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of Ferguson who were clearing the jam he fishes this river he has only one canoeof logs here in the gorge last Spring, man; he takes the bow of the canoc stabled their mules in our old log hut, himself. When he goes to the lake at and knocked off some of the slabs on the head of the river for moose and carthe roof, to pitch in their hay from raboo, and his Indian gets unruly or above. But you see my boys have obstinate, by way of moral suasion he patched it with spruce and birch bark, “punches his head” to make him tractaand now it is as tight as a kettle. You ble. will observe we have new benches and As we have fortified our inner works, tables, which they rived from one of let us light our pipes and take a walk. Ferguson's logs; and that my camp

The scene before us-save the green keeper has laid a slab edgewise and trees and the blue sky--is a record of piled dirt against the log chimney out- violence-of a long-continued conflict side where that hole is burnt in it; and of the elements. See how the contracnow it does not smoke any worse than it tion of this little ball on which we live, did last summer. When the emanations as it cooled, opened fissures in the hard of that splendid fireplace are beyond granite, which extends northeast and endurance, I go to my tent, which you southwest for hundreds of miles. Wher, observe is pitched on that little grass ever the river crosses its course it crops sward, and drawing my mosquito net, out. Here you observe we are on a read and tie flies during the heat of the slope of this primitive rock, and the day; leaving the threescore of kipper- river at one time descended it in a ed salmon, which you see slatted and broad, smooth shallow. But finding hanging by cedar-bark strings from the these fissures in some places close torafters, to receive the undivided benefit gether and extending along its course, of the smoke; that is, when my men it called to its aid the disintegrating decline participating in such benefit by frost, its Spring freshets, and masses of sitting out-of-doors. When there is no floating ice; and so has worn that cooking going on, we make a smudge rough, turbulent channel. By such outside before the door, and then it is agents, masses of granite, some of them bearable inside. This is our dining- large enough to load a good-sized room, kitchen, workshop, storehouse, schooner, have been torn from the gorge, and the men's dormitory, when the and strewn along the river for miles besmoke or the mosquitoes will allow low. You observe where the river comes them to sleep ; for at night, when the with such a din over that fall into the smoke is out these pests are in.

head of Flat-rock Pool; there it is not Maybe you may not like this kind of wider than the length of my salmonlife-a little rugged, perhaps. But rod. I have seen salmon jump that fall there is Dashwood, of Her Majesty's in cloudy weather at this stage of water. Fusileers, says he doesn't care much All that go up the river, and they are for salmon-fishing in Scotland or Ire- tons upon tons,* leap that narrow cataland, where there is a water-bailiff

ract. every hundred yards along the river, Let us take our course down the river and where cockney anglers eat their along the path that leads through that plum-pudding and drink their port in grove of tall

grove of tall spindling yellow pines, sumptuous fishing-lodges. He laughed where there is such a commotion amongst when I asked him about the fishing on the crows,—we cannot hear their crowing the Galway, and told me he had hooked and killed salmon on that river from a * The number of salmon takon in the bay and wharf with a warehouse alongside. He

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from here on account of the noise of mon? I am afraid it will spoil my afterthe water. Every summer they colo- noon's fishing there. As they must nize there for a time to build their nests make the portage here, I will see who and rear their young. I see Bruno they are. Travellers are so few and far there at the pool where I hooked my between on the river at this season, that big fish this morning; we will take a we claim it as a right to know where canoe and cross the still part of it to they are going, and what for. the portage. There is, necessarily, a “Who are they, Bruno ?” portage here, or a carry," as you “ Indians, sir, goin' spear salmon would say in the Adirondacks; for the above. I see de jaws of he spear stickriver here, in its saults and cataracts, in' out de top of he bag." falls about eighty feet in a distance of “Indians ? Why, one of them has a three hundred yards. Now you can look red head !” up the gorge-softly there, Bruno, hold “Indian, sir, for all dat; he live on de out your paddle and rescue that little island in de bay dare long wid Prisque. red squirrel50. Poor little fellow; the He cull himself Indian, anyhow. Maycurrent, even here, is too strong for him be he half Indian." in so long a passage ; but they will at- “And maybe the other half missiontempt it at the risk of their lives. The ary; I wish we could catch them spear. "grand passion ” impels them, and the ing." Hellespont could not restrain them at “ Too smart for dat, sir ; dey go down this season of the year. They breed in before mornin', and have twenty, thirty communities here as the crows do. There saumon sell to de sousery man in de is a little island with a stunted growth harbor." of trees on it, just across the little back It is not lawful to spear salmon above channel above our camp, where they tide-water; and though not sportsmancollect every summer. There is a great like, I witnessed it once for the novelty chattering there later in the season, of the thing. It is a grand night-scene when their fuzzy little babies come. to see a stalwart fellow in the bow of See how he suns himself on the blade his canoe, the glare of his flambeau of that paddle. Now he is as good as lighting up his bronzed features as he new: over he goes and makes toward poises his spear in the attitude of strikland without even shaking a "thankee" ing,-very different from the pictures to us for giving him a free passage.

