18983 A Fish Story 



— Ptychocheilus lucius — a huge chub three or 

 four feet long. But as it naturally gets very hot on 

 the canyon floor during the middle of the day, he 

 lay in the shade of a mesquite, tied the line to his 

 boot, and promptly fell asleep. Soon there came a 

 mighty tug, and before he could lift a hand an 

 enormous fish had hauled him bodily into the stream! 

 Perceiving at once that it was making for deep water Ue 

 with plain intent to drown him, but wishing to save "^J^^^f^^ 

 as much of his line as possible, he went down it, 

 hand over hand, almost to the hook. Then taking 

 out a knife, he cut loose, gave the fish a kick in the 

 jaw, and swam back to shore. At this point in the 

 story he pensively observed: "There is nothing so 

 desperate as an angry fish." 



A third egregious yarn related to his perilous en- 

 counter with an infuriated bear from which he 

 escaped by climbing a tree. The harrowing details 

 have slipped from my mind, but I distinctly recall 

 the solemn manner with which he pointed out the 

 identical tree as evidence of good faith. 



After some days about the Canyon our original On to 

 group dissolved, eight of us proceeding in accord- "^^"""^ 

 ance with previous arrangement to alluring Acoma. 

 Besides the valiant "Lion," his little daughter 

 Turbese (now Mrs. Frank Fiske), and ourselves, 

 the party consisted of Theodore H. Hittell, the 

 well-known historian of California, Miss Catherine 

 Hittell, his daughter, Milnor Roberts, our student 

 companion on various previous excursions, and 



I 625 3 



