With Rod and Line in Colorado Waters

Part 1

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WITH ROD AND LINE IN COLORADO WATERS.

"Wha ever heard o' a gude angler being a bad or indifferent man?" —Noctes.

Denver Chain, Hardy & Co., Booksellers and Publishers. 1884.

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Entered according to act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-four, by

CHAIN, HARDY & CO.,

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

DAVID ATWOOD, PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER, MADISON, WIS.

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CONTENTS.

PAGE. Many Years Ago 7 Over the Range 14 Fisherman’s Luck 22 Agapae 31 Black Lake in 1878 38 Egotism and—Rods 51 Troublesome 57 Meteorological 64 Mules 71 Music and Meteorology 77 Philosophy 85 An Idle Morning at Grand Lake 93 Camping with Ladies and—the Baby 99 Boys and Burros 107 He’s No Sardine 124 Under Difficulties 131 His Sermon 141

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“Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels With the burs on his legs and the grass at his heels; No Dodger behind, his bandannas to share; No Constable grumbling: ‘You must n’t walk there!’”

—Holmes.

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MANY YEARS AGO.

Forty years ago—a big slice off the long end of one’s life! A broad river with its low-lying south shore heavily timbered and rich in early summer verdure; a long bridge with a multitude of low stone piers and trestle-work at top; in midstream, two miles away, the black hull and tall masts of a man-o’-war, lying idly; between and beyond, the smooth bosom of the blue expanse dotted with fishing sloops under weather-beaten wings, moving lazily hither and yon; to the north, but invisible save a straggling outer edge of tumble-down houses—a possibility then—now, “they tell me,” a magnificent city; a decayed wharf with no signs of life, and draped in tangled sea-weed that came in with the last tide, the jagged and blackened piles stand brooding over the solemn stillness like melancholy sentinels sorrowing over a dead ambition. The ripple of the waves is a melody and the air is fragrant with a brackish sweetness.

It has been a bright day, and the afternoon shadows are beginning to lengthen. They suggest to some another day’s work nearly finished, another week drawing to a close; Saturday night, home and rest. To others they suggest—well, let that pass. To a little fellow, barefoot, coatless and with a ragged straw hat, who crawls out from one of the center piers of the old bridge, these shadows of the closing May day are ominous, yet his forebodings are not unmixed with the rose-hued pleasure of a day well spent. He did think of that river below him, twenty-five feet deep, but that was an attraction. He did think of the very near future and—but no matter; his thoughts were bright enough as he hauled up after him a string of perch as long as his precious body, and as a fit climax to his magnificent catch, an eel at least two and a half feet long and thick as his captor’s arm. What a struggle he had enjoyed with that eel before he got it to the top of the pier. His hand-line was a hopeless snarl; twice he had come within a hair’s-breadth of going overboard, but the unfortunate eel had succumbed to juvenile activity and zeal. What ten-year-old could boast comparison, as with the day’s trophies over his shoulder he plodded his way home? He felt himself an object of interest and envy to his fellows, and told with condescension, not arrogance, his experience with that eel.

Success will often take an old boy, let alone a young one, off his feet; it sometimes leads to indiscretion and results in worse than failure, and again is the cornerstone of a noble monument. That boy had fished with success off that pier more than once, but had kept his fishpole and had left the evidences of his disobedience at a friendly neighbor’s. This day he marched straight home, fishpole and all. The sable ruler of the kitchen confirmed, upon sight, the lurking apprehension that would not down in spite of triumph.

“Ah, honey! Whar’s you bin dis livelong day? Miss Mary’s gwine to give it to you. We’s been ahuntin’ an’ trapsin’ all ober dis here town, an’ yo’ pa—he was jes’ gwine——.”

But the “ambiguous givings out” of the sable goddess were cut short by the appearance of Miss Mary in person. She was a stately dame in those days, with a wealth of dark hair and with brown eyes that had in them, ah, such a world of love for that barefoot, white-haired urchin. And she had, too, a quiet way of talking that went right into the little fellow’s ears and down about his heart and lingered there. No need to ask him where he had been; she only looked at him and the fish, a serious, yet a loving look withal, took his hand and led him in to the head of the family. Court was at once convened.

“What shall we do with this boy?”

He to whom this inquiry was addressed took in the situation at a glance. The glance was a dark one, but it quickly showed the silver lining.

“Wash him, and give him some clean clothes.”

“But,” she remonstrated, “this will never do; he will be drowned some day. How often must I forbid you going near the river?”

“I dun’no, mother.”

Part 2

“What is that round your leg?”

