AND OTHEE HUNTING ADVENTUKES. 259 



Its valley is two to four miles wide, and the lower 

 portion of this is occupied by numerous ranches. The 

 soil is tilled by Well-to-do farmers or " ranchmen," 

 to speak in the vernacular of the country, so that 

 the angler, while within a mile or two of rugged 

 mountain peaks, is still in the midst of civilization, 

 where his larder may daily be replenished with 

 nearly all the varieties of good things that grow on 

 any New England farm. The banks of the stream 

 are fringed with stately pines and cotton woods, and 

 in places with thickets of underbrush. 



From a tiny brook at its source the stream grows 

 rapidly to a veritable river of thirty to fifty yards 

 in width as it passes on toward its destination. It 

 sweeps and whirls in its course, here running 

 straight and placidly for a hundred yards, then 

 turning abruptly to right or left and returning 

 almost parallel to itself, forming ' ' horse-shoe bends, ' ' 

 "ox-bow bends," compound S's, right angles, 

 etc. 



In many cases it tumbles down over a long, steep 

 pavement of granite bowlders, working itself into a 

 very agony of bubbles and foam, and when the foot 

 of this fall is reached it whirls and eddies in a great 

 pool ten or twenty feet deep and covering half an 

 acre of ground, almost surrounded by high-cut 

 banks, and seeming to have lost its way. It event- 

 ually finds an exit, however, through an opening in 

 the willows and masses of driftwood, and again 

 speeds on. 



In many of these large, deep pools whole trees, of 

 giant size, brought down by the spring freshets, 

 have found lodgment beyond the power of the 



