after a breakfast of ham
and eggs, fried potatoes, coffee, and saddle-bags, we were ready to try
them out.

And here I shall be generous. For this means that next year we shall go
there and find other outfits there before us, and people in the latest
thing in riding-clothes, and fancy trout-creels and probably
sixty-dollar reels.

Bowman Lake is a fisherman's paradise. The first day on the lake we
caught sixty-nine cut-throat trout averaging a pound each, and this
without knowing where to look.

[Illustration: _Getting ready for the day's fishing at camp on Bowman
Lake_]

In the morning, we could see them lying luxuriously on shelving banks in
the sunlight, only three to six feet below the surface. They rose, like
a shot, to the flies. For some reason, George Locke, our fisherman,
resented their taking the Parmachene Belle. Perhaps because the trout of
his acquaintance had not cared for this fly. Or maybe he considered
the Belle not sportsmanly. The Brown Hackle and Royal Coachman did
well, however, and, in later fishing on this lake, we found them more
reliable than the gayer flies. In the afternoon, the shallows failed us.
But in deep holes where the brilliant walls shelved down to incredible
depths, they rose again in numbers.

It was perfectly silent. Doubtless, countless curious wild eyes watched
us from the mountain-slopes and the lake-borders. But we heard not even
the cracking of brushwood under cautious feet. The tracks of deer, where
they had come down to drink, a dead mountain-lion floating in a pool,
the slow flight of an eagle across the face of old Rainbow, and no sound
but the soft hiss of a line as it left the reel--that was Bowman Lake,
that day, as it lay among its mountains. So precipitous are the slopes,
so rank the vegetation where the forest encroaches, that we were put to
it to find a ridge large enough along the shore to serve as a foothold
for luncheon. At last we found a tiny spot, perhaps ten feet long by
three feet wide, and on that we landed. The sun went down; the rainbow
clouds gathered about the peaks above, and still the trout were rising.
When at last we turned for our ten-mile row back to camp, it was almost
dusk.

Now and then, when I am tired and the things of this world press close
and hard, I think of those long days on that lonely lake, and the
home-coming at nightfall. Toward the pin-point of glow--the distant
camp-fire which was our beacon light--the boat moved to the l