CHAPTER III.

[Illustration: THE CAPTAIN AND THE CAPTAIN’S MATE.]

ST. NICHOLAS.

VOL. XIII. AUGUST, 1886. NO. 10.

[Copyright, 1886, by THE CENTURY CO.]

A ROCKY MOUNTAIN HERMIT.

BY ALFRED TERRY BACON.

A few days ago as I was coming out of the dark mouth of a cañon, glad

to be once again in the low afternoon sunshine and the free air, there

rang out from the blooming plum-thicket beside me a clear, low whistle,

repeated often. It was only a curlew hidden down by the brook, under the

sweet-scented canopy of flowers; but the whistle came again so sweetly

and boyishly that my thoughts flew far away; the tired horse fell into a

walk; the reins dropped from my hand over the high Mexican saddle-horn;

the mountains and the flower-covered valley seemed blotted out of sight,

and instead there came up a vision of a little brown-eyed boy, who lives

two thousand miles away—he seemed to be standing before me and looking

up, whistling just as the curlew whistles.

But there was no one near. I was alone among the mountains, twenty miles

away from any man, and twice as far from any whistling lad. It was only a

little vision that the curlew’s note called up for me, but I was grateful

to the hidden bird; for that clear remembrance was like sight, and it was

long since I had seen a human face or heard a voice. The curlew calling

by the brook never knew that it was doing a kindness for a boy far away

on the other side of the continent; but in jogging my memory it reminded

me of a letter, lying tucked away, which had cost its writer a great

deal of hard work—a letter from the brown-eyed lad who thinks the life

of a backwoodsman almost as interesting as the life of Robinson Crusoe

and the other wonderful men in the story-books. Perhaps there are some

other boys who would like to hear how a man lives all alone in the Rocky

Mountains.

Near the central part of the Territory of Wyoming there is a group of

mountains which belong to the Rocky Mountain system, though they are far

separated from the highest range. All the mountains are higher than any

of our Eastern ranges; but standing in the midst of plains that are many

thousand feet above the sea, their general height does not seem great.

They are very beautiful in their covering of heavy pine forests with

countless tall crags and towers and sharp obelisks of natural rock rising

from their summits; and in the center of the group there stands one lofty

peak rising far above all its fellows. While all the mountains around

were gay with spring flowers, its high head was still wrapped in snow;

and now as mid-summer approaches, it is still crowned with a white wreath

which will only melt away in the late summer, to return in the early

autumn.

The Rocky Mountains are unlike the other great ranges of the world, in

having broad, smooth, grassy valleys scattered everywhere among them.

Some of these valleys are of very great size, even among the highest

mountains, and they are so different from other mountain valleys that

they have received a different name; they are generally called parks.

This lower group of mountains also, like the great main range, has these

lovely natural parks of smaller size. The largest and most beautiful

of them all, a mile in width and many miles in length, lies along the

eastern side of the great peak; and just where the evening shadow of

the mountain falls across the park, shutting off an hour or two of late

sunshine, there stands a little lonely log cabin, which is my hermitage.

There I am spending a month or two, far away from men, like Robinson

Crusoe. I have, to be sure, the company of a horse and a dog, but there

is no man—not even a Man Friday; and therefore, as it is not possible for

me to talk to any one, I must do a little talking with my pen, and tell

what a queer sort of a life I lead. For even in this wilderness I have

one great comfort which was denied to poor old Robinson—sometimes, by

taking long rides, I can get letters; though, as the post-office is fifty

miles away, mail days are very scarce. Still, slowly passed along from

ranch to ranch, letters come and go; and so, in time, what I write will

reach the railroad and then the outer world.

[Illustration]

Life in this part of the globe is not always so lonely. On nearly all the

rivers and creeks of Wyoming there are ranches scattered at distances

of ten or twenty miles apart. On the eastern edge of these mountains,

there is a ranch only eight miles away from my hermitage, and there is

another in the foot-hills on the western side, not twenty miles away.

But now all the ranches are deserted, for the only business in all this

region is the raising of cattle, and through the early summer all hands

are hard at work on the “round-ups,” which run over the whole breadth

of the territory, searching for cattle scattered by the storms of the

last winter. Through the cold and the darkness and the deep snows of

winter Crusoe-life would, indeed, be rather too hard to bear. Then, there

were three of us together in the little cabin, and there were sometimes

friendly visits between the men on the distant ranches. But now, alone in

the wilderness, twenty miles from any human being, I feel the loneliness

less than did we three together in the still, dead winter; for the whole

world is alive and beautiful.

No one knows, moreover, how much pleasure there is in the friendship of

an affectionate dog and an intelligent horse, until he is shut off from

all other company, and is obliged to make them his intimate friends.

Gip and Monkey, my dog and my horse, spend so many hours of every day

exploring the mountains with me, that we have grown to be very faithful

friends.

[Illustration]

A hermit, you know, usually has not much work to do. Those old fellows

who used to hide themselves in caves and deserts, in old times, spent

most of their days in solemn meditation; but I am not just that kind

of a hermit. To sit still and think all the time would be the hardest

work in the world for me. The only necessary work that falls to my lot

at present is keeping the camp, preparing food and looking after a small

band of horses that are running at large in the park. My first task is to

ride a few miles up the park and see that the horses are on their proper

range; and after that, all the day is free for reading or writing or

hunting or wandering about through the mountains, finding fresh varieties

of flowers or exploring unknown cañons or climbing the tall crags to look

across the mountains to the vast plains that stretch away as far as the

eye can reach, like a blue sea. In these daily rides through the wild

mountains there is so much that is new and strange to Eastern eyes, so

much that is beautiful and grand, so many kinds of curious wild animals,

such quantities of gay flowers never seen in the States, that there is

enough pleasure in them to make up for all the loneliness of these few

weeks.

[Illustration: SOME OF THE UNSOCIABLE NEIGHBORS.]

We seem to be alone most of the time—Monkey, Gip, and I—and that is why

we are such friends; but we are not alone so much as we seem to be. There

are plenty of neighbors upon the mountain-sides, and some that wander

through the park; but they are so very unsociable that when they see us

coming they walk the other way. But then it is true, to be sure, that

some of them are not always very kindly treated by us when we meet them,

so perhaps we are to blame. There are two families of neighbors, who live

in caves on the mountain, for whom I have a great respect. I would not

give them offense on any account, for they are very powerful, and usually

have things all their own way in the neighborhood. They are the brown

bears and the gray bears. Often I see their great fresh foot-prints in

the mud along the creeks when I go out in the early morning. The tracks

look as if a man with very large, broad feet had been running bare-footed

through the mire. I never follow their trail very far to see where they

have gone, for I prefer to have a friend or two with me when I go to

make the acquaintance of these mighty gentlemen or the members of their

families.

At the nearest ranch on the western side of the mountains, there lives a

German who was the first pioneer to bring cattle in among these valleys.

The encounters that he has had with all the various animals that live

in the forest are very interesting. Not long ago, this old fellow built

a new cabin for himself at the foot of a mountain. Before his house was

finished, he went out one day and killed a fine fat deer. Bringing the

carcass home at night, he hung it up against the back of his house,

and then hanging a blanket over the doorway which was still without a

door, he went to bed. He slept soundly, but there dimly seemed to him to

be some disturbance about the house during the night; and when he went

out in the morning, every bit of his fine deer was gone, and the bear

tracks up and down the mountain-side showed what had become of it. But

game was plentiful, and it was not long before his deer was replaced by

a big-horned sheep, which is the most tender and juicy meat that ever

was eaten. This time he was more careful, and lay awake half the night,

fearing that he should lose his stock of fresh meat. When it was very

late and he was about to give up watching, he at last heard a sound at

the back of the house. Something was at work on his wild mutton. There

was a noise of scratching and tearing. It seemed as if several bears

were making short work with his meat. He seized his loaded rifle and

jumped out of bed with very scanty clothing on. Going to the doorway and

drawing aside the blanket, he saw that the night was cloudy and as dark

as Egypt. He stopped and thought for a moment that it would be impossible

to kill a bear in such darkness, even if he should be able to hit it, for

these beasts are so tough that they will carry a dozen bullets about in

their bodies without much inconvenience, if they are not wounded in the

heart or the brain. So our friend laid down his rifle and took instead a

loaded shot-gun. “This is the thing for them,” he said to himself; “it

will pepper them all over and scare them so they never will come again.”

Then, with gun in hand he silently climbed the projecting logs at the

nearest corner of the cabin, and creeping across the roof, peeped over

the edge above the place where the sheep was hung. Something appeared to

be moving below in the darkness. Taking a random aim, he blazed away.

The shot scattered and evidently took effect; for there arose a chorus

of growls and howls and yells that would have made the bravest man’s

hair stand on end; there was a scampering and shuffling of many feet up

and down, and around the cabin; even in the thick darkness he could see

many great fat creatures running and sniffing angrily about to find who

had attacked them. He saw that he was besieged on his own roof by at

least a dozen furious, hungry bears. “They didn’t scare worth a cent,” he

said. It was not long before they discovered whence the shot had come,

and knowing very well that there is strength in numbers, they determined

to have that man for supper, even if they had to put off their supper

till breakfast-time. So while some sat down here and there, the others

walked about, grunting and growling over their injuries. Bears can climb

quite as well as men, and old Frank stood with fear and trembling in

the middle of the roof, ready to receive with the butt of his gun the

first nose that should rise above the edge. If two had happened to mount

the roof on opposite sides, there would have been a small chance of

life for the poor man. But the bears thought that solid ground was the

safer place for them, so there they staid; and up above sat old Frank

shivering, how long he never knew. It seemed centuries. It was a sharp,

frosty autumn night, and, as he had on very little clothing, Frank was

soon chilled almost to his bones. But the bears’ coats were warm enough.

