534 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



prairie-fowl. — What a lonesome, beautifully monotonous scene! 

 After twenty minutes' gallop we saw trees in a hollow at a 

 distance, which are sure indications of water on the prairie. 

 We soon had our lines tied to the ends of our rods, and caught 

 minnows for bait, and then caught Bass and Perch — fishing 

 from horseback when trying the different sleughs, and dis- 

 mounting whenever the fish bit freely. We came back at 

 sunset, each with a string of fish at his saddle-bow. 



"On returning to St. Louis, I took a boat for Peoria, Illinois, 

 and then a smaller one for Peru. We had but few passengers 

 on the smaller boa.t, and I found the engineer a clever fellow, . 

 with a rifle in his room and a bucket of live minnows in the 

 wheelhouse. When we stopped to wood, or tinker up the old 

 engine, as we did once for half a day, I tried a live minnow, 

 and sometimes one 'bridled,' and caught some fine Black 

 Bass, one of them eighteen inches long. At Peru we took the 

 stage, and after thirty hours' ride over the green desolate 

 prairie, interspersed occasionally with little settlements, 

 arrived at Chicago and embarked on the steamer, and found 

 myself at this strange-looking old town on the afternoon of 

 the second day. 



" The first odd thing I noticed here was a rough little four- 

 wheeled wagon, which the owner drove on board the steamer; 

 it was drawn by two stout dogs, and loaded with . immense 

 Lake Trout and Whitefish. It is all dog (not horse) power 

 here. The inhabitants use them to draw wood from the island 

 on the opposite side of the Slrait in winter, and say that a 

 pair of them will draw a sled on the ice loaded with a half- 

 cord of wood without difficulty ; dogs are also used in travel- 

 ling over land when there is a hard crust on the snow. 



" The water in the Straits here, as in all of these lakes, is 

 exceedingly clear. You can easily distinguish the' heads of 

 the nails and the seams in the hull of a steamboat as it lies 



