then another, which my imagination made twice as large, snatched it from his mouth and made short work of my line. Hence we endeavored to keep the bait away from twenty- or twentyfive-pounders and save it for the large fish which range well up in exceptional cases to one hundred pounds, a seventy-pounder having been taken off Santa Monica this year.

Well may the reader look askance at some of these statements, yet on some of these days the reality was much more startling than I have described. A friend was trolling down from Mosquito (so called because a mosquito lives there) one morning, when he came to a cave or sink or basin in the bottom, about twenty feet across. The water was so clear that every object could be distinctly seen, and in this pool, this well, were numbers of very large fishes swimming around, giving the impression that some kind of a convention was being held among the colossi of the fishes. Here was a black seabass three hundred or four hundred pounds in weight, big sheepshead, white sea-bass, and in the centre, swimming proudly about, dragging ten feet of a six-line, a yellowtail of such size that the men could hardly believe their eyes. As fast as they cast, just so fast would these mystic fishes of the pool take line and leader, and the men returned to camp with tales that kindled interest into a flame.

The yellowtail, or Seriola, is pre-eminently the fish of the people, or sui generis. It requires no especial skill to hook him in the open water, as he is a veritable free booter, will either take or leave the bait as whim seizes. Some believe that he bites better on certain tides, as the flood, but where water is deep, I see no philosophy in this, as the yellowtail is taken within fifty or one hundred feet of the rocks, yet in deep blue water where tidal currents do not affect the food supply.

Some word about the yellowtail may be of interest. The Eastern angler who goes to Florida will find its cousin in the amber-jack, the finest game fish of the coast, Seriola lalandi, while the California yellowtail is Seriola dorsalis. There are a large number of species, twenty at least, ranging all over the world and known by various titles. Seriola dorsalis apparently is confined to Southern California and adjacent waters, and undoubtedly for its size is the hardest fighting game fish in these waters. The real home for these giants of the tribe seems to be along the vine-clad, submarine slopes of San Clemente and Santa Catalina.

CHAPTER XIV

COACHING AND ANGLING IN THE SISKIYOUS

WAD

ADSWORTH plucked the "amaranthine flower of fate" and wore it near his heart, and as faith begets courage, it would seem to be essential to those mortals who are fond of angling and its variants, as coaching along the high Sierras. By this you are not to understand that this pastime is dangerous. Statistics show that a man is much safer coming down some "whirlwind pass" behind a sixin-hand of flying horses between the Feather and Sacramento than he is in the streets of some great cities addicted to electric cars, and next to ballooning and aeronauting the sport is most exhilarating and delightful. Again, to adapt a time-worn adage, if one falls from an aerial motor car or a flying machine where is he? but if thrown from a stage down into the manzanita and chaparral of a steep cañon, there he is, which, in a sense, is consoling. But this possibly is an unnecessary divertisement.

I have taken some remarkable stage rides in California, one of which was denounced as crim

inal by a companion when we made the descent of a steep mountain in a six-in-hand on the run in about eighteen minutes, which had taken two hours to crawl up.

As these lines are written I am, one might say, recovering from several coaching experiences in trying to reach isolated trout streams more or less interesting. One over the San Lucia Mountains on a shelf of a road was delightful; another over the Santa Cruz along that beautiful trout stream, the Soquel, where we followed the great earthquake fault, was exciting as it was made in an automobile, and meeting a ten-in-hand of bulls, oxen, and mules on a shelf cut out of the side of the grade a thousand feet up the face of the range is not without its peculiar charm and thrills. Another delightful ride was made over the Cascade and Siskiyou ranges fifty miles to the Modoc country and the trout streams of Upper Klamath.

To reach the angler's stage route one passes Mount Shasta, one of the most beautiful of all the large mountains in California; a resting volcano that but a few centuries ago bombarded the sun and all the planets and covered the earth for hundreds of square miles with balls of molten lava which to-day stand monuments of the yesterday of the earth. In skirting Shasta there is constantly a new view, new glaciers, new out

lines; yet over all is drawn a veil of the most delicate and perfect gray. As you pass it away to the north rises another volcano into the air, nine or ten thousand feet, a sort of landmark, as in its shadows in the deep forest that climbs its slopes is the winding coach road.

Late in the afternoon we reach the little town of Thrall near the rushing Klamath, and early in the morning find ourselves on a mimic railroad which makes up for what it lacks in size by the quality of its scenic attractions. We begin to rise at once, the engine puffing up the slopes of the spurs of the Siskiyous, in a short time attaining the summit of a range on the left bank of the Klamath, rising rapidly until we look out and down onto the valleys and ranges which seem to reach away interminably. Where the little road cannot make the ascent in the normal way it switches back, and by repeated switchings ascends to the summit of another range where a bird's-eye view is obtained of a large portion of Oregon and distant California. A thousand volcanic peaks may be counted here from Shasta to Pitt with its great blowout on the east in the direction of Crater Lake and the lakes of Klamath. Ascending this wall of rock one is regaled with beautiful scenes of the green valley below, along the rushing Klamath on its way to the sea across or through three ranges. Here, bursting from the rock, is a