CHAPTER VIII 



THE TROUT STREAMS OF THE MISSIONS 



IT may be merely a vagrant fancy, but a sus- 

 picion has always lingered in my mind that 

 the good padres, followers of Junipero Serra, 

 who built the fine old missions on the Pacific 

 coast, the men who blazed the most extraor- 

 dinary trail ever seen or heard of El Camino 

 Real from Mexico to Monterey, in California, 

 were devout anglers of the true Waltonian 

 school. 



It has been my privilege to know several of 

 the modern representatives of these men, fathers 

 who had lived for many years in some of the 

 best preserved missions, to pore over the old 

 records of the crops, the births, the Indians, the 

 conversions, the vast holdings, and in all these 

 never in any way was there a suggestion of 

 angling; fishhooks, lines, or poles were never 

 mentioned in any of the old lists of properties 

 I have been fortunate to scan. Yet I believe 

 that Saint Zeno, the patron of the men who fol- 

 lowed the rod, had many devotees among the 

 uncanonized saints who followed Junipero Serra. 



It is true that by a stretch of the imagination 

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