“An eel skin.”

“Why did you tie it there?”

“To keep off cramp.”

“Keep off cramp! What does the boy mean?” There was a look of wonderment in the brown eyes, and of merriment in the grey. The colored member of the court volunteered an explanation, and wound up with the prophecy:

“Dat chile’ll neber be drownded, Miss Mary; I tell you so long as he wear dat eel skin he’ll nebber hab de cramp, an’ he kin swim; you ha’ar me, Miss Mary. Why, bless yo’ stars, honey, dat chile done swim dat ribber las’ Saturday, he did; I heerd ’em tellin’ it.”

“Heard who telling it?” broke in the president.

“Why, de chillun, ob cose. Dat Buckingham boy he bantered the chile an’ took his close ober in de skiff, and Mar’s Lou, he done follered, he did, an’ dat ribber a mile wide.”

The animated and confident manner of Jane did not lessen the anxious, even horrified, expression in the brown eyes, but the grey were a study as the owner drew the abashed urchin to him, with the inquiry:

“Is it true, my boy?”

“Yes, father.”

“Go bring me your fishing tackle.”

It was a sorry looking outfit—a fraction of a cane pole, about ten feet of a common line, and an indifferent hook looped on the end. The hand line was of better material, but a wreck—a very Gordian knot. They were dubiously but promptly passed over for inspection.

“Throw these into the stove—and, Jane, you make kindling wood of this pole.”

“Oh, father!” The boy’s lips quivered, the eyes filled, but the owner of the grey eyes gently held back the appealing hand that would have rescued the precious treasures.

“Hold on, my boy; do not misunderstand; papa will trust you; you shall have the best tackle in town.”

“Why do you deal with the boy in this way?” remonstrated the mother.

“Why? Because I myself was a boy once, and I don’t want to forget it.”

The grey eyes were the first to close—it is many a long year since—and the old boy’s fill a little now, as he reverently thinks of that day.

But the boy drifted with the tide, over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies, and twenty odd years ago he anchored in the wilderness, where Denver now stands, to surprise you folks from down East.

Do we have fishing in the Rocky Mountains? Aye, that we do, and right royal sport it is.

One day, nineteen years ago this summer, a neighbor came into my cabin and wanted to know of a young married woman there if she could not spare her Benedict for, say three days. He was fish hungry, this neighbor; was going off into the mountains, and wanted company. Of course she could; was glad to be rid of him. And so early next morning old Charlie was hitched to the buckboard. At five o’clock that same day there was a tent pitched in a little valley upon Bear creek, thirty-five miles from home, with two pairs of blankets, a coffee pot, two tin cups and a frying pan; not a soul or a habitation within twenty miles of us; a beautiful mountain stream, clear as crystal, cold as ice, and teeming with trout. What would you have, money? Why, bless your soul, money was at a discount; there were acres of it a little way off, only for the digging.

In those days fishing tackle was scarce, and a plum-bush pole and linen line were the best in the land. Flies were a novelty to me, but my friend had a dozen or so, some that he had saved over from more civilized times, and that had got out here by mistake. He divided with me, told me to fasten one upon the end of my line and “skitter it over the water.” This was my first and only instruction in trout fishing. “Skittering” was as novel to me as the fish, but my Professor was a Cambridge man with glasses, and I did not want him to feel that my education had been entirely neglected. I took my pole and instruction in silence, and walked a quarter of a mile up the creek. Pure instinct? Yes, I walked up stream for the single purpose of fishing down; it came just as naturally as swimming in deep water. I found a place clear of bushes for a few rods, where the current swept directly into my shore and out again, forming an eddy. I thought it a “likely place.” I gave that plum sapling a swing and landed the fly, in which I had no confidence whatever, just at the edge of the swirl. It had no sooner touched the water than I saw a salmon-colored mouth, felt a tug, and the following second my first trout was flying over my head. I deliberately put down that pole and walked out to investigate. There was no doubt about it; there he lay, kicking and gasping his life out on the green grass, his bright colors more beautiful by the contrast. He was near a foot long, and I put my hand upon him as gently as though he had been an immortal first born. It was not a dream. When he was dead I strung him upon a forked stick, went back to the eddy and caught three others, and wondered if all the trout in that stream were twins. I had already become gentler, too, even with the unwieldy plum sapling. I found their mouths were not made of cast iron nor copper lined. By the time I had fished down to camp, and with my ten trout, I felt equal to the business of the morrow. My friend, of course, had better luck, having passed his novitiate, but he complimented me in saying that I “took to it naturally.”

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