Jax. 30. 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
169 
The early train dropped ns at Ellis Junction 
the morning of Aug. 5 last. Our two packs, 
weather beaten and travel - stained, looked 
strangely out of place amid the other baggage, 
yet they excited more comment than all the 
other baggage combined. Of course no one con¬ 
nected our conventionalh' garbed party with the 
somewhat disreputable outfit, so we enjoyed the 
remarks to the full. \\’e had breakfast at the 
hotel, then calling for a room, changed our 
clothes. When we descended, garbed a la out¬ 
doors. everyone knew to whom the packs be¬ 
longed, While many curious glances were cast 
in our direction, no impertinent remarks were 
passed and no one accosted us. The people of 
Ellis Junction are as civil,...obliging and con¬ 
siderate of a traveler's needs as any we ever 
fell among. We have had e.xperiences not so 
agreeable. 
While I hunted up a team. Wife ordered a 
searching for the last crumb of food. At our 
right the Peshtigo, in front and at our feet the 
Thunder, spanned ly a rickety pole bridge. 
Across the Peshtigo, hill mounted above hill, 
giving the effect of vastness illimitable. I 
think Girl expressed our thoughts wdien she re¬ 
marked, ‘T didn’t know there was so much out- 
of-doors.” Our little tent .was set up, a speck 
of white in all that vastness. That afternoon 
while gathering browse for our bed. Wife fell 
down the steep hank of the Thunder, bruising 
her left limb cruelly, an accident which kept 
us in that camp till Saturday, We had a good 
liniment with us, for we never go into the woods 
without a few simple remedies, but she suffered 
a great deal and getting about was extremely 
painful. As misfortunes never come singly, that 
afternoon Girl was taken with a violent colic 
accompanied with a high fever. We applied our 
rftnedies faithfully, giving pain-killer and keep¬ 
overhanging brush, with deep pools and eddies. 
I caught some fine rainbow and brook trout, both 
species seeming plentiful. I found ’hoppers 
more alluring than flies, but as it took twice as 
long to secure a ’hopper as it did a trout, I de¬ 
pended on my fly-book. All intent upon my 
fishing, 1 rounded a sharp bend, my eyes upon 
the water, A slight noise caused me to glance 
up, and there on the bank less than twenty feet 
distant stood a bear and cul). Our surprise was 
mutual and we gazed at one another in astonish¬ 
ment. John Burroughs informs us that the lower 
animals do not think, so of course there w'cre no 
thoughts back of those mean little eyes, but I 
was heretic enough to believe that she was doing 
a mighty lot of thinking; anyway, I know I 
did. and my thou.ehts, if expressed, wmuld have 
run something like this; “Old lady, if you want 
that bank you can have it—all of it; the river, 
too, for that matter.” 
DINNER FOR THREE. 
few groceries, etc. Xo one seemed grasping or 
avaricious as is so often the case under like cir- 
eumstances; all seemed interested in our trip, 
eager to give adviee and expressed hopes that 
we would have a good time. While waiting for 
the team, Wife and one of the saleswomen be¬ 
came quite confidential and fell to discussing 
that all important feminine questions—clothes. 
The clerk informed her that the good people 
of Ellis did not object to short skirts, but drew 
the line at bloomers, ^^’ell, I suppose there 
must be a limit. 
At 9 o’clock we were on the road anxious to 
reach the mouth of the Thunder River, w’here 
our trip actually began. It was a hot day and 
a hot drive, hut at 12 o’cloek the fifteen weary 
miles of sand and dust w'ere behind us and we 
promptly forgot them. Bidding our friendly 
driver good-bye, we kindled a fire and soon 
bacon w'as sputtering in the pan, while coffee 
was sending forth an appetizing odor. That 
meal was a function, and how we did enjoy it. 
Dinner eaten, we sprawled in the shade of th.' 
trees, while the chipmunks scampered about 
ing hot cloths on her stomach till she cried out 
for us to stop. 
It was a blue outer who waded out into the 
Peshtigo and cast his flies upon the unruffled 
surface of the larger river. Three rainbows, 
their bright bodies gleaming through the water, 
dashed for the flies, but missed, and I gasped 
with astonishment, though I cast again a id 
again, running the gamut of my fly-book through 
and back. I failed to raise another. Then I 
waded ashore and eaptured a grasshopper and 
that gymnastic insect turned the trick. In short 
order I had four rainbows, the combined weight 
of which was six pounds, enough for supper and 
breakfast, and I reeled in my line. That was 
my great affliction ; every day I could catch more 
fish than we could use. 
I\[orning found Wife stiff and sore and Girl 
wan and spent, but aide to take a little nutri¬ 
ment. Feeling that things were looking up, I 
set out up the Thunder for a day's fishing. Per¬ 
haps two miles above the mouth I entered the 
stream and waded down. The main Thunder is 
an ideal stream for wading, wide, free from 
I suppose a great many magazine hunters 
would have killed that bear with the .22. I did 
not; I began to back water. When I moved the 
bear turn'ed and dashed into the brush, followed 
by her little one; disappearing, they looked for 
all the world like domestic pigs. I reached camp 
at two, tired and hungry, but well satisfied and 
ready to do ample justice to the bountiful meal 
spread upon the ground. 
Wife thought a little exercise would do her 
disabled limb good, so the next morning we all 
set out up the Thunder, stopping at the various 
falls and rapids. At noon we spread our lunch 
upon the rocks above the upper falls and the 
shadows were long when we reached camp. Very 
homelike, the little tent appeared nestling among 
the hills. Strange how much one finds to do 
when he has nothing to do. No day was long 
enough to do the little things we planned when 
gathered about the camp-fire in the evening. 
The morning of the 8th we were early astir, 
for we were to move camp to High Falls, a 
mile up the Peshtigo. The day was terribly hot 
and it was an exhausted party that reached the 
