2 Recreations of a Sportsman 



forester, whose adventure I purpose to describe; 

 not that he could not do it himself far more 

 effectively, but I am confident he is much too 

 modest to be judicially fair to himself even in 

 a fish story. So, having been hot on his trail 

 several hours, taking the sea-dust or spume from 

 his game, as it were (wishing myself home by 

 the camp-fire more than once), I am going to 

 spin the yarn from the standpoint of a close 

 observer. He has Mexican Joe as his witness 

 and Joaquin Arce, a plucky twelve-year-old, who 

 was chief engineer for me while I ran the boat, 

 and hung on to Pinchot and his game so closely 

 that he more than once cried for mercy, as I 

 butted into his sphere of action from the outer 

 darkness on the crest of a wave. 



The San Clemente channel in the afternoon 

 is not the smoothest spot on earth; in point of 

 fact, its waters are often so riotous that every 

 one who loves creature comfort, and peace of 

 body, starts from Santa Catalina at three or 

 four o'clock, or some earlier and more barbaric 

 hour in the morning, making the voyage when 

 the seas are down and sleeping, crossing in from 

 two and a half to four hours, according to the 

 boat, the run being twenty or thirty-five miles, 

 according to the destination, east or west end. 



We were headed for Mosquito Harbor at the 

 east end, about thirty-five miles from Avalon, 

 where we had outfitted with the twenty-five-foot 



