river, I had taken my canvas foldingboat, intending to fly-fish all the likely spots of this famous trout water. Very soon I had the boat geared, and with rod rightly arranged, was pushed off into the stream.

In this instance I was below the dam, and intended approaching as near as might be advisable, and anchoring, and altering positions to suit circumstances. A crowd had gathered on the shore and were taking in the situation with enjoyment, and I soon increased their admiration by boating a nice little twelveounce fish. Now, this dam was built for supplying a knitting and flour mill near by, and is not at all a formidable one, its fall not being more than ten feet; but at the time of which I am writing a very respectable volume of water was coming over, and there was one part, near the side, a swift and powerful undertow a fact of which I was yet unaware. Presently, however, a good fish rose to my Royal Coachman, and as I struck him and saw him plunge, I knew it was a two-pounder at least. How he did fight! And finally, finding I would have trouble in boating him, I determined to raise anchor and let the boat drift to the shallow water, where I could step out and accomplish the deed. The raising of the stone anchor I easily accomplished with one hand, and then prepared to manage the fish. As the boat drifted, however, I found she took a rather erratic course, which, being so light (seventy pounds

only) I attributed to the pressure I was putting on the fish. At all events I suddenly realized that we were in the undertow and rapidly approaching the dam's fullest rush of water. Once under that, and, with my heavy boots and other paraphernalia, I was doomed. I tried to row her free, but the hold of the stream was great. Still, I should have rescued her had not the light oar suddenly snapped. Then, when there was nothing else to do, I jumped, and, as fortune would have it, I escaped by some miraculous means the force of the deflecting current, and with nothing more than a good ducking and some excitement I swam to shore as best I could and was pulled out on terra firma.

And "what of the fish?" do you ask? I cannot tell a lie, as I said before; I didn't find it. It broke loose. But it weighed just two pounds seven ounces all the same. I am positive of that, for two months later I was fishing the dam of a flax-mill a mile lower down the same river. It was evening, and as the softwinged moths fluttered alongside my own artificial "White Miller," I "rose a fish and hooked him. Moreover, I landed him; and in his mouth was the remains of my identical "Royal Coachman" fly, lost at the upper dam in early season. (No one makes this fly just as I do.) This fish weighed two pounds seven ounces, exactly - that's why I am positive of the weight of the lost one.

W

'HEN comes Aprille with his showres sweete," chanted Dulcinea, "we will take a vacation. You shall leave your desk, I will cease embroidering, and we will 'Mix our blood with sunshine

And take the wind into our pulses." Thus spoke the oracle on the last night of March.

Next morning, accordingly, she sounded the whistle, which brought the dogs around us. Four of them responded; the greyhound, possessed of a passion for stepping over such obstacles as sheds and saplings rather than take the

trouble to go around them; a waterspaniel, grown fat and old in the family service, and seeming to the casual eye to be a cross between an opossum and an elephant; a black-and-tan, whose valor was out of all proportion to his size; and a cur, who was remarkable only for his gait, which a young woman, learned in these matters, described as a trot before and a gallop behind.

The dogs stood around in a circle while Dulcinea flipped the penny. Heads meant to the right, tails to the left. When we revolted from its commands, as we sometimes did, we gave it away to the ubiquitous small boy, a custom

which occasionally put us in the position of Frank Stockton's king, the chain of whose followers reached back to his palace doors.

On this occasion heads won-Dulcinea always tossed heads-and we sauntered on to the brook. Here, in earlier days, we had launched boats weighted with flowers and fancies; here we had angled with bent pins for the minnows which flirted in and out the eddies; and here we had learned to row and skate and almost to swim.

"Oh, memories!

Oh, past that is!"

The penny was forgot and we followed up the stream. Ah, here was the first water-cress; and we filled our hands with its spicy leaves, only to empty them at each fresh batch; for water-cress in its perfection grows far up stream. Behind the hill, where the anemones grow and the bloodroot lifts a snowy head in defiance of its name, a sycamore had fallen, and its smooth, white trunk stretched across the bank. Dulcinea sprang upon it, crossing and re-crossing, calling in sweetest tones to the dogs, one or two of whom fell in at each passage. But, alas for Dulcinea! Forgetting that to the swift belongs the spoil, she paused upon the slippery bridge, and, losing her balance, went to taste the joys which she had prepared for others. The dogs and I laughed to see the sport, while Dulcinea, like second ghost in Hamlet, stalked forth and was hurried home.

a

The expedition was not continued the next day, for a sudden north wind had blown a skin of ice over the water, and well-beaten paths seemed preferable. Dulcinea's star was in the ascendant, and her gayety undamped by the disagreeable task of oiling the tricycle. Over the smooth road we rolled, down the narrow sidewalk of the long hill the man at the foot always went to his stable when he saw us, ready to drive for the surgeon in case our wheels swerved two inches from their limited path-past the block where lived the eighteen children who always clamored like a Greek chorus for a ride or a penny, and into one of the busy streets.

