The water was full of little floating particles that Teague called wild rice.  I thought the lake had begun to work, like eastern lakes during dog days.  It did not look propitious for fishing, but Teague reassured us.  The outlet of this lake was the head of White River.  We tried the outlet first, but trout were not rising there.  Then we began wading and casting along a shallow bar of the lake.  Teague had instructed us to cast, then drag the flies slowly across the surface of the water, in imitation of a swimming fly or bug.  I tried this, and several times, when the leader was close to me and my rod far back, I had strikes.  With my rod in that position I could not hook the trout.  Then I cast my own way, letting the flies sink a little.  To my surprise and dismay I had only a few strikes and could not hook the fish.

R.C., however, had better luck, and that too in wading right over the ground I had covered.  To beat me at anything always gave him the most unaccountable fiendish pleasure.

“These are educated trout,” he said.  “It takes a skillful fisherman to make them rise.  Now anybody can catch the big game of the sea, which is your forte.  But here you are N.G....  Watch me cast!”

I watched him make a most atrocious cast.  But the water boiled, and he hooked two good-sized trout at once.  Quite speechless with envy and admiration I watched him play them and eventually beach them.  They were cutthroat trout, silvery-sided and marked with the red slash along their gills that gave them their name.  I did not catch any while wading, but from the bank I spied one, and dropping a fly in front of his nose, I got him.  R.C. caught four more, all about a pound in weight, and then he had a strike that broke his leader.  He did not have another leader, so we walked back to camp.

Wild flowers colored the open slopes leading down out of the forest.  Golden rod, golden daisies, and bluebells were plentiful and very pretty.  Here I found my first columbine, the beautiful flower that is the emblem of Colorado.  In vivid contrast to its blue, Indian paint brush thinly dotted the slopes and varied in color from red to pink and from white to yellow.

My favorite of all wild flowers—­the purple asters—­were there too, on tall nodding stems, with pale faces held up to the light.  The reflection of mountain and forest in Trappers Lake was clear and beautiful.

The hounds bayed our approach to camp.  We both made a great show about beginning our little camp tasks, but we did not last very long.  The sun felt so good and it was so pleasant to lounge under a pine.  One of the blessings of outdoor life was that a man could be like an Indian and do nothing.  So from rest I passed to dreams and from dreams to sleep.