Francis Francis

“ Still, if rewarded by occasional success, it is sufficient to feel that game is in the neighbourhood. To note fresh spoor, to find in grassy glades, upon the edge of willow thickets, the scarce deserted beds of elk and deer, to see the trees they have "used," rubbing the velvet from their antlers, to chance upon a bison wallow, or on the trunks of pines that have been barked by bears, even to watch the chipmunk and squirrel—Cobweb and Peaseblossom, "hop in your walks and gambol in your eyes"—and hear the blue grouse drumming on the trees, is a pleasure. ”

“ Pend d'Oreille was very beautiful, and it is worth something to be able to close your eyes, and see it as I saw it on [Pg 118] the morning that we left—as I see it now, in fact, although two thousand miles of mountain and prairie lie between us as I write.
A slender shaft of blue smoke rises straight from the smouldering embers of our last night's fire on the beach. The air is fresh and still—there is no stillness, though, like that of the expectant pause which heralds the roar of day, no freshness like the evanescent freshness of sunrise. Texas is gathering drift-wood at high-water mark. ”

“ It is exceedingly desirable that the angler should be able to make and repair his own tackle. This will probably save him quite one-half of his outlay, and has the satisfaction of knowing that he can trust to the tackle, which he cannot always when he buys it; while, in case of accident, he can repair without delay, when the impossibility of doing so might peril his day's sport. The art of tying strands of gut together and of whipping on a hook may be learnt in a minute; and there is scarcely a book on angling that does not thoroughly explain it. Fly-tying, however, requires more notice. ”

“ The very organisation of regular troops is a disadvantage to them in such warfare; it is like setting a team of yoked oxen to "round up" wild two-year-old scrub steers.
The Apaches never risked an open conflict. If they attacked a small convoy, or surveying party, a few miners, a couple of cow-boys, or a teamster, it was always with overwhelming numbers, at a place selected with the deepest cunning, whence they themselves, secure of a safe line of retreat, were enabled to fire from admirable points of vantage, without leaving cover. ”

“ The evening vigil on an elk-trail in the dim forest twilight, [Pg 33] when the winds slumbered, the earth was dumb, and even a falling leaf created quite a stir. The calumet and chat, with our mocassined feet to the camp fire, the light from which playing upon the giant trunks around, made them seem like pillars in some mysterious hall; the cheerful glow anear, the sombre gloom beyond. Is it not all photographed and laid aside to beguile us of idle hours hereafter? He who has no ambition in the future should create a pleasant past.
At daybreak we climbed the highest peak in the ridge. ”

“ Of all fresh-water fish, the carp is one of the most cunning and difficult to catch where he is much fished for, though, singularly enough, they take much better in rivers than in still water. In still water, even if you can induce a good carp to pay attention to your bait (which you cannot always) , he will nibble, and turn it about, until he either sucks it off the hook without touching the hook, or he discovers the hook on the line, becomes alarmed, and swims away. Very fine tackle, therefore, is required in carp fishing; but as he is big and lusty, it should be round and strong. ”

“ On we used to ride silently over the thick carpet of pine-quills, smoking pipe after pipe whilst we chatted unrestrainedly, or travelled back lazily over the past and its scenes in thought. From time to time we would halt, till the waggon wheels were heard creaking in the distance, and then pass on again ahead of the men. Occasionally the scene changed for a stream-threaded valley, full of beaver-dams, near which a few ducks sailed idly, in security, to the intense excitement of the wise-looking retriever, "Shot," who would glance from them to us with unmistakable meaning. ”

“ In fishing a cast, the angler casts diagonally across down stream, and draws the fly up stream towards him, softly raising and lowering the top of the rod so as to check and loosen the fly alternately, and to make all its fibres open and shut so as to counterfeit life. When a salmon rises to the fly he either makes a big bulge or boil in the water, or, if he is unusually eager, he throws his head and half his body above the surface, rolling over like a porpoise in his endeavour to seize the fly ”

“ Science has greater records than his; there are figures in statecraft, art, theology, and war, to whom it is the custom of giddy historians to assign greater prominence when recounting the world's great names; but of few can it be said that their unaided genius and research has awakened the taste of civilised humanity to a source of gratification so universally admitted, and so entirely free from alloy, as has the pig. For what, indeed, is the detecter of a new planet, the finder or conqueror of a new continent, beside the great discoverer of the truffle? ”

“ Of course at such times the angler has to trust more to his senses of feeling and hearing than sight. In the majority of instances it is the custom to let the tackle soak, and when fishing to allow the fly to sink a little under the surface to fish with a "wet fly," as it is called; in others, where the fish are more wary, in order to imitate nature more closely yet, it is the custom to fish with a dry one that is, to make the fly and line rest on the surface, without becoming sub merged. ”

“ The soft air mused and mused in the dry crowsfoot gramma grass that clothed the country, making a music that seemed a very air-treasured echo and tradition of sweet old-world sounds become transiently audible again in the silence of the moment. From the yellow slopes around its base, old Animas towered king-like above the valley; and dim blue, mystic peaks and crests, like a company of ghosts, low down on the horizon to the south, marked the commencement of the Sierra Madre. ”

“ Sometimes a large landing-net is used to land the fish, but though this prevents the spoiling of a portion of the fish by avoiding the need for making a hole with the gaff, it is less convenient and of more risk to the safety of the fish. The most favourite plan of fishing for salmon is with the fly, though in many places they will also take both worm and minnow freely, and are thus fished for. The salmon-fly is a most wonderful conglo meration of feathers, silks, and tinsels, and oftentimes is as brilliant as the most glittering humming-bird. ”

