44 RECREATION 



the rarest of all game fish, the so-called minute. They would hop on a rock in 



golden trout, which scientists declare to mid-stream and hob up and down in a 



be pre-glaeier fish left by some accident most solemn but comical manner for a 



of nature to exist in a new world in moment before plunging fearlessly into 



which all their original contemporaries the cold white spray of the falls or the 



have long been extinct. swift dashing current, where they would 



Think of it ! fish which had never disappear below the surface, only to re- 

 seen an artificial fly nor had any family appear once more on another rock to 

 traditions of experiences with them. It bob again. 



is little wonder that they would jump at Being wet did not trouble the ouzels, 



brown hackle, a professor, or even a for as soon as they came out of the 



gaudy salmon fly. Why, they would water the liquid rolled from their feath- 



have jumped at a chicken feather! They ers in crystal drops and their plumage 



were ready and eager to bite at any sort was as dry as if it had never been sub- 



of a bunco game I saw fit to play upon merged. The wilder and swifter the 



them. They were veritable hayseeds cold glacier water ran the greater the 



of the trout family, but when they felt birds seemed to enjoy it. I envied the 



the hook in their lips the wisest trout in ouzels then, I envied them their joyous, 



any of the preserves on Long Island, rollicking life, and I envy them now. 



in Blooming Grove Park or in Canada, Often on a skin-shriveling day, when 



whose experience with hook and flies I am sweltering in the hot streets of 



have made knowing beyond their kind, New York, I think how delightful it 



could not show a craftier nor half so would seem to be a water ouzel and 



plucky a fight. They would leap from dive in the ice-cold water dashing down 



the water like small-mouthed bass and the side of the mountains, 



by shaking their heads try to throw out The nearer I approached the edge of 



the hateful hook. the precipitous walls, enclosing the val- 



The constant, vigorous exercise of ley comprising Big Pete's park, the 

 leaping water falls and forging up boil- rougher grew the trail, and as I was 

 ing rapids has developed these sturdy picking my way I paused to gaze at the 

 mountaineer trout into prodigies of distant purple peaks and watch the sun 

 strength and endurance. Even now my set in that lonely land as if I was wit- 

 nerves tingle to the tips of my toes as nessing it for the first time. As my 

 in fancy I hear my reel hum or see the eyes roamed over the stupendous dis- 

 tip of my split bamboo bend so as to tance and unnamed mountains I felt my 

 almost form a circle. I fished that own puny insignificance, as who has not 

 stream with hands trembling with ex- when confronted with the vastness of 

 citement and had filled my creel with nature. 



the rare fish before I discovered that Twice a day, at sunrise and sunset, 

 the other streams' contained no fish of Old Time performs miracles as great as 

 any kind, and I would have thought any recorded in Holy Writ. Any school 

 that there was a total absence of animal boy can explain what is called the cause 

 life in their cold waters but for the of the sunrise. It is not spoken of as 

 appearance of two birds which were evi- a miracle, that is unscientific. It is 

 dently feeding upon some aquatic crea- called a phenomenon, and in the pri- 

 tures which my duller senses could not mary geographies we explain these phe- 

 discern. nomenons to the little children. Yet, in 

 Although they were the first of the spite of our stupid egotism and self- 

 kind that I had ever seen alive, I at once complacency, the real cause remains as 

 recognized the feathered visitors to be unfathomable as the space in the sky 

 water ouzels. The birds preceded me above. 



on my way along the water course to- I turned from my view of the sunset 



ward camp, and were never quiet a to retrace my steps to the valley, and 



