his old place, while I again tried
my luck. About five minutes elapsed when I heard
another, not to be mistaken yell.
“I’ve got another—he’s bigger than the first.”
“Yes, I see you have—I think it’s infernally mean.”
“I know it is, but I can’t help it. I’ve got to come
down there again.”
“Well, come on,” and I sat down again to watch the
issue. The struggle was not so brave, though the fish,
when brought to scale, weighed half a pound more than
the first. While we were commenting on this streak of
luck, we noticed a change in the water, its partially
clear hue began to grow milky, and in less time than it
takes to tell it, a boulder six inches under the surface
was out of sight.
“We might as well go to dinner, no trout will rise in
.pn +1
that mud,” and I reeled up with the reflection that the
next best thing to catching a trout is to see one captured
by one who knows how to manipulate a two-pounder
on a seven-ounce rod.
That evening the river gave promise, as usual, of
“clearing up to-morrow,” whereupon six of us made
arrangements for a trip up stream half a dozen miles,
with a lunch in the wagon. The morrow came and
brought with it comparatively clear water. We were
off immediately after breakfast; arrived at our lunching
place under the shelter of some pines by the river
bank, it was at once discovered that the river had gone
back on us, so to speak; muddy again. No one swore,
we just arranged ourselves along the margin and prayed;
all good anglers know how to pray. I am indifferently
skilful—at angling I mean—but always endeavor to
do the best I can. In the course of an hour the river
gave us some encouragement. It grew better as noon
approached, and after lunch each man was assigned his
quarters and struck out for them.
I went down stream with a six-footer in long waders,
who was to cross to the other side at the first riffle,
which he did. Our flies overlapped each other in agreeable
proximity for two hours or more, with indifferent
success to either. The trout were gorged with the food
brought down by the repeated rises, and seemed in no
hurry to seek the broad road that leads unto death.
Finally we reached a magnificent pool, nearly a mile
from our starting point, and my companion had worked
his way back to my side of the stream. We started
into the edge of the pool together, he above me a couple
of rods. The flies went over toward the opposite bank,
.pn +1
twenty-five and thirty feet away, time and again, without
success. Finally an exclamation from the gentleman
above me directed my attention from my own
tackle to his.
“Have you got him?” The inquiry was made on
the score of good fellowship; the bend of his split bamboo,
the tension of his line, and the whirr of his reel
indicated that my tall friend had reached the first stage.
“I’ve hooked him, and he’s no sardine, I tell you—whoa
boy; gently now,” as a sudden rush strung off
full twenty feet of line. “Whoa boy, be easy, now;
gently, now; come here; whoa! confound your picture!
whoa boy; gently; so, boy.”
Just then a call from behind us announced the arrival
of the balance of the party. They had got out of the
wagon and were standing along the bank.
“May be you think you are driving a mule,” came
from one of them.
“Oh no! I’m trying to lead one—whoa boy, whoa
boy—gently now; none of your capers—whoa! I tell
you!” as a renewed and vigorous dash for liberty
threatened destruction to the slender tackle. “No you
don’t, old fellow—so, boy; that’s a good fellow,” and
showing his back near the surface the captive exhibited
twenty inches, at a guess, of trout.
“By George, he’s a beauty,” came from behind us.
I had allowed my flies to float down stream and had
backed out to give room for fair play. It was a long
fight, but his troutship finally showed side up, and was
gently drawn ashore, the water turned out of him, and
he drew down the scale three pounds, to a notch. As
we gathered around to admire his majesty, I said: “The
.pn +1
next best thing to catching a trout is to see a three-pounder
brought to creel by one who can handle a
seven-ounce rod.” They all agreed with me, and our
tall friend modestly doffed his dead grass canvas.
