' M t M IYI l. r\ I M I\1 O rUn I olVIttN o JUUnNrtL. 
lEntcred According to Act' of Con B re88 > *n the year 1870, by the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
Terms, 84 a Tear. XO Cts. a Copy. 1 
Six Mil's, 83, Three Mo's, 81. f 
NEW YORK, THURSDAY, AUGUST 21,1 879. 
) Volume 13—No. 3. 
I No. Ill Fulton Street, New York* 
For Forest and Stream and Rod and G-uii” 
FREEDOM. 
Q UIET hours in shady bowers, 
Jolly hours in heathers 
Free is all where rod and gun 
Make high life together. 
Nature's voioe there bids rejoice, 
Man's here bids thee sorrow ; 
Cheery nature lauds to-day 
Man’s weak tones to-morrow. 
Hearken, then! the forest eall3 ; 
Stream and tree alike invite; 
Bpeed, tbeel .^peed thee! Far away. 
Lurk the spirits of the day; 
Glowing sun and star-beams bright 
Only these ye know aright, 
Canopied by Heaven’s blue, 
None than thee more joyanee feel 
In erpausive Nature's sway. 
Mind and heart alike respond]; 
Ye are happy all the day. 
WA.VFAKER. 
For Forest and Stream and Hod and Gun. 
Nine 
'ffeete itt the 
Jfflotinfains. 
tackv 
T HE Judge and I had been loafing and fishing the best 
part of a month ; the former at and about Hot Sul¬ 
phur Springs, in Middle Park, and the latter at Grand, 
Williams, Frazer, and other rivers and creeks of the 
neighborhood. We had wound up by a four days’ excur¬ 
sion to Black Lake, which was to conclude our holiday, 
and got back to our rallying point on a warm, dusty Sun¬ 
day. From crowding a day’s ride of forty odd miles into 
the forenoon, we came in tired and hungry. On arrival 
we learned that the advance guard of a new hunting 
party from Denver had arrived that morning; were now 
across the river, but would be hack to our cabin for din¬ 
ner, and that they had already filed an application for the 
writer to join them on a .three weeks’ bear hunt to the 
Yampah. Over a famously good dinner the question was 
‘discussed at length and decided in the affirmative. The 
Judge had to go home, fearing that soma of lus cheats 
might escape if he protraoted his absence longer. In the 
afternoon the “ outfit ” arrived and went into camp ; the: 
party, Col. H., Attorney W. and Capt. K., with an Irish 
teamster, who responded to the cognomen Tom, and a 
Dutch cook, who sometimes answered when some one 
yelled, Mike. However, they were good servants, The 
transportation was a monstrously heavy wagon, with four 
good mules, a Concord buggy, and three or four saddle 
horses. They had started from Denver with the idea that 
two mules would draw a four-horse wagon with a six- 
horse load, and the other two could pull the buggy with 
the colonel, the guns, and the demijohns. The latter part 
of the calculation was good, but the other part failed. It 
worked all right across the fifteen miles of level plain 
from Denver, but when it came to climbing up a couple 
of vertical miles over the backbone of the continent, the 
team was found entirely too light for the load, so all the 
mules were hitched to the wagon, and the buggy trailed 
behind it. Thus they reached the Springs. By supplying 
another set of harness and pressing a couple of the saddle 
horses into team service, the transportation was improved 
so that the mules had only the wagon to draw, and there 
was generally a pair of horses or ponies for the buggy. 
The impendimenta was a 13x16 feet wall tent, a folding 
table, folding camp chairs, a four story East India patent 
camp coo ki ng range, mattresses, bedding, a large and 
varied assortment of supplies for a month, cupboards and 
cases, a rubber boat that sometimes did service as a bath 
tub, miscellaneous tools and personal effects. 
My acceptance of the invitation was coupled with the 
condition that I must have time to send to Georgetown for 
a pair of boots, requiring two days. So it was arranged 
that the party should start Monday morning,move leisurely 
down the Grand and up the Muddy, and wait on the 
hither slope of Gore Range until I came up. The boots 
came as expected, and on Wednesday mormngl mounted 
to follow. By taking trails here and there that out off 
long sweeps of the wagon road I saved much in distance, 
and just as the sun was sinking behind the crest of the 
range before me, I oame up with the camp in a little glen 
to the left by a grove of aspens on the brink of a brook of 
icy cold water. A meadow in front with luxuriant grass 
to the saddle skirts, and a rivulet through the middle of 
it, was dotted with the horses of the party. Mike was in 
charge of camp. He reported the gentlemen out hunting; 
the mules run off, and Tom and the dog on hunt of them. 
