THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 13 
That ended it for the day. 
How cold and disheartened and altogether miserable I felt as I 
shivered in the rain, trying to dry out at our feeble steaming fire. 
The boys were painfully sympathetic, and I noted more than one 
covert wink, and heard now and then the gurgle of a half suppressed 
laugh. Even the incomparable savor and flavor of fried trout, an hour 
dead, did not altogether revive my drooping spirits. 
Supper over, our soggy little party dispersed its several ways tc 
bed. And by this I mean that each made himself as comfortable for 
the night as conditions and possibilities would permit. Although we 
had our blankets, I do not think it can be said that any of us had a 
bed. Rather, I should call it a nest or a lair. 
I have read a lot about beds of pine under the stars. I have slept 
on them, too, many of them, and capital beds they were. Often have 
I sprawled on a fragrant heap of pine boughs under an August sky, 
fascinated by the mountain stillness, and have watched the stars file 
across the velvet curtain of the night and disappear behind the tree 
tops to the west. On such a bed I have been lulled to sleep by the 
gurgle of a mountain brook; and hours later, long after any self- 
respecting fisherman should be up and away to the purple waters, I 
have been awakened by the warmth of sunshine sifted down through 
reaching boughs. 
But there was no poetry about those beds on Crane Prairie. I 
remember the weird figures we presented as we grouped about our 
sputtering fire, performing the last ceremonies of the night. They 
were brief, those ceremonies, with just a touch of sadness. Discard- 
ing as much clothing as he dared (I recall wearing my hat to bed), 
each of several fishermen with a solemin “Good-night” crawled under 
his particular tree, rolled himself up in his damp blanket, and began 
the long vigil. 
I will not dwell upon the details of that night. I think I slept a 
little—just a little—before dawn. At any rate, after what seemed an 
eternity of cold cramped twisting and turning, I was aroused by the 
touch of big wet snow flakes on my face. It was morning. That is, 
the east showed gray through the trees. It was morning for the 
woods. In the city it would still be the middle of the night. 
Hot coffee, with bacon and trout, helped somewhat to dispel our 
disappointment, at the weather, and proved a marvelous remedy for 
cold backs and cramped limbs. The flurry continued while we ate. 
Big feathery flakes came twisting down through the trees, and sizzled 
with the bacon. But the snow melted almost as it fell, so that the 
prairie beckoned fresh and green in the morning light. 
Scattering up and down the stream, we began the serious work of 
the day. It was planned to leave at noon and we wanted full creels. 
But it appeared that we were again to be disappointed. Not a fish 
would rise. We tried the placid waters first—then the broken, swirling 
places below—but it was all the same. We changed our flies. We 
sank them, We skittered them:across the surface of the deep still 
pools. We worked them down along the rapid riffles of the lower 
water. But it was to no purpose, And this continued for hours. 
Along toward ten o'clock I found myself back in the vicinity of 
camp, away from the rest, tired, disheartened and fully determined to 
give it up. ButI didn’t, of course. You who fish for trout know that 
I didn’t, because you know of that optimism, that persistence, that 
inexplicable something which so often grips the fisherman in his hour 
of disappointment, and carries him on to success. Gamblers call it a 
