278 Tue Aroostook Woops. 

‘¢Say, Cap, what’s the matter with having broiled par- 
tridge?” 
‘* Nothing. What’s the trouble with having both, and a 
boiled potato?” 
‘¢ Nothing ; but what’s the matter with you, hungry?” 
*¢ Awful, awful hungry.” 
eCPAillnsenenor 
After dinner, pushing on again, we find the water more 
shoal in many places, and the bottom a bed of round rocks of 
all sizes. Getting a rub now and then makes us cautious, 
when we must slow down to a more moderate speed. As we 
round the turn we can see a long distance up the stream, and 
all the way its quickly moving waters are rippling downward, 
leaping, dancing, all sparkling in the sunlight, eddying around 
the rocks and darting in and out, toward and from the shores, 
falling over little shelves of rocks and bars of sand and gravel, 
old logs imbedded in the sand and old trees with bare washed 
roots, lying lodged in midstream. 
A point makes out from the foot of the higher land upon 
our right, over two hundred yards distant from us. We are 
just loading the brierwood for an after dinner smoke when the 
captain’s low ‘‘ hist” and whisper causes us to look up the 
river. A bear is just stepping into the water from off the 
point, to cross the stream on the rips to the other side, a 
sight we but seldom happen to see, but are often looking for. 
As he commenced his slow march through the shoal water, 
we commenced shoving the birch with our paddles for all we 
could do under the circumstances, to get a little nearer. When 
he was near midstream and we were hung up by the rocks, 
we laid by the paddles and took up the rifles. At this 
moment, with his head close down to the water, and without 
