There was a few minutes' silence, and then Mr. Dickey said impatiently, "We're all ready, Uncle Jabez. Why don't you fire away, so's to be through by ten o'clock?"

"I was a-thinkin' which one I'd best tell him," said Uncle Jabez mildly. "They're all convincin' to a mind that's open to convincement, but I'd like to pick out the one that's most so."

"There's the one about Alviry Pratt's grandfather," suggested Mr. Crumlish encouragingly.

"No," mused the old man. "I've no doubt of that myself, but then it didn't happen to me in person, and I've a notion he'd rather hear one I've experienced than two I've heard tell of."

"Of course I would, Uncle Jabez," said Mr. Birchard kindly, but with an amused twinkle in his eyes. "You take your own time: it's only just struck nine, and there's no hurry at all."

"Supposin' I was to tell him that one about my first wife?" said the old man presently, and with an inquiring look around the circle.

Several heads were nodded approvingly, and Mr. Crumlish said, "The very one I'd 'a' chosen myself if you'd ast me."

Thus encouraged, Uncle Jabez, with a sort of deliberate promptness, began: "We married very young, Lavina and me,—too young, some said, but I never could see why, for I had a good farm, with health and strength to carry it on, and she was a master-hand with butter and cheese. At any rate, we thriv; and if we had plenty of children, there was plenty for 'em to eat, and they grew as fast as everything else did. She wasn't what you'd fairly call handsome, Lavina wasn't, but she was pleasant-appearin', very,—plump as a pa'tridge, with nice brown hair and eyes and a clean-lookin' skin. But it was her smile in particular that took me; and when she set in to laugh you couldn't no more' help laughin' along with her than one bobolink can help laughin' back when he hears another. She was the tenderest-hearted woman that ever breathed the breath of life: she couldn't bear to hurt the feelin's of a cat, and she'd go 'ithout a chicken-dinner any day sooner'n kill a chicken. As time passed on and she begun to age a little, she grew stouter 'n' stouter; but it didn't seem to worry her none. She'd puff and blow a good bit when she went up-stairs, but she'd always laugh about it, and say that when we was rich enough we'd put in an elevator, like they had at a big hotel we saw once. It would suit her fine, she said, to set down on a cushioned seat and be up-stairs afore she could git up again. Now, you needn't think I'm wanderin' from the p'int," and Uncle Jabez looked severely at Mr. Dickey, who was manifestly fidgeting. "All you folks that have lived about here all your lives knew Lavina 'ithout my tellin' you this; but Mr. Birchard he's a stranger in the neighborhood, and it's needful to the understandin' of my story that he should know just what sort of a woman she was,—or is, as I should say."

Mr. Dickey subsided, while Mr. Birchard tried to throw still more of an expression of the deepest interest and attention into his face. He must have succeeded, for the old man, going on with his story, fixed his eyes more and more frequently upon those of the young one. They were large, gentle, appealing blue eyes, with a mildly surprised expression, which Mr. Birchard found exceedingly attractive. Whether or not the fact that the youngest of Uncle Jabez's children, a daughter, had precisely similar eyes, in any way accounted for the attraction, I leave to minds more astute than my own.

"You may think," the narrator resumed, when he felt that he had settled Mr. Dickey, "whether or not you'd miss a woman like that, when you'd summered and wintered with her more'n forty year. She always said she hoped she'd go sudden, for she was so heavy it would 'a' took three or four of the common run of folks to lift her, and she dreaded a long sickness. Well, she was took at her word. We was settin', as it might be now, one on one side the fire, the other on t'other, in the big easy-cheers that Samuel—that's our oldest son, and a good boy, if I do say it—had sent us with the fust spare money he had. She'd been laughin' and jokin', as she so often did, five minutes afore. Gracie—she was a little thing then, and, bein' the youngest, a little sassy and sp'iled, mebbe—had been on a trip to the city, and she'd brought her ma a present of a shoe-buttoner with a handle a full foot long.

"'There, ma,' she says, laughin' up in her mother's face; 'you was complainin' about the distance it seemed to be to your feet: here's a kind of a telegraft-pole to shorten it a little.'

"My, how we did laugh! And Lavina must needs try it right away, to please Gracie; and she said it worked beautiful. But whether it was the laughin' so much right on top of a hearty supper, or the bendin' down to try her new toy, or both, she jest says, as natural as I'm speakin' now, 'Jabez, I'm a-goin'—' and then stopped. And when I looked up to see why she didn't finish, she was gone, sure enough."

His voice broke, and he stopped abruptly. Mr. Birchard, without in the least intending to do it, grasped his hand, and held it with affectionate warmth for a moment.

"Thank you, young man, thank you kindly," said Uncle Jabez, recovering his voice and shaking Mr. Birchard's hand heartily at the same moment. "You've an uncommon feelin' heart for one so young.

"To say I was lonesome after she went don't say much; but time evens things out after a while, or we couldn't stand it as long as we do. Gracie she settled into a little woman all at once, as you may say, and seemed older for a while than she does now. The rest was all married and gone, but one boy,—a good boy, too. But they came around me, comfortin' and helpin', though each one of 'em mourned her nigh as much as I did myself; and after a while, as I said, I got used, in a manner, to doin' 'ithout her."

Here he made a long pause, with his eyes intently fixed upon the darkness of the adjoining store-room. The heat from the stove had become too great after the shutting of the shutters, and one of the men had opened an inner door for ventilation.

Now, as one pair of eyes after another followed those of the old man, there was a sort of subdued stir around the circle, and the schoolmaster, to his intense disgust, caught himself looking hastily over his shoulder,—the door being behind him.

Mr. Dickey broke the spell by suddenly rising, with the exclamation, "I think we're cooled off about enough; and, as I'm a little rheumaticky to-night, I'll shut that door, if you've none of you no objections."

There was a subdued murmur of assent, the door was closed, and Uncle Jabez returned to the thread of his discourse:

"Lemme see: where was I? Oh, yes. You may think it a little strange, now, but I didn't neither see nor hear tell of her for a full six months. If I was makin' this story up, and anxious to make a good story of it, you can see, if you're fair-minded, that I'd say she came back right away. Now, wouldn't I be most likely to? Say?"

He appealed so directly to Mr. Birchard, pausing for a reply, that the sceptic was obliged to answer in some way, and, with a curious sort of reluctance, he said slowly, "Yes—I suppose—I'm sure you would."

This seemed to satisfy Uncle Jabez, and he went on with his story:

"I came home from town one stormy night, about six months after she died, pretty well beat out,—entirely so, I may say. I'd been drivin' some cattle into the city, and I'd had only a poor concern of a boy to help me. The cattle was contrai-ry,—contrai-rier'n common; and I remember thinkin', when the feller at the drove-yard handed me my check, that I'd earned it pretty hard. That's the last about it I do remember. I s'pose I must 'a' put it in my pocket-book, the same as usual; but I rode home in a sort of a maze, I was so tired and drowsy, and I'd barely sense enough to eat my supper and grease my boots afore I went to bed. I had a bill to pay the next day, and I opened my pocket-book, quite confident, to take out the check. It wasn't there. I always kep' a number of papers in that pocket-book, and I thought at fust it had got mislaid among 'em: so I turned everything out, and unfolded 'em one by one, and poked my finger through a hole between the leather and the linin', and made it a good deal bigger,—but that's neither here nor there,—and before I was through I was certain sure of one thing,—- that wherever else that check was, it wasn't in that pocket-book. Then I tried my pockets, one after the other,—four in my coat, four in my overcoat, three in my vest, two in my pants: no, it wasn't in any of them, and I begun to feel pretty queer, I can tell you. It was my only sale of cattle for the season; I was dependin' on it to pay a bill and buy one or two things for Gracie; and, anyhow, it's no fun to lose a hunderd-dollar check and feel as if it must have been bewitched away from you. I rode back to the drove-yard, though I wasn't more'n half rested from the day before, and they said they'd stop payment on the check and give me a chance to look right good for it, and if I couldn't find it they'd draw me another. You see, they knowed me right well, and they wasn't afraid I was tryin' to play any sort of a game on 'em. Still, it wasn't a pleasant thing to have happen, for, say the best you could of it, it argued that I'd lost a considerable share of my wits. So, when I come home, I felt so kind of worried and down-hearted that I couldn't half eat my supper; and that worried Gracie,—she was a thin-skinned little critter, and if I didn't eat the same as usual she'd always take it into her head there was something wrong with the victuals. I fell asleep in my cheer right after supper, and slept till nine o'clock; and then Gracie woke me, and ast me if I didn't think I'd better go to bed. I said yes, I s'posed I had; but by that time I was hungry, and I ast her what she had good in the pantry. She brightened up wonderful at that,—though when I come to look closer at her I see she'd been cryin',—and she said there was doughnuts, fresh fried that day, and the best half of a mince pie. I told her that was all right so far as it went, but I'd like somethin' a little solider to begin with: so she found me a few slices of cold pork and one of her cowcumber pickles, and I eat a right good supper. She picked at a piece of pie, by way of keepin' me company, but she didn't eat much. Now, I tell you this, which you may think isn't revelant to the subject, to let you see I went to bed comfortable. We laughed and talked over our little supper, and pretended we was city-folks, on our way home from the theater, gettin' a fancy supper at Delmonico's. And I forgot all about the check for the time bein', as slick and clean as if I'd never had it nor lost it. But, nevertheless, when I went to sleep I begun to dream about it, and was to the full as much worried in my dream as I was when I was awake. I seemed to myself to be huntin' all over the house, in every hole and corner I could think of, and sometimes I'd come on pieces of paper that looked so like it outside I'd make sure I'd found it, and then when I opened 'em they'd be ridickilous rhymes, 'ithout any sense to 'em; when all of a sudden I heard Lavina's voice, as plain as you hear mine now. It seemed to come from a good ways off just at first, callin' 'Father,'—she always called me 'Father,' partly because she didn't like the name of Jabez, and it is a humbly name, I'm free to confess,—and then again nearer, 'Father;' and then again, as if it was right at the foot of the stairs. And this time it went on to say, loud and plain, so's 't I could hear every word, 'You look in the little black teapot on the top shelf of the pantry, where I kep' the missionary money, and see what you'll find.' And with that I heard her laugh; and I'd know Lavina's laugh among a thousand. I was too dazed like to do it right away, and I must 'a' fell asleep while I was thinkin' about it, for when I woke up it was broad daylight and Gracie was callin' to me to get up. But I hadn't forgot a word that Lavina'd said, and I went for that teapot as quick as I was dressed, and there was the check, sure enough, in good order and condition!"

