172 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



Whether eventually he managed to pull his pos- 

 sessions inside, or was forced to let go, I never 

 heard. The porters were still smiling and stand- 

 ing at ease when I left the station. On the fol- 

 lowing day I booked myself for Blue Mountain, 

 by the Adirondack railroad and stage-coach, 

 equipped for conquest, whether on the lake or in 

 the woods. What time I had to spare I whiled 

 away by perusing the most fascinating of guide- 

 books, bound in imitation birch bark, and illus- 

 trated with glimpses of a sylvan paradise such 

 as I have never dared to dream of even in my 

 most sanguine moods. In its pages I saw the 

 happy hunter at one moment triumphant over 

 the antlered monarch of the Avoods, at the next 

 bowed down beneath a burden of fish which (if 

 the angler was a man of average height) must 

 have measured about three feet six inches apiece, 

 and, again, oh, happy fate ! issuing from between 

 the tall stems of the hemlocks, he finds the fairest 

 of Transatlantic Circes, swinging in her ham- 

 mock, and waiting for him as Tennyson's lady 

 waited in old time for the fairy prince. Instinc- 

 tively my fingers played with my moustache, and 

 I wondered, would she, when I found her, have 

 so many dollars that I might dwell for ever in 

 sight of the Blue Mountain, and never see Stone 

 Buildings any more. Well, I never found her, 



