Some of the buttes sloped up from the very edge of
the river; others were separated from the river by low flats, covered
with sage-brush and bunch-grass,--that nutritious food of the range
stock. At the water's edge was the usual fringe of willows,
cottonwoods, and shrubs innumerable,--all mirrored in the limpid
surface of Green River.
At the foot of the cliffs were a number of wild burros, old and
young--fuzzy little baby-burros, looking ridiculously like
jack-rabbits--snorting their indignation at our invasion of their
privacy. Strange, by the way, how quickly these wild asses lose their
wildness of carriage when broken, and lapse into the utmost docility!
Just below the Chimneys Emery caught sight of fish gathered in a deep
pool, under the foliage of a cottonwood tree which had fallen into the
river. Our most tempting bait failed to interest them; so Emery, ever
clever with hook and line, "snagged" one just to teach them better
manners. It was a Colorado River salmon or whitefish. That evening I
"snagged" a catfish and used this for salmon bait, a fourteen-pound
specimen rewarding the attempt.
These salmon were old friends of ours, being found from one end to the
other of the Colorado, and on all its tributaries. They sometimes
weigh twenty-five or thirty pounds, and are common at twenty pounds;
being stockily built fish, with large, flat heads. They are not gamey,
but afford a lot of meat with a very satisfying flavour.
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