.il fn=i-132.jpg w=243
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
.sp 2
.di i-133.jpg 205 260 1.3
The clouds would assemble
daily about the summits of
the Sierra Mimbres,
whence come the waters of
the Rio Grande. Prayers
were unavailing; the morning
brought the usual complement
of fleecy harbingers,
and by noon the hosts
were marshaled in mighty
platoons of black and gray;
the artillery was unlimbered, the sun retreated in dismay,
and the spree commenced. For two or three hours
there would be a terribly sublime row up in the vicinage
of the granite and dwarfed timber, that would reach
down to the lower hills, and with its results set roaring
the little rivulets and usually dusty arroyos, to swell the
already turbid waters of the beautiful river. The daily
dull monotony was wearing; I thought, more than once,
that “hope deferred maketh the heart sick,” and concluded
I had struck the inspiration of the proverb.
The Old Man sat on Jordan’s rugged banks, waiting
for that creek to clear up so that he could indulge himself
in his favorite amusement. He’d been there a
.pn +1
week, camped out, restricted to potato and flitch diet,
and had not wet a line. His fly books were an aggravation,
and his split bamboo a source of misery. The
evening would give promise of crystal water on the
morrow, and each morning brought with it a stream of
thick, yellow fluid. A trout would no more rise in it
than upon the heaven-kissing hills that gathered the
cause of his tribulation about their cloud-compelling
peaks. The fir-crowned hills and majestic cliffs had
lost their charm, the grasshopper had become a burden,
and there was no more music in the roily water than in
the mosquito’s song. I presume he has forgotten all
about it by this time, yet my soul cried out in sympathy.
But I was better off than he. He had no John to
console him with stories of leviathans caught by other
rodsters “last summer.” John would scorn anything
less than a three-pound trout to embellish his romances;
five, six, and even nine pounds were evolved in his
imagination. I took him for a Vermont Yankee, but
it transpired that the Ozark Mountains claimed him for
their own, without the prospect of any other place setting
up a demand for him when he dies—if he ever
does. He is tall and thin, has a stoop in his shoulders
and slouches in his gait; his garments, such as he has,
fit him—not so well as they would the clothes line;
he has a Roman nose and gray eyes, he chews the fragrant
“nigger head,” and his saffron-hued incisors
habitually caress his nether lip. His mouth is always
open, and his scraggy beard would vie in symmetry
with a patch of hazel brush demoralized by a Kansas
cyclone. A few days ago I wagered him a quarter that
.pn +1
he could not close his lips and keep them so three minutes.
I won the bet, but have not yet realized upon it.
John is a booley, fortunately for the rest of humanity.
Becoming a little impatient at John and the periodically
feculent condition of the river, I suggested to the
Captain a run up to Antelope Park, twenty-five miles
away, and a few casts for the denizens of certain minor
tributaries to the Rio Grande. The suggestion proved
agreeable to him.
The next morning after an early breakfast we
mounted the buckboard, and in company with the
United States mail for somewhere, a nervous driver and
a pair of wild mules, we arrived at our destination before
noon. Telegraphic facilities being somewhat limited,
our coming had not been heralded. Our driver
left us with our traps in front of a comfortable-looking
house, but it required half an hour to find the landlord.
We had lived long enough in the country to recognize
in every house a hotel. We would have taken ourselves
and belongings into the first convenient room,
but that a large black dog kindly took us under his immediate
supervision. It began to rain, but the dog
gave no intimation whatever of inconvenience on that
score; indeed, I think he rather enjoyed it. The Captain,
after we had admired the dog for a quarter of an
hour, slipped his hand into his hip pocket. I don’t
know whether to attribute the dog’s sudden disappearance
to his superior intelligence and knowledge of the
ways of the country, or to the coming of the landlord.
Her greeting was cordial when she hove in sight:
“Glad to see you gentlemen suppose you’ve come afishin’
didn’t know as you was comin’ or I’d a had dinner
.pn +1
instead of bein’ out to see to them colts the last two
died and I don’t propose to have no more of that kind
of business not if I know myself you bet these has been
tended to right and I know it they was risin’ three year
and of course gettin’ too big to run loose that husband
of mine run away with another woman two year ago
and he come back in less’n three months for me to take
him back again but I told him to pack and he did since
then I’ve ran this ranche alone and propose so to do she
was older than him”——
“Can you give us a glass of milk,” I broke in, irreverently,
on this bit of family history, delivered without
a pause, with the end, if it had any, promising to outlive
us and run into the next century, “you can get us
something to eat later in the day.”
