550 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK 



inoffensive people at home. What a deuce of a propensity 

 city folks have, when they do anything out of the way, to 

 " dress the character !" 



JOE. What in the name of common sense has all this to do 

 with fishing in the Adirondacks ? Go on with your story ; do 

 you go up the Saranac Eiver ? 



NES. My dear Joe, you should never be in a hurry when 

 you go a fishing, or talk about fishing ; but pass me that 

 bottle of ale, and I'll " grease the wheels" and go on. You 

 don't go up the Saranac ; besides, the Saranac can hardly be 

 called a river ; you go up the Au Sable. You must know 

 that Keeseville is on the Au Sable. There is a splendid cata- 

 ract just before you enter the town, and cascades in the town, 

 for the river comes tearing right through it, and is bridged in 

 two or three places. There are no falls above the town, ex- 

 cept where the river is dammed at the iron- works, and they 

 are not as high as the falls of Niagara ; but you see beautiful 

 rapids and pools as you drive up the river, where there must 

 have been fine Salmon-casts in other days. 



NOB. What, did you say, was the height of the fall just 

 before you enter Keeseville ? 



NES. Thirty feet, I suppose ; it falls as perpendicularly as 

 water can come down, and as a certain London book-maker 

 says, in his " Tourist's Guide" of Glenn's Falls on the Hudson, 

 "Here the water thunders and spirts," just as if the cataract 

 that Cooper immortalizes in "The Last of the Mohicans" 

 could behave itself like a barrel of new cider, or spruce beer. 



NOB. What a poor theorist you are ! you said that there 

 were no doubt fine Salmon-casts on the Au Sable, above 

 Keeseville, in olden times, and that the falls below the town 

 are thirty feet high, and perpendicular. How could a Salmon 

 get over a cataract of thirty feet ? 



NES. I give it up ; it is all a matter of fancy, and my 



