he giants, but one remained
gilded by the glory of a dream that continued with it after the others.
Heretofore it had seemed to us an insignificant peak, apparently
overtopped by many, but by this token we knew it to be the highest of
them all.

Then ensued another pause, as though to give the invisible
scene-shifter time to accomplish his work, followed by a shower of
evening coolness, that seemed to sift through the trees like a soft and
gentle rain. We ate again by the flicker of the fire, dabbing a trifle
uncertainly at the food, wondering at the distant mountain on which the
Day had made its final stand, shrinking a little before the stealthy
dark that flowed down the canon in the manner of a heavy smoke.

In the notch between the two huge mountains blazed a star,--accurately
in the notch, like the front sight of a rifle sighted into the
marvelous depths of space. Then the moon rose.

First we knew of it when it touched the crest of our two mountains.
The night has strange effects on the hills. A moment before they had
menaced black and sullen against the sky, but at the touch of the moon
their very substance seemed to dissolve, leaving in the upper
atmosphere the airiest, most nebulous, fragile, ghostly simulacrums of
themselves you could imagine in the realms of fairy-land. They seemed
actually to float, to poise like cloud-shapes about to dissolve. And
against them were cast the inky silhouettes of three fir-trees in the
shadow near at hand.

Down over the stones rolled the river, crying out to us with the voices
of old accustomed friends in another wilderness. The winds rustled.

XIII

TROUT, BUCKSKIN, AND PROSPECTORS

As I have said, a river flows through the canon. It is a very good
river with some riffles that can be waded down to the edges of black
pools or white chutes of water; with appropriate big trees fallen
slantwise into it to form deep holes; and with hurrying smooth
stretches of some breadth. In all of these various places are rainbow
trout.

There is no use fishing until late afternoon. The clear sun of the
high altitudes searches out mercilessly the bottom of the stream,
throwing its miniature boulders, mountains, and valleys as plainly into
relief as the buttes of Arizona at noon. Then the trout quite refuse.
Here and there, if you walk far enough and climb hard enough over all
sorts of obstructions, you may discover a few spots shaded by big trees
or rocks where you can p