o' Shanter" and "Cotter's Saturday Night," in a most admirable manner, to the great delight of the venerable Scotch matron of the household and "ithers o' that ilk" who were present. The Judge also delighted every one by his good-humored rendering of that classically pathetic ballad, "Sam Jones, the fisherman," while DUN brought tears to the eyes of his susceptible audience by artistically chanting that profoundly plaintive ditty:

"On Springfield mountains there did dwell,
A comely youth I knew full well,"-

which "comely youth," it may be remembered, having been cruelly jilted, wandered off brokenhearted to die ignominiously from the bite of “a pesky sarpent."

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In reportorial parlance, "nothing occurred to mar the festivities of the occasion," and all retired at an early hour the happier for having participated in the innocent hilarity of the evening.

CHAPTER XIX.

A SEARCH AFTER SOLITUDE.

How use doth breed a habit in a man!
The shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,

I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.

-[Shakspeare.

It may be laid down as a position which will seldom deceive, that when a man cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong.-[Dr. Johnson.

AVING fished all the pools in the neighborhood of our main camp, I fancied that I could enjoy myself for a little while in a somewhat more primitive manner, alone, fishing some famous pools ten or twelve miles higher up the river. For, to tell the truth, our luxurious surroundings hardly comported with my early education in wood-craft, or with my ideas of the material elements which should enter into the camplife of those who were even ostensibly "roughing it." Our commissary had assured us that it would. be good for our general health to "live low on the river." But what a strange conception he had of

low living! Delicious bacon, smoked ham, broiled salmon, fried trout, with occasional broiled spring chickens, tea and coffee, and oat-meal porridge with cream for breakfast! Canned ox-tail, chicken or turtle soup, with boiled salmon, roast or stewed lamb (fresh from a neighboring flock), plumb-pudding, with divers jellies, olives and pickles for dinner, and similar "rough" provender for our evening meal! Superadded to all this, tidy tents, with beds that wooed slumber like the music of the spheres, and thirty-pound salmon within casting distance, waiting to be "taken in out of the wet!" Can any of my old Adirondack companions wonder that I longed to exchange this sort of "rough life for a day or two of fried pork and hard tack, a bark shanty and no conventionalities? And my Indian guide was quite as ready for the change as myself, in spite of the ten miles of hard pushing that was before him, and the assurance (which his past experience afforded him) that I would give him no rest during the expedition.

We left camp at eight o'clock, polled two miles and killed two salmon before half-past nine. It was an auspicious beginning, and the day closed with the capture of two more after we reached our destination, although six of the ten hours I was on the water were consumed in making the journey. The "Upper Camp," as it is called, was not hap

pily chosen

It is pitched on a sandy promontory, closely enveloped on three sides by a dense jungle, from which a nervous sojourner might expect at any hour of the night a bear, wild-cat or moose to emerge. But it affords a perfect shelter from the winds, which often sweep down through the gorges of the mountains with fearful fury. It did so elsewhere on the river during my first night alone. At the main camp, the tornado was so severe that tents and shanties were in danger, and were only saved from demolition with the greatest difficulty; and it was as cold as it was tempestuous. But in my sheltered nook all was as quiet as if but a zephyr, instead of old Boreas, was dallying with the green leaves above me, and I sat in solitary state before my camp-fire in summer garments, while my friends ten miles off were pitying me for the discomforts I must be experiencing in my unsheltered cabin! So it is. Half the sympathy we expend upon others is wasted, either because the ills feared do not come to them, or because "the darkest cloud always has its silver lining."

These two days of isolation passed away very pleasantly. The weather was superb, the scenery magnificent and the sport all that I could desire. Only a single incident occurred worth special mention. In slowly drifting through an unpropitious looking pool, I made a cast or two at a venture,

and unexpectedly hooked a fish of some twelve or fifteen pounds. As the canoe was moving when he rose, I struck him awkwardly, but he was fairly hooked. He showed his metal from the start. His first run nearly emptied my reel, and for half an hour he engaged in more curious pranks than any fish I had ever encountered. He literally "boxed the compass," and by his eccentric movements kept the canoe and myself in a perpetual whirl. I never had hold of a fish which seemed more determined to escape. The only possible way to prevent the line from running out was to follow him up, which we did, of course; but this required incessant "reeling in "an exhausting piece of work, which becomes rather monotonous after a while. Tired and a little nervous, with the canoe and fish in constant motion, I was not prepared for the series of leaps which followed in such rapid succession as to be quite bewildering. One of these was of such unusual height that I was startled and neglected to lower my rod at the right moment. As a result he tore off! He had earned his liberty; and it seemed so impossible to master him that I scarcely regretted his escape.

I have, I believe, in a former chapter said something about the difficulty of acquiring the art necessary to save a leaping fish. There is seldom any danger in the ascent, because the line is then