DIBS PISCATORI^l. 553 



NOR. I have always been under the impression that a good 

 log-cabin and " fixins" to suit, was as much as one could hope 

 for on the Saranac. 



NES. Now, bless your innocent heart ! Bill Martin has a 

 frame house as big as a watercure establishment ; and in it a 

 tenpin-alley, a ball-room, a piano, a ladies' parlor, opening 

 out on a verandah that overlooks the lake, a gentleman's sit- 

 ting-room, where you lounge and tie flies, a fleet of fairy 

 little boats some of them that don't weigh a hundred 

 pounds and a score or two of stalwart retainers, who act as 

 guides, and can take you almost anywhere. Besides, he has 

 deerhounds, rifles, shot-guns, trolling-rods, fly-rods, and all 

 that ; for he is a great deer-hunter and a good fly-fisher, and 

 always has venison and Trout on his table. Why he is a 

 sort of " Lord of the Isles ;" for I think there are some fifty 

 turreted pine-clad little islands in the lake, near his house. 

 I'll show you a sketch of a pair of Bill's retainers Walter 

 took them as they were discussing the subject of the draft. 



JOE. The man with the hip-roofed hat, looks as if he had 

 the worst of the argument of course there must be a good 

 many excursionists to warrant an establishment of that kind ? 



NES. There are ; and that is an offset to the pleasure of the 

 trip with one who likes, when he leaves town, to leave town 

 people behind ; for the Saranac Lakes are so easy of access, 

 that they have even become fashionable. Martin's is a kind 

 of a jumping-off place from the civilized world into the wilds 

 beyond : I have seen men embark at his landing with their 

 wives, children, and other baggage; their cooking utensils, 

 their India-rubber bags stuffed with luxuries, their bass-rods, 

 which the owners essayed in vain to cast a fly with, and their 

 highly finished guns that were innocent of the death of deer, 

 all crammed into boats, when starting for the upper Saranac 

 or some of the lakelets and ponds beyond the Kaquette, to 



