Shooting a Grizzly 



small trout. I imagine that if I had had a microscope 

 I could have gone on discovering fish of a descending 

 scale in size, ad infinitum. 



As there were no bushes or grass around the edge of 

 that pond and no mud on the bottom, there was no 

 feed, and these trout must have lived and propagated 

 and cannibalized since Adam threw away the core. 

 The only outlets to the lake were little rivulets passing 

 through the loose formation forming the bed of the 

 watercourse leading down the mountain. To add to 

 the mystery of the phenomenon, the water in this pond 

 must have been solid ice six months out of the twelve. 

 Dave said that he knew for a fact that the trout in these 

 high altitudes stayed in the ponds all winter frozen in 

 the ice, and came to life again in the spring. We didn't 

 cook the trout because it did not have flesh enough upon 

 it to warrant wasting the fat required for frying. 



Looking for signs of spawn around the edge of the 

 pond revealed nothing, nor was there a characteristic 

 place for a spawning-ground. If one could judge by a 

 trout's teeth, the way you judge the age of a horse, 

 the trout I shot was a thousand years old. 



Crossing the ridge and dropping down the other side, 

 a vast natural amphitheatre or bowl stretched before 

 our eyes, like the crater of an extinct volcano. Upon 

 the farther side of the crater we could distinctly see a 

 white quartz vein cutting vertically down through the 

 formation, its lower end being lost in the accumulation 

 of overburden in the bottom of the crater. A turquoise 

 lake a few hundred yards across, surrounded by deserted 

 cabins, completed the picture. The sides of the bowl 

 were dotted with location monuments of stone. Dave 

 took me quite a detour to pass one of these close at 

 hand. Obeying his suggestion to dismount and examine 

 this old " stake," I was interested to see him kick out 



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