He paused to look round at his audience and see the effect of this statement, and the schoolmaster took advantage of the pause to ask, "Were you in the habit of putting money in that teapot for safe-keeping, Uncle Jabez?"

"Young man, I was not," said Uncle Jabez emphatically, and evidently annoyed both by the question and by the tone in which it was uttered. "It was a little notion of Lavina's, and I'd never meddled with it, one way or the other. But I'd left it be there after she died, because I liked to look at it. I'd no more 'a' dreamed of puttin' that check in it than I would of puttin' it into Gracie's work-box. But there it was, and how it come there it wasn't vouchsafed me to know.

"I think it must have been a matter of three or four months after this, though I wouldn't like to say too positive, that I fell into my first and last lawsuit. A man I'd always counted a good neighbor made out he'd found an old title-deed which give him a right to a smart slice off'n my best meadow-land. It dated fifty years back, and old Peter Pinnell, that was the only surveyor in the township at that time, made out he recollected runnin' the lines; and when McKellop, the feller that claimed the track, took old Pinnell over the ground, to see if he could find any landmarks that would help to make the claim good, they found a big pine-tree jest where they wanted to find it, and cut into it at the right height to find a 'blaze,' if there was one. The rings was marked as plain as the lines on a map, and when they'd cut through fifty, there was the mark, sure enough, and McKellop's lawyer crowed ready to hurt himself. I was a good deal cut down, I can tell you, for I could see pretty well that it was goin' to turn the scale; and when supper-time came, Gracie could hardly coax me to the table. I said no, I didn't feel to be hungry; for I couldn't get that strip of meadow-land out of my head. And it wasn't so much the value of the land, either, though I couldn't well afford to lose it, as it was the idee of McKellop's crowin' and cacklin' all over the neighborhood about it. But Gracie looked so anxious and tired that I come to the table, jest to satisfy her; and I found I was hungry, after all, for I'd been trampin' round the farm most of the day, lookin' for some landmark or sign that would prove my claim, that dated seventy years back. I recollect we had soused pigs' feet for supper that night; and I don't think I ever tasted better in my life. I eat pretty free of them, as I always did of anything I liked, and we wound up with some of her canned peaches, that she'd got out to coax me to eat, and cream on 'em 'most as thick as butter: she had a skimmer with holes into it that she always skimmed the cream with for our own use. She'd made as good a pot of coffee as I ever tasted. And when I'd had all I wanted, I felt a good deal better, and I says to her,—'I'll fret over it no more, Gracie: if it's his'n, let him take it 'ithout more words.'

"She read me a story out of the paper that made us both laugh right hearty, and then a chapter, as usual, and then we went to bed. And all come round jest as it did afore. I thought I was roamin' about the farm, as I had been pretty nigh all day; but things was changed round, somehow, and the further I went the more mixed up they got, till, jest as I'd found the pine-tree, I heard Lavina's voice, the same as I'd done afore,—first far, and then near,—sayin', 'Father;' and the third time she said it, when it sounded close to, she went on to say, 'He's done his cuttin', now do you do yours. You cut through twenty more rings, and you'll find the blaze that marks your survey. And then thank him kindly for givin' you the idee. The smartest of folks is too smart for themselves once in a while.' And with that she laughed her own jolly, hearty laugh; but that was the last she said; and I laid there wonderin' and thinkin' for a while, and then dropped off to sleep. But it was all as clear as a bell in my head in the morning, and I had McKellop and old Peter at the pine-tree by eight o'clock. I'd sharpened my axe good, I can tell you, and it didn't take me long to cut through twenty more rings, and there, sure enough, was the blaze; and if ever you see a blue-lookin' man, that man was McKellop; for as soon as old Peter see the blaze he recollected hearin' his father tell about the survey; he recollected it particular because the old man was a good judge of apple-jack, and he'd said that my father'd gi'n him some of the best, that day the survey was made, that he'd ever tasted. And Peter said he reckoned he could find something about it in his father's books and among some loose papers he had in a box. And, sure enough, he found enough to make my claim as clear as a bell and make McKellop's as flat as a pancake. Now, what do you think of that, hey?"

Once more the old man peered into Birchard's face, and the schoolmaster answered one question with another, after the custom of the country:

"Did you ever know anything about the blazed tree before McKellop found the blaze?"

"When I come to think it over, I found I did," said Uncle Jabez, falling all unconscious into the trap set for him. "I hadn't no papers about it, but my father had told me all the ins and outs of it when I was a boy, and it had somehow gone out of my mind."

"Ah!" said the schoolmaster.

"I don't know what you mean by 'Ah' in this connection," said Uncle Jabez, speaking with unwonted sharpness; "but if you're misdoubtin' what I tell you I may as well shet up and go home."

"I don't doubt your word in the least, Uncle Jabez; I assure you I don't," Mr. Birchard hastened to say. "And I'm deeply interested. I hope you will go on and tell me all your experiences of this kind. I've heard and read a good many ghost-stories; but in all of them the ghosts were malicious creatures, who seemed to come back chiefly for the fun of scaring people out of their wits. Yours is the first really benevolent and well-meaning ghost of which I have ever heard; and it interests me immensely; for I never could see why a person who was all goodness and generosity while he—or she—was alive should turn into an unmitigated nuisance after dying. I should think, if they must needs come back, they might just as well be pleasant about it and make people glad to see—or hear—them."

"That's exactly the view I've always taken," said Mr. Crumlish modestly; "and one reason I've never felt to doubt any of Uncle Jabez's stories is that all the ghosts he's ever seen or heard tell of have been decent-behaving ghosts, that didn't come back just for the fun of scaring people to death."

"That's so; that's so," said the old man, entirely mollified, and hearing no note of sarcasm in the schoolmaster's rapidly-uttered eloquence. "If any one of 'em was to behave ugly," he continued, "it would shake my faith in the whole thing considerable; for I couldn't bring myself to believe that anybody I've ever knowed could be so far given over as to want to be ugly after dyin'."

"Well, now, I don't know," said Mr. Dickey argumentatively. "I hev knowed certain folks that it seems to me would stick to their ugliness alive or dead, and, though I've never seen no appearances of any kind, as I may say, I can believe jist as easy that some of 'em come back for mischief as that others come back for good."

There was a few minutes' constrained silence after this remark. Mr. Dickey's first wife had been what is popularly known as "a Tartar," and there was a generally current rumor that as the last shovelful of earth was patted down on her grave he had been heard to murmur, "Thanks be to praise, she's quiet at last." The idea of her reappearance in her wonted haunts was indeed a dismaying one, especially as Mr. Dickey had recently married again, and, if the gossips knew anything about it, was repeating much of his former painful experience. The silence, which was becoming embarrassing, was finally broken by the schoolmaster.

