Rising abruptly from the prairie was a frowning precipice a thousand or
more feet high and above and beyond the top of this cliff, the
mountains.
When Big Pete told me that his park was "walled in" he told me the
mildest sort of truth; the prairie is the bottom of a wide canyon, in
fact everything seems to indicate that the whole park had settled,
sunk--"taken a drop" of a thousand or more feet; forming what miners
would call a fault.
From the glaciers up among the clouds numerous streams of melted ice
came dashing down the sides of the mountain range, fanciful cascades
leaping without fear from most stupendous heights spreading out in long
horse-tail falls over the face of the cliff, doing everything but
looking real. At the foot of each of the falls there was a pool of deep
water, in one or two instances the pools were smooth basins hollowed out
of solid rock in which the water was as transparent as air and but for
the millions of air bubbles caused by the falling water every inch of
bottom could be plainly seen by an observer at the brink of the pool.
The trout in these basins were almost as colorless as the water itself
(the light color of the fish is due to their chameleon-like power of
modifying their hue to imitate their surroundings)--this mimicry is so
perfect that after looking into one of these stone basins, the rounded
smooth sides of which offered no shade or nook where a trout might hide,
I was ready to declare the waters uninhabited but no sooner had my brown
hackel or professor settled lightly on the surface of the pool than out
from among the air bubbles a fish appeared and seized the fly.
My sprained ankle was now so much improved that upon discovering a
diagonal fracture in the face of the cliff, which looked as if offering
a foot hold, and feeling reckless, I determined to make the effort to
scale the wall at this point.
If the giant "fault" is of comparatively recent occurrence, geologically
speaking, it seemed reasonable that there would be trout in the streams
above the cliff and the memory of the fact that Pete had reported that
both Rocky Mountain sheep and goats were up there decided me to attempt
to scale the wall by the fracture. It was a long, hard climb and more
than once while I clung to the chance projections or dug my fingers into
small cracks and looked down upon the backs of some golden eagle sailing
in spirals below me, I regretted making the fool-hardy attempt, but when
the top was reached and I saw signs of sheep and had a peep at a white
object I took to be a goat, I felt repaid for my arduous climb.
The elevated prairie or table-land on which I found myself corresponded
in every important particular with the park below; there were the same
natural divisions of prairie and forests, the same erratic boulders, but
on account of the difference in elevation there was a corresponding
difference in plant life, and most interesting of all to me, there were
the trout streams. The tablelands above the park were comparatively
level in places where the stream ran almost as quietly as a meadow
brook, but these level stretches were interrupted at short distance by
foaming rapids, jagged rocks and roaring falls.
My angler's instinct told me that the biggest fish lurked in the deep
pools, to reach which it was necessary to creep and worm myself over the
open flats of sharp stones and patches of heather, but once on the
vantage ground the swish of a trout rod sounded there for the first time
since the dawn of Creation.
[Illustration: More than once while I clung to the chance projection
... I regretted making the fool-hardy attempt]
There was an audible splash at my first cast. My, how that reel did
sing! Before I realized it, my fish had reached rapid water and taken
out a dangerous amount of line; still I dared not check him too severely
among the sharp rocks and swift waters, so I ran along the bank,
stumbling over stones, but managing to avail myself of every opportunity
to wind in the line until I had the satisfaction of seeing enough line
on my reel to prepare me for possible sudden dashes and emergencies.
Ah! that was a glorious fight, and when at last I was able to steer my
tired fish into shallow water I saw there were three of them, one lusty
trout on each of my three flies. I had no landing net so I gently slid
the almost exhausted fish onto a gravel bar and as I did so I
experienced one of those delightful thrills which comes to a fellow's
lot but once or twice in a life-time. But it was not because I had
captured three at a strike, for I have done that before and since, but I
thrilled because they were not only a new and strange kind of trout, but
they were of the color and sheen of newly minted gold. Never before had
any man seen such trout.
I have since been informed that I had blundered on to water inhabited by
the rarest of all game fish, the so-called golden trout, which has since
been discovered and which scientists declare to be pre-glacier fish left
by some accident of nature to exist in a new world in which all their
original contemporaries have long been extinct.
Think of it! Fish which had never seen an artificial fly nor had any
family traditions of experiences with them. It is little wonder that
they would jump at a brown hackle, a professor or even a gaudy salmon
fly. Why they would jump at a chicken feather! They were ready and eager
to bite at any sort of bunco game I saw fit to play upon them. They were
veritable hayseeds of the trout family, but when they felt the hook in
their lips, the wisest trout in the world could not show a craftier nor
half as plucky a fight. They would leap from the water like
small-mouthed bass and by shaking their heads, try to throw off the
hateful hook.
The constant vigorous exercise of leaping water-falls and forging up
boiling rapids had developed these sturdy mountaineer trout into
prodigies of strength and endurance. Even now my nerves tingle to the
tips of my toes as in fancy I hear my reel hum or see the tip of my five
ounce split bamboo bend so as to almost form a circle.
I fished that stream with hands trembling with excitement and had filled
my creel with the rare fish before I began to notice other objects of
interest. Suddenly I became aware of the presence of two birds hovering
over and diving under the cold water. They were evidently feeding on
some aquatic creature which my duller senses could not discern.
Although they were the first of the kind that I had ever seen alive, I
at once recognized the feathered visitors to be water ouzels. The birds
preceded me on my way along the water course towards camp, and were
never quiet a minute. They would hop on a rock in mid-stream and bob up
and down in a most solemn but comical manner for a moment before
plunging fearlessly into the cold white spray of the falls or the swift
dashing current, where they would disappear below the surface only to
reappear once more on another rock to bob again.
A ducking did not trouble the ouzels, for as they came out of the water
the liquid rolled in crystal drops from their feathers and their plumage
was as dry as if it had never been submerged. The wilder and swifter the
cold glacier water ran the more the birds seemed to enjoy it.
The nearer I approached the edge of the precipitous walls, enclosing the
valley comprising Big Pete's park, the rougher grew the trail, and as I
was picking my way I paused to gaze at the distant purple peaks and
watch the sun set in that lonely land as if I was witnessing it for the
first time. As my eyes roamed over the stupendous distance and unnamed
mountains I felt my own puny insignificance, as who has not when
confronted with the vastness of nature.
I turned from my view of the sunset to retrace my steps to the valley,
and peeping over the top of a large boulder, saw seated upon an
inaccessible crag directly in front of me, a gigantic figure of a man
clad in a hunter's garb, and he was smoking a long cigar!
When I thought of Big Pete's description of how the Wild Hunter was wont
to sit with his long legs dangling from some rock while he smoked one of
those unprocurable cigars, and when I realized that the figure before me
was fully sixty feet tall, I must confess to experiencing a queer
sensation.
It was a shadowy figure yet it moved, arose, held out one hand, and a
bird as large as the fabled roc alighted on the wrist of the
outstretched hand.
A slight breeze sprang up, the white mists from the valley rolled up the
mountainside and drifted away and the man and bird disappeared from
view.
It was long after dark when I reached camp and was greeted by my friend
and guide with "Gol durn your pictur tenderfut, if it hain't tuk you
longer to get a pesky mess of yaller fish than it orter to kill a bar."
"Little wonder," thought I, "that the Wild Hunter used golden bullets in
a land where even the fish's scales seemed to be of the same precious
metal"; but I said nothing as I sat down to clean my "yaller trout."