saw them as we rode over the hot dry shale among the hot and twisted
little trees. They lay against the bottom, transparent; they darted
away from the jar of our horses' hoofs; they swam slowly against the
current, delicate as liquid shadows, as though the clear uniform golden
color of the bottom had clouded slightly to produce these tenuous
ghostly forms. We examined them curiously from the advantage our
slightly elevated trail gave us, and knew them for the Golden Trout,
and longed to catch some.

All that day our route followed in general the windings of this unique
home of a unique fish. We crossed a solid natural bridge; we skirted
fields of red and black lava, vivid as poppies; we gazed marveling on
perfect volcano cones, long since extinct: finally we camped on a side
hill under two tall branchless trees in about as bleak and exposed a
position as one could imagine. Then all three, we jointed our rods and
went forth to find out what the Golden Trout was like.

I soon discovered a number of things, as follows: The stream at this
point, near its source, is very narrow--I could step across it--and
flows beneath deep banks. The Golden Trout is shy of approach. The
wind blows. Combining these items of knowledge I found that it was no
easy matter to cast forty feet in a high wind so accurately as to hit a
three-foot stream a yard below the level of the ground. In fact, the
proposition was distinctly sporty; I became as interested in it as in
accurate target-shooting, so that at last I forgot utterly the
intention of my efforts and failed to strike my first rise. The
second, however, I hooked, and in a moment had him on the grass.

He was a little fellow of seven inches, but mere size was nothing, the
color was the thing. And that was indeed golden. I can liken it to
nothing more accurately than the twenty-dollar gold-piece, the same
satin finish, the same pale yellow. The fish was fairly molten. It
did not glitter in gaudy burnishment, as does our aquarium gold-fish,
for example, but gleamed and melted and glowed as though fresh from the
mould. One would almost expect that on cutting the flesh it would be
found golden through all its substance. This for the basic color. You
must remember always that it was a true trout, without scales, and so
the more satiny. Furthermore, along either side of the belly ran two
broad longitudinal stripes of exactly the color and burnish of the
copper paint used on raci