120 Fish Stories 



seems to flow into other ranges and eternally on. From the 

 Pacific it is all green, a cloak always green, sempervirens, 

 but as we creep along the edge, we come to little lagunas 

 protected from the sea by a sand dune, one or more, or 

 upon splendid titan-like rocks which breast the sea with bold 

 front tossing it high in air, opening in great caves to engulf 

 it, and very near is another laguna perhaps connected with 

 the ocean at high tide. If you are very observing you may 

 see salmon trout, grilse if you will, coming through the 

 impossible entrance, one-, two-, perhaps three-pounders, and 

 many more not so large, which assimilate the color of the 

 bottom so deftly that you can hardly see them. If you 

 happened here in the dead of winter, when California is a 

 flower garden, you might see ten- or even twenty-pounders 

 slowly swimming up stream. 



The laguna is the sea door of the San Lorenzo, the 

 Soquel, at Capitola, and others, and is large or small accord- 

 ing to season. Sometimes after a heavy rain it is a real 

 lake; again the sea washes away the sand, scatters it and 

 rushes in to mingle with the fresh waters that are pouring 

 down from the mountains. We cross a little stream and 

 begin the climb on a shelf of a road which seems hung on 

 the side of San Lorenzo Canon. It would seem impossible 

 that so small a stream, even if it does roar at times in winter, 

 could have cut so tremendous a chasm just to afford a home 

 for trout, and to provide good fishing for you and for me. 

 Very soon you are in the redwoods which grow higher and 

 higher, more serious, demanding more attention as you rise. 

 Here the road is hung to the canon, and you look down upon 

 the top of giant trees perhaps a thousand feet below and 

 obtain a new idea of redwoods. Now you come out into 

 the sunlight again, drop into the deep shadows of redwoods, 

 giants as old as Rome, older than the pyramids perhaps, 

 trees that-were in their old age when Columbus came. Then 

 the road enters a little portrero or meadow and we see a 

 village, the houses hidden away among the trees and sur- 



