424 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Dec. 28, 1886. 



of the art may be compelled to the wharf and the cane 

 pole and the worms, while his aspirations led him toward 

 crystal streams, the songs of birds and the fragrance of 

 wild flowers, in company with the pretty bamboo. There 

 is a harmony in this combination aspired to, that science 

 is often ignorant of. This is a combination that cannot 

 condescend to exact measurements, that refuses to be ruled 

 or squared or demonstrated, that is absolutely as free of 

 scientific conventionalitias as the breathing of the sweet 

 fresh air. This combination is the aid to the art of angling; 

 without it angling would not be an art, perfect, but a 

 science merely — as the worthy deacon in the comer would 

 say, "bless God" — for the art. 



I do not wish to be considered as deprecating the science 

 of angling; I stand in awe of it, the awe begotten of ignor- 

 rance, but I do love the man who hath given me the tackle 

 to harmonize with the art. The art must have been his^ 

 otherwise he would not have understood the means to the 

 fuller gratification of the art. So, I love him for his gift, 

 and that he had the industry to add to my happiness 

 while adding to his own. 



In the interest of science it may be essential to know, 

 to a dead certainty, whether the specimen I have at 

 the end of my line in the pool is Salmo purpuratus or 

 S. virginalis, Coregonus williamsom or C. johnsoni, or 

 any other Italianized Scandinavian. But the knowledge 

 to that dead certainty would not add one grain to the en- 

 joyment I am having. In such instance science would be 

 superfluous. With the view, however, of tracing, for 

 instance, the origin of the noble Alexander, absolute 

 precision may be necessary, but precision is not essential 

 to enjoyment. For the benefit of science it may be neces- 

 sary to know whether the remote ancestor of his excel- 

 lency were a monkey or a tadpole, or both. I therefore, 

 you see, recognize the value of science as having a 

 tendency to show whence we came and whither we are 

 going, and as there is such a science as the science of 

 angling, I take oS my hat to it along with the other 

 sciences. 



My notion of the art of angling, as it is the notion, I 

 learn, of a great many, does not consist in knowing merely 

 how to use fine tackle. This is only one of the ingredi- 

 ents that go to make up the total, or perhaps that tend to 

 refine the art, if I may be permitted to suggest that so 

 delightful an art is susceptible of qualification; or, rather, 

 the art may not be cultivated, though one may cultivate 

 himself in the art— it is thus better expressed. 



The morning sun is up over the range, the air is cool; I 

 see that the blackbirds are beginning to gather in great 

 flocks, and I start out an hour ahead of the team. The 

 walking is good in more than one sense; I have had more 

 or less of it for a month, and know whereof I write. I 

 am younger than a month ago, and can and do strike into 

 a swinging gait through the straight avenue of pines 

 leading up to the western slope of the range. Many of 

 the trees are dead now, but there is a new growth strug- 

 gling for recognition, and a little way back, on either 

 side, the fire ceased, so the bright green relieves some- 

 what the sorrowful-looking dead trunks. I can hear the 

 melody of the stream at my left, and soon I come to 

 Fraser City and in sight of the creek. Fraser City con- 

 sists of a deserted log cabin gone to wreck. 



Thence for a long way I have the tumbling crystal for 

 company and have a chance to watch the water ouseLs 

 hunting industriously for breakfast. There are mosses 

 along the banks and a few late flowers, the raspberries 

 have ripened and have been gathered by the birds and the 

 wayfarers, so that only a chance berry is available, but 

 I have had plenty and am contented with a farewell taste. 

 A pool, a couple of feet deep, challenges my attention, 

 and cautiously peering through the brush I find at the 

 head of it a solitary trout, waiting for a fragmentary 

 meal to float over the riffle in front of him. While I watch 

 him he rises slowly to the surface, takes in something I 

 cannot see, and then settles back quietly into his old posi- 

 tion. I would help him to a tid-bit and succeed in cap- 

 tm-ing a late fly; this I drop oA^erboard, he sees it, and a 

 little impatient at its slow approach he darts to meet it, 

 then settles back again. You have no business lingering 

 here, my black-spotted friend, you should be on your way 

 down stream. Stepping through the brush I let him catch 

 sight of me, and he darts away without so much as a 

 thank you for what I had done in Ms beha^lf , 



On up the road again, I put half a dozen miles between 

 me and my starting point before I sit down upon a rock, 

 refill my pipe, and wait for the wagon. Sitting here in 

 the shade, busy with the pictures made by the sun's rays 

 stealing through the pines, dreaming over the thin 

 wreaths of fragrance drifting away on the still air, im- 

 pressed with the sublime peacefulness, I am prepared to 

 welcome a mother chipmunk, who, with a pair of nearly 

 grown children, put in an appearance, as if seeking an 

 interview. She sits up a few yards away watching me, 

 and the young ones follow suit. As I make no movement 

 she concludes, evidently, that I am harmless, and skips 

 toward me, the little ones following, until scai'cely a 

 dozen feet away. Then she stops and sits up again upon 

 another rock and washes her face, while the youngsters, 

 like a couple of puppies, wool each other, roU over, then 

 jip and at it again. The old lady pauses occasionally in 



her ablutions to satisfy herself, perhaps, that it is all in 

 fun, then resumes her occupation with dignity and grace. 

