CHAPTER XIV 

 THE LURE OF THE RAINBOW 



Be mindful aye your fly yo throw 

 Light as falls the flaky snow. 



— Izaak Walton. 



Here comes another fish that I must tickle, and tickle daintily. 

 I've lost my end else. — Beaumont and Fletcher. 



HE biggest rainbows have their home in a land of 

 dreams on the east slope of the Cascade Moun- 

 tains of Oregon, where the great fir forests have 

 fought for ages to hide grim beds of lava — 

 showers of rock, which bombarded the earth untold ages ago. 

 Shasta with its glaciers is not far away, and from the slopes 

 of Mount Pitt, 9700 feet in air, the angling invader looks 

 down on the fair lake of Klamath, environed by lofty peaks, 

 crests of mountains that roll away in every direction ; some 

 capped with eternal snow, some garbed in tints of pearl, or 

 blue of infinite beauty, all volcanic, the aftermath of a time 

 when Titans lived, and played at bowls among the lofty 

 peaks and ranges of the Siskiyous. 



Away to the north is a wonder of the world, Crater Lake, 

 a dead volcano, a mile above the sea, filled with water nearly 

 half a mile in depth, a gleaming sapphire suspended like the 

 roc's egg, on top of the world; indeed, I could not divest 

 myself of the belief that Klamath with its shallow waters, 

 thirty or more miles in length, fed by eternal and icy springs, 

 was not the last word of a mighty volcano burnt out and 

 dead. 

 As I found it, Upper Klamath Lake was two or three days 



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