WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 4r> 



men have lived more circumspectly. His declining sun 

 reflects a mellow light and will set in unclouded lustre. 



Chief Justice Ritchie cf New Brunswick, and Chief Jus- 

 tice Gray of Massachusetts (now of the Supreme Court of 

 the United States), were two of the merriest men I ever met 

 on angling waters. The f crmer, though venerable in years, 

 had all the ardor and enthusiasm of lusty youth, and was one 

 of the most persistent anglers I ever encountered. He cast 

 with the skill of an expert and fought his fish with a dash 

 and impetuosity as exciting as it was masterful. Chief 

 Justice Gray, with less experience and more deliberation in 

 casting and killing, was like his brother chief in his intense 

 love of the sport and in appreciation of the enjoyable pos- 

 ibilities of camp life on salmon waters. Among the pictur- 

 esque memories of thase two eminent jurists which remain 

 with me is this : Chief Justice Ritchie had struck a large 

 fish about the going down of the sun. Failing to return to 

 camp before dark, his brother chief became alarmed lest 

 some mishap had befallen him. Whereupon he hastily ex- 

 temporized a number of birch-bark torches, and started out 

 to the rescue. The lost chief was found enveloped in dark- 

 ness, sturdily fighting a huge fish among rocks and rapids as 

 impetuously and as resolutely as if the chances were not ten 

 to one that at any moment his canoe would ba wracked 

 upon some one of the hundred boulders which made the 

 rapids directly below the pool in which he had hooked his 

 fish a boiling cauldron. As Chief Gray approached him 

 with his flaming flambeaux, the happy angler, in a voice 

 which overtopped tha thundering of the rushing rapids, in 

 reply to the query, ''What can we do for you?'* exclaimed: 



"Give me but light, Ajax asks no more, 1 ' 



and, amid Ihe ringing cheers of his admiring rescuers, after 

 a further half hour's struggle, a thirty-pound salmon was 

 gaffed, and these two jolly jurists, assisted by their equally 

 excited guides, proceeded to camp Judge Gray leading as 

 corps commander of the most unique torchlight procession 

 that ever gave escort to a conquering hero on land or water. 



The unusual length of this rambling "Talk" prevents me 



