But if only a good outing is wanted, that can be had in Pecos Valley, New Mexico. You will not find much to trap other than muskrats and coon on the river and lakes, but they are quite plentiful, especially the latter. You will find coyotes and some grey wolves, and some antelope, which are protected. Duck shooting is good, the climate is mild, only freezing ice the thickness of window glass in the coldest weather, which is all thawed out and gone by ten o'clock. This section is easily reached by rail.
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In July, 1902, I was spending a few days at Spokane, Wash. Nearly every day I would take an old cane fish pole and go to the river just above the falls and fish for bass. I would shift my post from one point along the bank of the river to another and sometimes I would go out on the boom timbers and fish among the logs. Some days I would get a bass or two, but oftener I got nothing further than the pleasure of drowning a few minnows.
Nearly every morning I noticed a man would come down along the bank of the river and go in the direction of the mill. Sometimes he would stop and watch me for a few minutes, and then pass on without saying anything. But one morning he came along when I happened to be sitting close to his path. I looked up and gave the usual morning nod. The gentleman, for such he proved to be, inquired what luck I was having. I replied that I guessed it must be fisherman's luck, for I got but few fish. He replied that he thought that there were very few bass in the dam, as there was so much fishing done there.
I was quite sure that he was right from the number of fish I caught, and I could see a number of others scattered about the pond, and some on the logs, some on the boom timbers and some in boats. The next morning I was back at my old post, and this man came along as usual. He stopped, laughed and said that I seemed to have plenty of faith. I replied that the occasion demanded great faith. He inquired if I lived in the city. I told him that I lived in Pennsylvania and was only out in that country to see the sights and get a few fish and a little venison and later might try to get a little fur.
He informed me that his name was Nettel (Charles Nettel) that he was a lumber inspector and that he was going to have a vacation the next week. He intended going to the North Fork of the Clearwater on Elk Creek, where he had a camp, and that if I wished to fill up on trout and venison, I had better join him, as he had no one selected to accompany him yet. I said, "Thank you, I would be pleased to do so," as quick as I could, for fear he would change his mind. I now dropped my bass fishing and would drop into the mill where Mr. Nettel was at work and catch a few minutes chat with my new-found friend, as an opportunity would occur, until the time came to go to Mr. Nettel's camp. As I had a complete outfit, including blankets, tin plates, cups, knives, and forks, a takedown or folding stove with the necessary cooking utensils, which I had not yet unpacked, we concluded to take the whole kit along so that if anything had happened at Mr. Nettel's camp we would have a tent as well as the other camp outfit, but we found Mr. Nettel's shack all right. We took a train to near a place called Orofino on the Clearwater River in Idaho where we repacked our outfit, putting it into sacks.
We engaged a man with two pack horses to take our plunder to camp which we found to be all right, and I wish to say that this was the farthest up the gulch in the Rockies that I had been at that time.
I found my friend all right on the trout question, for trout were so plenty it was no sport to catch them. The next morning after we were in camp we climbed to what Mr. Nettel called the bench, but I thought it was the moon. We had hardly got to the level, or bench, when we say plenty of elk tracks so we followed in the direction in which the fresh trails seemed to lead.
We had not gone far when I noticed something moving in the underbrush, which might have been taken for a rocking chair for all that I could tell. We stood still a few moments when three elk came out in sight. We watched them feed for a few minutes, then made a noise like a deer blowing, and the elk stopped feeding, stood and listened and looked about for danger; Mr. Nettel again snorted and the elk trotted off.
We now separated a little and began walking across the bench. We had not gone far when I saw two buck deer feeding and shot one of them. Mr. Nettel soon came to me and we took the entrails out of the deer and drew the carcass down to camp where we sure had venison as well as trout.