The cool handle of an axe felt good. I soon found, however, that I
could not wield it long for lack of breath. The elevation was close to
ten thousand feet and the air at that height was thin and rare. After
each series of lusty strokes I had to rest. R.C., who could handle
an axe as he used to swing a baseball bat, made fun of my efforts.
Whereupon I relinquished the tool to him, and chuckled at his
discomfiture.

After breakfast R.C. and I got out our tackles and rigged up fly rods,
and sallied forth to the lake with the same eagerness we had felt when
we were boys going after chubs and sunfish. The lake glistened green
in the sunlight and it lay like a gem at the foot of the magnificent
black slopes.

The water was full of little floating particles that Teague called
wild rice. I thought the lake had begun to work, like eastern lakes
during dog days. It did not look propitious for fishing, but Teague
reassured us. The outlet of this lake was the head of White River. We
tried the outlet first, but trout were not rising there. Then we
began wading and casting along a shallow bar of the lake. Teague had
instructed us to cast, then drag the flies slowly across the surface
of the water, in imitation of a swimming fly or bug. I tried this, and
several times, when the leader was close to me and my rod far back, I
had strikes. With my rod in that position I could not hook the trout.
Then I cast my own way, letting the flies sink a little. To my
surprise and dismay I had only a few strikes and could not hook the
fish.

R.C., however, had better luck, and that too in wading right over the
ground I had covered. To beat me at anything always gave him the most