OF SHOOTING AND FISHING 217 
SILVER CREEK 
With a small party, on a beautiful morning in 
May, I arrived at Shoshone. While our host’s car 
was being ‘‘cut off’’ the overland train and being 
attached to that on the Ketchum branch, we viewed 
the town, which consisted of one street, up the 
middle of which ran the main line. It was a hot 
and dusty place surrounded by dreary wastes of 
sagebrush and lava, but possessed of great possi- 
bilities, as the sagebrush desert only required water 
to make it ‘‘blossom as the rose’’ and this water 
was near at hand. The mighty Snake River flowed 
but a few miles away, and the Shoshone Falls was 
not far off. 
Our objective point was Silver Creek, a small 
stream which the railway to Ketchum crossed as it 
meandered through the valley like a silver thread, 
and in a short time our train was rumbling out over 
the sagebrush towards it. Breakfast was ready 
as we started, and by the time it was over, we were 
passing the Little Wood, a stream I had once fished 
with great success. I recalled having shot my first 
coyote there, while trying to kill some sage hens, 
and of carrying it to the car on my back across the 
desert in an August sun. I had registered a vow 
then that I would never carry a coyote again, either 
in August or any other month, and that I would 
never encourage the carrying of coyotes by mem- 
bers of the party to which I belonged. Our car was 
eut off at the bridge crossing Silver Creek. After 
breakfast we had spent the time putting our rods 
