To ascend Mount Tamalpais on foot, following the railroad, is not a difficult task, and is well worth the effort, for then you can take time to enjoy the varied views that burst upon your vision at each turn of the road, and linger as long as you like over each choice bit of scenery.  As you descend you feel that the day upon the mountain has been a day of vision and of beauty.

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Bear Creek

Over the second range of hills that shut in San Francisco Bay on the east is a delightful little trout brook known as Bear Creek.  With my camera, a frugal lunch, and an assortment of trout flies carefully stowed away in my knapsack, I started in quest of this little stream that follows the windings of the canon.

If bears had ever inhabited this locality, and posed as its godfathers, they had long since disappeared, and many years had passed since they had slaked their thirst with its sparkling waters.  Only the name remained to remind one of other days, and one name is as good as another to a trout brook.

My object was not so much to tempt the speckled trout with gaudy fly from quiet pool or swirling riffle, as to follow the windings of the stream, and spy out the quiet nooks, where the sun comes filtering through the trees, dappling the water; or resting in the shadows where the thick foliage defies its penetrating rays, and spreads a somber hue on mossy rock or bed of ferns.  At one place, perhaps a rod from the margin of the brook, was a sort of amphitheater among the trees, where nature had been prodigal with her colors, touching the woods in spots here and there with ocher, umber, and vermilion.  She had even brushed with scarlet many of the shrubs and vines, until they glowed with a warm color against the green background.

The pine trees had shed their needles, making a carpet soft as velvet, where woodland elves might revel or the god Pan practice upon his pipes, laughing nymphs dancing to the music.

Is there anything in nature more companionable than a mountain brook?  It has its moods both grave and gay, and is as fickle as a schoolgirl.  At times it chuckles at you in a musical undertone as you walk along its banks, and again it seems to warn you from trespassing on its preserves, scolding in a shrill falsetto as it dodges under the roots of a fallen tree, or dives among the lilypads, as if to hide from your sight.  But when it swirls down the eddy, and comes to rest by an overhanging rock, where the shadows are dark and the water deep, its song is hushed, as if in fear of disturbing the wary trout that lie in hiding in the depths of the pool.

[Illustration:  Where the shadows are dark]

This is a likely place for fish, and I put my rod together and cast my flies, dropping them as lightly as a thistledown, and using all my skill, but no trout rise to my lure; this is evidently their day off, or my flies are too palpable a subterfuge to tempt a self-respecting trout.