we sometimes see of it in our illustrated You ask if there is no fishing be- periodicals. I have one before me now, tween this and Bathurst ? Lots of it. showing what conception an author or The tide flows three miles above the vil- artist sometimes forms of a thing he has lage to the foot of the “Rough Waters."

It has in the foreground a The salmon-pools extend thence for a canoe, with a fire on the bottom, in the mile or more up along the river. First middle, and a nude Indian standing up comes the Gravel Pool, then, in succes- on a level with the gunwale in front of sion, the Grand Chain Pool, the Rolls, it, in the attitude of spearing a salmon, Camp Pool, Willis' Pitch, Miller's Pitch, which, from his relative position to the the Long Hole, Buchet's Falls, Procter's fire, he cannot see. As I look at this Rock, and a dozen others that I know, picture of “Salmon-Spearing in Orebut cannot now recall their names. Mr. gon," I cannot help but exclaim, FoolSpurr fished the Rough Waters last sum- ish Indian! Do you suppose that you mer, as early as the 20th of June, and are in the torrid zone, that you go thus had good sport. Between this and Rough unattired like an Adamite? Why come Waters there is a station called Round naked and shivering out into the nightRock, where there are a half-dozen good air of the frigid North? No leggins or casts.

ragged trowsers, no blanket or old coat But who comes here, pushing through to warm your poor carcass. Get down Big Pool, right over the lay of the sal- from your elevated position, and put

never seen.

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out that fire before it burns a hole in a start, and we only gaffed him after we the bottom or sides of your canoe. You got to the landing a hundred yards behave no more appreciation of where you low. are, or what you are trying to do, than A favorite old camp is Grand Falls, an editor of a New York weekly. Old where my tent is now pitched. Those Prisque, the chief of the fellows who who travel the river to or from the lumhave just passed up the river, would ber regions above make it an object to drive you from his huts as drunk or stop here all night when they make the crazy for behaving thus. Go now, you portage of the Falls. The toiling canoeunsagacious savage, and cut a stick as men, as they pole their bark laden with thick as your ankle and as long as your- the angler and his outfit against the self. Split one end and drive in a small stubborn stream, look to it as a haven flat stone to keep it open, and light your of rest. It is the angler's paradise, and birch-bark or pine flambeau, and stick many pleasant days have been passed it in the cleft. Then stand on the bow, here by jolly brethren of the rod, who brace your knees against the gunwale, have travelled far by land, or crossed and “ step” the stick that it may pro

the Atlantic to fish at the far-famed ject out beyond the stem of your canoe “Grand Falls." I have pleasant memolike a bowsprit. With the torch thus, ries of this old camp,—the bright rushyou can see ahead and on either side, ing river below, and the hill rising beand will not stand in your own light, or hind covered with luscious berries; the cast your shadow ahead, scaring the sale songs and stories of the simple canoemon, but you can see them when they men; the oozy meadow with its wild don't see you. So poling along gently, shrubbery, where choirs of song-birds with the butt of your spear-handle or rouse the angler from his early morning your companion in the stern paddling slumber, that he may souse his head in noiselessly, you will come warily upon the cold brook and prepare for his day's them, and can strike one when you see sport. I have lit my pipe at the campit.