 One of her progeny accidentally falls off the rock, the 

 mother drops on all fours and looks down to ascertain the 

 result; but no harm has come of it, and the Little one is 

 back agaiu in a moment. In the next bout the pair go 

 off the rock together; the mother evidently determines 

 that ill feeling is imminent, so she jumps down and col- 

 lars one of the babies, and, with a good shake, sets him to 

 one side, while the other sits up at a respectful distance 

 as if he were a stranger who had just dropped ia to ask 

 the time of day. I would as soon have thought of harm- 

 ing one of my own babies as any of this family of inno- 

 cents. Yet within ten minutes I saw a young man com- 

 ing down the road, he was astride a pony, and, as I'm a 

 Christian, he had a mutilated chipmunk tied to his saddle! 

 He liad a small pony, with immense tapaderas that quite 

 swept the ground with their long points, a macher over 

 the saddle so ridiculously large that the pony reminded 

 me of a boy in a man's overcoat. This young man had a 

 clean face, save a something in imitation of a moustache 

 and fawn-colored whiskers the size of one's finger. He 

 had also buckskin pants with fringe down the sides, a 

 woollen shirt and a sombrero that might serve him as an 

 umbrella; his slender waist was incumbered with a cart- 

 ridge belt, in this he had a knife about a foot long, and he 

 carried in his hand a .22-caliber pistol. He bade me good- 

 morning with an air of reckless bravado that belongs only 

 to one himdred and ninety pounds of bad man, while he 

 would weigh perhaps a hundi-ed with his arsenal. It was 

 a rude intrusion upon the art of angling. 



I wonder at this young man. I always have been puz- 

 zled to understand the pmiDose of his creation, and fear I 

 shall decease in that benighted condition. Angle worms, 

 ants and bugs in general, may be devoted to a use, but 

 this young man is under the i>rotection of the law; a 

 human being might be hanged or imprisoned for killing 

 him; the law even forbids his being cut vip into bait. I 

 have wondered, too, as to what possible use he or a ny one 

 coiild put the exaggerated littleness shining in his hand; 

 the evidence of the abuse of it was hung at Ms saddle 

 bow. I heard a man once tell one of this genus that if 

 the latter ever shot him with a thing like that, and he 

 (the man) found it out, he would give the shooter the 

 "worst licMng"' he ever had in his life; the threat was 9q 

 efficacious as a bullet from a Winchester. I have won- 

 dered, too, why the genus tourist comes into this coimtry 

 with revolvers of any kind; they are useless as against 

 the animals, two or four-footed. They bring them in hol- 

 sters, buckled up, I presume, to keep out the wet; the 

 "Bad man from Bitter Creek" would empty his revolver 

 and reload while the other Ava.s feeling for the buckle. If 

 the stranger had no arms and got into trouble. wMch he 

 would hardly do without his seeking it, the chances are 

 some other bad man, reMctant to miss an opportumty^ 

 would take the quarrel off his hands — I have known of 

 such instances. I know also— and have not wondered — 

 men who have passed many of the best years of their 

 lives in this country, who never carried a revolver, and 

 they have gone through scenes calculated to enliven the 

 hair of these innocent bearers of unnecessary burdens. I 

 I have often thought I would mention this in pure charity, 

 and as the young man broke in upon me in mj^ pursuit 

 of the art of angling, I deemed it a fit occasion. 



But can I get back and finish my tour up the range in 

 the sajne mood in which I started out? I'm afraid not, 

 so I will rest a little and forget the unpleasantness by 

 going away from the vicinity of it. 



I received a letter while I sojourned in the wilderness; 

 I received it by an accident, it contained a postscript of 

 course and the postscript ran: 



"You are hid away so that I believe no one on earth 

 knows where you are or what you have been doing. I 

 will therefore address this letter to you in care of Ute 

 Bill, hoping he may find you." 



This postscript calling for an answer, I gave it: 



I am camping, Dido, camping, 



On the Yampa's sedgj' lianks; 

 1 am far from fashion's follies. 



And tlie world of business cranks. 



I have fought the gay mosquito, 



I have missed tlie fleeing deer, 

 I liave fallen into whirlpools. 



That have made me chill and queer, 



I liave breathed the mystic sweetness 



Of these azTirc courting hills, 

 I have quaffed the cold elixir 



From these rippling mountain rills. 



1 have cast the gorgeous coachman, 



And have Moled the wily trout; 

 I have munched his luscious carcass 



And ha ve warded off the gout. 



I am camping, Dido, camping, 



On the Yampa's crystal stream; 

 There is naught on earth to vex me, 



And I'm free to smoke and dream. 



But I've thought of thee, Oh Dido, 

 Thought, at morning, noon and night, 



And between times, and at leisure, 

 As a vagrant lover might. 



