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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Historic Waterways--Six Hundred Miles of
+Canoeing Down the Rock, Fox, and Wisconsin Rivers, by Reuben Gold Thwaites
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Historic Waterways--Six Hundred Miles of Canoeing Down the Rock, Fox, and Wisconsin Rivers
+
+Author: Reuben Gold Thwaites
+
+Release Date: January 12, 2012 [EBook #38556]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC WATERWAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Bergquist, Melissa McDaniel and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
+  been preserved.  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+HISTORIC WATERWAYS
+
+
+
+
+     HISTORIC WATERWAYS
+
+     SIX HUNDRED MILES OF CANOEING
+     DOWN THE ROCK, FOX, AND
+     WISCONSIN RIVERS
+
+     BY
+     REUBEN GOLD THWAITES
+     SECRETARY OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN
+
+        Other roads do some violence to Nature, and bring the
+        traveller to stare at her; but the river steals into the
+        scenery it traverses without intrusion, silently creating
+        and adorning it, and is free to come and go as the
+        zephyr.--THOREAU; _A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
+        Rivers._
+
+     CHICAGO
+     A. C. MCCLURG AND COMPANY
+     1888
+
+
+
+
+     COPYRIGHT
+     BY A. C. MCCLURG AND CO.
+     A.D. 1888.
+
+
+
+
+     This Little Volume
+
+     IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR
+
+     TO HIS WIFE,
+
+     HIS MESSMATE UPON TWO OF THE THREE VACATION
+     VOYAGES HEREIN RECORDED,
+     AND HIS FELLOW-VOYAGER DOWN THE RIVER
+     OF TIME.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+There is a generally accepted notion that a brief summer vacation, if
+at all obtainable in this busy life of ours, must be spent in a flight
+as far afield as time will allow; that the popular resorts in the
+mountains, by the seaside, or on the margins of the upper lakes must
+be sought for rest and enjoyment; that neighborhood surroundings
+should, in the mad rush for change of air and scene, be left behind.
+The result is that your average vacationist--if I may be allowed to
+coin a needed word--knows less of his own State than of any other, and
+is inattentive to the delights of nature which await inspection within
+the limits of his horizon.
+
+But let him mount his bicycle, his saddle-horse, or his family
+carriage, and start out upon a gypsy tour of a week or two along the
+country roads, exploring the hills and plains and valleys of--say his
+congressional district; or, better by far, take his canoe, and with
+his best friend for a messmate explore the nearest river from source
+to mouth, and my word for it he will find novelty and fresh air enough
+to satisfy his utmost cravings; and when he comes to return to his
+counter, his desk, or his study, he will be conscious of having
+discovered charms in his own locality which he has in vain sought in
+the accustomed paths of the tourist.
+
+This volume is the record of six hundred miles of canoeing experiences
+on historic waterways in Wisconsin and Illinois during the summer of
+1887. There has been no attempt at exaggeration, to color its homely
+incidents, or to picture charms where none exist. It is intended to be
+a simple, truthful narrative of what was seen and done upon a series
+of novel outings through the heart of the Northwest. If it may induce
+others to undertake similar excursions, and thus increase the little
+navy of healthy and self-satisfied canoeists, the object of the
+publication will have been attained.
+
+I am under obligations to my friend, the Hon. Levi Alden, for valuable
+assistance in the revision of proof-sheets.
+
+     R. G. T.
+     MADISON, Wis., December, 1887.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                             PAGE
+
+     INTRODUCTION                              15
+
+     TABLE OF DISTANCES                        26
+
+
+     The Rock River
+
+       CHAPTER I.
+
+     THE WINDING YAHARA                        31
+
+       CHAPTER II.
+
+     BARBED-WIRE FENCES                        48
+
+       CHAPTER III.
+
+     AN ILLINOIS PRAIRIE HOME                  61
+
+       CHAPTER IV.
+
+     THE HALF-WAY HOUSE                        74
+
+       CHAPTER V.
+
+     GRAND DETOUR FOLKS                        86
+
+       CHAPTER VI.
+
+     AN ANCIENT MARINER                       103
+
+       CHAPTER VII.
+
+     STORM-BOUND AT ERIE                      117
+
+       CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     THE LAST DAY OUT                         129
+
+
+     The Fox River (of Green Bay).
+
+       FIRST LETTER.
+
+     SMITH'S ISLAND                           143
+
+       SECOND LETTER.
+
+     FROM PACKWAUKEE TO BERLIN                160
+
+       THIRD LETTER.
+
+     THE MASCOUTINS                           174
+
+       FOURTH LETTER.
+
+     THE LAND OF THE WINNEBAGOES              187
+
+       FIFTH LETTER.
+
+     LOCKED THROUGH                           205
+
+       SIXTH LETTER.
+
+     THE BAY SETTLEMENT                       218
+
+
+     The Wisconsin River.
+
+       CHAPTER I.
+
+     ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS                 237
+
+       CHAPTER II.
+
+     THE LAST OF THE SACS                    248
+
+       CHAPTER III.
+
+     A PANORAMIC VIEW                        262
+
+       CHAPTER IV.
+
+     FLOATING THROUGH FAIRYLAND              275
+
+       CHAPTER V
+
+     THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI        288
+
+
+     INDEX                                   295
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+
+
+HISTORIC WATERWAYS.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+Provided, reader, you have a goodly store of patience, stout muscles,
+a practiced fondness for the oars, a keen love of the picturesque and
+curious in nature, a capacity for remaining good-humored under the
+most adverse circumstances, together with a quiet love for that sort
+of gypsy life which we call "roughing it," canoeing may be safely
+recommended to you as one of the most delightful and healthful of
+outdoor recreations, as well as one of the cheapest.
+
+The canoe need not be of birch-bark or canvas, or of the Rob Roy or
+Racine pattern. A plain, substantial, light, open clinker-build was
+what we used,--thirteen feet in extreme length, with three-and-a-half
+feet beam. It was easily portaged, held two persons comfortably with
+seventy-five pounds of baggage, and drew but five inches,--just enough
+to let us over the average shallows without bumping. It was
+serviceable, and stood the rough carries and innumerable bangs from
+sunken rocks and snags along its voyage of six hundred miles, without
+injury. It could carry a large sprit-sail, and, with an attachable
+keel, run close to the wind; while an awning, decided luxury on hot
+days, was readily hoisted on a pair of hoops attached to the gunwale
+on either side. But perhaps, where there are no portages necessary, an
+ordinary flat-bottomed river punt, built of three boards, would be as
+productive of good results, except as to speed,--and what matters
+speed upon such a tour of observation?
+
+It is not necessary to go to the Maine lakes for canoeing purposes; or
+to skirt the gloomy wastes of Labrador, or descend the angry current
+of a mountain stream. Here, in the Mississippi basin, practically
+boundless opportunities present themselves, at our very doors, to
+glide through the heart of a fertile and picturesque land, to commune
+with Nature, to drink in her beauties, to view men and communities
+from a novel standpoint, to catch pictures of life and manners that
+will always live in one's memory. The traveler by rail has brief and
+imperfect glimpses of the landscape. The canoeist, from his lowly seat
+near the surface of the flood, sees the country practically as it was
+in pioneer days, in a state of unalloyed beauty. Each bend in the
+stream brings into view a new vista, and thus the bewitching scene
+changes as in a kaleidoscope. The people one meets, the variety of
+landscape one encounters, the simple adventures of the day, the
+sensation of being an explorer, the fresh air and simple diet,
+combined with that spirit of calm contentedness which overcomes the
+happy voyager who casts loose from care, are the never-failing
+attractions of such a trip.
+
+To those would-be canoeists who are fond of the romantic history of
+our great West, as well as of delightful scenery, the Fox (of Green
+Bay), the Rock, and the Wisconsin, each with its sharply distinctive
+features, will be found among the most interesting of our neighborhood
+rivers. And this record of recent voyages upon them is, I think,
+fairly representative of what sights and experiences await the boatman
+upon any of the streams of similar importance in the vast and
+well-watered region of the upper Mississippi valley.
+
+Of the three, the Rock river route, through the great prairies of
+Illinois, perhaps presents the greatest variety of life and scenery.
+The Rock has practically two heads: the smaller, in a rustic stream
+flowing from the north into swamp-girted Lake Koshkonong; the larger,
+in the four lakes at Madison, the charming capital of Wisconsin, which
+empty their waters into the Avon-like Catfish or Yahara, which in turn
+pours into the Rock a short distance below the Koshkonong lake. Our
+course was from Madison almost to the mouth of the Rock, near Rock
+Island, 267 miles of paddling, as the river winds.
+
+The student of history finds the Rock interesting to him because of
+its associations with the Black Hawk war of 1832. When the famous Sac
+warrior "invaded" Illinois, his path of progress was up the south bank
+of that stream. At Prophetstown lived his evil genius, the crafty
+White Cloud, and here the Hawk held council with the Pottawattomies,
+who, under good Shaubena's influence, rejected the war pipe. Dixon is
+famous as the site of the pioneer ferry over the Rock, on the line of
+what was the principal land highway between Chicago and southern
+Wisconsin and the Galena mines for a protracted period in each year.
+Here, many a notable party of explorers, military officials, miners,
+and traders have rendezvoused in the olden time. Here was a
+rallying-point in 1832, as well, when Lincoln was a raw-boned
+militiaman in a scouting corps, and Robert Anderson, of Fort Sumter
+fame, Zachary Taylor, and Jefferson Davis were of the regular army
+under bluff old Atkinson. A grove at the mouth of Stillman's Creek, a
+Rock River tributary, near Byron, is the scene of the actual outbreak
+of the war. The forest where Black Hawk camped with the white-loving
+Pottawattomies is practically unchanged, and the open, rolling prairie
+to the south--on which Stillman's horsemen acted at first so
+treacherously, and afterwards as arrant cowards--is still there, a
+broad pasture-land miles in length, along the river. The
+contemporaneous descriptions of the "battle" field are readily
+recognizable to-day. Above, as far as Lake Koshkonong, the river banks
+are fraught with interest; for along them the soldiery followed up the
+Sac trail, like bloodhounds, and held many an unsatisfactory parley
+with the double-faced Winnebagoes.
+
+Rock River scenery combines the rustic, the romantic, and the
+picturesque,--prairies, meadows, ravines, swamps, mountainous bluffs,
+eroded palisades, wide stretches of densely wooded bottoms, heavy
+upland forests, shallows, spits, and rapids. Birds and flowers, and
+uncommon plants and vines, delight the naturalist and the botanist.
+The many thriving manufacturing cities,--such as Stoughton,
+Janesville, Beloit, Rockford, Rockton, Dixon, Sterling, and
+Oregon,--furnish an abundance of sight-seeing. The small
+villages--some of them odd, out-of-the-way places, of rare types--are
+worthy of study to the curious in economics and human nature. The
+farmers are of many types; the fishermen one is thrown into daily
+communion with are a class unto themselves; while millers,
+bridge-tenders, boat-renters, and others whose callings are
+along-shore, present a variety of humanity interesting and
+instructive. The twenty-odd mill-dam portages, each having
+difficulties and incidents of its own, are well calculated to vary the
+monotony of the voyage; there are more or less dangers connected with
+some of the mill-races, while the lookout for snags, bowlders and
+shallows must be continuous, sharpening the senses of sight and sound;
+for a tip-over or the utter demolition of the craft may readily follow
+carelessness in this direction. The islands in the Rock are numerous,
+many of them being several miles in length, and nearly all heavily
+wooded. These frequent divisions of the channel often give rise to
+much perplexity; for the ordinary summer stage of water is so low that
+a loaded canoe drawing five inches of water is liable to be stranded
+in the channel apparently most available.
+
+The Fox and Wisconsin rivers--the former, from Portage to Green Bay,
+the latter from Portage to Prairie du Chien--form a water highway that
+has been in use by white men for two and a half centuries. In 1634,
+Jean Nicolet, the first explorer of the Northwest, passed up the Fox
+River, to about Berlin, and then went southward to visit the Illinois.
+In the month of June, 1673, Joliet and Marquette made their famous
+tour over the interlocked watercourse and discovered the Mississippi
+River. After they had shown the way, a tide of travel set in over
+these twin streams, between the Great Lakes and the great river,--a
+motley procession of Jesuit missionaries, explorers, traders,
+trappers, soldiers and pioneers. New England was in its infancy when
+the Fox and Wisconsin became an established highway for enterprising
+canoeists.
+
+Since the advent of the railway era this historic channel of
+communication has fallen into disuse. The general government has spent
+an immense sum in endeavoring to render it navigable for the vessels
+in vogue to-day, but the result, as a whole, is a failure. There is no
+navigation on the Fox worthy of mention, above Berlin, and even that
+below is insignificant and intermittent. On the Wisconsin there is
+none at all, except for skiffs and an occasional lumber-raft.
+
+The canoeist of to-day, therefore, will find solitude and shallows
+enough on either river. But he can float, if historically inclined,
+through the dusky shadows of the past, for every turn of the bank has
+its story, and there is romance enough to stock a volume.
+
+The upper Fox is rather monotonous. The river twists and turns through
+enormous widespreads, grown up with wild rice and flecked with
+water-fowl. These widespreads occasionally free themselves of
+vegetable growth and become lakes, like the Buffalo, the Puckawa, and
+the Poygan. There is, however, much of interest to the student in
+natural history; while such towns as Montello, Princeton, Berlin,
+Omro, Winneconne, and Oshkosh are worthy of visitation. Lake Winnebago
+is a notable inland sea, and the canoeist feels fairly lost, in his
+little cockle shell, bobbing about over its great waves. The lower Fox
+runs between high, noble banks, and with frequent rapids, past
+Neenah, Menasha, Appleton, and other busy manufacturing cities, down
+to Green Bay, hoary with age and classic in her shanty ruins.
+
+The Wisconsin River is the most picturesque of the three. Probably the
+best route is from the head of the Dells to the mouth; but the run
+from Portage to the mouth is the one which has the merit of antiquity,
+and is certainly a long enough jaunt to satisfy the average tourist.
+It is a wide, gloomy, mountain-girt valley, with great sand-bars and
+thickly-wooded morasses. Settlement is slight. Portage, Prairie du
+Sac, Sauk City, and Muscoda are the principal towns. The few villages
+are generally from a mile to three miles back, at the foot of the
+bluffs, out of the way of the flood, and the river appears to be but
+little used. It is an ideal sketching-ground. The canoeist with a
+camera will find occupation enough in taking views of his
+surroundings; perplexity as to what to choose amid such a crowd of
+charming scenes, will be his only difficulty.
+
+Some suggestions to those who may wish to undertake these or similar
+river trips may be advisable. Traveling alone will be found too
+dreary. None but a hermit could enjoy those long stretches of
+waterway, where one may float for a day without seeing man or animal
+on the forest-bounded shores, and where the oppression of solitude is
+felt with such force that it requires but a slight stretch of
+imagination to carry one's self back in thought and feeling to the
+days when the black-robed members of the Company of Jesus first
+penetrated the gloomy wilderness. Upon the size of the party should
+depend the character of the preparations. If the plan is to spend the
+nights at farmhouses or village taverns, then a party of two will be
+as large as can secure comfortable quarters,--especially at a
+farmhouse, where but one spare bed can usually be found, while many
+are the country inns where the accommodations are equally limited. If
+it is intended to tent on the banks, then the party should be larger;
+for two persons unused to this experience would find it exceedingly
+lonesome after nightfall, when visions of river tramps, dissolute
+fishermen, and inquisitive hogs and bulls, pass in review, and the
+weakness of the little camp against such formidable odds comes to be
+fully recognized. Often, too, the camping-places are few and far
+between, and may involve a carry of luggage to higher lands beyond; on
+such occasions, the more assistance the merrier. But whatever the
+preparations for the night and breakfast, the mess-box must be relied
+upon for dinners and suppers, for there is no dining-car to be taken
+on along these water highways, and eating-stations are unknown. Unless
+there are several towns on the route, of over one thousand
+inhabitants, it would be well to carry sufficient provisions of a
+simple sort for the entire trip, for supplies are difficult to obtain
+at small villages, and the quality is apt to be poor. Farmhouses can
+generally be depended on for eggs, butter, and milk,--nothing more.
+For drinking-water, obtainable from farm-wells, carry an army canteen,
+if you can get one; if not, a stone jug will do. The river water is
+useful only for floating the canoe, and the offices of the bath. As to
+personal baggage, fly very light, as a draught of over six inches
+would at times work an estoppel to your progress on any of the three
+streams mentioned. In shipping your boat to any point at which you
+wish to embark upon a river, allow two or three days for freight-train
+delays.
+
+Be prepared to find canoeing a rough sport. There is plenty of hard
+work about it, a good deal of sunburn and blister. You will be obliged
+to wear your old clothes, and may not be overpleased to meet critical
+friends in the river towns you visit. But if you have the true spirit
+of the canoeist, you will win for your pains an abundance of good air,
+good scenery, wholesome exercise, sound sleep, and something to
+think about all your life.
+
+      TABLE OF DISTANCES.--TOTAL, 607 MILES.
+
+      THE ROCK RIVER.
+
+                                        MILES.
+
+     Madison to Stoughton                 22
+     Stoughton to Janesville              40
+     Janesville to Beloit                 18
+     Beloit to Rockford                   40
+     Rockford to Byron                    18
+     Byron to Oregon                      15
+     Oregon to Dixon                      31
+     Dixon to Sterling                    20
+     Sterling to Como                      9
+     Como to Lyndon                       14
+     Lyndon to Prophetstown                5
+     Prophetstown to Erie Ferry           10
+     Erie Ferry to Coloma                 25
+     Coloma to mouth of river             14
+     Mouth of river to Rock Island
+       (up Mississippi River)              6
+                                         ---
+     Total                               287
+
+       THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY).
+
+                                        MILES.
+
+     Portage to Packwaukee                25
+     Packwaukee to Montello                7
+     Montello to Marquette                11
+     Marquette to Princeton               18
+     Princeton to Berlin                  20
+     Berlin to Omro                       18
+     Omro to Oshkosh                      22
+     Oshkosh to Neenah                    20
+     Neenah to Appleton                    7
+     Appleton to Kaukauna                  7
+     Kaukauna to Green Bay                20
+                                         ---
+     Total                               175
+
+       THE WISCONSIN RIVER.
+
+                                        MILES.
+
+     Portage to Merrimac                  20
+     Merrimac to Prairie du Sac           10
+     Prairie du Sac to Arena Ferry        15
+     Arena Ferry to Helena                 8
+     Helena to Lone Rock Bridge           14
+     Lone Rock Bridge to Muscoda          18
+     Muscoda to Port Andrew                9
+     Port Andrew to Boscobel              10
+     Boscobel to Boydtown                 10
+     Boydtown to Wauzeka (on Kickapoo)     7
+     Wauzeka to Wright's Ferry            10
+     Wright's Ferry to Bridgeport          4
+     Bridgeport to mouth of river          7
+     Mouth of river to Prairie du Chien
+     (up Mississippi River)                5
+                                         ---
+     Total                               145
+
+NOTE.--The above table of distances by water is based upon the most
+reliable local estimates, verified, as far as practicable, by official
+surveys.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK RIVER.
+
+  [Illustration: MAP OF THE ROCK RIVER to accompany THWAITES'S
+  "HISTORIC WATERWAYS"]
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK RIVER.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE WINDING YAHARA.
+
+
+It was a quarter to twelve, Monday morning, the 23d of May, 1887, when
+we took seats in our canoe at our own landing-stage on Third Lake, at
+Madison, spread an awning over two hoops, as on a Chinese house-boat,
+pushed off, waved farewell to a little group of curious friends, and
+started on our way to explore the Rock River of Illinois. W----
+wielded the paddle astern, while I took the oars amidships. Despite
+the one hundred pounds of baggage and the warmth emitted by the
+glowing sun,--for the season was unusually advanced,--we made
+excellent speed, as we well had need in order to reach the mouth, a
+distance of two hundred and eighty miles as the sinuous river runs,
+in the seven days we had allotted to the task.
+
+It was a delightful run across the southern arm of the lake. There was
+a light breeze aft, which gave a graceful upward curvature to our
+low-set awning. The great elms and lindens at charming Lakeside--the
+home of the Wisconsin Chautauqua--droop over the bowlder-studded
+banks, their masses of greenery almost sweeping the water. Down in the
+deep, cool shadows groups of bass and pickerel and perch lazily swish;
+swarms of "crazy bugs" ceaselessly swirl around and around, with no
+apparent object in life but this rhythmic motion, by which they
+wrinkle the mirror-like surface into concentric circles. Through
+occasional openings in the dense fringe of pendent boughs, glimpses
+can be had of park-like glades, studded with columnar oaks, and
+stretching upward to hazel-grown knolls, which rise in irregular
+succession beyond the bank. From the thickets comes the fussy chatter
+of thrushes and cat-birds, calling to their young or gossiping with
+the orioles, the robins, jays, and red-breasted grosbeaks, who warble
+and twitter and scream and trill from more lofty heights.
+
+A quarter of an hour sent us spinning across the mouth of Turvill's
+Bay. At Ott's Farm, just beyond, the bank rises with sheer ascent, in
+layers of crumbly sandstone, a dozen feet above the water's level.
+Close-cropped woodlawn pastures gently slope upward to storm-wracked
+orchards, and long, dark windbreaks of funereal spruce. Flocks of
+sheep, fresh from the shearing, trot along the banks, winding in and
+out between the trees, keeping us company on our way,--their bleating
+lambs following at a lope,--now and then stopping, in their eager,
+fearful curiosity, to view our craft, and assuming picturesque
+attitudes, worthy subjects for a painter's art.
+
+A long, hard pull through close-grown patches of reeds and lily-pads,
+encumbered by thick masses of green scum, brought us to the outlet of
+the lake and the head of that section of the Catfish River which is
+the medium through which Third Lake pours its overflow into Second.
+The four lakes of Madison are connected by the Catfish, the chief
+Wisconsin tributary of the Rock. Upon the map this relationship
+reminds one of beads strung upon a thread.
+
+As the result of a protracted drought, the water in the little stream
+was low, and great clumps of aquatic weeds came very close to the
+surface, threatening, later in the season, an almost complete
+stoppage to navigation. But the effect of the current was at once
+perceptible. It was as if an additional rower had been taken on. The
+river, the open stream of which is some three rods wide at this point,
+winds like a serpent between broad marshes, which must at no far
+distant period in the past have been wholly submerged, thus prolonging
+the three upper lakes into a continuous sheet of water. From a
+half-mile to a mile back, on either side, there are low ridges,
+doubtless the ancient shores of a narrow lake that was probably thirty
+or forty miles in length. In high water, even now, the marshes are
+converted into widespreads, where the dense tangle of wild rice,
+reeds, and rushes does not wholly prevent canoe navigation; while
+little mud-bottomed lakes, a quarter of a mile or so in diameter, are
+frequently met with at all stages. In places, the river, during a
+drought, has a depth of not over eighteen inches. In such stretches,
+the current moves swiftly over hard bottoms strewn with gravel and the
+whitened sepulchres of snails and clams. In the widespreads, the
+progress is sluggish, the vegetable growth so crowding in upon the
+stream as to leave but a narrow and devious channel, requiring skill
+to pilot through; for in these labyrinthian turnings one is quite
+liable, if not closely watching the lazy flood, to push into some
+vexatious cul-de-sac, many rods in length, and be obliged to retrace,
+with the danger of mistaking a branch for the main channel.
+
+In the depths of the tall reeds motherly mud-hens are clucking, while
+their mates squat in the open water, in meditative groups, rising with
+a prolonged splash and a whirr as the canoe approaches within gunshot.
+Secluded among the rushes and cat-tails, nestled down in little clumps
+of stubble, are hundreds of the cup-shaped nests of the red-winged
+blackbird, or American starling; the females, in modest brown, take a
+rather pensive view of life, administering to the wants of their
+young; while the bright-hued, talkative males, perched on swaying
+stalks, fairly make the air hum with their cheery trills.
+
+Water-lilies abound everywhere. The blossoms of the yellow variety
+(nuphar advena) are here and there bursting in select groups, but as a
+rule the buds are still below the surface. In the mud lakes, the
+bottom is seen through the crystal water to be thickly studded with
+great rosettes, two and three feet in diameter, of corrugated ovate
+leaves, of golden russet shade, out of which are shot upward brilliant
+green stalks, some bearing arrow-shaped leaves, and others crowned
+with the tight-wrapped buds that will soon open upon the water level
+into saffron-hued flowers. The plate-like leaves of the white variety
+(nymphæa tuberosa) already dot the surface, but the buds are not yet
+visible. Anchored by delicate stems to the creeping root-stalks,
+buried in the mud below, the leaves, when first emerging, are of a
+rich golden brown, but they are soon frayed by the waves, and soiled
+and eaten by myriads of water-bugs, slugs, and spiders, who make their
+homes on these floating islands. Pluck a leaf, and the many-legged
+spiders, the roving buccaneers of these miniature seas, stalk off at
+high speed, while the slugs and leeches, in a spirit of stubborn
+patriotism, prefer meeting death upon their native heath to politic
+emigration.
+
+By one o'clock we had reached the railway bridge at the head of Second
+Lake. Upon the trestlework were perched three boys and a man, fishing.
+They had that listless air and unkempt appearance which are so
+characteristic of the little groups of humanity often to be found on a
+fair day angling from piers, bridges, and railway embankments. Men who
+imagine the world is allied against them will loll away a dozen hours
+a day, throughout an entire summer season, sitting on the sun-heated
+girders of an iron bridge; yet they would strike against any system in
+the work-a-day world which compelled them to labor more than eight
+hours for ten hours' pay. In going down a long stretch of water
+highway, one comes to believe that about one-quarter of the
+inhabitants, especially of the villages, spend their time chiefly in
+fishing. On a canoe voyage, the bridge fishermen and the birds are the
+classes of animated nature most frequently met with, the former
+presenting perhaps the most unique and varied specimens. There are
+fishermen and fishermen. I never could fancy Izaak Walton dangling his
+legs from a railroad bridge, soaking a worm at the end of a length of
+store twine, vainly hoping, as the hours went listlessly by, that a
+stray sucker or a diminutive catfish would pull the bob under and
+score a victory for patience. Now the use of a boat lifts this sort of
+thing to the dignity of a sport.
+
+Second Lake is about three miles long by a mile in breadth. The shores
+are here and there marshy; but as a rule they are of good, firm land
+with occasional rocky bluffs from a dozen to twenty feet high, rising
+sheer from a narrow beach of gravel. As we crossed over to gain the
+lower Catfish, a calm prevailed for the most part, and the awning was
+a decided comfort. Now and then, however, a delightful puff came
+ruffling the water astern, swelling our canvas roof and noticeably
+helping us along. Light cloudage, blown swiftly before upper aerial
+currents, occasionally obscured the sun,--black, gray, and white
+cumuli fantastically shaped and commingled, while through jagged and
+rapidly shifting gaps was to be seen with vivid effect, the deep blue
+ether beyond.
+
+The bluffs and glades are well wooded. The former have escarpments of
+yellow clay and grayish sand and gravel; here and there have been
+landslides, where great trees have fallen with the débris and maintain
+but a slender hold amid their new surroundings, leaning far out over
+the water, easy victims for the next tornado. One monarch of the woods
+had been thus precipitated into the flood; on one side, its trunk and
+giant branches were water-soaked and slimy, while those above were
+dead and whitened by storm. As we approached, scores of turtles,
+sunning themselves on the unsubmerged portion, suddenly ducked their
+heads and slid off their perches amid a general splash, to hidden
+grottos below; while a solitary king-fisher from his vantage height
+on an upper bough hurriedly rose, and screamed indignance at our rude
+entry upon his preserve.
+
+A farmer's lad sitting squat upon his haunches on the beach, and
+another, leaning over a pasture-fence, holding his head between his
+hands, exhibited lamb-like curiosity at the awning-decked canoe, as it
+glided past their bank. Through openings in the forest, we caught
+glimpses of rolling upland pastures, with sod close-cropped and smooth
+as a well-kept lawn; of gray-blue fields, recently seeded; of
+farmhouses, spacious barns, tobacco-curing sheds,--for this is the
+heart of the Wisconsin tobacco region,--and those inevitable signs of
+rural prosperity, windmills, spinning around by spurts, obedient to
+the breath of the intermittent May-day zephyr; while little bays
+opened up, on the most distant shore, enchanting vistas of blue-misted
+ridges.
+
+At last, after a dreamy pull of two miles from the lake-head, we
+rounded a bold headland of some thirty feet in height, and entered
+Catfish Bay. Ice-pushed bowlders strew the shore, which is here a
+gentle meadow slope, based by a gravel beach. A herd of cattle are
+contentedly browsing, their movements attuned to a symphony of
+cow-bells dangling from the necks of the leaders. The scene is
+pre-eminently peaceful.
+
+The Catfish connecting Second Lake with First, has two entrances, a
+small flat willow island dividing them. Through the eastern channel,
+which is the deepest, the current goes down with a rush, the
+obstruction offered by numerous bowlders churning it into noisy
+rapids; but the water tames down within a few rods, and the canoe
+comes gayly gliding into the united stream, which now has a placid
+current of two miles per hour,--quite fast enough for canoeing
+purposes. This section of the Catfish is much more picturesque than
+the preceding; the shores are firmer; the parallel ridges sometimes
+closely shut it in, and the stream, here four or five rods wide, takes
+upon itself the characteristics of the conventional river. The weed
+and vine grown banks are oftentimes twenty feet in height, with as
+sharp an ascent as can be comfortably climbed; and the swift-rushing
+water is sometimes fringed with sumachs, elders, and hazel brush, with
+here and there willows, maples, lindens, and oaks. Occasionally the
+river apparently ends at the base of a steep, earthy bluff; but when
+that is reached there is a sudden swerve to the right or left, with
+another vista of banks,--sometimes wood-grown to the water's edge,
+again with openings revealing purplish-brown fields, neatly harrowed,
+stretching up to some commanding, forest-crowned hill-top. The
+blossoms of the wild grape burden the air with sweet scent; on the
+deep-shaded banks, amid stones and cool mosses, the red and yellow
+columbine gracefully nods; the mandrake, with its glossy green leaves,
+grows with tropical luxuriance; more in the open, appears in great
+profusion, the old maid's nightcap, in purplish roseate hue; the
+sheep-berry shrub is decked in masses of white blossoms; the hawthorn
+flower is detected by its sickly-sweet scent, and here and there are
+luxuriously-flowered locusts, specimens that have escaped from
+cultivation to take up their homes in this botanical wilderness.
+
+There are charming rustic pictures at every turn,--sleek herds of
+cattle, droves of fat hogs, flocks of sheep that have but recently
+doffed their winter suits, well-tended fields, trim-looking wire
+fences, neat farm-houses where rows of milkpans glisten upon sunny
+drying-benches, farmers and farmers' boys riding aristocratic-looking
+sulky drags and cultivators,--everywhere an air of agricultural
+luxuriance, rather emphasized by occasional log-houses, which repose
+as honored relics by the side of their pretentious successors,
+sharply contrasting the wide differences between pioneer life and that
+of to-day.
+
+The marshes are few; and they in this dry season are luxuriant with
+coarse, glossy wild grass,--the only hay-crop the farmer will have
+this year,--and dotted with clumps of dead willow-trees, which present
+a ghostly appearance, waving their white, scarred limbs in the
+freshening breeze. The most beautiful spot on this section of the
+Catfish is a point some eight miles above Stoughton. The verdure-clad
+banks are high and steep. A lanky Norwegian farmer came down an
+angling path with a pail-yoke over his shoulders to get washing-water
+for his "woman," and told us that when this country was sparsely
+settled, a third of a century ago, there was a mill-dam here. That was
+the day when the possession of water-power meant more than it does in
+this age of steam and rapid transit,--the day when every mill-site was
+supposed to be a nucleus around which a prosperous village must
+necessarily grow in due time. Nothing now remains as a relic of this
+particular fond hope but great hollows in either bank, where the clay
+for dam-making purposes has been scooped out, and a few rotten piles,
+having a slender hold upon the bottom, against which drift-wood has
+lodged, forming a home for turtles and clumps of semi-aquatic grasses.
+W---- avers, in a spirit of enthusiasm, that the Catfish between
+Second and First Lakes is quite similar in parts to the immortal Avon,
+upon which Shakespeare canoed in the long-ago. If she is right, then
+indeed are the charms of Avon worthy the praise of the Muses. If the
+Catfish of to-day is ever to go down to posterity on the wings of
+poesy, however, I would wish that it might be with the more euphonious
+title of "Yahara,"--the original Winnebago name. The map-maker who
+first dropped the liquid "Yahara" for the rasping "Catfish" had no
+soul for music.
+
+Darting under a quaint rustic foot-bridge made of rough poles, which
+on its high trestles stalks over a wide expanse of reedy bog like a
+giant "stick-bug," we emerged into First Lake. The eastern shore,
+which we skirted, is a wide, sandy beach, backed by meadows. The
+opposite banks, two or three miles away, present more picturesque
+outlines. A stately wild swan kept us company for over a mile, just
+out of musket-shot, and finally took advantage of a patch of rushes to
+stop and hide. A small sandstone quarry on the southeast shore, with a
+lone worker, attracted our attention. There was not a human
+habitation in sight, and it seemed odd to see a solitary man engaged
+in such labor apparently so far removed from the highways of commerce.
+The quarryman stuck his crowbar in a crack horizontally, to serve as a
+seat, and filled his pipe as we approached. We hailed him with
+inquiries, from the stone pier jutting into the lake at the foot of
+the bluff into which he was burrowing. He replied from his lofty
+perch, in rich Norsk brogue, that he shipped stone by barge to
+Stoughton, and good-humoredly added, as he struck a match and lit his
+bowl of weed, that he thought himself altogether too good company to
+ever get lonesome. We left the philosopher to enjoy his pipe in peace,
+and passed on around the headland.
+
+An iron railway bridge, shut in with high sides, and painted a dullish
+red, spans the Lower Catfish at the outlet of First Lake. A country
+boy, with face as dirty as it was solemn, stood in artistic rags at
+the base of an arch, fishing with a bit of hop-twine tied to the end
+of a lath; from a mass of sedge just behind him a hoarse cry arose at
+short intervals.
+
+"Hi, Johnny, what's that making the noise?
+
+"Bird!" sententiously responded the stoic youth. He looked as though
+he had been bored with a silly question, and kept his eyes on his
+task.
+
+"What kind of a bird, Johnny?"
+
+"D'no!" rather raspishly. He evidently thought he was being guyed.
+
+We ran the nose of the canoe into the reeds. There was a splash, a
+wild cry of alarm, and up flew a great bittern. Circling about until
+we had passed on, it then drifted down to its former location near the
+uninquiring lad,--where doubtless it had a nest of young, and had been
+disturbed in the midst of a lecture on domestic discipline.
+
+Wide marshes again appear on either side of the stream. There are
+great and small bitterns at every view; plovers daintily picking their
+way over the open bogs, greedily feeding on countless snails; wild
+ducks in plenty, patiently waiting in the secluded bayous for the
+development of their young; yellow-headed troopials flitting freely
+about, uttering a choking, gulping cry; while the pert little wren,
+with his smart cock-tail, views the varied scene from his perch on a
+lofty rush, jealously keeping watch and ward over his ball-like
+castle, with its secret gate, hung among the reeds below.
