by a pool, ready
for a sale or a swap, and once two sun-tanned youngsters shot down a
hill on Indian ponies, their full creels banging from their
high-pommeled saddles. They had been fishing, and were our brethren
therefore. We shouted aloud in chorus to scare a wild cat; we squabbled
over the reasons that had led a snake to cross a road; we heaved bits of
bark at a venturesome chipmunk, who was really the little gray squirrel
of India and had come to call on me; we lost our way and got the wagon
so beautifully fixed on a steep road that we had to tie the two
hind-wheels to get it down. Above all, California told tales of Nevada
and Arizona, of lonely nights spent out prospecting, of the slaughter of
deer and the chase of men; of woman, lovely woman, who is a firebrand in
a western city, and leads to the popping of pistols, and of the sudden
changes and chances of fortune, who delights in making the miner or the
lumberman a quadruplicate millionaire, and in "busting" the railroad
king. That was a day to be remembered, and it had only begun when we
drew rein at a tiny farmhouse on the banks of the Clackamas and sought
horse-feed and lodging ere we hastened to the river that broke over a
weir not over a quarter of a mile away.

Imagine a stream seventy yards broad divided by a pebbly island, running
over seductive riffles and swirling into deep, quiet pools where the
good salmon goes to smoke his pipe after meals. Set such a stream amid
fields of breast-high crops surrounded by hills of pine, throw in where
you please quiet water, log-fenced meadows, and a hundred foot bluff to
keep the scenery from growing too monotonous, and you will get some
faint notion of the Clackamas.

Portland had no rod. He held the gaff and the whiskey. California
sniffed, upstream and downstream across the racing water, chose his
ground, and let the gaudy spoon drop in the tail of a riffle. I was
getting my rod together when I heard the joyous shriek of the reel and
the yells of California, and three feet of shining silver leaped into
the air far across the water. The forces were engaged. The salmon tore
up-stream, the tense line cutting the water like a tide-rip behind him,
and the light bamboo bowed to breaking. What happened after I cannot
tell. California swore and prayed, and Portland shouted advice, and I
did all three for what appeared to be half a day, but was in reality a
little over a quarter of an hour, and sullenly our fish came h