FOURTH OR MILTIMORE LAKE. 25 



about eight pounds and looking something like a 

 pickerel, but I knew it wasn't a pickerel. Triumph- 

 antly I bore my priz.e away, down the track, until I 

 met the section gang. Every one of them suspended 

 work immediately I arrived, and clustered around 

 with great interest. 



"Well, I'll be goldarned if Johnson ain't been and got 

 a big dogfu'h this time," the foreman exclaimed. 



"A what?" I asked, in indignant protest. 



"It's a dogfish, sure, and the rottenest kind of fish 

 that swims; why, you can't eat that thing!" 



"Come, now," I exclaimed, getting angry, "this is too 

 stale; here, the first fish I showed you you tell me is a 

 catfish, unfit to eat, yet you fellows have the treat of 

 your lives making a supper off it, and now you think 

 jou can kid me again. Not much! But, now see here, 

 boys, you can't do it, for this fish, no matter what kind 

 of a fish it is, a dogfish, cowfish, horsefish, or any 

 blarsted animal fish you like to call it, no matter what 

 funny name you like to give, I'll take that fish home, 

 cook and eat a couple of pounds of it if I die five 

 minutes afterward. No, no!" I muttered, as I shoul- 

 dered my fish and walked away, "you 'conned' me once, 

 but you can't work that old game on me again." 



When I arrived at my bachelor establishment, I cut 

 a good, generous three-pound steak from the shoulder 

 of the fish, boiled it and on principle made the fish 

 gorge of my life. For the next two weeks the medical 

 gentleman from the nearest town called regularly at 

 "Johnson's shack," as my little frame house was 

 called; and, during that time, the many neighbors who 

 came to inquire how I was progressing never got 

 further than the door the everlasting retching which 

 greeted their ears leaving them in doubt as to whether 

 Johnson was in the last throes of hydrophobia or re- 

 linquishing his intestines piecemeal. 