+
+But interspersing the marshes there are often stretches of firm bank
+and delightfully varied glimpses of hillside and wood. Three miles
+above Stoughton, we stopped for supper at the edge of a glade, near a
+quaint old bridge. While seated on the smooth sward, beside our little
+spread, there came a vigorous rustling among the branches of the trees
+that overhang the country road which winds down the opposite slope to
+the water's edge to take advantage of the crossing. A gypsy wagon,
+with a high, rounded, oil-cloth top soon emerged from the forest, and
+was seen to have been the cause of the disturbance. Halting at one
+side of the highway, three men and a boy jumped out, unhitched the
+horses at the pole and the jockeying stock at the tail-board, and led
+them down to water. Two women meanwhile set about getting supper, and
+preparations were made for a night camp. We confessed to a touch of
+sympathy with our new neighbors on the other shore, for we felt as
+though gypsying ourselves. The hoop awning on the canoe certainly had
+the general characteristics of a gypsy-wagon top; we knew not and
+cared not where night might overtake us; we were dependent on the
+country for our provender; were at the mercy of wind, weather, and the
+peculiarities of our chosen highway; and had deliberately turned our
+backs on home for a season of untrammeled communion with nature.
+
+It was during a golden sunset that, pushing on through a great
+widespread, through which the channel doubles and twists like a
+scotched snake, we came in sight of the little city of Stoughton.
+First, the water-works tower rises above the mass of trees which
+embower the settlement. Then, on nearer approach, through rifts in the
+woodland we catch glimpses of some of the best outlying residences,
+most of them pretty, with well-kept grounds. Then come the
+church-spires, the ice-houses, the barge-dock, and with a spurt we
+sweep alongside the foundry of Mandt's wagon-works. Depositing our
+oars, paddle, blankets, and supplies in the office, the canoe was
+pulled up on the grass and padlocked to a stake. The street lamps were
+lighting as we registered at the inn.
+
+Stoughton has about two thousand inhabitants. A walk about town in the
+evening, revealed a number of bright, busy shops, chiefly kept by
+Norwegians, who predominate in this region. Nearly every street
+appears to end in one of Mandt's numerous factory yards, and the
+wagon-making magnate seems to control pretty much the entire river
+front here.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+BARBED-WIRE FENCES.
+
+
+We were off in the morning, after an early breakfast at the Stoughton
+inn. Our host kindly sent down his porter to help us over the
+mill-dam,--our first and easiest portage, and one of the few in which
+we received assistance of any kind. Below this, as below all of the
+dams on the river, there are broad shallows. The water in the stream,
+being at a low stage, is mainly absorbed in the mill-race, and the
+apron spreads the slight overflow evenly over the width of the bed, so
+that there is left a wide expanse of gravel and rocks below the chute,
+which is not covered sufficiently deep for navigating even our little
+craft, drawing but five inches when fully loaded. We soon grounded on
+the shallows and I was obliged to get out and tow the lightened boat
+to the tail of the race, where deeper water was henceforth assured.
+This experience became quite familiar before the end of the trip. I
+had fortunately brought a pair of rubbers in my satchel, and found
+them invaluable as wading-shoes, where the river bottom is strewn with
+sharp gravel and slimy round-heads.
+
+Below Stoughton the river winds along in most graceful curves, for the
+most part between banks from six to twenty feet high, with occasional
+pocket-marshes, in which the skunk-cabbage luxuriates. The stream is
+often thickly studded with lily-pads, which the wind, blowing fresh
+astern, frequently ruffles so as to give the appearance of rapids
+ahead, inducing caution where none is necessary. But every half-mile
+or so there are genuine little rapids, some of them requiring care to
+successfully shoot; in low water the canoe goes bumping along over the
+small moss-grown rocks, and now and then plumps solidly on a big one;
+when the stream is turbid,--as often happens below a pasture, where
+the cattle stir up the bank mud,--the danger of being overturned by
+scarcely submerged bowlders is imminent.
+
+There are some decidedly romantic spots, where little densely-wooded
+and grape-tangled glens run off at right angles, leading up to the
+bases of commanding hillocks, which they drain; or where the noisy
+little river, five or six rods wide, goes swishing around the foot of
+a precipitous, bush-grown bluff. It is noticeable that in such
+beauty-spots as these are generally to be found poverty-stricken
+cabins, the homes of small fishermen and hunters; while the more
+generous farm-houses seek the fertile but prosaic openings.
+
+All of a sudden, around a lovely bend, a barbed-wire fence of four
+strands savagely disputed the passage. A vigorous back-water stroke
+alone saved us from going full tilt into the bayonets of the enemy. We
+landed, and there was a council of war. As every stream in Wisconsin
+capable of floating a saw-log is "navigable" in the eye of the law, it
+is plain that this obstruction is an illegal one. Being an illegal
+fence, it follows that any canoeist is entitled to clip the wires, if
+he does not care to stop and prosecute the fencers for barring his
+way. The object of the structure is to prevent cattle from walking
+around through the shallow river into neighboring pastures. Along the
+upper Catfish, where boating is more frequently indulged in, farmers
+accomplish the same object by fencing in a few feet of the stream
+parallel with the shore. But below Stoughton, where canoeing is seldom
+practiced, the cattle-owners run their fences directly across the
+river as a measure of economy. Taking into consideration the fact that
+the lower Catfish is seldom used as a highway, we concluded that we
+would be charitable and leave the fences intact, getting under or over
+them as best we might. I am afraid that had we known that twenty-one
+of these formidable barriers were before us, the council would not
+have agreed on so conciliatory a campaign.
+
+Having taken in our awning and disposed of our baggage amidships, so
+that nothing remained above the gunwale, W----, kneeling, took the
+oars astern, while I knelt in the bow with the paddle borne like a
+battering-ram. Pushing off into the channel we bore down on the centre
+of the works, which were strong and thickly-posted, with wires drawn
+as tight as a drum-string. Catching the lower strand midway between
+two posts, on the blade end of the paddle, the speed of the canoe was
+checked. Then, seizing that strand with my right hand, so that the
+thick-strewn barbs came between my fingers, I forced it up to the
+second strand, and held the two rigidly together, thus making a slight
+arch. The canoe being crowded down into the water by sheer exercise of
+muscle, I crouched low in the bow, at the same time forcing the canoe
+under and forward through the arch. When half-way through, W---- was
+able similarly to clutch the wires, and perform the same office for
+the stern. This operation, ungraceful but effective, was frequently
+repeated during the day. When the current is swift and the wind fresh
+a special exertion is necessary on the part of the stern oar to keep
+the craft at right angles with the fence,--the tendency being, as soon
+as the bow is snubbed, to drift alongside and become entangled in the
+wires, with the danger of being either badly scratched or upset. It is
+with a feeling of no slight relief that a canoeist emerges from a
+tussle with a barbed-wire fence; and if hands, clothing, and boat have
+escaped without a scratch, he may consider himself fortunate, indeed.
+Before the day was through, when our twenty-one fences had been
+conquered without any serious accident, it was unanimously voted that
+the exercise was not to be recommended to those weak in muscle or
+patience.
+
+Eight miles below Stoughton is Dunkirk. There is a neat frame
+grist-mill there; and up a gentle slope to the right are four or five
+weather-beaten farm-houses, in the corners of the cross-roads. It was
+an easy portage at the dam. After pushing through the shallows below
+with some difficulty, we ran in under the shadow of a substantial
+wagon-bridge, and beached. Going up to the corners, we filled the
+canteen with ice-cold water from a moss-grown well, and interviewed
+the patriarchal miller, who assured us that "nigh onter a dozen year
+ago, Dunkirk had a bigger show for growin' than Stoughton, but the
+railroad went 'round us."
+
+A few miles down stream and we come to Stebbinsville. The water is
+backset by a mill-dam for two miles, forming a small lake. The course
+now changing, the wind came dead ahead, and we rowed down to the dam
+in a rolling sea, with much exertion. The river is six rods wide here,
+flowing between smooth, well-rounded, grass-grown banks, from fifteen
+to thirty feet in height, the fields on either side sloping up to
+wood-crowned ridges. There are a mill and two houses at Stebbinsville,
+and the country round about has a prosperous appearance. A tall,
+pleasant-spoken young miller came across the road-bridge and talked to
+us about the crops and the river, while we made a comfortable portage
+of five rods, up the grassy bank and through a close-cropped pasture,
+down to a sequestered little bay at the tail of an abandoned race,
+where the spray of the falls spattered us as we reloaded. We pushed
+off, with the joint opinion that Stebbinsville was a charming little
+place, with ideal riverside homes, that would be utterly spoiled by
+building the city on its site which the young man said his father had
+always hoped would be established there. A quarter of a mile below,
+around the bend, is a disused mill, thirty feet up, on the right bank.
+There is a suspended platform over a ravine, to one side of the
+building, and upon its handrail leaned two dusty millers, who had
+doubtless hastened across from the upper mill, to watch the progress
+down the little rapids here of what was indeed a novel craft to these
+waters. They waved their caps and gave us a cheery shout as we quickly
+disappeared around another curve; but while it still rung in our ears
+we were suddenly confronted by one of the tightest fences on the
+course, and had neither time nor disposition to return the salute.
+
+And so we slid along, down rapids, through long stretches of quiet
+water and scraping over shallows, plying both oars and paddle, while
+now and then "making" a fence and comparing its savagery with that of
+the preceding one. Here and there the high vine-clad banks, from
+overshadowing us would irregularly recede, leaving little meadows,
+full of painted-cups, the wild rose-colored phlox and saxifrage; or
+bits of woodland in the dryer bottoms, radiant, amid the underbrush,
+with the daisy, cinque-foil, and puccoon. Kingfishers and blue herons
+abound. Great turtles, disturbed by the unwonted splash of oars, slide
+down high, sunny banks of sand, where they have been to lay their
+eggs, and amid a cloud of dust shuffle off into the water, their
+castle of safety. These eggs, so trustfully left to be hatched by the
+warmth of the sun, form toothsome food for coons and skunks, which in
+turn fall victims to farmers' lads,--as witness the rows of peltries
+stretched inside out on shingles, and tacked up on the sunny sides of
+the barns and woodsheds along the river highway.
+
+As we begin to approach the valley of the Rock, the hills grow higher,
+groups of red cedar appear, the banks of red clay often attain the
+height of fifty or sixty feet, broken by deep, staring gullies and
+wooded ravines, through which little brooklets run, the output of
+back-country springs; while the pocket-meadows are less frequent,
+although more charmingly diversified as to color and background.
+
+We had our mid-day lunch on a pleasant bank, that had been covered
+earlier in the season with hepatica, blood-root, and dicentra, and
+was now resplendent with Solomon's seal, the dark-purple water-leaf,
+and graceful maidenhair ferns, with here and there a dogwood in full
+bloom. Behind us were thick woods and an overlooking ridge; opposite,
+a meadow-glade on which herds of cattle and black hogs grazed. A bell
+cow waded into the water, followed by several other members of the
+herd, and the train pensively proceeded in single file diagonally
+across the shallow stream to another feeding-ground below. The
+leader's bell had a peculiarly mournful note, and the scene strongly
+reminded one of an ecclesiastical procession.
+
+In the middle of the afternoon the little village of Fulton was
+reached. It is a dead-alive, moss-grown settlement, situated on a
+prairie, through which the river has cut a deep channel. There are a
+cheese-factory, a grist-mill, a church, a school-house, three or four
+stores, and some twenty-five houses, with but a solitary boat in
+sight, and that of the punt variety. It was recess at the school as we
+rowed past, and boys and girls were chiefly engaged in climbing the
+trees which cluster in the little schoolhouse yard. A chorus of shouts
+and whistles greeted us from the leafy perches, in which we could
+distinguish "Shoot the roof!"--an exclamation called forth by the
+awning, which doubtless seemed the chief feature of our outfit, viewed
+from the top of the bank.
+
+At the mill-dam, a dozen lazy, shiftless fellows were fishing at the
+foot of the chute, and stared at our movements with expressionless
+eyes. The portage was somewhat difficult, being over a high bank,
+across a rocky road, and down through a stretch of bog. When we had
+completed the carry, W---- waited in the canoe while I went up to the
+fishermen for information as to the lay of the country.
+
+"How far is it to the mouth of the Catfish, my friend?" I asked the
+most intelligent member of the party.
+
+"D'no! Never was thar." He jerked in his bait, to pull off a weed
+that had become entangled in it, and from the leer he gave his
+comrades it was plain that I had struck the would-be wag of the
+village.
+
+"How far do you think it is?" I insisted, curious to see how far he
+would carry his obstinacy.
+
+"Don' think nuthin' 'bout 't; don' care t' know."
+
+"Didn't you ever hear any one say how far it is?" and I sat beside him
+on the stone pier, as if I had come to stay.
+
+"Nah!"
+
+"Suppose you were placed in a boat here and had to float down to the
+Rock, how long do you imagine you'd be?"
+
+"Aint no man goin' t' place me in no boat! No siree!" pugnaciously.
+
+"Don't you ever row?"
+
+"Nah!" contemptuously; "what I want of a boat? Bridge 's good 'nough
+fer us fellers, a-fishin'."
+
+"Whose boat is that, over there, on the shore?"
+
+"Schoolmaster's. He's a dood, he is. Bridge isn't rich 'nough fer his
+blood. Boats is fer doods." And with this withering remark he relapsed
+into so intent an observation of his line that I thought it best to
+disturb him no longer.
+
+Below Fulton, the stream is quite swift and the scenery more rugged,
+the evidences of disastrous spring overflows and back-water from the
+Rock being visible on every hand. At five o'clock, we came to a point
+where the river divides into three channels, there being a clump of
+four small islands. A barbed-wire fence, the last we were fated to
+meet, was stretched across each channel. Selecting the central
+mouth,--for this is the delta of the Catfish,--we shot down with a
+rush, but were soon lodged on a sandbank. It required wading and much
+pushing and twisting and towing before we were again off, but in the
+length of a few rods more we swung free into the Rock, which was to be
+our highway for over two hundred miles more of canoe travel.
+
+The Rock River is nearly a quarter of a mile wide at this point, and
+comes down with a majestic sweep from the north, having its chief
+source in the gloomily picturesque Lake Koshkonong. The banks of the
+river at and below the mouth of the Catfish, are quite imposing,
+rising into a succession of graceful, round-topped mounds, from fifty
+to one hundred feet high, and finely wooded except where cleared for
+pasture or as the site of farm-buildings. While the immediate edges of
+the stream are generally firm and grass-grown, with occasional
+gravelly beaches, there are frequent narrow strips of marsh at the
+bases of the mounds, especially on the left bank where innumerable
+springs send forth trickling rills to feed the river. A stiff wind
+up-stream had broken the surface into white caps, and more than
+counteracted the force of the lazy current, so that progress now
+depended upon vigorous exercise at the oars and paddle.
+
+Three miles above Janesville is Pope's Springs, a pleasant summer
+resort, with white tents and gayly painted cottages commingled. It is
+situated in a park-like wood, on the right bank, while directly
+opposite are some bold, rocky cliffs, or palisades, their feet laved
+in the stream. We spread our supper cloth on the edge of a
+wheat-field, in view of the pretty scene. The sun was setting behind a
+bank of roseate clouds, and shooting up broad, sharply defined bands
+of radiance nearly to the zenith. The wind was blowing cold, wraps
+were essential, and we were glad to be on our way once more, paddling
+along in the dying light, past palisades and fields and meadows,
+reaching prosperous Janesville, on her rolling prairie, just as dusk
+was thickening into dark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+AN ILLINOIS PRAIRIE HOME.
+
+
+We had an early start from the hotel next morning. A prospect of the
+situation at the upper Janesville dam, from a neighboring bridge,
+revealed the fact that the mill-race along the left bank afforded the
+easiest portage. Reloading our craft at the boat-renter's staging
+where it had passed the night, we darted across the river, under two
+low-hung bridges, keeping well out of the overflow current and entered
+the race, making our carry over a steep and rocky embankment.
+
+Below, after passing through the centre of the city, the river widens
+considerably, as it cuts a deep channel through the fertile prairie,
+and taking a sudden bend to the southwest, becomes a lake, formed by
+back-water from the lower dam. The wind was now dead ahead again, and
+fierce. White caps came savagely rolling up stream. The pull down
+brought out the rowing muscles to their fullest tension. The canoe at
+times would appear to scarcely creep along, although oars and paddle
+would bend to their work.
+
+The race of the carding-mill, which we were now approaching, is by the
+left bank, the rest of the broad river--fully a third of a mile wide
+here--being stemmed by a ponderous, angling dam, the shorter leg of
+which comes dangerously close to the entrance of the race, which it
+nearly parallels. Overhead, fifty feet skyward, a great railway bridge
+spans the chasm. The disposition of its piers leaves a rowing channel
+but two rods wide, next the shore. Through this a deep, swift current
+flows, impelling itself for the most part over the short leg of the
+chute, with a deafening roar. Its backset, however, is caught in the
+yawning mouth of the race. It so happens then that from either side of
+an ugly whirling strip of doubting water, parallel with the shorter
+chute, the flood bursts forth,--to the left plunging impetuously over
+the apron to be dashed to vapor at its foot; to the right madly
+rushing into the narrow race, to turn the wheels of the carding-mill
+half a mile below. This narrow channel, under the bridge and next the
+shore, of which I have spoken, is the only practicable entrance to
+the race.
+
+We had landed above and taken a panoramic view of the situation from
+the deck of the bridge; afterward had descended to the flood-gates at
+the entrance of the race, for detailed inspection and measurements.
+One of the set of three gates was partly raised, the bottom being but
+three feet above the boiling surface, while the great vertical iron
+beams along which the cog-wheels work were not over four feet apart.
+It would require steady hands to guide the canoe to the right of the
+whirl, where the flood hesitated between two destinations, and finally
+to shoot under the uplifted gate, which barely gave room in either
+height or breadth for the passage of the boat. But we arrived at the
+conclusion that the shoot was far more dangerous in appearance than in
+reality, and that it was preferable to a long and exceedingly irksome
+portage.
+
+So we determined to make the attempt, and walked back to the canoe.
+Disposing our baggage in the centre, as in the barbed-wire experience
+of the day before, W---- again took the oars astern and I the paddle
+at the bow. A knot of men on the bridge had been watching our
+movements with interest, and waved their hats at us as we came
+cautiously creeping along the shore. We went under the bridge with a
+swoop, waited till we were within three rods of the brink of the
+thundering fall, and then strained every muscle in sending the canoe
+shooting off at an angle into the waters bound for the race. We went
+down to the gate as if shot out of a cannon, but the little craft was
+easily controlled, quickly obeying every stroke of the paddle.
+Catching a projecting timber, it was easy to guide ourselves to the
+opening. We lay down in the bottom of the boat and with uplifted hands
+clutched the slimy gate; slowly, hand over hand, we passed through
+under the many internal beams and rods of the structure, with the
+boiling flood under us, making an echoing roar, amid which we were
+obliged to fairly shout our directions to each other. In the last
+section the release was given; we were fairly hurled into daylight on
+the surface of the mad torrent, and were many a rod down the race
+before we could recover our seats. The men on the bridge, joined by
+others, now fairly yelled themselves hoarse over the successful close
+of what was apparently a hazardous venture, and we waved
+acknowledgments with the paddle, as we glided away under the willows
+which overhang the long and narrow canal. At the isolated mill, where
+there is one of the easiest portages on the route, the hands came
+flocking by dozens to the windows to see the craft which had invaded
+their quiet domain.
+
+The country toward Beloit becomes more hilly, especially upon the left
+bank, along which runs the Chicago and Northwestern railway, all the
+way down from Janesville. At the Beloit paper-mill, which was reached
+at three o'clock in the afternoon, it was found that owing to the low
+stage of water one end of the apron projected above the flood. With
+some difficulty as to walking on the slimy incline, we portaged over
+the face of the dam and went down stream through the heart of the
+pretty little college town, getting more or less picturesque back-door
+views of the domestic life of the community.
+
+Beloit being on the State line, we had now entered Illinois. For
+several miles the river is placid and shallow, with but a feeble
+current. Islands begin to appear, dividing the channel and somewhat
+perplexing canoeists, it being often quite difficult to decide which
+route is the best; as a rule, one is apt to wish that he had taken
+some other than the one selected.
+
+The dam at Rockton was reached in a two hours' pull. It was being
+repaired, stone for the purpose being quarried on a neighboring bank
+and transported to the scene of action on a flat-boat. We had been
+told that we could save several miles by going down the race, which
+cuts the base of a long detour. But the boss of the dam-menders
+assured us that the race was not safe, and that we would "get in a
+trap" if we attempted it. Deeming discretion the better part of valor,
+with much difficulty we lifted the canoe over the high, jagged, stone
+embankment and through a bit of tangled swamp to the right, and took
+the longest way around. It was four or five miles by the bend to the
+village of Rockton, whose spires we could see at the dam, rising above
+a belt of intervening trees. It being our first detour of note, we
+were somewhat discouraged at having had so long a pull for so short a
+vantage; but we became well used to such experiences long before our
+journey was over. It was not altogether consoling to be informed at
+Rockton--which is a smart little manufacturing town of a thousand
+souls--that the race was perfectly practicable for canoes, and the
+tail portage easy.
+
+Beaching near the base of a fine wagon-bridge which here spans the
+Rock, we went up to a cluster of small houses on the bank opposite the
+town, to have some tea steeped, our prepared stock being by this time
+exhausted. The people were all employed in the paper-mills in the
+village, but one good woman chanced to be at home for the afternoon,
+and cheerfully responded to our request for service. A young, neat,
+and buxom little woman she was, though rather sad-eyed and evidently
+overworked in the family struggle for existence. She assured us that
+she nowadays never went upon the water in an open boat, for she had
+"three times been near drowndid" in her life, which she thought was
+"warnin' enough for one body." Inquiry developed that her first
+"warnin'" consisted of having been, when she was "a gal down in
+Kansis," taken for a row in a leaky boat; the water came in half-way
+up to the thwarts, and would have eventually swamped the craft and
+drowned its occupants, in perhaps half an hour's time, if her
+companion had not luckily bethought himself to run in to shore and
+land. Another time, she and her husband were out rowing, when a
+stern-wheel river steamer came along, and the swell in her wake washed
+the row-boat atop of a log raft, and "she stuck there, ma'am, would ye
+believe, and we'd 'a' drowndid sure, with a storm a-comin' up, hadn't
+my brother-in-law, that was then a-courtin' of sister Jane, come off
+in a dug-out and took us in." Her last and most harrowing experience
+was in a boat on the Republican River in Kansas. She and another woman
+were out when a storm came up, and white-capped waves tossed the
+little craft about at will; but fortunately the blow subsided, and the
+women regained pluck enough to take the oars and row home again. The
+eyes of the paper-maker's wife were suffused with tears, as, seated in
+her rocking-chair by the kitchen stove and giving the teapot an
+occasional shake, doubtless to hasten the brew, she related these
+thrilling tales of adventure by flood, and called us to witness that
+thrice had Providence directly interposed in her behalf. We were
+obliged to acknowledge ourselves much impressed with the gravity of
+the dangers she had so successfully passed through. Her sympathy with
+the perils which we were braving, in what she was pleased to call our
+singular journey, was so great that the good woman declined to accept
+pay for having steeped our tea in a most excellent manner, and bade us
+an affecting God-speed.
+
+We had our supper, graced with the hot tea, on a pretty sward at the
+river end of the quiet lane just around the corner; while a dozen
+little children in pinafores and short clothes, perched on a
+neighboring fence, watched and discussed us as eagerly as though we
+were a circus caravan halting by the wayside for refreshment. The
+paper-maker's wife also came out, just as we were packing up for the
+start, and inspected the canoe in some detail. Her judgment was that
+in her giddiest days as an oarswoman, she would certainly never have
+dared to set foot in such a shell. She watched us off, just as the sun
+was disappearing, and the last Rockton object we saw was our
+tenderhearted friend standing on the beach at the end of her lane,
+both hands shading her eyes, as she watched us fade away in the
+gloaming. I have no doubt she has long ago given us up for lost, for
+her last words were, "I've heerd 'em tell it was a riskier river than
+any in Kansis, 'tween here an' Missip'; tek care ye don't git
+drowndid!"
+
+In the soft evening shadows it was cool enough for heavy wraps. In
+fact, for the greater part of the day W---- had worn a light shoulder
+cape. We had a beautiful sunset, back of a group of densely timbered
+islands. We would have been sorely tempted to camp out on one of
+these, but the night was setting in too cold for sleeping in the open
+air, and we had no tent with us.
+
+The twilight was nearly spent, and the banks and now frequent islands
+were so heavily wooded that on the river it was rapidly becoming too
+dark to navigate among the shallows and devious channels. W----
+volunteered to get out and look for a farmhouse, for none could be
+seen from our hollow way. So she landed and got up into some prairie
+wheatfields back away from the bank. After a half-mile's walk parallel
+with the river she sighted a prosperous-looking establishment, with a
+smart windmill, large barns, and a thrifty orchard, silhouetted
+against the fast-fading sunset sky. The signal was given, and the prow
+of the canoe was soon resting on a steep, gravely beach at the mouth
+of a ravine. Armed with the paddle, for a possible encounter with
+dogs, we went up through the orchard and a timothy-field sopping with
+dew, scaled the barnyard fence, passed a big black dog that growled
+savagely, but was by good chance chained to an old mowing-machine,
+walked up to the kitchen door and boldly knocked.
+
+No answer. The stars were coming out, the shadows darkening, night was
+fairly upon us, and shelter must be had, if we were obliged to sleep
+in the barn. The dog reared on his hind legs, and fairly howled with
+rage. A row of well-polished milk-cans on a bench by the windmill
+well, and the general air of thrifty neatness impelled us to
+persevere. An old German, with kindly face and bushy white hair,
+finally came, cautiously peering out beneath a candle which he held
+above his head. English he had none, and our German was too fresh from
+the books to be reliable in conversation. However, we mustered a few
+stereotyped phrases from the "familiar conversations" in the back of
+the grammar, which served to make the old man smile, and disappearing
+toward the cattle-sheds he soon returned with his daughter and
+son-in-law, a cheerful young couple who spoke good English, and
+assured us of welcome and a bed. They had been out milking by
+lantern-light when interrupted, and soon rejoined us with brimming
+pails.
+
+It did not take long to feel quite at home with these simple,
+good-hearted folk. They had but recently purchased the farm and were
+strangers in the community. The old man lived with his other children
+at Freeport, and was there only upon a visit. The young people,
+natives of Illinois, were lately married, their wedding-trip having
+been made to this house, where they had at once settled down to a
+thrifty career, surrounded with quite enough comforts for all
+reasonable demands, and a few simple luxuries. W---- declared the
+kitchen to be a model of neatness and convenience; and the
+sitting-room, where we passed the evening with our modest
+entertainers,--who appeared quite well posted on current news of
+general importance,--showed evidences of being in daily use. They were
+devout Catholics, and I was pleased to find the patriarch drifting
+down the river of time with a heartfelt appreciation of the benefits
+of democracy, fully cognizant of what American institutions had done
+for him and his. Immigrating in the noon-tide of life and settling in
+a German neighborhood, he had found no need and had no inclination to
+learn our language. But he had prospered from the start, had secured
+for his children a good education at the common schools, had imbued
+them with the spirit of patriotism, had seen them marry happily and
+with a bright future, and at night he never retired without uttering a
+bedside prayer of gratitude that God had turned his footsteps to
+blessed America. As the old man told me his tale, with his daughter's
+hands resting lovingly in his while she served as our interpreter, and
+contrasted the hard lot of a German peasant with the independence of
+thought and speech and action vouchsafed the German-American farmer,
+who can win competence in a state of freedom, I felt a thrill of
+patriotism that would have been the making of a Fourth-of-July orator.
+I wished that thousands such as he originally was, still dragging out
+an existence in the fatherland, could have listened to my aged friend
+and followed in his footsteps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE HALF-WAY HOUSE.
+
+
+The spin down to Roscoe next morning was delightful in every respect.
+The air was just sharp enough for vigorous exercise. These were the
+pleasantest hours we had yet spent. The blisters that had troubled us
+for the first three days were hardening into callosities, and arm and
+back muscles, which at first were sore from the unusually heavy strain
+upon them, at last were strengthened to their work. Thereafter we felt
+no physical inconvenience from our self-imposed task. At night, after
+a pull of eleven or twelve hours, relieved only by the time spent in
+lunching, in which we hourly alternated at the oars and paddle,
+slumber came as a most welcome visitation, while the morning ever
+found us as fresh as at the start. Let those afflicted with insomnia
+try this sort of life. My word for it, they will not be troubled so
+long as the canoeing continues. Every muscle of the body moves
+responsive to each pull of the oars or sweep of the paddle; while the
+mental faculties are kept continually on the alert, watching for
+shallows, snags, and rapids, in which operation a few days' experience
+will render one quite expert, though none the less cautious.
+
+As we get farther down into the Illinois country, the herds of
+live-stock increase in size and number. Cattle may be seen by hundreds
+at one view, dotted all over the neighboring hills and meadows, or
+dreamily standing in the cooling stream at sultry noonday. Sheep, in
+immense flocks, bleat in deafening unison, the ewes and their young
+being particularly demonstrative at our appearance, and sometimes
+excitedly following us along the banks. Droves of black hogs and
+shoats are ploughing the sward in their search for sweet roots, or
+lying half-buried in the wet sand. Horses, in familiar groups, quickly
+lift their heads in startled wonder as the canopied canoe glides
+silently by,--then suddenly wheel, kick up their heels, sound a snort
+of alarm, and dash off at a thundering gallop, clods of turf filling
+the air behind them. There are charming groves and parks and treeless
+downs, and the river cuts through the alluvial soil to a depth of
+eight and ten feet, throwing up broad beaches on either side.
+
+At Roscoe, three or four miles below our morning's starting-point,
+there is a collection of three or four neat farm-houses, each with its
+spinning windmill.
+
+Latham Station, nine miles below Rockton, was reached at ten o'clock.
+The post-office is called Owen. There is a smart little depot on the
+Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway line, two general stores, and
+a half-dozen cottages, with a substantial-looking creamery, where we
+obtained buttermilk drawn fresh from one of the mammoth churns. The
+concern manufactures from three hundred to nine hundred pounds per
+day, according to the season, shipping chiefly to New York city.
+Leaning over the hand-rail which fences off the "making" room, and
+gossiping with the young man in charge, I conjured up visions of the
+days when, as a boy on the farm, I used to spend many weary, almost
+tearful hours, pounding an old crock churn, in which the butter would
+always act like a balky horse and refuse to "come" until after a long
+series of experimental coaxing. Nowadays, rustic youths luxuriously
+ride behind the plough, the harrow, the cultivator, the horse-rake,
+the hay-loader, and the self-binding harvester, while the
+butter-making is farmed out to a factory where the thing is done by
+steam. The farmer's boy of the future will live in a world darkened
+only by the frown of the district schoolmaster and the intermittent
+round of stable chores.
+
+     ______________________________________
+     |                                    |
+     |            FARE.                   |
+     |                                    |
+     |  Foot Passengere          10 cts.  |
+     |  Man & Horse              15 ct.   |
+     |  single Carriage          10 c.    |
+     |  double "                 15 c     |
+     |  each Passinger            5 c     |
+     |                                    |
+     |  Night Raites       Double Fare.   |
+     |                                    |
+     |        All persons                 |
+     |        Are cautioned               |
+     |        Againts useing              |
+     |        this Boat with Out          |
+     |        Permistion from             |
+     |        the Owners                  |
+     |____________________________________|
+
+At Latham Station we encountered the first ferry-boat on our trip,--a
+flat-bottomed scow with side-rails, attached by ropes and pulleys to a
+suspended wire cable, and working diagonally, with the force of the
+current. A sign conspicuously displayed on the craft bore the above
+legend.
+
+From the time we had entered Illinois, the large, graceful, white
+blossoms of the Pennsylvanian anemone and the pink and white fringe of
+the erigeron Canadense had appeared in great abundance upon the river
+banks, while the wild prairie rose lent a delicate beauty and
+fragrance to the scene. On sandy knolls, where in early spring the
+anemone patens and crowfoot violets had thrived in profusion, were now
+to be seen the geum triflorum and the showy yellow puccoon; the
+long-flowered puccoon, with its delicate pale yellow, crape-like
+blossom, was just putting in an appearance; and little white,
+star-shaped flowers, which were strangers to us of Wisconsin, fairly
+dotted the green hillsides, mingled in striking contrast with dwarf
+blue mint. Bevies of great black crows, sitting in the tops of dead
+willow-trees or circling around them, rent the air with sepulchral
+squawks. Men and boys were cultivating in the cornfields, the
+prevalent drought painfully evidenced by the clouds of gray dust which
+enveloped them and their teams as they stirred up the brittle earth.
+
+There was now a fine breeze astern, and the awning, abandoned during
+the head winds of the day before, was again welcomed as the sun
+mounted to the zenith. At 2.30 P. M., we were in busy Rockford, where
+the banks are twenty or twenty-five feet high, with rolling prairies
+stretching backward to the horizon, except where here and there a
+wooded ridge intervenes. Rockford is the metropolis of the valley of
+the Rock. It has twenty-two thousand inhabitants, with many elegant
+mansions visible from the river, and evidences upon every hand of that
+prosperity which usually follows in the train of varied manufacturing
+enterprises.
+
+There are numerous mills and factories along both sides of the river,
+and a protracted inspection of the portage facilities was necessary
+before we could decide on which bank to make our carry. The right was
+chosen. The portage was somewhat over two ordinary city blocks in
+length, up a steep incline and through a road-way tunnel under a great
+flouring mill. We had made nearly half the distance, and were resting
+for a moment, when a mill-driver kindly offered the use of his wagon,
+which was gratefully accepted. We were soon spinning down the tail of
+the race, a half-dozen millers waving a "Chautauqua salute" with as
+many dusty flour-bags, and in ten minutes more had left Rockford out
+of sight.
+
+Several miles below, there are a half-dozen forested islands in a
+bunch, some of them four or five acres in extent, and we puzzled over
+which channel to take,--the best of them abounding in shallows. The
+one down which the current seemed to set the strongest was selected,
+but we had not proceeded over half a mile before the trees on the
+banks began to meet in arches overhead, and it was evident that we
+were ascending a tributary. It proved to be the Cherry River, emptying
+into the main stream from the east. The wind, now almost due-west, had
+driven the waves into the mouth of the Cherry, so that we mistook this
+surface movement for the current. Coming to a railway bridge, which we
+knew from our map did not cross the Rock, our course was retraced, and
+after some difficulty with snags and gravel-spits, we were once more
+upon our proper highway, trending to the southwest.
+
+Supper was eaten upon the edge of a large island, several miles
+farther down stream, in the shade of two wide-spreading locusts.
+Opposite are some fine, eroded sandstone palisades, which formation
+had been frequently met with during the day,--sometimes on both sides
+of the river, but generally on the left bank, which is, as a rule, the
+most picturesque along the entire course.