Suddenly a cry of fire broke from a building opposite us, and congratulating ourselves upon our good luck in being on the spot, we turned into a deep doorway and awaited developments.

A

crowd sprang up, like toads after a rain, and skipped about with as little motive. Excited mothers threaded the throng with perambulators and screamed at the clatter of the approaching engine. Bells rang, horses reared, wagons were backed violently into side streets, and with a swoop and a thud the hose was unreeled and fastened to the hydrant. A moment after, the people about us surged forward, Dulcinea scrambled off her seat and basely retreated into the barber-shop, and I, turning, looked down the very mouth of the cannon. An instant and the ammunition of a broken hose descended upon me. You think it was pleasant, that cold day, with Dulcinea surreptitiously coaxing the greyhound to open his mouth in the grin which was a mark of his blue blood? .

Wednesday morning Dulcinea drove up in the cart, and I joined her, armed with a road-map which had been stealthily borrowed from the county clerk's office. We started forth, turning the map to match the vagaries of the road. This little creek, we discovered, possessed the euphonious name of Hog's Run, and joined forces with the river below to swell Lake Erie. This house belonged to John Smith, a fact of striking interest, and the same nabob owned the barns across the road. The fields were all mapped out, echoing with their outlots and in-lots the gerrymandering districts of the State. Meanwhile Bucephalus, left to his own sweet will, wandered from side to side of the road and narrowly escaped upsetting us into a convenient ditch. Bucephalus always reminds us of some people who walk the city streets. They approach by the outer edge of the sidewalk, but while you wink they bump into you next the building. You could forgive their lack of grace if only they would not wobble. Trollope somewhere describes a tar and his wife just landed from a long voyage and taking their first walk on land. Still propelled by sea-legs, they get out of step. They collide in the middle of the sidewalk, sway apart to the edges, and so meet and separate again until the spectator is dizzy with watching.

As we draw near our destination a woman dragging a child by the hand starts to cross the street before us. Knowing our steed's vagaries, Dulcinea draws him suddenly up. Meanwhile the woman has stopped in her course

and waits for us to pass. A moment's hesitation on both sides, when, just as we start forward, our opponent picks up courage and dashes under the horse's very nose. "Such is the feminine mind," I murmur, while Dulcinea reminds me of our last lunch in the city. "What kinds of soup have you?" I had asked the waiter. "Julienne, mock-turtle, celery, puree Then I calmly interrupted him, "I will take half a dozen fried oysters."

Our

We had a visitor the next day who incidentally informed us she was fond of walking. "You shall walk," we telegraphed from eye to eye, and with the refinement of hospitality decided upon a roundabout jaunt which we thought would reduce her proud spirit to becoming humility. She liked landmarks; we would show her landmarks. first objective point was a little hollow in a far-distant cornfield. A stone in the middle of it marked the boundary of an Indian reservation. Five fences beyond was a stump riddled with bullets in the war of 1812. Across that hill yonder was the road down which the hero of Tippecanoe brought his forces to the relief of the town. In the next village had been a battle celebrated in local annals. To each spot we led her and called upon her to admire. Exhausted ourselves, we at last sat upon some bowlders near a discarded limekiln and pondered upon the glacial theory, while our guest flung pebbles at a giant "nigger-head." "Manitoes Indian spirits-sometimes appear in the shape of animals," she remarked; "but more often they take the form of stones which, being broken, are found full of flesh and blood. You have dangerous seats, you two," and she laughed slyly. "Have you forgotten that I spent last summer in the Alps and could outwalk the whole party? For your sakes let us turn homeward.”

