s, while already on the banks of
the streams were anglers casting their favorite flies over pool, riffle
and swirl, in expectant anticipation of luring the wary, ever alert
inhabitant which lurked beneath some rock or bank. A flash of something
like light, followed by the straightening of a line, the symmetrical
curve of a split bamboo, the sharp click of a swiftly revolving reel in
crescendo as the line cleft the water, then the lull, the renewed dash
for liberty as a spotted, open mouthed one-pounder madly threw himself
from the water, shaking his head and falling with a splash back into the
stream,--the critical moment,--but the barb holds and a limp, pink
tinted trout, with extended gills, floats easily into the landing net--a
prize is captured which proves the record breaker of the day, all within
sight of the "tavern."

Day after day excursion followed exploration; fishing in Willow Park or
Horseshoe, the canon and the "pool," over on the St. Vrain and the
meadow; in the latter place as the season advanced one becomes familiar
with the finny tenant who has outwitted all the temptations of
professional angling, and many an hour can be spent devising new
deceptions with which to entice the sagacious big ones, those who have
felt the keen thrust of a barbed hook and learned not to grab every
dainty morsel floating near its den. Few captures of the landlords of
the meadow stream are recorded.

Among the tourists were numbers of English members of the nobility, and
in fact a great portion of the Park was the property of a well-known
lord, whose representative entertained his lordship's friends. The grand
herd of Hereford cattle grazing in the park belonged to the English
lord, as well as many of the blooded horses found at the corral.

Just a week after Jack had tested his ability attending to the caprices
of a bride and his two proteges, they were all resting in easy chairs or
in the hammocks, awaiting the arrival of the stage from Lyons, when a
pair of handsome brown horses, flecked with foam, swung into view,
drawing a buckboard in which sat a lonesome traveler leading a beautiful
roan saddle pony. It was Cal, and as he greeted Jack, who had advanced
to meet the outstretched hand, he said, "I thought perhaps I'd run
across a 'maverick' up here."

Jack understood and replied, "Glad you come prepared to put your brand
on any that you catch in the round up."

As they were instructing the corral men what to do with