This eventng, at the beginqning of winter, the firelight 



shines cheerily and the wind outside is on a lark. She 

 sits m the warm corner with a pile of stockings, all of 

 them too small for her own use. I notice a silver thread 

 here and there about her temples as she bends over the 

 gaping evidences of youtlif ul energy and patiently weaves 

 the long bright needle in and out. I fancy the silver 

 threads are an improvement, they have crept in so slowly 

 I can realize in them no evidence of change, except that 

 I like them better than I did the plain brown. 



"What are you dreaming about now?" 



I cannot fathom the influence that prompted tMs in- 

 quiry, I only know it comes, as it always does, pat to the 

 humor. 



"I was thinking of the letter I wrote you from the 

 Yampa." 



To this there was something like a little cvxl of the lip 

 in coldness and the inquiry: 



"Were you trying to put a trick on me?" 



"Trick, no, certainly not— why did you think so?" 



"I thought dido meant a trick." 



"Oh! Well, the Dido I referred to was a lady of Tyre." 

 "Of Tyre"— reflectively— "I never heard of her. What 

 good did she do?" 



"She loved her htisband." 

 "Is that all?" 



"All! No. She got the better of a coterie of real estate 

 agents, and became rich. But did you not like the 

 letter?" 



"I suppose so; which did you eat, the coachman or the 

 trout?" 



"Aren't you just a little hypercritical? I fancy there 

 are some good lines in it — ^the 'azure courting Mils,' for 

 instance?" 



"Tliat sounds very Hke 'heaven kissing Mil.' '' 

 "There is no denying it; but I flattered myself the 

 poetry was fair, as such verses go." 

 "Do you call it poetry?" 

 "You were wont to so dignify the like." 

 "But I am older now." 

 "I do not think so." 



It was a very old-time glance she gave me as she said: 

 "Then it is." Bourgeois. 

 Dbnvbr. Dec. i, 1886. 



TRAVELS IN BOON GAH ARRAHBIGGEE. 



FROM THE DIARY OF JOSEPH GOATER. 

 . KDITED BY P. H. TEMPLE BELIiEW. 



(Continned.) 



17^ ARLY on the morning of the first day of the Wang- 

 '-^ brezy's festival I was awakened by singing and 

 music. TMs was their greeting to the rising sun whom 

 they congrattilated on his good fortune in happening to 

 be present at the grand celebration they were about to in- 

 augxirate, at the same time complimenting Mm on the 

 punctuality of his attendance. The singing was low 

 and plaintive at first, gradually changing to a tripping, 

 t%vittering measure, into wMch the notes of birds and the 

 drone of insects was ingemously interwoven. Their in- 

 struments consisted of whistles, a variety of horns chiefly 

 made out of a pectdiar spiral gourd, a huge zither twenty 

 feet long with strings made out of the gobwich, from the 

 thickness of your finger to the fineness of sewing thread, 

 and played by two men with padded hooks. Besides 

 these there was an enormous tambourine with the usual 

 drum on one side and strmgs on the other that produced 

 nothing short of distant reverberating thunder. As the 

 sun fairly cleared the tops of the distant mountains the 

 time changed to that of their national martial air— a wild 

 tumultuous tempest of a tune, calculated to make the 

 windows rattle in any American house, and to cause the 

 ears of a clam peddler to ache; I had fairly to hold my 

 o^-tt until it had got a hundred yards off, and then it was 

 only just bearable. Still the sounds were not discordant, 

 and there was a weird and stirring melody about tliem at 

 a distance, full of barbaric grandeur. 



Having marched about a couple of miles around the 

 camp the cortege pulled up opposite my tent under the 

 grand old mosomea tree. Then began the games; first 

 by tMovving the bingee, then firing at a mark, and then 

 at each other, duel fashion, with the fowfur loaded with 

 soft clay peUets. Then they all engaged in a race to 

 reach the top of a tree, the victor to receive a prize in the 

 shape of a large red seed, which he wore for the rest of 

 the year with great pride as a mark of distinction. There 

 is a certain tree in this country whose branches grow out 

 almost horizontally, and are quite elastic. It is called the 

 himpsa. One of these being selected by an umpire is 

 carefully inspected by the whole party, who then retire a 

 distance of 200yds. At a given signal they all start, each 

 trying to reach the tree^first in order to secure the most 

 advantageous branch. Each, as soon as he has nailed a 

 limb, commences, by a vigorous motion of Ms body, to 

 sway it up and down imtil he has got enough [impetus to 

 tM'ow^him up to the next branch, where he repeats the 

 operation, and so on tiU he reaches the top. Sometimes 

 he will straddle the branch, and often stand on it with 

 Ms feet as acrobats do on a spring board, showing the 

 most wonderful daring and dexterity. My favorite man, 

 Toptee, won the prize and came grinning vnth. it in his 

 hand to show me. "The little God brought me that," he 

 said, caressing it ''TUe little Ood very fond of Toptee." 



