We fished a good deal, but we did not average one fish a week.  We could see trout by the thousand winging about in the emptiness under us, or sleeping in shoals on the bottom, but they would not bite—­they could see the line too plainly, perhaps.  We frequently selected the trout we wanted, and rested the bait patiently and persistently on the end of his nose at a depth of eighty feet, but he would only shake it off with an annoyed manner, and shift his position.

We bathed occasionally, but the water was rather chilly, for all it looked so sunny.  Sometimes we rowed out to the “blue water,” a mile or two from shore.  It was as dead blue as indigo there, because of the immense depth.  By official measurement the lake in its centre is one thousand five hundred and twenty-five feet deep!

Sometimes, on lazy afternoons, we lolled on the sand in camp, and smoked pipes and read some old well-worn novels.  At night, by the camp-fire, we played euchre and seven-up to strengthen the mind—­and played them with cards so greasy and defaced that only a whole summer’s acquaintance with them could enable the student to tell the ace of clubs from the jack of diamonds.

We never slept in our “house.”  It never recurred to us, for one thing; and besides, it was built to hold the ground, and that was enough.  We did not wish to strain it.

By and by our provisions began to run short, and we went back to the old camp and laid in a new supply.  We were gone all day, and reached home again about night-fall, pretty tired and hungry.  While Johnny was carrying the main bulk of the provisions up to our “house” for future use, I took the loaf of bread, some slices of bacon, and the coffee-pot, ashore, set them down by a tree, lit a fire, and went back to the boat to get the frying-pan.  While I was at this, I heard a shout from Johnny, and looking up I saw that my fire was galloping all over the premises!  Johnny was on the other side of it.  He had to run through the flames to get to the lake shore, and then we stood helpless and watched the devastation.

The ground was deeply carpeted with dry pine-needles, and the fire touched them off as if they were gunpowder.  It was wonderful to see with what fierce speed the tall sheet of flame traveled!  My coffee-pot was gone, and everything with it.  In a minute and a half the fire seized upon a dense growth of dry manzanita chapparal six or eight feet high, and then the roaring and popping and crackling was something terrific.  We were driven to the boat by the intense heat, and there we remained, spell-bound.

Within half an hour all before us was a tossing, blinding tempest of flame!  It went surging up adjacent ridges—­surmounted them and disappeared in the canons beyond—­burst into view upon higher and farther ridges, presently—­shed a grander illumination abroad, and dove again —­flamed out again, directly, higher and still higher up the mountain-side—­threw out skirmishing parties of fire here and there, and sent them trailing their crimson spirals away among remote ramparts and ribs and gorges, till as far as the eye could reach the lofty mountain-fronts were webbed as it were with a tangled network of red lava streams.  Away across the water the crags and domes were lit with a ruddy glare, and the firmament above was a reflected hell!