nd buried beside the cabin so that the
canned stuff and the potatoes would not freeze. Then the occupants who
were to eat the rations would put in their appearance about April 1st,
when the trails were hidden beneath many feet of snow and packing would
be nearly an impossibility.

For the cabin represented the first link in the work of trout
propagation, as conducted by the State Fish and Game Commission. Two
experts go to it when the first spring thaws attack the drifts and the
little creek grows restless beneath its winter quilt of snow and ice.
The first year they waited too long, and when they came and built their
dam the female fish already had gone up the creek to lay their eggs. But
this year they dared the rear-guard of winter, and arrived in time to
trap hundreds of trout fat with roe. For six weeks they labor collecting
the eggs which later are sent to the State hatchery at Bonneville to be
hatched. Later the fingerlings are distributed where most needed
throughout Oregon.

The fisherman who pays his license fee often enough knows next to
nothing of the good work that is being done for him by those who aim not
only to keep the streams from being "fished out," but also to improve
the fishing. This cabin by the lakeside represents the start of the
work, and bitter hard work some of it is, too.

[Illustration: An Oregon trout stream

From a photograph by Raymond, Moro, Ore.]

The fish car, "Rainbow," with its load of cans filled with trout fry,
reaches the railroad point selected for distribution. There the local
warden has gathered a legion of volunteer automobiles in which the cans
are rushed to the streams and lakes near by and their contents planted.
That is the easy simple "planting." The difficulties come when the
streams or lakes are scores of miles from a railway or even a road, and
the carrying must be done by pack-train. In 1912 and 1913, for instance,
one hundred and sixteen lakes scattered throughout the Cascade Mountains
were stocked; that is, waters suitable for trout culture but hitherto
without fish were prepared for the fisherman of next summer, and an
ever-increasing number of desirable fishing places provided. And in the
cases numbered here, every can of fry used was carried many miles on
pack-horses; one trip occupied eight days, and even then, thanks to many
changes of water, out of ten thousand fry only fifty died!

Hunting is an out-of-door pursuit all to itself. The man who at home