In August there is not much better fly fishing in all these woods than can be had in Cold and Ray brooks, which empty into the Saranac within a few miles of Martin's; and the trout are large as well as abundant. But only a few stop to fish there, hoping, often mistakenly, that a longer journey will insure them better sport. But many "go farther and fare worse." In the spring, however, to "go farther" is a necessity, as these brooks are not worth visiting before midsummer.

I have very pleasant recollections of my two visits to them, last year and the year before, far on in the month of August. Lying some three or four miles off from the straight line to the Raquette, I had not, until two years ago, deemed it worth while to experiment in new waters during the brief time I take in August, and so had always previously pushed on to my old haunts, but not always to my entire satisfaction.

The spring is the time for exploration, and I find no greater pleasure than in following my pilot over untrodden paths, with no other guide than is afforded by the pocket compass or the blazed tree. The tramp is sometimes wearisome, but always charming, both in anticipation and in realization. As I look back upon these excursions, a thousand delightful reminiscences come to me as freshly and as vividly as if some of them did not reach back

more than a score of years-long before my locks were frosted or my vision dimmed; recollections of shady nooks, where rays of sunlight came down through the rustling leaves like lines of silver; of huge masses of gray rock, imbedded in thick moss, softer and more inviting than the luxurious divans of the drawing-room; of the "expressive silence" of the old woods, when, after the ascent of some rugged hill, we sat down to rest, indifferent, amid such surroundings, to the admonitions of prudence or the march of time. Enveloped in a golden sunset, with the forest birds making the woods vocal with their sweet melody, and with my own heart in unison with all these harmonies of nature, I have often found myself, with no other feelings than those of devout reverence and gratitude, repeating the words of the Psalmist: "How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wing."

It is, as I have said, in the spring time that I make these diversions from the beaten path, and I have more than once thus discovered unfished waters, where, since "the morning stars sang together," no line had been cast or trout captured. They remain as sunny places upon the map of my memory, and are often revisited, although now upon the borders of some of them may be seen the hunter's camp and the fisherman's shanty.

And talking of memory, what a wonderful faculty it is! How drolly things long forgotten sometimes come back to us, without effort and without thought, like a vision, as if the events of ten or twenty years agone had occurred but yesterday! The books are full of curious instances. I have a few not in the books, but apropos to my theme, and which, while I am moving slowly on my way to the Raquette, may afford some one a moment's amusement.

One morning, twenty years ago, while encamped on the Fourth lake of the Fulton range, I was sitting on a freshly fallen spruce tree adjusting my reel for work, when the ever-welcome and long waited for call to breakfast was sounded. I hurriedly laid aside the reel and responded to the call. On sitting down to the table I found a disagreeable quantity of the exudations of the spruce tree adhering to my fingers. It troubled me to remove it, and what with that and the pleasures of the table, I was totally unable, afterward, to remember where I had left my reel, and was obliged to provide another for my day's fishing. Two years afterward I chanced to camp on the same spot, and while idly moving about I discovered a hacked spruce tree from which had exuded large globules of gum, clear as crystal. In breaking it off, some particles unpleasantly adhered to my fingers, when,

like a flash, all the incidents of the old time came to my mind, and without a moment's hesitation I walked to the old spruce tree where I had then been adjusting my reel, and picked it up on the very spot where it had fallen two years before.

Here is another instance: More than fifty years ago, when a very little fellow, in company with others, I was lost in the woods. After many miles of weary wandering we came out upon a clearing, half famished. But the only food we could procure with which to appease our hunger was boiled potatoes and salt pickles. They must have been delicious, for to this day I never see a potato and pickle in juxtaposition without being carried back these fifty years, and see directly before me the earth-covered potato-heap from which the "boiling" was taken, the begrimmed pork barrel out of whose ponderous depths the pickles were abstracted, and the huge "crane "" which swung across the huger chimney within whose ample "jams" the potato-pot was boiled. I have had a penchant for potatoes and pickles ever since.

Still another: One who, before disease had laid its heavy hand upon him, was wont to accompany me upon all my angling excursions, had the misfortune to become the possessor of a counterfeit five-dollar bill. As, poor fellow, his heart was always fuller of kind thoughts and generous pur

poses than his pocket-book of bank bills, he very naturally racked his brain to remember from whom he had obtained the rascally counterfeit. Months afterward it was still in his wallet, and he was in the habit of showing it to his friends to test their skill as judges of genuine currency. On one occasion, more than a year after he became the possessor of the bill, an expert pointed out to him a tiny spot upon it, which, to the expert, furnished incontestible proof of its character. In bringing the bill close to his eyes to discover the defect to which his friend had directed his attention, he held it near his nostrils and instantly detected the odor of fresh beef. After a second sniff, he stepped back with an air and attitude as tragic and as artistic as ever Forrest assumed in his role of Metamora, and exclaimed:

"I now do know the sanguinary wretch

Who thus hath tricked me of my honest gains;

And by the rood [he meant rod] which gentle Izaak plied, I'll make the fiend disgor-r-r-ge.

This bill came to me from my butcher!"

The delinquent remem

And such was the fact. bered having missed a counterfeit five which he had kept hidden, as he supposed, but which, by some accident, had found its way into the till which contained genuine money. My friend has thought well of his nose ever since.