He also gave a racy account of camp experiences for the 
preceding three days. They had moved down the Grand 
almost to the head of the canon, where the river becomes 
wide, deep, and sluggish, and where they expected to find 
good shooting and fishing. The Colonel and the Attorney 
(whom I shall designate hereafter as Judge) went out with 
their guns. The former soon found a fine flock of geese 
and knocked down two or three. On going to pick them 
up he found red ribbons tied round their necks, and later 
had the pleasure of paying for the birds—domesticated 
wild geese. The Judge got some ducks, having to employ 
a hoy .as retriever to bring them out of the river. The 
captain went fishing, and got lots of "bites” but few fish. 
The next morning his eyes were swollen shut and he said 
mosquitoes always served him that way. In sheer disgust 
they harnessed up and- pulled out, never camping until 
they got within .tow miles of the summit of Gore Moun¬ 
tains, out of the range of mosquitoes, tame wild geese, 
and annoying settlers. The next morning the mules were 
gone—gone hack—which Tom thought • ‘ mighty strange, 
as they never done so before.” He had been acquainted 
with them about a week. But the strangeness of that 
proceeding grew on Tom for two days, at the end of 
which he found them taken up by the ranchman of whom 
the Colonel purchased the geese. Tom afterwards told 
me that the mules found a certain kind of grass at that 
capnp which made them run away. Upon my laughing 
an his belief, ho said that eating such grass was what 
a ways caused horses and mules to wander off, and I 
found that this was gospel to him. 
About dusk the hunters came straggling in, all empty 
handed. The Judge said that he nad killed a deer, 
dressed it and hung it up on a tree. He then followed 
on to get another shot, failed and on returning could not 
find his venison. He searched for it until dark and then 
came in; upon noticing certain incredulous smiles around 
the circle he pulled out his belt knife and triumphantly 
directed attention to its bloody condition, I had carried 
out a rater mail for the party, and among the missives was 
a bill for the patent hunting boots ordered from London, 
England, by the Judge and Captain expressly for this trip. 
Including premium and exchange their understandings 
cost about $22.50 per pair as I understood it. The Colonel 
also received a letter calling him back, but by next morn¬ 
ing he was persuaded that he had not received it, and he 
said it wasn’t urgent anyhow. Tom got back after dark 
without the mules or any trace of them, but with the 
dog (a shepherd, simply to watch camp and drive in 
stock) completely worn out. Thenceforward that dog 
could not be enticed out of sight of camp. 
Thursday morning was bright but everything glistened 
with white frost. Notwithstanding, the Judge and the 
Captain punished themselves by an ice cold bath all over 
before sunrise, and they repeated it almost every day 
afterwards. After breakfast we saddled up and struck 
out north for a long pine-covered spur of the mountain in 
search of the Judge’s deer or some other one. It was now 
two or three days past the middle of August. The sea¬ 
son had been very dry and everything was parched and 
brittle. The woods were chick and the ground oovered 
with dry leaves and sticks. Although deer were evidently 
quite plentiful it was almost impossible to get sight of one. 
Several shots were fired at vanishing figures among the 
trees but no game secured, and early in the day all were 
wending campward. On the way I bad to cross a little 
stream, not a step in width, in which trout were visible. 
Dismounting and procuring a willow “ greenheart” rod, 
I attached a line and fly, and in a few minuces was “yank¬ 
ing” out fiBh at a lively rate. They were small but num¬ 
erous. The stream was bordered by a continuous thicket 
of willows and frequently interrupted by beaver dams. 
Dodging through the willows I came face to face with a 
“baby” beaver, half grown, with glossy black coat dripping 
from"the baths, and sparkling eyes. He looked at me a 
moment in surprise and then plunged over the bank into his 
pool. I reached camp with hunting-coat pockets full, to find 
some wagons loaded with fish from Yampah river camped 
near, in which the colonel had been fishing with i “ silver 
hook." As night settled down Tom arrived with the mules. 
He picketed them short aud nevermore on that expedition 
had those “ animules an opportunity to eat “runaway” 
grass and escape out of sight. 
Friday there was an early breakfast and at sunrise the 
horsemen were on the road. The country was new to all 
of us. We had heard of a famous soda spring just over 
the summit of the range. It was reported two miles below 
the road near the first stream running southwest. The 
explorer who thus described it had large ideas. A creek 
nearly a rod wide escaped his notice or didn’t count. The 
Judge and I turned down it in search of that spring. We 
scrambled along hillside and through brash ; the valley 
gradually changing to a cafion, and the way growing 
rough and difficult. We traveled the two miles and then 
two or three more and gave it up. We tried fishing and 
failed ; then struck for the road in a direction which we 
thought would save us several miles, rather than retrace 
our difficult steps. Followed up a long draw that changed 
gradually from a grassy opening to a bushy hollow and 
then to an almost impenetrable forest of timber, much fire 
ki l led and fallen. It came on to rain, first gently and 
then heavy. We became tangled in the windfalls and had 
a most tedious and laborious journey for hours. At length 
searching the crest of the mountain ridge we found the 
forest on the north slope mainly green and the traveling 
correspondingly better, but it was so steep that ve had to 
dismount and lead our horses, and then they slid more 
than they walked. Once down the mountain we reached 
a more open country traversed by long grassy glades. 
