198 FLY-FISHING IN MAINE LAKES. 



palace-car would have seemed quite as fabulous as 

 Aladdin's palace. Many a time in later years, when 

 making the trip in thirty-six hours from Boston with- 

 out leaving my car, have I thought of those early 

 days, and wondered how I could have endured so 

 much hardship. 



" At Chicago I took stage, or an apology for one, 

 for St. Louis, distant about three hundred miles ; 

 and on the i9th of December arrived at that city, 

 then quite a flourishing town of some five thousand 

 inhabitants. 



" At this point it was my intention to have gone 

 down the Mississippi by boat to my destination, 

 the city of Cairo, by river about one hundred miles 

 from St. Louis, but the season had been unusually 

 cold, and I found the river nearly closed by ice, and 

 the boats hauled up. This was a set-back ; as I had 

 intended buying some stores, and taking them along 

 with me. Provisions I must have ; and there was 

 but one way to get them there, and that was by 

 carting them across the country. 



"After making my purchases, I bought eight 

 stout mules and two heavy wagons, hired two lusty 

 bushwhackers for mule-drivers, loaded my wagons, 

 bought a mustang pony, mounted him ; and off we 

 started, on a clear, cold morning, upon our long 

 and tedious journey. It was rather a novel send-off 