They were more hungry than they were cold, so there they sat and growled

and waited for their prey to come down and be eaten. Soon a bitterly cold

wind began to blow. Every joint in the poor man’s body stiffened; but it

seemed pleasanter to freeze to death than to be eaten up by those ugly

beasts, so he bore his discomfort as best he could. The hours of that

night seemed to be endless, and the chill grew terrible; but at last a

dull gray streak appeared in the East. No man was ever more glad to see

the first sign of dawn than was that chilly watcher. Bears are very shy

by daylight, and as the twilight little by little grew into broad day,

Frank’s visitors trotted away disappointed and sulky up to their dens on

the mountain. Their victim, more dead than alive, was able at last to

climb down, and kindle a fire to warm himself. He still lives to tell the

story in the same log cabin; but it has a good stout door now, and he

will never again go bear-hunting with a shot-gun.

So you see it is quite as pleasant not to have the bear families too

neighborly. They rarely come out of the woods by daylight, except in late

summer and autumn when the plum-thickets are hanging full of fruit; and

so, fortunately, we do not often see them.

The most sociable of all our wild neighbors is the prong-horned antelope,

of which there are several bands running up and down the park. Every day

as I ride out to the horse range I meet some of them; often, in suddenly

mounting the crest of a ridge, I surprise a little herd grazing just

beyond. Then it is beautiful to watch them as they bound gracefully away

down the slope with the speed of a bird, seeming hardly to touch their

slender limbs to the ground as they fly along. Gip likes nothing better

than to go tearing after them as long as his breath holds out; though

that small dog always finds it a hopeless chase, for only greyhounds and

the swiftest horses can overtake the antelope when it is strong and fat

from feeding freely on the fresh June grass.

[Illustration: HEAD OF THE PRONG-HORNED ANTELOPE.]

Returning a little while ago, after many weeks of civilized life in a

Colorado town, I found the old cabin deserted; for those who had been

my companions there had gone far out on the plains to look after our

wandering cattle. In the late afternoon, when the peak’s shadow fell

across the valley, while I was busy making ready the simple supper, Gip

stood in the doorway on guard, and I heard him give a long, low growl

of suspicion. Looking out, I saw two pretty antelopes standing before

the door, not a stone’s throw away, peering about in a timid, curious

way to see what change had come over the little house which before had

been so quiet. It is not common to see them so very near, and they were

so pretty and graceful that I could only stand and admire them for a

moment, forgetting my need of fresh meat. Their little hook-shaped horns

and dainty hoofs are as black as polished jet; their eyes are very

large and soft and dark; their bodies are a bright tawny color, but the

throat and breast and limbs are snowy white. There are few animals in

the world that are more elegant both in shape and in their movements

than the prong-horned antelope. They came tripping down the slope with

all the airs and graces of two little dandies; now trotting easily

forward; now clearing a fallen tree with a beautiful flying leap; now

stopping a moment to gaze and sniff about for possible danger. It was

quite flattering to a lonely hermit to receive a visit from neighbors as

handsome and stylish as these. But, though a friendly visit would be very

pleasant, a full larder would be still pleasanter. Fortunately for my

shy visitors, all the arms and ammunition had been stowed away while the

house was closed, and could not be procured before the wary creatures had

trotted on out of easy rifle range.

[Illustration: COYOTES, OR PRAIRIE WOLVES.]

Once in two weeks comes the principal event of my backwoods life,—a

horseback ride of about forty miles to carry letters to the nearest

ranch, and to get those that have collected there. After riding a few

miles along the valley and through a pass, I come out upon the open

rolling country that stretches away for hundreds of miles without any

covering of trees or bushes except along the streams; for this western

prairie land is so dry that only grass and cactus and low herbs can grow

upon it. The rolling land is green, and spangled with flowers through May

and June; but after mid-summer it becomes as dry as a desert, and in that

way kind Providence changes the standing grass into hay which will feed

the thousands of cattle and horses and wild creatures through the winter.

[Illustration: PRAIRIE DOGS.]

As I ride out of the pass on these regular journeys for the mail, a

coyote, or prairie wolf, that lives close by among the rocks, often

comes rushing out with a doleful howl, and acts as if wishing to make

acquaintance with Gip. Both the wolf and Gip seem to understand that they

are blood relations. They are nearly of equal size, and they run up to

each other as if they would like to be friends; but when they are close

together, the courage of one or the other always fails. Either Gip turns

tail, allowing the wolf to chase him within a dozen steps of the horse’s

heels,—or the wolf takes alarm, and Gip runs madly after it until it

disappears over a ridge. So the wild dog and the tame one make little

progress in their friendship. Yet it is not a very uncommon thing in the

Far West even for gentle and intelligent dogs to form a friendship with a

pack of wolves, and to go off and live with them, returning now and then

to pay short visits to their old masters. But more often if a dog falls

in with a pack of wolves, he is quickly torn in pieces by them.

[Illustration: THE MOUNTAIN LION.]

[Illustration: THE HOME OF THE BIG CAT.]

Early in the morning, before the peak has begun to gather its cap of

thunder clouds which break in showers every afternoon, and while the air

through the whole valley is cool and very sweet with the perfume of a

million flowers, I start out for my daily ride. First there is a mile

over the rich grassland along the creek where the gay flowers grow in

far greater variety and beauty than in any Eastern fields; then there

is a long stretch of dry, rolling land which is all one great city of

prairie-dogs. At the approach of strangers there is great excitement

through this town of little yellow pigmies. Those which are looking

out from the highest point give a few warning calls. Then there is a

tremendous scattering and scampering in all directions of the fat,

short-legged little bodies in so hot haste that they look like balls

of yellow fur rolling across the gravel. Some have been out feeding,

and more have been about gossiping with their neighbors and making

morning calls, for they are famous little busybodies: but when they

hear the warning, all fly at full speed to their own homes. Then when

every one is sitting at the mouth of its hole, they are ready to defy

the world. For a man and a horse they care little, but at the sight of

a dog, the city is in an uproar; and, feeling perfectly safe by their

own homes, they delight to tease him. There is such a Babel of shrill

little voices chattering, scolding, squealing, and yelping from hundreds

of gravel-heaps, that Gip stands for a minute perplexed, not knowing

on which one to spring first; then like a flash he darts away to the

nearest hole where a jolly little tormentor is chattering its defiance.

The prairie-dog stands still in the doorway of its house, scolding and

twitching its tail as its enemy comes charging down, until Gip’s nose

seems almost upon it; then as quick as a wink, the little tail flies up

and Mr. Prairie-Dog is far away into the earth by the time Gip has fairly

reached the door of his house. Then every dog in the town redoubles its

chattering, and it seems as if a ripple of low laughter ran through the

company at the disappointment of their enemy. But Gip, after ramming his

head as far as it can be forced into the burrow, draws it out with a

sniff of regret and then is off again, full tilt, after the next little

saucy rascal that sits on a neighboring sandheap, making merry over his

perplexity. Again he almost has one; the prairie-dog sits unmoved until

Gip comes within a yard of the hole, and then it vanishes. It seems a

very narrow escape for it; but it is always just so narrow, and yet they

always escape. As long as man and dog are in sight they keep up their

shrill din, like the chattering of a thousand monkeys; and as long as we

are in their village, Gip flies madly from hole to hole, always just so

eager and hopeful, though he has been chasing them all his life and has

never yet caught one.

[Illustration: HEAD OF THE WAPITI.]

The town of the prairie-dogs is in a beautiful situation. It lies in

the broadest part of the park, surrounded by the highest and grandest

of the mountains. A few days ago, as I was riding through it in the

early morning, I saw an animal some distance ahead running hard toward

the woods. Thinking it was a wolf or coyote, I paid little attention at

first, but looking closer, I saw plainly that I was mistaken, for its

legs were short, and its body long and heavy. It went springing over

the grass with long bounds, and its coat of fur was grayish, shading to

yellow brown; and I knew it must be one of the great panthers which are

generally called mountain lions. I had never before met one, though their

great, round footprints, as large as tea-plates, had often been seen in

the soft snow the last winter. Like other cats, they like to sleep in the

day and to prowl at night. Gip took a long, wistful look at the lion; but

he is a small dog, and a very wise one, and he knew his life would be

short if he should approach very near to that great creature, so he went

back to his hard work with the prairie-dogs, and left me to go galloping

off alone for a nearer view of the lion. But Monkey dislikes wild beasts

quite as much as Gip, and would never willingly have carried me very near

to a beast of prey, even if the lion had not run up into the rocks on the

mountain-side before I had seen it very clearly.

Beside the rough confusion of rocks into which the panther ran, there was

a gentle grassy slope which seemed to extend to the top of the mountain.

