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 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 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; 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
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 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; 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 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.
[Illustration]