TROUT-STREAM BETWEEN PLATTE AND ROUND LAKES 



Crystal Lake lies before us, ten miles long 

 and three miles wide — a sparkling cathe- 

 dral floor under ceilings of blue. Fine, 

 gray gravel gleams even ten feet down in the 

 pellucid water. Wide, easily sloping, hard 

 beaches on which a buggy may be driven 

 entirely around it! A sunny evening after 

 rain, the wet woods brilliant in golden 

 green! There is a perfect little angler's 

 rest — a charming hotel not ten rods from the 

 station. In the woods a few rods from the 

 shore are two forest springs. Marvelously 

 clear and deceptive distances, sylvan paths, 

 barefooted urchins vending bunches of trail- 

 ing arbutus and wood violets to the passen- 

 gers, and a feeling that everybody is in a 

 continual reverie, combine to make this 

 region something that "must be seen to be 

 appreciated." 



Yet even these charms do not stay us. 

 There are too many fishermen, too numer- 

 ous yellow perch here that often swarm 

 along the line of blue water beyond shallows 



^until the hue of the lake is changed. 

 Fog horns are bellowing from the shore 

 of the big lake whose mist begins to obscure 

 the woods opposite the points beyond be- 

 tween which lie the deeply submerged rocks 

 that the small-mouth black bass love so 

 well. I have seen a six-pound bass taken 

 from that water; but those fish are edu- 

 cated, seldom hooked, and difficult to land. 

 Woods curve in perfect billows of hills and 

 lines of beauty. There are excellent row- 

 boats, and several famous anglers greet us 

 at the post-office with suggestions of a quiet 

 row with three boats down the lake early 

 to-morrow morning, to be followed by a 

 shore luncheon of fried perch, served on 

 birch bark plates at the foot of the little 

 forty-foot water fall ribboning the bluff cov- 

 ered with pines and cedars on the north 

 shore three miles away. A tiny column of 

 smoke would be enjoyable there after a mid- 

 day meal, as we smoked the pipes of rest 

 and peace. 



