THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 281 
minute! Pull!” Ordinarily I assume a respectful tone when address- 
ing the boss. I am well trained. Usually I come at call and eat out 
of her hand. But she did not hear me. She was pulling that fish in 
hand over hand as fast as a sailor would haul in the lead line when 
shoal water threatened, and often soundings alone would save the ship 
from striking. “Not so fast, you'll lose him! Ease up there! Don’t 
you know anything?” But she did not hear. On came that fish right 
up to the edge of the boat. “Give him line!” I was frantic and my 
voice reverberated over that expanse of blue water. “Give him line!” 
At last I was heard and she allowed him to have three feet of line—the 
first she had vouchsafed since he had struck—and as he sank into the, 
well I don’t care, it is blue, as he sank into the deep blue water she 
thought he was gone! And with the thought came a heave on that 
line that gave me heart failure on the spot. Two feet of glittering 
rainbow flashed into the air, described a semi-circle above her head 
and splashed into the water on the other side. A weakness seized me. 
He was not gone! “Let me land him.” “You go to the devil! This is 
my fish!” Up to the boat he came on the other side—bumped his head 
against the side—nerve numbing bumps to one who knows a little of 
the art of Isaac Walton, and out he came again, this time, by one of 
those strange acts of Providence which makes men sorry they were 
ever profane, or testy, or sarcastic, or many other undesirable things, 
right into the bottom of the boat. She was on him like a hawk. Hoid- 
ing him up she said, “Tell me I can’t catch a fish!” It was the full hour 
and we were only fifty feet from where we had started. 
Then came the climb. Me carry that fish? Well, rather not. She 
would carry it herself. And she did, right to the hotel where they were 
just sitting down to breakfast. The men gathered around and ad- 
mired, both the fish and the fisher, and the galley slave just stood 
back and was glad that he had minded first and waited until after 
to argue the point about the advisability of getting up while it was yet 
dark to catch a fish in Crater Lake. It is, was, and ever shall be worth 
while. 
About ten o’clock we left Crater Lake. One leaves it suddenly. 
There are no backward glances at it fading in the distance. You 
drop away from the rim and it is gone, nothing left but a memory of 
an enchanting blue, which grows stronger and stronger as time passes, 
like some memory of youth which the fleeting years only seem to 
intensify. Crater Lake is a memory, the fish—the largest taken up 
to that time this year—is a memory, and after all the real things of 
life are only memories, pleasant memories of times spent in the 
open with a friend. and an open fire, these are the memories that 
endure. These are the memories that are worth while. 
If I have not already done so I wish to say in closing that the lake 
is perfectly blue, when looked at from any angle. It has been stated 
so several times by observing writers but none of them have seemed 
to catch the real color. Itis blue. Really blue. Not purple. B-L-U-E! 
Get me! Blue! . 
This is the season of the year when the mental notes taken by the 
sportsmen during the open season would look well in the columns of 
the Oregon Sportsman. Not many sportsmen find time during the 
open season to sit down and write an account of their experience or 
success with rod and gun, but now that the hunting and angling sea- 
son is practically over we hope that the sportsmen will have a little 
leisure and will tell the readers of the Sportsman of their experience 
in the field, on the stream, on the duck slough, or your trip after large 
game. 
