ories and neglect."

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

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

Some day in the near future a railroad will be built "up Elk," and then,
while commerce and civilization will get a lift, the loveliest of rivers
will be scarred; her trout-streams, carp-runs, bass-pools,
salmon-swirls, deer-licks, bear-dens, partridge-nestles, and
pheasant-covers will be overrun by sports-men, her magnificent mountains
will be scratched bald-headed by lumbermen, her laughing tributaries
will be saddened with saw-dust, and her queer, quaint, original
boat-pullers and "seng-diggers" will wear shoes in summer-time and coats
in winter, weather-board their log cabins, put glass in the windows and
partitions across th