On the Border with Crook

by John G. Bourke

They differed also from the Apaches in being very fond of fish; the Apaches could not be persuaded to touch anything with scales upon it, or any bird which lived upon fish; but the Shoshones had more sense, and made the most of their opportunity to fill themselves with the delicious trout of the mountain streams. They did not bother much about hooks and lines, flies, casts, and appliances and tricks of that kind, but set to work methodically to get the biggest mess the streams would yield. They made a dam of rocks and a wattle-work of willow, through which the water could pass without much impediment, but which would retain all solids. Two or three young men would stay by this dam or framework as guards to repair accidents. The others of the party, mounting their ponies, would start down-stream to a favorable location and there enter and begin the ascent of the current, keeping their ponies in touch, lashing the surface of the stream in their front with long poles, and all the while joining in a wild medicine song. The frightened trout, haying no other mode of escape, would dart up-stream only to be held in the dam, from which the Indians would calmly proceed to take them out in gunny sacks. It was not very sportsmanlike, but it was business.