I wanted to have one more look at the big cat, so Monkey had to climb

the long ascent, much against his will, keeping as near to the rocks as

possible; and very soon Gip plucked up courage to follow; but that was

the last we ever saw of the mountain lion. However, in wandering up near

the top of the mountain, I came on tracks that were quite as interesting

to me as was the lion. They were the marks of a cloven hoof, nearly as

large as the tracks of an ox, but longer and more pointed. As there were

no cattle so high on the mountain, it was plain, at a glance, that they

were footprints of the great wapiti, which, in the West, is always called

an elk. Hurrying on in hope of catching sight of this great king of the

forest, the footprints grew fresher, and soon I came to a glade where the

grass, crushed down in spots, showed that a startled band of elk had just

risen from their rest, and run away; and so, like a will-o’-the-wisp,

they led me on through the forest, always letting me know that they were

near, by their fresh tracks, but never quite near enough to be seen. The

elk and the big-horned sheep are the shyest of all these wild animals;

and the elk have the senses of sight and smell and hearing so very keen,

that they will see a hunter, and will run from him, a dozen times for

every time that he gets a first sight of them. Their great branching

antlers, so large and heavy that a small boy could hardly lift them from

the ground, lie scattered everywhere through the grass in the park, for

they shed them every spring; and everywhere on the mountain-sides we find

their footprints; and yet it is quite a rare event to meet them, and

still more uncommon to kill them.

[Illustration: THE AMERICAN ELK.]

So all day long, with my pony and my dog, I wandered contentedly along

the mountain-side, resting often under cool over-arching rocks or beside

the snow-fed brooks, the banks of which are streaked with the crimson

of the wild cyclamen; and all day long we tried to pay visits to our

shy neighbors; but wherever we called, they were not at home. And, when

the late afternoon began to drop blue, gauzy veils of shadows over the

east-ward slope of the opposite mountain, we turned back toward the

lonely, silent home, which now never hears the sweet sound of human

speech.

I can not now tell you of all the queer inhabitants of these mountains;

but next time I shall have something to say to you about the beaver, the

wild sheep, the buffalo, and some other interesting neighbors of mine.

THE BABY’S DIMPLE.

BY WILLIAM H. HAYNE.

A south wind sought the baby’s cheek.

Fresh from a laughing billow,

And blew in elfish glee against

The small face on the pillow.

THE MONSTER.

BY MARIA J. HAMMOND.

[Illustration]

I.

Ho! the great monster, the Sea!

Rushing and raging about,

Lashing his tail,—he must be

Hungry and frantic, no doubt!

Oh, should he open his lips,—

Woe to the beautiful ships!

Beautiful ships, keep away

From the great monster to-day!

Ho! the wild creature—the Sea!

Hungry and fierce he must be!

II.

Lo! the great monster, asleep,

Lying so quietly there!

Hear his low breathings so deep!

See the wind waving his hair!

Ho, little children, come near—

Come now and see him!—Don’t fear.

Touch his soft mane in your play,—

He will not harm you to-day.

Lo! the huge creature asleep—

Breathing so low and so deep!

[Illustration]

A SAD CASE.

BY MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.

[Illustration]

Miss Dorothea Dimpleton, whenever she went out,

Held in her neatly mittened hand a silken reticule;

When she went to shop, to market, or to visit all about,

She carried it, as if upon her way to sewing-school.

’Twas always full, and yet her dearest friends had never heard

What ’twas full of, so they all agreed her conduct was absurd.

Miss Dorothea Dimpleton had early learned to sew;

She could hem, and fell, and overseam, could gather and could gore;

And she said, “This is an art that every woman ought to know,

But, alas! my sex disdains to learn the useful any more!

Yet I will not be discouraged; I will do my small endeavor,

And perchance I may prevent the art from being lost forever!”

So she filled with pretty “hussifs”[1] her ample reticule,

Each stocked with thimble, needlecase, and scissors, all complete,

And she stopped the little maidens on their way from morning school,

And to each of them she kindly gave a “hussif” fresh and neat,

And the little maids said, “Thank you, Ma’am!” and curtseyed to the

ground,

And then went and hid the “hussifs” where they seldom could be found.

Miss Dorothea Dimpleton felt very sure, at last,

That every little girl in town was sewing with a will;

And it was not till at least a year of feeling sure was past,

That she heard a truth so dreadful that it really made her ill:

Of all those lovely “hussifs” she had given in the place,

There had not been a needle in one single needle-case!

But that, you know, was years ago, before it had been said,

“Be sure you’re right, and” (please observe the “then”) “_then_ go

ahead!”

[1] “Hussif” (a contracted form of the word “house-wife”)was formerly

used as a name for a little bag or case for holding sewing materials.

A LITTLE SEAMSTRESS.

BY MARY E. WILKINS.

She sat in her little rocking-chair, a-sighing and twirling her

thumbs:

“Oh, everything for my doll is done, and never to mending comes!

I haven’t a morsel of sewing!—Dear Mother, in all the town,

Can’t you find me one doll, no matter how small, who will wear out

her gown?”

LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.

BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.

CHAPTER XI.

When Mr. Hobbs’s young friend left him to go to Dorincourt Castle and

become Lord Fauntleroy, and the grocery-man had time to realize that

the Atlantic Ocean lay between himself and the small companion who had

spent so many agreeable hours in his society, he really began to feel

very lonely indeed. The fact was, Mr. Hobbs was not a clever man nor even

a bright one; he was, indeed, rather a slow and heavy person, and he

had never made many acquaintances. He was not mentally energetic enough

to know how to amuse himself, and in truth he never did anything of an

entertaining nature but read the newspapers and add up his accounts. It

was not very easy for him to add up his accounts, and sometimes it took

him a long time to bring them out right; and in the old days, little Lord

Fauntleroy, who had learned how to add up quite nicely with his fingers

and a slate and pencil, had sometimes even gone to the length of trying

to help him; and, then too, he had been so good a listener and had taken

such an interest in what the newspaper said, and he and Mr. Hobbs had

held such long conversations about the Revolution and the British and

the elections and the Republican party, that it was no wonder his going

left a blank in the grocery store. At first it seemed to Mr. Hobbs that

Cedric was not really far away, and would come back again; that some day

he would look up from his paper and see the lad standing in the doorway,

in his white suit and red stockings, and with his straw hat on the back

of his head, and would hear him say in his cheerful little voice: “Hello,

Mr. Hobbs! This is a hot day—isn’t it?” But as the days passed on and

this did not happen, Mr. Hobbs felt very dull and uneasy. He did not even

enjoy his newspaper as much as he used to. He would put the paper down

on his knee after reading it, and sit and stare at the high stool for a

long time. There were some marks on the long legs which made him feel

quite dejected and melancholy. They were marks made by the heels of the

next Earl of Dorincourt, when he kicked and talked at the same time. It

seems that even youthful earls kick the legs of things they sit on;—noble

blood and lofty lineage do not prevent it. After looking at those marks,

Mr. Hobbs would take out his gold watch and open it and stare at the

inscription: “From his oldest friend, Lord Fauntleroy, to Mr. Hobbs.

When this you see, remember me.” And after staring at it awhile, he would

shut it up with a loud snap, and sigh and get up and go and stand in the

doorway—between the box of potatoes and the barrel of apples—and look

up the street. At night, when the store was closed, he would light his

pipe and walk slowly along the pavement until he reached the house where

Cedric had lived, on which there was a sign that read, “This House to

Let”; and he would stop near it and look up and shake his head, and puff

at his pipe very hard, and after a while walk mournfully back again.

This went on for two or three weeks before any new idea came to him.

Being slow and ponderous, it always took him a long time to reach a new

idea. As a rule he did not like new ideas, but preferred old ones. After

two or three weeks, however, during which, instead of getting better,

matters really grew worse, a novel plan slowly and deliberately dawned

upon him. He would go to see Dick. He smoked a great many pipes before he

arrived at the conclusion, but finally he did arrive at it. He would go

to see Dick. He knew all about Dick. Cedric had told him, and his idea

was that perhaps Dick might be some comfort to him in the way of talking

things over.

So one day when Dick was very hard at work blacking a customer’s boots,

a short, stout man with a heavy face and a bald head, stopped on the

pavement and stared for two or three minutes at the bootblack’s sign,

which read:

“PROFESSOR DICK TIPTON

CAN’T BE BEAT.”

He stared at it so long that Dick began to take a lively interest in him,

and when he had put the finishing touch to his customer’s boots, he said:

“Want a shine, sir?”

The stout man came forward deliberately and put his foot on the rest.

“Yes,” he said.

Then when Dick fell to work, the stout man looked from Dick to the sign

and from the sign to Dick.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

“From a friend o’ mine,” said Dick,—“a little feller. He guv’ me the

whole outfit. He was the best little feller ye ever saw. He’s in England

now. Gone to be one o’ those lords.”

“Lord—Lord—”asked Mr. Hobbs, with ponderous slowness, “Lord

Fauntleroy—Goin’ to be Earl of Dorincourt?”

Dick almost dropped his brush.

“Why, boss!”he exclaimed, “d’ye know him yerself?”

“I’ve known him.” answered Mr. Hobbs, wiping his warm forehead, “ever

since he was born. We were lifetime acquaintances—that’s what _we_ were.”

It really made him feel quite agitated to speak of it. He pulled the

splendid gold watch out of his pocket and opened it, and showed the

inside of the case to Dick.

“‘When this you see, remember me,’” he read.

“That was his parting keepsake to me. ‘I don’t want you to forget

me’—those were his words—I’d ha’ remembered him,” he went on, shaking his

head, “if he hadn’t given me a thing, an’ I hadn’t seen hide nor hair on

him again. He was a companion as _any_ man would remember.”