"Had you any more experiences of the kind you have just related, Uncle Jabez?" he asked, in tones of such deep respect and lively interest that Uncle Jabez responded, with gratifying promptness,—

"Plenty, plenty, though perhaps them two that I've just told you was the most strikin'. But it always seemed to me, after that first time, that Lavina was on hand when anything went wrong or was likely to go wrong; and ef I was to tell you all the scrapes she's kep' me out of and pulled me out of, I should keep you settin' here all night. There was one more," he continued, "that struck me a good deal at the time. It was about money, like the fust one, in a different sort of way. It was durin' those days when specie was so skurce and high that it was quite a circumstance to get a piece of hard money. There come along a peddler in a smart red wagon, with all sorts of women's trash packed into it, and Gracie took it into her head to want some of his things. It happened to be her birthday that day, and, as she didn't often pester me about clothes, I told her to choose out what she wanted, up to five dollars' worth, and, if the feller could change me a twenty-dollar note, I'd pay for it. He jumped at it, sayin' he didn't count it any trouble at all to give change, the way some storekeepers did, and that he always kep' a lot on hand to oblige his customers. I will say for him that it seemed to me he give Gracie an amazin' big five dollars' worth, and when he come to make the change he handed out a ten-dollar gold piece, or what I then took to be such, as easy as if he'd found it growin' on a bush, and said nothin' whatever about the premium on it. Perhaps I'd ought to have mentioned it, but it seemed to me it was his business more'n mine: so I jest took it as if it was the most natural thing in life, and he went off. I thought I might as well as not get the premium on it before it went down the way folks said it was goin' to: so, after dinner, I harnessed up, and drove down to the post-office,—it was kep' in the drug-store then, the same as it is now,—and when I handed my gold piece to the postmaster, which was also the druggist, and said I'd take a quarter's worth of stamps, and I believed gold was worth a dollar fifteen just now, he first smelt of it, and then bit it, and then poured some stuff out'n a bottle onto it, and then handed it back to me with a pityin' smile that somehow riled me more'n a little, and he says, says he,—

"'Somebody's fooled you badly, Uncle Jabez. That coin's a counterfeit. Do you happen to know where you got it?'

"'I know well enough,' I says, and I expect I spoke pretty mad, for I felt mad. 'I got it of a travellin' peddler, that's far enough away by this time, and if you're sure it's bad I'm that much out of pocket.' He seemed right concerned about it, and ast me if I hadn't no clue that I could track the peddler by; but I couldn't think of any, and I went home a good deal down in the mouth. But Gracie chirked me up, as she always does, bless her! and she made me a Welsh rabbit for supper, and some corn muffins, and a pot of good rich chocolate, by way of a change, and we agreed that, as she'd a pretty big five dollars worth and as the rest of the change was good, we'd say no more about it, for it would be like lookin' for a needle in a hay-stack to try to track him.

"'Why, father,' she says, 'I don't so much as know his name: do you?'

"I told her no, I didn't; that if I'd heard his name I disremembered it, but that I didn't think I'd heard it. And then that very night come another visit from mother, and she told me all about it. She come the way she always did, and when she spoke the last time, close to, as you may say, she says,—

"'I wouldn't give up that ten dollars so easy, if I was you, father. That peddler's name is Hanigan,—Elwood Hanigan,—and he'll be at the State Fair to-morrow. Now, do you go, and you'll find his red wagon with no trouble at all; and jest be right down firm with him, and tell him that if he doesn't give you good money in place of the bad he foisted off on you you'll show him up to the whole fair, and you'll see how glad he'll be to settle it.'

"And with that she laughed jest as natural as life, and I heard no more till Gracie knocked on my door in the morning."

"And did you go to the fair and find him and get your money back?" asked Birchard, who was interested in spite of his scepticism.

"I did, jest that," replied Uncle Jabez. "I got off bright and early, and, as luck would have it, I'd jest tied and blanketed my horse when that wonderful smart red wagon come drivin' in at the gate. I waited till he'd begun to pull his wares out and make a fine speech about 'em, and then I jest walked up to him, cool and composed, and give him his choice between payin' me good money for his bogus gold or hearin' me make a speech; and you may jest bet your best hat he paid up quicker'n winkin'. Perhaps I'd ought to have warned folks ag'in' him as it was, but I had a notion he'd save his tricks till he got to another neighborhood; and it turned out I was right. He didn't give none of his gold change out that day. But you can see for yourself that if it hadn't been for Lavina he'd have come off winnin' horse in that race. That was always the way when mother was about: she had more sense in her little finger than I had in my whole body, and head too, for that matter."

"And you found that you really had not known the man's name until it was conveyed to you in the manner in which you have described?" asked the schoolmaster deferentially.

"Well, no," said Uncle Jabez. "When I saw his wagon the next day, I remembered of readin' his name in gilt letters on the side, tacked to some patent medicine he claimed to have invented; but I don't suppose I'd ever thought of it again if mother hadn't told it to me so plain."

The schoolmaster said nothing. He had his own neat little theories concerning all the manifestations which had been mentioned, but somehow the old man's guileless belief had touched him, and he had no longer any desire to shake it, even had it been possible to do so. But he could not help probing the subject a little further: so presently he asked, "And you've never spoken to her, never asked her if it were not possible for you to see as well as hear her?"

"Young man," said Uncle Jabez kindly, but solemnly, "there's such a sin as presumption, and there's some old sayin' or other about fools rushin' in where angels fear to tread. If you try to grab too much at once, you're apt to lose all. If it was meant for me to see mother as well as hear her, I should see her; and if I was to go to pryin' round and tryin' to find out what's purposely hid from me, I make no doubt but I should lose the little that's been vouchsafed to me. But I'd far rather hear you ask questions like that than to have you throwin' doubt on the whole business, as you seemed inclined to do at fust."

"Look here," said Mr. Dickey briskly, "do you know it's well on to half-past ten? and we were to have the key at Pegram's by ten. I think we'd better do what there is to do, and clear out of this as quick as we know how, and mebbe some of us will wish before an hour's gone that we had Uncle Jabez's knack at makin' out a good story."

"You speak for yourself, Dickey," said Mr. Crumlish good-naturedly. "There's some of us that goes in and comes out, with nobody to care which it is, nor how long we stay; but freedom has its drawbacks, as well as other things."

The schoolmaster laughed at himself for striking a match as he turned the last light out, but he felt moving through his brain a vague wish that Uncle Jabez would break himself of that trick he had of gazing fixedly at nothing, and that other trick of stopping suddenly in the middle of a sentence to cock his head, as if he were hearing some far-away, uncertain sound.

MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.



FISHING IN ELK RIVER.

When a man has once absorbed into his system a love for fishing or hunting, he is under the influence of an invisible power greater than that of vaccine matter or the virus of rabies. The sporting-fever is the veritable malady of St. Vitus, holding its victim forever on the go, as game-seasons come, and so long as back and legs, eye and ear, can wrestle with Time's infirmities. It breeds ambition, boasting, and "yarns" to a proverbial extent, with a general disbelief in the possible veracity of a brother sportsman, and an irresistible; desire to talk of new and privately discovered sporting-heavens. The gold-seeker stakes his claim, the "wild-catting" oil-borer boards up his lot, the inventor patents his invention, and the author copyrights his brain-fruit; but the sportsman crazily tells all he knows. So the secret gets out, and the discoverer is robbed of his treasure and forced to seek new fields for his rod and gun.

Colonel Bangem had enjoyed a year's sport among the unvisited preserves of Elk River. Mrs. Bangem and Bess, their daughter, had shared his pleasures and acquired his fondness for such of them as were within feminine reach. Any ordinary man would have been perfectly satisfied with such company and delights; but no, when the bass began to leap and the salmon to flash their tails, the pressure was too great. His friends the Doctor and the Professor were written to, and summoned to his find. They came, the secret was too good to keep, and that is the way this chronicle of their doings happens to be written.

No sooner was the invitation received than the Doctor eased his conscience and delighted his patients by the regular professional subterfuge of sending such of them as had money to the sea-shore, and telling those who had not that they needed no medicine at present; the Professor turned his classes over to an assistant on pretext of a sudden bronchial attack, for which a dose of mountain-air was the prescribed remedy. And so the two were whirled away on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad across the renowned valley of Virginia and the eastern valley steps of the Alleghany summits, past the gigantic basins where boil and bubble springs curative of all human ills, down the wild boulder-tossed waters and magnificent canons of New River, around mountain-bases, through tunnels, and out into the broad, beautiful fertility of the Kanawha Valley, until the spires of Charleston revealed the last stage of their railroad journey. When their train stopped, stalwart porters relieved them of their baggage and deafened them with self-introductions in stentorian tones: "Yere's your Hale House porter!" "I's de man fer St. Albert's!"

"It's no wonder," said the Doctor, as he followed the sable guide from the station to the river ferry, and looked across the Kanawha's busy flow, covered with coal-barges, steamboats, and lumber-crafts, to Charleston's long stretch of high-bank river front, "that Western rivers get mad and rise against the deliberate insult of all the towns and cities turning their backs to them. There is a mile of open front, showing the cheerful faces of fine residences through handsome shade-trees and over well-kept lawns; but here, where our ferry lands, and where we see the city proper, stoops and kitchens, stove-pipes and stairways, ash-piles and garbage-shoots, are stuck out in contempt of the river's charms and the city's comeliness."

"Stove-pipes and stairways have to be put somewhere," said the matter-of-fact Professor. "And the best way to turn dirty things is toward the water."

The ferry-boat wheezed and coughed and sidled across the river to a floating wharf, covered, as usual, with that portion of the population, white and black, which has no interest in the arrival of trains, or anything else, excepting meals at the time for them, but which manages to live somehow by looking at other people working.

"Give me," said the Professor, "the value of the time which men spend in gazing at what does not concern them, and, according to my estimate, I could build a submarine railroad from New York to Liverpool in two years and three months. What are those fellows doing with their huge barrels on wheels backed into the river?"

"Dat is de Charleston water-works, boss," answered the grinning porter. "Widout dem mules an' niggahs an' bar'ls dah wouldn't be 'nough water in dis town to wet a chaw tobacky."

