Over the second range of hills that shut in San Francisco Bay on the
east is a delightful little trout brook known as Bear Creek. With my
camera, a frugal lunch, and an assortment of trout flies carefully
stowed away in my knapsack, I started in quest of this little stream
that follows the windings of the cañon.
If bears had ever inhabited this locality, and posed as its
godfathers, they had long since disappeared, and many years had passed
since they had slaked their thirst with its sparkling waters. Only the
name remained to remind one of other days, and one name is as good as
another to a trout brook.
My object was not so much to tempt the speckled trout with gaudy fly
from quiet pool or swirling riffle, as to follow the windings of the
stream, and spy out the quiet nooks, where the sun comes filtering
through the trees, dappling the water; or resting in the shadows where
the thick foliage defies its penetrating rays, and spreads a somber
hue on mossy rock or bed of ferns. At one place, perhaps a rod from
the margin of the brook, was a sort of amphitheater among the trees,
where nature had been prodigal with her colors, touching the woods in
spots here and there with ocher, umber, and vermilion. She had even
brushed with scarlet many of the shrubs and vines, until they glowed
with a warm color against the green background.
The pine trees had shed their needles, making a carpet soft as velvet,
where woodland elves might revel or the god Pan practice upon his
pipes, laughing nymphs dancing to the music.
Is there anything in nature more companionable than a mountain brook?
It has its moods both grave and gay, and is as fickle as a schoolgirl.
At times it chuckles at you in a musical undertone as you walk along
its banks, and again it seems to warn you from trespassing on its
preserves, scolding in a shrill falsetto as it dodges under the roots
of a fallen tree, or dives among the lilypads, as if to hide from
your sight. But when it swirls down the eddy, and comes to rest by an
overhanging rock, where the shadows are dark and the water deep, its
song is hushed, as if in fear of disturbing the wary trout that lie in
hiding in the depths of the pool.
[Illustration: WHERE THE SHADOWS ARE DARK]
This is a likely place for fish, and I put my rod together and cast my
flies, dropping them as lightly as a thistledown, and using all my
skill, but no trout rise to my lure; this is evidently their day off,
or my flies are too palpable a subterfuge to tempt a self-respecting
trout.
Sitting on a log, one end of which projects over the stream, I watch a
dragon-fly, or darning needle, float over the water, his flight so
swift my eyes can hardly follow it. At last it stops in front of me,
perfectly poised for a second, but with wings in rapid motion, then
darts away to perform its acrobatic feat of standing on its head on a
lilypad, or to feast on the gnats and other insects that it captures
while on the wing. Truly it is rightly named a dragon.
The whirligig-beetles, those social little black fellows, gather in
large numbers and chase each other round and round in graceful curves,
skating over the water as if enjoying a game of tag.
Leaving the beetles at their game, I come to a place where the brook
seems to hesitate on the brink of a mimic waterfall, as if afraid to
take the dive, but like a boy unwilling to take a dare, it plunges
over the brink to the pool below, with gurgling laughter, in a perfect
ecstasy of bravado.
A leaf drops from an overhanging bough, falling so lightly that it
barely makes a ripple, then sails away like a mimic ship to far-off
ports, dancing along at every caprice of the fitful current; only to
be stranded at last, cast away like a shipwrecked galleon, on some
distant island.
[Illustration: ON BEAR CREEK]
In the shadows the brook seems to have a more solemn tone, in keeping
with its somber surroundings, singing its song to the white-petaled
saxifrage that peeps out at it over the bed of maidenhair fern, or the
bright-leaved water cress; then flashing out into the sunlight, and,
like a boy out of school, romping and laughing in utter abandon.
Flowering currants, with rose-pink clusters of blossoms, line the
banks, scattering their fragrance far and near. The rancorous cry of
the catbird, and the rattling call of the kingfisher, that feathered
spirit of the stream, are left behind; the clear flutelike notes of
the meadow lark take their place, and the hills, covered with wild
flowers, roll back from its margin, as if to make room for its
uninterrupted flow.
The Western bluebird floats across the meadow like a flashing
sapphire, and the lark-sparrow pours forth his melody, as he teeters
up and down on a weed stalk.
But at night the brook is heard at its best, when it performs its
symphonies for the flickering moonlight that nestles upon its bosom,
and the stars that reflect their lamps on its surface.
Make your camp on its margin and when your fire burns low, and you
draw your blanket around you, with the mountain brook singing its
lullaby, and the vesper sparrow chanting its melodious vesper hymn,
you can say with the psalmist, "I will both lay me down in peace and
sleep," and you might add, "lulled by the song of the mountain brook."
[Illustration]