the lovely prairie that softly
sloped down to it on either side, and whose sedges and clumps of trees
dipped their tips in its sparkling waters, ran the river, dancing and
foaming here over its rocky bed, there swirling round and forming deep
pools, while in its clear waters as they approached Bart could see the
glancing scales of innumerable fish on its sun-illumined shallows.

Hot and weary with their descent, the first act of all present was to
dip their cups into the pure clear water, and then, as soon as their
feverish thirst was allayed, the Doctor proceeded to test the sand of
the river to see if it contained gold, while Bart, after wondering why a
man who had discovered a silver mine of immense wealth could not be
satisfied, went wandering off along the edge of the river, longing for
some means of capturing the fish, whose silver scales flashed in the
sunshine whenever they glided sidewise over some shallow ridge of yellow
sand that would not allow of their swimming in the ordinary way.

Sometimes he was able to leap from rock to rock that stood out of the
river bed, and formed a series of barriers, around which the swift
stream fretted and boiled, rushing between them in a series of cascades;
and wherever one of these masses of water-worn stone lay in the midst of
the rapid stream, Bart found that there was always a deep still
transparent pool behind; and he had only to approach softly, and bend
down or lie upon his chest, with his head beyond the edge, to see that
this pool was the home of some splendid fish, a very tyrant ready to
pounce upon everything that was swept into the still water.

"I wish we were not bothering about gold and silver," thought Bart, as
after feasting his eyes upon the fish he turned to gaze upon the
beauties of the drooping trees, and spire-shaped pines that grew as
regular in shape as if they had been cast in the same mould; while,
above all, the gloriously coloured walls of the canyon excited his
wonder, and made him long to scale them, climbing into the many
apparently inaccessible places, and hunting for fruit, and flower, and
bird.

Bart had rambled down the river, so rapt in the beauties around him that
he forgot all about the Doctor and his search for the precious metals.
All at once, as he was seated out upon a mass of stone by the river
side, it struck him that, though he had watched the fish a good deal, it
would be very pleasant to wade across a shallow to where a reef o