eyes on the scene up the valley. I told him I would get out his things, and proceeded to do so. As he went to work he said, "I must get a study in colors; it will take me fifteen minutes!" He said nothing more. It was indeed a notable, a wonderful view. In addition to the natural topographic features of the scene, storm-clouds were sweeping across the great chasm from north-west to south-east. The northwest wall is serrated-a saw-tooth edge with sharp pinnacles and spires and masses of broken granite-and the clouds were so low that they were being torn and riven by these points. Eddies of wind from the great chasm following up the face of the cliff were again caught in the air-current at its crest and drove the broken clouds in rolling masses through the storm-drift. From the clouds sweeping across the gorge, rain, and large, soft hailstones were falling. Rays of sunlight were breaking through the broken, ragged clouds and lighting up in moving streaks the falling storm. On the left a great, black mountain face of smooth, unbroken granite, down which ribbons of water from the last hard shower were flowing and reflecting back the sunshine. Bierstadt worked as though inspired. Nothing was said by either of us. At length the sketch was finished to his satisfaction. The glorious scene was fading as he packed up his traps. He asked: "There, was I more than fifteen minutes?" I answered: "Yes, you were at work forty-five minutes by the watch!"

We resumed the march and soon

reached the foot of the lake. Bierstadt wanted to cross over the valley and make a sketch from a certain point that he indicated, so I took charge of all the animals and passed up along the north side of the lake to its head and made camp. After getting things in shape I started fishing. I could see plenty of them, but failed to catch any except one small specimen. They would not take a fly or anything else I had to offer. I worked along down to the outlet, which is through a smooth, lawn-like meadow by a number of narrow and tangled channels. They are from one to two feet wide and a foot to eighteen inches deep. The water flows gently through them, over beds of small, clean gravel, and it is as transparent as the air above. In these narrow ditches were scores of beautiful trout from ten to fourteen inches long lazily fanning themselves and enjoying the prospect. They would not look at my lures, much less take them. I exhausted both ingenuity and patience and then gave it up. I walked over to

where Bierstadt was at work and told him it was time to go to camp; also told him that I had failed to catch any trout and we would have to eat sardines. As we walked across the meadow I showed him the trout in the outlet. He looked at them a little while, and admired them of course. Then he said, "I'll see if I can catch some." I laughed at him, and here comes in the fish story at which the reader will laugh, but it is the truest fish story you ever heard or read:

Bierstadt took from his pocket a com

LONG'S PEAK, FROM ESTES PARK, COLO., ON THE LINE OF THE UNION PACIFIC R. R.

He

bination table fork and knife, made for camp use; he detached them, and, taking the fork (which was five or six inches long when opened) in his right hand, dropped down beside the stream on his knee and began fishing. would put his hand in the water near a fish and move it along gently until he touched the fish, when with a sudden motion he would pin it to the bottom or bank with the fork. It was so easy and certain that after a few captures he put the fork in his pocket and caught them with his naked hand. Sometimes he would touch the fish with the ends of his fingers and rub it back and forth very gently for quite at little time before seizing it. The fish appeared to enjoy the sensation and would lean up against his fingers. I called it "tickling them out of the water." In this way he caught, in a few minutes, I think, eighteen. Having plenty for supper and breakfast, we went to camp. That night after sundown the trout began biting, and I had no trouble in keeping the camp supplied during the remainder of our stay, which was three or four days. We lived almost exclusively on trout, and when we left threw the provisions we had carried with us into the lake. These were just common, plain, Rocky Mountain trout, with black and orange spots and crimson blushes.

Mr. Bierstadt worked industriously during our stay, making many sketches in pencil and studies in oil-these latter in order to get the colors and shade. I caught easily all the fish we could.

more.

Mr.

eat, and there was no object in taking We climbed to the upper lake, and eventually to the crest of the rim of the upper basin and to Summit Lake, and beyond that to the summit of the highest snowy peak in the group, which Bierstadt named "Mount Rosa," after one of the loftiest summits of the Alps. The return journey to Idaho Springs and thence to Denver was uneventful. Bierstadt soon went home to New York, and in a little over two years had finished his great picture of "A Storm in the Rocky Mountains." Probably few people are aware that the subject, or a part of it, is visible from the streets of Denver every time we look upward at the nearest group of snow-capped peaks. In the winter of 1885-6 the painting was placed on exhibition in New York in the Dusseldorf Gallery, and the proceeds from admission were donated to the relief of destitute soldiers' orphans. It attracted great attention and endless criticism. Its only rival in public estimation was Church's "Heart of the Andes," then in a private gallery in New York. Critics traveled back and forth between them, but the final award was to the "Storm," because of the admirable manner in which the atmospheric effects were treated and the perfection of its detail. Soon after the picture went to Paris to a World's Exposition, where it was almost immediately sold for $20,000. Mr. Bierstadt has recently completed another great picture entitled "The Last of the Buffalo."

WILLIAM NEWTON BYERS.

JAMES HODGES is the senior partner of the long established and widely known importing and wholesale dry goods firm of Hodges Brothers, of Baltimore. He was born in Kent County, Md., on the 11th of August, 1822, at Liberty Hall, the homestead of his family for six generations. His father, James Hodges, of Liberty Hall, was a farmer of the old Maryland type, genial and generous in disposition and hospitable to a fault. He represented his native county in the Legislature of Maryland in the sessions of 1823 and 1824. His mother was Mary Hanson Ringgold, daughter of Dr. William Ringgold, of White Hall, and Martha Hanson. His paternal grandparents were James Hodges of Liberty Hall, and Mary Claypoole. James Hodges was descended from William Hodges, a member of the English church, of Kentish parentage, who came to Maryland from Virginia about the year 1665, and settled on a tract of land lying between Gray's Inn Creek and the Chesapeake Bay, known as Liberty Hall, and which continued in the ownership of the Hodges family for about one hundred and seventy-five years. His mother, Mary Hanson Ringgold, was descended from Thomas Ringgold, who settled in Kent in 1650, and “was

appointed one of the justices of the county as early as ye 12th of January, 1651." The pedigrees of the Hodges and Ringgold families are recorded in full in Hanson's "Old Kent of Maryland." Concerning the Ringgolds, Davis, in "The Day-Star of American Freedom," page 194, says, "for a period of more than two hundred years the Ringgolds have been one of the leading families of Maryland. They are distinguished in the history of our colonization and of the early provincial commerce upon the Chester. At the period of the American Revolution, they were conspicuous for their patriotism. They have been represented in the Hall of Congress and on the field. of battle." In "Old Kent of Maryland," page 310, the following reference is made to the ancestors of Mary Claypoole Hodges: "Mary Claypoole Hodges was descended from James Claypoole, a notable personage at the time of the founding of Philadelphia in 1683, and the author of several books and pamphlets, published during the early period of that city, now in the Friends' Library on Arch Street. James Claypoole was 'an admired friend of William Penn, the Quaker' long before his emigration to America. He was the son of Adam Claypoole, Esq., who