146 DAYS IN THE OPEN 



towards the trees, the bait allowed to sink and then 

 drawn slowly towards the boat. Was that the 

 bottom? Hardly, for it is tugging and lunging 

 and rushing back and forth across the narrow 

 water. The light bamboo meets every lunge, and 

 the fight goes merrily on for ten minutes or so, 

 when a beautiful Dolly Varden trout is brought 

 to net. Another cast and another strike. This 

 time the visitor has succeeded in getting on the 

 other side of a log that juts out into the stream 

 from the drift-wood. So much the better for the 

 sport. Gently, little by little, he is persuaded to 

 travel towards the end of that log, until, after many 

 efforts, the line swings free. A long, delightful 

 tussle, and he joins his comrade in the bottom of 

 the boat. Lest the reader's patience should give 

 way under the strain of detailed description, suffice 

 it to say that from that one spot six Dolly Vardens 

 were taken, not one of which weighed less than 

 three pounds. 



But fly-fishing was found, such as it was. Two 

 miles up the valley Boulder Creek comes down 

 the canon and empties into the Stehekin. We 

 were told that here one could catch mountain trout 

 with the fly. A mile beyond Boulder Creek are the 

 Rainbow Falls, where a stream drops over the 

 eastern mountains for a sheer plunge of three 

 hundred and twenty feet. One day was all too 

 little to devote to the beauty of this scenery and 

 an excursion up Boulder, but it was a day well 



