and had come to call on me; we lost
our way and got the wagon so beautifully fixed on a steep road that we
had to tie the two hind-wheels to get it down. Above all, California
told tales of Nevada and Arizona, of lonely nights spent out
prospecting, of the slaughter of deer and the chase of men; of woman,
lovely woman, who is a firebrand in a Western city, and leads to the
popping of pistols, and of the sudden changes and chances of Fortune,
who delights in making the miner or the lumberman a quadruplicate
millionnaire, and in "busting" the railroad king. That was a day to be
remembered, and it had only begun when we drew rein at a tiny farmhouse
on the banks of the Clackamas and sought horse-feed and lodging ere we
hastened to the river that broke over a weir not a quarter of a mile
away.

Imagine a stream seventy yards broad divided by a pebbly island, running
over seductive riffles, and swirling into deep, quiet pools where the
good salmon goes to smoke his pipe after meals. Set such a stream amid
fields of breast-high crops surrounded by hills of pines, throw in where
you please quiet water, log-fenced meadows, and a hundred-foot bluff
just to keep the scenery from growing too monotonous, and you will get
some faint notion of the Clackamas.

Portland had no rod. He held the gaff and the whisky. California sniffed
upstream and downstream across the racing water, chose his ground, and
let the gaudy spoon drop in the tail of a riffle. I was getting my rod
together when I heard the joyous shriek of the reel and the yells of
California, and three feet of living silver leaped into the air far
across the water. The forces were engaged. The salmon tore up stream,
the tense line cutting the water like a tide-rip behind him, and the
light bamboo bowed to breaking. What happened after I cannot tell.
California swore and prayed, and Portland shouted advice, and I did all
three for what appeared to be half a day, but was in reality a little
over a quarter of an hour, and sullenly our fish came home with spurts
of temper, dashes head-on, and sarabands in the air; but home to the
bank came he, and the remorseless reel gathered up the thread of his
life inch by inch. We landed him in a little bay, and the spring-weight
checked at eleven and a half pounds. Eleven and one-half pounds of
fighting salmon! We danced a war dance on the pebbles, and California
caught me round the waist in a hug that went near to breaking my ribs
while