A winding macadamized road leads up the river bank to the main street running parallel with it. There is a short cut by a rickety stairway, but, as some steep climbing has to be done before reaching the lower step, it is seldom used. These formerly led directly to the Hale House, a fine brick building, which faced the river, with a commodious portico, and offered the further attractions of a pleasant interior and an excellent table; but now a blackened space marked its site, as though a huge tooth had been drawn from the city's edge, for one morning a neighboring boiler blew up, carrying the Hale House and much valuable property with it, but leaving the owners of the boiler.

"Dat's where de Hale House was, boss, but it's done burned down. I's de porter yit. When it's done builded ag'in I's gwine back dar. Dis time I take you down to de St. Albert. I's used to yellin' Hale House porter so many years dat St. Albert kind chokes me."

So to the St. Albert went the Doctor and Professor, where they met with a home-like greeting from its popular host.

Wheeling was formerly the capital of West Virginia, but for good reasons it was decided to move the seat of government from "that knot on the Panhandle" to Charleston. A commodious building of brick and sandstone, unchristened as to style of architecture, has been erected for the home of the law-makers; and henceforth the city which started around the little log fort built in 1786 by George Glendermon to afford protection against Indians will be the seat of government for the great unfenced State of West Virginia. Its business enterprise and thrift, its excellent geographical and commercial position, its healthiness notwithstanding its bad drainage, or rather no drainage, have induced a growth almost phenomenal. Churches, factories, and commodious storehouses have spread the town rapidly over the beautiful valley in which it lies. The United States government has been lavish in its expenditure upon a handsome building for court, custom, and post-office purposes; and to it flock, especially when court is in session, as motley an assortment of our race as ever assembled at legal mandate. Moonshiners, and those who regard whiskey-making, selling, and drinking as things that ought to be as free as the air of the mountain and licenses as unheard-of impositions of a highly oppressive government, that would "tax a feller for usin' up his own growin' uv corn," and courts as "havin' a powerful sight uv curiosity, peekin' into other fellers' business," afford ample opportunities for the exercise of judicial authority.

A long mountaineer was before a dignified judge of the United States Court for selling liquor without a license. He had bought a gallon at a still,—as to the locality of which he professed profound ignorance,—carried it thirty miles, and peddled it out to his long-suffering and thirsty neighbors. Every native being a natural informer, the story was soon told: arrest followed, a march of fifty miles over the mountains, and a lengthy imprisonment before trial. Following the advice of his assigned counsel, he pleaded guilty. Being too poor to pay a fine, and having an unlimited family dependent upon their own exertions,—which comprises the sum of parental responsibility among the natives,—the judge released him on his own bail-bond, and told him to go home. He deliberately put on his hat, walked up to his honor, and said, "I say, jedge, I reckon you fellers 'ill give me 'nough money to ride hum an' pay fer my grub, 'cause 'tain't fair, noway. You fetched me clar down yere, footin' it the hull way, an' now you're lettin' me off an' tellin' me to foot it back. 'Tain't fair, noway. You-uns oughter pay me fer it." And he went off highly indignant at having his modest request refused.

There is much of the primitive not outgrown as yet by Charleston: it has put on a long-tailed coat over its round-about. The gossipy telephone is ahead of the street-cars; gas-works supply private consumers, while the citizens wade the unlighted streets by the glimmer of their own lanterns; innumerable cows contest the right of pedestrians to the board footways and what of pavement separates the mud-holes; an ice-manufactory supplies coolness to water peddled about in barrels; the officials outnumber the capacity of the jail; the ferry-facilities vary from an unstable leaky bateau to a dirty, open-decked dynamite steamboat, whose night-service is subject to the lung-capacity of the traveller hallooing for it, and the fares to necessities and circumstances; the fine brick improvements are flanked by frame tinder-boxes; the offal of the city has not a single relieving sewer: yet it is a beautiful, healthy place, and the chief city of the greatest mineral-district in the world.

Our travellers breakfasted on delicious mountain mutton and vegetables fresh from surrounding farms. Their host secured three men and a canoe to carry them up Elk River to Colonel Bangem's camp, at the cost of one dollar a day and "grub," or one dollar and a quarter a day if they found themselves, with the moderate charge of fifty cents a day for the canoe.

When the time arrived for starting, the Professor was missing. Bells were rung, servants were despatched to search the hotel for him, but he was not to be found. The Doctor grew impatient, but restrained himself until an uncoated countryman, who had just walked into town and was ready for a talk, told him that he "seed a feller, thet wuz a stranger in these parts, with a three-legged picter-gallery, chasin' a water-cart a right smart ways back in the town, ez I come in."

"That's he," said the Doctor. "He is crazy after pictures. I'll give you a dollar if you bring him to the hotel alive."

"Is he wicked?" asked the man.

"Generally," answered the Doctor, whose eyes began to twinkle; "but you get hold of his picture-gallery and run for the hotel: he will follow you. I often have to manage him that way."

"I'm minded to try coaxin' him in thet a-way fer a dollar. You jist take keer uv my shoes, an' I'll hev him yer ez quick ez Tim Price kin foot it, if he follers well an' hain't contrairy-like, holdin' back."

Tim Price relieved his feet of their encumbrances, and started. When his tall, gaunt figure had disappeared around the corner, the Doctor grew red in the face from an internal convulsion, and then exploded past all concealment of his joke.

"If you gentlemen," he said to the by-standers, "want to see some fun, just follow that man. I will stay here as judge whether the man brings in the Professor or the Professor brings in the man."

A good joke would stop a funeral in Charleston. The hotel was cleared of men in an instant to follow Tim and enjoy the hunt. Tim sighted the Professor about a quarter of a mile back in the town, A darky driving a water-cart was standing up on the shafts, thrashing his mule with the ends of his driving-lines, and urging it, by voice and gesture, to the highest mule-speed: "Git up! git up! you lazy old no-go! Git up! Don't you see dat picter-feller tryin' to took you an' me an' de bar'l? Git up! Wag yer ears an' switch yer tail. You're not gwine ter stan' still an' keep yer eyes on de instrement fer no gallery-man to took, 'less you's fix' up fer Sunday. Git up, you ole long-eared corn-eater!"

The Professor was keeping well up with the flying water-works. His hat was stuck on the back of his head, he carried his camera with its tripod spread ready for sudden action, and every step of his run was guided by thoughts of proper distance, fixed focus, and determination to have the water-works in his collection of instantaneous photographs. A turn in the street gave the Professor his opportunity: he darted ahead, set his camera, and took the whole show as it went galloping by, when he reclined against a fence while making the street ring with his laugh.

Tim Price, who was watching his chance, saw that it had come. He grabbed the camera, gave a yell of triumph, and faced for the home-run. He had not an instant to lose. The Professor sprang for his precious instrument. Tim's long legs carried him across the street, over a fence into a cross-cut lot, and away for the hotel at a mountaineer's speed. The Professor was small, but active as a cat. Where Tim jumped fences, the Professor squirmed through them; where Tim took one long stride, the Professor scored three short ones. Tim lost his hat, and the Professor threw off his coat as he ran. The main street was reached without perceptible decrease of distance between them; but there the pavements were something Tim's bare feet were not used to catching on, and the people something he was not used to dodging: he upset several, but dashed on, with his pursuer gaining on his heels. Men, women, dogs, and darkies turned out to witness the race or follow it. "Stop thief!" "Go it, Tim!" "You're catching him, stranger!" "Foot it, little one!" were cries that speeded the running. The Doctor stood waiting at the hotel door, laughing, shaking, and red as a veritable Bacchus. Tim Price banged the camera into him, whirled round suddenly, caught the Professor as he dashed at him, and held him in his powerful arms, squirming like an eel.

"Yere's your crazy man, stranger," said Tim, in slow, drawling tone. "I tell you he kin jest p'intedly foot it. Thar hain't been such a run in Kanoy County sence they stopped 'lectin' country fellers fer sheriff. I reckon I've arned thet dollar. What shall I do with the leetle feller?"

The Professor was powerless, but lay in Tim's arms biting, kicking, and curled up like a yellow-jacket interested with an enemy.

"Let him go," said the laughing Doctor. "He will stay with me now. He is not dangerous when I am about. Set him on his feet."

No sooner was the Professor deposited on the pavement than he dealt Tim a stinging blow which staggered him, and stood ready with trained muscles set for defence.

"Look yere, leetle un," said Tim, coolly and with great self-restraint, "'tain't fer the likes uv me to hit you, bein's you're a bit out in your top, but I'll gin you another hug ef you do that ag'in; I will, p'intedly."

In the good humor of the crowd, the mirth of the Doctor, and the latter's possession of the camera the Professor scented a joke, and at once saw his friend's hand in it. He joined in the laugh at his expense, and lengthened his friend's face by saying, "The Doctor having had his fun, he will now pay the bill at the bar for all of you: he pays all my expenses: so walk in, gentlemen."

The laws of hospitality west of the Alleghanies do not permit any one to decline an invitation, so the Doctor settled for the whole procession and paid Tim Price his well-earned dollar.

