to their rest; among them my earliest and trusted guide, who knew more of woodcraft and of angling than any man I ever met. But George Morse now sleeps his last sleep in the Soldier's Cemetery at Washington, where his resting-place is marked by a simple head-stone, reared to his memory by his old friend, Gen. Spinner, who was "one of us" during this first visit, and whose genial humor and happy ways rendered that particular excursion, extending from Boonville to Potsdam, ever-memorable. The General seldom fished during the trip, except for minnows as bait for others. His delight was to gather ferns and leaves and mosses and shells and geological specimens with which to adorn his home cabinet. And this habit, with all his exhausting labors as treasurer of the United States, he has kept up from that day to this. Those who visit his private office in the treasury building at Washington will find its walls lined with beautiful clusters of these treasures of nature, all of his own gathering. They mark the simple tastes and habits of the man through whose hands hundreds of thousands of millions have passed during the last twelve years without a single dollar adhering unlawfully to his fingers. Would he be what he is in the responsible office he holds had he not first acquired the simple habits of an honest angler? His jealous care of his responsible trust now pre

vents him from visiting the North Woods; but he still "goes a-fishing." There are few points on the Potomac, within easy reach of Washington, where he has not angled. This, with his daily botanising, is his only recreation. He is an enthusiastic lover of nature, and, in his moments of leisure, takes great delight in discoursing of fish and fishing. When he goes to his long home, the people will lose an honest and diligent servant, and the fraternity of anglers an appreciative and genial companion.

It was during this first visit to these rapids that the pretty conceit was dissipated that the angler who had the greatest variety of flies stood the best chance of success. It had been my pride to exhibit my fly-book to wondering admirers, and to pass glowing eulogies upon the artistic skill of McBride, of Caledonia, whose deft manipulation of silk and feather made him in those days famous wherever delicate angling was a recognized accomplishment. There was no fly which his observation had ever suggested or his imagination ever conceived, of which I had not samples. Many of them were the most perfect imitations possible of the prolific productions of nature, but others, in their gorgeous beauty, might have been worshipped without trenching upon the limits of idolatry. Yet they were all labeled taking flies in their sea

son! When I had faith in the idea that all luck depended upon the use of exactly the right fly for the time and the occasion-for early morning and for the close of day, for sunshine and shade, for fair weather and foul, for still water and rapids, for shallow water and pools, for river and brook, and for this and for that interminably,-I was kept pleasantly busy two-thirds of my time hunting for the right fly to take trout where no trout lay to be taken.

On first reaching these rapids many years ago, it chanced that I had lost my leader by carelessly using my fly-line as a troll through the still water. A large fish had taken one of the flies when I expected no such visitor, and by a careless movement of my rod, fish, leader and fly incontinently retired in indissoluble union, to come back to me no more forever. My tackling was in a boat far in the rear, and I had no patience, with the inviting rapids and promising eddies before me, to await its coming. I had "in my mind's eye, Horatio," just the dazzling ibis I wished to use. I was sure that that and nothing else would bring abundant grist to my mill. But I had no ibis, and was about to give up in sullen silence, and await the arrival of the tardy rear guard for what I deemed to be indispensable to success, when my guide suggested a combination of red and blue flannel as a substitute.

He had the red and I had the blue. An ordinary fish-hook, a penknife and a few twists of silk did the business. The extemporized fly was made up, adjusted, cast and taken as quickly as I have told the story, and far more successfully. The red and blue flannel lure, and the half score of trout I took with it, dissipated all my fine fancies about gorgeous flies, and ultimately reduced my fly-book to a half dozen varieties suitable for spring or summer, shady or sunny days and shallow or deep water. But even these are practically reduced to two or three, notably the brown and black hackle, the red ibis, the miller for evening, and, for very swift, deep water, a large purple and red nondescript. And yet I would advise all experts to keep a well-filled fly-book. It is a pleasure to experiment, and the educated eye takes delight in looking at the variety of colors, shapes and forms which the skilled workman in fly-art has provided as lures for the speckled beauties.

CHAPTER XXX.

FISHING AT SETTING POLE RAPIDS TWO NOTE

WORTHY INCIDENTS.

PISCATOR, Jr.- To come to this fine stream at the head of this great pool, you must venture over these slippery, cobbling stones. Believe me, sir, there you were nimble or else you were down! But now you are got over, look to yourself; for on my word, if a fish rise here, he is like to be such a one as will endanger your tackle. How now!

VIATORI think you have such command here over the fishes, that you can raise them by your hand as they say conjurors can do spirits and afterward make them do what you bid them; for here's a trout has taken my fly! I had rather have lost a crown. What luck's this! He was a lovely fish, and turned up a side like a salmon !-[Charles Cotton.

HE excitement of angling increases with the risks incurred. There is but very little pleasure in taking a three-pound trout upon a twopound rod, with a No. 9 bait hook and a line strong enough for a shark. Such angling requires neither art nor skill. But a threepound trout on a tiny fly-hook attached to a gossamer leader and line, the whole depending from an eight-ounce