“Milk certainly you can have all the milk you want
and whatever else there is in the house to eat ’taint
much but I’ll do the best I can what’s your business?”
“Just at present we are in search of clear water and
trout.”
“Plenty of trout in the creek though the river’s rily
and trout won’t rise in rily water I suppose you know
there’s some big ones in the creek one took off a leader
and fly for me yesterday but I’m goin’ to snatch him
out of that hole yet but what I want to know is what
do you do for a livin’ people have to rustle in this
country or tramp.”
Having deposited our traps in the front room, I told
her I was a preacher and the Captain a Sunday-school
superintendent.
“Well stranger I haven’t got but mighty little use for
gospel sharps they don’t give anybody’s house a good
.pn +1
reputation leastways I’ve so hearn tell but perhaps if you
doesn’t go psalm singin’ and prayin’ round here nobody
’ill know any better you doesn’t look much like
preachers anyway.”
The conclusion was fired at us over her shoulder as
she disappeared after the milk. I looked at the Captain
seriously and asked him if he thought he could
stand it for a day or so; he said he thought he could
by going out early and coming in late and going to
sleep the balance of the time.
The milk was rich and sweet, but a word of commendation
inadvertently uttered by the Captain resulted in a
history from birth to maternity, and the details of travail
of each of thirteen cows, with the condition of their
offspring, their present and prospective value and probable
increase.
Leaving him to be further enlightened by this disquisition
on bovine tocology, I escaped, and with rod
and creel started up the creek. Five minutes after, and
before I had lost sight of the house, a hail from the
Captain brought me to a halt.
“What puzzles me,” said the Captain wearily, “is to
learn how that landlord’s husband had strength enough
left to run away; he had three years of it; his vitality
must have been something remarkable.”
“His coming back is harder to comprehend.”
“I think not; that gives me the only solution to the
mystery. You see, he must have been a lunatic; that
will account for his strength physically; and for his returning.
But do you see that pool? That’s the home
of the trout that took the landlord’s leader. I’m going
for him.”
.pn +1
“All right; I’ll wait and see you do it.”
The Captain slipped down the bank, seeking the
shelter of a clump of willows, and made a cast into the
center of a pool, the bare appearance of which suggested
the certain lurking place of trout. He did
not have out over twenty feet of line, and the coachman
lit cleverly, but without effect. Another cast, a
little further toward the lower end, and yet no rise. A
third—there is luck in odd numbers—where the water
began to break at the head of the ripple, and the landlord’s
trout got himself into trouble. There was no
stiff cane pole with a tyro at the end of it this time,
but a lithe Bethabara of seven ounces, in the hands of
one who knew the use of it. It was a very pretty ten
minutes’ fight, when the despoiler of the landlord’s
tackle turned up his side and was towed ashore; the
fish had a remnant of the broken leader still in its jaw.
He weighed a little less than a pound, though we had
been informed, as usual, that his weight was four
pounds, at least.
We trudged on up the creek, crossing four or five
times to shorten the walk, until we reached a point two
miles from the ranche. Each taking his side, we began
moving down stream, snaking out the little fellows,
from seven to ten inches in length, until we had more
than enough for a late dinner. Concluding that the
trout in these grounds might grow a little if let alone,
we walked back. The manner in which the catch was
served up with warm biscuit, fresh butter, and coffee
with cream in it, made the conversation of the landlord
interesting.
We were advised, that, had we gone a mile further,
.pn +1
larger trout would have rewarded us. It being affirmed
beyond contradiction that the larger fish were holding
a sort of salmon tea higher up stream, and the Rio
Grande still being muddy, the next morning found us
nearly a couple of miles further toward the head waters.
