nt thing altogether, but a
thing in its own way no less superlative. The keynote of the Tehipite
Valley is wild exuberance. It thrills where Yosemite enervates. Yet its
temperature is quite as mild.

The Middle Fork contains more trout than any other stream I have fished.
We found them in pools and riffles everywhere; no water was too white to
get a rise. In the long, greenish-white borders of fast rapids they
floated continually into view. In five minutes' watching I could count a
dozen or more such appearances within a few feet of water. They ran from
eight to fourteen inches. No doubt larger ones lay below. So I got great
fun by picking my particular trout and casting specially for him. Stop
your fly's motion and the pursuing fish instantly stops, backs, swims
round the lure in a tour of examination, and disappears. Start it moving
and he instantly reappears from the white depth, where, no doubt, he has
been cautiously watching. A pause and a swift start often tempted to a
strike.

These rainbows of the torrents are hard fighters. And many of them, if
ungently handled, availed of swift currents to thresh themselves free.

You must fish a river to appreciate it. Standing on its edges, leaping
from rock to rock, slipping waist deep at times, wading recklessly to
reach some pool or eddy of special promise, searching the rapids,
peering under the alders, testing the pools; that's the way to make
friends with a river. You study its moods and its ways as those of a
mettlesome horse.

And after a while its spirit seeps through and finds yours. Its
personality unveils. A sweet friendliness unites you, a sense of mutual
understanding. There follows the completest detachment that I know.
Years and the worries disappear. You and the river dream away the
unnoted hours.

Passing on from the Tehipite Valley to the Kings River Canyon, the
approach to Granite Pass was nothing short of magnificent. We crossed a
superb cirque studded with lakelets; we could see the pass ahead of us
on a fine snow-crowned bench. We ascended the bench and found ourselves,
not in the pass, but in the entrance to still another cirque, also
lake-studded, a loftier, nobler cirque encircling the one below. Ahead
of us upon another lofty bench surely was the pass. Those inspiring
snow-daubed heights whose serrated edges cut sharply into the sky
certainly marked the supreme summit. Our winding trail up steep, rocky
ascents pointed true; an hour's toil wo