+
+It was still so cold when evening shadows thickened that camping out,
+with our meagre preparations for it, seemed impracticable; so we
+pushed on and kept a sharp lookout for some friendly farm-house at
+which to quarter for the night. The houses in the thickly-wooded
+bottoms, however, were generally quite forbidding in appearance, and
+the sun had gone down before we sighted a well-built stone dwelling
+amid a clump of graceful evergreens. It seemed, from the river, to be
+the very embodiment of comfortable neatness; but upon ascending the
+gentle slope and fighting off two or three mangy curs which came
+snarling at our heels, we found the structure merely a relic of
+gentility. There was scarcely a whole pane of glass in the house,
+there were eight or ten wretchedly dirty and ragged children, the
+parents were repulsive in appearance and manner, and a glimpse of the
+interior presented a picture of squalor which would have shocked a
+city missionary. The stately stone house was a den of the most abject
+and shiftless poverty, the like of which one could seldom see in the
+slums of a metropolis. These people were in the midst of a splendid
+farming country, had an abundance of pure air and water at command,
+and there seemed to be no excuse for their condition. Drink and
+laziness were doubtless the besetting sins in this uncanny home.
+Making a pretense of inquiring the distance to Byron, the next village
+below, we hurried from the accursed spot.
+
+A half-hour later we reached the high bridge of the Chicago, Milwaukee
+and St. Paul railway, above Byron, and ran our bow on a little beach
+at the base of the left bank, which is here thirty feet high. A
+section-man had a little cabin hard by, and his gaunt, talkative wife,
+with a chubby little boy by her side, had been keenly watching our
+approach from her garden-fence. She greeted us with a shrill but
+cheery voice as we clambered up a zigzag path and joined her upon the
+edge of the prairie.
+
+"Good ev'nin', folks! Whar'n earth d' ye come from?"
+
+We enlightened her in a few words.
+
+"Don't mean t' say ye come all the way from Weesconsin a' down here in
+that thing?" pointing down at the canoe, which certainly looked quite
+small, at that depth, in the dim twilight.
+
+"Certainly; why not?"
+
+"Ye'll git drowndid, an' I'm not mistakin, afore ye git to Byron."
+
+"River dangerous, ma'am?"
+
+"Dang'rous ain't no name for 't. There was a young feller drowndid at
+this here bridge las' spring. The young feller he worked at the
+bridge-mendin', bein' a carpenter,--he called himself a carpenter, but
+he warn't no great fist at carpenterin', an' I know it,--and he
+boarded up at Byron. A 'nsurance agint kim 'long and got Rollins,--the
+young feller his name was Abe Rollins, an' he was a bach,--to promise
+to 'sure his life for a thousand dollars, which was to go t' his
+sister, what takes in washin', an' her man ran away from her las' year
+an' nobody knows where he is,--which I says is good riddance, but she
+takes on as though she had los' somebody worth cryin' over: there's no
+accountin' for tastes. The agint says to Rollins to go over to the
+doctor's of'c' to git 'xamined and Rollins says, 'No, I ain't agoin'
+to git 'xamined till I clean off; I'll go down an' take a swim at the
+bridge and then come back and strip for the doctor.' An' Rollins he
+took his swim and got sucked down inter a hole just yonder down there,
+by the openin' of Stillman's Creek, and he was a corpse when they
+hauled him out, down off Byron; an' he never hollered once but jist
+sunk like a stone with a cramp; an' his folks never got no 'nsurance
+money at all, for lackin' the doctor's c'tificate. An' it's heaps o'
+folks git drowndid in this river, an' nobody ever hears of 'em agin;
+an' I wouldn't no more step foot in that boat nor the biggest ship on
+the sea, an' I don't see how you can do it, ma'am!"
+
+No doubt the good woman would have rattled on after this fashion for
+half the night, but we felt obliged, owing to the rapidly increasing
+darkness, to interrupt her with geographical inquiries. She assured us
+that Byron was distant some five or six miles by river, with, so far
+as she had heard, many shallows, whirlpools, and snags _en route_;
+while by land the village was but a mile and a quarter across the
+prairie, from the bridge. We accordingly made fast for the night
+where we had landed, placed our heaviest baggage in the tidy
+kitchen-sitting-room-parlor of our voluble friend, and trudged off
+over the fields to Byron,--a solitary light in a window and the
+occasional practice-note of a brass band, borne to us on the light
+western breeze, being our only guides.
+
+After a deal of stumbling over a rough and ill-defined path, which we
+could distinguish by the sense of feeling alone, we finally reached
+the exceedingly quiet little village, and by dint of inquiry from
+house to house,--in most of which the denizens seemed preparing to
+retire for the night,--found the inn which had been recommended by the
+section-man's wife as the best in town. It was the only one. There
+were several commercial travelers in the place, and the hostelry was
+filled. But the landlord kindly surrendered to us his own
+well-appointed chamber, above an empty store where the village band
+was tuning up for Decoration Day. It seemed appropriate enough that
+there should be music to greet us, for we were now one hundred and
+thirty-four miles from Madison, and practically half through our
+voyage to the Mississippi.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+GRAND DETOUR FOLKS.
+
+
+We tramped back to the bridge in high spirits next morning, over the
+flower-strewn prairie. The section-man's wife was on hand, with her
+entire step-laddered brood of six, to see us off. As we carried down
+our traps to the beach and repacked, she kept up a continuous strain
+of talk, giving us a most edifying review of her life, and especially
+the particulars of how she and her "man" had first romantically met,
+while he was a gravel-train hand on a far western railroad, and she
+the cook in a portable construction-barracks.
+
+Stillman's Creek opens into the Rock from the east, through a pleasant
+glade, a few rods below the bridge. We took a pull up this historic
+tributary for a half-mile or more. It is a muddy stream, some two and
+a half rods wide, cutting down for a half-dozen feet through the black
+soil. The shores are generally well fringed with heavy timber,
+especially upon the northern bank, while the land to the south and
+southwest stretches upward, in gentle slopes, to a picturesque rolling
+prairie, abounding in wooded knolls. It was in the large grove on the
+north bank, near its junction with the Rock, that Black Hawk, in the
+month of May, 1832, parleyed with the Pottawattomies. It was here that
+on the 14th of that month he learned of the treachery of Stillman's
+militiamen, and at once made that famous sally with his little band of
+forty braves which resulted in the rout of the cowardly whites, who
+fled pell-mell over the prairie toward Dixon, asserting that Black
+Hawk and two thousand blood-thirsty warriors were sweeping northern
+Illinois with the besom of destruction. The country round about
+appears to have undergone no appreciable change in the half-century
+intervening between that event and to-day. The topographical
+descriptions given in contemporaneous accounts of Stillman's flight
+will hold good now, and we were readily able to pick out the points of
+interest on the old battlefield.
+
+Returning to the Rock, we made excellent progress. The atmosphere was
+bracing; and there being a favoring northwest breeze, our awning was
+stretched over a hoop for a sail. The banks were now steep inclines of
+white sand and gravel. It was like going through a railroad cut. But
+in ascending the sides, as we did occasionally, to secure supplies
+from farm-houses or refill our canteen with fresh water, there were
+found broad expanses of rolling prairie. The farm establishments
+increase in number and prosperity. Windmills may be counted by the
+scores, the cultivation of enormous cornfields is everywhere in
+progress, and cattle are more numerous than ever.
+
+Three or four miles above Oregon the banks rise to the dignity of
+hills, which come sweeping down "with verdure clad" to the very
+water's edge, and present an inspiring picture, quite resembling some
+of the most charming stretches of the Hudson. At the entrance to this
+lovely vista we encountered a logy little pleasure-steamer anchored in
+the midst of the stream, which is here nearly half of a mile wide, for
+the river now perceptibly broadens. The captain, a ponderous old
+sea-dog, wearing a cowboy's hat and having the face of an operatic
+pirate, with a huge pipe between his black teeth, sat lounging on the
+bulwark, watching the force of the current, into which he would
+listlessly expectorate. He was at first inclined to be surly, as we
+hauled alongside and checked our course; but gradually softened down
+as we drew him out in conversation, and confided to us that he had in
+earlier days "sailed the salt water," a circumstance of which he
+seemed very proud. He also gave us some "pointers on the lay o' the
+land," as he called them, for our future guidance down the river,--one
+of which was that there were "dandy sceneries" below Oregon, in
+comparison with which we had thus far seen nothing worthy of note. As
+for himself, he said that his place on the neighboring shore was
+connected by telephone with Oregon, and his steamer frequently
+transported pleasure parties to points of interest above the dam.
+
+Ganymede Spring is on the southeast bank, at the base of a lofty
+sandstone bluff, a mile or so above Oregon. From the top of the bluff,
+which is ascended by a succession of steep flights of scaffolding
+stairs, a magnificent bird's-eye view is attainable of one of the
+finest river and forest landscapes in the Mississippi basin. The
+grounds along the riverside at the base are laid out in graceful
+carriage drives; and over the head of a neatly hewn basin, into which
+gushes the copious spring, is a marble slab thus inscribed:
+
+_______________________________________________
+|                                             |
+|           GANYMEDE'S SPRINGS,               |
+|                                             |
+|                 named by                    |
+|                                             |
+|    MARGERET FULLER (Countess D. Ossoli,)    |
+|                                             |
+|             who named this bluff            |
+|                                             |
+|                EAGLE'S NEST,                |
+|                                             |
+|   & beneath the cedars on its crest wrote   |
+|                                             |
+|           "Ganymede to his Eagle,"          |
+|                                             |
+|                 July 4, 1843.               |
+|_____________________________________________|
+
+Oregon was reached just before noon. A walk through the business
+quarter revealed a thrifty, but oldish-looking town of about two
+thousand inhabitants. The portage on the east side, around a
+flouring-mill dam, involved a hard pull up the gravelly bank thirty
+feet high, and a haul of two blocks' length along a dusty street.
+
+There was a fine stretch of eroded palisades in front of the island on
+which we lunched. The color effect was admirable,--patches of gray,
+brown, white, and old gold, much corroded with iron. Vines of many
+varieties dangle from earth-filled crevices, and swallows by the
+hundreds occupy the dimples neatly hollowed by the action of the water
+in some ancient period when the stream was far broader and deeper than
+now.
+
+But at times, even in our day, the Rock is a raging torrent. The
+condition of the trees along the river banks and on the thickly-strewn
+island pastures, shows that not many months before it must have been
+on a wild rampage, for the great trunks are barked by the ice to the
+height of fifteen feet above the present water-level. Everywhere, on
+banks and islands, are the evidences of disastrous floods, and the
+ponderous ice-breakers above the bridges give one an awesome notion of
+the condition of affairs at such a time. Farmers assured us that in
+the spring of 1887 the water was at the highest stage ever recorded in
+the history of the valley. Many of the railway bridges barely escaped
+destruction, while the numerous river ferries and the low country
+bridges in the bayous were destroyed by scores. The banks were
+overflowed for miles together, and back in the country for long
+distances, causing the hasty removal of families and live-stock from
+the bottoms; while ice jams, forming at the heads of the islands,
+would break, and the shattered floes go sweeping down with terrific
+force, crushing the largest trees like reeds, tearing away fences and
+buildings, covering islands and meadows with deep deposits of sand and
+mud, blazing their way through the forested banks, and creating sad
+havoc on every hand. We were amply convinced, by the thousands of
+broken trees which littered our route, the snags, the mud-baked
+islands, the frequent stretches of sadly demoralized bank that had not
+yet had time to reweave its charitable mantle of verdure, that the
+Rock, on such a spring "tear," must indeed be a picture of chaos
+broken loose. This explained why these hundreds of beautiful and
+spacious islands--many of them with charming combinations of forest
+and hillock and meadow, and occasionally enclosing pretty ponds
+blushing with water-lilies--are none of them inhabited, but devoted to
+the pasture of cattle, who swim or ford the intervening channels,
+according to the stage of the flood; also why the picturesque bottoms
+on the main shore are chiefly occupied by the poorest class of
+farmers, who eke out their meagre incomes with the spoils of the gun
+and line.
+
+It was a quarter of five when we beached at the upper ferry-landing at
+Grand Detour. It is a little, tumble-down village of one or two small
+country stores, a church, and a dozen modest cottages; there is also,
+on the river front, a short row of deserted shops, their paintless
+battlement-fronts in a sadly collapsed condition, while hard by are
+the ruins of two or three dismantled mills. The settlement is on a
+bit of prairie at the base of the preliminary flourish of the "big
+bend" of the Rock,--hence the name, Grand Detour, a reminiscence of
+the early French explorers. The foot of the peninsula is but half a
+mile across, while the distance around by river to the lower ferry, on
+the other side of the village is four miles. Having learned that the
+bottoms below here were, for a long distance, peculiarly gloomy and
+but sparsely inhabited, we thought it best to pass the night at Grand
+Detour. Bespeaking accommodations at the tavern and post-office
+combined, we rowed around the bend to the lower landing, through some
+lovely stretches of river scenery, in which bold palisades and
+delightful little meadows predominated.
+
+The walk back to the village was through a fine park of elms. The
+stage was just in from Dixon, with the mail. There was an eager little
+knot of villagers in the cheerful sitting-room of our homelike inn,
+watching the stout landlady as she distributed it in a checker-board
+rank of glass-faced boxes fenced off in front of a sunny window. It
+did not appear that many of those who overlooked the distribution of
+the mail had been favored by their correspondents. They were chiefly
+concerned in seeing who did get letters and papers, and in "passin'
+the time o' day," as gossiping is called in rural communities. Seated
+in a darkened corner, waiting patiently for supper, the announcement
+of which was an hour or more in coming, we were much amused at the
+mirror of local events which was unconsciously held up for us by these
+loungers of both sexes and all ages, who fairly filled the room, and
+oftentimes waxed hot in controversy.
+
+The central theme of conversation was the preparations under way for
+Decoration Day, which was soon to arrive. Grand Detour was to be
+favored with a speaker from Dixon,--"a reg'lar major from the war,
+gents, an' none o' yer m'lish fellers!" an enthusiastic old man with a
+crutch persisted in announcing. There were to be services at the
+church, and some exercises at the cemetery, where lie buried the
+half-dozen honored dead, Grand Detour's sacrifice upon the altar of
+the Union. The burning question seemed to be whether the village
+preacher would consent to offer prayer upon the occasion, if the
+church choir insisted on being accompanied on the brand-new cabinet
+organ which the congregation had voted to purchase, but to which the
+pastor and one of the leading deacons were said to be bitterly
+opposed, as smacking of worldliness and antichrist. Only the evening
+before, this deacon, armed with a sledgehammer and rope, had been seen
+to go to the sanctuary in company with his "hired man," and enter
+through one of the windows, which they pried up for the purpose. A
+good gossip, who lived hard by, closely watched such extraordinary
+proceedings. There was a great noise within, then some planks were
+pitched out of the window, soon followed by the deacon and his man.
+The window was shut down, the planks thrown atop of the horse-shed
+roof, and the men disappeared. Investigation in the morning by the
+witness revealed the fact that the choir-seats and the organ-platform
+had been torn down and removed. Here was a pretty how d' do! The wiry,
+raspy little woman, with her gray finger-curls and withered, simpering
+smile, had, with great forbearance, kept her choice bit of news to
+herself till "post-office time." Sitting in a big rocking-chair close
+to the delivery window, knitting vigorously on an elongated stocking,
+she demurely asserted that she "never wanted to say nothin' 'gin'
+nobody, or to hurt nobody's feelin's," and then detailed the entire
+circumstance to the patrons of the office as they came in. The
+excitement created by the story, which doubtless lost nothing in the
+telling, was at fever-heat. We were sorely tempted to remain over till
+Decoration Day,--when, it was freely predicted, there "would be some
+folks as'd wish they'd never been born,"--and see the outcome of this
+tempest in a teapot. But our programme, unfortunately, would not admit
+of such a diversion.
+
+Others came and went, but the gossipy little body with the gray curls
+rocked on, holding converse with both post-mistress and public,
+keeping a keen eye on the character of the mail matter obtained by the
+villagers and neighboring farmers, and freely commenting on it all; so
+that new-comers were kept quite well-informed as to the correspondence
+of those who had just departed.
+
+A sad-eyed little woman in rusty black modestly slipped in, and was
+handed out a much-creased and begrimed envelope, which she nervously
+clutched. She was hurrying silently away, when the gossip sharply
+exclaimed, "Good lands, Cynthi' Prescott! some folks don't know a body
+when they meet. 'Spose ye've been hearin' from Jim at last. I'd been
+thinkin' 't was about time ye got a letter from his hand, ef he war
+ever goin' t' write at all. Tell ye, Cynthi' Prescott, ye're too
+indulgent on that man o' yourn! Ef I--"
+
+But Cynthia Prescott, turning her black, deep-sunken eyes to her
+inquisitor, with a piteous, tearful look, as though stung to the
+quick, sidled out backward through the wire-screen door, which sprung
+closed with a vicious bang, and I saw her hurrying down the village
+street firmly grasping at her bosom what the mail had brought
+her,--probably a brutal demand for more money, from a worthless
+husband, who was wrecking his life-craft on some far-away shore.
+
+"Goodness me! but the Gilberts is a-puttin' on style!" ejaculated the
+village censor, as a rather smart young horseman went out with a bunch
+of letters, and a little packet tied up in red twine. "That there was
+vis'tin' keerds from the printer's shop in Dixon, an' cost a dollar;
+can't fool me! There's some folks as hev to be leavin' keerds on
+folks's centre-tables when they goes makin' calls, for fear folks will
+be a-forgettin' their names. When I go a-callin', I go a-visitin' and
+take my work along an' stop an' hev a social cup o' tea; an' they
+ain't a-goin' to forgit for awhile, that I dropped in on 'em, neither.
+This way they hev down in Dixon, what I hear of, of ringin' at a bell
+and settin' down with yer bonnet on and sayin', 'How d' do,' an' a
+'Pretty well, I thank yer,' and jumpin' up as if the fire bell was
+ringin' and goin' on through the whole n'ighberhood as ef ye're on
+springs, an' then a-trancin' back home and braggin' how many calls
+ye've made,--I ain't got no use for that; it'll do for Dixon folks,
+what catch the style from Chicargy, an' they git 't from Paris each
+year, I'm told, but I ain't no use for 't. Mebbe ol' man Gilbert is
+made o' money,--his women folks act so, with all this a-apein' the
+Clays, who's been gettin' visitin' keerds all the way from Chicargy,
+which they ordered of a book agint last fall, with gilt letters an'
+roses an' sich like in the corners. An' 'twas Clay's brother-in-law as
+tol' me he never did see such carryin's-on over at the old house, with
+letter-writin' paper sopped in cologne, an' lace curtains in the
+bed-room winders. An' ye can't tell me but the Gilberts, too, is
+a-goin' to the dogs, with their paper patterns from Dixon, and dress
+samples from a big shop in Chicargy, which I seen from the picture on
+the envelope was as big as all Grand Detour, an' both ferry-landin's
+thrown in. Grand Detour fashi'ns ain't good 'nough for some folks, I
+reckon."
+
+And thus the busy-tongued woman discoursed in a vinegary tone upon the
+characteristics of Grand Detour folks, as illustrated by the nature
+of the evening mail, frequently interspersing her remarks with a
+hearty disclaimer of anything malicious in her temperament. At last,
+however, the supper-bell rang; the doughty postmistress, who had been
+remarkably discreet throughout all this village tirade, having darted
+in and out between the kitchen and the office, attending to her dual
+duties, locked the postal gate with a snap, and asked her now solitary
+patron, "Anything I can do for you, Maria?" The gossip gathered up her
+knitting, hastily averred that she had merely dropped in for her
+weekly paper, but now remembered that this was not the day for it, and
+ambled off, to reload with venom for the next day's mail.
+
+After supper we walked about the peaceful, pretty, grass-grown
+village. Shearing was in progress at the barn of the inn, and the
+streets were filled with bleating sheep and nodding billy-goats. The
+place presented many evidences of former prosperity, and we were told
+that a dozen years before it had boasted of a plough factory, two or
+three flouring-mills, and a good water-power. But the railroad that it
+was expected would come to Grand Detour had touched Dixon instead,
+with the result that the village industries had been removed to
+Dixon, the dam had fallen in, and now there were less than three
+hundred inhabitants between the two ferries.
+
+When one of the store-keepers told me he had practically no country
+trade, but that his customers were the villagers alone, I was led to
+inquire what supported these three hundred people, who had no
+industries among them, no river traffic, owing to customary low water
+in summer, and who seemed to live on each other. Many of the
+villagers, I found, are laborers who work upon the neighboring farms
+and maintain their families here; a few are farmers, the corners of
+whose places run down to the village; others there are who either own
+or rent or "share" farms in the vicinity, going out to their work each
+day, much of their live stock and crops being housed at their village
+homes; there are half a dozen retired farmers, who have either sold
+out their places or have tenants upon them, and live in the village
+for sociability's sake, or to allow their children the benefit of the
+excellent local school. Mingled with these people are a shoemaker, a
+tailor, a storekeeper, who live upon the necessities of their
+neighbors. Two fishermen spend the summer here, in a tent, selling
+their daily catch to the villagers and neighboring farmers and
+occasionally shipping by the daily mail-stage to Dixon, fourteen miles
+away. The preacher and his family are modestly supported; a young
+physician wins a scanty subsistence; and for considerably over half
+the year the schoolmaster shares with them what honors and sorrows
+attach to these positions of rural eminence. Our pleasant-spoken host
+was the driver of the Dixon stage, as well as star-route mail
+contractor, adding the conduct of a farm to his other duties. With his
+wife as postmistress, and a pretty, buxom daughter, who waited on our
+table and was worth her weight in gold, Grand Detour folks said that
+he was bound to be a millionnaire yet.
+
+As Grand Detour lives, so live thousands of just such little rural
+villages all over the country. Viewed from the railway track or river
+channel, they appear to have been once larger than they are to-day.
+The sight of the unpainted houses, the ruined factory, the empty
+stores, the grass and weeds in the street, the lack-lustre eyes of the
+idlers, may induce one to imagine that here is the home of hopeless
+poverty and despair. But although the railroad which they expected
+never came; or the railroad which did come went on and scheduled the
+place as a flag station; still, there is a certain inherent vitality
+here, an undefined something that holds these people together, a
+certain degree of hopefulness which cannot rise to the point of
+ambition, a serene satisfaction with the things that are. Grand Detour
+folks, and folks like them, are as blissfully content as the denizens
+of Chicago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+AN ANCIENT MARINER.
+
+
+The clock in a neighboring kitchen was striking six, as we reached the
+lower ferry-landing. The grass in the streets and under the old elms
+was as wet with dew as though there had been a heavy shower during the
+night. The village fishermen were just pulling in to the little pier,
+returning from an early morning trip to their "traut-lines" down
+stream. In a long wooden cage, which they towed astern, was a
+fifty-pound sturgeon, together with several large cat-fish. They
+kindly hauled their cage ashore, to show us the monsters, which they
+said would probably be shipped, alive, to a Chicago restaurant which
+they occasionally furnished with curiosities in their line. These
+fishermen were rough-looking fellows in their battered hats and
+ragged, dirty overcoats, with faces sadly in need of water and a
+shave. They had a sad, pinched-up appearance as well, as though the
+dense fog, which was but just now yielding to the influence of the
+sun, had penetrated their bones and given them the chills. On engaging
+them in friendly conversation about their calling, they exhibited good
+manners and some knowledge of the outer world. Their business, they
+said, was precarious and, as we could well see, involved much exposure
+and hardship. Sometimes it meant a start at midnight, often amid
+rainstorms, fogs, or chilling weather, with a hard pull back again
+up-stream,--for their lines were all of them below Grand Detour; but
+to return with an empty boat, sometimes their luck, was harder yet.
+Knocking about in this way, all of the year around,--for their winters
+were similarly spent upon the lower waters and bayous of the
+Mississippi,--neither of them was ever thoroughly well. One was
+consumptively inclined, he told me, and being an old soldier, was
+receiving a small pension. A claim agent had him in hand, however, and
+his thoughts ran largely upon the prospects of an increase by special
+legislation. He seemed to have but little doubt that he would
+ultimately succeed. When he came into this looked-for fortune, he
+said, he would "quit knockin' 'round an' killin' myself fishin',"
+settle down in Grand Detour for the balance of his days, raising his
+own "garden sass, pigs, and cow;" and some fine day would make a trip
+in his boat to the "old home in Injianny, whar I was raised an'
+'listed in the war." His face fairly gleamed with pleasure as he thus
+dwelt upon the flowers of fancy which the pension agent had cultivated
+within him; and W---- sympathetically exclaimed, when we had swung
+into the stream and bidden farewell to these men who followed the
+calling of the apostles, that were she a congressman she would
+certainly vote for the fisherman's claim, and make happy one more
+heart in Grand Detour.
+
+Now commences the Great Bend of the Rock River. The water circuit is
+fourteen miles, the distance gained being but six by land. The stream
+is broad and shallow, between palisades densely surmounted with trees
+and covered thick with vines; great willow islands freely intersperse
+the course; everywhere are evidences of ice-floes, which have blazed
+the trees and strewn the islands with fallen trunks and driftwood,--a
+tornado could not have created more general havoc. The visible houses,
+few of them inviting in appearance, are miles apart. As had been
+foretold at the village, the outlook for lodgings in this dismal
+region is not at all encouraging. It was well that we had stopped at
+Grand Detour.
+
+Below the bend, where the country is more open, though the banks are
+still deep-cut, the highway to Dixon skirts the river, and for several
+miles we kept company with the stage.
+
+Dixon was sighted at 10 o'clock. A circus had pitched its tents upon
+the northern bank, just above the dam, near where we landed for the
+carry, and a crowd of small boys came swarming down the bank to gaze
+upon us, possibly imagining, at first, that our outfit was a part of
+the show. They accompanied us, at a respectful distance, as we pulled
+the canoe up a grassy incline and down through the vine-clad arches of
+a picturesque old ruin of a mill. Below the dam, we rowed over to the
+town, about where the famous pioneer ferry used to be. It was in the
+spring of 1826 that John Boles opened a trail from Peoria to Galena,
+by the way of the present locality of Dixon, thus shortening a trail
+which had been started by one Kellogg the year before, but crossed the
+Rock a few miles above. The site of Dixon at once sprang into wide
+popularity as a crossing-place, Indians being employed to do the
+ferrying. Their manner was simple. Lashing two canoes abreast, the
+wheels of one side of a wagon were placed in one canoe and the
+opposite wheels in the other. The horses were made to swim behind. In
+1827 a Peoria man named Begordis erected a small shanty here and had
+half finished a ferry-boat when the Indians, not favoring competition,
+burned the craft on its stocks and advised Begordis to return to
+Peoria; being a wise man, he returned. The next year, Joe Ogie, a
+Frenchman, one of a race that the red men loved, and having a squaw
+for his wife, was permitted to build a scow, and thenceforth Indians
+were no longer needed there as common carriers. By the time of the
+Black Hawk war, Dixon, from whom the subsequent settlement was named,
+ran the ferry, and the crossing station had henceforth a name in
+history. A trail in those early days was quite as important as a
+railroad is to-day; settlements sprang up along the improved
+"Kellogg's trail," and Dixon was the centre of interest in all
+northern Illinois. Indeed, it being for years the only point where the
+river could be crossed by ferry, Dixon was as important a landmark to
+the settlers of the southern half of Wisconsin who desired to go to
+Chicago, as any within their own territory.[1]
+
+The Dixon of to-day shelters four thousand inhabitants and has two or
+three busy mills; although it is noticeable that along the water-power
+there are some half-dozen mill properties that have been burned, torn
+down, or deserted, which does not look well for the manufacturing
+prospects of the place. The land along the river banks is a flat
+prairie some half-mile in width, with rolling country beyond,
+sprinkled with oak groves. The banks are of black, sandy loam, from
+twelve to twenty feet high, based with sandy beaches. The shores are
+now and then cut with deep ravines, at the mouths of which are fine,
+gravelly beaches, sometimes forming considerable spits. These indicate
+that the dry, barren gullies, the gutters of the hillocks, while
+innocent enough in a drought, sometimes rise to the dignity of
+torrents and suddenly pour great volumes of drainage into the rapidly
+filling river,--so often described in the journals of early travelers
+through this region, as "the dark and raging Rock." This sort of
+scenery, varied by occasional limestone palisades,--the interesting
+and picturesque feature of the Rock, from which it derived its name at
+the hands of the aborigines,--extends down to beyond Sterling.
+
+This city, reached at 3.50 P. M., is a busy place of ten thousand
+inhabitants, engaged in miscellaneous manufactures. Our portage was
+over the south and dry end of the dam. We were helped by three or four
+bright, intelligent boys, who were themselves carrying over a punt,
+preparatory to a fishing expedition below. Amid the hundreds of boys
+whom we met at our various portages, these well-bred Sterling lads
+were the only ones who even offered their assistance. Very likely,
+however, the reason may be traced to the fact that this was Saturday,
+and a school holiday. The boys at the week-day carries were the
+riff-raff, who are allowed to loaf upon the river-banks when they
+should be at their school-room desks.
+
+While mechanically pulling a "fisherman's stroke" down stream I was
+dreamily reflecting upon the necessity of enforced popular education,
+when W----, vigilant at the steersman's post, mischievously broke in
+upon the brown study with, "Como's next station! Twenty minutes for
+supper!"
+
+And sure enough, it was a quarter past six, and there was Como nestled
+upon the edge of the high prairie-bank. I went up into the hamlet to
+purchase a quart of milk for supper, and found it a little dead-alive
+community of perhaps one hundred and twenty-five people. There is the
+brick shell of a fire-gutted factory, with several abandoned stores, a
+dozen houses from which the paint had long since scaled, a rather
+smart-looking schoolhouse, and two brick dwellings of ancient
+pattern,--the homes of well-to-do farmers; while here and there were
+grass-grown depressions, which I was told were once the cellars of
+houses that had been moved away. On the return to the beach a bevy of
+open-mouthed women and children accompanied me, plying questions with
+a simplicity so rare that there was no thought of impertinence. W----
+was talking with the old gray-haired ferryman, who had been
+transporting a team across as we had landed beside his staging. The
+old man had stayed behind, avowedly to mend his boat, with a stone for
+a hammer, but it was quite apparent that curiosity kept him, rather
+than the needs of his scow. He confided to us that Como--which was
+indeed prettily situated upon a bend of the river--had once been a
+prosperous town. But the railroad went to some rival place, and--the
+familiar story--the dam at Como rotted, and the village fell into its
+present dilapidated state. It is the fate of many a small but
+ambitious town upon a river. Settled originally because of the river
+highway, the railroads--that have nearly killed the business of water
+transportation--did not care to go there because it was too far out of
+the short-cut path selected by the engineers between two more
+prominent points. Thus the community is "side-tracked,"--to use a bit
+of railway slang; and a side-tracked town becomes in the new
+civilization--which cares nothing for the rivers, but clusters along
+the iron ways--a town "as dead as a door-nail."
+
+We had luncheon on a high bank just out of sight of Como. By the time
+we had reached a point three or four miles below the village it was
+growing dark, and time to hunt for shelter. While I walked, or rather
+ran, along the north bank looking for a farm-house, W---- guided the
+canoe down a particularly rapid current. It was really too dark to
+prosecute the search with convenience. I was several times misled by
+clumps of trees, and fruitlessly climbed over board or crawled under
+barbed-wire fences, and often stumbled along the dusty highway which
+at times skirted the bank. It was over a mile before an undoubted
+windmill appeared, dimly silhouetted against the blackening sky above
+a dense growth of river-timber a quarter of a mile down the stream. A
+whistle, and W---- shot the craft into the mouth of a black ravine,
+and clambered up the bank, at the serious risk of torn clothing from
+the thicket of blackberry-vines and locust saplings which covered it.
+Together we emerged upon the highway, determined to seek the windmill
+on foot; for it would have been impossible to sight the place from the
+river, which was now, from the overhanging trees on both shores and
+islands, as dark as a cavern. Just as we stepped upon the narrow
+road--which we were only able to distinguish because the dust was
+lighter in color than the vegetation--a farm-team came rumbling along
+over a neighboring culvert, and rolled into view from behind a fringe
+of bushes. The horses jumped and snorted as they suddenly sighted our
+dark forms, and began to plunge. The women gave a mild shriek, and
+awakened a small child which one of them carried in her arms. I
+essayed to snatch the bits of the frightened horses to prevent them
+from running away, for the women had dropped the lines, while W----
+called out asking if there was a good farm-house where the windmill
+was. The team quieted down under a few soothing strokes; but the women
+persisted in screaming and uttering incoherent imprecations in German,
+while the child fairly roared. So I returned the lines to the woman in
+charge, and we bade them "Guten Nacht." As they whipped up their
+animals and hurried away, with fearful backward glances, it suddenly
+occurred to us that we had been taken for footpads.
+
+We were so much amused at our adventure, as we walked along, almost
+groping our way, that we failed to notice a farm-gate on the river
+side of the road, until a chorus of dogs, just over the fence,
+arrested our attention. A half-dozen human voices were at once heard
+calling back the animals. A light shone in thin streaks through a
+black fringe of lilac-bushes, and in front of these was the gate.
+Opening the creaky structure, we advanced cautiously up what we felt
+to be a gravel walk, under an arch of evergreens and lilacs, with the
+paddle ready as a club, in case of another dog outbreak. But there was
+no need of it, and we soon emerged into a flood of light, which
+proceeded from a shadeless lamp within an open window.
+
+It was a spacious white farm-house. Upon the "stoop" of an L were
+standing, in attitudes of expectancy, a stout, well-fed, though rather
+sinister-expressioned elderly man, with a long gray beard, and his
+raw-boned, overworked wife, with two fair but dissatisfied-looking
+daughters, and several sons, ranging from twelve to twenty years. A
+few moments of explanation dispelled the suspicious look with which
+we had been greeted, and it was soon agreed that we should, for a
+consideration, be entertained for the night and over Sunday; although
+the good woman protested that her house was "topsy-turvy, all torn up"
+with house-cleaning,--which excuse, by the way, had become quite
+familiar by this time, having been current at every house we had thus
+far entered upon our journey.
+
+Bringing our canoe down to the farmer's bank and hauling it up into
+the bushes, we returned through the orchard to the house, laden with
+baggage. Our host proved to be a famous story-teller. His tales, often
+Munchausenese, were inclined to be ghastly, and he had an o'erweening
+fondness for inconsequential detail, like some authors of serial
+tales, who write against space and tax the patience of their readers
+to its utmost endurance. But while one may skip the dreary pages of
+the novelist, the circumstantial story-teller must be borne with
+patiently, though the hours lag with leaden heels. In earlier days the
+old man had been something of a traveler, having journeyed to Illinois
+by steamboat on the upper lakes, from "ol' York State;" another time
+he went down the Mississippi River to Natchez, working his way as a
+deck hand; but the crowning event of his career was his having, as a
+driver, accompanied a cattle-train to New York city. A few years ago
+he tumbled down a well and was hauled up something of a cripple; so
+that his occupation chiefly consists in sitting around the house in an
+easy-chair, or entertaining the crowd at the cross-roads store with
+sturdy tales of his adventures by land and sea, spiced with vigorous
+opinions on questions of politics and theology. The garrulity of age,
+a powerful imagination, and a boasting disposition are his chief stock
+in trade.