But if there were any trout exceeding a half pound in
any of the pools industriously tickled by us, they must
have known who we were, and, therefore, declined an
interview.
This kind of sport had not been bargained for; a
strict adherence to the trail, with diligence, would enable
us to reach the ranche in time for a lunch and the
buckboard “going down.” We made it, besides having
time to bid our landlord adieu, the sound of her melodious
voice gradually dying out as the wild mules increased
the distance between us.
That evening the river gave promise, as usual, of
being clear in the morning, always provided, of course,
that it had not rained “up above.” But the next day
we learned that the customary entertainment had taken
place among the lofty peaks of the San Juan. When
any man again tells you that “it never rains in Colorado,”
remind him of Ananias’ fate.
A day did come, finally, and go, through all the
hours of which the sun had an easy time of it in making
things warm; in the evening we could fairly see
the boulders in the river, and the next day it was clear.
But back in the west the clouds had already gathered,
and if any trout were to be captured we could not
stand upon the order of our going. After breakfast
half a dozen of us piled into the wagon, rode five miles
down the river and began operations, which we were
.pn +1
satisfied must cease by noon. For half an hour or so
the trout raised fairly, and then the casts increased
from one to a dozen, and this was finally resolved into
a devoted whipping of every likely place without avail.
Toward lunch time I waded ashore, clambered up the
bank ten feet above the river, and stood waiting for my
comrade of the morning. He was standing in the stiff
current, thigh deep, and faithfully sending his flies into
a long eddy thirty feet away. I called him, but the
response I received was that the place had never failed
him, and he wanted to go the length of it. So I stood
watching the play of his split bamboo and the curl of
the light silk line; now and then the heel of his leader
would strike, but generally the coachman on the end
was first to touch the water. He had told me only the
day before, though he acknowledged it was beyond his
skill, that in casting, one should never use more than
the forearm; that to confine the movement to the
wrist was still better. The awkwardness of the full-stretched
arm swinging back and forth was apparent,
but to one unaccustomed to light tackle the habit is
hard to overcome. I told him to keep his arm down,
and he did for two or three casts; then up it went
again, he forgetting the admonition in his desire to
reach a few feet further. When I reminded him of it
he looked round, laughingly, and said he couldn’t. Just
then my attention was called to a pilgrim with weak
eyes peering out from under the broken-down brim of
an old felt hat, sallow as the mug it covered; his butternut
jeans tucked in his boots, and his woolen shirt
suggestive of other occupants than himself.
“What does a pole like that cost, Mister?” motioning
.pn +1
with his head to the bamboo I held in my hand. Being
disposed to treat everybody with civility, I told him.
“I don’t think anybody kin ketch fish with that ’ar
thing, ’cept little ones. I like one o’ them long stiff
fellers to jerk ’em with; I shouldn’t think this here
thing was no account,” and he gesticulated with his
head again. “Now, the best way to git fish is with a
net; now, I wish I had a net; look at that ’ar man thar,
he’ll not git a fish in a week.”
“Mark you, my friend!” The libel stepped back a
couple of paces; I don’t know why. “If you catch fish
in that way, they will cost you ten dollars each,” I continued
mildly. “Try it, I wish you would; there is a
standing reward of five hundred dollars for such fishermen
as you claim to be; perhaps I might get the money
and you a rope.”
“See here, Mister, I ain’t got no net; I ain’t goin’ to
ketch no fish; I’m goin’ to Silverton; I don’t keer ’bout
fishin’ no way; hits mighty po’ business.”
“The sooner you get to Silverton the better—every
man, woman and child in this park wants to earn that
five hundred dollars.”
