get on the "lee side" of the passengers. He said
he didn't mean any offence, but the smell of muskrats oftentimes made
people sick.

Well, it was a pretty tight fix, but we forced a laugh and looked around
at the rest of the boys in a familiar way, and began talking to them.
Not a man of them would recognize us. The captain turned to Hogan and
said, "Is this a friend of yours?" Hogan put on a look of disgust, and
said he had never seen us before. "However," says Jim, "he may be a very
deserving person of his class."

The captain said we had better go to the other end of the boiler and lay
down with the dogs where it was warm. We tried to pass it off as a joke,
and turned to Hatch and tried to get into conversation with him about a
goose he had killed the day before, but he wouldn't have it. He said we
could get the smell out of our clothes by burying them, and then he went
on to tell how he shot a skunk once, and spoiled a suit of clothes.

We spoke to Colonel Wood, one of our party, as a last resort, and all he
said was to draw in his breath with a "Whoosh," and put his handkerchief
to his nose. We never felt so mean in the world. The whole gang had
combined against us, and we got up to leave them, meditating revenge,
when Walt Webb said, "Let's throw the cuss overboard." We went and laid
down on the valises, and tried to think of some way to get even with
the boys, when Root told the captain that they had got some valuables in
those valises, and they didn't want any tramp laying down on them, and
he came along and actually drove us off of our own valise. 4

To make the matter still worse, a homely looking Norwegian dog that we
had borrowed to take on the hunt, and which was the worst looking brute
that ever was, and which had been the laughing stock of the camp for a
week, at this point came up to us, wagged his tail and followed us, and
the boys said, "Look at the dog the muskrat trapper owns." That was the
worst give away.

We walked around on deck, and would occasionally stop and speak to one
of the boys, hoping they had given us enough and would relent, but all
the way to La Crosse not one of them would speak to us, and when the
boat arrived at the landing Root handed us a quarter, in the presence
of the passengers, and asked if we wouldn't help Mike Doyle, the cook,
carry the baggage ashore.

It was the worst joke we ever had perpetrated on us, and even after we
got ashore, and Hatch said, "Come, old sorrel