“He was the nicest little feller I ever see,” said Dick. “An’ as to

sand—I never ha’ seen so much sand to a little feller. I thought a heap

o’ him, I did,—an’ we was friends, too—we was sort o’ chums from the

fust, that little young un an’ me. I grabbed his ball from under a stage

fur him, an’ he never forgot it; an’ he’d come down here, he would, with

his mother or his nuss an’ he’d holler: ‘Hello, Dick!’ at me, as friendly

as if he was six feet high, when he warn’t knee high to a grasshopper,

and was dressed in gal’s clo’es. He was a gay little chap, and when you

was down on your luck, it did you good to talk to him.”

“That’s so,” said Mr. Hobbs. “It was a pity to make an earl out of _him_.

He would have _shone_ in the grocery business—or dry goods either; he

would have _shone_!” And he shook his head with deeper regret than ever.

It proved that they had so much to say to each other that it was not

possible to say it all at one time, and so it was agreed that the next

night Dick should make a visit to the store and keep Mr. Hobbs company.

The plan pleased Dick well enough. He had been a street waif nearly

all his life, but he had never been a bad boy, and he had always had a

private yearning for a more respectable kind of existence. Since he had

been in business for himself, he had made enough money to enable him to

sleep under a roof instead of out in the streets, and he had begun to

hope he might reach even a higher plane, in time. So, to be invited to

call on a stout, respectable man who owned a corner store, and even had a

horse and wagon, seemed to him quite an event.

“Do you know anything about earls and castles?” Mr. Hobbs inquired. “I’d

like to know more of the particklars.”

“There’s a story about some on ’em in the _Penny Story Gazette_,” said

Dick. “It’s called the ‘Crime of a Coronet; or, the Revenge of the

Countess May.’ It’s a boss thing, too. Some of us boys’re takin’ it to

read.”

“Bring it up when you come,” said Mr. Hobbs, “an’ I’ll pay for it. Bring

all you can find that have any earls in ’em. If there aren’t earls,

markises ’ll do, or dooks—though _he_ never made mention of any dooks or

markises. We did go over coronets a little, but I never happened to see

any. I guess they don’t keep ’em ’round here.”

“Tiffany’d have ’em if anybody did,” said Dick, “but I don’t know as I’d

know one if I saw it.”

Mr. Hobbs did not explain that he would not have known one if he saw it.

He merely shook his head ponderously.

“I s’pose there is very little call for ’em,” he said, and that ended the

matter.

This was the beginning of quite a substantial friendship. When Dick went

up to the store, Mr. Hobbs received him with great hospitality. He gave

him a chair tilted against the door, near a barrel of apples, and after

his young visitor was seated, he made a jerk at them with the hand in

which he held his pipe, saying:

“Help yerself.”

Then he looked at the story papers, and after that they read, and

discussed the British aristocracy; and Mr. Hobbs smoked his pipe very

hard and shook his head a great deal. He shook it most when he pointed

out the high stool with the marks on its legs.

“There’s his very kicks,” he said impressively; “his very kicks. I sit

and look at ’em by the hour. This is a world of ups an’ it’s a world of

downs. Why, he’d set there, an’ eat crackers out of a box, an’ apples out

of a barrel, an’ pitch his cores into the street; an’ now he’s a lord

a-livin’ in a castle. Those are a lord’s kicks; they’ll be an earl’s

kicks some day. Sometimes I says to myself, says I, ‘Well, I’ll be

jiggered!’”

He seemed to derive a great deal of comfort from his reflections and

Dick’s visit. Before Dick went home, they had a supper in the small

backroom; they had crackers and cheese and sardines, and other canned

things out of the store, and Mr. Hobbs solemnly opened two bottles of

ginger ale, and pouring out two glasses, proposed a toast.

“Here’s to _him_!” he said, lifting his glass, “an’ may he teach ’em a

lesson—earls an’ markises an’ dooks an’ all!”

After that night, the two saw each other often, and Mr. Hobbs was much

more comfortable and less desolate. They read the _Penny Story Gazette_,

and many other interesting things, and gained a knowledge of the habits

of the nobility and gentry which would have surprised those despised

classes if they had realized it. One day Mr. Hobbs made a pilgrimage to a

book store down town, for the express purpose of adding to their library.

He went to a clerk and leaned over the counter to speak to him.

“I want,” he said, “a book about earls.”

“What!” exclaimed the clerk.

“A book,” repeated the grocery-man, “about earls.”

“I’m afraid,” said the clerk, looking rather queer, “that we haven’t what

you want.”

“Haven’t?” said Mr. Hobbs, anxiously. “Well, say markises then—or dooks.”

“I know of no such book,” answered the clerk.

Mr. Hobbs was much disturbed. He looked down on the floor,—then he looked

up.

“None about female earls?” he inquired.

“I’m afraid not,” said the clerk, with a smile.

“Well,” exclaimed Mr. Hobbs, “I’ll be jiggered!”

He was just going out of the store, when the clerk called him back and

asked him if a story in which the nobility were chief characters would

do. Mr. Hobbs said it would—if he could not get an entire volume devoted

to earls. So the clerk sold him a book called “The Tower of London,”

written by Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and he carried it home.

When Dick came they began to read it. It was a very wonderful and

exciting book, and the scene was laid in the reign of the famous English

queen who is called by some people Bloody Mary. And as Mr. Hobbs heard

of Queen Mary’s deeds and the habit she had of chopping people’s heads

off, putting them to the torture, and burning them alive, he became very

much excited. He took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at Dick, and

at last he was obliged to mop the perspiration from his brow with his red

pocket handkerchief.

[Illustration: “WHY, BOSS!” EXCLAIMED DICK, “DO YOU KNOW HIM YOURSELF?”]

“Why, he aint safe!” he said. “He aint safe! If the women folks can sit

up on their thrones an’ give the word for things like that to be done,

who’s to know what’s happening to him this very minute? He’s no more safe

than nothing? Just let a woman like that get mad, an’ no one’s safe!”

“Well,” said Dick, though he looked rather anxious himself; “ye see this

’ere un isn’t the one that’s bossin’ things now. I know her name’s

Victohry, an’ this un here in the book,—her name’s Mary.”

“So it is,” said Mr. Hobbs, still mopping his forehead; “so it is. An’

the newspapers are not sayin’ anything about any racks, thumbscrews,

or stake-burnin’s,—but still it doesn’t seem as if ’twas safe for him

over there with those queer folks. Why, they tell me they don’t keep the

Fourth o’ July!”

He was privately uneasy for several days; and it was not until he

received Fauntleroy’s letter and had read it several times, both to

himself and to Dick, and had also read the letter Dick got about the same

time, that he became composed again.

But they both found great pleasure in their letters. They read and

re-read them, and talked them over and enjoyed every word of them. And

they spent days over the answers they sent, and read them over almost as

often as the letters they had received.

It was rather a labor for Dick to write his. All his knowledge of reading

and writing he had gained during a few months when he had lived with his

elder brother, and had gone to a night-school; but, being a sharp boy,

he had made the most of that brief education, and had spelled out things

in newspapers since then, and practiced writing with bits of chalk on

pavements or walls or fences. He told Mr. Hobbs all about his life and

about his elder brother, who had been rather good to him after their

mother died, when Dick was quite a little fellow. Their father had died

some time before. The brother’s name was Ben, and he had taken care of

Dick as well as he could, until the boy was old enough to sell newspapers

and run errands. They had lived together, and as he grew older Ben had

managed to get along until he had quite a decent place in a store.

“And then,” exclaimed Dick with disgust, “blest if he didn’t go an’ marry

a gal! Just went and got spoony, an’ hadn’t any more sense left! Married

her, an’ set up housekeepin’ in two back rooms. An’ a hefty un she was,—a

regular tiger-cat. She’d tear things to pieces when she got mad,—and she

was mad _all_ the time. Had a baby just like her,—yell day ’n’ night! An’

if I didn’t have to ’tend it! an’ when it screamed, she’d fire things

at me. She fired a plate at me one day, an’ hit the baby—cut its chin.

Doctor said he’d carry the mark till he died. A nice mother she was!

Crackey! but didn’t we have a time—Ben ’n’ mehself ’n’ the young un. She

was mad at Ben because he didn’t make money faster; ’n’ at last he went

out West with a man to set up a cattle ranch. An’ he hadn’t been gone a

week ’fore, one night, I got home from sellin’ my papers, ’n’ the rooms

wus locked up ’n’ empty, ’n’ the woman o’ the house, she told me Minna’d

gone—shown a clean pair o’ heels. Some un else said she’d gone across the

water to be nuss to a lady as had a little baby, too. Never heard a word

of her since—nuther has Ben. If I’d ha’ bin him, I wouldn’t ha’ fretted

a bit—’n’ I guess he didn’t. But he thought a heap o’ her at the start.

Tell you, he was spoons on her. She was a daisy-lookin’ gal, too, when

she was dressed up, ’n’ not mad. She’d big black eyes ’n’ black hair down

to her knees; she’d make it into a rope as big as your arm, and twist it

’round ’n’ ’round her head; ’n’ I tell you her eyes’d snap! Folks used to

say she was part _I_tali-un—said her mother or father’d come from there,

’n’ it made her queer. I tell ye, she was one of ’em—she was!”

He often told Mr. Hobbs stories of her and of his brother Ben, who, since

his going out West, had written once or twice to Dick. Ben’s luck had not

been good, and he had wandered from place to place; but at last he had

settled on a ranch in California, where he was at work at the time when

Dick became acquainted with Mr. Hobbs.

“That gal,” said Dick one day, “she took all the grit out o’ him. I

couldn’t help feelin’ sorry for him sometimes.”

