THE MusQuasH. 161 

then the rolling knolls, and soon the quick rising hills running 
straight up from the stream toward the sky, where one could 
jump down sixty-five feet from an evergreen plump into the 
river below (but he should not). Then swiftly sliding 
downward in the stillness, past the merry little brooklets, often 
hearing their purling music, but rushing by with just a glimpse 
of them over our shoulder, and on down by the ledges, when 
voices from another and larger brook are calling. Upon our 
right hand we hear them, faintly at first, then quickly in louder 
tones, and as we grasp an alder to check the bark, we see the 
rocky mouth, and see its wild, laughing, dashing, noisy 
splashing, as it tumbles down the hill, over and between the 
rocks, and out before us, as we hold up and make fast to the 
bushes a few yards above its mouth; for few could resist its 
tempting look and to drop a fly among the little snowballs of 
foam, and trail it through the white curved lines, rings and 
half circles that formed at its mouth and upon the pool, eddy- 
ing, and drifting out and downward with the current. 
Only a short time, however, did we tarry here at the rocky 
brook, for it seemed mean to catch them when we had what 
we could use in the warm weather; besides, ‘*they count up 
fast,” says my companion, ‘*when you are playing two, to 
have a third one jump in the air and hook himself upon the 
rear fly, and then safely land them all,” (which he did). 
Again on we go, soon leaving the long dead water behind 
and descending gaily down another racing rapid. Then pass- 
ing the east branch of the same name, which here joins the 
west, and we have passed entirely out of the beautiful forest 

to civilization, to a change—and so tame. Cow bells, fields, 
fences and sheep. Slow, sluggish water and a bridge; our 
wild, free and untamed spirits that we have been revelling in 
