18 I'EPACTON 



nests being so placed. But birds are quick to adjust 

 their needs to the exigencies of any case. Not long 

 before, I had seen in a deserted house, on the head 

 of the Kondout, the chimney swallows entering the 

 chamber through a stove-pipe hole in the roof, and 

 gluing their nests to the sides of the rafters, like 

 the barn swallows. 



I was now, on the third day, well down in the 

 wilds of Colchester, with a current that made 

 between two and three miles an hour, just a sum- 

 mer idler's pace. The atmosphere of the river had 

 improved much since the first day, was, indeed, 

 without taint, and the water was sweet and good. 

 There were farmhouses at intervals of a mile or so; 

 but the amount of tillable land in the river valley 

 or on the adjacent mountains was very small. 

 Occasionally there would be forty or fifty acres of 

 flat, usually in grass or corn, with a thrifty looking 

 farmhouse. One could see how surely the land 

 made the house and its surrounding; good land 

 bearing good buildings, and poor land poor. 



In mid-forenoon I reached the long placid eddy 

 at Downsville, and here again fell in with two boys. 

 They were out paddling about in a boat when I 

 drew near, and they evidently regarded me in the 

 light of a rare prize which fortune had wafted them. 



" Ain't you glad we come, Benny ? " I heard one 

 of them observe to the other, as they were conduct- 

 ing me to the best place to land. They were bright, 

 good boys, off the same piece as my acquaintances of 

 the day before, and about the same ages, differ- 



