in the matter of tales of adventure--the planter's
story of Indian attacks being pitted against the captain's yarn of the
"pyrats" that gave him chase off the "Isle of Devils." Then up the
masts of the trading ship the sails would go clacking, and the prow
that had touched the warm wharves of the Indies would point up the
river again, bound for the next landing. And the shallops of the
planter--after loading from the little pier with casks and bales still
strong of the ship's hold, of the tar of the ropes, of the salt of the
sea--would disappear up the forest stream.

A short distance above Court House Creek, Gadabout stopped at a landing
to get some oil. She was rather hurried and flustered about the matter,
as the steamer from Petersburg was coming around the point above and
would soon be making this same landing, and a schooner that was loading
was right in the way, and the first line that was thrown out broke, and
the engine stopped at the wrong time, and--all those people looking on!
Besides, this was supposed to be an interesting fishing point; but how
was a little houseboat to get a look at it, lying there alongside a big
schooner that she couldn't see over? Altogether, Gadabout fumed and
fussed so much here, pitching about in the choppy water, jerking her
ropes, and battering her big neighbour, that it was a relief to all
concerned when she got her oil aboard, cast off her ropes, and, giving
the schooner a last vindictive dig in the ribs, set off up the river.

Even after getting away from the schooner there was not much to be seen
at the landing. Yet, in season, the little place would be quite quaint
and bustling; for it was one of the many fishing hamlets along the
river.

The James has always been a favourite spawning-ground for sturgeon.
Those first colonists, writing enthusiastically of the newfound river,
declared "As for Sturgeon, all the World cannot be compared to it."
They told of a unique and spirited way the Indians had of catching
these huge, lubberly fish. In a narrow bend of the river where the
sturgeon crowded, an adroit fisherman would clap a noose over the tail
of a great fish (a fish perhaps much larger than himself) and go
plunging about with his powerful captive. And he was accounted
"cockarouse," brave fellow, who kept his hold, diving and swimming, and
finally towed his catch ashore.

The colonists early turned their attention to sturgeon fishing. The roe
they prepared and shipped abro