The event of the week occurred Friday. A dozen of us were to ride to a suburban resort for a breakfast of waffles and frogs' legs. Dulcinea was mounted on a beautiful mare, lent to her for the occasion, and looked complacently at my beast, which was handsome only in so far as he handsomely did. The roads were perfect and all nature a-smile. All went merry as a marriage-bell until, turning the lane toward our destination, we saw the path

spotted by a flock of geese. Did they behold in me the little girl who used to chase their ancestors with a view to quill feathers for popguns?—for a score of them drove madly at my horse's legs. We paused not upon the order of our going but went at once. A kick from behind, a leap into the air,

'And there, through the flush of the morning light,

A steed as black as the steeds of night
Was seen to pass as with eagle flight."

cinea! And as I gripped the pommel But who clattered alongside? Dulwith my knee I remembered the caution of the mare's owner: "She will follow any leader."

Down the road we saw

"How in a trice the turnpike men Their gates wide open threw," and the people on the piazza rushed out to see the race. Two miles beyond, the horses stopped of their own accord, docilely obeyed the rein to turn, and retraced their way. Fortunately, the sequel to John Gilpin was omitted, and we dropped off, shaken and disheveled, at the hotel porch.

Saturday, and our vacation almost gone! The freshly painted little skiff was slid down into the water, Dulcinea drew the rudder ropes about her-more effective reins than those of yesterday— and I pulled easily up the stream. The white trunks of the sycamores glistened against the blue sky; tenor and soprano duets from rapturous songsters filled the air, accompanied by the drum of the woodpecker, the cymbal of the frogs, the bass rumble of the falls below. Shadows chased each other along the cliff, which rose straight from the water; while on the other side, down broad iliputian steps, left in the sand by the receding water, the sandpipers stalked to their bath.

An old worm-fence wriggled down the bank to drink, and, running ashore, we found behind it a hillside of hepaticas, "one giant smile of the good brown earth." We felt rich and enlightened, to quote from James, and as if we had suddenly "put half the universe in our pockets.' Gathering our hands full of the woodsy darlings, we pushed off and floated down the stream, leaving a sweet wake behind us on the water, a trail of purple stars to guide us back some other spring to a week with nature.

TH

HE name Hell Gate Cañon naturally suggested scenery of the savage order, but was rather disappointing. Nothing about it suggests the narrow gorge, or gate, as it is really a beautiful valley, varying in width from one to two miles. It is about forty miles long, extending to the confluence of the Hell Gate and Big Blackfoot rivers, where it broadens into the valley of the Bitter Root. The scenery of the cañon is, as a whole, pleasing, and portions of it might be termed grand. Easy slopes of pine-covered mountains rise upon either side in graceful masses, varied here and there with sterner pictures where the grim rock-ribs of mountain bulks show bare and gaunt. Through the level of the valley winds the erratic river, a goodly stream, with many prettily wooded islets gemming its shining floods. On more than one of its tributaries the angler can find capital sport with the trout. The cañon has several important mills, the lumber of which finds a ready market in Butte. These mills and some mining operations comprise the main industries of the district. Near Carlan section-house I found my road closed by a padlocked gate, but the tollman cheerfully allowed me free passage in return for a brief description of my experiences and future intentions.

At the little station of Bonita I called a halt. I had covered fifty-one miles for the day, and felt ready to lay up. Hotel there was none, but I found some prosperous ranchers who, with true Western hospitality, offered to feed me and lodge me for the night. They were good fellows, and spared no effort to make me thoroughly comfortable.

A flawless morning found me astride my stanch steed, working westward down the cañon. I felt well, and was confident of enjoying a pleasant day, but later developments considerably marred my fun. As I progressed, many difficult stretches of road were found, stony, uneven bits which taxed the pneumatic severely. But such treatment only brought out its good points. More than once I almost despaired of getting through safely; but the good machine responded nobly to every demand, and, as the pugs say, "came up smiling" after every heavy blow, and twice after actual knockdowns.

At one point, where the road crawled high up the mountain - side, it was guarded by a low embankment of stones. Just how the crash came I don't exactly know-possibly I was scenery-gazing and riding a bit too carelessly. Suddenly the wheel drove into a lot of loose stones and swerved. I was too much surprised to straighten up, and the next instant wheel and rider struck the embankment, toppled over it like a steeplechaser and jockey falling over a jump, and away we went, end over end, crashing down the mountain side. I was more than scared, for the crashing of the wheel against the stones suggested terrible damage, and I was by no means certain where I'd bring up; but luckily I fouled some brush about thirty feet below the embankment, where, as I had hung for dear life to the wheel, I managed to check our mad career. Looking down, I could see where the wheel might have clattered away for fully half a mile, and no machine on earth could have made such a trip safely. With sore misgivings I dragged the wheel up to the road again and proceeded to