Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1894-06-09
A LONE FISHERMAN.
Tranquil Fishing, Donkeyback, His
Years of Adventure Round.

cars vi tAdV IbOulds
"The picture of man sitting on
burro in mid-stream, in the heart of
the southern Sierras miles from any
where, has nothing remarkable in ii"
said the naturalist; but when you con-
slider the burro as asleep, and the rider
holding u fishing line with one hand
and well-thumbed copy of Gdipus
with the other, which he is reading
through clouds of smoke from we'll
filled pipe, the scene takes on another
phase.
''Such man l met one day in the
great river of verdure known as the
Arroyo Scco, that winds away from
Los Angeles up through the San Gabriel
valley, entering the Sierras at Pasadena
of varied delights.
"'Senor - began.
Sebastian he replied, without
looking up.
"'Senor Sebastian I continued,
regret, in these solitudes, to be obliged
to inform you that you are infringinga a
patent right of mine
"'How SOP retorted Senor Sebastian,
glancing up from the book, which he
now dropped into the pocket of his cor
duroy coat.
"'In this 1 was the originator of
fishing on horseback
"Ahr said the senior, you may be
the inventor, but am the improver,
seeP' And for the first time l noticed
that the line was fastened to hole in
hov
ever observed said the fisherman, the
habits of the burro, or we will say his
head, you will have noticed that the
ears are always moving back and forth
It's lust the motion | want in fishing,
SO adopted it, and Sec
LAS he spoke the line stiffened out,
the burro's ear, or, to be exact, his
right ear, bent forward suddenly, and
the burro himself awoke with start.
"'Watch him. said the fisherman.
The burros eye had first settled on me
in an inquiring way, then realizing
that something was tugging at his ear,
he drew the member up to the hori-
zontal, at which the trout, for such it
was, left the water with bound, and
in its return drew the ear down again.
a. i ne DurrO HOW Seciueu W
all his energies in the contest, and the
ear gravitated between the upright and
the horizontal You see,' remarked
Senior Sebastian again, the burro plays
the fish, and L. suiting the action to
the word, pull him in And, with the.
air of the philosopher he was, the
speaker unlocked the trout, dropped it
into pocket of his coat, and having
impaled fresh worm and cast the line,
the fisherman felt for his QGdipus, and
the burro fell asleep.
81 deem it, continued the senior,
after relighting his pipe, the privilege,
If not the duty, of man to take life at
the normal angle, or as near it as pos
sible; in other words, take solid COM
fort l have seen the hard side of it
right in sight of these mountains. !
came here forty years ago, when the
whole country was sheep ranch.
walked across the Mojave desert in Au-
gust, and see now they find men dead
who have tried it. Yes, l was after
gold and adventure, and got BOTH
:" 1T came about in this way and the
senior, getting no further bites, rolled
up his line and joined me on the trail
up the arroyo Il was living in Santa
Fe in the fifties, trading mostly, and
one night man rushed into the saloon
where was and said man was dying
and wanted to see n priest / was q
Catholic andsthe next best thing, so
went along. You know where the old
palace is to-day in Santa Fe? Well, he
took me down street back of that,
and in an old adobe found man, a
half breed, with death in his face. He
had been stabbed in brawl an hour
before, and was so near gone that /
didn't have the heart to tell him was
not a priest. He sent the others out
of the room, then bade me lock the
door, and with his mouth to my ear
told me to remember what he said He
had been bad man, had killed sew
eral men, and wanted to do something
to eXpate his crime. SO told his secret
to the church. He told me to pull OFF
I.is belt, which / did, and in it was
a row of some of the biggest chunks
of gold | ever saw in this coun.
try. In another part was an old piec e
of sheepslsin, and on it map, rude
but good enough, of these very noun
tains. He said that he and two Others
b.ad discovered a valuable placer in the
mouth of canyon where you could
pick up pieces like those, and confessed
that he hao killed his partners to gel
control of it all. The murder was
done on the desert at Coyote Springs
and after he had covered the bodies il
the sand he started back to the placer
lie got there at night. Said he: =
don't know how 1T happened, but tn,
next knew found myself in a herd
er's cabin, and he said he found mi