+
+Propped up in his great chair, with one leg resting upon a lounge and
+the other aiding his iron-ferruled cane in pounding the floor by way
+of punctuating his remarks, "that ancient mariner"
+
+     "Held us with his glittering eye;
+     We could not choose but hear."
+
+His tales were chiefly of shooting and stabbing scrapes, drownings and
+hangings that he claimed to have seen, dwelling upon each incident
+with a blood-curdling particularity worthy of the reporter of a
+sensational metropolitan journal. The ancient man must have fairly
+walked in blood through the greater part of his days; while from the
+number of corpses that had been fished out of the river, at the head
+of a certain island at the foot of his orchard, and "laid out" in his
+best bedroom by the coroner, we began to feel as though we had engaged
+quarters at a morgue. It was painfully evident that these recitals
+were "chestnuts" in the house of our entertainer. The poor old lady
+had a tired-out, unhappy appearance, the dissatisfied-looking
+daughters yawned, and the sons talked, _sotto voce_, on farm matters
+and neighborhood gossip.
+
+Finally, we tore away, much to the relief of every one but the host,
+and were ushered with much ceremony into the ghostly bed-chamber, the
+scene of so many coroner's inquests. I must confess to uncanny dreams
+that night,--confused visions of Rock River giving up innumerable
+corpses, which I was compelled to assist in "laying out" upon the very
+bed I occupied.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] See Mrs. Kinzie's "Wau-Bun" for a description of the difficulties
+of travel in "the early day," via Dixon's Ferry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+STORM-BOUND AT ERIE.
+
+
+We were somewhat jaded by the time Monday morning came, for Sunday
+brought not only no relief, but repetitions of many of the most
+horrible of these "tales of a wayside inn." It was with no slight
+sense of relief that we paid our modest bill and at last broke away
+from such ghastly associations. An involuntary shudder overcame me, as
+we passed the head of the island at the foot of our host's orchard,
+which he had described as a catch-basin for human floaters.
+
+Our course still lay among large, densely wooded islands,--many of
+them wholly given up to maples and willows,--and deep cuts through
+sun-baked mudbanks, the color of adobe; but occasionally there are
+low, gloomy bottoms, heavily forested, and strewn with flood-wood,
+while beyond the land rises gradually into prairie stretches. In the
+bottoms the trees are filled with flocks of birds,--crows, hawks,
+blackbirds, with stately blue herons and agile plovers foraging on the
+long gravel-spits which frequently jut far into the stream; ducks are
+frequently seen sailing near the shores; while divers silently dart
+and plunge ahead of the canoe, safely out of gunshot reach. A head
+wind this morning made rowing more difficult, by counteracting the
+influence of the current.
+
+We were at Lyndon at eleven o'clock. There is a population of about
+two hundred, clustered around a red paper-mill. The latter made a
+pretty picture standing out on the bold bank, backed by a number of
+huge stacks of golden straw. We met here the first rapids worthy of
+record; also an old, abandoned mill-dam, in the last stages of decay,
+stretching its whitened skeleton across the stream, a harbor for
+driftwood. Near the south bank the framework has been entirely swept
+away for a space several rods in width, and through this opening the
+pent-up current fiercely sweeps. We went through the centre of the
+channel thus made, with a swoop that gave us an impetus which soon
+carried our vessel out of sight of Lyndon and its paper-mill and
+straw-stacks.
+
+Prophetstown, five miles below, is prettily situated in an oak grove
+on the southern bank. Only the gables of a few houses can be seen from
+the river, whose banks of yellow clay and brown mud are here
+twenty-five feet high. During the first third of the present century,
+this place was the site of a Winnebago village, whose chief was White
+Cloud, a shrewd, sinister savage, half Winnebago and half Sac, who
+claimed to be a prophet. He was Black Hawk's evil genius during the
+uprising of 1832, and in many ways was one of the most remarkable
+aborigines known to Illinois history. It was at "the prophet's town,"
+as White Cloud's village was known in pioneer days, that Black Hawk
+rested upon his ill-fated journey up the Rock, and from here, at the
+instigation of the wizard, he bade the United States soldiery
+defiance.
+
+There are rapids, almost continually, from a mile above Prophetstown
+to Erie, ten miles below. The river bed here has a sharper descent
+than customary, and is thickly strewn with bowlders; many of them were
+visible above the surface, at the low stage of water which we found,
+but for the greater part they were covered for two or three inches.
+What with these impediments, the snags that had been left as the
+legacy of last spring's flood, and the frequent sand-banks and
+gravel-spits, navigation was attended by many difficulties and some
+dangers.
+
+Four or five miles below Prophetstown, a lone fisherman, engaged in
+examining a "traut-line" stretched between one of the numerous gloomy
+islands and the mainland, kindly informed us of a mile-long cut-off,
+the mouth of which was now in view, that would save us several miles
+of rowing. Here, the high banks had receded, with several miles of
+heavily wooded, boggy bottoms intervening. Floods had held high
+carnival, and the aspect of the country was wild and deserted. The
+cut-off was an ugly looking channel; but where our informant had gone
+through, with his unwieldy hulk, we considered it safe to venture with
+a canoe, so readily responsive to the slightest paddle-stroke. The
+current had torn for itself a jagged bed through the heart of a dense
+and moss-grown forest. It was a scene of howling desolation, rack and
+ruin upon every hand. The muddy torrent, at a velocity of fully eight
+miles an hour, went eddying and whirling and darting and roaring among
+the gnarled and blackened stumps, the prostrate trees, the twisted
+roots, the huge bowlders which studded its course. The stream was not
+wide enough for the oars; the paddle was the sole reliance. With eyes
+strained for obstructions, we turned and twisted through the
+labyrinth, jumping along at a breakneck speed; and, when we finally
+rejoined the main river below, were grateful enough, for the run had
+been filled with continuous possibilities of a disastrous smash-up,
+miles away from any human habitation.
+
+The thunder-storm which had been threatening since early morning, soon
+burst upon us with a preliminary wind blast, followed by drenching
+rain. Running ashore on the lee bank, we wrapped the canvas awning
+around the baggage, and made for a thick clump of trees on the top of
+an island mudbank, where we stood buttoned to the neck in rubber
+coats. A vigorous "Halloo!" came sounding over the water. Looking up,
+we saw for the first time a small tent on the opposite shore, a
+quarter of a mile away, in front of which was a man shouting to us and
+beckoning us over. It was getting uncomfortably muddy under the trees,
+which had not long sufficed as an umbrella, and the rubber coats were
+not warranted to withstand a deluge, so we accepted the invitation
+with alacrity and paddled over through the pelting storm.
+
+Our host was a young fisherman, who helped us and our luggage up the
+slimy bank to his canvas quarters, which we found to be dry, although
+odorous of fish. While the storm raged without, the young man, who was
+a simple-hearted fellow, confided to us the details of his brief
+career. He had been married but a year, he said; his little cabin lay
+a quarter of a mile back in the woods, and, so as to be convenient to
+his lines, he was camping on his own wood-lot; the greater part of his
+time was spent in fishing or hunting, according to the season, and
+peddling the product in neighboring towns, while upon a few acres of
+clearing he raised "garden truck" for his household, which had
+recently become enriched by the addition of an infant son. The
+phenomenal powers of observation displayed by this first-born youth
+were reported with much detail by the fond father, who sat crouched
+upon a boat-sail in one corner of the little tent, his head between
+his knees, and smoking vile tobacco in a blackened clay pipe. It
+seemed that his wife was a ferryman's daughter, and her father had
+besought his son-in-law to follow the same steady calling. To be sure,
+our host declared, ferries on the Rock River netted their owners from
+$400 to $800 a year, which he considered a goodly sum, and his
+father-in-law had offered to purchase an established plant for him.
+But the young fellow said that ferrying was a dog's life, and "kept a
+feller home like barn chores;" he preferred to fish and hunt, earning
+far less but retaining independence of movement, so rejected the offer
+and settled down, avowedly for life, in his present precarious
+occupation. As a result, the indignant old man had forbidden him to
+again enter the parental ferry-house until he agreed to accept his
+proposals, and there was henceforth to be a standing family quarrel.
+The fisherman having appealed to my judgment, I endeavored with mild
+caution to argue him out of his position on the score of consideration
+for his wife and little one; but he was not to be gainsaid, and
+firmly, though with admirable good nature, persisted in defending his
+roving tendencies. In the course of our conversation I learned that
+the ferrymen, who are more numerous on the lower than on the upper
+Rock, pay an annual license fee of five dollars each, in consideration
+of which they are guarantied a monopoly of the business at their
+stands, no other line being allowed within one mile of an existing
+ferry.
+
+Within an hour and a half the storm had apparently passed over, and we
+continued our journey. But after supper another shower and a stiff
+head wind came up, and we were well bedraggled by the time a
+ferry-landing near the little village of Erie was reached. The
+bottoms are here a mile or two in width, with occasional openings in
+the woods, where small fields are cultivated by the poorer class of
+farmers, who were last spring much damaged by the flood which swept
+this entire country.
+
+The ferryman, a good-natured young athlete, was landing a farm-wagon
+and team as we pulled in upon the muddy roadway. When questioned about
+quarters, he smiled and pointing to his little cabin, a few rods off
+in the bushes, said,--"We've four people to sleep in two rooms; it's
+sure we can't take ye; I'd like to, otherwise. But Erie's only a mile
+away."
+
+We assured him that with these muddy swamp roads, and in our wet
+condition, nothing but absolute necessity would induce us to take a
+mile's tramp. The parley ended in our being directed to a small
+farm-house a quarter of a mile inland, where luckless travelers,
+belated on the dreary bottoms, were occasionally kept. Making the
+canoe fast for the night, we strung our baggage-packs upon the paddle
+which we carried between us, and set out along a devious way, through
+a driving mist which blackened the twilight into dusk, to find this
+place of public entertainment.
+
+It is a little, one-story, dilapidated farm-house, standing a short
+distance from the country road, amid a clump of poplar trees. Forcing
+our way through the hingeless gate, the violent removal of which
+threatened the immediate destruction of several lengths of rickety
+fence, we walked up to the open front door and applied for shelter.
+
+"Yes, ma'am; we sometimes keeps tavern, ma'am," replied a large,
+greasy-looking, black-haired woman of some forty years, as, her hands
+folded within her up-turned apron, she courtesied to W----.
+
+We were at once shown into a frowsy apartment which served as parlor,
+sitting-room and parental dormitory. There was huddled together an
+odd, slouchy combination of articles of shabby furniture and cheap
+decorations, peculiar, in the country, to all three classes of rooms,
+the evidences of poverty, shiftlessness, and untasteful
+pretentiousness upon every side. A huge, wheezy old cabinet organ was
+set diagonally in one corner, and upon this, as we entered, a young
+woman was pounding and paddling with much vigor, while giving us
+sidelong glances of curiosity. She was a neighbor, on an evening
+visit, decked out in a smart jockey-cap, with a green ostrich tip and
+bright blue ribbons, and gay in a new calico dress,--a yellow field
+thickly planted to purple pineapples. A jaunty, forward creature, in
+pimples and curls, she rattled away through a Moody and Sankey
+hymn-book, the wheezes and groans of the antique instrument coming in
+like mournful ejaculations from the amen corner at a successful
+revival. Having exhausted her stock of tunes, she wheeled around upon
+her stool, and after declaring to her half-dozen admiring auditors
+that her hands were "as tired as after the mornin's milkin'" abruptly
+accosted W----: "Ma'am, kin ye play on the orgin?"
+
+W---- confessed her inability, chiefly from lack of practice in the
+art of incessantly working the pedals.
+
+"That's the trick o' the hul business, ma'am, is the blowin'. It's all
+in gettin' the bellers to work even like. There's a good many what kin
+learn the playin' part of it without no teacher; but there has to be
+lessons to learn the bellers. Don't ye have no orgin, when ye're at
+home?" she asked sharply, as if to guage the social standing of the
+new guest.
+
+W---- modestly confessed to never having possessed such an instrument.
+
+"Down in these parts," rejoined the young woman, as she "worked the
+bellers" into a strain or two of "Hold the Fort," apparently to show
+how easy it came to trained feet, "no house is now considered quite up
+to the fashi'n as ain't got a orgin." The rain being now over, she
+soon departed, evidently much disgusted at W----'s lack of organic
+culture.
+
+The bed-chamber into which we were shown was a marvel. It opened off
+the main room and was, doubtless, originally a cupboard. Seven feet
+square, with a broad, roped bedstead occupying the entire length, a
+bedside space of but two feet wide was left. Much of this being filled
+with butter firkins, chains, a trunk, and a miscellaneous riff-raff of
+household lumber, the standing-room was restricted to two feet square,
+necessitating the use of the bed as a dressing-place, after the
+fashion of a sleeping-car bunk. This cubby-hole of a room was also the
+wardrobe for the women of the household, the walls above the bed being
+hung nearly two feet deep with the oddest collection of calico and
+gingham gowns, bustles, hoopskirts, hats, bonnets, and winter
+underwear I think I had ever laid eyes on.
+
+Much of this condition of affairs was not known, however, until next
+morning; for it was as dark as Egypt within, except for a few faint
+rays of light which came straggling through the cracks in the board
+partition separating us from the sitting-room candle. We had no
+sooner crossed the threshold of our little box than the creaky old
+cleat door was gently closed upon us and buttoned by our hostess upon
+the outside, as the only means of keeping it shut; and we were left
+free to grope about among these mysteries as best we might. We had
+hardly recovered from our astonishment at thus being locked into a
+dark hole the size of a fashionable lady's trunk, and were quietly
+laughing over this odd adventure, when the landlady applied her mouth
+to a crack and shouted, as if she would have waked the dead: "Hi,
+there! Ye'd better shet the winder to keep the bugs out!" A few
+minutes later, returning to the crack, she added, "Ef ye's cold in the
+night, jest haul down some o' them clothes atop o' ye which ye'll find
+on the wall."
+
+Repressing our mirth, we assured our good hostess that we would have a
+due regard for our personal safety. The window, not at first
+discernible, proved to be a hole in the wall, some two feet square,
+which brought in little enough fresh air, at the best. It was
+fortunate that the night was cool, although our hostess's best gowns
+were not needed to supplement the horse-blankets under which we slept
+the sleep of weary canoeists.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE LAST DAY OUT.
+
+
+The following day opened brightly. We had breakfast in the tavern
+kitchen, _en famille_. The husband, whom we had not met before, was a
+short, smooth-faced, voluble, overgrown-boy sort of man. The mother
+was dumpy, coarse, and good-natured. They had a greasy, easy-tempered
+daughter of eighteen, with a frowsy head, and a face like a full moon;
+while the heir of the household, somewhat younger, was a gaping,
+grinning youth of the Simple Simon order, who shovelled mashed
+potatoes into his mouth alternately with knife and fork, and took
+bites of bread large enough for a ravenous dog. The old grandmother,
+with a face like parchment and one gleaming eye, sat in a low
+rocking-chair by the stove, crooning over a corn-cob pipe and using
+the wood-box for a cuspadore. She had a vinegary, slangy tongue, and
+being somewhat deaf, would break in upon the conversation with
+remarks sharper than they were pat.
+
+With our host, a glib and rapid talker in a swaggering tone, one could
+not but be much amused, as he exhibited a degree of self-appreciation
+that was decidedly refreshing. He had been a veteran in the War of the
+Rebellion, he proudly assured us, and pointed with his knife to his
+discharge-paper, which was hung up in an old looking-glass frame by
+the side of the clock.
+
+"Gemmen,"--he invariably thus addressed us, as though we were a
+coterie of checker-players at a village grocery,--"Gemmen, when I seen
+how them Johnny Rebs was a usin' our boys in them prison pens down
+thar at Andersonville and Libbie and 'roun' thar, I jist says to
+myself, says I, 'Joe, my boy, you go now an' do some'n' fer yer
+country; a crack shot like you is, Joe,' says I to myself, 'as kin hit
+a duck on the wing, every time, an' no mistake, oughtn't ter be a-lyin
+'roun' home an' doin' no'hun to put down the rebellion; it's a shame,'
+says I, 'when our boys is a-suff'r'n' down thar on Mason 'n' Dixie's
+line;' an' so I jined, an' I stuck her out, gemmen, till the thing was
+done; they ain't no coward 'bout me, ef I _hev_ the sayin' of it!"
+
+"Were you wounded, sir?" asked W----, sympathetically.
+
+"No, I wa'n't hurt at all,--that is, so to speak, wounded. But thar
+were a sort of a doctor feller 'round here las' winter, a-stoppin' at
+Erie; an' he called at my place, an' he says, 'No'hun the matter wi'
+you, a-growin out o' the war?' says he; an' I says, 'No'hun that I
+know'd on,' says I,--'I'm a-eatin' my reg'l'r victuals whin I don't
+have the shakes,' says I. 'Ah!' says he, 'you've the shakes?' he says;
+'an' don't you know you ketched 'em in the war?' 'I ketched 'em
+a-gettin' m'lairy in the bottoms,' says I, 'a-duck-shootin', in which
+I kin hit a bird on the wing every time an' no mistake,' says I.
+'Now,' he says, 'hold on a minute; you didn't hev shakes afore the
+war?' says he. 'Not as much,' I says, not knowin' what the feller was
+drivin' at, 'but some; I was a kid then, and kids don't shake much,'
+says I. 'Hold up! hold up!' he says, 'you 're wrong, an' ye know it;
+ye don't hev no mem'ry goin' back so far about phys'cal conditions,'
+says he. Well, gemmen, sure 'nough, when I kem to think things over,
+and talk it up with the doctor chap, I 'lowed he was right. Then he
+let on he was a claim agint, an' I let him try his hand on workin' up
+a pension for me, for he says I wa'n't to pay no'hun 'less the thing
+went through. But I hearn tell, down at Erie, that they is a-goin'
+agin these private claims nowadays at Washin'ton, an' I don't know
+what my show is. But I ought to hev a pension, an' no mistake, gemmen.
+They wa'n't no fellers did harder work 'n me in the war, ef I _do_ say
+it myself."
+
+W---- ventured to ask what battles our host had been in.
+
+"Well, I wa'n't in no reg'lar battle,--that is, right _in_ one. Thar
+was a few of us detailed ter tek keer of gov'ment prop'ty near
+C'lumby, South Car'liny, when Wade Hamptin was a-burnin' things down
+thar. We was four miles away from the fightin,' an' I was jest
+a-achin' to git in thar. What I wanted was to git a bead on ol' Wade
+himself,--an' ef I do say it myself, the ol' man would 'a' hunted his
+hole, gemmen. When I get a sight on a duck, gemmen, that duck's mine,
+an' no mistake. An' ef I'd 'a' sighted Wade Hamptin, then good-by
+Wade! I tol' the cap'n what I wanted, but he said as how I was more
+use a-takin' keer of the supplies. That cap'n hadn't no enterprise
+'bout him. Things would 'a' been different at C'lumby, ef I'd had my
+way, an' don't ye forgit it! There was heaps o' blood spilt
+unnecessary by us boys, a-fightin' to save the ol' flag,--an' we 're
+willin' to do it agin, gemmen, an' no mistake!"
+
+The old woman had been listening eagerly to this narrative, evidently
+quite proud of her boy's achievements, but not hearing all that had
+been said. She now broke out, in shrill, high notes,--
+
+"Joe ought ter 'a' had a pension, he had, wi' his chills 'tracted in
+the war. He wuk'd hard, Joe did, a hul ten months, doin' calvary
+service, the last year o' the war; an' he kem nigh onter shootin' ol'
+Wade Hamptin, an' a-makin' a name for himself, an' p'r'aps a good
+office with a title an' all that; only they kep' him back with the
+ammernition wagin, 'count o' the kurnil's jealousy,--for Joe is a dead
+shot, ma'am, if I'm his mother as says it, and keeps the family in
+ducks half the year 'roun', an' the kurnil know'd Joe was a-bilin'
+over to git to the front."
+
+"Ah! you were in the cavalry service, then?" I said to our landlord,
+by way of helping along the conversation.
+
+There was a momentary silence, broken by Simple Simon, who wiped his
+knife on his tongue, and made a wild attack on the butter dish.
+
+"Pa, he druv a mule team for gov'ment; an' we got a picter in the
+album, tuk of him when he were just a-goin' inter battle, with a big
+ammernition wagin on behind. Pa, in the picter, is a-ridin' o' one o'
+the mules, an' any one'd know him right off."
+
+This sudden revelation of the strength of the veteran's claim to glory
+and a pension, put a damper upon his reminiscences of the war; and
+giving the innocent Simon a savage leer, he soon contrived to turn the
+conversation upon his wonderful exploits in duck-shooting and
+fishing--industries in the pursuit of which he, with so many of his
+fellow-farmers on the bottoms, appeared to be more eager than in
+tilling the soil.
+
+It was quite evident that the breakfast we were eating was a special
+spread in honor of probably the only guests the quondam tavern had had
+these many months. Canoeists must not be too particular about the fare
+set before them; but on this occasion we were able to swallow but a
+few mouthfuls of the repast and our lunch-basket was drawn on as soon
+as we were once more afloat. It is a great pity that so many farmers'
+wives are the wretched cooks they are. With an abundance of good
+materials already about them, and rare opportunities for readily
+acquiring more, tens of thousands of rural dames do manage to prepare
+astonishingly inedible meals,--sour, doughy bread; potatoes which, if
+boiled, are but half cooked, and if mashed, are floated with
+abominable butter or pastey flour gravy; salt pork either swimming in
+a bowl of grease or fried to a leathery chip; tea and coffee extremely
+weak or strong enough to kill an ox, as chance may dictate, and
+inevitably adulterated beyond recognition; eggs that are spoiled by
+being fried to the consistency of rubber, in a pan of fat deep enough
+to float doughnuts; while the biscuits are yellow and bitter with
+saleratus. This bill of fare, warranted to destroy the best of
+appetites, will be recognized by too many of my readers as that to be
+found at the average American farm-house, although we all doubtless
+know of some magnificent exceptions, which only prove the rule. We
+establish public cooking-schools in our cities, and economists like
+Edward Atkinson and hygienists like the late Dio Lewis assiduously
+explain to the metropolitan poor their processes of making a tempting
+meal out of nothing; but our most crying need in this country to-day
+is a training-school for rural housewives, where they may be taught to
+evolve a respectable and economical spread out of the great abundance
+with which they are surrounded. It is no wonder that country boys
+drift to the cities, where they can obtain properly cooked food and
+live like rational beings.
+
+The river continues to widen as we approach the junction with the
+Mississippi,--thirty-nine miles below Erie,--and to assume the
+characteristics of the great river into which it pours its flood. The
+islands increase in number and in size, some of them being over a mile
+in length by a quarter of a mile in breadth; the bottoms frequently
+resolve themselves into wide morasses, thickly studded with great
+elms, maples, and cotton-woods, among which the spring flood has
+wrought direful destruction. The scene becomes peculiarly desolate and
+mournful, often giving one the impression of being far removed from
+civilization, threading the course of some hitherto unexplored stream.
+Penetrate the deep fringe of forest and morass on foot, however, and
+smiling prairies are found beyond, stretching to the horizon and cut
+up into prosperous farms. The river is here from a half to
+three-quarters of a mile broad, but the shallows and snags are as
+numerous as ever and navigation is continually attended with some
+danger of being either grounded or capsized.
+
+Now and then the banks become firmer, with charming vistas of high,
+wooded hills coming down to the water's edge; broad savannas
+intervene, decked out with variegated flora, prominent being the
+elsewhere rare atragene Americana, the spider-wort, the little blue
+lobelia, and the cup-weed. These savannas are apparently overflowed in
+times of exceptionally high water; and there are evidences that the
+stream has occasionally changed its course, through the sunbaked banks
+of ashy-gray mud, in years long past.
+
+At Cleveland, a staid little village on an open plain, which we
+reached soon after the dinner-hour, there is an unused mill-dam going
+to decay. In the centre, the main current has washed out a breadth of
+three or four rods, through which the pent-up stream rushes with a
+roar and a hundred whirlpools. It is an ugly crevasse, but a careful
+examination showed the passage to be feasible, so we retreated an
+eighth of a mile up-stream, took our bearings, and went through with a
+speed that nearly took our breath away and appeared to greatly
+astonish a half-dozen fishermen idly angling from the dilapidated
+apron on either side. It was like going through Cleveland on the fast
+mail.
+
+Fourteen miles above the mouth of the Rock, is the Chicago, Burlington
+and Quincy railroad bridge, with Carbon Cliff on the north and Coloma
+on the south, each one mile from the river. The day had been dark,
+with occasional slight showers and a stiff head wind, so that progress
+had been slow. We began to deem it worth while to inquire about the
+condition of affairs at the mouth. Under the bridge, sitting on a
+bowlder at the base of the north abutment, an intelligent-appearing
+man in a yellow oiled-cloth suit, accompanied by a bright-eyed lad,
+peacefully fished. Stopping to question them, we found them both
+well-informed as to the railway time-tables of the vicinity and the
+topography of the lower river. They told us that the scenery for the
+next fourteen miles was similar, in its dark desolation, to that which
+we had passed through during the day; also that owing to the great
+number of islands and the labyrinth of channels both in the Rock and
+on the east side of the Mississippi, we should find it practically
+impossible to know when we had reached the latter; we should doubtless
+proceed several miles below the mouth of the Rock before we noticed
+that the current was setting persistently south, and then would have
+an exceedingly difficult task in retracing our course and pulling
+up-stream to our destination, Rock Island, which is six miles north
+of the delta of the Rock. They strongly advised our going into Rock
+Island by rail. The present landing was the last chance to strike a
+railway, except at Milan, twelve miles below. It was now so late that
+we could not hope to reach Milan before dark; there were no
+stopping-places _en route_, and Milan was farther from Rock Island
+than either Carbon Cliff or Coloma, with less frequent railway
+service.
+
+For these and other reasons, we decided to accept this advice, and to
+ship from Coloma. Taking a final spurt down to a ferry-landing a
+quarter of a mile beyond, on the south bank, we beached our canoe at
+5.05 P.M., having voyaged two hundred and sixty-seven miles in
+somewhat less than seven days and a half. Leaving W---- to gossip with
+the ferryman's wife, who came down to the bank with an armful of
+smiling twins, to view a craft so strange to her vision, I went up
+into the country to engage a team to take our boat upon its last
+portage. After having been gruffly refused by a churlish farmer, who
+doubtless recognized no difference between a canoeist and a tramp, I
+struck a bargain with a negro cultivating a cornfield with a span of
+coal-black mules, and in half an hour he was at the ferry-landing with
+a wagon. Washing out the canoe and chaining in the oars and paddle,
+we lifted it into the wagon-box, piled our baggage on top, and set off
+over the hills and fields to Coloma, W---- and I trudging behind the
+dray, ankle deep in mud, for the late rains had well moistened the
+black prairie soil. It was a unique and picturesque procession.
+
+In less than an hour we were in Rock Island, and our canoe was on its
+way by freight to Portage, preparatory to my tour with our friend the
+Doctor,--down the Fox River of Green Bay.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY).
+
+  [Illustration: MAP OF THE FOX-WISCONSIN RIVERS to accompany
+  THWAITES'S "HISTORIC WATERWAYS"]
+
+
+
+
+THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY).
+
+
+
+
+FIRST LETTER.
+
+SMITH'S ISLAND.
+
+
+     PACKWAUKEE, WIS., June 7, 1887.
+
+My dear W----: It was 2.25 P. M. yesterday when the Doctor and I
+launched the old canoe upon the tan-colored water of the government
+canal at Portage, and pointed her nose in the direction of the
+historic Fox. You will remember that the canal traverses the low sandy
+plain which separates the Fox from the Wisconsin on a line very nearly
+parallel to where tradition locates Barth's and Lecuyer's
+wagon-portage a hundred years ago. It was a profitable business in the
+olden days, when the Fox-Wisconsin highway was extensively patronized,
+to thus transport river craft over this mile and a half of bog. The
+toll[2] collected by these French creoles and their successors down to
+the days of Paquette added materially to the cost of goods and
+peltries. In times of exceptionally high water the Wisconsin
+overflowed into the Fox, which is ordinarily five feet lower than the
+former, and canoes could readily cross the portage afloat, quite
+independent of the forwarding agents. In this generation the
+Wisconsin is kept to her bounds by levees; but the government canal
+furnishes a free highway. The railroads have spoiled water-navigation,
+however; and the canal, like the most of the Fox and Wisconsin
+river-improvement, is fast relapsing into a costly relic. The timbered
+sides are rotting, the peat and sand are bulging them in, the locks
+are shaky and worm-eaten, and several moss-covered barges and a
+stranded old ruin of a steamboat turned out to grass tell a sad story
+of official abandonment.
+
+The scenic effects from the canal are not enlivening. There is a wide
+expanse of bog, relieved by some grass-grown railway side-tracks and
+the forlorn freight-depot of the Wisconsin Central road. A few
+battered sheds yet remain of old Fort Winnebago on a lonesome hillock
+near where the canal joins the Fox; while beyond to the north as far
+as the eye can reach there is a stretch of wild-rice swamp, through
+which the government dredges have scooped a narrow channel, about as
+picturesque as a cranberry-marsh drain.
+
+Life at Fort Winnebago during the second quarter of this century must
+have been lonesome indeed, its nearest neighbors being Forts Crawford
+and Howard, each nearly two hundred miles away. A mile or two to the
+southwest is a pretty wooded ridge, girting the Wisconsin River, upon
+which the city of Portage is now situated. Then it was a forest, and
+the camping-ground of Winnebagoes, who hung around the post in the
+half-threatening attitude of beggars who might make trouble if not
+adequately bribed with gifts. The fort was erected in 1828-29 at the
+solicitation of John Jacob Astor (the American Fur Company), to
+protect his trade against encroachments from these Winnebago rascals,
+who had become quite impudent during the Red Bird disturbance at
+Prairie du Chien, in 1827. Jefferson Davis was one of the three
+first-lieutenants in the original garrison, in which Harney, of
+Mexican war fame, was a captain. Davis was detailed to the charge of a
+squad sent to cut timbers for the fort in a Wisconsin River pinery
+just above the portage, and thus became one of the pioneer lumbermen
+of Wisconsin. It is related, too, that Davis, who was an amateur
+cabinet-maker, designed some very odd wardrobes and other pieces of
+furniture for the officers' chambers, which were the wonder and
+admiration of every occupant for years to come.[3] In 1853, when
+Secretary of War, the whilom subaltern issued an order for the sale of
+the fort so intimately connected with his army career, and its crazy
+buildings henceforth became tenements.
+
+For a dozen miles beyond the Fox River end of the canal the river, as
+I have before said, is dredged out through the swamp like a big ditch.
+The artificial banks of sand and peat which line it are generally well
+grown with mare's-tail, beautiful clumps of wild roses, purple vetch,
+great beds of sensitive ferns, and masses of Pennsylvania anemone,
+while the pools are decked with water-anemone. Nature is doing her
+best to hide the deformities wrought by man. The valley is generally
+about a mile in width, ridges of wooded knolls hemming in the broad
+expanse of reeds and rice and willow clumps. Occasionally the
+engineers have allowed the ditch to swerve in graceful lines and to
+hug closely the firmer soil in the lower benches of the knolls, where
+the banks of red and yellow clay attain a height of ten or a dozen
+feet, crowned with oaks and elms or pleasant glades. A modest
+farm-house now and then appears upon such a shore, with the front yard
+running down to the water's edge.
+
+The afternoon shadows are lengthening, and farmers' boys are leading
+their horses down to drink, after the day's labor in the fields. Black
+and yellow collies are gathering in the cows,--some of them soberly
+and quickly corral obedient herds, while others yelp and snap at the
+heads of the affrighted animals, and in the noise and confusion seem
+to make but little progress. Collies have human-like infirmities.
+
+We had supper at seven o'clock, under a tree which overhangs a weedy
+bank, with a high pasture back of us, sloping up to a wooded hill, at
+the base of which is a cluster of three neatly painted farm-houses,
+whose dogs bayed at us from the distance, but did not venture to
+approach. A half-hour later, the sun's setting warned us that quarters
+for the night must soon be secured. Stopping at the base of a boggy
+pasture-wood, we ascended through a sterile field, accursed with
+sheep-sorrel, and through gaps in several crazy fences, to what had
+seemed to us from the river a comfortable, repose-inviting house,
+commandingly situated on a hill-top among the trees. Near approach
+revealed a scene of desolation. The barriers were down, two
+spare-ribbed horses were nipping a scant supper among the weeds in a
+dark corner of an otherwise deserted barn-yard, the window-sashes were
+generally paneless, the porch was in a state of collapse, sand-burrs
+choked the paths, and to our knock at the kitchen door the only
+response was a hollow echo. The deserted house looked uncanny in the
+gloaming, and we retired to our boat wondering what evil spell had
+been cast over the place, and whether the horses in the barn-yard had
+been deliberately left behind to die of starvation.
+
+The river now takes upon itself many devious windings in a great
+widespread over two miles broad. The government engineers have here
+left it in all its original crookedness, and the twists and turns are
+as fantastic and complicated as those of the Teutonic pretzel in its
+native land. As the twilight thickened, great swarms of lake-flies
+rose from the sedges and beat their way up-stream, the noise of their
+multitudinous wings being at times like the roar of a neighboring
+waterfall, as they formed a ceaselessly moving canopy over our heads.
+It was noticeable that the flies kept very closely to the windings of
+the river, as if guided only by the glittering flood beneath them. The
+mass of the procession kept its way up the stream, but upon the
+outskirts could be seen a few individuals, apparently larger than the
+average, flying back and forth as if marshaling the host.
+
+Two miles below the deserted house, we stopped opposite another marshy
+bank, where a rude skiff lay tied to a shaky fence projecting far out
+into the reeds. Pushing our way in, we beached in the slimy shore-mud
+and scrambled upon the land, where the tall grass was now as sloppy
+with dew as though it had been rained upon. It was getting quite dark
+now, but through a cleft in the hills the moon was seen to be just
+rising above a cloud-bathed horizon, and a small house, neat-looking,
+though destitute of paint, was sharply silhouetted against the
+lightening sky, at the head of a gentle slope. By the time we had
+waded through a quarter of a mile of thriving timothy we were wet to
+the skin below the knees and dusted all over with pollen.
+
+Seven children, mostly boys, and gently step-laddered down from
+fourteen years, greeted us at the summit with a loud "Hello!" in
+shrill unison. They stood in a huddle by the woodpile, holding down
+and admonishing a very mild-looking collie, which they evidently
+imagined was filled with an overweening desire instantly to devour us.
+"Hello there! who be ye?" shouted the oldest lad and the spokesman of
+the party. He was a tall, spare boy, and by the light of the rising
+moon we could see he was sharp-featured, good-natured, and
+intelligent.
+
+"Well," said the Doctor, bantering, "that's what we'd like to know.
+You tell us who you are, and we'll tell you who we are. Now that's
+fair, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the boy, respectfully, as he touched his rimless
+straw hat; "our name's Smith; all 'cept that boy there," pointing to a
+sturdy little twelve-year-old, "an' he's a Bixby, he is."