fire here at sunrise and killed a brace of “Let us push back over the river twelve-pounders at Rock Pool before I again, Bruno. But stop here in the knocked the ashes out. middle.” As I look up the gorge

I The pools in succession, beginning the only cast on the left side. It is above, are Fall's Pool, Hagerty's Pool, there where you clamber down two Camp Pool, Rock Pool, Cooper's Point, precipices, each as high as my head; the Unlucky, and many more below the and where, if one hooks a fish, he has basin. By walking ten steps from our to clamber back and fight bim from the bark-shanty one can look down, when high bank. It is a good pool at high the water is clear, and count every fish water, however. A few days ago, I had in Camp Pool. The grilso can even be a desperate fight with a seventeen- distinguished from the larger salmon. pounder I hooked there. He ran me When anglers are here in company, it is down along the edge of that high cliff, nothing uncommon for one of them, where, if I had made a false step, I from the point just mentioned, to see would have gone headlong into the his chum hook and play a salmon in river or on the rock thirty feet below. Camp Pool. It is an interesting exhiAfter a stubborn contest, he stuck his bition. The height above and the great nose against the rock at the head of angle at which he looks down enables that rapid-you can see it from here. the observer to see the fish rise and take I thought he was off and had left my the fly. The whole contest,—the runs, hook fast. But the boys ran down to jumps, sulks, and finally bringing the the landing we have just left for their fish to gaff,

-are as plainly visible as if birch, and by tremendous efforts pushed the fight was on land. up where likely canoe never was before. I had been here four or five days Finding the fish still on, they gave him without much fishing. The continned

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heavy rain kept the river too high, al- “No," I replied; for to my ears no though I killed a fish daily close in- sound broke the deep stillness. shore at the landing on the opposite Hish,” said Bruno, after a lapse of a side above Cooper's Point.

few minutes, “ hear 'em ag'in ? " Then About the expiration of the time just a low whistle from far down the east mentioned, an incident occurred, which, side of the basin was borne on the strange to say, caused the abandonment night-breeze. of this fine old camp, and established a In a few minutes more we heard a new one at the head of the basin a half- sound as if of muffled oars, which grew mile below. To the annoyance of an- distinct as they approached. In ten or glers, the basin had been subjected fifteen minutes they landed some eighty every summer to more or less night- yards from us on the opposite shore, poaching. Old Prisque's Indians would and after waiting a short time, struck a come up from their island in the bay light and built a fire. They threw on and spear it; and net-fishers from Mid- some light stuff, and Roma counted five, dle River, some eight miles to the east, six, eight burly figures, as they passed and from the northwest branch of the between ourselves and the bright blaze. Miramichi to the west, would in the Growing more confident they talk aloud, darkness sweep the “jaws" of this fine and from their brogue they were of the sheet of water; or setting their net, “Emerald Isle,” or were provincial Irish. would drive them into its meshes. What could we do,-a rather shortWhen infrequent visitors, therefore, winded old man, stiff in the knees, who would visit our camp or loiter around, had “lost his figure," and two timid if the explanation as to the nature of French “Blue Noses,"-against such their business was questionable, we odds ? It was ludicrous, though serious were apt to suspect that they were go

to think it. I did not give up my puring to poach the basin. Bruno had met pose, however, but resolved to put on a two stalwart fellows in the rough timber bold front and speak as one in authorroad a hundred rods back of the camp, ity.” They cut their light billets to and another came to our shanty one day, buoy up the cork-line of their net, and and asked such questions and gave such after other preliminaries, got it into the replies to our queries as induced us to stern of their skiff, and stretched it conclude that they intended to net the across the entrance to the basin. Then basin that night. So we determined to going below in their boat, they beat the watch and prevent it. Accordingly at water to drive the salmon into the fatal dusk, leaving Peter to keep camp, I meshes. Presently Roma said he heard took the other men, and we paddled the salmon striking the net, and I could softly down the river. All the firearms stand it no longer. we had was Roma's cheap single-barrel- “Softly, boys, we will get close alonged gun,-a very inefficient weapon--and side,” I said, cocking the gun, as we the law on our side, with which to en- paddled silently from our hiding-place counter the poachers : we did not know towards them. When we got within ten how many there were.

