Part 9 (2/2)

He prospected the mountain opposite, loafed with us a little, and then decided that he must be going. About eight o'clock in the morning he pa.s.sed us, hazing his burros, his tall, lean figure elastic in defiance of years.

”So long, boys,” he called; ”good luck!”

”So long,” we responded heartily. ”Be good to yourself.”

He plunged into the river without hesitation, emerged dripping on the other side, and disappeared in the brush. From time to time during the rest of the morning we heard the intermittent tinkling of his bell-animal rising higher and higher above us on the trail.

In the person of this man we gained our first connection, so to speak, with the Golden Trout. He had caught some of them, and could tell us of their habits.

Few fishermen west of the Rockies have not heard of the Golden Trout, though, equally, few have much definite information concerning it.

Such information usually runs about as follows:

It is a medium size fish of the true trout family, resembling a rainbow except that it is of a rich golden color. The peculiarity that makes its capture a dream to be dreamed of is that it swims in but one little stream of all the round globe. If you would catch a Golden Trout, you must climb up under the very base of the end of the High Sierras.

There is born a stream that flows down from an elevation of about ten thousand feet to about eight thousand before it takes a long plunge into a branch of the Kern River. Over the twenty miles of its course you can cast your fly for Golden Trout; but what is the nature of that stream, that fish, or the method of its capture, few can tell you with any pretense of accuracy.

To be sure, there are legends. One, particularly striking, claims that the Golden Trout occurs in one other stream--situated in Central Asia!--and that the fish is therefore a remnant of some pre-glacial period, like Sequoia trees, a sort of grand-daddy of all trout, as it were. This is but a sample of what you will hear discussed.

Of course from the very start we had had our eye on the Golden Trout, and intended sooner or later to work our way to his habitat. Our prospector had just come from there.

”It's about four weeks south, the way you and me travels,” said he.

”You don't want to try Harrison's Pa.s.s; it's chock full of tribulation.

Go around by way of the Giant Forest. She's pretty good there, too, some sizable timber. Then over by Redwood Meadows, and Timber Gap, by Mineral King, and over through Farewell Gap. You turn east there, on a new trail. She's steeper than straight-up-an'-down, but shorter than the other. When you get down in the canon of Kern River,--say, she's a fine canon, too,--you want to go downstream about two mile to where there's a sort of natural overflowed lake full of stubs stickin' up.

You'll get some awful big rainbows in there. Then your best way is to go right up Whitney Creek Trail to a big high meadows mighty nigh to timber-line. That's where I camped. They's lots of them little yaller fish there. Oh, they bite well enough. You'll catch 'em. They's a little shy.”

So in that guise--as the desire for new and distant things--did our angel with the flaming sword finally come to us.

We caught reluctant horses reluctantly. All the first day was to be a climb. We knew it; and I suspect that they knew it too. Then we packed and addressed ourselves to the task offered us by the Basin Trail.

XIV

ON CAMP COOKERY

One morning I awoke a little before the others, and lay on my back staring up through the trees. It was not my day to cook. We were camped at the time only about sixty-five hundred feet high, and the weather was warm. Every sort of green thing grew very lush all about us, but our own little s.p.a.ce was held dry and clear for us by the needles of two enormous red cedars some four feet in diameter. A variety of thoughts sifted through my mind as it followed lazily the s.h.i.+mmering filaments of loose spider-web streaming through s.p.a.ce. The last thought stuck. It was that that day was a holiday. Therefore I unlimbered my six-shooter, and turned her loose, each shot being accompanied by a meritorious yell.

The outfit boiled out of its blankets. I explained the situation, and after they had had some breakfast they agreed with me that a celebration was in order. Unanimously we decided to make it gastronomic.

”We will ride till we get to good feed,” we concluded, ”and then we'll cook all the afternoon. And n.o.body must eat anything until the whole business is prepared and served.”

It was agreed. We rode until we were very hungry, which was eleven o'clock. Then we rode some more. By and by we came to a log cabin in a wide fair lawn below a high mountain with a ducal coronet on its top, and around that cabin was a fence, and inside the fence a man chopping wood. Him we hailed. He came to the fence and grinned at us from the elevation of high-heeled boots. By this token we knew him for a cow-puncher.

”How are you?” said we.

”Howdy, boys,” he roared. Roared is the accurate expression. He was not a large man, and his hair was sandy, and his eye mild blue. But undoubtedly his kinsmen were dumb and he had as birthright the voice for the entire family. It had been subsequently developed in the shouting after the wild cattle of the hills. Now his ordinary conversational tone was that of the announcer at a circus. But his heart was good.

”Can we camp here?” we inquired.

”Sure thing,” he bellowed. ”Turn your horses into the meadow. Camp right here.”

<script>