“Keep ’em on good feed, and keep ’em away from the common cattle,” Cap Hanks had ordered him. Fred did not neglect his duty, but he found many hours when the cattle herded themselves. While they rested during midday or browsed on the open flat, he had time to fish, to hunt chickens, to explore the wilds, or when tired, to throw himself on the grassy banks near the stream and enjoy “Scottish Chiefs” or the “Leather Stocking Tales,” which Dan, who was a lover of good books, had generously lent to him. Hanks rather admired the boy for his book habits, but in practical fashion he had warned him not to lose his head “fightin’ imaginary Injuns” and lose his cows. “It’s all right, boy,” he said, “to hev your head in the clouds sometimes, but allus keep your feet on the ground.” His fishing and hunting the foreman not only condoned but encouraged, especially after Fred had brought in his first big string of salmon trout. Straightway the boy, on motion of Pat, was “illected chief fisherman fer the ranch,” and excused from haying, herding, or any other regular job so long as he kept the cook supplied “wid the spickled beauties.” So fishing came to be regarded as part of Fred’s business. Dick insinuated occasionally that the kid had “a soft snap”; but nobody else complained, and no one even guessed half the fun that Fred was having. The splendid mountain stream was a never-ending delight. He followed it in all its crystal windings, over gravelly beds, where the trout loved to play, through shadowy, quiet depths, where the fish slept on silken fins; he learned all its windings through the cottonwood and aspen groves, around the willowy bends, and the meadowy stretches. The stream was always clear, sparkling, teeming with wild life, full of pleasant and sometimes unpleasant surprises. Often as he slipped quietly toward a trout hole, half holding his breath for fear of scaring the fish, he himself would get a scare as a great sand hill crane or a blue heron would give a startled cry and go thrashing its wings to rise and sail away. Once as he swung hurriedly around a curve of willows to come suddenly upon a kind of bayou, a thousand ducks shocked the air with startled quacking and splashing and whir of wings. Many a time he came upon a fantailed deer, which, rudely roused from its rest, would leap to its feet and, giving one wild look, bound away to a willowy cover. But trout fishing was the best sport of all. The fish were plentiful, but they were just game enough to keep a fisherman’s wits alive. Oh, the fun of it!--to cast the singing line, to watch the tempting fly skim the ripples, to see the trout leap and grab it, and then with breath-taking suspense, to land him--sometimes! And oh the disappointment that often came when some beauty--always the biggest--would suddenly flip free of the biting hook and dive back into the quiet depths to safety.