Part 5

"It was an affecting sight to see him busy, nay, quite absorbed with the fishing tackle scattered about the bed, propped up with pillows--his noble head, yet glorious with its flowing locks, carefully combed by attentive hands, and falling on each side of his unfaded face. How neatly he picked out each elegantly dressed fly from its little bunch, drawing it out with trembling hand along the white coverlet, and then replacing it in his pocket-book, he would tell ever and anon of the streams he used to fish in of old."

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By four o'clock the stream is hidden from the sun and the shadow of the wooded summit at your back has crossed the roadway and is climbing the heights beyond. As if moved by some signal unheard by the listener, the trout begin to feed all along the surface of the water. Leap follows or accompanies leap as far as the eye can discern up stream, and down stream to where the water breaks to the downpull of the gorge below. Select a clear space for your back-cast, wait till a cloud obscures the sun. * * * * The trout took the fly from below and with a momentum that carried him full-length into the air. But there was no turning of the body in the arc that artists love to picture. He dropped straight down as he arose and the waters closed over him with a "plop" which you learn afterward is characteristic of the rise and strike of the German trout. All this may not be observed at first, for if he is one of the big fellows, he will cut out some busy-work for you to prevent his going under the top of that submerged tree which you had not noticed before. As it was, you brought him clear by a scant hand's breadth, only to have him dive for another similar one with greater energy.

Well, it's the same old story over again, but one that never becomes altogether tedious to the angler. And the profitable part of this tale is that it may be re-enacted here on any summer afternoon.

Some day a canoe will float down the river and land on the gravelly beach at the upper end of that delectable island, just where the trees are mirrored in the water so picturesquely. Then a tent will be set up and two shall possess that island for a whole, happy week. If you are coming by that road then, give the "Hallo" of the fellow craft and you shall have a loaf and as many fish as you like, and be sent on your way as becomes a man and brother.

TRAILS FROM YANCEY'S AND OTHER TRAILS

WHEN "Uncle" John Yancey, peace to his ashes, selected the site for his home and built his cabin under the shelter of the mountain at the north end of Pleasant Valley, he displayed that capacity to discover and appropriate the best things of the earth which is characteristic of American pioneers. Here game was abundant and everything that a remote, mountainous country could supply to the frontiersman was at hand. A stream of purest water ran by the door, and the open, grassy meadows were ample for the supply of hay and pasturage. The scenery is delightful, varied and picturesque. No other locality in the Park is comparable with it as a place of abode, and there is no pleasanter place in which to spend a week than at "Yancey's."

The government has recently completed a road from the canyon of the Yellowstone, over Mt. Washburn, down the valley near Yancey's, and reaching Mammoth Hot Springs by way of Lava Creek. This has added another day to the itinerary of the Park as planned by the transportation companies, and one which for scenic interest surpasses any other day of the tour. A mere category of the places of interest that may be seen in this region would be lengthy.

The lower canyon of the Yellowstone with its overhanging walls five hundred feet high, with pillars of columnar basalt reaching more than half-way from base to summit, the petrified trees, lofty cliffs, and romantic waterfalls, will delight and charm the visitor.

The angler will find the waters of this region as abundantly supplied with trout as any area of like extent anywhere. No amount of fishing will ever exhaust the "Big Eddy" of the Yellowstone, and it is worth a day's journey to witness the swirl and sweep of the water after it emerges from the confining, vertical walls. The velocity of the current at this point is very great, and surely, during a flood, attains a speed of sixteen or more miles an hour. In the eddy itself the trout rise indifferently to the fly, but will come to the red-legged grasshopper as long as the supply lasts.

Strange to say, they will not take the grasshopper on the surface of the water. Two bright faced boys who had climbed down into the canyon watched me whip the pool in every direction for a quarter of an hour without taking a single trout. Satisfied that something was wrong, I fastened a good sized Rangeley sinker to the leader about a foot above the hook and pitched the grasshopper into the buffeting currents. An hour later we carried back to camp twenty-five trout which, placed endwise, head to tail, measured twenty-five feet on a tape line.