They were sitting in the store door-way together, and Mr. Hobbs was

filling his pipe.

“He oughtn’t to ’ve married,” he said solemnly, as he rose to get a

match. “Women—I never could see any use in ’em, myself.”

As he took the match from its box, he stopped and looked down on the

counter.

“Why!” he said, “if here isn’t a letter! I didn’t see it before. The

postman must have laid it down when I wasn’t noticin’, or the newspaper

slipped over it.”

He picked it up and looked at it carefully.

“It’s from _him_!” he exclaimed. “That’s the very one it’s from!”

He forgot his pipe altogether. He went back to his chair quite excited

and took his pocket-knife and opened the envelope.

“I wonder what news there is this time,” he said.

And then he unfolded the letter and read as follows:

“DORINCOURT CASTLE

“My dear Mr Hobbs

“i write this in a great hury becaus i have something curous to

tell you i know you will be very mutch suprised my dear frend

when i tel you. It is all a mistake and i am not a lord and i

shall not have to be an earl there is a lady whitch was marid

to my uncle bevis who is dead and she has a little boy and he

is lord fauntleroy becaus that is the way it is in England

the earls eldest sons little boy is the earl if every body

else is dead i mean if his farther and grandfarther are dead

my grandfarther is not dead but my uncle bevis is and so his

boy is lord Fauntleroy and I am not becaus my papa was the

youngest son and my name is Cedric Errol like it was when I was

in New York and all the things will belong to the other boy i

thought at first i should have to give him my pony and cart but

my grandfarther says i need not my grandfarther is very sorry

and i think he does not like the lady but preaps he thinks

dearest and i are sorry becaus i shall not be an earl i would

like to be an earl now better than i thout i would at first

becaus this is a beautifle castle and i like every body so

and when you are rich you can do so many things i am not rich

now becaus when your papa is only the youngest son he is not

very rich i am going to learn to work so that I can take care

of dearest i have been asking Wilkins about grooming horses

preaps i might be a groom or a coachman, the lady brought her

little boy to the castle and my grandfarther and Mr. Havisham

talked to her i think she was angry she talked loud and my

grandfarther was angry too i never saw him angry before i wish

it did not make them all mad i thort i would tell you and Dick

right away becaus you would be intrusted so no more at present

with love from

“your old frend

“CEDRIC ERROL (Not lord Fauntleroy).”

Mr. Hobbs fell back in his chair, the letter dropped on his knee, his

penknife slipped to the floor, and so did the envelope.

“Well!” he ejaculated, “I am jiggered!”

He was so dumbfounded that he actually changed his exclamation. It had

always been his habit to say, “I _will_ be jiggered,” but this time he

said, “I _am_ jiggered.” Perhaps he really _was_ jiggered. There is no

knowing.

“Well,” said Dick, “the whole thing’s bust up, hasn’t it?”

“Bust!” said Mr. Hobbs. “It’s my opinion it’s all a put-up job o’ the

British ’ristycrats to rob him of his rights because he’s an American.

They’ve had a spite agin us ever since the Revolution, an’ they’re takin’

it out on him. I told you he wasn’t safe, an’ see what’s happened! Like

as not, the whole gover’ment’s got together to rob him of his lawful

ownin’s.”

He was very much agitated. He had not approved of the change in his young

friend’s circumstances at first, but lately he had become more reconciled

to it, and after the receipt of Cedric’s letter he had perhaps even felt

some secret pride in his young friend’s magnificence. He might not have

a good opinion of earls, but he knew that even in America money was

considered rather an agreeable thing, and if all the wealth and grandeur

were to go with the title, it must be rather hard to lose it.

“They’re trying to rob him!” he said, “that’s what they’re doing, and

folks that have money ought to look after him.”

And he kept Dick with him until quite a late hour to talk it over, and

when that young man left, he went with him to the corner of the street;

and on his way back he stopped opposite the empty house for some time,

staring at the “To Let,” and smoking his pipe, in much disturbance of

mind.

(_To be continued._)

[Illustration: WAITING FOR A COLD WAVE.]

A ROYAL FISH.

BY RIPLEY HITCHCOCK.

[Illustration]

When the Hudson River was first seen by St. Nicholas, or rather by his

image, which was the figure-head of the Dutch ship Goode Vrouw, there

were more salmon in the water than there were wild grapes about the

Indian wigwams which stood where New York City stands to-day. That was a

few years after the rediscovery of the river by Henry Hudson in 1609.[2]

But, in course of time, the salmon went the way of the Indians. The last

native Hudson River salmon was caught in a net in New York bay about

1844; but, more recently, attempts have been made artificially to stock

that river and others with this fish, and within two years a few have

been caught, the only salmon taken from the Hudson in forty years.[3]

When St. Nicholas made his first visit to our shores, there were salmon

in every river along the Atlantic coast, north of the Delaware. But, as

fishermen became numerous, as dams were built across the rivers, and as

the water was made impure by town and city drainage, the salmon were

driven northward, just as the Indians were driven westward. The salmon

were forced to leave the Connecticut—another river into which there has

been hope of introducing them again; they left the Merrimac when it was

given over to manufactories; and now few salmon are to be found south of

the rivers of eastern Maine. Beyond, they visit the rivers of the British

Provinces, Labrador, the Hudson Bay country, and even Greenland,—for

one variety of salmon is a fearless Arctic explorer, and penetrates the

Arctic Circle. The salmon is as much at home in Iceland and Norway as in

England, Scotland, and Ireland. On the north-western American coast, from

northern California, Oregon, and Washington, to Alaska and beyond, there

have always been vast numbers of this wonderful fish.

I say wonderful, because the salmon is the king of all game fishes, and

because he goes under so many names, and has habits so curious that he

has puzzled naturalists for hundreds of years. And his pink flesh is so

prized that the salmon fisheries on this continent alone yield millions

of dollars every year.

[Illustration]

The gamy qualities of the salmon, which cause the fly-fisherman to

rate him above all other fishes, are his enduring strength and his

great activity. The salmon and the blue-fish are the strongest game

fishes known, and the former reaches a far larger size than the latter.

According to one writer, “the salmon and the sword-fish are the fastest

swimmers of all the forked-tail fishes.” Only a fast running-horse could

outstrip a salmon; for it is estimated that the salmon swims a mile in

less than two minutes. But the horse would be left behind in a long race,

for the fish can cover thirty miles in an hour. When leisurely ascending

rivers, with frequent rests in attractive pools, the salmon averages

from fifteen to twenty-five miles a day. In leaping, the salmon can

easily beat the horse, for salmon have leaped up waterfalls twelve feet

high. It was formerly supposed that the salmon, when about to jump, bent

himself double, and took his tail in his mouth, so that he was like an

elastic bow drawn tight. Then it was thought that he suddenly let go, his

tail striking the water with great force, and away he went through the

air. But now we know that the salmon prepares for a leap just as a boy

does, with a short, sharp run. If the water at the foot of the dam or

fall is not deep enough to allow this preparatory run, the salmon can not

jump. If there is water enough, he starts from the bottom, his powerful

tail working as rapidly as the propeller-screw of a steamship. Aided

by the pectoral fins, the upward movement grows quicker and quicker,

until with a last muscular effort the salmon shoots from the water, his

tail still vibrating for an instant, then becoming motionless, as the

fish curves through the air and comes down above the obstacle. If a dam

be built so high as to be impassable, the salmon will leave the river

altogether, for instinct always leads them to the head-waters, where

they lay their eggs. So fish-ladders and fish-ways of various kinds

have been invented to help salmon and other fishes to surmount natural

or artificial barriers. Fish-ladders have been constructed by the aid

of which salmon ascend falls over thirty feet high. As soon as salmon

enter rivers on their way from the sea they begin to jump, like a crowd

of boys just let out of school. Standing on the shore of a salmon river

in June or July, you will every now and then see the fish leap four or

five feet out of water, glistening like polished silver, then curving

over and falling with a heavy splash. Or sometimes their back fins will

roll lazily out of the water, and you will be reminded of a school of

porpoises. But there is nothing lazy about the salmon when once he is

hooked. If there is a twenty-five pound salmon at the end of your line,

jumping nearly as high as your head in his struggles to rid himself of

the hook, you will be sure to think of nothing except that fish.

[Illustration: SALMON FLIES.]

But before the salmon reaches a weight of twenty-five pounds, he appears

in so many and so different forms that very wise men have been unable

to recognize him. When the salmon is just hatched, he is known as fry,

or fingerling. Then he becomes a parr, or samlet, also called pink, or

brandling, on some foreign rivers. The parr changes to a smolt, the

smolt to a grilse, and the grilse finally develops into the salmon. The

latter, when running fresh from the sea, are called white salmon, and

when they are descending rivers after spawning, they are termed kelts,

or black salmon. Other names given to salmon after spawning-time are

kippers and baggits, or shedders. So the salmon, like the royal fish

that he is, has as many names as a prince of one of the royal families

of Europe. The alevin, or baby salmon, is hatched in from thirty to one

hundred days after the eggs are laid in furrows in gravelly beds which

are scooped out by the parent fish, near the head-waters of cold, clear

rivers. Presently the alevin grows into the fry, or pink, which is an

absurd little fish about an inch long, goggle-eyed, and with dark bars on

its sides. When some three months old, the fry makes a change like that

of a chrysalis into a butterfly. It becomes a shapely little fish with a

forked tail, and brilliant carmine spots shine out on its sides. Its back

is of a dark slaty color, and the bars are less strongly marked as the

parr grows older. The greediest of trout is not more hungry and active. I

have often seen a dozen tiny parr jump from the water at my flies. Once,

when coming down the Restigouche in a canoe, with our rods laid aside,

and the flies dangling just over the water, two parr leaped together and

hooked themselves, although they were hardly four inches long. These

pretty little fishes, which one might readily mistake for trout, were

once supposed to belong to a species entirely distinct from the salmon.

