The River of Feathers 69 



again, what pleasure to the angler is there in 

 a Mississippi or an Orinoco? You could not 

 cast half-way across, and if you did, catfish, not 

 trout, would be your reward. 



Late in the day you drop from the high Sierras 

 into a little village, founded by a man named 

 Pratt. What Pratt was doing half a century ago 

 on the Feather no one knows, but millions in gold 

 have been washed from the bed of the stream, 

 so we assume that he was not hunting for big 

 trout. Whatever it was, he has his monument, 

 and you may have guessed it: It is Prattville. 

 There is a blacksmith shop and two or three 

 others, a post-office and a row of buildings that 

 gradually dwindles down into little homes, and, 

 last, there is the Feather Kiver winding in and 

 out; and away up to the north, hanging like a 

 roc's egg in space, the splendid, glowing snow- 

 cap of Lassen. Down the river another mile, 

 hard by a great mass of fine trees and on the 

 edge of the meadow, you come to a little shop, 

 and on the sign read, "Costar, Artificial Fly 

 Maker." 



You have seen all sorts of signs from Chico 

 up to Sterling and the divide; one reading, 

 " Keep Off the Snow," tacked on a big tree thirty 

 feet in air, where the coach drives in winter 

 when it tries to reach Humbug, or where the 

 Indian mail carrier coasts on skees. But this, 

 one hundred miles from anywhere, is the first 