What further I might have said I don’t know, but
just then my friend with the split bamboo hailed me; he
had made a strike, to his own surprise as well as mine,
for the water had become quite cloudy. With his face
down stream and rod well up, he was talking to his victim
much as one would address a fractious colt. It was
pleasant to listen to his expressions of assurance that
no harm should come to his troutship if he would only
behave himself, followed by a threatening admonition
at every rush for liberty. If my tall friend was not
.pn +1
skilful enough to carry away the first prize at a casting
tournament, he knew at least how to handle and save
the victim he had struck. Having quite exhausted him,
he was reeled in till the line could be grasped, and the
trout was drawn cautiously within reach; the line was
then changed to the rod hand, and with a quick movement,
evidently not acquired without practice, that
trout was scooped up against the angler’s stomach; the
next movement was to run his dexter finger into the
trout’s mouth, press his thumb upon its neck and break
it, the fish being held in the left hand, and the three
fingers of the right holding the rod. Having thus killed
him, the hook was removed, and he was held up triumphantly
to be admired. The rest of the party had arrived
in time to see the close of the struggle with a handsome
two pounds and three ounces of salmon-colored luxury.
The misery under the felt hat had departed.
.il fn=i-142.jpg w=190
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
HIS SERMON.
.sp 2
.dc 0.3 0.5
John Doe—and by Doe I do not mean the Doe
ex dem. Gorges vs. Webb, nor Doe, lessee of Gibbon
vs. Pott. My John Doe was not a Doe of
fiction, but a gentleman of flesh and blood. He was
not a great man, it is true, except in the matter of temperance
and cleanliness. As he has not gone into history
because of either of those virtues, and has no doubt
been, in the course of nature, long since gathered to his
fathers, leaving no issue, I may write of him without
fear of giving offense.
The unblemished linen and highly polished shoes of
Mr. Doe always challenged my boyish admiration. The
enviable condition of his shoes I could account for. He
cleaned them with his own hands, I knew, because I
had, on more than one occasion, discovered him in the
act. Whatever Mr. Doe did, he endeavored, at least, to
do well. There were no dull spots on his shoes, but an
exquisite evenness of polish pervaded their whole surface
from heel to toe and from top to shank. In connection
with the linen they indicated to me the possession by
their owner of an always desirable credit. I had been
taught to believe that no gentleman ever permitted
himself to be seen in foxy shoes or soiled linen. It did
not follow, of course, that all men in clean shoes and
.pn +1
linen were gentlemen, nor did I so understand it, but
that the fortunate possessor of these well conditioned
articles of apparel presented, as it were, a prima facie
case for my consideration. They were component parts,
so to speak, in the absence of which, the accomplishment
of the structure suggested would be an impossibility.
The garments of Mr. Doe were rarely new, as
a whole; a new coat, for instance, was not always seen
in his company with a new pair of trousers. Whether
he labored under the impression that the display of an
entire new suit upon his person would mark him as a
man of too much magnificence, or whether the condition
of his finances deterred him, I am not prepared to
say. But whether new, or napless and white at the
seams, they were always innocent of dust. His linen,
however, was a mystery to me; certainly he did not
himself do it up, he kept no servant and it was not
sent out. It may be surmised that I had rather an intimate
acquaintance with the domestic establishment
of Mr. Doe. I did, and it was not savory—I mean
when considered from the broom and soap and water
stand-point.
The house of Mr. Doe was the home of odors, wherein
the fragrance of boiled cabbage and onions seemed to
wage perpetual warfare for supremacy. The pattern
of the carpet in the best room has escaped my memory,
but a spot in it will always linger with me as fixed as
in the carpet. This spot was about the size of an ordinary
chair seat, and was always associated in my mind
with a ham, a twenty pound ham; as if the hind-quarter
of a magnificent porker had suddenly melted its shape
into the brown and orange tints of the best carpet and
.pn +1
refused, with porcine obstinacy, to come out. The furniture,
as long as I saw it, was in a chronic state of immature
cleanliness, and impressed me with the idea that
some one had been round with a wet cloth, and, having
been suddenly called to the front door, had neglected to
come back.