or fifteen yards, Roma, iu his exciteWe took our position close in-shore, ment, addressed Bruno audibly in his under the shadow of a precipitous rock, provincial idiom. opposite a pebbly beach, where they " Who the devil's that talking must necessarily land to prepare their French ?” exclaimed Redding, the leadnet, if they came. We were careful to er, and then there was a dead silence. avoid any bumping of the canoe or " That will do, my good fellows,” I other noise; our words were few, and said. “You have gone far enough. Now only in whispers. We waited an hour, I want you to go, and go quick. and thought of giving up our vigils, I have something here that is good for when Roma inquired in an undertone, four or five of your number, at any rate, “ Hear dat ?"

if you do not."

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ions;

There was a commotion, and a con- protection of the basin. So we moved fusion of voices amongst them. At down tent, bag, and baggage; teapot, length Redding (the man who had vis- oven, and kettle. The water being still ited our camp) was heard : “In with too high for good fishing, we devoted the net! haul it ashore ! Douce that

two days to making a new camp, locatfire.” His orders were obeyed instantly. ing it on a bluff that went sheer down There was a lively, bustling time. In a fifty feet to the water. We trimmed out few minutes the net was in the boat, the undergrowth, lopped off the lower and they were pulling, “as if the old branches of the young spruces to admit Harry had kicked them," down the of a free circulation of air, and cleaned basin. One unlucky fellow was some- up a good space where tents could be how left behind. He hallooed to them pitched. I named the camp after a and cursed and swore some.” But dear Irish lady, who once spent a week there was no waiting. He was told, as with her husband and myself on the they went off, to run down the shore a river—"Camp Olivia.” Then the water half

mile and they would take him in. began falling, and, as a matter-of-course, But his progress was soon barred by a the salmon commenced rising. “ 'Twere perpendicular bluff on one side and the vain to tell” of the many stubborn conwater-he did not know how deep-on tests I had with the fresh-run fish that the other. Then there was more curs- had come up on the rise of the river. ing and loud hallooing to his compan> For three days I had “sport galore; "on

but after a while it ceased. So the last I entered ten fish on my score, also did the sound of the deftly-plied whose aggregate weight was a hundred oars gradually die away in the distance. and twenty-one pounds. I took them We had drawn a long breath on their mostly at Cooper's Point. It was a departure; and Bruno, whose voice was dark day, with a chilly, spitting rain; quavering a few minutes before, now so the fish, which lay close into the broke into a loud laugh, as he slapped Point, not being disturbed by my presRoma on the back with his paddle, say- ence or movements, took my bright ing, "Did you hear de Captain cuss ? orange fly almost at the end of my rod. dat make 'em go so quick. Oh, Captain, I was wet, cold, and tired, when I reI tought you was Sunday-man. I turned to camp that evening. After know some mans fish Sundays never putting on a dry coat and eating a cuss savage like you did dat time. I hearty supper, I was laying on the firnever hear you say sich ting before, boughs listening to Roma's fiddle, when, Captain."

rising to light my pipe, I looked toward I tried to explain to Bruno that my the landing and saw the bright glare of “cussing” was with the same intent as a flambeau. It soon approached along intimating that I held a "six-shooter" the path, and I heard a cheery voice, as in my hand, and that it was as harmless it came, singing, and at the same time, perhaps, more

“Oh, love is the soul of the nnte Irishman; efficacious than Roma's four-dollar gun. He loves all that is lovely, loves all that he can. The poachers could have ducked us in With his sprig of shillalah and shamrock so the basin and continued fishing, if they

green" had chosen to do so. But they did not And then Nick, for whom I had been know but what Hickson, the fish-war- waiting so long, came through the den, and a posse was at hand. And as bushes and slapped me on the shoulder. we had the law on our side, and three There was short greeting, and then an of them at least could be identified, exclamation, “Don't you see I have a they substituted discretion for resist- mouth in my face ? Put on your teaance, and “ vacated."

kettle. Divil the morsel but the stem of In the morning I decided to do what my pipe has passed my lips since one had been talked of for many years—to o'clock, when I dined at Mid Landing. establish a camp at the “Jaws" for the There was a beast of a salmon, too, that