+
+"The Smith family's a big one, I should say," the Doctor remarked, as
+he audibly counted the party.
+
+"Oh, this ain't all on 'em, sir; there's two in the house, a-hidin'
+'cause o' strangers, besides the baby, which ma and pa has with 'em
+inter Packwaukee, a-shoppin'. This is Smith's Island, sir. Didn't ye
+ever hear o' Smith's Island?"
+
+We acknowledged our ignorance, up to this time, of the existence of
+any such feature in the geography of Wisconsin. But the lad, now
+joined by the others, who had by this time vanquished their
+bashfulness and all wanted to talk at once, assured us that we were
+actually on Smith's Island; that Smith's Island had an area of one
+hundred acres, was surrounded on the east by the river, and everywhere
+else by either a bayou or a marsh that had to be crossed with a boat
+in the spring; that there were three families of Smiths there, and
+this group represented but one branch of the clan.
+
+"We're all Smiths, sir, but this boy, who's a Bixby; an' he's our
+cousin and only a-visitin'."
+
+After having gained a thorough knowledge of the topography and
+population of Smith's Island, we ventured to ask whether it was
+presumable that the parental Smiths, when they returned home from the
+village, would be willing to entertain us for the night.
+
+"Guess not, sir," replied the spokesman, the idea appearing to strike
+him humorously; "there's so many of us now, sir, that we're packed in
+pretty close, an' the Bixby boy has to sleep atop o' the orgin. But I
+think Uncle Jim might; he kept a tramp over night once, an' give him
+his breakfus', too, in the bargain."
+
+The prospect as to Uncle Jim was certainly encouraging, and it was now
+too late to go further. It seemed necessary to stop on Smith's Island
+for the night, even if we were restricted to quartering in the
+corn-crib which the Smith boy kindly put at our disposal in case of
+Uncle Jim's refusal,--with the additional inducement that he would
+lend us the collie for company and to "keep off rats," which he
+intimated were phenomenally numerous on this swamp-girt hill.
+
+The entire troop of urchins accompanied us down to the bank to make
+fast for the night, and helped us up with our baggage to the
+corn-crib, where we disturbed a large family of hens which were using
+the airy structure as a summer dormitory. Then, with the two oldest
+boys as pilots, we set off along the ridge to find the domicile of
+Uncle Jim, who had established a reputation for hospitality by having
+once entertained a way-worn tramp.
+
+The moon had now swung clear of the trees on the edge of the river
+basin, and gleamed through a great cleft in the blue-black clouds,
+investing the landscape with a luminous glow. Along the eastern
+horizon a dark forest-girt ridge hemmed in the reedy widespread,
+through which the gleaming Fox twisted and doubled upon itself like a
+silvery serpent in agony. The Indians, who have an eye to the
+picturesque in Nature, tell us that once a monster snake lay down for
+the night in the swamp between the portage and the lake of the
+Winnebagoes. The dew accumulated upon it as it lay, and when the
+morning came it wriggled and shook the water from its back, and
+disappeared down the river which it had thus created in its nocturnal
+bed. I had never fully appreciated the aptness of the legend until
+last night, when I had that bird's-eye view of the valley of the Fox
+from the summit of Smith's Island. To our left, the timothy-field
+sloped gracefully down to the sedgy couch of the serpent; to our
+right, there were pastures and oak openings, with glimpses of the
+moonlit bayou below, across which a dark line led to a forest,--the
+narrow roadway leading from Smith's to the outer world. At the edge of
+a small wood-lot our guides stopped, telling us to keep on along the
+path, over two stiles and through a barn-yard gate, till we saw a
+light; the light would be Uncle Jim's.
+
+A cloud was by this time overcasting the moon, and a distant rumble
+told us that the night would be stormy. Groping our way through the
+copse, we passed the barriers, and, according to promise, the blinding
+light of a kerosene lamp standing on the ledge of an open window burst
+upon us. Then a door opened, and the form of a tall, stalwart man
+stood upon the threshold, a striking silhouette. It was Uncle Jim
+peering into the darkness, for he had heard footsteps in the yard. We
+were greeted cordially on the porch, and shown into a cosey
+sitting-room, where Uncle Jim had been reading his weekly paper, and
+Uncle Jim's wife, smiling sweetly amid her curl-papers, was engaged on
+a bit of crochet. Charmingly hospitable people they are. They have
+been married but a year or two, are without children, and have a
+pleasant cottage furnished simply but in excellent taste. Such
+delightful little homes are rare in the country, and the Doctor
+couldn't help telling Uncle Jim so, whereat the latter was very
+properly pleased. Uncle Jim is a fine-looking, manly fellow, six feet
+two in his stockings, he told us; and his pretty, blooming wife,
+though young, has the fine manners of the olden school. We were
+earnestly invited to stop for the night before we had fairly stated
+our case, and in five minutes were talking on politics, general news,
+and agriculture, as though we had always lived on Smith's Island and
+had just dropped in for an evening's chat. I am sure you would have
+enjoyed it, W----, it was such a contrast to our night at the Erie
+tavern,--only a week ago, though it seems a month. One sees and feels
+so much, canoeing, that the days are like weeks of ordinary travel.
+Two hundred miles by river are more full of the essence of life than
+two thousand by rail.
+
+We had an excellent bed and an appetizing breakfast. The flood-gates
+of heaven had been opened during the night, and Smith's Island shaken
+to its peaty foundations by great thunder-peals. Uncle Jim was happy,
+for the pasturage would be improved, and the corn crop would have a
+"show." Uncle Jim's wife said there would now be milk enough to make
+butter for market; and the hens would do better, for somehow they
+never would lay regularly during the drought we had been experiencing.
+And so we talked on while the "clearing showers" lasted. I told Uncle
+Jim that I was surprised to see him raising anything at all in what
+was apparently sand. He acknowledged that the soil was light, and
+inclined to blow away on the slightest aerial provocation, but he
+nevertheless managed to get twenty bushels of wheat to the acre, and
+the lowlands gave him an abundance of hay and pasturage. He was
+decidedly in favor of mixed crops, himself, and was gradually getting
+into the stock line, as he wanted a crop that could "walk itself into
+market." The Doctor inquired about the health of the neighborhood,
+which he found to be excellent. He is much of a gallant, you know; and
+Uncle Jim's wife was pleasantly flustered when, in his most winning
+tones, the disciple of Æsculapius declared that the climate that could
+produce such splendid complexions as hers--and Uncle Jim's--must
+indeed be rated as available for a sanitarium.
+
+By a quarter to eight o'clock this morning the storm had ceased, and
+the eastern sky brightened. Our kind friends bade us a cheery
+farewell, we retraced our steps to the corn-crib, the Smith boys
+helped us down with our load, and just as our watches touched eight we
+shoved off into the stream, and were once more afloat upon the
+serpentine trail.
+
+These great wild-rice widespreads--sloughs, the natives call them--are
+doubtless the beds of ancient lakes. In coursing through them, the
+bayous, the cul-de-sacs, are so frequent, and the stream switches off
+upon such unexpected tangents, that it is sometimes perplexing to
+ascertain which body of sluggish water is the main channel. Marquette
+found this out when he ascended the Fox in 1673. He says, in his
+relation of the voyage, "The way is so cut up by marshes and little
+lakes that it is easy to go astray, especially as the river is so
+covered with wild oats [wild rice] that you can hardly discover the
+channel; hence, we had good need of our two guides."
+
+Little bog-islands, heavily grown with aspens and willows,
+occasionally dot the seas of rice. They often fairly hum with the
+varied notes of the red-winged blackbird, the rusty grackle, and our
+American robin, while whistling plovers are seen upon the mud-spits,
+snapping up the choicest of the snails. And such bullfrogs! I have not
+heard their like since, when a boy, living on the verge of a New
+England pond, I imagined their hollow rumble of a roundelay to bear
+the burden of "Paddy, go 'round! Go 'round and 'round!" This in
+accordance with a local tradition which says that Paddy, coming home
+one night o'erfull of the "craithur," came to the edge of the pond,
+which stopped his progress. The friendly frogs, who themselves enjoy a
+soaking, advised him to go around the obstruction; and as the wild
+refrain kept on, Paddy did indeed "go 'round, and 'round" till morning
+and his better-half found him, a foot-sore and a soberer man. They
+tell us that on the Fox River the frogs say, "Judge Arndt! Arndt!
+Judge Arndt!" Old Judge Arndt was one of the celebrities in the early
+day at Green Bay; he was a fur-trader, and accustomed, with his gang
+of _voyageurs_, to navigate the Fox and Wisconsin with heavily laden
+canoes and Mackinaw boats. A Frenchman, he had a gastronomic affection
+for frogs' legs, and many a branch of the house of Rana was cast into
+mourning in the neighborhood of his nightly camps. The story goes,
+therefore, that unto this time whenever a boat is seen upon the river,
+sentinel frogs give out the signal cry of "Judge Arndt!" by way of
+deadly warning to their kind. Certain it is that the valley of the
+upper Fox, by day or by night, is resonant with the bellow of the
+amphibious bull. It is not always "Judge Arndt!" but occasionally, as
+if miles and miles away, one hears a sudden twanging note, like that
+of the finger-snapped bass string of a violin; whereas the customary
+refrain may be likened to the deep reverberations of the bass-viol.
+Add the countless chatter and whistle of the birds, the ear-piercing
+hum of the cicada, and the muffled chimes from scores of sheep and cow
+bells on the hillside pastures, and we have an orchestral
+accompaniment upon our voyage that could be fully appreciated only in
+a Chinese theatre.
+
+In the pockets and the sloughs, we find thousands of yellow and white
+water-lilies, and sometimes progress is impeded by masses of creeping
+root-stalks which have been torn from their muddy bed by the upheaval
+of the ice, and now float about in great rafts, firmly anchored by the
+few whose extremities are still imbedded in the ooze.
+
+Fishing-boats were also occasionally met with this morning, occupied
+by Packwaukee people; for in the widespreads just above this village,
+the pickerel thrives mightily off the swarms of perch who love these
+reedy seas; and the weighty sturgeon often swallows a hook and gives
+his captor many a frenzied tug before he consents to enter the
+"live-box" which floats behind each craft.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] Ten dollars per boat, and fifty cents per 100 lbs. of goods.
+
+[3] Described in Mrs. Kinzie's "Wau-Bun," which gives many interesting
+reminiscences of life at the old post.
+
+
+
+
+SECOND LETTER.
+
+FROM PACKWAUKEE TO BERLIN.
+
+
+     BERLIN, WIS., June 8, 1887.
+
+My dear W----: Packwaukee is twenty-five miles by river below Portage,
+and at the head of Buffalo Lake. It is a tumble-down little place,
+with about one hundred inhabitants, half of whom appeared to be
+engaged in fishing. A branch of the Wisconsin Central Railway, running
+south from Stevens Point to Portage, passes through the town, with a
+spur track running along the north shore of the lake to Montello,
+seven miles east. Regular trains stop at Packwaukee, while the engine
+draws a pony train out to Montello to pick up the custom of that
+thriving village. Packwaukee apparently had great pretensions once,
+with her battlement-fronts and verandaed inn; but that day has long
+passed, and a picturesque float-bridge, mossy and decayed, remains the
+sole point of artistic interest. A dozen boys were angling from its
+battered hand-rail, as we painfully crept with our craft through a
+small tunnel where the abutment had been washed out by the stream. We
+emerged covered with cobwebs and sawdust, to be met by boys eagerly
+soliciting us to purchase their fish. The Doctor, somewhat annoyed by
+their pertinacity as he vigorously dusted himself with his
+handkerchief, declared, in the vernacular of the river, that we were
+"clean busted;" and I have no doubt the lads believed his mild fib,
+for we looked just then as though we had seen hard times in our day.
+
+Our general course had hitherto been northward, but was now eastward
+for a few miles and afterward southeastward as far as Marquette.
+Buffalo Lake is seven miles long by from a third to three quarters of
+a mile broad. The banks are for the most part sandy, and from five to
+fifty feet high. The river here merely fills its bed; being deeper,
+the wild rice and reeds do not grow upon its skirts. Were there a
+half-dozen more feet of water, the Fox would be a chain of lakes from
+Portage to Oshkosh. As it is, we have Buffalo, Puckawa, and Grand
+Butte des Morts, which are among the prettiest of the inland seas of
+Wisconsin. The knolls about Buffalo Lake are pleasant, round-topped
+elevations, for the most part wooded, and between them are little
+prairies, generally sandy, but occasionally covered with dark loam.
+
+The day had, by noon, developed into one of the hottest of the season.
+The run down Buffalo Lake was a torrid experience long to be
+remembered. The air was motionless, the sky without clouds; we had
+good need of our awning. The Doctor, who is always experimenting,
+picked up a flat stone on the beach, so warm as to burn his fingers,
+and tried to fry an egg upon it by simple solar heat, but the venture
+failed and a burning-glass was needed to complete the operation.
+
+Montello occupies a position at the foot of the lake, commanding the
+entire sheet of water. The knoll upon which the village is for the
+most part built is nearly one hundred feet high, and the simple spire
+of an old white church pitched upon the summit is a landmark readily
+discernible in Packwaukee, seven miles distant. There is a government
+lock at Montello, and a small water-power. A levee protects from
+overflow a portion of the town which is situated somewhat below the
+lake level. The government pays the lock-keepers thirty dollars per
+month for about eight months in the year, and house-rent the year
+round. Tollage is no longer required, and the keepers are obliged by
+the regulations of the engineering department to open the gates for
+all comers, even a saw-log. But the services of the keepers are so
+seldom required in these days that we find they are not to be easily
+roused from their slumbers, and it is easier and quicker to make the
+portage at the average up-river lock. Our carry at Montello was two
+and a half rods, over a sandy bank, where a solitary small boy, who
+had been catching crayfish with a dip-net, carefully examined our
+outfit and propounded the inquiry, "Be you fellers on the guv'ment
+job?"
+
+Below the lock for three or four miles, the river is again a mere
+canal, but the rigid banks of dredge-trash are for the most part
+covered with a thrifty vegetation, and have assumed charms of their
+own. This stage passed, and the river resumes a natural appearance,--a
+placid stream, with now and then a slough, or perhaps banks of peat
+and sand, ten feet high and fairly well hung with trees and shrubs.
+
+As we approach the head of Lake Puckawa, the widespreads broaden, with
+rows of hills two or three miles back, on either side,--the river
+mowing a narrow swath through the expanse of reeds and flags and rice
+which unites their bases. Where the widespread becomes a pond, and
+the lake commences, there is a sandbar, the dregs of the upper
+channel. A government dredge-machine was at work, cutting out a
+water-way through the obstruction,--or, rather, had been at work, for
+it was seven o'clock by this time, the men had finished their supper,
+and were enjoying themselves upon the neat deck of the boarding-house
+barge, in a neighboring bayou, smoking their pipes and reading
+newspapers. It was a comfortable picture.
+
+A stern-wheel freight steamer, big and cumbersome, came slowly into
+the mouth of the channel as we left it, bound up, for Montello. As we
+glided along her side, a safe distance from the great wheelbarrow
+paddle, she loomed above us, dark and awesome, like a whale
+overlooking a minnow. It was the "T. S. Chittenden," wood-laden. The
+"Chittenden" and the "Ellen Hardy" are the only boats navigating the
+upper Fox this season, above Berlin. Their trips are supposed to be
+semi-weekly, but as a matter of fact they dodge around, all the way
+from Winneconne to Montello, picking up what freight they can and
+making a through trip perhaps once a week. It is poor picking, I am
+told, and the profits but barely pay for maintaining the service.
+
+There now being no place to land, without the great labor of poling
+the canoe through the dense reed swamp to the sides, we had supper on
+board,--the Doctor deftly spreading a bit of canvas on the bottom
+between us, for a cloth, and attractively displaying our lunch to the
+best advantage. I leisurely paddled meanwhile, occasionally resting to
+take a mouthful or to sip of the lemonade, in the preparation of which
+the Doctor is such an adept. And thus we drifted down Lake Puckawa,
+amid the delightful sunset glow and the long twilight which
+followed,--the Doctor, cake in one hand and a glass of lemonade in the
+other, becoming quite animated in a detailed description of a patient
+he had seen in a Vienna hospital, whose food was introduced through a
+slit in his throat. The Doctor is an enthusiast in his profession, and
+would stop to advise St. Peter, at the gate, to try his method for
+treating locksmith-palsy.
+
+We noticed a great number of black terns as we progressed, perched
+upon snags at the head of the lake. They are fearless birds, and would
+allow us to drift within paddle's length before they would rise and,
+slowly wheeling around our heads, settle again upon their roosts, as
+soon as we had passed on.
+
+Lake Puckawa is eight miles long by perhaps two miles wide, running
+west and east. Five miles down the eastern shore, the quaint little
+village of Marquette is situated on a pleasant slope which overlooks
+the lake from end to end. Marquette is on the site of an Indian
+fur-trading camp, this lake being for many years a favorite resort of
+the Winnebagoes. There are about three hundred inhabitants there, and
+it is something of a mystery as to how they all scratch a living; for
+the town is dying, if not already dead,--about the only bit of life
+noticeable there being a rather pretty club-house owned by a party of
+Chicago gentlemen, who come to Lake Puckawa twice a year to shoot
+ducks, it being one of the best sporting-grounds in the State. That is
+to say, they have heretofore come twice a year, but the villagers were
+bewailing the passage by the legislature, last winter, of a bill
+prohibiting spring shooting, thus cutting off the business of
+Marquette by one half. Marquette, like so many other dead river-towns,
+appears to have been at one time a community of some importance. There
+are two deserted saw-mills and two or three abandoned warehouses, all
+boarded up and falling into decay, while nearly every store-building
+in the place has shutters nailed over the windows, and a once
+substantial sidewalk has become such a rotten snare that the natives
+use the grass-grown street for a footpath. The good people are so
+tenacious of the rights of visiting sportsmen that there is no
+angling, I was told, except by visitors, and we inquired in vain for
+fish at the dilapidated little hotel where we slept and breakfasted.
+At the hostlery we were welcomed with open arms, and the landlady's
+boy, who officiated as clerk, porter, and chambermaid, assured us that
+the village schoolmaster had been the only guest for six weeks past.
+
+It is certainly a quiet spot. The Doctor, who knows all about these
+things, diagnosed the lake and declared it to be a fine field for
+fly-fishing. He had waxed so enthusiastic over the numbers of nesting
+ducks which we disturbed as we came down through the reeds, in the
+early evening, that I had all I could do to keep him from breaking the
+new game law, although he stoutly declared that revolvers didn't
+count. The postmaster--a pleasant old gentleman in spectacles, who
+also keeps the drug store, deals in ammunition, groceries, and shoes,
+and is an agent for agricultural machinery--got very friendly with the
+Doctor, and confided to him the fact that if the latter would come
+next fall to Markesan, ten miles distant, over the sands, and
+telephone up that he was there, a team would be sent down for him;
+then, with the postmaster for a guide, fish and fowl would soon be
+obliged to seek cover. It is needless to add that the Doctor struck a
+bargain with the postmaster and promised to be on hand without fail. I
+never saw our good friend so wild with delight, and the postmaster
+became as happy as if he had just concluded a cash contract for a
+car-load of ammunition.
+
+The schoolmaster, a very accommodating young man, helped us down to
+the beach this morning with our load. Anticipating numerous lakes and
+widespreads, where we might gain advantage of the wind, we had brought
+a sprit sail along, together with a temporary keel. The sail helped us
+frequently yesterday, especially in Buffalo Lake, but the wind had
+died down after we passed Montello. This morning, however, there was a
+good breeze again, but quartering, and the keel became essential. This
+we now attached to our craft, and it was nearly seven o'clock before
+we were off, although we had had breakfast at 5.30.
+
+The "Ellen Hardy" was at the dock, loading with wheat for Princeton.
+She is a trimmer, faster craft than the "Chittenden." The engineer
+told us that the present stage of water was but two and a half feet in
+the upper Fox, this year and last being the driest on record. He
+informed us that the freight business was "having the spots knocked
+off it" by the railroads, and there was hardly enough to make it worth
+while getting up steam.
+
+Three miles down is the mouth of the lake. There being two outlets
+around a large marsh, we were somewhat confused in trying to find the
+proper channel. We ascertained, after going a mile and a half out of
+our way to the south, that the northern extremity of the marsh is the
+one to steer for. The river continues to wind along between marshy
+shores, although occasionally hugging a high bank of red clay or
+skirting a knoll of shifting sand; now and then these knolls rise to
+the dignity of hills, red with sorrel and sparsely covered with
+scrubby pines and oaks.
+
+It was noon when we reached the lock above Princeton. The lock-keeper,
+a remarkably round-shouldered German, is a pleasant, gossipy fellow,
+fond of his long pipe and his very fat frau. Upon invitation, we made
+ourselves quite at home in the lock-house, a pleasant little brick
+structure in a plot of made land, the entire establishment having that
+rather stiffly neat, ship-shape appearance peculiar to life-saving
+stations, navy-yards, and military barracks. The good frau steeped
+for us a pot of tea, and in other ways helped us to grace our dinner,
+which we spread on a bench under a grape arbor, by the side of the
+yawning stone basin of the lock.
+
+The "Ellen Hardy," which had left Marquette nearly an hour later than
+we, came along while we were at dinner, waking the echoes with three
+prolonged steam groans. We took advantage of the circumstance to lock
+through in her company. This was our first experience of the sort, so
+we were naturally rather timid as we brushed her great paddle, going
+in, and stole along under her overhanging deck, for she quite filled
+the lock. The captain kindly allowed the liliputian to glide through
+in advance of his steamer, however, when the gates were once more
+opened, and we felt, as we shot out, as though we had emerged from
+under the belly of a monster.
+
+Beaching again, below the lock, we returned to finish our dinner. The
+keeper asked for a ride to Princeton village, three miles below, and
+we admitted him to our circle,--pipe, market-basket and all, though it
+caused the canoe to sink uncomfortably near to the gunwale. Going
+down, our voluble friend talked very freely about his affairs. He said
+that his pay of $30 per month ran from about the middle of April to
+the first of December, and averaged him, the year round, about $20
+and house-rent. He had but little to do, and got along very
+comfortably on the twenty-five acres of marsh-land which the
+government owned, by raising pigs and cows, a few vegetables, and hay
+enough for his stock. He admitted that this was "a heap better" than
+he could do in the fatherland.
+
+"I shoost dell you, mine frient," he said to me, as he grinned and
+refilled his pipe, "dot Shermany vos a nice guntry, and Bismarck he
+vos a grade feller, und I vos brout I vos a Sherman; but I dells mine
+vooman vot I dells you,--I mooch rahder read aboud 'em in mine Sherman
+newsbaper, dan vot I voot leef dere myself, already. I roon avay vrom
+dem conscrip' fellers, und I shoost never seed de time vot I voot go
+back again. In dot ol' guntry, I vos nuttings boot a beasant feller;
+unt in dis guntry I vos a goov'ment off'cer, vich makes grade
+diff'rence, already."
+
+He chuckled a good deal to himself when asked what he thought about
+the Fox-Wisconsin river-improvement, but finally said that government
+must spend its surplus some way,--if not in this, it would in
+another,--and he could not object to a scheme which gave him his bread
+and butter. He said that the improvement operations scattered a good
+deal of money throughout the valley, for labor and supplies, but
+expressed his doubts as to the ultimate national value of the work,
+unless the shifting Wisconsin River, thus far unnavigable for
+steamers, should be canalled from the portage to its mouth. He is an
+honest fellow, and appears to utilize his abundance of leisure in
+reading the newspapers.
+
+At Princeton village,--a thriving country town on a steep bank, with
+unkempt backyards running down to and defiling the river,--we again
+came across the "Ellen Hardy." She was unloading her light cargo of
+wheat as we arrived, and left Princeton an eighth of a mile behind us.
+We now had a pleasant little race to White River lock, seven miles
+below. With sail set, and paddles to help, we led her easily as far as
+the lock. But we thought to gain time by portaging over the dam, and
+she gained a lead of at least a mile, although we frequently caught
+sight of her towering white hull across the widespreads, by dint of
+standing on the thwarts and peering over the tall walls of wild rice
+which shut us in as closely as though we had been canoeing in a
+railroad cut.
+
+It had been fair and cloudy by turns to-day, but delightfully cool,--a
+wonderful improvement on yesterday, when we fairly sweltered, coming
+down Buffalo Lake. In the middle of the afternoon, below White River,
+a thunder-storm overtook us in a widespread several miles in extent.
+Seeking a willow island which abutted on the channel, we made a tent
+of the sail and stood the brief storm quite comfortably. We then
+pushed on, and, rubber-coated, weathered the few clearing showers in
+the boat, for we were anxious to reach Berlin by evening.
+
+At Berlin lock, twelve miles below White River, we portaged the dam,
+and, getting into a two-mile current, ate our supper on board. The
+river now begins to have firmer banks, and to approach the ridges upon
+the southern rim of its basin.
+
+We reached Berlin in the twilight, the landscape of hill and meadow
+being softened in the golden glow. The better portion of this
+beautiful little city of forty-five hundred inhabitants is situated on
+a ridge, closely skirted by the river, with the poorer quarters on the
+flats spreading away on either side. There are many charming homes and
+the main business street has an air of active prosperity.
+
+We went into dock alongside of the "Ellen Hardy."
+
+
+
+
+THIRD LETTER
+
+THE MASCOUTINS.
+
+
+     OSHKOSH, WIS., June 9, 1887.
+
+My Dear W----: As we passed out of Berlin this morning, a government
+dredger was at work by the river-side. We paused on our paddles for
+some time, to watch the workings of the ingenious mechanism. There was
+something demoniac in the action of the monster, as it craned its
+jointed neck amid a quick chorus of jerky puffs from the engine and an
+accompaniment of rattling chains. Reaching far out over the bubbling
+water, it would open its great iron jaws with a savage clank and,
+pausing a moment to gather its energies, dive swiftly into the roily
+depth; after swaying to and fro as if struggling with its prey, it
+soon reappeared, bearing in its filthy maw a ton or two of blue-black
+ooze, the water escaping through its teeth in a score of hissing
+torrents; then, turning aside to the heap of dredge-trash, suddenly
+vomited forth the foul-smelling mess, and returned for another charge.
+It was a singularly fascinating sight, though wofully uncanny.
+
+From Berlin down to Omro, pleasant prairie slopes come down at
+intervals to the water's edge, on the south bank; the feature of the
+north side being wide expanses of bog, the home of the cranberry, for
+which this region is famous. The best marshes, however, are the
+pockets, back among the ridges; from these, great drainage-ditches,
+with flooding gates, come furrowing through the peat, in dark lines as
+straight as an arrow, and empty into the river. It was somewhere about
+here, nearer Berlin than Omro,--but exactly where, no man now
+knoweth,--that the ancient Indian "nation" of the Mascoutins was
+located over two centuries ago; their neighbors, if not their village
+comrades, being the Miamis and the Kickapoos. Champlain, the intrepid
+founder of Quebec, had heard of their warring disposition as early as
+1615. In 1634 Jean Nicolet, the first white man known to have set foot
+upon territory now included in the State of Wisconsin, came in a bark
+canoe as far up the Fox River as the Mascoutins, and after stopping a
+time with them, journeyed southward to the country of the
+Illinois.[4] Allouez and his companions also came hither in 1670, and
+the good father, in the official report of his adventurous canoeing
+trip, says the fort of these people was located a French league (2.4
+English miles) "over beautiful prairies" to the south of the river.
+Joliet and Marquette, on their way to discover the Mississippi River,
+arrived at the fort of the Mascoutins on June 7, 1673, and the latter
+gives this graceful sketch of the oak openings hereabouts, which have
+not meanwhile perceptibly changed their characteristics: "I felt no
+little pleasure in beholding the position of this town; the view is
+beautiful and very picturesque, for from the eminence on which it is
+perched, the eye discovers on every side prairies spreading away
+beyond its reach, interspersed with thickets or groves of lofty
+trees."
+
+The Mascoutins are now a lost tribe. As the result of warring habits,
+they in turn were crowded to the wall, and a generation after
+Marquette's visit the banks of their river knew them no more; the
+Foxes, from whom the stream ultimately took its name, were then
+predominant, and long continued the masters of the highway.
+
+Sacramento--"as dead as a door-nail, sir"--lies sprawled out over a
+pleasant riverside slope to the south. There is the customary air of
+fallen grandeur at Sacramento,--big hopes gone to decay;
+battlement-fronts, houseless cellars, a universal lack of paint. The
+railroads, the real highways of our present civilization, have killed
+these little river towns that are away from the track, and they will
+never be resurrected. The day of inland water navigation, except for
+canoeists, is nearing its close. Settlement clings to the neighborhood
+of the rails, and generally avoids rivers as an obstruction to free
+transit. The towns that have to be reached by a country ferry are
+rotting,--they are off the line of progress. Sacramento boasts a
+spouting well by the river-bank, a mammoth village ash-leach, and fond
+memories of the day when it was "a bigger town than Berlin." As we
+stood in the spray of the fountain, filling our canteen with the
+purest and coldest of water, I speculated upon the strong probability
+of Sacramento being on the identical bank where the Jesuits beached
+their canoes to walk across country to the old Indian village. And the
+Doctor, apt to be irreverent as to aboriginal lore, suggested that the
+defunct Sacramento should have written over its gate this motto:
+"Gone to join the Mascoutins!"
+
+Eureka, a few miles farther down, is also paintless, and her
+river-front is artistic with the crumbling ruins of two or three
+long-deserted saw-mills. A new Eureka appears, however, to be slowly
+building up, to one side of the dead little hamlet,--for there are
+smart steam flouring-mill and a model little cheese-factory in full
+swing here. The cheese man, an accommodating young fellow who appeared
+quite up to the times, and is a direct shipper to the London market,
+took a just pride in showing us over his establishment, and stocked
+our mess-box with samples of his best brands.
+
+Omro spreads over a sandy plain, upon both sides of the river,--an
+excellent wagon-bridge crossing the stream near that of the Chicago,
+Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway. Omro, which is the headquarters of
+the Wisconsin Spiritualists, who have quite a settlement hereabouts,
+is growing somewhat, after a long period of stagnation, having at
+present a population of fifteen hundred.
+
+The "Ellen Hardy," which had now caught up with us, after chasing the
+canoe from Berlin down, went through the draw in our company. As the
+crew rolled off a small consignment of freight, the captain--a
+raw-boned, red-faced, and thoroughly good-humored man--leaned out of
+the pilot-house window and pleasantly chaffed us about our lowly
+conveyance. The conversation ended by his offering to give us a "lift"
+through the great Winneconne widespread, to the point where the Wolf
+joins the Fox, nine or ten miles below. The "Ellen" was bound for
+Winneconne and other points up the Wolf, so could help us no farther.
+Of course we accepted the kindly offer, and fastening our painter to a
+belaying-pin on the "Ellen's" port, scrambled up to the freight-deck
+just as the pilot-bell rang "Forward!" in the smoky little engine-room
+far aft.
+
+While I went aloft to enjoy the bird's-eye view obtainable from the
+pilot-house, the Doctor discussed fishing with the engineer, whom he
+found on closer acquaintance to be a rare, though much-begrimed
+philosopher. This engineer is a wizened-up little man, with a face
+like a prematurely dried apple, but his eyes gleam with a kindly
+light, and he is an inveterate angler. We had noticed him at every
+stopping stage,--his head, shoulders, and arms reaching out of the
+abbreviated rear window of his caboose,--dangling a line astern. The
+Doctor learned that this was his invariable habit. He kept the cook's
+galley in fish, and utilized each leisure half-hour in the pursuit of
+his favorite amusement. The engineer, good man, had fished, he said,
+in nearly every known sea, and the Doctor declared that he "could many
+a wondrous fish-tale unfold." In fact, the Doctor declared him to be
+the most interesting character he had ever met with, outside of a
+hospital, and said he should surely report to his favorite medical
+journal this remarkable case of abnormal persistency in an art, amid
+the most discouraging physical surroundings. He thought the man's
+brain should be dissected, in the cause of science.
+
+The Wolf, which has its rise 150 miles nor'-nor'west of Green Bay, in
+a Forest-county lakelet, and takes generous, south-trending curves
+away down to Lake Poygan, is properly the noble stream which pours
+into Lake Winnebago from the northwest, and then, with a mighty rush,
+forces its way northeastward to the Great Lakes, along the base of the
+watershed which parallels the western coast of Lake Michigan and
+terminates in the sands of the Sturgeon-Bay country. The Jesuit
+fathers, in seeking the Mississippi, traced this river above Lake
+Winnebago, and on reaching the great widespread at the head of the
+Grand Butte des Morts, where the tributary flowing from the southwest
+empties its lazy flood into the rushing Fox, pursued that tributary to
+the portage and erroneously called their highway by one name, from
+Green Bay to the carry. Thus the long-unexplored main river, above the
+junction, came to be treated on the maps as a tributary, and to be
+dubbed the Wolf. This geographical mistake has been so long persisted
+in that correction becomes impracticable, and we must continue to
+style the branch the trunk.
+
+This has been a delightful day; the heavens were clear and blue, and a
+gentle northeaster fanned our faces in the pilot-house, from which
+vantage-point, nearly thirty feet above the river-level, there was
+obtainable a bird's-eye view well worthy of canvas. The wild-rice bog,
+through which the Fox, here not over thirty yards wide, twists like
+the snapper of a whip, is from ten to fifteen miles wide,--a sea of
+living green, across which the breeze sends a regular succession of
+waves, losing themselves upon the far-distant shores. Upon the
+northwestern horizon, the Wolf comes stealing down at the base of a
+range of wooded hills. To the west, a flashing line tells where Lake
+Poygan "holds her mirror to the sun." The tall smoke-stacks of the
+Winneconne saw-mills occupy the middle ground westward. To the east,
+in the centre of the picture, one catches glimpses of the consolidated
+stream, as its goodly flood quickly glides southeasterly, on a short
+spurt toward the Grand Butte des Morts, at the head of which is the
+old fur-trading village of the same name. Far southeastward, below the
+lake, there is just discernible the great brick chimney of a mammoth
+planing-mill,--an Algoma landmark,--and just behind that the black
+cloud resting above the Oshkosh factories. It is a broad, bounteous
+sweep of level landscape,--monotonous, of course, but imposing from
+mere immensity.
+
+At the union of the rivers we bade farewell to our friend the captain;
+and the Doctor secured a promise from the engineer to send in his
+photograph to the hospital with which the former is connected. The
+"Ellen Hardy" stopped her engine as we cast off. In another minute,
+the great stern-wheel began to splash again, and we were bobbing up
+and down on the bubbly swell, waving farewell to our fellow-travelers
+and turning our prow to the southeast, while the roving "Ellen" shaped
+her course to Winneconne, where a lot of laths, destined for
+Princeton, awaited her arrival.