Naturalists were also puzzled by finding that some parr remain for nearly

three years in fresh water. So they concluded that these latter parr

never went to sea at all, and considered them a species by themselves,

which they called _Salmo samulus_. But nature was finally seen to be

wiser than the naturalists. Nature has decreed that only half the parr

hatched in a given winter shall go down to the sea at one time, and in

this way protects the race from the chance of wholesale destruction. So

we are now told that some of the parr develop more rapidly than others,

and migrate to the sea in their second spring, while others remain in the

river a year longer, and some for still another year.

[Illustration: A FISH-LADDER AROUND A DAM.]

When the time for this migration approaches, the parr, which has been

steadily growing plumper, undergoes another curious change. The carmine

spots fade out, and the soft skin becomes covered with silvery scales

which obscure the dark bars on the sides, although the scales can easily

be rubbed away. At this period the young salmon is called a smolt, and

the smolt was also a riddle to wise men, for a long time. It was thought

that smolts which went down to the sea weighing three or four ounces,

returned to the rivers in three months weighing six or eight pounds. Of

course, such a gain as this was a very wonderful, indeed an unequaled

performance, like the “swellin’ wisibly” of the Fat Boy in the “Pickwick

Papers.” It is now believed, however, that the smolt requires a year or

fifteen months at sea for this great gain in weight. Then he returns

to his native river, no longer an insignificant smolt, but a vigorous,

beautiful grilse. The grilse is more slender than the salmon, the tail

more forked, the scales more easily removed, and the top of the head

and of the fins is not quite so black. But the grilse’s sheeny, satiny

sides are even more brilliant than the salmon’s, and it is more playful

and active, although its strength is less enduring. After the grilse has

frolicked its way to the head of the river and spawned, it returns to

the sea. When it visits the river again, the next year, it has become a

full-grown salmon. These are the successive stages of the salmon’s life.

But, even in the last and most familiar stage, the salmon’s habits are

not fully understood. It is known that both young and old salmon, after

descending a river, remain for a time in the brackish water at the

river’s mouth, where they get rid of fresh-water parasites which have

become attached to their sides, and where their scales are hardened by

a diet of small fish; but where in the sea salmon go, no one knows.

After leaving the coast, they disappear. They have been found in very

deep water hundreds of miles from any salmon river; but their marine

feeding-grounds are still undiscovered. In the spring they suddenly

re-appear at the mouths of rivers, where they linger to free themselves

from marine parasites. While in salt water, they will never jump at a

fly; but as soon as they enter the fresh water of the Canadian rivers,

in June, the waiting Indians and fishermen see them rising freely out of

the water. Yet much of this leaping is plainly only for sport, and many

people claim that salmon actually eat nothing at all during the time that

they are going up rivers. These rivers offer a succession of pools and

rapids. In almost every pool, during the day-time in summer, there are

salmon resting from the labor of stemming the current. It is said that

at night they are often to be found on the bars in the shallow rapids

above the pools. If the water is low they ascend very slowly, but any

rise in the river stimulates them into a rapid movement upward. When they

descend rivers, they fall back much of the way tail foremost, although

the distance may be over a hundred miles. Even a salmon can be drowned in

swiftly running water. Often they make short runs down river, but they

quickly wheel about and usually lie with their heads to the current.

When they are descending, they are thin and ravenous; but they rapidly

gain in plumpness after reaching the sea. In weight the salmon of the

Canadian rivers average between twenty and twenty-five pounds. I suppose

a season’s catch would hardly average more than twenty pounds, for it

would include many grilse of from eight to ten pounds weight, and salmon

weighing only five or six pounds more. A thirty-pound salmon is very

large, and a forty-pound fish will be talked of throughout the season,

although it is said that salmon weighing fifty pounds have been caught

in the Restigouche,—one, indeed, was said to weigh fifty-four pounds.

The Princess Louise, the daughter of the Queen of England and the wife

of the Marquis of Lorne, the former Governor-general of Canada, caught a

forty-pound salmon in the Causapscal river, in the province of Quebec, a

few years ago. Last summer I employed one of the two canoe-men who were

with the Princess at the time, and he had a great deal to say about her

skill in handling that salmon. I don’t think he cared much about other

members of the royal family, but “The Princess, sir, she was a good un

with the rod.” Salmon weighing sixty pounds are taken now and then in

Scotch rivers, and a few rivers in England still yield large fish. Sir

John Hawkins speaks of a salmon caught in an English river in April,

1789, which was four feet long, three feet around the body, and weighed

seventy pounds. There is a story told of a Highlander who hooked a salmon

in the River Awe, and played the fish for hours, until night came on

without his being able to tire it out. Then, as the fish was sulking

quietly at the bottom, he lay down, took the line in his teeth, that

any motion might waken him, and went to sleep. The Highlander slept and

the salmon sulked until three o’clock in the morning, when some friends

of the former came to look for him. With their help he managed to land

the fish about daybreak, and it weighed seventy-three pounds. That was

certainly a giant, but a salmon weighing eighty-three pounds is reported

once to have been sent to the London market. It would be a serious matter

for any of ST. NICHOLAS’S readers to make fast to a salmon as large as

that. But it will not happen on this side of the ocean.

[Illustration: A SALMON POOL.]

[Illustration: SHOOTING THE RAPIDS.]

There is only one way in which a true sports-man will catch a salmon,

and that is by fly-fishing. But there are a great many other ways, some

of which, although unfair, are rather curious. Salmon have been caught

with an ax, with a pitchfork, with a wheel, with many forms of nets and

spears, by trolling, and by still-bait fishing. Captain Charles Kendall,

an old Boston sailor, used to say that he once explored a Canadian salmon

river nearly to its head and met a multitude of salmon coming down in

water so shallow that their backs were exposed, and he killed scores

with an ax, as they tried to rush between his legs. The poor fishes were

also attacked by birds of prey. This is the only instance recorded of

killing salmon with an ax, but when I visited the valley of the Puyallup

River, in Washington Territory, three years ago, I was assured that

salmon sometimes crowded that shallow stream so thickly that farmers

lifted them out with pitchforks and used them as fertilizers on the

field. These, however, were an inferior kind of salmon. One of the most

cruel and destructive methods of catching salmon was by water-wheels,

at the cascades of the Columbia River. In former times, the Indians

gathered at the cascades at certain seasons, picketed their ponies, built

wigwams, and remained for days, and often weeks, spearing and netting

the ascending salmon all along the shores. But white men found a way of

destroying a far larger number of these noble fish. Salmon when coming up

the rapids swim near shore. Wheels were built, and suspended partly in

the water so that the paddles were rapidly turned by the swift current.

The salmon swimming against these paddles were struck with great force,

lifted clear of the water, and thrown into tanks arranged near by. The

murderous wheels kept on revolving, throwing up every fish within reach,

and there was nothing for the owners to do but to gather the quantities

of salmon out of the tanks and use them in their salmon-canning

establishment. It is not strange that a strong popular feeling soon grew

up against this wholesale slaughter.

[Illustration: JUNCTION OF THE METAPEDIA AND RESTIGOUCHE RIVERS,—A FAMOUS

SALMON POOL.]

At the mouth of the same river, the Columbia, net-fishing for salmon is

carried on in a larger way than anywhere else on this continent. In the

fisheries and canneries nearly seven thousand men are employed—Swedes,

Russians, Norwegians, Finns, Italians, Portuguese, Greeks, and Chinamen,

a curious mingling of races. Much of this net-fishing is done at night,

the sail boats starting from Astoria toward evening and returning in

the morning. Sometimes the capsized boats drift ashore alone, for the

breakers where the currents of river and ocean meet frequently swamp

them, and each season many men are drowned. Between three and four

million dollars’ worth of salmon have been sent from the Columbia in a

year. In the North-east a great many salmon are caught in nets at the

mouths of the St. Lawrence and other Canadian rivers, many more indeed

than anglers would allow if they could control the net-fishing. Most of

these salmon are artificially frozen and sent to our Eastern markets,

where they now have to compete with Oregon salmon. Spearing salmon is

very properly forbidden by law in Canada. I have read an account of an

odd method of harpooning salmon, which was practiced on a river in the

Inverness district in Scotland. At one spot the river falls in a cascade

through a narrow cleft in the rocks. Sitting beside this, the fisherman,

who had a line attached to his spear, struck a salmon as it tried to

leap up, let go his spear, keeping hold of the line, and then, climbing

down to the pool below, drew in the exhausted fish at his leisure. This

reminded me of an Indian on the Restigouche, who, I was told, used to

throw his short spruce pole into the water after hooking a salmon, and

paddle after it in his canoe, until the fish was so wearied by dragging

the pole about, that the fisherman could easily land it. Still more

curious is Sir Walter Scott’s account in his novel, “Red Gauntlet,” of

salmon-spearing on the Solway Frith, an arm of the sea between England

and Scotland. He describes a company of horsemen riding over the sands

and striking with their spears at the salmon which darted about in

the pools, where they had been left by the ebbing tide. This kind of

salmon-fishing on horseback must have been very like “pig-sticking” in

India.

