88 Fish Stories 



away as far as the eye can reach, acres, miles of golden red- 

 hearted poppies merging into tracts of purple, crimson and 

 lemon-yellow. Along the road are patches of blue lupines, and 

 among the wild oats whose awns jangle in the wind, the 

 yellow violet of California and many more. Groves of oaks 

 and tree-like brush in vivid greens race up the hillsides; 

 madrono and manzanita form little parks ; but the fields and 

 fields of flowers constantly arrest the eye. They are every- 

 where ; now filling some little potrero, to disappear in the 

 chaparral, coming again over the divide, where the soft wind 

 ripples over fields of grain, where shadows race with cloud- 

 flecks, and all the world runs riot with color, tint and shade. 

 In the center of the valley, a little lake, Laguna Seco, 

 nestled, the water a vivid blue divided by a covering of em- 

 erald-green weed, so one could well imagine that a gleam- 

 ing tourmaline had dropped from the skies in this out-of- 

 the-way part of the world. This gem w^as directly below us 

 half a mile, perhaps, and w^e could see two or three other 

 mountain roads winding below, little houses here and there 

 environed by great ranges beyond Mount Fremont in the 

 Gabilan, rounded peaks, crimpled mountains and faults, 

 forming other and countless valleys away to the south 

 where the Big and Little Sur came piling down through 

 rocky gorges to the sea. 



The valley of Carmel, like all good things, was always 

 over the next range, just beyond, but after a while we 

 reached the real divide, and looked down into the Rio Car- 

 melo and its fair valley surrounded on all sides by the 

 spurs of the San Lucia range, garbed in oak and chaparral, 

 with groves of huge live oaks in the valley, and the river 

 marked by long sinuous lines of vivid green willows, laurels, 

 cottonwoods and alders, with here and there a scintillating 

 gleam, the little arroyo itself, as it flowed on and on, down 

 to the old mission of San Carlos Borromeo and the sea. 



Down the long trail we ride, occasionally meeting a 

 rancher; coming nearer the live oaks, passing between low 



