Along the banks of the river were thickets of peach-leaf willows, fragrant balsam poplars, and cottonwood trees, with their cottony tufts of seeds. Lark sparrows were singing, and willow thrushes with mellow flutelike notes. A little bird called “black-breast” by the Indians (horned lark) ran along the ground ahead of our horses. It sang at all times, through the heat of midday and even at night. On the prairie he would spring from the grass and soar into the air. Then extending his wings he would sink slowly to the ground, always against the wind, hovering like a butterfly and singing his cheerful rippling song like that of the English linnet. But the most wonderful of all the birds was the soaring song of the Missouri skylark. At first I could not see them. They sang so high in the air, they were like specks in the blue sky. Their sweet strains came from overhead like a song from heaven. When several skylarks were singing, the air was filled with the tender strains. Then, after hovering awhile, they closed their wings and pitched to the ground to hide themselves in the long grass. CHAPTER XXII OUR CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS We camped in a broad and sunny valley, with lovely grassy meadows, groups of firs and tapering spruces; where clear streams of ice-cold water wound their way through thickets of alder and willows. Across a lake was a snow-capped peak, with foaming cataracts falling over timbered cliffs, and a hanging valley where the slopes of two mountains met in a massive rock wall. That evening the fish were rising in the lake. After picketing my horse, I lost no time in getting out my rod and fly-book to fish the outlet, where the current was broad and swift. From a high bank at the mouth I made my first cast. The water was clear and many fish in sight, darting hither and thither over a bottom of clean sand and gravel, with pebbles of many shapes and colors shining in the sunlight. Soon I had a strike. My line tightened and there came a holding back, a palpitation of the rod. Then a big tail flashed in the sunlight and thrashed the surface. It was an open river with good going along the shore. I gave my fish plenty of line and held him in the current. Before long I had a four-pound Dolly Varden flopping on the pebbly shore. I caught several Dolly Vardens, and then a double catch of brook trout, a two-pound and a one-pound fish. My largest brook trout weighed three pounds. We pitched our lodges near the lake, in a meadow where wild geranium and blue camas were in bloom. Little Creek and his wife were in one of the tepees, Onesta and Nitana and their small daughter Yellow Mink in the other. I slept outside under a pine tree and on the shore of the lake. Overhead were the feathery arms of the tree, with clusters of cones at the ends of the branches. The ground was covered with fragrant pine needles, piles of cone scales and shells where the squirrels had been feasting.