[Illustration: A SALMON RISING TO THE FLY.]

On this side of the ocean, trolling for salmon is unknown; there is very

little, if any, bait-fishing, and a salmon-spear, in the North-east

at least, is only to be found in the hands of a red or white poacher.

Poaching on Canadian rivers has diminished, but the law is still broken

on the sly; and many odd stories are told of poachers’ tricks. Nearly all

these rivers are watched by two sets of wardens. There are the Government

wardens appointed to prevent illegal fishing with nets or spears, or out

of season, and there are wardens employed by private persons to watch

the water which they lease; for every pool in a salmon river is valuable

property. Once the Government claimed the fishing privileges, but it was

decided that the owners of lands along the rivers controlled the water;

and now the farmer’s income from his water is sometimes larger than that

from his land; and the limits of each ownership are as carefully marked

off as are limits of farms or of town lots. The unlawful act which the

wardens most carefully guard against is “drifting.” One or two poachers

will steal out at night carrying a peculiarly made net in their canoes.

They stretch this across the head of a pool; and it is so weighted and

buoyed that it stands upright, reaching nearly to the bottom. As the

current causes the net to drift down stream, one canoe stays at each

end to keep it straight. There is usually a white rope at the bottom of

the net. Seeing this, the salmon raise themselves a little, only to be

caught by the gills in the meshes. When the shaking of the net shows that

one is caught, the poacher quickly paddles to the spot, raises the net,

kills the fish with a blow on its head, and throws it into the canoe. In

this sneaking way, nearly all the salmon in a pool may be netted out in

a night. If the wardens happen to come along in their dug-outs, they try

to seize the net and identify the poachers. Then there may be a fight,

and perhaps a canoe will be sunk, and a poacher or a warden will get a

cold bath. On one river, the poachers used to station a boy on an island

below them, with a horn which he blew whenever the wardens approached.

One of the latter was so active that the poachers resolved to punish

him. They took an old worthless net and stretched it out into the river

from a rock on the bank. A rope was rove through the net and the shore

end made fast over a pulley to the traces of a horse. A boy stood beside

the horse, and two poachers in a canoe held the outer end of the net.

Down came the warden, poling along in his dug-out, and pulled the end of

the net away from the seemingly unwilling poachers. He began taking it

into his dug-out, congratulating himself on his prize, and had hauled it

halfway in, when the boy on shore struck the horse, which started on a

full gallop up the bank, jerking the net after it. In a flash the net was

pulled out of the dug-out, the latter upset, and the astonished warden

pitched into the river. But I hope the poachers were punished in their

turn. For if these lawless men had their way, there would be no salmon

left in the rivers, and no such glorious sport as fly-fishing.

It is for this that hundreds of Americans go away down East every

summer. At the junction of the Metapedia and Restigouche rivers are the

comfortable buildings of the Restigouche Salmon Club, which is composed

of New York gentlemen. In front of the club-house is the finest pool on

the river, and the club owns land and water for some miles above. Below,

several pools are leased by a small American club, and Americans pay

thousands of dollars for fishing privileges on rivers all the way from

Nova Scotia to Labrador. Some of my boy readers may have accompanied

their fathers or big brothers to Canadian salmon rivers, and themselves

landed salmon. If not, I hope they may do so soon.

[Illustration: “RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES, THE GREAT FISH LEAPS FOUR FEET

FROM THE WATER.”]

For this fishing, a boy should use a rod not over sixteen feet long, and

weighing about twenty-seven ounces. Split bamboo is the finest material,

but satisfactory rods are made of ash and lancewood or greenheart. The

heavy reel holds a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards of braided silk

line. Usually a gut leader, also called a casting-line, which is about

nine feet long, is fastened directly to the silk line. Only one of the

large gaudy salmon flies is used on the leader at one time. Suppose

yourself thus equipped, sitting in the middle of a cranky birch-bark

canoe, on the Restigouche, with an Indian at the bow and another at the

stern, paddling to the head of a salmon pool, as the morning mists rise

from the mountains. Just below the rapids, the Indians turn the canoe

into midstream and drop the anchor, which clinks musically upon the

stones of the bottom. You take up the rod, which will seem awkward if

you have been using a seven or eight ounce trout-rod, and holding it in

both hands, one above and one below the reel, begin to make short casts

in front and on either side. It is always well to whip the water near

the canoe, for there is no telling where a salmon may be. Once I looked

down over the side of my canoe into the very eyes of a large salmon.

He lay at the bottom, looking up at me for a moment, then flirted his

tail scornfully and disappeared. I should like to have seen more of him.

You will lengthen out the line a few feet at a time, as you continue

casting, and you will always keep the point of your rod moving a little

up and down, so that your fly shall be in motion in the water. Possibly

the longed-for salmon will jump out of water at the fly. If so, he will

probably miss it. More likely, you will suddenly see a mighty swirl in

the water, catch a glimpse of a head, perhaps, and feel a tug—at least

you are likely to, if you “strike” when you see the swirl.

Then all in the same instant the reel begins to scream and your heart to

beat like a trip-hammer. Up comes the anchor, the Indians paddle over to

one side of the river, and you manfully keep the rod pointing upward,

clutching it with your left hand above the reel, the end of the butt

pressed against your waistcoat buttons, and your right hand ready to reel

in line if the fish comes toward you or sulks at the bottom.

All at once something happens which takes away your breath. Right before

your eyes the great fish leaps four feet from the water, his writhing

body curved like a silver bow, and glistening in the sunlight until he

falls back with a splash that almost makes your heart stop beating, for

fear he has broken loose. But no! You instinctively lowered the tip of

your rod when he jumped, and he did not fall upon a taut line, as he

hoped, and break away. The reel screams again as the salmon darts off

down river; and as the canoe-men paddle after, you think of the Indian

who lassoed the locomotive. Perhaps he will rush through the lower rapids

into the pool below. Never fear! He is well hooked, and the strain of

the rod is telling. Backward and forward he darts, while the line cuts

the water, now sulking quietly, again startling you by a wild leap. At

last he begins to yield. The canoe-men paddle you to a beach where you

cautiously step out, keeping your face to the foe. Slowly, carefully

you reel in line, straining the fish toward you. The Indians wait with

the gaff, a large steel hook in the end of a stout pole. Now the salmon

makes a despairing run, then, growing weaker, he obeys your strain. You

can see him plainly as he comes into shallow water. What if you should

lose him now! The Indians, bent double, ankle-deep in water, watch his

every motion. One strikes at him, but misses, and the gallant fish makes

another fight for life. But now he is within reach. The gaff is raised

carefully, you hold your breath, and this time the steel pierces that

silvery side, and out of the foaming water the gaff draws a noble salmon,

your first—and let me hope a forty-pounder. Perhaps twenty minutes have

passed since you hooked him,—perhaps an hour; but you have lived an age.

May all the boy readers of ST. NICHOLAS some time know such thrilling

sport as this! And the girls, too, may emulate their brothers, and each

some time land a salmon. At least they can have the sport without holding

the rod. One of the prettiest sights which I saw on the Restigouche was

the eager face of a little girl in a canoe, with her father, who was

fighting a twenty-five-pound salmon. Looking at her parted lips and

wide-open eyes, I felt sure that girls as well as boys could feel the

fascination of that most exciting of all forms of angling, salmon-fishing.

[Illustration]

[2] Verrazani, a Florentine navigator, is now believed to have been the

original discoverer of the Hudson, about 1525.

[3] About three hundred thousand salmon fry have been planted in the

upper waters of the Hudson each year, since 1882. In 1884, a salmon

weighing four pounds was taken near Hudson, New York, and several

yearling salmon were caught, a year ago, in a stream tributary to the

Hudson. Last spring, a salmon weighing ten pounds was taken in Gravesend

Bay, and there have been other similar results from the work done by

Mr. Fred Mather, Superintendent of the New York Fish Commission, in

charge of the station at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. It is thought

that the Hudson was never much frequented by salmon for the purpose of

spawning, on account of Cohoes’ and Miller’s Falls. But the fish were

formerly taken near the mouth of the river, and it is hoped that the

entire river may be made a salmon stream, if it will “grow salmon,” by

the construction of fish-ways which will enable the salmon to ascend

the falls. Professor Baird, the United States Commissioner of Fish and

Fisheries, restocked the Connecticut, where no salmon had been for

twenty-five years, with such success that “Connecticut River salmon”

were regularly quoted in the markets. But the fishermen caught out the

spawning fish and foolishly depopulated the river so that the work

was stopped, although I understand that another effort has been made

recently. In the Penobscot River, in Maine, salmon have been hatched

and cared for, until, this very season, there has been excellent salmon

fishing in the neighborhood of the city of Bangor.—R. H.

THE OWL, THE BAT, AND THE BUMBLE-BEE.

(_A Nonsense Rhyme._)

BY LAURA E. RICHARDS.

[Illustration]

The brown owl sat on the caraway tree,

A ruffed-up, great big owl.

Who so learnéd and wise as he?

A puffed-up, eminent fowl.

The black bat hung by a twig of the tree,

A blinking, blind old bat.

And buzzing anear was the bumble-bee,

Crinkling, yellow, and fat.

“Ho!” said the owl, “but the sun is so bright,

So torrid, blazing away!”

“Oh,” said the bat, “for the shades of night,

This horrid dazzling day!”

