All at once, as if by concert, the trout began to rise everywhere.  In a little bay we began to get strikes.  I could see the fish rise to the fly.  The small ones were too swift and the large ones too slow, it seemed.  We caught one, and then had bad luck.  We snarled our lines, drifted wrong, broke leaders, snapped off flies, hooked too quick and too slow, and did everything that was clumsy.  I lost two big fish because they followed the fly as I drew it toward me across the water to imitate a swimming fly.  Of course this made a large slack line which I could not get up.  Finally I caught one big fish, and altogether we got seven.  All in that little bay, where the water was shallow!  In other places we could not catch a fish.  I had one vicious strike.  The fish appeared to be feeding on a tiny black gnat, which we could not imitate.  This was the most trying experience of all.  We ought to have caught a basketful.

The next day, September first, we rode down along the outlet of Big Fish to White River and down that for miles to fish for grayling.  The stream was large and swift and cold.  It appeared full of ice water and rocks, but no fish.  We met fishermen, an automobile, and a camp outfit.  That was enough for me.  Where an automobile can run, I do not belong.  The fishing was poor.  But the beautiful open valley, flowered in gold and purple, was recompense for a good deal of bad luck.

A grayling, or what they called a grayling, was not as beautiful a fish as my fancy had pictured.  He resembled a sucker or mullet, had a small mouth, dark color, and was rather a sluggish-looking fish.

We rode back through a thunderstorm, and our yellow slickers afforded much comfort.

Next morning was bright, clear, cold.  I saw the moon go down over a mountain rim rose-flushed with the sunrise.

R.C. and I, with Teague, started for the top of the big mountain on the west.  I had a new horse, a roan, and he looked a thoroughbred.  He appeared tired.  But I thought he would be great.  We took a trail through the woods, dark green-gray, cool and verdant, odorous and still.  We began to climb.  Occasionally we crossed parks, and little streams.  Up near the long, bare slope the spruce trees grew large and far apart.  They were beautiful, gray as if bearded with moss.  Beyond this we got into the rocks and climbing became arduous.  Long zigzags up the slope brought us to the top of a notch, where at the right lay a patch of snow.  The top of the mountain was comparatively flat, but it had timbered ridges and bare plains and little lakes, with dark domes, rising beyond.  We rode around to the right, climbing out of the timber to where the dwarf spruces and brush had a hard struggle for life.  The great gulf below us was immense, dark, and wild, studded with lakes and parks, and shadowed by moving clouds.

Sheep tracks, old and fresh, afforded us thrills.

Away on the western rim, where we could look down upon a long rugged iron-gray ridge of mountain, our guide using the glass, found two big stags.  We all had our fill of looking.  I could see them plainly with naked eyes.