136 FISHING WITH THE FLY. 



course of time, upon the same stream. The trout re- 

 fused everything I had, grasshoppers included. Finally 

 I fished up an old fly-book from the depths of my coat 

 pocket, and in it were half a dozen nameless blue-bodied 

 flies with a mouse-colored feather upon a number six 

 Kirby. Upon sight, I remembered to have discarded 

 them in disgust, but I thought I would try one for luck, 

 and lo ! the mystery was solved. I had been working 

 industriously for two hours and had two trout. Fergu- 

 son had been no more successful, but was in sight when 

 the trout began to rise to my cast-off fly. He came 

 down my way, wanted to know what I was using, 

 and I gave him one ; he lost that and his leader in some 

 half-sunken brush, and I gave him another. But his 

 good genius had deserted him ; I persuaded a trout 

 right away from his lure, and he quit in disgust, while 

 I said never a word. Though a little sensitive upon the 

 score of success, he was and is a genial and companion- 

 able angler, and one who can make a good cast withal, 

 an he have proper tools. 



Willow Park, an adjunct to Estes Park, through 

 which runs a branch of the Thompson, has afforded me 

 many a day's sport, and is nearer to camp. Upon a 

 memorable occasion I had been fishing down stream, 

 when, with a well-filled creel, I encountered a gigantic 

 boulder on the bank. Just beyond it was a pool that 

 was suggestive ; to reach the base of the boulder it was 

 necessary to get over a little bayou of about five feet in 

 width and three in depth. To jump it were easy but 



