The Jlrtist Goes A-Fhhing 



65 



some care in making the back cast to avoid fouling the line. 

 Beyond the edge of the shadow thrown by this, the water, still 

 between passing wind riffles, showed a placid beauty of reflected 

 color from the heavens overhead, for it was close on sundown — a 

 quietly heaving sheet of rose pearl, pale green and blue fire, broken 

 with yet deeper blue where a catspaw struck it. At its farther 

 edge, the golden light of the sun-lit reed beds struck vertically 

 down into the sky reflections, making the water appear more 

 brilliant still by complementary opposition. 



JMk 





''Mount Holmes 



dominated the 



evening stillness'' 



Above reed beds and hay meadows, together a far-stretching 

 sheet of quivering tawny gold, far away the sage hills began to 

 rise, lying east and west in sliding inclines that took the eye, 

 halting here and there on the dark accent of some group or band 

 of distant pines, to the crown of the blue foothills. And from the 

 broken gold of the near ground, the gray gold of the sage hills, 

 the foundational blue of the foothills, in the red, red flame of the 

 large last gleam, majestic against the low lying pale violet clouds 

 of the northern horizon, through whose rifts an elusively pale 

 green sky showed in lesser light. Mount Holmes dominated the 

 evening stillness. 



One good trout was hooked and landed by William just 

 after sundown, a three pound cut-throat. This, with the other less 

 desirable fish were passed across stream to the unlucky rancher, 

 who thankfully bore them home. A heavy thunderstorm was 