“Psho!” said the bee. “If that is all,

Blundery, blind old bat,

Yonder’s a cloud coming up at your call,—

Thundery,—black as a hat.”

“Ah!” cried the bat and the owl together,

“Tumbling great black Cloud,

Bring us some fine dark thundery weather,

Rumbling fierce and loud!”

Up came the cloud, flying far and wide,

Wizardly weird and strong,—

Brisk little hurricane sitting inside,

Blizzardly bowling along.

Off went the owl like a thistle-down puff,

Ruffled-up, rolled in a ball!

Off went the bat like a candle-snuff,

Shuffled-up, toes and all!

Off went the twig and off went the tree,

Scurrying down to the ground!

Nothing was left, save the bumble-bee,

Worrying thus to be found;

Yet snug as a bug in the roots of the tree,

Where he grumbled; “What a catastrophe!

I was simply thunder-struck!” said he.

“And I’m very sure I prefer the glare

Of the hottest day to that whirling air!

Such a draught! I hope I have not caught cold!

But I know I was over and over rolled.

Am I really safe and sound?”

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Ho! ho! quoth a jolly old knight,

Pray what is the meaning of Fright?

But his friends only smile

For they know all the while

He is sadly addicted to—

Flight.

THE NOTIONAL NIGHTINGALE.

BY A. R. WELLS.

[Illustration]

King Hubert, he went to the forest in state,

In glitter and gold, on a sun-shiny day,

And commanded his train in the shadow to wait,

While a herald proclaimed in the following way:

“His Imperial Majesty, Hubert the Second,

Since the nightingale’s voice is quite musical reckoned,

Is graciously pleased, as the day seems too long,

To command that the nightingale sing him a song!”

The court all stood waiting for what might befall;

But somehow, no nightingale answered the call.

NAN’S REVOLT.

BY ROSE LATTIMORE ALLING.

CHAPTER III.

For two days following that bright morning in September, the skies

dropped discouragement on all enthusiasms, and dampened any ardor for

aggressive change. What feminine heart has the courage to go forth

gloriously to conquer or to die—in overshoes and a gossamer?

In the meantime, the girls had not met again, but new thoughts sprouted

in their brains, while feeble plans budded and dropped unfruitful from

the bough.

Nan lighted a fire in the grate in her room, and re-read and burned

package upon package of old letters, tossing away with special vigor all

those tied with that badge of sentimental girlhood—a blue ribbon. Why

always blue?

“There!” she exclaimed, as the last mouse-colored fragment fluttered up

the chimney; “there is nothing like beginning again at the foundation, in

every way.”

This heroic sacrifice completed, she sewed on some loose shoe-buttons

with as much vigor as though she contemplated setting out on foot to

seek her fortune. After that, she pressed her forehead against the

window-pane, and wished drearily that it would stop raining.

Evelyn, after an hour’s interview with her mother, began to rip up an old

dress, though she was evidently busied also with serious thoughts.

Cathy, left to herself, and without the stimulating influence of her

friends, decided with placid regret that there was no way to improve her

existence; she felt like the man who tried to lift himself over the fence

by pulling at his boot-straps.

Bert shut herself up and wrestled with a long column of very symmetrical

figures. The result of the addition seemed to dismay her. She clutched

her bang with one hand, while she carefully went over the list again.

Bert had lain awake hours and hours the night before, rehearsing the

various parts she might assume as a lady-like peddler of different wares

to a paying public; but she surveyed her small pack of accomplishments

with the sad conviction that she “hadn’t a faculty that anybody would

give two cents for.” “If some one would kindly hire me to read all the

new novels, or should desire my services as assistant hostess at endless

dinners and luncheons, I think I might command quite a salary,” sighed

she, knowing well her own self-poise and general success in those

unremunerative employments.

“Or, there is my other little stock-in-trade,” she continued with

disconsolate amusement—“writing letters! I do think I can write a letter.”

And she could, because she always wrote with the keen mental enjoyment

of exercising her own fluent powers of expression. “But,” she reflected,

“who is going to pay my dress-maker for the intense pleasure of being

allowed to receive my epistles? No, letter-writing hasn’t any market

value—But—but _hasn’t_ it?”

Ah, now she was really thinking! For she sat motionless, with raised

eyebrows and parted lips; then she started to her feet, walked excitedly

up and down her room a few times, surveyed herself in the glass, and

laughed and chuckled in a mysterious way as she put on her overshoes and

hoisted her umbrella.

Mr. Mitchell was a very busy man—too busy to know his daughter very

well; and, as is far too common with busy men, he regarded a girl as an

entirely useless, rather expensive but withal pleasant factor of his

establishment. So, as may be imagined, he was somewhat surprised as he

sat in his private office on that particular drizzly day, hurriedly

writing a business letter, when Bert, bright and emphatic, suddenly

appeared.

Her father, without stopping his rapid pen, looked up, between sentences,

long enough to say with good-natured bewilderment, “Why, Bert, what has

brought you _here_? Do you need some more money?”

Bert flushed at that question. Some thoughts with which she had been

exercising her mind had made it a trifle sore; and in the mood occasioned

by those thoughts, her father’s evident surprise at her appearance, his

slight emphasis on “here,” and his seemingly natural conclusion as to the

cause of the phenomenon, rather hurt her feelings.

“Money?” she said, with some heat, “No, sir! Do you regard me as only a

creature with an all-devouring greed for gold?”

Then, laughing pleasantly as she deposited her umbrella in the rack, she

added, “No, Papa dear, not _just_ now. I thought you would be going home

soon and I’d like to walk up with you.”

Mr. Mitchell paused a moment, in the act of clapping on another stamp, to

survey his tall daughter through his eye-glasses.

“Eh! That’s good. I can’t go for half an hour though—six or seven more

letters to write.”

He said this a little wearily, and proceeded to date another sheet of

paper, running his left hand through his thin hair, as though he had

already forgotten his daughter’s presence in the absorbing nature of his

relations with “Messrs. Hutton, Wells & Co.”

Bert sat down in an office chair and looked about her. Not that she had

never been in her father’s office before, but never before had she looked

at it with the same mental vision that now surveyed the dingy windows,

dusty writing-desk, and generally unkempt and dismal aspect of the place

where her father spent so much of his life.

[Illustration: BERT AND HER FATHER HAVE A BUSINESS INTERVIEW.]

“Dear me,” she thought, “how soon I could brighten up things! I wonder if

he would like it if I should try?”

Presently Mr. Mitchell collected a heap of letters, shut up his inkstand,

and wheeled his chair slowly about, as he carefully counted them over.

Bert, who had been contemplating in her mind’s eye the effect of a rug on

the floor, looked up and remarked, “What a lot of letters!”

“Yes,” answered her father with a sigh, “since Nelson went I have had my

hands full. It is hard to fill his place.”

“Why?” asked Bert, with interest.

“Because,” said Mr. Mitchell slowly, “good stenographers do not grow on

every bush; and it is difficult to find any one to whom I can intrust my

private correspondence.”

He took his coat from the hook and slowly put it on his shoulders, while

Bert sat still, looking very lugubrious.

“Oh,” she said slowly, “would your amanuensis have to know short-hand?”

“Of course,” her father replied, looking somewhat surprised at the

unusual interest in such affairs exhibited by his brilliant daughter, of

whom he had perhaps been rather more proud than fond.

“You see,” he continued, “I might as well write them myself as wait for

him to write out my dictation in long hand.”

Mr. Mitchell stepped into the general office to give a direction to

one of the many clerks, all of whom were getting their hats with great

promptness as the minute-hand neared six.

Bert sat looking thoughtfully at a fantastic cobweb in the corner.

When her father returned and asked her if she were ready to start, she

still did not offer to stir; but, planting her umbrella firmly on the

floor, she said in a very serious voice, but with a gleam in her eyes:

“Sir, I called strictly on business. Hearing that your confidential clerk

had gone South because of weak lungs, I came to apply—pray take a seat,

sir; you seem about to faint—to apply for the place.”

Mr. Mitchell sat down.

“To be frank, sir, I must own that I am not _thoroughly_ conversant with

short-hand, but I should immediately go to work to perfect my knowledge,

and in the meantime I should endeavor to be of valuable assistance to

you.”

By this time, the senior member of the firm looked so helplessly confused

that Bert began to laugh, breaking down utterly in her commercial tone

of voice. Then she added in a rush of words, as she made a dash at her

father and clasped her hands behind his neck: “Oh, _do_ let me, Papa!—I’d

be _very_ confidential, and I’m just wild to earn some money!”

At this last remark, the astounded man probably would have gasped, had

not his daughter prevented such an expression by a kiss.

“You poor dazed man!” she laughed. “Now please sit down, and it will take

me just two minutes to explain my strange conduct; you will accept me as

your helper in one second more; and then I shall commit my first act of

indiscretion as your clerk, by walking home arm-in-arm with my employer.”

By this time Mr. Mitchell had risen equal to the joke, as he still

considered the entire comedy, and demanded references as to her

epistolary ability. Bert at once deafened him with an avalanche of names;

but she immediately grew serious again, and began to explain frankly her

new thoughts and desires.

Of course she was met by the usual discouragements with which the

masculine mind teems, but she silenced them all by an earnest request for

the privilege of a trial, like any other applicant for a clerkship.

At last, after much talking and earnest arguments, it was finally settled

as they walked home under one umbrella, with a strange new sense of

comradeship, that Bert should present herself at her father’s office next

morning in time for the opening of the mail.