A Fight to the Death 



Both sides fiercely fought. 



—Henry VI. 



In the early summer of — well, it matters not what 

 year, I was one of a few city men camped in the 

 wilds of Pike County, Pa. Each of us expected to 

 catch his complement of thirty-five lusty, speckled 

 trout, which are all that the rules of the Beaver Kun 

 Club, whose guests we were, will allow any member 

 to kill in any one season. Besides, every fish must be 

 over eight inches in length, or back he goes into the 

 stream. 



Now, Japan is said to be the home of the rhododen- 

 dron, the whole island kingdom being one great bed 

 of those gorgeously dressed flowers. Pike County is 

 the home of the mountain laurel and it grows and 

 thrives there in the wildest luxuriance. It seems to 

 flourish equally well on the ridges, in the thick clus- 

 ters of the woods or by the edges of the trout ponds 

 or their emptying streams. 



When the bushes are in the glory of their bloom, 

 swaying their mass of colors in the breeze — when the 

 eye sees in the back and foreground the wealth of 

 wild roses, the acres upon acres of blackberry bushes 

 clothed in their snowy blossoms, the hazel and elder- 



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