"Captain," said Tim to the hotel-proprietor, who had joined the crowd, "ef two fellers comes here from the East, one uv 'em ez round ez a punkin an' red ez a flannel shirt an' bald ez a land-tortle, an' t'other ez brown ez a mud-catty an' poor ez a razor-back hog, tell 'em I'm yere to pilot 'em up Elk to Colonel Bangem's caliker tents. He said they were ez green ez frogs, an' didn't know nothin' noway, an' fer me to take keer uv 'em. He don't reckon they'll come tell to-morrow. One uv 'em's a hoss-doctor, an' t'other's a perfessor uv religion, Colonel Bangem telled me. I dunno whether the feller's a circuit-rider er a rale preacher."

"That's the highly-illuminated pumpkin, my good man," said the Professor, pointing to the Doctor, "and I am Colonel Bangem's spiritual adviser. We got here a day sooner than we expected to."

"You don't say? May I never! An' the colonel never telled me nothin' nohow 'bout any one uv you bein' crazy. Howdee? How do you like these parts? Right smart town we've got yere, hain't it? I'll take keer uv you. There hain't no man on Elk River kin take keer uv you better nor Tim Price, ary time. I hain't much up to moon men, though. Thar's one feller up my way thet gits kinder skeery at the full uv the moon; but I hain't never tended him. I reckon I kin l'arn the job,—ez the ole boy said when his marm set him to mindin' fleas off the cat."

Tim Price was the hunter, boatman, fisherman, yarn-spinner, and character of his region, and Colonel Bangem's faithful ally in all his sports: the latter had therefore sent him to meet his friends on their arrival at Charleston, and he at once proceeded to take command of the whole party as a matter of course.

"I footed it over the mountains, and sent my boat the river way. Hit oughter be yere now: so we'll pack you men's tricks to the boats an' p'int 'em up-stream. It 'ill be sundown afore we git thar."

The party started from the hotel, the procession followed to see them off, and they were soon down the Kanawha and into the mouth of Elk at the point of the town. Log rafts, huge barges, miles of railroad-ties, laid-up steamers, peddling-boats, with their highly-colored storehouses, fishermen's scows, floating homely cabins alive with bare-legged children and idlers of the water-side, push-boats loaded to the edge of the narrow gunwales with merchandise for delivery to stores and dwellers far up the river, boats loaded with hoop-poles, grist, chickens, and the "home-plunder" of some mover to civilization, coming down the river from the mountain-clearing, and samples of every conceivable kind of the river's outpour, were tied to the banks or lazily floating on the currentless back-water from the Kanawha.

An old steamboat-captain once said of Elk that "it was the all-firedest river God ever made,—fer it rises at both ends and runs both ways to wunst." This is true, and is caused by the Kanawha, when rising, pouring its water into the mouth of Elk and reversing its current for many miles, while at the same time rain falls in the mountains, increasing the latter river's depth and velocity. Flour-mills, iron-foundries, saw-mills, woollen-mills, and barrel-factories extend their long wooden slides down to the river's edge, to gather material for their consumption. A railroad spans it with an iron trussed bridge, and the demands of wagon and foot-travel are met by an airy one suspended by cables from tower-like abutments on either side, both bridges swung high in the air, out of reach of flood and of the smoke-stacks of passing steam-craft.

A mile from the river's mouth, and just beyond the limits of Charleston, is one of the finest sandstone-quarries in the world. The United States government monopolizes most of its product in the construction of the magnificent lock and shifting dams in course of erection on the Kanawha to facilitate the transportation of coal from the immense deposits now being mined to the great markets of the Ohio River. A little farther on, the brown front of a timber dam and cribbed lock looks down upon a wild swirl and rush of water; for through a cut gap in its centre Elk flows unobstructed,—a penniless mob having made the opening one night that their canoes might pass free and capitalists be encouraged to remove such worthless stuff as money from the growing industries of the river. Prior to this act of vandalism the water was backed by the dam for a distance of fourteen miles, to Jarrett's Ford, making a halting-place for rafts and logs, barges and floats, coming down from the vast forests above when rains and snow-thaws raised the river and its tributaries; but now a long stretch of boom catches what it can of Elk's commerce and is a chartered parasite upon it.

Here at the old dam the mountains close in tightly upon the narrow valley. Log cabins and a few simple frame houses nestle upon diminutive farms; the wild beauty of shoal and eddy, bouldered channel and lake-like stretches of pool, rocky walls and timber-clad peaks, begins to charm the stranger and draw him on and on through scenery as attractive as grand toss of mountains and delve of river can make it.

By dint of poling, pushing, rowing, and pulling, the boats were worked over rapids and pools for almost a score of miles, to where the last rays of the sun slid over a mountain-point and hit Colonel Bangem's hat as it spun in the air by way of welcome, while the prows clove the water of a lovely eddy lying in front of his camp. The meeting was that of old friends, with the addition of a blush from Bess Bangem and its bright reflection from the Professor's face.

Tim Price took the colonel to one side mysteriously, and whispered, "I took keer uv the Perfessor my own self: he guv me a power uv trouble, though. Shell I hitch him now, er let him run loose?"

"We'll turn him loose now, Tim; but if he takes to turning somersets, catch him, loosen his collar, take off his boots, and throw him into the river," was the colonel's sober reply.

Scientists nowadays set up Energy as the ancestor of everything, measure the value of its descendants by the quantity they possess of the family trait, and spend their time in showing how to utilize it for the good of mankind in general. Professor Yarren was an apostle of Energy: it absorbed him, filled him. From the weight of the sun to boiled potatoes, from the spring of a tiger to the jump of a flea, from the might of chemical disembodiment to opening an oyster, he calculated, advised, and dilated upon it. He himself, was the epitome of Energy: in his size he economized space, in his diet he ate for power, not quantity. To him eating and sleeping were Energy's warehousemen; idleness was dry-rot, moth, and mildew; laughing, talking, whistling, singing, somersets, and fishing, never-to-be-neglected and in-constant-use safety-valves. He regarded himself as an assimilator of everything that went into him, be it food, sight, sound, or scent, and his perfection as such in exact ratio to the product he derived from them. So when next morning he said "Come on" to the Doctor, and Colonel Bangem, Mrs. Colonel Bangem, Bess Bangem, and Martha, the mountain-maid, who were all standing in front of the camp rigged for a day's fishing, he meant that one of Energy's safety-valves was ready to blow off, and that further delay might be dangerous to him.

In the Doctor, Energy was stored in bond as it were, subject to duties, and only to be issued on certificate that it was wanted for use and everything ready for it: therefore at the Professor's "Come on" he calmly sat down on a log, filled his pipe, leisurely lighted it, and good-humoredly remarked, "I am confident that one-half of what we call life is spent in undoing what we have done, in lamenting the lack of what we have forgotten, or going back after it: therefore I make it a rule when everything seems ready for a start—especially when going fishing—to sit five minutes in calm communion with my pipe, thinking matters over. It insures against much discomfort from treacherous memories and neglect."

As the Doctor whiffed at his pipe, he inventoried guns, tackle, lunch, hammocks, air-cushions, gigs, frog-spears, and all other necessaries for a day's sport on the river. The result was as he had prophesied,—many things had been omitted. "Now," said he, when the five minutes were up, "we might venture down the bank, which, rest assured, each member of this party will have to climb up again after something left behind."

A motley little fleet awaited the party at the water's edge,—square-ended, flat-bottomed punts, sharp-bowed bateaux, long, graceful, dug-out canoes, and a commodious push-boat, with cabin and awning, whose motive power was poles. Elk River craft are as abundant as the log cabins on its banks, and their pilots are as numerous as the inhabitants. Neither sex nor size is a disqualification, for, excepting the trifling matter of being web-toed, all are provided from birth with water-going properties, and, be it seed-time or harvest, the river has the first claim upon them for all its varied sports and occupations. A shot at mallard, black-head, butter-duck, loon, wild goose, or blue-winged teal, as they follow the river's winds northward in the spring-time, will stop the ploughs furrowing its fertile bottoms as far as its echoes roll around mountain-juts, and cause the hands that held the lines to grasp old-fashioned rifles for a chance at the winged passers. When, later, woodcock seek its margins, gray snipe, kill-deer, mud-hens, and plovers its narrow fens, the scythe will rest in the half-mown field while its wielder "takes a crack at 'em." And when autumn brings thousands of gray squirrels, flocks of wild pigeon and water-fowl, to feed on its mast, no household obligation or out-door profit will keep the natives from shooting, morning, noon, and night.

Some day in the near future a railroad will be built "up Elk," and then, while commerce and civilization will get a lift, the loveliest of rivers will be scarred; her trout-streams, carp-runs, bass-pools, salmon-swirls, deer-licks, bear-dens, partridge-nestles, and pheasant-covers will be overrun by sports-men, her magnificent mountains will be scratched bald-headed by lumbermen, her laughing tributaries will be saddened with saw-dust, and her queer, quaint, original boat-pullers and "seng-diggers" will wear shoes in summer-time and coats in winter, weather-board their log cabins, put glass in the windows and partitions across the one room inside. Woods-meetings will creep into churches, square sousing in the river will degenerate to the gentle baptismal sprinkle; no picnics or barbecues will delight the inhabitants with flying horses and fights, open fireplaces and sparking-benches will give way to stoves and chairs, riding double on horseback, with fair arms not afraid to hold tight against all dangers real or fancied, will be a joy of the past, "bean-stringin's," "apple-parin's," "punkin-clippin's," "sass-bilin's," "sugar-camps," "cabin-raisin's," "log-rollin's," "bluin's," "tar-and-feathering," and "hangin's," will be out-civilized, and the whole country will be spoiled.