Mrs. Doe I remember as a tall, thin lady, in a black
calico gown with little round gray and brown spots;
and I have a recollection of debating in my mind as to
the original color of those spots, and of concluding that
they had at one time been uniformly white, and that
that time must have been long before I had enjoyed the
acquaintance of Mrs. Doe. The complexion of Mrs.
Doe was dark, her eyes brown, and her hair, which was
abundant and black, always looked dusty and as if about
to tumble down. I remember seeing the lady once
seated in a Windsor chair with her heels resting on the
front edge—at least I supposed her heels were there—her
chin resting on her knees and her hands clasped
round her ankles. She said to me upon that occasion
that she was not well, and when I sympathized with
her I wondered whether it was cabbage or onions, or
both. But as I have to do principally with Mr. Doe, I
trust I may not be charged with lack of gallantry, if,
without apology, I take leave of his estimable lady.
Mr. Doe worked in blue cotton overalls six days in
the week, as a maker of watches, and walked on the seventh,
the weather permitting; or he walked on the first
and worked on the other six days, as you please. He
always walked with a cane; why, was also for some time
a mystery, he being an active man with no apparent
use for support of that character. As a boy, I had an
.pn +1
interest in both his occupation and amusement; an ambition
to possess a result of the one and to join him in
the other. Too young, and withal beset by the poverty
usually attendant upon youth, to have the first, and deterred
by maternal influences from indulging in the
latter, were among my tribulations of that period. I
contemplated the bliss of walking with Mr. Doe with
an eagerness hard to overcome; and I have sometimes
felt that the fear of mere reproof, unaided by the respect
in which I held the tender branches of the beautiful
shellbark in our back yard, would not have prevented
my running away. One other obstacle conspired with
those already suggested, more potent perhaps than
either: permission was a condition precedent to the acquiescence
of Mr. Doe.
But there came a day when my best friend was away
from home, and I felt emboldened to interrupt my other
best friend in the act of putting the fork into the breast
of a beautifully browned canvas-back, with the suggestion,
that on the morrow, with his permission, I would
be pleased to take a walk with Mr. Doe.
“Take a walk with Mr. Doe!” The wings and legs
of the duck were severed upon reaching the exclamation
point, and the blade of the carver was finding its
way delicately through the plump breast and becoming
dim with the roseate tint, that denoted the skill of the
cook, when he continued:
“To-morrow is Sunday, and you should go to Sunday
school and to church.”
My bosom became as bare of hope as the carcass
before me was of meat.
“What would your mother say?”
.pn +1
“I dunno.”
“Ah, you are not certain, then?”
Thinking, perhaps, that he was pressing me too
closely in the wrong direction for his purpose, he gave
me some relief by inquiring the direction of Mr. Doe’s
proposed tour.
“Out in the country.”
“Mr. Doe is going hunting, I suppose?”
“Oh, no! he wouldn’t hunt Sunday; I don’t think
he’s fond of hunting; and, besides, isn’t it wicked to
hunt on Sundays, and shoot off your gun and make a
noise?”
“Perhaps it is, but—” upon reflection, at this distance
of time, I think my interrogator was about putting
a leading question, suggesting an analogy beyond
my capacity to distinguish, except in the matter of the
noise. At all events he hesitated,—“but, as I am informed,
Mr. Doe generally remains away all day when
he takes his walks on Sunday—you will lose your dinner.”
“I shall not want any dinner.”
“No, of course—not till noon; but take a lunch,
and be a good boy.”
I do not remember at this late day whether or not,
upon the foregoing announcement, I apprehended that
Mr. Doe might, through some possible contingency, vary
his custom, and go walking Saturday afternoon. I did,
however, deem it expedient to leave my dinner unfinished,
with a view of communicating with him without
delay. Receiving his assurance that he would take me
to walk with him on the morrow, I went back to my
pastry. The sun came up as usual the next day; there
.pn +1
had been no convulsion of nature, in our vicinity at least;
the morning was cloudless, without any prospect of
untoward circumstance to interfere with our anticipated
pleasure.
