Our prospector was a little uncertain as to his plans. Along toward autumn he intended to land at some reputed placers near Dinkey Creek. There might be something in that district. He thought he would take a look. In the mean time he was just poking up through the country--he and his jackasses. Good way to spend the summer. Perhaps he might run across something 'most anywhere; up near the top of that mountain opposite looked mineralized. Didn't know but what he'd take a look at her to-morrow.
He camped near us during three days. I never saw a more modest, self-effacing man. He seemed genuinely, childishly, almost helplessly interested in our fly-fishing, shooting, our bear-skins, and our travels. You would have thought from his demeanor--which was sincere and not in the least ironical--that he had never seen or heard anything quite like that before, and was struck with wonder at it. Yet he had cast flies before we were born, and shot even earlier than he had cast a fly, and was a very Ishmael for travel. Rarely could you get an account of his own experiences, and then only in illustration of something else.
"If you-all likes bear-hunting," said he, "you ought to get up in eastern Oregon. I summered there once. The only trouble is, the brush is thick as hair. You 'most always have to bait them, or wait for them to come and drink. The brush is so small you ain't got much chance. I run onto a she-bear and cubs that way once. Didn't have nothin' but my six-shooter, and I met her within six foot."
"Me?" he inquired, surprised. "Oh, I just leaked out of th' landscape."
He prospected the mountain opposite, loafed with us a little, and then decided that he must be going. About eight o'clock in the morning he passed us, hazing his burros, his tall, lean figure elastic in defiance of years.
"So long," we responded heartily. "Be good to yourself."
He plunged into the river without hesitation, emerged dripping on the other side, and disappeared in the brush. From time to time during the rest of the morning we heard the intermittent tinkling of his bell-animal rising higher and higher above us on the trail.
In the person of this man we gained our first connection, so to speak, with the Golden Trout. He had caught some of them, and could tell us of their habits.