"It looks like a good biting morning for bass," said Colonel Bangem, while he was distributing the party properly among the boats. "But, in spite of all signs, bass bite when they please. It is a sunny morning: so use bright spoon-trolls, medium size. If the fish rise freely, twenty-five feet of line is enough to have out on the stern lines; and, as the ladies will use the poles, ten feet of line is enough for them. Don't forget, Mrs. Bangem, to keep your troll spinning just outside the swirl of the oar, and as near the surface of the water as possible. You know you will talk and forget all about it. Now we will start. If we get separated and it grows cloudy, change your trolls for three-inch 'fairy minnows;' and if the wind ripples the water, let out from sixty to eighty feet of line. Take the centre of the river, and you will haul in salmon; for bass will not rise to a troll in the eddies when the water is rough. Salmon will. Tim, take the lead with the Professor, that the other men may see your stroke and course. In trolling, the oarsman has as much to do with the success as the fisherman."

Off they went, three to a boat, the fishers seated in bow and stern, the ladies in front with their fishing-poles, and the oarsman in his proper place, rowing a slow, steady stroke, dipping true and silently just fifty feet from bank, or sedge, or shelf of rock, steering outside of snags and drift and where overhanging trees buried their shadows in the water.

The boats had hardly reached their positions—two on each side of the stream—when a shout from the Professor announced a catch, as hand over hand he cautiously drew in the swerving line or held it taut, as the diving fish sought the rocky bottom or the friendly refuge of a log drift. With unvarying stroke Tim kept his boat in deep water, away from entangling dangers. There was a flash in the air and a jingle of the troll, as a fine bass shot out of the water to shake the barbs from his open mouth; but the hooks held firm, and the taut line foiled the effort to dislodge them. Down came the fish with a splash, to dart for the boat at lightning speed and leap again for life; but this time no jingle of troll announced his game. He leaped ahead to fall upon the line and thus tear the hooks from their hold. Successful fishing depends upon two things,—the presence of fish and knowing more than fish do. At the instant of the fish's leap the Professor slackened his line: down came the bass on a limber loop, defeated in his strategy and wearied by his effort, to be hauled quickly to the boat's side and landed, wriggling and tossing, at Tim Price's feet.

"You've cotched bass afore, Perfesser. You ez up to their ways ez a mus'rat to a mussel, er a kingfisher to a minner," exclaimed Tim admiringly, as he loosened the troll from a two-pound bass. "Hit's p'intedly a pity you're out uv your head 'bout picters."

"Oh, I have one! I have one!—a fish! What kind is it?" screamed Bess Bangem, who was the Professor's companion, as her light trout-pole bent from a sudden tug, and the reel whirred as the line ran off.

"Stop him, hold on to him, wind him in, and I will tell you," answered the Professor, laughing.

Bess was a practised hand, and loved the sport; but, woman-like, she always paused to wonder what she had caught before proceeding to find out.

"It will be the subject of a lecture for you, whatever it is," replied Bess, with a saucy shake of her head, as she wound in the line and guided the playing fish with well-managed pole. Her fine face flushed with the excitement of the run and leap of her prey, as it came nearer and nearer, until Tim slipped the landing-net quietly under it and landed a beauty in the boat.

"Poor fellow! I wonder if I hurt him?" said Bess.

"Not much, if any," remarked the Professor. "I never was a fish, and consequently never was foolish enough to jump at a bunch of hooks; but, as the cartilage of a fish's mouth is almost nerveless, there is but little pain from a hook diet. Bass, salmon, pike, and other gamey fish will often keep on biting after they have been badly hooked."

"So will men," said Bess, as she threw her troll into the water to do fresh duty.

"You're p'intedly keerect," said Tim Price. "I got the sack four times, an' hed right smart mittens, afore I cotched a stayin' holt on my old woman."

Shout after shout waked the mountain-echoes, as fish were held up in triumph, and as the boats glided over the smooth water of the eddy. Ahead was a mass of foam and a long dash of water down a shoal.

"Yere's where me and the colonel catches 'em lively when I pull him," said Martha to the Doctor. "They bite yere ez lively ez a stray pig in a tater-patch. Whoop! I've got him! He pulls like a mule at a hitchin'-rope. Keep your boat head to the current, Alec, an' pull hard, er we'll drift down on him an' I'll lose him. Whoop! May I never! A five-pounder! I'll slit him down the back an' brile him fer breakfast. Whoop! In you come!"

The boatmen pulled hard against the fierce current at the foot of the shoal, crossed and recrossed, circled, and at it again, until a score or more of noble bass were hooked from the swirl, and Colonel Bangem led the way up the rapids. Then the oarsmen leaped into the water and towed the boats through the wild current, until the eddy at the top of it allowed them to take oars again.

"Preacher, kin you paddle?" asked Tim Price of the Professor, as he drained the water from his legs before getting into the boat. "Ef you air a hand at it, take an oar an' paddle a bit astern: there'll be white peerch an' red-hoss lyin' yere at the head uv the shore."

The Professor took an oar and paddled, while Tim Price poised himself in the boat, spear in hand and the long rope from its slender shaft coiled at his feet. He peered intently into the water as the boat moved slowly along. Presently every muscle of him was set: he bent backward for a cast, pointed his spear with steady hands to a spot in the river, and quick as a flash it pierced the water until its ten-foot shaft was seen no more. As quickly was it recovered by Tim's active hands catching the flying line to haul it in; and on its prongs squirmed a monstrous fish of the sucker tribe,—a red-horse,—pinned through and through by his unerring aim.

Shoal and eddy, swirl and silent pool, yielded good sport and harvest, as haunts of bass and salmon were entered and passed, until the inviting mouth of Little Sandy Creek suggested rest for the boatmen and a stroll for the fishers. A neat hotel, clean and well kept for so wild a region, harbors lumbermen, rivermen, and those who love the rod and gun. There are many such attractive centres along the banks of Elk, with charming camping-grounds, where neighboring hospitality abounds, and chickens, eggs, milk, corn, and bacon are abundant and cheap, and the finest bass-and other fishing possible, from Queen's Shoal—four miles away—to the old dam above Charleston. Above Queen's Shoal the region increases in wildness and attractiveness for traveller or sportsman. Trout in plenty find homes in the mountain-tributaries of Upper Elk; deer abound, and all manner of smaller game. Where nature does her best work, man is apt to do but little. Nature farms the Elk country.

Bright moonlight, the early morning after the sun is up, and from a couple of hours after mid-day until the mountain-shadows strike the water in the evening, are the best times to troll for bass. If so minded, they will rise to a fly at such times in the rapids; but no allurement excepting the troll will bring them to the surface in still water. When the river is rising, or the water is clouded with mud or drift, bass scorn all surface-diet; but the live minnow or crawfish, hellgramite or fish-worm, will capture them on trout-line or hook attached to the soul-absorbing bob. A clothes-line wire cable, furnished with well-assorted hooks baited with cotton, dough, and cheese well mixed together, and stretched in eddy-water when the river is muddy, will give fine reward in carp, white perch, catfish, turtles, garfish, and sweet revenge on the bait-stealing guana.

After nooning, lunch, and a quiet loaf, the party sped homeward with the current, handling rods and trolls as salmon and bass demanded lively attention. Shooting a rapid, and out into a deep pool at its foot, the Doctor's boat struck a snag, and he, having a resisting power equal to that of a billiard-ball, put his heels where his head had been, and disappeared under the water, to pop up again instantly, sputtering and spitting, like a jug full of yeast with a corn-cob stopper.

"Oh, Hickey! Whoop!" exclaimed Martha, as she went off in wild screams of laughter. "Kin you swim?" she asked, with the coolness of the mountain-maiden she was.

"No, no," sputtered the Doctor.

"I reckon you'll tow good. Jest gimme your han', an' keep your feet down, an' me an' Alec 'ill tow you ashore to dreen. Hit's like you're purty wet."

He was soon landed by the stalwart Martha and Alec, and, while he attitudinized for draining, the Professor amused himself with taking an instantaneous photograph.

"By gum! he mought hev drownded," said Tim Price to the Professor. "The Doctor hain't a good shape fer towin', but he floats higher than any craft of his length I ever seed on Elk River."

Just as the golden light of evening cast its sheen upon the river the camp-tents came in sight, where a group of natives stood waiting the arrival of the fishers to "hear what luck they'd hed."

Colonel Bangem and Bess carried off equal honors in greatest count,—sixty-two bass and five salmon each. Martha, with her five-pounder, was weight champion. Mrs. Bangem had the only blue pike. The Professor claimed that, besides his twoscore fish, he had illustrations enough for a comic annual; and the Doctor asserted that he knew more about bass than any of them, for he had been down where they lived, and was of the opinion that he had swallowed a couple.