+
+The low ridge which forms the eastern bank of the Wolf, down to the
+junction, soon slopes off to the northeast, in the direction of
+Appleton, leaving a broad, level plain, of great fertility, between it
+and Lakes Grand Butte des Morts and Winnebago. On this plain are built
+the cities of Oshkosh, Neenah, and Menasha. Across it, the
+northeaster, freshening to a lively breeze, had full sweep, and
+stirred up the Grand Butte des Morts into a wild display of opposition
+to our progress. Serried ranks of white-caps came sweeping across the
+lake, beating on our port bow, and the little sail, almost bursting
+with fulness, careened the canoe to the gunwale, as it swept gayly
+along through the foam. The paddles were necessary to keep her well
+abreast of the tide, and there was exercise enough in the operation to
+prevent drowsiness. The spray flew like a drizzling summer shower, but
+our baggage and stores were well covered down, and the weather was too
+warm for a body dampener to be uncomfortable.
+
+We passed the dark, gloomy, tumbled-down, but picturesque village of
+Butte des Morts, just before entering the lake. Of the twenty-five or
+so houses in the place, all but two or three are guiltless of paint.
+There is a quaintness about the simple architecture, which gives
+Butte des Morts a distinctive appearance. To the initiated, it
+betokens the remains of an old fur-trading post; and this was the
+genesis of Butte des Morts. It was in 1818 that Augustin Grignon and
+James Porlier, men intimately connected with the history of the
+French-Indian fur-trade in Wisconsin, set up their shanty dwellings
+and warehouses on a little lakeside knoll a mile below the present
+village, which was founded by their _voyageurs_ on the site of an old
+Menomonee town and cemetery. Some of these post-buildings, together
+with the remains of the watch-tower, from which the traders obtained
+long advance notice of the approach of travelers, red or white, are
+still standing. As we sped by, I pointed out to the Doctor the
+location of these venerable relics, which I had, with proper
+enthusiasm, carefully inspected fully a dozen summers before, and he
+suggested that the knowledge of the approach of a possible customer,
+by means of the tower, gave the traders an excellent opportunity to
+mark up the goods.
+
+James Porlier's son and successor, Louis B. Porlier, now an aged man,
+is the present occupant of the establishment, which is one of the
+oldest landmarks in Wisconsin; and there, also, died the famous
+Augustin Grignon, historian of his clan. Butte des Morts, in the
+early day of the northwest, was something more than a trading-post.
+Situated near the union of the upper Fox and the Wolf, it was the
+rallying-point for both valleys,--long before Appleton, Neenah,
+Menasha or Oshkosh were known, or any of the towns on the upper Fox.
+It was the only white man's stopping-place between the portage and
+Kaukauna. The mail trail between Green Bay and the portage crossed
+here,--for strange to say, the great south-stretching widespread,
+which lies like a map before the village, was in those days firm
+enough for a horse to traverse with safety; while to-day a boat can be
+pushed anywhere between the rushes and rice, and it is _par
+excellence_ the great breeding-ground of this section for muskrats and
+water-fowl. A scow-ferry was maintained in pioneer times for the
+benefit of the mail-carrier and other travelers. Butte des Morts is
+mentioned in most of the journals left us by travelers over the
+Fox-Wisconsin watercourse, previous to 1835, and here several
+important Indian treaties were consummated by government
+commissioners.
+
+It is somewhat over fifteen miles from the mouth of the Wolf to
+Oshkosh. The run down the lake seemed unusually protracted, for the
+city was clearly in sight the entire way, and the distance, over the
+flat expanse, was deceptive. Algoma, now a portion of Oshkosh, was
+something of a settlement long before the lower town began to grow.
+But the latter finally overtook and swallowed the original hamlet.
+Algoma is now chiefly devoted to the homes of the employees in the
+great planing and saw-milling establishments of Philetus Sawyer,
+Wisconsin's senior United States senator, and the wealthy Paine
+Brothers. The residences of these lumber kings are on a slope to the
+north of the iron wagon-bridge, under which we swept as the booming
+whistles of the busy locality, in unison with a noisy chorus of
+steam-gongs farther down the river, sounded the hour of six. Through
+the gantlet of the mills, with their outlying rafts, their lines of
+piling, and their great yards of newly sawn lumber, we sped quickly
+on. A half-hour later, we were turning up into a peaceful little dock
+alongside the south approach to the St. Paul railway-bridge, the
+canoe's quarters for the night. The sun was just plunging below the
+clear-cut prairie horizon, as we walked across the fields to the home
+of our expectant friends.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[4] Butterfield's "Discovery of the Northwest" (Cincinnati, 1861).
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH LETTER.
+
+THE LAND OF THE WINNEBAGOES.
+
+
+     APPLETON, WIS., June 10, 1887.
+
+My dear W----: We had a late start to-day from Oshkosh. It was
+half-past nine o'clock by the time we had reloaded our traps, pushed
+off from the railway embankment, and received the God-speed of M----,
+who had come down to see us off. The busy town, with its twenty-two
+thousand thrifty people, was all astir. The factories and the mills
+were resonant with the clang and rattle of industry, and across the
+two wagon-bridges of the city proper there were continual streams of
+traffic.
+
+I suppose that Oshkosh is, in its way, as widely known throughout this
+country as almost any city in it. The name is strikingly outlandish,
+being equaled only by Kalamazoo, and furnishes the butt of many a
+newspaper joke and comic rhyme. Old chief Oshkosh, whose cognomen
+signifies "brave" in Menomonee speech, was the head man of his dusky
+tribe, a half-century ago. He was a doughty, wrinkled hero, o'er fond
+of fire-water, and wore a battered silk hat for a crown. About 1840,
+when the settlement here was four years old, the Government offered to
+establish a post-office if the inhabitants would unite on a name for
+the place. The whites favored Athens, but the Indians, half-breeds,
+and traders round about Butte des Morts, wanted their friend Oshkosh
+immortalized, so they came down to the new settlement in force, and
+the election being a free-for-all, carried the day. It is said that
+the Grignons were so anxious in behalf of the Menomonee sachem that
+they had a number of squaws array themselves in trousers and cast
+ballots like the bucks. And it was fortunate, as events proved, that
+the election turned out as it did, for the oddity of the name has been
+a permanent advertisement for a very bright community. Oshkosh, as
+hackneyed "Athens," would have been lost to fame. Nobody would think
+of going to "Athens" to "have fun with the boys."
+
+The morning air was as clear as a bell,--a pleasant northeast zephyr,
+coming in off the body of the lake, slightly ruffling the surface and
+reducing the temperature to a delightful tone. The wind not being
+fair, the sail was useless, so we paddled along through the broad
+river, into the lake and northward past a fishermen's colony, rows of
+great ice-houses, the water-works park, and beautiful lake-shore
+residences, to Garlic Island. It was half-past twelve, P.M., when we
+tied up at the crazy pier which projects from this islet of the
+loud-smelling vegetable. A half-century ago Garlic Island was the home
+of Iowatuk, the beautiful aboriginal relict of a French
+fur-trader,--an Indian princess, the old settlers called her; at all
+events, she is reputed to have been a most exemplary person,
+well-possessed of this world's goods, as well as a large family of
+half-breed children. The island is charmingly situated, a half-mile or
+more out from the main land, opposite the Northern Insane Hospital; it
+is a forest of ancient elms, surrounded by a bowlder-strewn beach of
+some three quarters of a mile in length, and occupied by a
+summer-hotel establishment. The name "Garlic Island" does not sound
+very well for a fashionable resort, so the insular territory has been
+dubbed "Island Park" of late; but "Garlic" has good staying qualities,
+and I doubt if they can ever efface the objectionable pioneer title.
+
+We had our dinner on the sward near the pier, convenient to a pump,
+and were entertained by watching the approach of a little
+steam-launch, loaded with a party of "resorters" who had doubtless
+been shopping in Oshkosh, the smoke from whose chimneys rose above the
+tree-tops, five miles to the southwest. There were some of the usual
+types,--the languid Southern woman, with her two pouting boys in
+charge of a rather savage-looking colored nurse, who dragged the
+little fellows out over the gang-plank, one in each hand, as though
+they had been bags of flour; a fashionable dame, from some northern
+metropolis, all ribbons and furbelows, starch and whalebones,
+accompanied by her willowy daughter of twenty, almost her counterpart
+as to dress, with a pert young miss of fourteen, in abbreviated gown
+and overgrown hat, bringing up the rear with the family pug; a
+dawdling young Anglo-maniac sucked the handle of his cane and looked
+sweetly on the society girl, whose papa, apparently a tired-out
+broker, in a well made business costume and a wretched straw hat,
+stayed behind to treat the skipper to a prime cigar and arrange for a
+fishing excursion.
+
+There is a fine view from the island. The hills and cliffs of Calumet
+County, a dozen miles to the east, are dimly visible. Toward Fond du
+Lac, on the south, the horizon is the lake. South-southwestward, Black
+Wolf Point runs out, just over the verge, and the tops of the tall
+trees upon it peep up into view, like shadowy pile-work. Westward are
+the well-kept hospital grounds, fringed with stately elms overhanging
+the firm, gravelly beach, studded with ice-heaved bowlders, which
+extends northward to Neenah. The view to the north and northeast is
+delightfully hazy, being now dark with delicate fringes of forest
+which cap the occasional limestone promontories, and again losing
+itself in a watery sky-line.
+
+We had two pleasant hours at this island-home of the lovely Iowatuk,
+walking around it on the bowldered beach, and reveling in the shade of
+the grand old elms. By the time we were ready to resume our voyage,
+the wind had died down, the lake was as smooth as a marble slab, and
+the sun's rays reflected from it converted the atmosphere to the
+temperature of a bake-oven. No sooner had we pushed out beyond the
+deep shadows of the trees than it seemed as though we had at one
+paddle-stroke shot into the waters of a tropic sea. The awning was at
+once raised, and served to somewhat mitigate our sufferings, but the
+dazzling reflection was there still, to the great discomfort of our
+eyes.
+
+After two miles of distress, a bank of light but sharply broken clouds
+appeared on the northeastern horizon, and soon a gentle breeze brought
+blessed relief. In a few minutes more, ripples danced upon our
+starboard quarter, and then the awning had to come down, for it filled
+like a fixed sail and counteracted the effect of the paddles. The
+Doctor, who, you know full well, never paddles when he can sail,
+insisted on running up into the wind and spreading the canvas. He was
+just in time, for a squall struck us as he was adjusting the boom
+sprit, and nearly sent him overboard while attempting to regain his
+seat. Little black squalls now rapidly succeeded each other, the wind
+freshening between the gusts; and the Doctor, who was the
+sailing-master, had to exercise rare vigilance, for the breeze was
+rapidly developing into a young gale, and the ripples had now grown to
+be by far the largest waves our little craft had yet encountered. The
+situation began to be somewhat serious, as the clouds thickened and
+the white-caps broke upon the west beach with a sullen roar. We
+therefore deemed it advisable to run into a little harbor to the lee
+of a wooded spit, and hold council.
+
+It was a wild, storm-tossed headland, two thirds of the distance down
+from the island, and the spit was but one of its many points. We
+landed and made an extended exploration, deeming it possible that we
+might be obliged to pass the night here; but the result of our
+discoveries was to discourage any such project. For a half-mile back
+or more the forest proved to be a tangled swamp, filled with fallen
+timber and sink-holes, while quicksands lined the harbor where the
+canoe peacefully rested behind an outlying fringe of gnarled elms. We
+wandered up and down the gravelly beach, in the spray of the breakers,
+scrambling over great bowlders and overhanging trunks whose
+foundations had been sapped by storm-driven floods; but everywhere was
+the same hard, forbidding scene of desolation, with the angry surface
+of the lake and the canopy of wind-clouds filling out a picture which,
+the Doctor suggested, could have only been satisfactorily executed in
+water-colors.
+
+In the course of our wanderings, which were sadly destructive to
+clothes and shoe-leather, we had some comical adventures. The Doctor
+hasn't got over laughing about one of them yet. We came to an
+apparently shallow lagoon, perhaps three rods wide and a dozen long,
+beyond which we desired to penetrate. It was bedded with sand and
+covered with green slime. The Doctor had, just before, divested
+himself of shoes and stockings and rolled his trousers above his
+knees, in an enthusiastic hunt for a particularly ponderous frog,
+which he desired to pickle in the cause of science. He playfully
+offered to carry me across the pool on his back, and thus save me the
+trouble of imitating his style of undress. With some misgivings as to
+the result, I finally mounted. We progressed favorably as far as the
+centre, when suddenly I felt my transport sinking; he gave a desperate
+lunge as the water suddenly reached his waist, I sprang forward over
+his head, and losing my balance, sprawled out flat upon the slimy
+water. I hardly know how we reached firm ground again, but when we
+did, we were a sorry-looking pair, as you can well imagine. The Doctor
+thought it high sport, as he wrung out his clothes and spread them
+upon a bowlder to dry, and I tried hard to join in his boisterous
+hilarity; but somehow, as I scraped the gluey slime from my only
+canoeing suit, with a bit of old drift shingle, and contemplated the
+soppy condition of my wardrobe, I know there must have been a tinge of
+sadness in my gaze. It was too much like being shipwrecked on a desert
+island.
+
+As we sat, clad in rubber coats, sunning ourselves on the lee side of
+a fallen tree and waiting for our garments to again become wearable,
+the Doctor read to me an article from his medical journal, describing
+a novel surgical operation on somebody's splintered backbone,
+copiously illustrating the selection with vivid reports of his own
+hospital observations in that direction. This sort of thing was well
+calculated to send the shivers down one's spinal column, but the
+Doctor certainly made the theme quite interesting and the half-hour
+necessary to the drying process soon passed.
+
+By this time it was plain to be seen that the velocity of the wind was
+not going to increase before sundown, although it had not slacked. We
+determined to try the sea again, and pushed out through the breakers,
+with sail close-hauled and baggage canvased. Taking a bold offing into
+the teeth of the gale, we ran out well into the lower lake, and then,
+on a port tack, had a fine run down to Doty's Island, which divides
+the lower Fox into two channels. The city of Neenah, noted for its
+flouring and paper mills, is built upon both sides of the southern
+channel, or Neenah River; Menasha, with several factories, but
+apparently less prosperous than the other, guards the north
+channel,--the twin cities dividing the island between them. The
+government lock is at Menasha, while at Neenah there is a fine
+water-power, with a fall of twelve or fifteen feet,--the "Winnebago
+Rapids" of olden time.
+
+It was into Neenah channel that we came flying so gayly, before the
+wind. There is a fine park on the mainland shore, with a smartly
+painted summer hotel and half a dozen pretty cottages that would do
+credit to a seaside resort. To the right the island is studded with
+picturesque old elms, shading a closely cropped turf, upon which
+cattle peacefully graze, while here and there among the trees are
+old-fashioned white cottages, with green blinds, quite after the style
+of a sleepy New-England village,--a charming scene of semi-rustic
+life; while to seaward Lake Winnebago tosses and rolls, almost to the
+horizon.
+
+Doty's is an historic landmark. The rapids here necessitated a
+portage, and from the earliest times there have been Indian villages
+on the island, more or less permanent in character,--Menomonee, Fox,
+and Winnebago in turn. As white traffic over the Fox-Wisconsin
+watercourse grew, so grew the importance of this village, whatever the
+tribe of its inhabitants; for the bucks found employment in helping
+the empty boats over the rapids and in "toting" the goods over the
+portage-trail. The Foxes overreached themselves by setting up as
+toll-gatherers. It is related--but historians are somewhat misty as to
+the details--that in the winter of 1706-7 a French captain, Marin by
+name, was sent out by the governor of New France to chastise the
+blackmailers. At the head of a large party of French creoles and
+half-breeds, he ascended the lower Fox on snowshoes, surprising the
+aborigines in their principal village, here at Winnebago Rapids, and
+slaughtering them by the hundreds. Afterward, this same Marin
+conducted a summer expedition against the Foxes. His boats were filled
+with armed men and covered down with oilcloth, as traders were wont to
+treat their goods _en voyage_, to escape a wetting. Only two men were
+visible in each boat, paddling and steering. Nearly fifteen hundred
+dusky tax-gatherers were discovered squatting on the beach at the foot
+of the rapids, awaiting the arrival of the flotilla. The canoes were
+ranged along the shore. Upon a signal being given, the coverings were
+thrown off and volley after volley of hot lead poured into the mob of
+unsuspecting savages, a swivel-gun in Marin's boat aiding in the
+slaughter. Tradition has it that over a thousand Foxes fell in that
+brutal assault. In 1716 another captain of New France, named De
+Louvigny, is reported to have stormed the audacious Foxes. They had
+not, it seems, been exterminated by previous massacres, for five
+hundred warriors and three thousand squaws are alleged to have been
+collected within a palisaded fort, somewhere in the neighborhood of
+these rapids. De Louvigny is credited with having captured the fort
+after a three days' siege, but granted the enemy the honors of war.
+Twelve years later the Foxes had again become so troublesome as to
+need chastisement. This time the agent chosen to command the
+expedition was De Lignery, among whose lieutenants was the noted
+Charles de Langlade, Wisconsin's first white settler. But the redskins
+had become wise, after their fashion, and fled before the Frenchmen,
+who found the villages on the Fox, lower and upper, deserted. The
+invaders burned every wigwam and cornfield in sight, from Green Bay to
+the portage. This expedition appears to have been followed by others,
+until the Foxes, with the allied Sacs, fled the valley, never to
+return. Much of this is traditionary.
+
+The widening of the Fox below Doty's Island was called Lac Petit
+Butte des Morts,--"Lake Little Hill of the Dead," to distinguish it
+from the "Great Hill of the Dead," above Oshkosh.
+
+It has long been claimed that the thousands of Foxes who at various
+times fell victims to these massacres in behalf of the French
+fur-trade were buried in great pits at Petit Butte des Morts,--near
+Winnebago Rapids. But modern investigators lean to the opinion that
+the "little hill of the dead" was merely an ordinary Indian cemetery,
+and the mound or mounds there are prehistoric tumuli, common enough in
+the neighborhood of Wisconsin lakes. A like conclusion, also, has been
+arrived at in regard to the Grand Butte des Morts. However, this is
+something that the archæological committee must settle among
+themselves.
+
+The Winnebagoes succeeded the Foxes, and Doty's Island became the seat
+of their power. The master spirit among them for a quarter of a
+century previous to the fall of New France was a French fur-trader
+named De Korra or De Cora, who had a Winnebago "princess" for a squaw.
+They had a numerous progeny, which De Korra left to his wife's charge
+when called to serve under Montcalm in the defence of Quebec. He was
+killed in a sortie, and Madame De Korra and her brood relapsed into
+barbarism. One half of the Winnebagoes now living are descendants,
+more or less direct, of this sturdy old fur-trader, and bear his name,
+which is also perpetuated, with varied orthography, in many a
+northwestern stream and hamlet. During the first third of the present
+century Hoo-Tschope, or Four Legs, was the dusky magnate at this
+Winnebago capital.[5] Four Legs was a cunning rascal, well known to
+the earliest pioneers, but he at last fell a victim to his greatest
+enemy, the bottle. Last month I was visiting among the Winnebagoes
+around Black River Falls. Desiring to have a "talk" with Walking
+Cloud, a wizened-faced redskin of some seventy-two years, I went out
+with my interpreters over the hills and through the valley of the
+Black, nearly a dozen miles, before I found him and his squatting in
+their wigwams at the base of a bold bluff, fronted by a lovely bit of
+vale. Cloud's decrepit squaw, blind in one eye and wofully garrulous,
+hobbled up to us, and sinking to her knees in front of me, held out a
+dirty, bony hand, with nails like the claws of a bird, murmuring,
+"Give! Give!" I dropped a coin into the outstretched palm; she
+grinned and chattered like an animated skeleton, and crawled away on
+her witch-like crutch. This was the once far-famed and beautiful
+princess of the Winnebagoes, the winsome Champche Keriwinke, or Flash
+of Lightning, eldest daughter of Hoo-Tschope. How are the mighty
+fallen!
+
+We portaged around the island end of the Neenah dam and met the
+customary shallows below the obstruction. But soon finding a narrow,
+rock-imbedded channel, we glided swiftly down the stream, through the
+thrifty town, past the mills and under the bridges, just as the six
+o'clock bells had sounded and the factory hands were thronging
+homeward, their tin dinner-pails glistening in the sun. Scores of them
+stopped to lean over the bridge-rails, and curiously watched us as we
+threaded the shallows; for canoes long ago ceased to be a daily
+spectacle at Winnebago Rapids.
+
+Little Lake Butte des Morts, just below, is where the river spreads to
+a full mile in breadth, the average width of the stream being less
+than one half that. The wind was fair, and we came swooping down into
+the lake, which is two or three miles long. A half-hour before sunset
+we hauled up at a high mossy glade on the north shore, and had
+delightful down-stream glimpses of deep vine-clad, naturally terraced
+banks, the slopes and summits being generally well wooded. A party of
+young men and women were having a camp near us. The woods echoed with
+their laughing shouts. A number, with their chaperone, a lovely and
+lively old lady, in a white cap with satin ribbons, came down to the
+shore to inspect our little vessel and question us as to our unusual
+voyage. We returned the call and played lawn tennis with fair
+partners, until the fact that we must reach Appleton to-night suddenly
+dawned upon us, and we bade a hasty farewell to our joyous wayside
+friends.
+
+It was a charming run down to Appleton, between the park-like banks,
+which rise to an altitude of fifty feet or more. Every now and then a
+pretty summer residence stands prominently out upon a bluff-head, an
+architectural gem in a setting of oaks and luxurious pines. At their
+bases flows the deep flood of the Lower Fox, black as Erebus in the
+shadows, but smiling brightly in the patchy sunlight, and thickly
+decked with great bubbles which fairly leap along the course, eager to
+reach their far-off ocean goal. But swifter by far than the bubbles
+went our canoe as we set the paddles deeply and bent to our work, for
+the waters were strange to us, the night was setting in, and Appleton
+must be made. It will not do to traverse these rivers after dark
+unless well acquainted with the currents, the snags, and the dams, for
+disaster may readily overtake the unwary.
+
+Cautiously we now crept along, for in the fast-fading twilight we
+could just discern the outlines of the Appleton paper-mills and a
+labyrinth of railway bridges, while the air fairly trembled with the
+mingled roar of water and of mighty gearing. Across the rapid stream
+shot piercing rays from the windows of the electric works, whose
+dynamos furnish light for the town and power for the street railway. A
+fisherman, tugging against the current, shouted to us to keep hard on
+the eastern bank, and in a few minutes more we glided by the stone
+pier which buttresses the upper dam, and pulled up in a little
+dead-water cove at the base of the Milwaukee and Northern railway
+bridge. The bridge-tender's children came down to meet us; the man
+himself soon followed; we were permitted to chain up for the night at
+his pier, and to deposit our bulky baggage in his kitchen; he
+accompanied us over the long bridge which spans the noisy apron and
+the rushing race. A misstep between the ties would send one on a
+short cut to the hereafter, but we safely crossed, ascended two or
+three steep flights of stairs to the top of the bank, and in a minute
+or two more were speeding up town to our hotel, aboard an electric
+street railway car.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[5] See Mrs. Kinzie's "Wau-Bun" for reminiscences of Four Legs.
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH LETTER.
+
+LOCKED THROUGH.
+
+
+     LITTLE KAUKAUNA, WIS., June 11, 1887.
+
+My Dear W----: We took an extended stroll around Appleton after
+breakfast. It is a beautiful city,--the gem of the Lower Fox. The
+banks are nearly one hundred feet high above the river level. They are
+deeply cut with ravines. Hillside torrents, quickly formed by heavy
+rains, as quickly empty into the stream, draining the plateau of its
+superfluous surface water, and in the operation carving these great
+gulches through the soft clay. And so there are many steep inclines in
+the Appleton highways, and the ravines are frequently bridged by dizzy
+trestle-works; but the greater part of the city is on a high, level
+plain, the wealthy dwellers courting the summits of the river banks,
+where the valley view is panoramic. The little Methodist college, with
+its high-sounding title of Lawrence University, is an excellent
+institution, and said to be growing; it gives a certain scholastic
+tinge to Appleton society, which might otherwise be given up to the
+worship of Mammon, for there is much wealth among the manufacturers
+who rule the city, and prosperity attends their reign.
+
+There is a good natural water-power here, but the Fox-Wisconsin
+improvement has made it one of the finest in the world. If the
+improvement scheme is a flat failure elsewhere, as is beginning to be
+generally believed, it certainly has been the making of this valley of
+the Lower Fox. From Lake Winnebago down to the mouth, the rapids are
+frequent, the chief being at Neenah, Appleton, Kaukauna, Little
+Kaukauna, and Depere. Of the twenty-six locks from Portage down,
+seventeen are below our stopping-point of last night; the fall at
+each, at this stage of water being about twelve feet on the average.
+Each of these locks involves a dam; and when the stream is thus
+stemmed and all repairs maintained, at the expense of the general
+government, it is a simple matter to tap the reservoir, carry a race
+along the bank, and have water-power _ad libitum_. Not half the
+water-power in sight, not a tenth of that possible is used. There is
+enough here, experts declare, to turn the machinery of the world. No
+wonder the beautiful valley of the Lower Fox is rich, and growing
+richer.
+
+It was no holiday excursion to portage around the Appleton locks this
+morning. At none of them could we find the tenders, for the Menasha
+lock being broken, there is no through navigation from Oshkosh to
+Green Bay this week, and way traffic is slight. We had neglected to
+furnish ourselves with a tin horn, and the vigorous use of lung power
+failed to achieve the desired result. The banks being steep and
+covered with rock chips left by the stone-cutters employed on the
+work, we had some awkward carries, and felt, as we finally passed the
+cordon and set out on the straight eastward stretch for Kaukauna, that
+we were earning our daily bread.
+
+Kaukauna, the Grand Kackalin of the Jesuits and early French traders,
+is ten miles below Appleton. Here are the most formidable rapids on
+the river, the fall being sixty feet, down an irregular series of
+jagged limestone stairs some half mile in extent. Indians, in their
+light bark canoes and practically without baggage, can, in high water,
+make the passage, up or down, by closely hugging the deeper and
+stiller water on the north bank; but the French traders invariably
+portaged their goods, allowing the voyageurs to carry over the empty
+boats, the men walking in the water by the side, pushing, hauling, and
+balancing, amid a stream of oaths from their bourgeois, or master, who
+remained at his post. I had had an idea that in our little craft we
+might safely make the venture of a shoot down the stairs, by
+exercising caution and following the Indian channel. But this was
+previous to arrival. Leaving the Doctor to guard the canoe from a
+crowd of Kaukauna urchins, who were disposed to be over-familiar with
+our property, I went down through a boggy field to view the situation.
+It is a grand sight, looking up from the bottom of the rapids. The
+water is low, and at every few rods masses of rock project above the
+seething flood, specimens of what line the channel. The torrent comes
+down with a mighty roar, lashing itself into a fury of spray and foam
+as it leaps around and over the obstructions, and takes great lunges
+from step to step. There are several curves in the basin of the
+cataract, which add to its artistic effect, while it is deeply fringed
+by stunted pines and scrub oaks, having but a slender footing in the
+shallow turf which covers the underlying stratum of limestone.
+Whatever may be the condition of the falls at Kaukauna in high water,
+it is certain that at this stage a canoe would be dashed to splinters
+quite early in the attempt to scale them.
+
+But a portage of half a mile was not to our taste in the torrid
+temperature we have been experiencing to-day, and we determined to
+maintain the rights of free navigators by obliging the tenders to put
+us through the five great locks, which are here necessary to lower
+vessels from the upper to the lower level. These tenders receive ample
+compensation, and many of them are notoriously lazy. It is but seldom
+that they are compelled to exercise their muscles on the gates; for
+navigation on the Fox is spasmodic and unimportant. As I have said in
+one of my previous letters, even a saw-log has the right of way; and
+government paid a goodly sum to the speculators from whom it purchased
+this improvement, that free tollage might be established here for all
+time. And so it was that, perhaps soured a little by our Appleton
+experience, we determined at last to test the matter and assert the
+privileges of American citizens on a national highway.
+
+On regaining my messmate, we took a general view of Kaukauna,--which
+spreads over the banks and a prairie bottom on both sides of the
+river, and is a growing, bustling, freshly built little factory
+town,--and then re-embarked to try our fortune at the lock-gates.
+Heretofore we had considerately portaged every one of these
+obstructions, except at Princeton, where we went through under the
+"Ellen Hardy's" wing.
+
+A stalwart Irishman, in his shirt-sleeves, and smoking a clay pipe
+with that air of dogged indifference peculiar to so many government
+officials, leaned over a capstan at the upper lock, and dreamily
+stared at the approaching canoe. The lock was full, the last boat
+having passed up a day or two before. The upper gates being open, we
+pushed in, and took up our station in the centre of the basin, to
+avoid the "suck" during the emptying process. The Doctor took out of
+the locker a copy of his medical journal and I a novel, and we settled
+down as though we had come to stay. The Irishman's face was at first a
+picture of dumb astonishment, and then he sullenly picked up his coat
+from the grass, and began to walk off in the direction of the town.
+
+"Hi, my friend!" shouted the Doctor, good-naturedly. "We are waiting
+to get locked through."
+
+The tender returned a step, his eyes opened wide, his brows knit, and
+in his wrath he stuttered, "Ph-h-a-t! Locked through in that theer
+s-s-k-i-ff? Ye're cr-razy, mon!"
+
+"Oh, not at all. We understand our rights, and wish you to lock us
+through. And, if you please, we're in something of a hurry." As I said
+this I consulted my watch, and after returning it to my pocket resumed
+a vacant gaze upon the outspread leaves of the novel.
+
+The tender--for we had guessed rightly; it was the tender--advanced to
+the edge of the basin, and looked with inexpressible scorn upon our
+Liliputian craft. "Now, look here, gints," he said, somewhat more
+conciliatory, "I've been here for twinty years, an' know the law; an'
+the law don't admit no skiffs, ye mind y'ur eye. An' the divil a bit
+of lockage will ye git here, an' mind that!" And then he walked away.
+
+We were very patient. The rim of the lock became lined with small boys
+and smaller girls, for this is Saturday, and a school holiday; and
+there was great wonderment at the men in the canoe, who "were having a
+bloody old row with Barney, the lock-tinder," as one boy vigorously
+expressed the situation to a bevy of new-comers. By and by Barney
+returned to see if we were still there. We were, and were so
+abstracted that we did not heed his presence.
+
+"Will, ye ain't gone yit, I see?" said Barney.
+
+The Doctor roused himself, and pulling out his watch, appeared to be
+greatly surprised. "I do declare," he ejaculated, "if we haven't been
+waiting here nearly half an hour! I say, my man, this sort of delay is
+inexcusable. It will read badly in a report to the Engineering Bureau.
+What is your number, sir?" And with a stern expression he produced his
+tablets, prepared to jot down the numeral.
+
+Barney was clearly weakening. His return to see if the "bluff" had
+worked was an evidence of that. The Doctor's severe official manner,
+and our quiet persistence appeared to convince Barney that he had made
+a grave mistake. So he hurried off to the lower capstans, growling
+something about being "oft'n fooled with fish'n' parties." When we
+were through we left Barney a cigar on the curbing, and gently
+admonished him never again to be so rude to canoeists, or some day he
+would get reported. As we pushed off he bade us an affectionate
+farewell, and said he had sent his "lad" ahead to see that we had no
+trouble at the four lower locks. We did not see the lad; but certain
+it is that the other tenders were prompt and courteous, and we felt
+that the cigars which we distributed along the Kaukauna Canal were not
+illy bestowed.
+
+Progress was slow to-day, owing to the delays in locking. Ordinarily,
+we make from thirty to forty miles,--on the Rock, you remember, we
+averaged forty. But it was nearly sunset when we passed under the old
+wagon bridge at Wrightstown, only seventeen miles below our
+starting-point of this morning. We paused for a minute or two, to talk
+with a peaceably disposed lad, who was the sole patron of the bridge
+and lay sprawled across the board foot-walk, with his head under the
+railing, fishing as contentedly as though he lay on a grassy bank,
+after the manner of the gentle Izaak. When old Mr. Wright was around,
+Wrightstown may have been quite a place. But it is now going the way
+of so many river towns. There is a small, rickety saw-mill in
+operation, to which farmers from the back country haul in pine logs,
+of which there are some hundreds neatly piled in an adjoining field.
+Another saw-mill shell is hard by, the home of owls and bats,--a
+deserted skeleton, whose spirit, in the shape of machinery, has
+departed to Ashland, a more modern paradise of the buzz-saw. The
+village, dressed in that tone of pearly gray with which kind Nature
+decks those habitations left paintless by neglectful man,--is
+prettily situated on the high banks which uniformly hedge in the Lower
+Fox. On the highest knoll of all is a modest little frame church whose
+spire--white, after a fashion--is a prominent landmark to river
+travelers. There are the remains of once well-kept gardens, upon the
+upper terraces; of somewhat elaborate fences, now swaying to and fro
+and weak in the knees; of sidewalks which have become pitfalls; of
+impenetrable thickets of lilacs, hedging lonely spots that once were
+homes. On the village street, only a few idlers were seen, gathered in
+knots of two or three in front of the barber shop and the saloons; the
+smith at his forge was working late, shoeing a country team; and two
+angular dames, in rusty sun-bonnets, were gossiping over a barn-yard
+gate. That was all we saw of Wrightstown, as we drifted northward in
+company with the reeling bubbles, down through the deepening shadow
+cast by the western bank.
+
+Here and there, where the land chances to slope gently to the water's
+edge, are small piles of logs, drawn on farm sleds during the winter
+season from depleted pineries, all the way from three to ten miles
+back. When wanted at the saw-mills down the river, or just above, at
+Wrightstown, they are loosely made up into small rafts and poled to
+market. Along the stream there are but few pines left, and they
+generally crown some rocky ledge, not easily accessible. A few small
+clumps are preserved, however, relics of the forest's former state, to
+adorn private grounds or enhance the gloomy tone of little hillside
+cemeteries. There must have been an impressive grandeur about the
+scenery of the Lower Fox in the early day, before the woodman's axe
+leveled the great pines which then swept down in solid rank to the
+river beach, closely hedging in the dark and rapid flood.
+
+We lunched upon a stone terrace, above which swayed in the evening
+breeze the dense, solemn branches of a giant native, one of the last
+of his fated race. The channel curved below, and the range of vision
+was short, between the stately banks, heavily fringed as they are with
+aspen and scrub-oak. As we sat in the gathering gloom and gayly
+chatted over the simple adventures which are making up this week of
+ideal vacation life, there came up from the depths below the steady
+swish and pant of a river steamboat,--rare object upon our lonesome
+journey. As the bulky craft came slowly around the bend, the pant
+became a subdued roar, awakening a dull echo from the wooded slopes. A
+small knot of passengers lolled around the pilot-house, on which we
+were just able to discern the name "Evalyn, of Oshkosh," in burnished
+gilt; on the freight deck there were bales and boxes of merchandise,
+and heaps of lumber; two stokers were feeding cord-wood to the furnace
+flames, which lit the scene with lurid glare, after the fashion of
+theatric fires; the roustabouts were fastening night lanterns to the
+rails. The V-shaped wake of her wheelbarrow stern broke upon the
+shores like a tidal wave, and the canoe, luckily well fastened to the
+roots of a stranded tree, bobbed up and down as would a chip tossed on
+the billows.
