THE BOATMAN'S STOBY. 59 



besides flyin' about at the rate of sixty mile an hour, kept 

 a fellow pretty busy holdin' on, keepin' his place in the 

 boat. 



" After an hour or two we came to a pause, and the old 

 feller that was .towin' me about, walked uivtp the surface, 

 and stickin' his head out of the water, Mjood morninV 

 says he, in a very perlite sort of way. ' Good mornin',' 

 says I, back again. ' Haw goes it ?' says he. ' All right,' 

 says I. ' Step this way and FH take the hod"! out of your 

 gums.' ' Thank you for nothing,' says he, and he opened 

 his mouth like the entrance to a railroad tunnel, and blame 

 me, if he hadn't taken a double hitch of the line around 

 his eye tooth, while the hook hung harmless beside hia 

 jaw. 



" ' I've a little business down in the lower lake," says he, 

 1 and must be movin',' and away he bolted like a steam en- 

 gine, down the lake. When he straightened up, my hat 

 flew more than sixty yards behind me, and the way I came 

 down into the bottom of the boat was anything but plea- 

 sant. Away we tore down towards the outlet, the boat 

 cuttin' and plowin' through the water, pilin' it up in great 

 furrows ten feet high on each side. There is, as you know, 

 sixty feet fall between the Upper Saranac and Eound Lake, 

 and the river goes boilin' and roarin', tumblin' and heavin' 

 down the rapids and over the rocks, pitchin' in some places 

 square down a dozen feet among the boulders. No sensible 

 man would think of travellin' that road in a little craft like 

 mine, unless he'd made up his mind to see how it would 