“ Further still, a reach of pearly gray is shot with écru and crimson lake, faint veins of white, or scars of sullen black. This scenery endures for miles; and as if a tour de force in colour were not enough, equal variety in form is exhibited in conjunction with it. Everywhere the rocks have eroded into quaint shapes. Forests and turreted castles, spires and cathedral domes, towers, monuments, and minarets, forts, forms, and faces are interspersed amidst a wilderness of pinnacles, boulders, and bluffs that have no likeness in the works of art. ”

“ Each pool is a mirror. In its pure depths the fleecy clouds reflected sail slowly by, the dainty biscuit-work of the fountain's edges is faithfully reproduced, and the beholder himself, as he gazes therein, is photographed with a clearness that is at first sight startling.
A few days we lingered here, and then set forth again.
We were trekking quietly along one afternoon, when a riderless cavalry horse cantered towards us. With some difficulty it was caught, and a picket-rope, a coat, a pair of boots, and some saddle-bags were found attached to the saddle. ”

“ As for me, I did not endeavour to do so, but avoided a good deal of trouble and self-mortification by falling into it at once; and although a rooted indisposition to sleep in the day-time under any circumstances preserved me from indulging in the siesta during any of my trips into Mexico, I must confess that about that period of the day which may be designated the fore-afternoon, a sense of most enjoyable laziness would steal upon me, when not in the saddle.
No doubt there are lazier creatures than the typical Mexican; for all intents and purposes, however, he is lazy enough. ”

“ The colours that tinge the edges of some craters, and stain the courses of the streams which they send forth, are indescribably beautiful. The snowy whiteness of the grounding is relieved by dainty buffs, pale pinks, and softest écrus, deep yellows shot with brown, orange streaked with vermilion, or straying into crimson, chocolate merging into black, and interlined with lemon—by colours, in fact, run riot, and all glistening wet beneath the clearest crystal water, that in the centre of the crater deepens into a heavenly blue. ”

“ We are fishing a plain canal-looking piece of water—a kind of upper-school, only frequented by fish of good size, and under a dishevelled tuft of brown rushes on the opposite bank a trout is feeding, taking with the regularity of clock-work about three flies a minute. The little gleam of transparent wings can be seen approaching the fatal spot, undulating with the motion of the tide. ”

“ Not for us is the planet, to new continents we are indifferent. These are vanities for our children [Pg 283] to reach and cry for. But, as weary and disillusionised we drive "Life's sad post-horses o'er the dreary frontier of age," and Time, great proselytiser, gently turns the mind to solemn thoughts of turtle-fat and beaver-tail, water-rails and canvas-back ducks, caviare, foie gras, some fishes, and a few wines, the truffle will be found to be connected with most of our comfortablest dreams and sweetest hopes. ”

“ Don Cabeza was right. Before we had finished supper at Smith's Wells, the horse appeared at the drinking-trough there.
It was the last typical evening that I expected to spend on the frontier, after nine months of almost uninterrupted life amongst rancheros and miners, cow-boys and teamsters, gamblers and traders, and all the nondescript flotsam and jetsam of humanity that drift "out West" from the cradles of mankind, and find rough rest upon the shores of unskilled labour. A curious kaleidoscopic field of character lies here. Men grow as chance will have them. ”

“ It becomes an art; I am not sure that it ought not to be termed a science. It is drinking etherealised, rescued from vulgar appetite and brutality, purified of its low origin and ennobled. A cocktail hath the soul of wit, it is brief—it is a jest, a bon-mot, happy thought, a gibe, a word of sympathy, a tear, an inspiration, a short prayer. A list of your experienced cocktail drinker's potations for the day constitutes a complete picture of life, and the secret joys and sorrows that he hides from all the world may almost be said therein to stand betrayed to the eye of a brother scientist. ”

“ Here a householder has trenched upon the road for space for his pig-sty; there a wattled fence encloses a fowl-yard; yonder is a small corral built of old Aztec blocks; elsewhere, a stable-shed abuts upon the right of way. But none of the domestic animals for whom these offices have been built appear to inhabit them. A lean horse, with ribs protruding, stands, looking like a big knot, at one end of a raw-hide lasso, which, trailing loosely on the ground, is lost to sight inside the door of his master's hotel. ”

“ Next morning, when I awoke, a flood of golden sunlight was streaming in at my bed-room window, and through the open door was thrust a Velasquez head in a broad, black sombrero, which shaded bronzed features, a crisp black beard, and a curly upturned moustache. There was a careless, genial air about the face, and a twinkle of humour in the dark eyes that was as infectious as it was irresistible. It was Shin, come to wake me. ”

“ Through dreamy distances of chequered light and tangled shadow, the glance travels under a sort of spell, and unconsciously the fancy grows that you are gazing through the aisles of a vast cathedral illuminated by myriad and wondrously stained windows—not a cathedral wrought by the hands of man, nor one whose stillness was ever broken by his feverish tread, but the ruins of a colossal judgment hall, or place of worship, created by some long-gone superhuman race, of whose existence we retain no record. ”

“ Many a time have I let "the boss mine," or "the boss ranch," slip through my fingers! Such men always take it for granted that an Englishman is a "sucker." It is as well to foster the belief, for the amusement of hearing them ingenuously unfold their magnificent schemes. Besides which, as a matter of policy it is unwise to endeavour to seem too smart when in quest of information, for a fool is allowed to see more in an hour than one who is credited with ordinary sense will discover in twelve months. ”

“ The water is of the purest, brightest cerulean hue, but near the shallow edges it takes its tone from the enclosing rocks, and the glorious azure is lost in yellow, pale green, or red, whilst chemical deposits, in exquisite arrangements, such as the genius of Nature alone can suggest, of écru and ivory, lemon and orange, buff, chocolate, brown, pink, vermilion, bronze, and fawn encircle the pool, or paint with ribbon-like effect the tiny streams that trickle from its overflow. ”