Mr. Doe announced himself at our front gate immediately
after breakfast; he would no doubt have
come to the door had I not obviated the necessity for
his so doing by neglecting my coffee, and nervously
anticipating him on the porch. He had his cane with
him, and his shoes and linen presented their ordinary,
unobjectionable appearance, as if defiant of criticism.
Our course was through the city, westerly some three
miles, and out to a road beyond what in those days was
called “The Heights.” The neighborhood was new to
me, and Mr. Doe took pleasure, seemingly, in pointing
out various objects of interest, not forgetting walnut
and hickory trees, and even persimmons, that gave
promise of good things after frost. Among other
things, I remember he called my attention to a blue
and misty looking object a great distance off, which
looked in shape like the Pyramids of Egypt, as shown
in my geography. This, he told me, was the Sugar
Loaf; and when I asked him why it was so named, he
thought because it did not resemble a sugar loaf. But
it was my first mountain, and I have always carried
with me a pleasant remembrance of it. Our road lay
by an old frame house, with a porch and well, at which
stopped to drink. The house, he told me, was
known as the “Bull’s Head;” why it was so named he
was unable to inform me. Finally we reached the
vicinity of it covered bridge, spanning a fine stream.
He said at was the “Chain Bridge,” but not seeing any
.pn +1
chains, I felt compelled to inquire why everything
away from home seemed to bear titles that were evidently
not appropriate. Not being able to impart to
me any satisfactory information upon that head, he
called my attention to the Little Falls; I learned these
were called Little, because there were Big Falls farther
up stream.
Mr. Doe informed me that this was a good place to
fish. Unskilled in the gentle art, but curious, I suggested
that it would afford me infinite delight to see him
fish. He then wanted to know if I would not like to
try my hand; being informed of my inability to do so
through lack of knowledge and tackle, he forthwith cut
a small pole, and from the hidden recess of his coat produced
a line with a float and hook. Having rigged me
out, he proceeded to unscrew the ferrule of his cane, and
lo! the inseparable walking stick was transformed into a
rod; his own manufacture, he said, as he held it out with
the air of a critic and pardonable self-complacency.
The recesses of his coat were again resorted to, resulting
in a tin mustard box well filled with angle worms.
Baiting my hook, he stationed me on a large rock and
directed me to drop the lure into the gentle eddy beneath.
That float, I remember, was painted red on the
top, and looked to me like a highly colored bird’s egg
drifting out of its element. Being informed that to
watch it was my business, I did so with assiduity. Presently
it bobbed up and down, then fell over on its side,
then again bobbed up and down as though it were sentient
and in sound of a fiddle exuding a hornpipe. I
inquired of Mr. Doe the meaning of this, and was admonished
.pn +1
by him to “look out,” that I had a nibble.
Of all things desirable to me at that crisis, next to a
bite, was a nibble. There was contained in it a fund of
encouragement absolutely infinite, that left hope in the
distance and resolved itself at once into faith.
“Now, jerk!” exclaimed Mr. Doe, as the float started
off rapidly and suddenly disappeared. I jerked. And
behold! a bit of burnished silver but little longer than
my hand, its dorsal as suddenly expanded as if moved
by electricity, standing stiff and defiant upon the sudden
change of elements, only a shade duller than the
sun’s rays, as it flashed into the light,—any first white
perch, and my initial piscatorial triumph. Proud!
The result of the accomplished details of section two
of article two of our glorious bulwark announced to
the fortunate choice of the majority of the unsoaped
out of the seventeen millions and odd of the free and
enlightened, placed him upon no loftier ground; I
would have patronized His Excellency at that sublime
moment.
“It was born in you,” said Mr. Doe, as he relieved
the captive and placed him in my outstretched hands.
