AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 29 



make the journey we had planned for them it 

 was requisite that they should feed well. 



Bright and early the following morning we 

 were on the stream again. The trout were now 

 ravenous for flies, and in less than two hours I 

 returned to camp with a long string, averaging 

 between eight and twelve inches in length. I 

 concluded that John would do equally well with 

 his favorite grasshoppers and that we should 

 have, with our combined catch, all that we could 

 use. He had gone beyond a beaver dam a mile 

 below camp. 



It was noon when John appeared, loaded 

 down with trout. We had so many between us, 

 in fact, that to save them we were compelled 

 to split the largest and dry them by suspending 

 them over a smudge. In the dry atmosphere of 

 Arizona fish may be cured in a few hours by 

 this method, without salting, and will remain 

 sweet and good indefinitely. The trout which 

 we dried proved a very welcome relish later, 

 when we were in arid regions farther to the 

 westward. 



From the West Fork our trail carried us with 

 a gradual rise through mountain glens and ma- 

 jestic pine forests, across an open range where 

 cattle grazed in hundreds, and once past thou- 

 sands of bleating sheep in charge of silent, list- 



