The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1894-08-03
A LONE FISHERMAN.
Tranquil Fishing, Donkeyback, His
Years of Adventure Round.

The picture of a man sitting on a
Durro in mid-stream, in the heart of
the southern Sierras, miles from any
where has nothing remarkable in it. :"
said he naturalist; but when you con
slider the burro as asleep, and the rider
holding a fishing line with one hand
and a weli-thumb.d copy of Elipus
| with the other, which he is reading
through clou Is of smoke from u we'll
filled pipe, the scene takes on another
phase.
such a man l met one day in the
great river of verdure known as the
Arroyo Seco. that winds away from
Los Angeles up through the San Gabriel
valley, entering the Sierras at Pasadena
and for mites passing thrn Ugh a region
of varied delights.
'''Senor - began.
Sebastian he replied, without
looking up.
"'Senor Sebastian / continued i
regret, in these solitudes, to be obliged
to inform you hat you are infringing
patent right of mine
How SOP retorted Senior Sebastian
glancing up from the book, which he
now dropped into the pocket of his cor
dur"y coat.
In this: l was the originator of
fishing on horse back.
"'Ahr said the senior, you may be
the inventor, but | am the improver,
see? And for the first time | noticed
that the line was fastened to hole in
the tip of the burrO's ear. If you have
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 just the motion | want in fishing,
SO ! adopted it, and see
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 a start
Watch him. said the fisherman.
The burro's eye had first settled on me
in an inquiring way, then realizing
that sonnet hing was tugging at his ear,
he drew the member up to the horl-
zontuI, at which the trout, for such 1T
was, left the water with a bound, and
in its return drew the ear down again
The burro now seemed to concentrate
all his energies in the contest, and the
ear rravitatei between the upright and
the horizontal You see remarked
Seuor 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 1t
into "A pocket of his coat, and having
impaled u fresh worm and cast the line,
the fisherman felt for his Edipus, and
| the burro fell asleep.
~ 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 1t as pos
| sible; in other words, take solid com
| fort. | have seen the hard side of 1t
right in sight of these mountains L
| came here forty years ago, when the
whole country was n sheep ranch. L
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
mp the arroyo. Il was living in Santa
/ Fe in the fifties, trading mostly, and
| one night a man rushed into the saloon
| where was and said man was dying
| and wanted to see priest l was a
| Catholic and the next best thing, SO |
|
| palace is to-day in Santa Fe? Well, he
| took me down a street back OF that,
and in an old adobe found a man, a
| half breed, with @!eath 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 l was
| not a priest He sent the others out
of the room, then bade me lock the
! n mn lar
| told me to remember what he said He
| had been bad man, had killed sew
eral men, and wanted to do something
! To expiate his crime, SO told his secret
to the church He told me to pull of
! his belt, which | did, and i'll 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 sheepsl1In, and on it a map, rude,
| but good enough, of these very noun
/ tains. lie said that he and two Others
| had discovered n valuable placer in the
| mouth of a canyon where you could
| pick up pieces like those, and confessed
that he had killed his partners to get
| control of il all. The murder was
| done on the desert at Coyote Springs,
! and after he had covered the bodies IN
| the sand he started back to the placer.
| lie got there at night Said he: i
| don't know how it happened, but the
| next 1 knew | found myself in a herd
er's cabin, and he said he found me
| crazy on the desert. | got better and
| never went back to the place, but
| want to leave the gold to the church
took the map, then wrote down the
directions, and to prove his story he
| told mo herr. he had buried the men.
and made me promise to erect cross
over them
"'Well,' continued the senior. after
| a short pause. the man died, and a few
days later l started for the Sierra: