242 Fish Stories 



and then he told him to try for squawfish at Kelsey Creek. 

 The boy wasted no time in going, and soon found an attract- 

 ive little stream and began to cast. For a long time he had 

 no luck, but suddenly he had a bite, then another, then he 

 began to see fishes darting about, and then — that boy almost 

 turned and ran. Was he dreaming; was it some trick of 

 the imagination ? He rubbed his eyes, pinched himself, and 

 as it hurt, he knew it was true, he really was awake, and 

 that creek was so full of squawfishes that an old mandarin 

 duck walked across on their backs. You may not believe 

 this, gentle or ferocious reader, but here is Kelsey Creek, 

 there are the squawfishes by tens of thousands; there is 

 the astonished boy holding the rod, all shown in the photo- 

 graph, and I dare say the old mandarin duck is behind the 

 trees to the left, pinching herself and wondering if it is 

 really so. 



Suckers^here are, too, of many kinds, and as one goes 

 westward, there are many and many kinds of chubs. Largest 

 of all are the squawfishes of the west. 



It is no dispraise to a fish-story that its author never tells 

 it twice alike. Slavish repetition of stories indicates poverty 

 of experience as well as of invention. Hance's story of the 

 squawfish salmon of the Colorado Canon thus appears in 

 the " Saturday Evening Post " : 



" One day Mr. Hance was standing by the top of the 

 Bright Angel trail, with a few pieces of meat in his hand. 



" ' What are you going to do with that meat, Mr. Hance? ' 

 asked a pert tourist lady from Boston. 



" ' Why, I'm goin' down to feed my pet fish with it.' 



'"Your pet fish? Have you a pet fish? Oh, tell me 

 about it.' 



" ' Wal,' said Hance, ' it was this way : One time, some 

 years ago, I was fishin' down there in the canon in the Colo- 

 rado River. I wasn't havin' much luck, but all of a sudden 

 I seen a commotion in the water, and a tolerable-sized fish 