My perception of Mr. Doe’s meaning was intuitive, and
I suggested that I would like conviction impressed upon
the mind of my other best friend by a personal examination
of this peerless perch. Nothing could be more
easily accomplished; it was slipped on a stout string
and consigned to an isolated pool. During the ensuing
hour my attention was divided between the jail of my
captive, the red-top cork and the actions of Mr. Doe;
that gentleman had stationed himself a few yards below
.pn +1
me, and had secured quite a respectable string of perch,
while I had added several, beside two tobacco-boxes, to
my own.
At lunch it dawned upon me to inquire of Mr. Doe
if he did not think it wicked to fish on the Sabbath.
My recollection is that he felt loth to set himself up
as a judge in the matter. But the leaping stream, the
picturesque rocks, the trees and sweet air had attractions
for him, and he could enjoy them but one day in
seven; for those who had nothing else to do the case
might be different; he thought that perhaps education
had much to do with the matter—“One man esteemeth
one day above another; another esteemeth every day
alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own
mind;” said Mr. Doe.
Somehow it crept into my youthful imagination, as I
listened to him, that the beautiful river, the rocks and
the trees, had been created for him, but that he claimed
no monopoly. Yet no rich man could purchase them
nor deprive him of his property; that for this he was
thankful, and entertained for the philanthropic Creator
of these the same sort of reverence, but in a new and
quiet way, that I had been accustomed to hear must, to
be acceptable, be expressed within doors. And I wondered,
if he should be so unfortunate as to die then and
there, whether he would go to heaven. My doubts as
to myself, and the propriety of my participation in his
peculiar worship were grave in the extreme.
The doubts, however, did not prevent my renewing
the fascinating occupation of the forenoon, and thereby
adding a few more victims to my already questionable
spoils.
.pn +1
The shadows began to lengthen and grow quite grotesque
is their attenuation, before I inquired of Mr. Doe
as to his intentions about returning. He gave as his
reason for not going sooner that he deferred to the prejudices
of others to the extent of avoiding any aggressive
expression of his own opinions, by trailing his fish
through town in daylight. That while he saw no impropriety
in passing the Sabbath out-doors in the fresh
air and sunlight, there were those who would be shocked
at what they deemed a desecration. He felt responsible
to a higher authority for his acts, and would render his
accounts at the proper forum in due course of time.
Meanwhile he proposed to follow the admonition of the
great apostle: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you,
live peaceably with all men.” Upon this he transformed
his rod again into a walking stick, carefully stowed away
the lines, and threw the remaining bait into the stream;
we gathered up what had been vouchsafed us and started
for home.
Tho condition of Mr. Doe’s mind was unquestionably
tranquil, while mine was incumbered with doubts, yet
devoid of apprehension, in the matter of serious consequences,
at least. Our walk home was accomplished
satisfactorily, the latter part of it being in the dark
through the neighborhoods where we were best known,
the twilight being short in that latitude and gas then
only a possibility. He who had given me permission to
go walking expressed severe astonishment at the evidences
of the day’s doings presented to him. Mr. Doe
was not a large man, but his shoulders were broad; he
improved upon our original ancestor by assuming the
responsibility. My enthusiastic portrayal of the delights
.pn +1
experienced were listened to, I thought, with interest;
I did not go supperless to bed, and I had some of
the fish for breakfast. The diet was no novelty, but the
flavor upon that occasion far surpassed that of any
former experience, and no fish since has tasted so sweet
as that first perch. The burnished silver tint had given
way to an exquisite brown, delicate as the hue of an
amber cloud painted by the evening rays of an autumn
sun. Crisp, and with a fragrance to subdue the censorious
palate of an epicure, he invited me to remove his
dorsal, and lay bare in equal halves the firm, white
meat; next, without a hair’s-breadth torn, the backbone
cleaved as smoothly as a type from its matrix, and appetite
and palate joined in adulation. I would cherish
the memory tenderly, but, above all, the text and
sermon of Mr. Doe.
.rj
BOURGEOIS.
.il fn=i-153.jpg w=214
// end of “With Rod and Line in Colorado Waters”