Bess Bangem said to the Professor, as they went up the bank together, "I had a great mind to count you in with my fish, to beat father; but I caught you long ago, so it would not have been fair."

TOBE HODGE.



ON A NOBLE CHARACTER MARRED BY LITTLENESS.

As Moscow's splendors trench on narrow lanes, The wonder, brimming every traveller's eyes, To disappointment's sudden darkness wanes At finding meanness near such grandeur lies.

O human city! built on Moscow's plan, Thy great and little touch each other so, Let me forbear, and, as an erring man, Make my approaches wisely, from below,

Hasting through all the narrow and the base Before I stand where all is high and vast: After the dark, let glory light my face, Thy shining greatness break upon me last.

CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES.



THE SCOTTISH CROFTERS.

It is hard to dispel the halo which poetry and romance have thrown about the Scottish Highlander and see him simply as he appears in every-day life. And indeed, all fiction aside, there is in his history and character much that is most admirable and noble. On many a terrible battle-field his courage has been unsurpassed. His brave and tireless struggle for existence where both climate and soil are unfriendly is equally worthy of respect. Then, too, his sterling honesty and independence in speech and action and his high moral and religious qualities combine to make him a valuable citizen.

Such considerations account in part for the interest which has been excited in England by the claims of the Scottish crofters. There are, however, other reasons why so much attention has of late been given to their complaints. Their poverty and hardships have long been known in England. The reports made by the Emigration Commissioners in 1841 and by Sir John McNeil a few years later contain accounts of miserably small and unproductive holdings, of wretched hovels for dwellings, of lack of enterprise and interest in making improvements, of curtailment of pasture, of high rents and insecurity of tenure, very similar to those found on the pages of the report of the late Royal Commission. While in this interval the condition of the crofters has but slightly, if at all, improved, there has been a very considerable improvement in the condition of the middle and lower classes of the people in other parts of Scotland and in England. The masses of the people have better houses, better food and clothing, while with the development of the school system and the newspaper press general intelligence has greatly increased. The accounts of the poverty and wretchedness of the crofters now reach the public much more quickly and make a much deeper impression on all classes than they did forty years ago. While these small farmers are not numerous,—there are probably not more than four thousand families in need of relief,—many of their kinsmen elsewhere have acquired wealth and influence and have been able to plead their cause with good effect. In this country "The Scottish Land League" has issued in "The Cry of the Crofter" an eloquent plea for help to carry on the agitation to a successful issue.

Another reason for the increased attention that has lately been given to these claims is found in the rapidly-growing tendency to concede to the landlord fewer and fewer and to the tenant more and more rights in the land. The recent extension of the suffrage, giving votes to nearly two millions of agricultural and other laborers, leads politicians to go as far as possible in favoring new legislation in the interest of tenants and laborers. The crofters' case has therefore come to be of special interest as a part of the general land question which has of late received so much attention from the English press and Parliament, and which is pretty certain to be prominent for several years to come.

Those who are familiar only with the relations existing between landlord and tenant in this country are naturally surprised to find the crofter demanding that his landlord shall (1) give him the use of more land, (2) reduce his rent, (3) pay him on leaving his holding for all his improvements, and (4) not accept in his stead another tenant, even though the latter may be anxious to take the holding at a higher figure or turn him out for any other reason. In addition to all this, the crofters demand that the government shall advance them money to enable them to build suitable houses and improve and stock their farms. An American tenant who should make such demands would be considered insane. No such view of the crofters' claims, however, is taken in England and Scotland.

What, then, are the grounds upon which these extensive claims are based? Why should the crofter claim a right to have his holding enlarged and to have the land at a lower rent than some one else may be willing to pay? The reasons are to be found partly in his history, traditions, and circumstances, and partly in the present tendency of the legislation and discussions relating to the ownership and occupation of land.

Under the old clan system, to which the crofter is accustomed to trace his claims, the land was owned by the chief and clansmen in common, and allotments and reallotments were made from time to time to individual clansmen, each of whom had a right to some portion of the land, while the commons were very extensive. Rent or service was paid to the chief, who had more or less control over the clan lands and often possessed an estate in severalty, with many personal dependants. In many cases the power of the chief was great and tyrannical, and many of the clansmen were in a somewhat servile condition; but the more influential clansmen seem sometimes to have retained permanent possession of their allotments. Long ago sub-letting became common, and hard services were often exacted of the sub-tenants, whose lot was frequently a most unhappy one. The modern cottar, as well as the squatter, had his representative in the dependant of the chief, or clansman, or in the outlaw or vagrant member of another clan who came to build his rude cabin wherever he could find a sheltered and unoccupied spot. No doubt many of the sub-tenants, even where they held originally by base and uncertain services and at the will of their superior, came in time, like the English copyholder, to have a generally-recognized right to the permanent possession of their holdings, while custom tended to fix the character and quantity of their services. The population was not numerous, and it was probably not difficult for every man to secure a plot of land of some sort.

The crofters of to-day have lost for the most part the traditions of the drawbacks and hardships of this ancient system, with its oppressive services, to which many of their ancestors were subject, and have commonly retained only the tradition of the right which every clansman had to some portion of the clan lands. In 1745 the clan organizations were abolished and the chiefs transformed into landlords and invested with the fee-simple of the land. But, while changes were gradually made on some estates in the direction of conformity to the English system, most of the old customary rights of the people continued to be recognized. The tenant was commonly allowed to occupy his holding from year to year without interruption. Money rent gradually took the place of service or rent in kind, but the amount exacted does not seem to have been often increased arbitrarily. The rights of common, which were often of great value, were respected.

The descendants and successors, however, of the old Scotch lairds did not always display the same regard for prescriptive rights and usages. In some cases the extravagance and bankruptcy of the old owners caused the titles to pass to Englishmen, while in others the inheritors of the estates were more and more inclined to insist upon their legal rights and to introduce in the management of their property rules similar to those in use in England. Early in the present century sheep-farming was found to be profitable, and many large areas of glen and mountain were cleared of the greater part of their population and converted into sheep-farms. Many of the mountainous parts of Scotland are of little use for agricultural purposes. Formerly the crofters used large tracts as summer pastures for their small herds of inferior stock. By and by the proprietors found that large droves of better breeds of sheep could be kept on these mountain-pastures. The crofters were too poor to undertake the management of the large sheep-farms into which it was apparently most profitable to divide these mountain-lands, and sheep-farmers from the south became the tenants. By introducing sheep-farming on a large scale the landlords were able, they claimed, to use hundreds of thousands of acres which before were of comparatively little value. The large flocks of sheep could not, however, be kept without having the lower slopes of the mountains on which to winter. It was these slopes that the crofters commonly used for pasture, below which, in the straths and glens, were their holdings and dwellings. The ruins of cottages, or patches of green here and there where cottages stood, mark the sites of many little holdings from which the crofters and their families were turned out many years ago in order to make room for sheep-farms. The proprietors sometimes recognized the rights of these native tenants, and gave them new holdings in exchange for the old ones. The new crofts were often nearer the sea, where the land was less favorable for grazing and where the rights of common were less valuable, but the occupants had better opportunities for supplementing their incomes from the land by fishing and by gathering sea-weed for kelp, from which iodine was made. There were, however, great numbers who were not supplied with new crofts, but turned away from their old homes and left to shift for themselves. Some of these, too poor to go elsewhere, built rude huts wherever they could find a convenient spot, and thus increased the ranks of the squatters. Others were allowed to share the already too small holdings of their more fortunate brethren, while others, again, found their way to the lowlands and cities of the south or to America. The traditions of the hardships and sufferings endured by some of these evicted crofters are still kept alive in the prosperous homes of their children and grandchildren on this side of the Atlantic. The process of clearing off the crofters went on for many years. In 1849 Hugh Miller, in trying to arouse public sentiment against it, declared that, "while the law is banishing its tens for terms of seven and fourteen years,—the penalty of deep-dyed crimes,—irresponsible and infatuated power is banishing its thousands for no crime whatever."

Lately, owing to foreign competition and the deterioration of the land that has been used for many years as sheep-pastures, sheep-farming has become much less profitable than formerly, and many large tenants have in consequence given up their farms. The enthusiasm for deer-hunting has, however, increased with the increase of wealth and leisure among Englishmen, and immense tracts, amounting altogether to nearly two millions of acres, have been turned into deer-forests, yielding, as a rule, a slightly higher rent than was paid by the crofters and sheep-farmers. Much of this land is either unfit for agricultural purposes or could not at present be cultivated with profit. Some of it, however, is fertile, or well suited for grazing, and greatly coveted by the crofters. The deer and other game often destroy or injure the crops of the adjoining holdings, and thus add to the troubles of the occupants and increase their indignation at the land's being used to raise sheep and "vermin" instead of men. Most Americans have had intimations of this feeling through the accounts of the hostility that has been shown to our countryman, Mr. Winans, whose deer-forest is said to cover two hundred square miles. While evictions are much less common than they were two or three generations ago, there has all along been a disposition on the part of the proprietors to enclose in their sheep-farms and deer-forests lands that were formerly tilled or used as commons by the crofters and cottars. In comparison with the crofter of to-day the sub-tenant of a hundred years ago had, as a rule, more land for tillage, a far wider range of pasture for his stock, and "greater freedom in regard to the natural produce of the river and moor."

