98 Recreations of a Sportsman 



oarsman pointed out the snowy cap of Mount 

 Pitt, which seemed to hang in the air like the 

 roc's egg of fable, and on my expressing my ad- 

 miration he would say, " Yes, but you should 

 see the canon of the Rogue beyond." Again, 

 when following up the Dead Indian Trail, 

 the anglers on the coach in the deep forest 

 talked of the Kogue and its beauties. And so 

 one year when I came out of the black forest 

 that forms the advance guard of the Calipooia 

 range, and dropped down from the trout streams 

 a mile above the sea I kept on until I came to 

 the Rogue. Long before I reached my destina- 

 tion, near Grant's Pass, we found the little 

 river, flowing along by Oregon farms, through 

 fields of grain that rippled in the sun ; and every- 

 where it was so suggestive of peace and the de- 

 lights of the angler, as depicted in the philosophy 

 of Walton, that it was almost irresistible to stop 

 and follow its eccentric bidding. It was some- 

 time between September and October that I 

 found myself on the stream. The nights had 

 been freezing cold, a mile above the sea in 

 the uplands, so we deserted the rainbows for 

 the oceanic cousins the salmon trout that were 

 now coming up from the Pacific in bands, singly, 

 and in twos and threes, with big salmon of a 

 late run for companionship. Early one morn- 

 ing I started with a good boatman and com- 

 panion, casting the Rogue. 



