A TROUT STREAM IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS, ARIZONA.
Bright and early we drove up the river fork, until what road there was ceased, and became a flight of steps, and our progress was made in standing jumps. The old lady outdid herself, and when her nose bumped against rocks too abrupt to ride over, actually gathered herself together like a hunter, and leaped over them. At last when the hilly trail began to cave in on the outer side, we abandoned the car and walked a mile farther to our camp, near a cottage whose owners were away.
It was a beautiful glade we had selected for camp, so peaceful and remote that we seemed at the earth’s end. The White Mountains were indeed all they had been painted. Sunny fields leading to distant peaks, a glade with dimpling brown brooks, fallen logs, tiny cascades, baby whirlpools, sunlit shadows tempting to trout, a green tangle of summer overhead, and the delicious tang of pine-sweetened mountain air, ought to please the most exacting. We lacked only the trout, for, relying on their abundance, we had traveled light for food. Flecks of white in the brook showed this abundance no empty promise. Occasionally a shining body leaped in the air and splashed back into the brown water. Not the fourteen pound monsters of the northern lakes, these, but little brook trout, of a hand’s length, meltingly sweet to the taste. Our mouths already watered. Untangling our tackle, we started to dig for worms. We had been presented with a pailful of bait, but in the excitement of getting off had left it at the reservation.
The sun was just low enough to fleck the river with warm pools and shady eddies. Soon Toby exclaimed with pleasure, the pleasure finding a worm gives only when one intends to fish. She had bisected a fat, tempting rascal, assuring one trout, at least. When the sun was an hour lower, and it was getting a trifle chilly for fish to bite well, I unearthed another, a long, anæmic, dyspeptic victim, which gave us renewed courage. Either worms were scarce or trout fishers had dug them all. We decided to give it up, and fish with what we had.
It took much less time to get rid of our worms than it did to find them. Undoubtedly the trout fought to get on our hooks, but by the same token they fought still faster to get off again. We doled out Mutt and Jeff, as we dubbed our treasures, inchmeal to the rapacious brutes, but we were not proof against their popularity.
“This is the last piece,” I said to Toby. And, of course, when she dropped it into the water, there came a timid tug, and a rush. Victorious Toby pulled out a trout, and threw him back in disgust. He was all of two inches long.
It was four and after when we returned to our trenches and started digging again. Then a splash, and through the speckled shade a cavalry officer came riding. We called after him.
“Any worms in this place?”
“Any what?” His horse was carrying him further downstream.