+
+Four miles below Wrightstown is Little Kaukauna. There are three or
+four cottages here, well up on the pleasant western bank, overlooking
+a deserted saw-mill property; while just beyond, a government lock
+does duty whenever needed, and the rest of the now broadened stream is
+stemmed by a magnificent dam, from the foot of which arises a dense
+cloud of vapor, such is the force of the torrent which pours with a
+mighty sweep over the great chute. As we stole down upon the hamlet,
+the moon, a day or two past full, was just rising over the opposite
+hillocks; a tall pine standing out boldly from its lesser fellows,
+was weirdly silhouetted across her beaming face, and in the cottage
+windows lights gleamed a homely welcome.
+
+We were cordially received at the house of the patriarch of the
+settlement. We made our craft secure for the night, "toted" our
+baggage up the bank, and paused upon the broad porch of our new-found
+friend to contemplate a most charming moonlit view of river and forest
+and glade and cataract; the cloud of mist rising high above the
+roaring declivity seemed as an incense offering to the goddess of the
+night.
+
+
+
+
+SIXTH LETTER.
+
+THE BAY SETTLEMENT.
+
+
+     GREEN BAY, WIS., June 13, 1887.
+
+My Dear W----: We had a quiet Sunday at Little Kaukauna. Being a
+delightful day, we went with our entertainers to the country church, a
+mile or two back across the fields, and whiled away the rest of the
+time in strolling through the woods and gossiping with the farmers
+about the crops and the government improvement,--fertile themes. It
+appears that this diminutive hamlet of four or five houses anticipates
+a "boom," and there is some feverish anxiety as to how much village
+lots ought to bring as a "starter" when the rush actually opens. A
+syndicate has purchased the long-abandoned water-power, and it is
+whispered that paper-mills are to be erected, with cottages for
+operatives, and all that sort of thing. Then, the church and the depot
+will have to be brought into town; the proprietor of the cross-roads
+grocery, now out on the "country road," will be erecting a brick
+"block" by the river side; somebody will be starting a daily paper,
+printed from stereotype plates imported from Oshkosh or Chicago; and a
+summer resort hotel with a magnetic spring, will doubtless cap the
+climax of village greatness. I shall look with interest on reports
+from the Little Kaukauna boom.
+
+It was nine o'clock this morning before we dipped paddle and bore down
+to the lock gates. The good-natured tender "dropped" us through with
+much alacrity. The river gradually widens, and here and there the high
+rolling banks recede for some distance, and marshes and bayous,
+excellent hunting-grounds, border the stream. A half mile below the
+lock we noticed a roughly built hut, open at front, such as would
+quarter a pig in the shanty outskirts of a great city. It looked
+lonesome, on the edge of a wide bog, with no other sign of habitation,
+either human or animal, in the watery landscape. Curiosity impelled us
+to stop. Crossing a plank, which rested one end on a snag and the
+other on a stone in front of the three-sided structure, we peered in.
+A bundle of rags lay in one corner of the floor of loosely laid
+boards; in another was a heap of clamshells, the contents of which
+had doubtless been cooked over a little fire which still smouldered in
+a neighboring clump of reeds. The odors were noisome, and a foot rise
+of water would have swamped out the dweller in this strange abode. We
+at once took it for granted that this was either the home of an Indian
+or a tramp. Just as we were leaving, however, a frowsy, dirty, but
+apparently good-tempered fisherman came rowing up and claimed the
+cabin as his home. He said that he spent the greater part of the year
+in this filthy hole, hunting or fishing according to the season; in
+the winter, he boarded up the front, leaving a hole to crawl out of,
+and banked the hut about with reeds and muck. Wrightstown was his
+market; and he "managed to scratch," he said, by being economical. I
+asked him how much it cost him in cash to exist in this state, which
+was but slightly removed from the condition of our ancestral
+cave-dwellers. He thought that with twenty-five dollars in cash, he
+could "manage to scratch finely" for an entire year, and have besides
+"a week off with the boys,"--in other words, one prolonged drinking
+bout,--at Wrightstown. He complained, however, that he seldom received
+money, being mainly put off with barter. The poor fellow, evidently
+something of a simpleton, is probably the victim of sharp practice
+occasionally. As we paddled away from this singular character, the
+Doctor said that he had a novel-writing friend, given to the
+sensational, to whom he would like to introduce The Wild Fisherman of
+Little Kaukauna; he thought there was material for a romance here,
+particularly if it could be proved, as was quite possible, that the
+hut man was the lost heir of a British dukedom.
+
+But the site of another and a stranger romance is but half a mile
+farther down. The river there suddenly broadens into a basin, fully
+half a mile in width. To the east, the banks are quite abrupt. The
+westward shore is a gentle, grass-grown slope, stretching up beyond a
+charming little bay formed by a spit of meadow. Near the sandy beach
+of this bay a country highway passes, winding in and out and up and
+down, as it follows the river and the bases of the knolls. Above this
+and commanding delightful glimpses of forest and stream and bayou and
+prairie, a goodly hillock is crowned, some seventy-five feet above the
+water's edge, with a dark, unpainted, time-worn, moss-grown house,
+part log and part frame, set in a deep tangle of lilacs and crabs.
+The quaint old structure is of the simple pioneer pattern,--a story
+and a half, with gables on the north and south ends of the main part;
+and a small transverse wing to the rear, with connecting rooms. The
+ancient picket gate creaks on its one rusty hinge. The front door has
+the appearance of being nailed up, and across its frame a dozen fat
+spiders, most successful of fly fishers, have stretched their gluey
+nets. The path, once leading thither, is now o'ergrown with grass and
+lilacs, while in the surrounding snarl of weeds and poplar suckers are
+seen the blossoming remnants of peonies, and a few old-fashioned
+garden shrubs.
+
+The ground is historic. The house is an ancient landmark. It was the
+old home of Eleazar Williams, in his day Episcopal missionary and
+pretender to the throne of France. Williams was the reputed son of a
+mixed-blood couple of the Mohawk band of Indians; in early life, he
+claimed to have been born in the vicinity of Montreal, in 1792. A
+bright youth, he was educated for the ministry of the Protestant
+Episcopal church and sent as a missionary in 1816-1817 to the Oneida
+Indians, then located in Oneida county, New York. During the war of
+1812, he had been employed as a spy by the American authorities to
+trace the movements of British troops in Canada. Williams, from the
+first, became engaged in intrigues among the New York Indians, and was
+the originator of the movement which resulted, in 1822, in the
+purchase by the war department of a large strip of land from the
+Menomonees and Winnebagoes, along the Lower Fox River, and the removal
+hither of several of the New York bands, accompanied by the scheming
+priest. But the result was jealousy between the newcomers and the
+original tribes, with sixteen years of confusion and turmoil, during
+which Congress was frequently engaged in settling the squabbles that
+arose. Williams's original idea was said, by those who knew him best,
+to be the "total subjugation of the whole [Green Bay] country and the
+establishment of an Indian government, of which he was to be sole
+dictator."[6]
+
+But his purpose failed. He came to be recognized as an unscrupulous
+fellow, and the majority of the whites and Indians on the Lower Fox,
+as well as his clerical brethren, regarded him with contempt. In 1853,
+Williams, baffled in every other field of notoriety which he had
+worked, suddenly posed before the American public as Louis XVII.,
+hereditary sovereign of France. Upon the downfall of the Bourbons in
+1792, you will remember that Louis XVI. and his queen, Marie
+Antoinette, were beheaded, while their son, the dauphin Louis, an
+imbecile child of eight, was cast into the temple tower by the
+revolutionists. It is officially recorded that after an imprisonment
+of two years the dauphin died in the tower and was buried. But the
+story was started and popularly believed, that the real dauphin had
+been abducted by the royalists and another child cunningly substituted
+to die there in the dauphin's place. The story went that the dauphin
+had been sent to America and all traces of him lost, thus giving any
+adventurer of the requisite age and sufficiently obscure birth,
+opportunity to seek such honor as might be gained in claiming identity
+with the escaped prisoner. Williams was too young by eight years to be
+the dauphin; he was clearly of Indian extraction,--a fair type of the
+half-breed, in color, form, and feature. But he succeeded in deceiving
+a number of good people, including several leading doctors in his
+church; while an Episcopal clergyman named John H. Hanson attempted,
+in two articles in "Putnam's Magazine," in 1853, and afterwards in an
+elaborate book, "The Lost Prince," to prove conclusively to the world
+that Williams was indeed the son of the executed monarch. While those
+who really knew Williams treated his claims as fraudulent, and his
+dusky father and mother protested under oath that Eleazar was their
+son, and every allegation of Williams, in the premises, had been often
+exposed as false, there were still many who believed in him. The
+excitement attracted attention in France. One or two royalists came
+over to see Williams, but left disappointed; and Louis Philippe sent
+him a present of some finely bound books, believing him to be the
+innocent victim of a delusion. Williams died in 1858, keeping up his
+absurd pretensions to the last.
+
+It was in this house near Little Kaukauna that Williams lived for so
+many years, managing and preaching to his scattered flock of immigrant
+Indians, and forever seeking some sort of especially profitable
+employment, such as accompanying tribal delegations to Washington, or
+acting as special commissioner at government payments. In the earliest
+days, the house was situated on the spit of meadow I have previously
+spoken of; but when the dam at Depere raised the water, the frame was
+carried to this higher position.
+
+Williams's wife, an octoroon, whose portrait shows her to have been a
+thick-set, stolid sort of woman, died here, a year ago, and is buried
+hard by. The present occupants of the house are Mary Garritty, an
+Indian woman of sixty-five years, and her half-breed daughter,
+Josephine Penney, who in turn has an infant child of two. Mary was
+reared by the Williamses, and told us many a curious story of life at
+the "agency," as she called it, during the time when "Mr. Williams and
+Ma" were alive. Josephine, who confided to me that she was thirty
+years old, was regularly adopted by Mrs. Williams, for whose memory
+both women seem to have a very strong respect. What little personal
+property was left by the old woman goes to her grandchildren,
+intelligent and well-educated Oshkosh citizens, but Josephine has the
+sandy farm of sixty-five acres. She took me into the attic to exhibit
+such relics of the alleged dauphin as had not been disposed of by the
+administrator of the estate. There were a hundred or two mice-eaten
+volumes, mainly theological and school text-books; several old volumes
+of sermons,--for Eleazar is said to have considered it better taste in
+him to copy a discourse from an approved authority than to endeavor to
+compose one that would not satisfy him half as well; a boxful of
+manuscript odds and ends, chiefly letters, Indian glossaries and
+copied sermons; two or three leather-bound trunks, a copper tea-kettle
+used by him upon his long boat journeys, and a pair of antiquated
+brass candlesticks.
+
+Then we descended to the old orchard. Mary pointed out the spot, a rod
+or two south of the dwelling, where Williams had his library and
+mission-office in a log-house that has long since been removed for
+firewood. In this cabin, which had floor dimensions of fifteen by
+twenty feet, Williams met his Indian friends and transacted business
+with them. Mary, in her querulous tone, said that in those days the
+place abounded with Indians, night and day, and as they always
+expected to be fed, she had her hands full attending to their wants.
+"There wa'n't no peace at all, sir, so long as Mr. Williams were here;
+when he were gone there wa'n't so many of them, an' we got a rest,
+which I were mighty thankful for." Garrulous Mary, in her moccasins
+and blanket skirt, with a complexion like brown parchment and as
+wrinkled,--almost a full-blood herself,--has lived so long apart from
+her people that she appears to have forgotten her race, and inveighed
+right vigorously against the unthrifty and beggarly habits of the
+aborigines. "I hate them pesky Indians," she cried in a burst of
+righteous indignation, and then turned to croon over Josephine's
+baby, as veritable a "little Indian boy" as I ever met with in a
+forest wigwam. "He's a fine feller, isn't he?" she cried, as she
+chucked her grandson under the chin; "some says as he looks like Mr.
+Williams, sir." The Doctor, who is a judge of babies, declared, in a
+professional tone that did not admit of contradiction, that the infant
+was, indeed, a fine specimen of humanity.
+
+And thus we left the two women in a most contented frame of mind, and
+descended to the beach, bearing with us Josephine's parting salute,
+shouted from the garden gate,--"Call agin, whene'er ye pass this way!"
+
+Depere is five miles below. The banks are bold as far as there; but
+beyond, they flatten out into gently sloping meadows, varied here and
+there by the re-approach of a high ridge on the eastern shore,--the
+western getting to be quite marshy by the time Fort Howard is reached.
+
+At Depere are the first rapids of the Fox, the fall being about twelve
+feet. From the earliest period recorded by the French explorers, there
+was a polyglot Indian settlement upon the portage-trail, and in
+December, 1669, the Jesuit missionary Allouez established St. Francis
+Xavier mission here, the locality being henceforth styled "Rapide des
+Peres." It was from this station that Allouez, Dablon, Joliet, and
+Marquette started upon their memorable canoe voyages up the Fox, in
+search of benighted heathen and the Mississippi River. For over a
+century Rapide des Peres was a prominent landmark in Northwestern
+history. The Depere of to-day is a solid-looking town, with an iron
+furnace, saw-mills, and other industries; and after a long period of
+stagnation is experiencing a healthy business revival.
+
+Unable to find the tender at this the last lock on our course, we
+portaged after the manner of old-time canoeists, and set out upon the
+home stretch of six miles. Green Bay, upon the eastern bank and Fort
+Howard upon the western, were well in view; and, it being not past two
+o'clock in the afternoon of a cool and somewhat cloudy day, we allowed
+the current to be our chief propeller, only now and then using the
+paddles to keep our bark well in the main current.
+
+The many pretty residences of South Green Bay, including the ruins of
+Navarino, Astor, and Shanty Town, are situated well up on an
+attractive sloping ridge; but the land soon drops to an almost swampy
+level, upon which the greater portion of the business quarter is
+built. Opposite, Fort Howard with her mills and coal-docks skirts a
+wide-spreading bog, much of the flat, sleepy old town being built
+on a foundation of saw-mill offal. Historically, both sides of the
+river may be practically treated as the old "Bay Settlement" for two
+and a half centuries one of the most conspicuous outposts of
+American civilization. Here came savage-trained Nicolet, exploring
+agent of Champlain, in 1634, when Plymouth colony was still in
+swaddling-clothes. It was the day when the China Sea was supposed to
+be somewhere in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes. Nicolet had heard
+that at Green Bay he would meet a strange people, who had come from
+beyond "a great water" to the west. He was therefore prepared to meet
+here a colony of Chinamen or Japanese, if indeed Green Bay were not
+the Orient itself. His mistake was a natural one. The "strange people"
+were Winnebago Indians. A branch of the Dakotahs, or Sioux, a distinct
+race from the Algonquins, they forced themselves across the
+Mississippi River, up the Wisconsin, and down the Fox, to Green Bay,
+entering the Algonquin territory like a wedge, and forever after
+maintaining their foothold upon this interlocked water highway. "The
+great water," supposed by Nicolet to mean the China Sea, was the
+Mississippi River, beyond which barrier the Dakotah race held full
+sway. As he approached, one of his Huron guides was sent forward to
+herald his coming. Landing near the mouth of the river, he attired
+himself in a gorgeous damask gown, decorated with gayly colored birds
+and flowers, expecting to meet mandarins who would be similarly
+dressed. A horde of four or five thousand naked savages greeted him.
+He advanced, discharging the pistols which he held in either hand, and
+women and children fled in terror from the manitou who carried with
+him lightning and thunder.
+
+The mouth of the Fox was always a favorite rallying-point for the
+savages of this section of the Northwest, and many a notable council
+has been held here between tribes of painted red men and Jesuits,
+traders, explorers, and military officers. Being the gateway of one of
+the two great routes to the Mississippi, many notable exploring and
+military expeditions have rested here; and French, English, and
+Americans in turn have maintained forts to protect the interests of
+territorial possession and the fur-trade.
+
+Here it was that a white man first set foot on Wisconsin soil; and
+here, also, in 1745, the De Langlades, first permanent settlers of
+the Badger State, reared their log cabins and initiated a semblance of
+white man's civilization. Green Bay, now hoary with age, has had an
+eventful, though not stirring history. For a hundred years she was a
+distributing-point for the fur-trade.
+
+The descendants of the De Langlades, the Grignons and other colonists
+of nearly a century and a half standing, are still on the spot; and
+the gossip of the hour among the _voyageurs_ and old traders still
+left among us is of John Jacob Astor, Ramsay Crooks, Robert Stuart,
+Major Twiggs, and other characters of the early years of our century,
+whose names are well known to frontier history. The creole quarter of
+this ancient town, shiftless and improvident to-day as it always has
+been, lives in an atmosphere hazy with poetic glamour, reveling in the
+recollection of a once festive, half-savage life, when the _courier de
+bois_ and the _engagé_ were in the ascendency at this forest outpost,
+and the fur-trade the be-all and end-all of commercial enterprise.
+Your _voyageur_, scratching a painful living for a hybrid brood from
+his meager potato patch, bemoans the day when Yankee progressiveness
+dammed the Fox for Yankee saw-mills, into whose insatiable maws were
+swept the forests of his youth, and remembers nought but the sweets
+of his early calling among his boon companions, the denizens of the
+wilderness.
+
+In Shanty Town, Astor, and Navarino there yet remain many dwellings
+and trading warehouses of the olden time,--unpainted, gaunt,
+poverty-stricken, but with their hand-hewed skeletons of oak still
+intact beneath the rags of a century's decay. A hundred years is a
+period quite long enough in our land to warrant the brand of
+antiquity, although a mere nothing in the prolonged career of the Old
+World. In the rapidly developing West, a hundred years and less mark
+the gap between a primeval wilderness and a complete civilization.
+Time, like space, is, after all, but comparative. In these hundred
+years the Northwest has developed from nothing to everything. It is as
+great a period, judging by results, as ten centuries in
+Europe,--perhaps fifteen. America is said to have no history. On the
+contrary, it has the most romantic of histories; but it has lived
+faster and crowded more and greater deeds into the past hundred years
+than slow-going Europe in the last ten hundred. The American
+centenarian of to-day is older by far than the fabled Methuselah.
+
+Green Bay, classic in her shanty ruins, has been somewhat halting in
+her advance, for the creoles hamper progressiveness. But as the
+_voyageurs_ and their immediate progeny gradually pass away, the
+community creeps out from the shadow of the past and asserts itself.
+The ancient town appears to be taking on a new and healthy growth, in
+strange contrast to the severe and battered architecture of frontier
+times. Socially, Green Bay is delightful. There are many old families,
+whose founders were engaged in superintending the fur-trade and
+transportation lines, or holding government office, civil or military,
+at the wilderness post. This element, well educated and reared in
+comfort, gives a tone of dignified, old-school hospitality to the best
+society,--it is the Knickerbocker Colony of the Bay Settlement.
+
+At four o'clock we pushed into a canal in front of the Fort Howard
+railway depot, and half an hour later had crossed the bridge and were
+registered at a Green Bay hotel. The Doctor, called home to resume the
+humdrum of his hospital life, will leave for the South to-morrow noon.
+I shall remain here for a week, reposing in the shades of antiquity.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. ii. p. 425.
+
+
+
+
+THE WISCONSIN RIVER.
+
+
+
+
+THE WISCONSIN RIVER.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS.
+
+
+Our watches, for a wonder, coincided on Monday afternoon, Aug. 22,
+1887. This phenomenon is so rare that W---- made a note in her diary
+to the effect that for once in its long career my time-piece was
+right. It was five minutes past two. The place was the beach at
+Portage, just below the old red wagon-bridge which here spans the
+gloomy Wisconsin. A teamster had hauled us, our canoe, and our baggage
+from the depot to the verge of a sand-bank; and we had dragged our
+faithful craft down through a tangle of sand-burrs and tin cans to the
+water's edge, and packed the locker for its third and final voyage of
+the season. A German housewife, with red kerchief, cap, and tucked-up
+skirt, stood out in the water on the edge of a gravel-spit, engaged in
+her weekly wrestle with the family wash,--a picturesque,
+foreign-looking scene. On the summit of a sandy promontory to our
+left, two other German housewives leaned over a pig-yard fence and
+gazed intently down at these strange preparations. Back of us were the
+wooded sand-drifts of Portage, once a famous camping-ground of the
+Winnebagoes; before us, the dark, treacherous river, with its shallows
+and its mysterious depths; beyond that, great stretches of sand-fields
+thick-strewn with willow forests and, three or four miles away, the
+forbidding range of the Baraboo Bluffs, veiled in the heavy mist which
+was rapidly closing upon the valley.
+
+We feared that we were booked for a stormy trip, as we pushed out into
+the bubble-strewn current and found that a cold east wind was blowing
+over the flats and rowing-jackets were essential.
+
+Portage City, a town of twenty-five hundred inhabitants, occupies the
+southeastern bank for a mile down. Like Green Bay and Prairie du
+Chien, it was an outgrowth of the necessities of the early fur-trade.
+Upon the death of that trade it languished and for a generation or
+two was utterly stagnant. As a rural trading centre it has since grown
+into a state of fair prosperity, although the presence of many of the
+old-time buildings of the Indian traders and transporters gives to
+much of the town a sadly decayed appearance. For two or three miles we
+had Portage in view, down a straight course, until at last the
+thickening mist hid the time-worn houses from view, and we were fairly
+on our way down the historic Wisconsin, in the wake of Joliet and
+Marquette, who first traversed this highway to the Mississippi, two
+hundred and fourteen years ago.
+
+Marquette, in the journal of his memorable voyage, says of the
+Wisconsin, "It is very broad, with a sandy bottom, forming many
+shallows, which render navigation very difficult." The river has been
+frequently described in the journals of later voyagers, and government
+engineers have written long reports upon its condition, but they have
+not bettered Marquette's comprehensive phrase.
+
+The general government has spent enormous sums in an endeavor to make
+the Fox-Wisconsin water highway practicable for the passage of large
+steam-vessels between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. It
+was of great service, in its natural state, for the passage into the
+heart of the continent of that motley procession of priests,
+explorers, cavaliers, soldiers, trappers, and traders who paddled
+their canoes through here for nearly two hundred years, the pioneers
+of French, English, and American civilization in turn. It is still a
+tempting scheme, to tap the main artery of America, and allow modern
+vessels of burden to make the circuit between the lakes and the gulf.
+The Fox River is reasonably tractable, although this season the stage
+of water above Berlin has been hardly high enough to float a
+flat-boat. But the Wisconsin remains, despite the hundreds of
+wing-dams which line her shores, a fickle jade upon whom no reliance
+whatever can be placed. The current and the sand-banks shift about at
+their sweet will over a broad valley, and the pilot of one season
+would scarcely recognize the stream another. Navigation for crafts
+drawing over a foot of water is practically impossible in seasons of
+drought, and uncertain in all. A noted engineer has playfully said
+that the Wisconsin can never be regulated, "until the bottom is lathed
+and plastered;" and another officially reported, over fifteen years
+ago, that nothing short of a continuous canal along the bank, from
+Portage to Prairie du Chien, will suffice to meet the expectations of
+those who favor the government improvement of this impossible highway.
+
+In the neighborhood of Portage, the wing-dams,--composed of mattresses
+of willow boughs, weighted with stone,--are in a reasonable degree of
+preservation and in places appear to be of some avail in contracting
+the channel. But elsewhere down the river, they are generally mere
+hindrances to canoeing. The current, as it caroms from shore to shore,
+pays but little heed to these obstructions and we often found it
+swiftest over the places where black lines of willow twigs bob and
+sway above the surface of the rushing water; while the channel staked
+out by the engineers was the site of a sand-field, studded with
+aspen-brush.
+
+It is a lonely run of an hour and a half down to the mouth of the
+Baraboo River, through the mazes of the wing-dams, surrounded by
+desolate bottom lands of sand and wooded bog. The east wind had
+brought a smart shower by the time we had arrived off the mouth of
+this northern tributary and we hauled up at a low, forested bank just
+below the junction, where rubber coats were brought out and canvas
+spread over the stores. The rain soon settled into a mere drizzle,
+and W----, ever eager in her botanical researches, wandered about
+regardless of wet feet, investigating the flora of the locality. The
+yellow sneeze-weed and purple iron-weed predominate in great clumps
+upon the verge of the bank, and lend a cheerful tone to what would
+otherwise be a desolate landscape.
+
+The drizzle finally ceasing, we were again afloat, and after shooting
+by scores of wing-dams that had been "snowed under" by shifting sand,
+and floating over others that were in the heart of the present
+channel, we came to Dekorra, some seven miles below Portage. Dekorra
+is a quaint little hamlet, with just five weather-worn houses and a
+blacksmith-shop in sight, nestled in a hollow at the base of a bluff
+on the southern bank. The river courses at its feet, and from the top
+of a naked cliff a ferry-wire stretches high above the stream and
+loses itself among the trees on the opposite bottoms. The east wind
+whistled a pretty note as it was split by the swaying thread, and the
+anvil by the smith's forge rang out in unison, clear as a well-toned
+bell. A crude cemetery, apparently containing far more graves than
+Dekorra's present census would show inhabitants, flanks the faded-out
+settlement on the shoulder of an adjoining hill. The road to the
+tattered ferry-boat, rotting on the beach, gave but little evidence
+of recent use, for Dekorra is a relic.
+
+The valley of the Wisconsin is from three to five miles broad, flanked
+on either side, below the Portage, by an undulating range of imposing
+bluffs, from one hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty feet in
+height. They are heavily wooded, as a rule, although there is much
+variety,--pleasant grass-grown slopes; naked, water-washed
+escarpments, rising sheer above the stream; terraced hills, with
+eroded faces, ascending in a regular succession of benches to the
+cliff-like tops; steep uplands, either covered with a dense and
+regular growth of forest, or shattered by fire or tornado. The ravines
+and pocket-fields between the bluffs are often of exceeding beauty,
+especially when occupied by a modest little village,--or better, by
+some small settler, whose outlet to the country beyond the edge of his
+mountain basin may be seen threading the woodlands which tower above
+him, or zigzagging through a neighboring pass, worn deep by some
+impatient spring torrent in a hurry to reach the river level.
+
+Between these ranges stretches a wide expanse of bottoms, either bog
+or sand plain, over all of which the river flows at high water, and
+through which the swift current twists and bounds like a serpent in
+agony, constantly cutting out new channels and filling up the old,
+obeying laws of its own, ever defying the calculations of pilots and
+engineers. As it thus sweeps along, wherever its fancy listeth, here
+to-day and there to-morrow, it forms innumerable islands which greatly
+add to the picturesqueness of the view. Now and then there are two or
+three parallel channels, running along for miles before they join,
+perplexing the traveler with a labyrinth of water paths. These islands
+are often mere sandbars, sometimes as barren as Sahara, again
+thick-grown with willows and seedling aspens; but for the most part
+they are well-wooded, their banks gay with the season's flowers, and
+luxuriant vines hanging in deep festoons from the trees which overhang
+the flood. At their heads, often high up among the branches of the
+elms, are great masses of driftwood, the remains of shattered
+lumber-rafts or saw-mill offal from the great northern pineries,
+evidencing the height of the spring flood which so often converts the
+Wisconsin into an Amazon.
+
+Because of this spreading habit of the stream, the few villages along
+the way are planted on the higher land at the base of the bluffs, or
+on an occasional sandy pocket-plateau which the river, as in ages
+past it has worn its bed to lower levels, has left high and dry above
+present overflows. Some of these towns, in their fear of floods, are
+situated two or three miles back from the water highway; others, where
+the channel chances to closely hug a line of bluffs, are directly
+abutting the river, which is crossed at such points by either a ferry
+or a toll-bridge.
+
+Desolate as is the prospect from Dekorra's front door, we found the
+limestone cliff there, a mine of attractiveness. The river has worn
+miniature caves and grottoes in its base; at the mouths of several of
+these there are little rocky beaches, whose overhanging walls are
+flecked with ferns, lichens, and graceful columbines.
+
+At six o'clock that evening, in the midst of a dispiriting Scotch
+mist, we disembarked upon the northern bank, at the foot of a wooded
+bluff, and prepared to settle for the night. Fortunately, we had
+advance knowledge of the sparseness of settlement along the river, and
+had come with a tent and a cooking outfit, prepared for camping in
+case of need. Upon a rocky bench, fifty feet up from the water, we
+stretched a rope between two trees, to serve in lieu of a ridge-pole,
+and pitched our canvas domicile. It was a lonesome spot which we had
+chosen for our night's halt. Owing to the configuration of the bluffs,
+it was unlikely that any person dwelt within a mile of us on our
+shore. Across the valley, we looked over several miles of bottom
+woods, while far up on the opposite slopes could just be discerned the
+gables of two white farm-houses, peering out from a wilderness of
+trees stretching far and wide, till its limits were lost in the
+gathering fog.
+
+It was pitchy dark by the time we had completed our camping
+arrangements, and W---- announced that the coffee was boiling over. I
+fancy we two must have presented a rather forlorn appearance, as we
+crouched at our evening meal around the sputtering little fire, clad
+in heavy jackets and rubber coats, for the atmosphere was raw and
+clammy. The wood was wet, and the shifting gusts would persist in
+blowing the smoke in our eyes, whichever position we took. Every
+falling bough, or rustle of a water-laden sapling, was suggestive of
+tramps or of inquisitive hogs or cattle, for we knew not what
+neighbors we had; many a time we paused, and peering out into the
+black night, listened intently for further developments. And then the
+strange noises from the river, unnoticed during daylight, were not
+conducive to mental ease, when we nervously associated them with
+roving fishermen, or perhaps tramps, attracted by our light from the
+opposite shore. Sometimes we felt positive that we heard the muffled
+creak of oars, fast approaching; then would come loud splashes and
+gurgles, and ever and anon it would seem as if some one were slapping
+the water with a board. Now near, now far away, approaching and
+receding by turns, these mysterious sounds continued through the
+night, occasionally relieved by moments of absolute silence. We
+afterward discovered that these were the customary refrains sung by
+the gay tide, as it washed over the wing-dams, swished around the
+sandbanks, and dashed against great snags and island heads.
+
+But we did not know this then, and a certain uneasy lonesomeness
+overcame us as strangers to the scene; and I must confess that,
+despite our philosophizing, there was but little sleep for us that
+first camp out. A neglect to procure straw to soften our rocky
+couches, and a woful insufficiency of bed-clothing for a phenomenally
+cold August night, added to our manifold discomforts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE LAST OF THE SACS.
+
+
+Dawn came at five, and none too soon. But after thawing out over the
+breakfast fire and draining the coffee-pot dry, we were wondrously
+rejuvenated; and as we struck camp, were right merry between ourselves
+over the foolish nervousness of the night. There was still a raw
+northwest wind, but the clouds soon broke, and when, at half-past six,
+we again pushed out into the swift-flowing stream, it was evident that
+the day would be bright and comfortably cool.
+
+We had some splendid vistas of bluff-girt scenery this morning,
+especially near Merrimac, where some of the elevations are the highest
+along the river. There are a score of houses at Merrimac, which is the
+point where the Chicago and Northwestern railway crosses, over an
+immense iron bridge 1736 feet long, spanning two broad channels and
+the sand island which divides them. The village is on a rolling
+plateau some fifty feet above the water level, on the northern side.
+Climbing up to the bridge-tender's house, that one-armed veteran of
+the spans, whose service here is as old as the bridge, told me that it
+was seldom indeed the river highway was used in these days. "The
+railroads kill this here water business," he said.
+
+I found the tender to be something of a philosopher. Most
+bridge-tenders and fishermen, and others who pursue lonely occupations
+and have much spare time on their hands, are philosophers. That their
+speculations are sometimes cloudy does not detract from their local
+reputation of being deep thinkers. The Merrimac tender was given to
+geology, I found, and some of his ideas concerning the origin of the
+bluffs and the glacial streaks, and all that sort of thing, would
+create marked attention in any scientific journal. He had some
+original notions, too, about the habits of the stream above which he
+had almost hourly walked, day and night, the seasons round, for
+sixteen long years. The ice invariably commenced to form on the bottom
+of the river, he stoutly claimed, and then rose to the surface,--the
+ingenious reason given for this remarkable phenomenon being that the
+underlying sand was colder than the water. These and other novel
+results of his observation, our philosophical friend good-humoredly
+communicated, together with scraps of local tradition regarding the
+Black Hawk War, and lurid tales of the old lumber-raft days. At last,
+however, his hour came for walking the spans, and we descended to our
+boat. As we shot into the main channel, far above us a red flag
+fluttered from the draw, and we knew it to be the parting salute of
+the grizzled sentinel.
+
+At the head of an island half a mile below, it is said there are the
+remains of an Indian fort. We landed with some difficulty, for the
+current sweeps by its wooded shore with particular zest. Our
+examination of the locality, however, revealed no other earth lines
+than might have been formed by a rushing flood. But as a reward for
+our endeavors, we found the lobelia cardinalis in wonderful profusion,
+mingled in striking contrast of color with the iron and sneeze weeds,
+and the common spurge. The prickly ash, with its little scarlet berry,
+was common upon this as upon other islands, and the elms were of
+remarkable size.
+
+We were struck, as we passed along where the river chanced to wash the
+feet of steepy slopes, with the peculiar ridging of the turf. The
+water having undermined these banks, the friable soil upon their
+shoulders had slid, regularly breaking the sod into long horizontal
+strips a foot or two wide, the white sand gleaming between the rows of
+rusty green. Sometimes the shores were thus striped with zebra-like
+regularity for miles together, presenting a very singular and
+artificial appearance.
+
+Prominent features of the morning's voyage, also, were deep
+bowlder-strewn and often heavily wooded ravines running down from the
+bluffs. Although perfectly dry at this season, it can be seen that
+they are the beds of angry torrents in the spring, and many a poor
+farmer's field is deeply cut with such gulches, which rapidly grow in
+this light soil as the years go on. We stopped at one such farm, and
+walked up the great breach to very near the house, up to which we
+clambered, over rocks and through sand-burrs and thickets, being met
+at the gate by a noisy dog, that appeared to be suspicious of
+strangers who approached his master's castle by means of the covered
+way. The farmer's wife, as she supplied us with exquisite dairy
+products, said that the metes and bounds of their little domain were
+continually changing; four acres of their best meadow had been washed
+out within two years, their wood-lot was being gradually undermined,
+and the ravine was eating into their ploughed land with the
+persistence of a cancer. On the other hand, her sister's acres, down
+the river a mile or two, on the other bank, were growing in extent.
+However, she thought their "luck would change one of these seasons,"
+and the river swish off upon another tangent.
+
+Upon returning by the gully, we found that its sunny, sloping walls,
+where not wooded with willows and oak saplings, were resplendent with
+floral treasures, chief among them being the gerardia, golden-rod in
+several varieties, tall white asters, a blue lobelia, and vervain,
+while the seeds of the Oswego tea, prairie clover, bed-straw, and wild
+roses were in all the glory of ripeness. There was a broad, pebbly
+beach at the base of the torrent's bed, thick-grown with yearling
+willows. A stranded pine-log, white with age and worn smooth by a
+generation of storms, lay firmly imbedded among the shingle. The
+temperature was still low enough to induce us to court the sunshine,
+and, leaning against this hoary castaway from the far North, we sat
+for a while and basked in the radiant smiles of Sol.
