Trouting on the R-io Grande 
By C. A. COOPER 
A Summer RaLmble With a Burro Train in the 
Rocky Mountains 
{Continued f. 
F ifteen miles below our camp Clear Creek 
drops easily into the Rio Grande. Its north 
branch heads within ten miles of us and 
may be reached by a dim but respectable trail. 
Tradition had made it famous in several ways. It 
was said to contain more good panfish to the 
acre than any stream in America, and to be 
guarded by a summer hermit who, armed with 
rifle, shotgun and revolver, rode sO' furiously 
upon trespassers that he was generally carried 
a long way past before being able to stop. His 
little lake, connected with the creek, was ac¬ 
tually heaped in the middle with fish. 
We longed to see a mountain of live fish. 
It would be something we could tell to our 
very small grandchildren and a coujjle of ante¬ 
diluvian friends who had caught sockdolagers 
in the Himalayas and in Patagonia. This desire 
grew until at last we rode over there, armed 
only with fishing rods, a generally disreputable 
appearance and an unquenchable curiosity, said 
to protect children and certain others grown to 
physical maturity. The bold centaur was not 
at home, but we found evidence of his grasp¬ 
ing nature in miles of forbidding signboards, 
indicating that tradition had had at least one 
leg to stapd upon. We were sorry to find the 
lake level in the middle. 
As a matter of history two brothers had 
found this primitive spot eight years before. 
Its advantages were evident and they squatted 
upon it and put up trespass signs. They also 
built a cabin, but for several years had no 
fences. A. very short ditch enabled them to fill 
a natural depression with water and two loose 
stone dams, easily broken to receive ascending 
Of descending fish, had all the efficiency of a 
legislative steering committee. 
Possibly they did only what we would have 
done, and possibly there are certain fundamental 
principles in the common law that cannot be 
ignored; yet, to one outside the fold, our free¬ 
dom-stamped constitution seems inconsistent in 
permitting an individual to eat all the corn in 
the public crib. Apparently it is a deplorable 
condition without a remedy, and must result 
in the death of our State hatcheries. 
Above what would appear to be the legitimate 
possessions of these brothers may be found sev¬ 
eral miles of good fishing; in fact, small fish are 
exceedingly numerous in this beautiful stream 
which flows through ^n open, undulating valley. 
We might have take-tr a couple of hundred, but 
only took a dozen and returned to camp. 
■oni page 898.) 
Ed is an agreeable companion around the 
evening fire. He is old enough to be philosophic 
and his frontier experiences are told in a con¬ 
vincing, magnetic way. One is likely to let his 
pipe go out while listening and wish he could 
have been a trapper or a scout. As he never 
smokes, the thread of his stories is not broken 
by having to fill and light his pipe. We had a 
good camp-fire the night of our visit to Clear 
Creek and he gave me a chapter on the things' 
he had almost forgotten. He began by asking 
if I had ever wished to live over my tender¬ 
foot days. 
“No? Well, sir, I have, a good many times, 
and I would give a good deal tO' see the things 
I’ve forgotten about or never think of now. 
The truth of the matter is we’ve lost all in¬ 
terest in what we call the commonplace. Un¬ 
less we’re-looking for game we just mosey along 
and don’t see much of anything except the trail 
and the packs, and if anyone should ask us 
what we’re thinking about we couldn’t tell him. 
If we happen to look up we may say, ‘Huh, 
there’s Black Mountain; I killed an elk up there 
once.’ 
But it’s different with a tenderfoot. He 
sees every tree and open spot on the mountain 
and all the clouds above it in a single look. 
In a minute he’ll be showing us castles, and 
sphinxes, and cathedrals, and arches we’ve never 
seen before. But wait till he brings in his long 
suit of colors. Fie can surely find ’em—terra¬ 
cottas, buffs, violets, amethysts, olives, pinks, 
salmons, emeralds, magentas, lavenders, mauves 
and indigos. And then he’ll want to know why 
the mountains never look twice alike, and why 
they are so different at different times. He 
wonders, too, why there are no trees on the 
peaks, and if a hurricane cut that grassy lane 
straight up the side, and what made the little 
parks up there, and what’s on the other side, 
and what can be seen from the top, and then 
he wonders if there’s any gold or carcajous 
up there. 
“Of course the practical things we’ve learned 
about camping and woodcraft are good to know, 
but the joy of seeing for the first time belongs 
to the tenderfoot. That’s one reason I like to 
camp with ’em once in a while. They remind 
me of the things I only half see or had for¬ 
gotten. 
“If I should live to be a thousand years old 
I’d never forget the wonderful night picture I 
once saw on the banks of the Grand Canon of 
the Colorado River. Whoever called that desert 
country a shimmering, enchanted myth land 
surely knew the true spirit of the desert. Six 
of us were prospecting away below Bluff City. 
Some soldiers had been ambushed by the 
Apaches and another detachment had been sent 
out to bury the two men killed. When that 
outfit stopped at our camp on their way back 
they said they couldn’t find ’em, but told us 
where the fight had been. We knew the place 
well enough and thought the two boys ought to 
be buried, so after supper we saddled up and 
started to do the job. 
“There was a full moon—you know the desert 
moonlight ain’t like any other—and there wasn’t 
a cloud in the sky. The stars seemed close 
enough to hit with a rifle ball and Venus shone 
with a light I'd never noticed before. As we 
rode along I couldn’t help but think that prob¬ 
ably she had once guided some other fellows 
on a desert in Syria and might now be lead¬ 
ing us. The very air seemed to sparkle, but 
there was always that awful night silence 
that Hampedes cattle and makes shepherds 
crazy. 
“Once in a while there were moving shadows 
as if something was passing overhead, and then 
we'd perk up a little and get nearer together. 
Even the horses seemed to feel there was some¬ 
thing uncanny in the air and didn’t like to be 
separated. We rode single file and there wasn’t 
ten words spoken in the whole fifteen miles. 
Two or three dry arroyos had to be crossed, 
and there the shadows didn’t look good. Our 
leader would hold up his hand for us to- stop, 
then ride into ’em and wait for us on the other 
side where we could see him against the sky, 
and in that soft desert haze he looked like some 
big black ghost-like night rider on guard. 
“We knew we had done an impulsive and 
foolish thing, but I don’t think anyone regretted 
it. We hadn’t talked much about what we 
should do. Each one had felt that the dead 
men deserved to be buried and that there would 
be a fight if we saw that bunch of Indians. 
When we got to the break in the rimrock where ' 
the soldiers were trapped, we dismounted and 
one of the boys held the horses while the other 
five followed a trail down to a big shelf on the 
bank of the canon. 
‘‘Yes, we found the bodies. They were naked 
and full of arrows and bullet holes and muti¬ 
lated as usual. They were carried to a place 
where there was soil enough for a grave, and ■ 
while the boys were digging it, I wrote a 
statement of the facts on a stone slab and we 
all signed it. There wasn’t much ceremony. We 
just cursed the murderers good and plenty and 
put the two bodies in one grave. Then we cov¬ 
ered them up, set up the stone slab and left 
them on the rim of the most beautiful place in 
the world. 
“Say, partner,” he continued, rising and pat¬ 
ting my shoulder in a friendly way, “you ought 
to borrow some money and go and see that 
place. It’s sure grand in the sunlight, but it’s 
crazier in the moonlight.” 
