ng on, right now."

Sure enough, in not much over a half hour, Billy and Jesse met them at
the bridge, with five fine fish--two grayling and three trout--Jesse
very much excited.

"All you have to do is just to sneak up and drop a hopper right in the
deep water at the bends, and they nail it!" said he. "Billy showed me.
He always carries a few hooks and a line in his vest pocket, he told me.
Fish all through this country!"

It took the boys but a few minutes to split the fish down the back and
skewer them flat, without scaling them at all. Then they hung them
before the fire, flesh side to the flame, and soon they were sizzling in
their own fat.

"Now, you can't put them on a plate, Billy!" said Jesse, as Billy began
searching in the pack. "Just some salt--that's all. You have to eat it
right off the skin, you know."

"Well, that ain't no way to eat," grumbled Billy. "It's awful
mussy-looking, to my way of thinking."

"Try it," said Uncle Dick, whittling himself a little fork out of a
willow branch. And very soon Billy also was a believer that the 'old
way' of the Arctic Indians is about the best way to cook a fish.

Now, having appeased their hunger, they saddled again and made their way
slowly to the ranch of Mrs. Culver at the Picnic Spring, as the place
was called--in time for Jesse and John each to catch a brace of great
trout before dusk had come.

They now were all willing to vote their experience of the past two days
to be about the pleasantest and most satisfying of any of the trip,
which now they felt had drawn to a natural close. That evening they all,
including their sprightly hostess, bent late over the table, covered
with maps and books.

"I surely will be sorry to see you leave," said the quaint little woman
of the high country. "It's not often I see many who know any history of
the big river, or who care for it. But now I can see that you all surely
do. You know it, and you love it, too."

"If you know it well, you can't well help loving it, I reckon," said
Billy Williams.

CHAPTER XXX

SPORTING PLANS

"Let's see, Rob--what day of the month is this?" began John, the
following morning, when, their bills for the horses and themselves all
discharged and their motor car purring at the gate, they bade farewell
to their interesting friend and prepared to head eastward once more.

"Well," said Rob, "we were at the Three Forks on July 27th, and we spent
a week getting to the Shoshoni C