Many of the crofters belong to families which have lived on the same holdings for generations. It is a common experience everywhere that long-continued use begets and fosters the feeling of ownership. This is especially true when, as in the crofter's case, there is so much in the history and traditions of the people and the property that tends to establish a right of possession. Besides, the crofter, or one of his ancestors, has in most cases built the house and made other improvements: sometimes he has reclaimed the land itself and changed a barren waste into a garden. The labor and money which he and his ancestors have expended in improving the place seem to him to give him an additional right to occupy it always. It is his holding and his home, the home of his fathers and of his family. While he may be unable to resist the power of his landlord, and may have no legal security for his rights and interests, he regards the curtailment of his privileges or the increase of his rent as unjust, and eviction as a terrible outrage. "The extermination of the Highlanders," says one of their kinsmen, "has been carried on for many years as systematically and persistently as that of the North-American Indians.... Who can withhold sympathy as whole families have turned to take a last look at the heavens red with their burning homes? The poor people shed no tears, for there was in their hearts that which stifled such signs of emotion: they were absorbed in despair. They were forced away from that which was dear to their hearts, and their patriotism was treated with contemptuous mockery.... There are various ways in which the crime of murder is perpetrated. There are killings which are effected by the unjust and cruel denying of lands to our fellow-creatures to enable them to obtain food and raiment."

The feeling of the crofters in regard to increase of rent and eviction is very similar to that of the Irish tenantry. Very recently Mr. Parnell uttered sentiments which both would accept as their own. "I trust," he said, "that when any individual feels disposed to violate the divine commandment by taking, under such circumstances, that which does not belong to him, he will feel within him the promptings of patriotism and religion, and that he will turn away from the temptation. Let him remember that he is doing a great injustice to his country and his class,—that though he may perhaps benefit materially for a while, yet that ill-gotten gains will not prosper." Where crofters have been evicted, or have had their privileges curtailed or their rent raised, they and their descendants do not soon forget the grievance. Claims have recently been made for lands which the crofters have not occupied for two or three generations.

The Scotch landlords are not, as a rule, cruel or unjust. On the contrary, some of them are exceedingly kind and generous to their tenants, and have spent large sums of money in making improvements which add greatly to the prosperity and comfort of those who live on their estates. Many of them recognize the right of their tenants to occupy their holdings without interruption so long as the rent is paid regularly. The natural tendency, however, to insist upon their legal rights and to make the most they can out of their estates has led to not a few cases of hardship and injustice. A few such instances in a community are talked over for years, and often seriously interfere with the contentment and industry of many families. The traditions and recollections of the many evictions which have occurred during this century have often caused the motives of the best landlords to be suspected and their most benevolent acts to be misunderstood by their tenants. The crofter system has been an extremely bad one in many respects. There cannot be much interest in making improvements where the tenant must build the houses, fences, stables, etc., but has no guarantee that he will not be turned out of his holding or have his rent so increased as practically to compel him to leave the place. The kindness and humanity of the landlords have in many instances mitigated the worst evils of the system; but, while human nature remains as it is, no matter how just and generous individual landlords may be, general prosperity and contentment are impossible under the present arrangements. The discontent and discouragement caused by the action of the less kind and considerate landlords and agents frequently extend to crofters who have no just grounds of complaint, and troubles and hardships resulting from idleness or improvidence or other causes are often attributed to the injustice of the laws or the cruelty of the landlords.

The poverty of the crofter often renders his condition deplorable. His holding and right of common have been curtailed by the landlord, or he has sub-divided them among his sons or kinsmen, until it would be impossible for the produce of the soil to sustain the population, even if no rent whatever were charged. Some years ago he was able to increase his income by gathering sea-weed for kelp; but latterly, since iodine can be obtained more cheaply from other sources, the demand for this product has ceased. In some places the fishing is valuable, enabling him to supply his family with food for a part of the year, and bringing him money besides. He is, however, often too poor to provide the necessary boats and nets, while in many places the absence of good harbors and landings is a most serious drawback to the fishing industry. Sometimes he supplements his income by spending a few months of the year in the low country and obtaining work there. In most cases, however, a large part of his income must be derived from the land. If there were plenty of employment to be had, the little holding would do very well as a garden, and the stock which he could keep on the common would add greatly to his comfort. As things now are, he must look chiefly to the land both for his subsistence and his rent, and, with an unfruitful soil and an unfriendly climate, he is often on the verge of want.

Still more wretched is the condition of the cottars and squatters. The latter are in some places numerous and have taken up considerable portions of land formerly used as common, thus interfering with the rights of the crofters. They appropriate land and possess and pasture stock, but pay no rent, obey no control, and scarcely recognize any authority. The dwellings of this class and of some of the poorer crofters are wretched in the extreme. A single apartment, with walls of stone and mud, a floor of clay, a thatched roof, no windows, no chimney, one low door furnishing an entrance for the occupants and a means of ventilation and of escape for the smoke which rolls up black and thick from the peat fire, furniture of the rudest imaginable sort, the inhabitants—the human beings, the cows, the pigs, the sheep, and the poultry—all crowded together in the miserable and filthy hut, make up a picture which the most romantic and poetic associations can hardly render pleasing to one accustomed to the comforts and refinements of modern civilization. Of course many of the crofters live in greater comfort, and some of the cottages are by no means unattractive. But the Royal Commissioners say that the crofter's habitation is usually "of a character that would imply physical and moral degradation in the eyes of those who do not know how much decency, courtesy, virtue, and even refinement survive amidst the sordid surroundings of a Highland hovel." An Englishman who, on seeing these "sordid surroundings," was disposed to compare the social and moral condition of the people to "the barbarism of Egypt," was told that if he would ask one of the crofters, in Gaelic or English, "What is the chief end of man?" he would soon see the difference.

With such a history, such traditions, grievances, conditions, and hardships, it is not strange that the crofter should be ready to join an agitation that promised a remedy. Some of his grievances and claims have been so similar to those of the Irish tenant that the legislation which followed the violent agitation in Ireland has led him to hope for relief-measures similar to those enacted for the Irish tenantry. The Irish Land Act of 1870 recognized the tenant's right to the permanent possession of his holding and to his improvements, by providing that on being turned out by his landlord he should have compensation for disturbance and for his improvements. It did not, however, secure him against the landlord's so increasing his rent as practically to appropriate his improvements and even force him to leave his holding without any compensation. The Land Act of 1881 secured his interests by establishing a court which should fix a fair rent, by giving him a right to compensation for disturbance and for his improvements, and by allowing him to sell his interests for the best price he can get for them. It also enabled him to borrow from the government, at a low rate of interest, three-fourths of the money necessary to purchase his landlord's interest in the holding. This legal recognition and guarantee of the Irish tenant's interests have led the crofter to hope that his claims, based on better grounds, may also be conceded.

The changes recently made in the land laws of England and Scotland, and the activity of the advocates of further and more radical changes, have increased this hope. Progressive English statesmen have long looked with disfavor upon entails and settlements, and there have been a number of enactments providing for cutting off entails and increasing the power of limited owners. The last and most important of these, the Settled Estates Act, passed in 1882, gives the tenant for life power to sell any portion of the estate except the family mansion, and thus thoroughly undermines the principle upon which primogeniture and entails are founded. Much land which has hitherto been so tied up that the limited owners were either unable or unwilling to develop it can now be sold and improved. New measures have been proposed to increase still further the power of limited owners and to make the sale and transfer of land easier and less expensive. Many able statesmen are advocates of these measures. Mr. Goschen in a recent speech at Edinburgh urged the need of a land-register by which transfers of land might be made almost as cheaply and easily as transfers of consols. By such an arrangement, it is held, many farmers of small capital will be enabled to buy their farms, and the land of the country will thus be dispersed among a much larger number of owners. There has also been a very marked tendency to enlarge the rights and the authority of the tenant farmer. The Agricultural Holdings Act of 1883 gives the tenant a right to compensation for temporary and, on certain conditions, for permanent improvements, and permits him in most cases, where he cannot have compensation, to remove fixtures or buildings which he has erected, contrary to the old doctrine that whatever is fixed to the soil becomes the property of the landlord. The landlord's power to distrain for rent is greatly reduced: formerly he could distrain for six years' rent, now he can distrain only for the rent of one year, and he is required to give the tenant twelve instead of six months' notice to quit. The tenant is therefore more secure than formerly in the possession of his farm and in spending money and labor in making improvements that will render it more productive. Other changes are proposed, which will give him still more rights, greater freedom in the management of the farm, and additional encouragement to adopt the best methods of farming and invest his labor and money in improvements. Many of the land reformers advocate the adoption of measures similar to those that have been enacted for Ireland. It has for some time been one of the declared purposes of the Farmers' Alliance to secure a system of judicial rents for the tenant farmers of England. An important conference lately held at Aberdeen and participated in by representatives of both the English and Scottish Farmers' Alliances adopted an outline of a land bill for England and Scotland, providing for the establishment of a land court, fixing fair rents, fuller compensation for improvements, and the free sale of the tenant's interests.