Part 33 (2/2)

Jesse did as instructed, Billy following a little distance behind him.

Whipping his fly backward and forward a few times to dry it well, Jesse, who was really a good fisherman for his years, managed to land the fly just short of the bushes, so that it floated down directly over the rising fish.

There came a sudden splash and an excited shout from Jesse. ”I've got him!” exclaimed he.

”Maybe so,” said Billy. ”You had them other three, too, but you didn't get them in the basket. Now you go easy, young man, and put this one where I can get my hands on him.”

Thus warned, Jesse played the fish gently and carefully, allowing it to run down into the deep water, but keeping his rod tip up all the time and giving line when the fish surged too hard with the current. After several minutes of careful work Billy waded in knee deep and slipped the landing net under the fish--a beautiful specimen, of a pound and a half, clean, fat, and very beautiful with its great spotted fin.

”There you are, son,” said he. ”That's your first grayling, isn't it?”

”It's my first one of this sort,” said Jesse, bending over the fish.

”You know, I didn't catch either of those over on the Red Rock. Of course, I have caught them up North on the Bell River, on the Arctic Circle, but they are a deep-blue color up there and this fish is white, or, anyhow, gray. He is just the same shape as far as I can see.”

”Well, get back at your work now,” said Billy. ”This is the only grayling stream left in the West. You are on it at the right time of the year and the right time of the day. Ten years from now may be too late.

So catch a few--but not too many.”

”You needn't fear,” said Jesse. ”If either of us boys brought in more than half a dozen, Uncle d.i.c.k would give us a good calling down.”

”Well, that's right enough, too,” said Billy. ”The state limit is twenty pounds a day, but that's too high. If everybody got twenty pounds they would soon all be gone. Yet on the sp.a.w.ning run above, on the stream up here, I have seen fellows stand on the bank and snake out strings of them as long as a long willow would hold. I have known one man to say he had caught ninety grayling out of one hole. Well, that's where they go.”

They wandered along slowly in the late afternoon, pa.s.sing around one willow plant to the next, usually fis.h.i.+ng at some place where the gra.s.sy meadow ran clean to the bank of the stream. They did not lack in sport, and before long Jesse had a half dozen fine fish in his basket; then, sighing, he said regretfully he thought he ought not to fish any longer.

”I will not urge you to,” said Billy Williams. ”'Most anybody else would. But if you have got enough, let's go back to camp. We have got to feed ourselves, of course, and give plenty to the ranchman if he will take them; he may have friends to whom he would like to send a mess.”

At dusk that evening they all gathered around their little camp fire, which they had built not very far from the hospitable ranchman's house, in acceptance of his kind invitation. Soon Billy and Con had grayling frying, with enough and to spare for all, since Rob had taken a half dozen fish, Uncle d.i.c.k as many, and John had come in with seven--one of them rather small, as he explained it. The two young ranchmen had baskets equally heavy, for, as they explained, they had neighbors who did not like to eat the Henry's Lake trout, but preferred grayling, so they thought it wise to take some home with them.

”Well I did go a little light on the fis.h.i.+ng, fellows,” said Uncle d.i.c.k, ”because I want you to stay here one more day before we start out for Bozeman. That means two nights in camp, which will bring us into Bozeman just past the middle of the month, with our summer's job pretty well whipped.”

”Which way are we going from Billy's, Uncle d.i.c.k?” demanded Jesse, with his usual curiosity.

”Not yet decided,” replied the other. ”Wait until we get up there. We still have a little work to do in studying out the return trip of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in the summer of 1806.”

That night they had what John called a map party on the table in the friendly ranchman's home. He and the two young Westerners joined them all in examining the maps and the great river from St. Louis.

”That's something of a journey, I should say!” commented the ranchman.

”I'll warrant you have learned a good many things you did not know before. Some things in here I didn't know before, myself.”

”It's much pleasanter,” said Rob, ”to follow out a country on the ground than it is to do it on the map. Not all maps are correct--except John's, here! But no matter how good a map is, it never means anything to you until you have followed it out on the ground. Just look here, for instance, at the great crooked sweep of the Continental Divide. Yet here we have crossed three pa.s.ses over the Continental Divide within the last three days--Red Rock, Raynolds, and Targhee--and the Targhee divides the Madison, which is Atlantic water, from Henry's Lake, which is Pacific water.”

”Yes,” nodded Uncle d.i.c.k. ”There are not many more interesting countries, geographically speaking, than this right where we are, at the head of the great river. Lewis and Clark crossed the Rocky Mountain Divide seven times, at six different places--up North there. They crossed the Lemhi Pa.s.s, both of them. Then they crossed the Divide twice more into the Bitter Roots, then crossed it again on the Lolo Trail.

Then they came back over that when they went East, and Lewis crossed the pa.s.s over to the north, alone, and that ought to be called his pa.s.s. And Clark came down to the Gallatin and crossed that pa.s.s alone to the Yellowstone waters. Yet their names are on almost none of the great pa.s.ses and great rivers which they found. Soon they will have pa.s.sed.”

One more day of beautiful sport on the crystal stream that ran through the beautiful valley, and the pleasant party of new-made friends met around the camp fire for the last time.

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