FLY FISHING IN THE YO SEMITE. 147 



persist in calling "your fish-pole'*). Never had he so 

 longed to cast a fly ; but he thought of the teasing 

 Madge and waited. At best, he was but a poor male 

 creature. Madge, in his place, would have been whip- 

 ping the stream, with defiance and determination, an 

 hour after her arrival. 



His Reverence and the Doctor had arranged to ascend 

 Clouds' Rest on a Thursday and return next day. 

 Early Thursday morning, before Yang or the birds 

 were stirring, Jack sauntered forth to his morning batli 

 in the icy waters of the river. This Rio de la Merced, 

 would it prove to him indeed a river of mercy, or a 

 river of humiliation? But what a glorious stream it 

 was ! Here it glided through wooded banks, the oppo- 

 site side black in the shadow of overhanging manzanita, 

 while nearer the rippling waters were checkered with 

 the shadows of the cotton-wood leaves, trembling in 

 the growing light. Further on, the river whirled and 

 eddied around great boulders, resting among the mossy 

 rocks in deep, dark pools, bordered with fern and 

 flecked with patches of lace-like foam. Further still, 

 it wound silently through the sedges, reflecting on its 

 glassy surface the stormed-carved Cathedral Rocks, or 

 the huge mass of El Capitan. Here was an ideal trout 

 stream, but were there trout in it ! No doubt, for the 

 Doctor had taken his grocers' string and a worm and a 

 veritable pole, and after a day's tramp had returned to 

 camp wet, hungry, in a sulphurous mood, but with 

 four unmistakable trout. These, served up the next 