The distance seemed so great th it we concluded the wagon 
road must have turned abruptly north instead of continu¬ 
ing west as it should, so we turned northeast up a little 
valley to its head, crossed a low ridge and came into the 
head of another and parallel valley, and down the middle 
of that was the road and the fresh, broad tracks of our 
wagon. We had been traveling toward the preceding 
night’s camp only separated from the road by a narrow 
timbered ridge. We galloped forward briskly on the fresh 
trail and at the foot of the little meadow came to Rock 
Creek and knew in a moment that it was the stream down 
which to look for the famous spring. But the creek was 
full of fish, and although we were suffering with hunger 
we could not resist the temptation to catch a few. Off 
our homes and at it we went, with willow rods three or 
four feet long. The stream is a beautiful one, with clean 
gravel bed and water as clear as crystal. Its banks a 
smooth grassy meadow without bush or tree in the 
way. And the trout are doubtless the most beautiful 
in the world, specked with black and dashed with crim¬ 
son. They are small; say five or six to the pound, and 
different from any others I have ever seen in the Rocky 
Mountains, or anywhere else for that matter. All are of 
the same variety, whereas, in most streams there are two 
or three varieties, and sometimes more. After fishing 
half an hour and catching twenty-five or thirty apiece, we 
determined to make another search for the fabled spring, 
and set out down stream along an old trail. This time 
we found it, and its water is the most delicious mineral 
water 1 have ever tasted in any country. Retracing our 
steps to the road, it was just sun down when we resumed 
the chase of our camp, not knowing where it might be. 
Up and down long meadow valleys, over sharp wooded 
ridges, and, at length, along a close rugged cafion we 
rode, galloping when we could, until we came to Egeria 
Park, and down it two miles or so caught the gleam of a 
camp fire which proved to be ours. It is needless to say 
it was welcome. Over fourteen hours in the saddle or 
on foot, laboring every moment, without a uouthful to 
eat, makes any kind of a resting place acceptable. 
Dinner was soon ready, and after it was over two of 
that party formed a resolution that was kept—to always 
take a pocket lunch from the breakfast table, no matter 
if the camp was going to remain where it was all day 
and we were going to stay right in it. 
This camp was on Tim-po-nas Creek, in the south end 
of Egeria Park. The creek is full of beaver dams and the 
beaver ponds are- full of trout. In the park there is no 
timber near the creek except willows, which are plentiful 
enough. Beavers find them sufficient for house-building 
and for food. Our folks, who had camped early in the 
afternoon, had taken a good supply of trout, and the Col¬ 
onel had made a long shot at a deer. Just north of the 
creek is a remarkable rock, called by the Indians Tum- 
ben-ar-row, or the “sleeping lion.” By some it is called 
The Sphynx, and it bears a stri kin g resemblance to the 
famous Egyptian figure. But the likeness is more that of 
an animal lying upon the ground with left fore leg ex¬ 
tended and’headand neck erect in a watchful attitude. 
Its length is probably near a thousand feet, and the height 
of the head fully two hundred feet. It faces the west and 
seems to be looking out over the park. The formation is 
basalt; an isolated mass thrust up through the stratified 
rocks. Grassy meadow extends to its foot on all sides. 
Saturday oiir road led northward, lengthwise of the 
park, which is really the crest of a divide ; the south end 
being drained southwardly to Grand River and the north 
end furnishing the extreme sources of Yampah River, 
which in the first part of its course flows due north. 
Toward the north end of the park, say twelve miles from 
our last camp, there is another remarkable outburst of 
basalt; a single slender shaft, which at a distance resem¬ 
bles a lofty shot tower or furnace stack. The Indians call 
it Tim-po-nas, or Finger-Rock. White men are getting to 
call both these monuments Tim-po-nas rocks. Fi ur miles 
further on we came to the main stream of the Yampah, 
an impetuous mountain torrent thirty feet wide and two 
feet deep on the rapids. Wishing the outfit a prosperous 
journey and having a lunch in my pocket . I stopped to 
fish. At the first east, letting the fly float down under a 
bunch of alders on the further side, 1 booked a seveuti en- 
juch trout and landed him safely. At the next took an¬ 
other nearly as large. Then a third yet a little smaller. 
Walked down the gravel barton steps : dropped in on the 
other side just in time for a monstrous fellow who walked 
off with my tackle as though it was a cotton thread. 
