The Trout of Los Laurelles 



95 



dashing up into the air, turning somersaults in its terror or 

 amazement at this strange invisible thing that held it fast. 

 For a few moments I played it from the shadows where it 

 tugged and matched its astonishing strength against my 

 light rod, then came at me, turned quickly, and shot away 

 for some distant pool, like an arrow from a well-bent bow, 

 making the little reel hum and sing, actually taking me 

 out upon the shingle as it made the turn and went down 

 stream. 



Then I checked it and saw it leap out into the sunlight 

 where my friend the kingfisher made a half dive for it, 

 forcing me to close in ; the fish sulking, hammering on the 

 line like a salmon, then breaking away again, as becomes a 

 salmon trout, like a bar of silver, and fresh from the sea. 

 Again and again he took feet and yards of the delicate line ; 

 in fact, he overmatched the tackle, as I had put on a delicate 

 single gut leader of the smallest size, and a diminutive 

 " Kamloops," and had myself steeled for the inevitable, 

 fully expecting to see the line come whizzing back; but it 

 was the unexpected which happened; by some special dis- 

 pensation of good fortune I held him, and slowly brought 

 him to net, not a seven-pounder, not the one that got away, 

 but a good fish, that would have tipped the scales at one 

 and a half pounds. This was luck, and enough, so I stopped 

 while the fish were biting, found a path up through the 

 ranch by the stables which stood against the Santa Lucia 

 range with big live oaks and green fields reaching away, 

 handed the catch to the chef, and told, to sympathetic lis- 

 teners, the story of the eight-pounder that escaped, and 

 later came in to my full reward, broiled trout, Los Laurelles 

 fashion. 



Then, in the cool evening in the ranch house, came cigars 

 and fish stories of various vintages, and sleep in the Santa 

 Lucia air that swept from the east where the Sierra Nevada 

 lies; and when morning came, more trout, new pools and 

 vistas. 



