310 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



would only mar the fish, and we could take all we wanted 

 with the net. 



After a while, when there was about one hundred 

 pounds of fish on the ice, I thought it time to quit, and 

 mentioned the fact that we had all we could carry and 

 enough for ourselves and friends. There seemed no use 

 to kill more. 



"I don't intend to stop short of a ton," said Bill. 

 "Henry, you go back to the village, and get a team from 

 Jo Hall and a bob-sled, and we'll take a load of the best 

 of these to Dubuque, and if they take well we'll give 'em 

 another load this week. Keep it still, or there'll be a big 

 gang down here to take a share in the fish." 



This was taking a commercial view of the fishing, and 

 I said to Bill, after Henry had gone: "I never liked to 

 see men rob the woods of game and the waters of fish to 

 send to market, and I only thought to come down and 

 get a few for our own use. It's this wholesale slaughter 

 for market that has made the East barren of fish and 

 game, and I've talked against it there and I don't want 

 to engage in it here. Fur is a different thing from 

 game, and I could trap for a living easy enough, but 

 somehow it doesn't seem right to take advantage of those 

 fish and market them, when if we take what we want and 

 leave the rest to breed, there will always be plenty for us." 



Bill's remarks, carefully expurgated, were something 

 like this, but contained more adjectives, for in his ordi- 

 nary conversation he "swore like our army in Flanders:" 

 "Look a-here! What are you chinnin' about, anyhow? 

 I've been all over Sonora, New Mexico and Californy, 

 and fished in more rivers than you ever see, but these 

 Mississippi bottoms are different. It's this way: In the 

 spring and fall there's a heap o' water comes down this 

 valley, an' it overflows all these bottom lands, and the fish 



