It is fifty-one miles from the foot of Lake Chelan to its head, and with each mile as one goes north the scenery grows more beautiful. The mountains at the lower end of the lake rise to a height of three or four thousand feet, while at the upper end they tower nine thousand feet almost precipitously from the water. The water of the lake is clear and blue, the mountains crowd upon it in their silent majesty, the air is clean and refreshing. On some still morning when the winds do not disturb the bosom of the lake, nature is at its best. In the lake we saw pictures that cannot be reproduced by any skill of man; miles of flawless mirror in which mountains and crags and trees and clouds were reproduced with matchless fidelity. Sometimes the clouds hung for hours over the summits of the mountains, and here and there were great masses of snow which no summer heat could banish. Looking up the valley of the Stehekin towards the north, twenty-five miles away rises a huge mountain, down the side of which a giant glacier makes its way. And the best of all is that here one is “far from the madding crowd.” At the head of the lake is a hotel and a fish hatchery; no store, no factory, not even a Chautauqua. It has taken a long time to get to the cut-throats, but we have arrived at last. The books on fishing assure one that the cut-throat “takes the artificial fly greedily,” and all the way the right arm has been fairly tingling with anxiety to begin casting. Alas! and again alas! The hotel clerk says that it is too early for the fly; we must use bait or a spoon. It is the old story over again. Did you ever travel far to a famous fishing ground and find the conditions just right? It is always too early or too late, the water is too high or too low, something is the matter which effectually prevents the best sport. But the man who has lugged a bundle of fly-rods to the church convention that he might use them on Lake Chelan is slow to believe that all his enterprise has been in vain. He will give them a try before abandoning hope. Behold him, then, whipping patiently on the edge of sand bars, in the swift water, under over-hanging bushes, in the shadows of great rocks, here, there, everywhere except on the board walk and the roof of the hotel; but so far as results are concerned he might as well have cast his flies in State Street, Chicago. Nothing doing; not even the feeblest answer to his invitation. Meanwhile a fellow-boarder is fishing with bait, using a bamboo pole about sixteen feet long and derricking fish in with a regularity that is equalled only by his evident ignorance of all the fundamental principles of true sport. But he gets the fish. If one is fishing for market he may use a telegraph pole or a net; but if he has in him something of the temper of the famous Izaak, fishing is more than meat. He loves the water and the sky, is made captive by the beauty of stream and mountain, delights to pit his wits against those of the wary