This use of a sinker under the circumstances was not a great discovery, but it spelled the difference between success and failure at the time. So I have been glad at most times to learn by experience and from others the little things that help make a better day's angling.

Once when I knew more about trout fishing than I have ever convinced myself that I knew since, I visited a famous stream in a wilderness new and unknown to me, fully resolved to show the natives how to do things. Near the end of the third day of almost fruitless fishing, the modest guide volunteered to take me out that evening, if I cared to go. Of course I cared to go, and I shall never forget that moonlight night on Beaver Creek. We returned to camp about ten o'clock with twenty-eight trout, four of which weighed better than three pounds apiece.

It may be a severe shock to the sensibilities of the "super-refined fly-caster" to suggest so mean a bait as grasshoppers, yet he may obtain some comfort, as did one aforetime, by labeling the can in which the hoppers are carried:

"CALOPTENOUS FEMUR-RUBRUM."

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Then there are Slough Creek, Hell-Roaring Creek, East Fork, Trout Lake, and a host of other streams and lakes that have been favorite resorts with anglers for years, and in which may be taken the very leviathans of six, seven, eight, and even ten, pounds' weight. He must be difficult to please who finds not a day of days among them. Up to the present time only the red-throat trout inhabit these waters, but plants of other varieties have been made and will doubtless thrive quite as well as the native trout.

Owing probably to the fact that, until recently, the region around Tower Creek and Falls was not accessible by roads, this stream received no attention from the fish commission till the summer of 1903, when a meager plant of 15,000 brook trout fry was made there. The scenery in this neighborhood is unsurpassed, and when the stream becomes well stocked it will, doubtless, be a favorite resort with anglers who delight in mountain fastnesses or in the study of geological records of past ages. The drainage basin of Tower Creek coincides with the limits of the extinct crater of an ancient volcano. As you stand amid the dark forests with which the walls of the crater are clothed and see the evidences on all sides of the Titanic forces once at work here, fancy has but little effort in picturing something of the tremendous scenes once enacted on this spot. Now all is peace and quiet, the quiet of the wilderness, which save for the rush of the torrential stream, is absolutely noiseless. No song of bird gladdens the darkened forests, and in its gloom the wild animals are seldom or never seen. How strikingly the silence and wonder of the scene proclaim that nature has formed the world for the happiness of man.

Within two hundred yards of the Yellowstone River, Tower Creek passes over a fall of singular and romantic beauty. Major Chittenden in his book "The Yellowstone" thus describes it: "This waterfall is the most beautiful in the Park, if one takes into consideration all its surroundings. The fall itself is very graceful in form. The deep cavernous basin into which it pours itself is lined with shapely evergreen trees, so that the fall is partially screened from view. Above it stand those peculiar forms of rock characteristic of that locality--detached pinnacles or towers which give rise to the name. The lapse of more than thirty years since Lieutenant Doane saw these falls, has given us nothing descriptive of them that can compare with the simple words of his report penned upon the first inspiration of a new discovery: 'Nothing can be more chastely beautiful than this lovely cascade, hidden away in the dim light of overshadowing rocks and woods, its very voice hushed to a low murmur unheard at the distance of a few hundred yards. Thousands might pass by within half a mile and not dream of its existence; but once seen, it passes to the list of most pleasant memories.'"

If the angler wanders farther into the wilderness than any waters named herein would lead him, he will find other streams to bear him company amid scenes that will live long in his memory and where the trout are ever ready to pay him the compliment of a rise. To the eastward flows Shoshone river with its myriad tributaries, teeming with trout and draining a region far more rugged and lofty than the Park proper. To the south and west are those wonderfully beautiful lakes that form the source of the Snake river. Here, early in the season, the great lake or Macinac trout, Salvelinus namaycush, are occasionally taken with a trolling spoon.

From north to south, from the Absaroka Mountains to the Tetons, on both sides of the continental divide, this peerless pleasuring-ground is netted with a lace-work of streams. Two score lakes and more than one hundred, sixty streams are named on the map of this domain which is forever secured and safeguarded

"FOR THE BENEFIT AND ENJOYMENT OF THE PEOPLE"

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Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 26, "Whpskehegan" changed to "Waskahegan" (fished the Waskahegan)