+
+Prairie du Sac, thirty miles below Portage, is historically noted as
+the site for several generations of the chief village of the Sac
+Indians. Some of the earliest canoeists over this water-route, in the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, describe the aboriginal
+community in some detail. The dilapidated white village of to-day
+numbers but four hundred and fifty inhabitants,--about one-fourth of
+the population assigned to the old red-skin town. The "prairie" is an
+oak-opening plateau, more or less fertile, at the base of the northern
+range of bluffs, which here takes a sudden sweep inland for three or
+four miles.
+
+The Sacs had deserted this basin plain by the close of the eighteenth
+century, and taken up their chief quarters in the neighborhood of Rock
+Island, near the mouth of Rock River, in close proximity to their
+allies, the Foxes, who now kept watch and ward over the west bank of
+the Mississippi.
+
+By a strange fatality it chanced that in the last days of July, 1832,
+the deluded Sac leader, Black Hawk, flying from the wrath of the
+Illinois and Wisconsin militiamen, under Henry and Dodge, chose this
+seat of the ancient power of his tribe to be one of the scenes of that
+fearful tragedy which proved the death-blow to Sac ambition. Black
+Hawk, after long hiding in the morasses of the Rock above Lake
+Koshkonong, suddenly flew from cover, hoping to cross the Wisconsin
+River at Prairie du Sac, and by plunging across the mountainous
+country over a trail known to the Winnebagoes, who played fast and
+loose with him as with the whites, to get beyond the Mississippi in
+quiet, as he had been originally ordered to do. His retreat was
+discovered when but a day old; and the militiamen hurried on through
+the Jefferson swamps and the forests of the Four Lake country,
+harrying the fugitives in the rear. At the summit of the Wisconsin
+Heights, on the south bank, overlooking this old Sac plain on the
+north, Black Hawk and his rear-guard stood firm, to allow the women
+and children and the majority of his band of two thousand to cross the
+intervening bottoms and the island-strewn river. The unfortunate
+leader sat upon a white horse on the summit of the peak now called by
+his name, and shouted directions to his handful of braves. The
+movements of the latter were well executed, and Black Hawk showed good
+generalship; but the militiamen were also well handled, and had
+superior supplies of ammunition, so when darkness fell the fated
+ravine and the wooded bottoms below were strewn with Indian bodies,
+and victory was with the whites. During the night the surviving
+fugitives, now ragged, foot-sore, and starving, crossed the river by
+swimming. A party of fifty or so, chiefly non-combatants, made a raft,
+and floated down the Wisconsin, to be slaughtered near its mouth by a
+detail of regulars and Winnebagoes from Prairie du Chien; but the mass
+of the party flying westward in hot haste over the prairie of the
+Sacs, headed for the Mississippi. They lined their rugged path with
+the dead and dying victims of starvation and despair, and a sorry lot
+these people were when the Bad Axe was finally reached, and the united
+army of regulars and militiamen under Atkinson, Henry, and Dodge,
+overtook them. The "battle" there was a slaughter of weaklings. But
+few escaped across the great river, and the bloodthirsty Sioux
+despatched nearly all of those.
+
+Black Hawk was surrendered by the servile Winnebagoes, and after being
+exhibited in the Eastern cities, he was turned over to the besotted
+Keokuk for safe-keeping. He died, this last of the Sacs, poor, foolish
+old man, a few years later; and his bones, stolen for an Iowa museum,
+were cremated twenty years after in a fire which destroyed that
+institution. A sad history is that of this once famous people. We
+glory over the stately progress of the white man's civilization, but
+if we venture to examine with care the paths of that progress, we find
+our imperial chariot to be as the car of Juggernaut.
+
+The view from the house verandas which overhang the high bank at
+Prairie du Sac, is superb. Eastward a half mile away, the grand,
+corrugated bluffs of Black Hawk and the Sugar Loaf tower to a height
+of over three hundred feet above the river level; while their lesser
+companions, heavily forested, continue the range, north and south, as
+far as the eye can reach. The river crosses the foreground with a
+majestic sweep, while for several miles to the west and southwest
+stretches the wooded plain, backed by a curved line of gloomy hills
+which complete the rim of the basin.
+
+A mile below, on the same plain, is Sauk City, a shabby town of about
+a thousand inhabitants. A spur track of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and
+St. Paul railway runs up here from Mazomanie, crossing the river,
+which is nearly half a mile wide, on an iron bridge. A large and
+prosperous brewery appears to be the chief industry of the place.
+Slaughter-houses abut upon the stream, in the very centre of the
+village. These and the squalid back-door yards which run down to the
+bank do not make up an attractive picture to the canoeist. River
+towns differ very much in this respect. Some of them present a neat
+front to the water thoroughfare, with flower-gardens and well-kept
+yards and street-ends, while others regard the river as a sewer and
+the banks as a common dumping ground, giving the traveler by boat a
+view of filth, disorder, and general unsightliness which is highly
+repulsive. I have often found, on landing at some villages of this
+latter class, that the dwellings and business blocks which, riverward,
+are sad spectacles of foulness and unthrift, have quite pretentious
+fronts along the land highway which the townsfolk patronize. It is as
+if some fair dame, who prided herself on her manners and costume, had
+rags beneath her fine silks, and unwashed hands within her dainty
+gloves. This coming in at the back door of river towns reveals many a
+secret of sham.
+
+It was a fine run down to Arena ferry, thirteen miles below Sauk City.
+The skies had become leaden and the atmosphere gray, and the sparse,
+gnarled poplars on some of the storm-swept bluffs had a ghostly
+effect. Here and there, fires had blasted the mountainous slopes, and
+a light aspen growth was hastening to garb with vivid green the
+blackened ruins. But the general impression was that of dark, gloomy
+forests of oak, linden, maple, and elms, on both upland and bottom;
+with now and then a noble pine cresting a shattered cliff.
+
+There were fitful gleams of sunshine, during which the temperature was
+as high as could be comfortably tolerated; but the northwest wind
+swept sharply down through the ravines, and whenever the heavens
+became overcast, jackets were at once essential.
+
+The islands became more frequent, as we progressed. Many of them are
+singularly beautiful. The swirling current gradually undermines their
+bases, causing the trees to topple toward the flood, with many
+graceful effects of outline, particularly when viewed above the island
+head. And the colors, too, at this season, are charmingly variegated.
+The sapping of a tree's foundations brings early decay; and the
+maples, especially, are thus early in the season gay with the autumnal
+tints of gold and wine and purple, objects of striking beauty for
+miles away. Under the arches of the toppling trees, and inside the
+lines of snags which mark the islet's former limits, the current goes
+swishing through, white with bubbles and dancing foam. Crouching low,
+to escape the twigs, one can have enchanting rides beneath these
+bowers, and catch rare glimpses of the insulated flora on the
+swift-passing banks. The stately spikes of the cardinal lobelia fairly
+dazzle the eye with their gleaming color; and great masses of
+brilliant yellow sneeze-weed and the deep purple of the iron-weed
+present a symphony which would delight a disciple of Whistler. Thus
+are the islands ever being destroyed and new ones formed. Those bottom
+lands, over there, where great forests are rooted, will have their
+turn yet, and the buffeted sand-bars of to-day given a restful chance
+to become bottoms. The game of shuttlecock and battledoor has been
+going on in this dark and awesome gorge since Heaven knows when. Man's
+attempt to control its movements seem puny indeed.
+
+At six o'clock that evening we had arrived at the St. Paul railway
+bridge at Helena. The tender and his wife are a hospitable couple, and
+we engaged quarters in their cosy home at the southern end of the
+bridge. Mrs. P---- has a delightful flower-garden, which looks like an
+oasis in the wilderness of sand and bog thereabout. Twenty-three years
+ago, when these worthy people first took charge of the bridge, the
+earth for this walled-in beauty spot was imported by rail from a more
+fertile valley than the Wisconsin; and here the choicest of bulbs and
+plants are grown with rare floricultural skill, and the trainmen all
+along the division are resplendent in button-hole bouquets, the year
+round, products of the bridge-house bower at Helena. W---- and Mrs.
+P---- at once struck up an enthusiastic botanical friendship.
+
+Bridge houses are generally most forlorn specimens of railway
+architecture, and have a barricaded look, as though tramps were
+altogether too frequent along the route, and occasionally made trouble
+for the watchers of the ties. This one, originally forbidding enough,
+has been transformed into a winsome vine-clad home, gay with ivies,
+Madeira vines, and passion, moon, and trumpet flowers, covering from
+view the professional dull green affected by "the company's" boss
+painter. The made garden, to one side, was choking with a wealth of
+bedding plants and greenhouse rarities of every hue and shape of
+blossom and leaf.
+
+A dozen feet below the railroad level, spread wide morasses and sand
+patches, thick grown with swamp elms and willows. Down the track, a
+half mile to the south, Helena's fifty inhabitants are grouped in a
+dozen faded dwellings. Three miles westward, across the river, is the
+pretty and flourishing village of Spring Green.
+
+It is needless to say that in the isolated home of these lovers of
+flowers, we had comfortable quarters. W---- said that it was very much
+like putting up at Rudder Grange.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A PANORAMIC VIEW.
+
+
+The fog on the river was so thick, next morning, that objects four
+rods away were not visible. To navigate among the snags and shallows
+under such conditions was impossible. But W---- closely investigated
+the garden while waiting for the mist to rise, and Mr. P----
+entertained me with intelligent reminiscences of his long experience
+here. It had been four years, he said, since he last swung the draw
+for a river craft. That was a small steamboat attempting to make the
+passage, on what was considered a good stage of water, from Portage to
+the mouth. She spent two weeks in passing from Arena to Lone Rock, a
+distance of twenty-two miles, and was finally abandoned on a sand-bank
+for the season. He doubted whether he would have occasion again to
+swing the great span. As for lumber rafts, but three or four small
+ones had passed down this year, for the railroads were transporting
+the product of the great mills on the Upper Wisconsin, about as cheap
+as it could be driven down river and with far less risk of disaster.
+The days of river traffic were numbered, he declared, and the little
+towns that had so long been supported by the raftsmen, on their long
+and weary journey from the northern pineries to the Hannibal and St.
+Louis markets, were dying of starvation.
+
+I questioned our host as to his opinion of the value of the
+Fox-Wisconsin river improvement. He was cautious at first, and claimed
+that the money appropriated had "done a great deal of good to the poor
+people along the line." Closer inquiry developed the fact that these
+poor people had been employed in building the wing dams, for which
+local contracts had been let. When his opinion of the value of these
+dams was sought, Mr. P---- admitted that the general opinion along the
+river was, that they were "all nonsense," as he put it. Contracts had
+been let to Tom, Dick, and Harry, in the river villages, who had made
+a show of work, in the absence of inspectors, by sinking bundles of
+twigs and covering them with sand. Stone that had been hauled to the
+banks, to weight the mattresses, had remained unused for so long that
+popular judgment awarded it to any man who was enterprising enough to
+cart it away; thus was many a barn foundation hereabouts built out of
+government material. Sand-ballasted wing-dams built one season were
+washed out the next; and so government money has been recklessly
+frittered away. Such sort of management is responsible for the loose
+morality of the public concerning anything the general government has
+in hand. A man may steal from government with impunity, who would be
+socially ostracized for cheating his neighbor. There exists a popular
+sentiment along this river, as upon its twin, the Fox, that government
+is bound to squander about so much money every year in one way or
+another, and that the denizens of these two valleys are entitled to
+their share of the plunder. One honest captain on the Fox said to me,
+"If it wa'n't for this here appropriation, Wisconsin wouldn't get her
+proportion of the public money what each State is regularly entitled
+to; so I think it's necessary to keep this here scheme a-goin', for to
+get our dues; of course the thing ain't much good, so far as what is
+claimed for it goes, but it keeps money movin' in these valleys and
+makes times easier,--and that's what guvment's for." The honest
+skipper would have been shocked, probably, if I had called him a
+socialist, for a few minutes after he was declaiming right vigorously
+against Herr Most and the Chicago anarchists.
+
+It was half-past nine before the warmth of the sun's rays had
+dissipated the vapor, and we ventured to set forth. It proved to be an
+enchanting day in every respect.
+
+A mile or so below the bridge we came to the charming site, on the
+southern bank, at the base of a splendid limestone bluff, of the
+village of Old Helena, now a nameless clump of battered dwellings.
+There is a ferry here and a wooden toll-bridge in process of erection.
+The naked cliff, rising sheer above the rapid current, was, early in
+this century, utilized as a shot tower. There are lead mines some
+fifteen miles south, that were worked nearly fifty years before
+Wisconsin became even a Territory; and hither the pigs were, as late
+as 1830, laboriously drawn by wagons, to be precipitated down a rude
+stone shaft built against this cliff, and thus converted into shot.
+Much of the lead used by the Indians and white trappers of the region
+came from the Helena tower, and its product was in great demand during
+the Black Hawk War in 1832. The remains of the shaft are still to be
+seen, although much overgrown with vines and trees.
+
+Old Helena, in the earlier shot-tower days, was one of the "boom"
+towns of "the howling West." But the boom soon collapsed, and it was a
+deserted village even at the time of the Black Hawk disturbance. After
+the battle of Wisconsin Heights, opposite Prairie du Sac, the white
+army, now out of supplies, retired southwest to Blue Mound, the
+nearest lead diggings, for recuperation. Spending a few days there,
+they marched northwest to Helena. The logs and slabs which had been
+used in constructing the shanties here were converted into rafts, and
+upon them the Wisconsin was crossed, the operation consuming two days.
+A few miles north, Black Hawk's trail, trending westward to the Bad
+Axe, was reached, and soon after that came the final struggle.
+
+We found many groups of pines, this morning, in the amphitheater
+between the bluffs, and under them the wintergreen berries in rich
+profusion. Some of the little pocket farms in these depressions are
+delightful bits of rugged landscape. In the fields of corn, now neatly
+shocked, the golden pumpkins seemed as if in imminent danger of
+rolling down hill. There are curious effects in architecture, where
+the barns and other outbuildings far overtop the dwellings, and have
+to be reached by flights of steps or angling paths. Yet here and there
+are pleasant, gently rolling fields, nearer the bank, and smooth,
+sugar-loaf mounds upon which cattle peacefully graze. The buckwheat
+patches are white with blossom. Now and then can just be distinguished
+the forms of men and women husking maize upon some fertile upland
+bench. And so goes on the day. Now, with pretty glimpses of rural
+life, often reminding one of Rhineland views, without the castles;
+then, swishing off through the heart of the bottoms for miles, shut in
+except from distant views of the hill-tops, and as excluded from
+humanity, in these vistas of sand and morass, as though traversing a
+wilderness; anon, darting past deserted rocky slopes or through the
+dark shadow of beetling cliffs, and the gloomy forests which crown
+them.
+
+Lone Rock ferry is nearly fourteen miles below Helena bridge. As we
+came in view, the boat was landing a doctor's gig at the foot of a
+bold, naked bluff, on the southern bank. The doctor and the ferryman
+gave civil answers to our queries about distances, and expressed great
+astonishment when answered, in turn, that we were bound for the
+mouth of the river. "Mighty dull business," the doctor remarked,
+"traveling in that little cockle-shell; I should think you'd feel
+afraid, ma'am, on this big, lonesome river; my wife don't dare look at
+a boat, and I always feel skittish coming over on the ferry." I
+assured him that canoeing was far from being a dull business, and
+W---- good-humoredly added that she had as yet seen nothing to be
+afraid of. The doctor laughed and said something, as he clicked up his
+bony nag, about "tastes differing, anyhow." And, the ferryman trudging
+behind,--the smoke from his cabin chimney was rising above the
+tree-tops in a neighboring ravine,--the little cortege wound its way
+up the rough, angling roadway fashioned out of the face of the bluff,
+and soon vanished around a corner. Lone Rock village is a mile and a
+half inland to the south.
+
+Just below, the cliff overhangs the stream, its base having been worn
+into by centuries of ceaseless washing. On a narrow beach beneath, a
+group of cows were chewing their cuds in an atmosphere of refreshing
+coolness. From the rocky roof above them hung ferns in many
+varieties,--maidenhair, the wood, the sensitive, and the bladder;
+while in clefts and grottos, or amid great heaps of rock debris, hard
+by, there were generous masses of king fern, lobelia cardinalis, iron
+and sneeze weed, golden-rod, daisies, closed gentian, and eupatorium,
+in startling contrasts of vivid color. It being high noon, we stopped
+and landed at this bit of fairy land, ate our dinner, and botanized.
+There was a tinge of triumphant scorn in W----'s voice, when, emerging
+from a spring-head grotto, bearing in one arm a brilliant bouquet of
+wild flowers and in the other a mass of fern fronds, she cried, "To
+think of his calling canoeing a dull business!"
+
+Richland City, on the northern bank, five miles down, is a hamlet of
+fifteen or twenty houses, some of them quite neat in appearance.
+Nestled in a grove of timber on a plain at the base of the bluffs, the
+village presents a quaint old-country appearance for a long distance
+up-stream. The St. Paul railway, which skirts the northern bank after
+crossing the Helena bridge, sends out a spur northward from Richland
+City, to Richland Center, the chief town in Richland county.
+
+Two miles below Richland City, we landed at the foot of an imposing
+bluff, which rises sharply for three hundred feet or more from the
+water's edge. It is practically treeless on the river side. We
+ascended it through a steep gorge washed by a spring torrent. Strewn
+with bowlders and hung with bushes and an occasional thicket of elms
+and oaks, the path was rough but sure. From the heights above, the
+dark valley lay spread before us like a map. Ten miles away, to our
+left, a splash of white in a great field of green marked the location
+of Lone Rock village; five miles to the right, a spire or two rising
+above the trees indicated where Muscoda lay far back from the river
+reaches; while in front, two miles away, peaceful little Avoca was
+sunning its gray roofs on a gently rising ground. Between these
+settlements and the parallel ranges which hemmed in the panoramic
+view, lay a wide expanse of willow-grown sand-fields, forested
+morasses, and island meadows through which the many-channeled river
+cut its devious way. In the middle foreground, far below us, some
+cattle were being driven through a bushy marsh by boys and dogs. The
+cows looked the size of kittens to us at our great elevation, but such
+was the purity of the atmosphere that the shouts and yelps of the
+drivers rose with wonderful clearness, and the rustling of the brush
+was as if in an adjoining lot. The noise seemed so disproportioned to
+the size of the objects occasioning it, that this acoustic effect was
+at first rather startling.
+
+The whitewashed cabin of a squatter and his few log outbuildings
+occupy a little basin to one side of the bluff. His cattle were
+ranging over the hillsides, attended by a colly. The family were
+rather neatly dressed, but there did not appear to be over an acre of
+land level enough for cultivation, and that was entirely devoted to
+Indian corn. It was something of a mystery how this man could earn a
+living in his cooped-up mountain home. But the honest-looking fellow
+seemed quite contented, sitting in the shade of his woodpile smoking a
+corncob pipe, surrounded by a half dozen children. He cheerfully
+responded to my few queries, as we stopped at his well on the return
+to our boat. The good wife, a buxom woman with pretty blue eyes set in
+a smiling face, was peeling a pan of potatoes on the porch, near by,
+while one foot rocked a rude cradle ingeniously formed out of a barrel
+head and a lemon box. She seemed mightily pleased as W---- stroked the
+face of the chubby infant within, and made inquiries as to the ages of
+the step-laddered brood; and the father, too, fairly beamed with
+satisfaction as he placed his hands on the golden curls of his two
+oldest misses and proudly exhibited their little tricks of precocity.
+There can be no poverty under such a roof. Millionnaires might well
+envy the peaceful contentment of these hillside squatters.
+
+Down to Muscoda we followed the rocky and wood-crowned northern bank,
+along which the country highway is cut out. The swift current closely
+hugs it, and there was needed but slight exertion with the paddles to
+lead a sewing-machine agent, whom we found to be urging his horse into
+a vain attempt to distance the canoe. As he seemed to court a race, we
+had determined not to be outdone, and were not.
+
+Orion, on the northern side, just above Muscoda, is a deserted town.
+It must have been a pretentious place at one time. There are a dozen
+empty business buildings, now tenanted by bats and spiders. On one
+shop front, a rotting sign displays the legend, "World's Exchange;"
+there is also a "Globe Hotel," and the remains of a bank or two.
+Alders, lilacs, and gnarled apple-trees in many deserted clumps, tell
+where the houses once were; and the presence, among these ruins, of a
+family or two of squalid children only emphasizes the dreary
+loneliness. Orion was once a "boom" town, they tell us,--an expressive
+epitaph.
+
+A thin, outcropping substratum of sandstone is noticeable in this
+section of the river. It underlies the sandy plains which abut the
+Wisconsin in the Muscoda region, and lines the bed of the stream; near
+the banks, where there is but a slight depth of water, rapids are
+sometimes noticeable, the rocky bottom being now and then scaled off
+into a stairlike form, for the fall is here much sharper than
+customary.
+
+Because of an outlying shelf of this sandstone, bordered by rapids,
+but covered with only a few inches of dead water, we had some
+difficulty in landing at Muscoda beach, on the southern shore. Some
+stout poling and lifting were essential before reaching land. Muscoda
+was originally situated on the bank, which rises gently from the
+water; but as the river trade fell off, the village drifted up nearer
+the bluff, a mile south over the plain, in order to avoid the spring
+floods. There is a toll-bridge here and a large brewery, with
+extensive cattle-sheds strung along the shore. A few scattering houses
+connect these establishments with the sleepy but neat little hamlet of
+some five hundred inhabitants. After a brisk walk up town, in the
+fading sunlight, which cast a dazzling glimmer on the whitened dunes
+and heightened the size of the dwarfed herbage, we returned to the
+canoe, and cast off to seek camping quarters for the night,
+down-stream.
+
+A mile below, on the opposite bank, a large straw-stack by the side of
+a small farmhouse attracted our attention. We stopped to investigate.
+There was a good growth of trees upon a gentle slope, a few rods from
+shore, and a beach well strewn with drift-wood. The farmer who greeted
+us was pleasant-spoken, and readily gave us permission to pitch our
+tent in the copse and partake freely of his straw.
+
+Now more accustomed to the river's ways, we keenly enjoyed our supper,
+seated around our little camp-fire in the early dark. We had
+occasional glimpses of the lights in Muscoda, through the swaying
+trees on the bottoms to the south; an owl, on a neighboring island,
+incessantly barked like a terrier; the whippoorwills were sounding
+their mournful notes from over the gliding river, and now and then a
+hoarse grunt or querulous squeal in the wood-lot behind us gave notice
+that we were quartered in a hog pasture. Soon the moon came out and
+brilliantly lit the opens,--the glistening river, the stretches of
+white sand, the farmer's fields,--and intensified the sepulchral
+shadows of the lofty bluffs which overhang the scene.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+FLOATING THROUGH FAIRYLAND.
+
+
+Undisturbed by hogs or river tramps, we slept soundly until seven, the
+following morning. There was a heavy fog again, but by the time we had
+leisurely eaten our breakfast, struck camp, and had a pleasant chat
+with our farmer host and his "hired man," who had come down to the
+bank to make us a call, the mists had rolled away before the advances
+of the sun.
+
+At half past ten we were at Port Andrew, eight miles below camp on the
+north shore. The Port, or what is left of it, lies stretched along a
+narrow bench of sand, based with rock, some forty feet above the
+water, with a high, naked bluff backing it to the north. There is
+barely room for the buildings, on either side of its one avenue
+paralleling the river; this street is the country road, which skirts
+the bank, connecting the village with the sparse settlements, east
+and west. In the old rafting days, the Port was a stopping-place for
+the lumber pilots. There being neither rafts nor pilots, nowadays,
+there is no business for the Port, except what few dollars may be
+picked up from the hunters who frequent this place each fall,
+searching for woodcock. But even the woodcocking industry has been
+overdone here, and two sportsmen whom we met on the beach declared
+that there were not enough birds remaining to pay for the trouble of
+getting here. For, indeed, Port Andrew is quite off the paths of
+modern civilization. There is practically no communication with the
+country over the bluffs, northward; and Blue River, the nearest
+railway station, to which there is a tri-weekly mail, is four miles
+southward, over the bottoms, with an uncertain ferryage between. There
+are less than fifty human beings in Port Andrew now, but double that
+number of dogs, the latter mostly of the pointer breed, kept for the
+benefit of huntsmen.
+
+We climbed the bank and went over to the post-office and general
+store. It seems to be the only business establishment left alive in
+the hamlet; although there are a dozen deserted buildings which were
+stores in the long ago, but are now ghostly wrecks, open to wind and
+weather on every side, and, with sunken ridge-poles, waiting for the
+first good wind-storm to furnish an excuse for a general collapse. A
+sleepy, greasy-looking lad, whose originally white shirt-front was
+sadly stained with water-melon juice, had charge of the meager
+concern. He said that the farmers north of the bluffs traded in towns
+more accessible than this, and that south of the stream, Blue River,
+being a railroad place, was "knockin' the spots off'n the Port." Ten
+years ago, he had heard his "pa" say the Port was "a likely place,"
+but it "ain't much shakes now."
+
+But there is a certain quaintness about these ruins of Port Andrew
+that is quite attractive. A deep ravine, cut through the shale-rock,
+comes winding down from a pass among the bluffs, severing the hamlet
+in twain. Over it there is sprung a high-arched, rough stone bridge,
+with crenelled walls, quite as artistic in its way as may be found in
+pictures of ancient English brook-crossings. On the summit of a
+rising-ground beyond, stands the solitary, whitened skeleton of a once
+spacious inn, a broad double-decked veranda stretching across its
+river front, and hitching-posts and drinking-trough now almost lost to
+view in a jungle of docks and sand-burrs. The cracks in the rotten
+veranda floors are lined with grass; the once broad highway is now
+reduced to an unfrequented trail through the yielding sand, which is
+elsewhere hid under a flowery mantle made up of delicate, fringed
+blossoms of pinkish purple, called by the natives "Pike's weed," and
+the rich yellow and pale gold of the familiar "butter and eggs." The
+peculiar effect of color, outline, and perspective, that hazy August
+day, was indeed charming. But we were called from our rapt
+contemplation of the picture, by the assemblage around us of half the
+population of Port Andrew, led by the young postmaster and accompanied
+by a drove of playful hounds. The impression had somehow got abroad
+that we had come to prospect for an iron mine, in the bed of the old
+ravine, and there was a general desire to see how the thing was done.
+The popular disappointment was evidently great, when we descended from
+our perch on the old bridge wall, and returned to the little vessel on
+the beach, which had meanwhile been closely overhauled by a knot of
+inquisitive urchins. A part of the crowd followed us down, plying
+innocent questions by the score, while on the summit of the bank above
+stood a watchful group of women and girls, some in huge sun-bonnets,
+others with aprons thrown over their heads. There was a general
+waving of hats and aprons from the shore, as we shot off into the
+current again, and our "Good-by!" was answered by a cheery chorus. It
+is evident that Port Andrew does not have many exciting episodes in
+her aimless, far-away life.
+
+Flocks of crows were seen to-day, winging their funereal flight from
+shore to shore, and uttering dismal croaks. The islands presented a
+more luxurious flora than we had yet seen; the marsh grass upon them
+was rank and tall, the overhanging trees sumptuously vine-clad, the
+autumn tints deeper and richer than before, the banks glowing with
+cardinal and yellow and purple; while on the sandy shores we saw
+loosestrife, white asters, the sensitive plant, golden-rod, and
+button-bush. Blue herons drifted through the air on their wide-spread
+wings, heads curved back upon their shoulders, and legs hanging
+straight down, to settle at last upon barren sand-spits, and stand in
+silent contemplation of some pool of dead water where perhaps a stray
+fish might reward their watchfulness. Solitary kingfishers kept their
+vigils on the numerous snags. Now and then a turtle shuffled from his
+perch and went tumbling with a loud splash into his favorite
+watering-place.
+
+Although yet too early for Indian summer, the day became, by noon,
+very like those which are the delight of a protracted northwestern
+autumn. A golden haze threw a mystic veil over the landscape; distant
+shore lines were obliterated, sand and sky and water at times merged
+in an indistinct blur, and distances were deceptive. Now and then the
+vistas of white sand-fields would apparently stretch on to infinity.
+Again, the river would seem wholly girt with cliffs and we in the
+bottom of a huge mountain basin, from which egress was impossible; or
+the stream would for a time appear a boundless lake. The islands ahead
+were as if floating in space, and there were weird reflections of
+far-away objects in the waters near us. While these singular effects
+lasted we trimmed our bark to the swift-gliding current, and floated
+along through fairy-land, unwilling to break the charm by disturbing
+the mirrored surface of the flood.
+
+Soon after the dinner hour we came in sight of the Boscobel
+toll-bridge,--an ugly, clumsy structure, housed-in like a tunnel, and
+as dark as a pocket. I was never quite able to understand why some
+bridge-makers should cover their structures in this fashion, and
+others, in the same locality, leave them open to wind and weather. So
+far as my unexpert observation goes, covered bridges are no more
+durable than the open, and they are certainly less cheerful and
+comely. A chill always comes over me as I enter one of these damp and
+gloomy hollow-ways; and the thought of how well adapted they are to
+the purposes of the thug or the footpad is not a particularly pleasant
+one for the lonely traveler by night. A dead little river hamlet, now
+in abject ruins,--Manhattan by name,--occupies the rugged bank at the
+north end of the long bridge; while southward, Boscobel is out of
+sight, a mile and a half inland, across the bottoms. The bluff
+overtopping Manhattan is a quarry of excellent hard sandstone, and a
+half dozen men were dressing blocks for shipment, on the rocky shore
+above us. They and their families constitute Manhattan.
+
+Eight miles down river, also on the north bank, is Boydtown. There are
+two houses there, in a sandy glen at the base of a group of heavily
+wooded foot-hills. At one of the dwellings--a neat, slate-colored
+cottage--we found a cheery, black-eyed woman sitting on the porch with
+a brood of five happy children playing about her. As she hurried away
+to get the butter and milk which we had asked for, she apologized for
+being seen to enjoy this unwonted leisure, apparently not desirous
+that we should suppose her to be any other than the hard-working
+little body which her hands and driving manner proclaimed her to be.
+When she returned with our supplies she said that they had "got
+through thrashin'," the day before, and she was enjoying the luxury of
+a rest preparatory to an accumulated churning. I looked incredulously
+at the sandy waste in which this little home was planted, and the good
+woman explained that their farm lay farther back, on fair soil,
+although the present dry season had not been the best for crops.
+
+Her brown-faced boy of ten and two little girls of about eight--the
+laughing faces and crow-black curls of the latter hid under immense
+flapping sun-bonnets--accompanied us to the bayou by which we had
+approached Boydtown. They had a gay, unrestrained manner that was
+quite captivating, and we were glad to have them row alongside of us
+for a way down-stream in the unwieldy family punt, the lad handling
+the crude oars and the girls huddled together on the stern seat,
+covered by their great sun-bonnet flaps, as with a cape. They were
+"goin' grapein'," they said; and at an island where the vines hung
+dark with purple clusters, they piped "Good-by, you uns!" in tittering
+unison.
+
+By this time, the weather had changed. The haze had lifted. The sky
+had quickly become overcast with leaden rainclouds, and an occasional
+big drop gave warning of an approaching storm. A few miles below
+Boydtown, we stopped to replenish our canteen at the St. Paul
+railway's fine iron bridge, the last crossing on that line between
+Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien. On the southern end of the bridge is
+Woodman; on the northern bank, the tender's house. As we were in the
+northern channel, it was impracticable to reach the village, separated
+from us by wide islands and long stretches of swamp and forest, except
+by walking the bridge and the mile or two of trestle-work approaches
+to the south. As for the bridge-house, there chanced to be no spare
+quarters for us there. So we voted to trust to fortune and push on,
+although the tender's wife, a pleasant, English-faced woman, with
+black, sparkling eyes and a hospitable smile, was much exercised in
+spirit, and thought we were running some hazard of a wetting.
+
+The skies lightened for a time, and then there came rolling up from
+over the range to the southwest great jagged rifts of black clouds,
+ugly "thunder heads," which seemed to presage a deluge. Below them,
+veiling the tallest peaks, tossed and sped the light-footed couriers
+of the wind, and we saw the dark-green bosom of the upper forests
+heave with the emotions of the air, while the rushing stream below
+flowed on unruffled. The river is here united in one broad channel. At
+the first evidence of a blow, we hurried across to the windward bank.
+We were landing at the swampy, timber-strewn base of a precipitous
+cliff as the wind passed over the valley, and had just completed our
+preparations for shelter when the rain began to come in blinding
+sheets.
+
+The possibility of having to spend the night under the sepulchral
+arches of this forested morass was not pleasant to contemplate. The
+storm abated, however, within half an hour, and we were then able to
+distinguish a large white house apparently set back in an open field a
+half mile or more from the opposite shore.
+
+Re-embarking, we headed that way, and found a wood-fringed stream
+several rods wide, pouring a vigorous flood into the Wisconsin, from
+the north. Our map showed it to be the Kickapoo, an old-time logging
+river, and the house must be an outlying member of the small railroad
+village of Wauzeka. A consultation was held on board, at the mouth of
+the Kickapoo. On the Wisconsin not a house was to be seen, as far as
+the eye could reach, and wide stretches of swamp and wooded bog
+appeared to line both its banks. The prospect of paddling up the mad
+little Kickapoo for a mile to Wauzeka was dispiriting, but we decided
+to do it; for night was coming on, our tent, even could we find a good
+camping ground in this marshy wilderness, was disposed to be leaky,
+and a steady drizzle continued to sound a muffled tattoo on our rubber
+coats. A voluble fisherman, caught out in the rain like ourselves,
+came swinging into the tributary, with his cranky punt, just as we
+were setting our paddles for a vigorous pull up-stream. We had his
+company, side by side, till we reached the St. Paul railway trestle,
+and beached at the foot of a deserted stave mill, in whose innermost
+recesses we deposited our traps. Guided by the village shoemaker's
+boy, who had been playing by the river side, we started up the track
+to find the hotel, nearly a half mile away.
+
+It is a quiet, comfortable, old-fashioned little inn, this hostelry at
+Wauzeka. The landlord greeted his storm-bound guests with polite
+urbanity, and with none of that inquisitiveness so common in rural
+hosts. At supper, we met the village philosopher, a quaint, lone old
+man who has an opinion of his own upon most human subjects, and more
+than dares to voice it,--insists, in fact, on having it known of all
+men. A young commercial traveler, the only other patron of the
+establishment, sadly guyed our philosophical messmate by securing his
+verdict on a wide range of topics, from the latest league game to
+abstruse questions of theology. The philosopher bit, and the drummer
+was in high feather as he crinkled the corners of his mouth behind his
+huge moustache, and looked slyly around for encouragement that was not
+offered.
+
+Wauzeka is, in one respect, like too many other country villages.
+Three saloons disfigure the main street, and in front of them are
+little knots of noisy loafers, in the evening, filling up the rickety,
+variously graded sidewalk to the gutter, and necessitating the running
+of a loathsome gauntlet to those who may wish to pass that way. The
+boy who can grow up in such an atmosphere, unpolluted, must be of rare
+material, or his parents exceptionally judicious. There are few large
+cities where one can see the liquor traffic carried on with such
+disgusting boldness as in hamlets like this, where screenless,
+open-doored saloons of a vile character jostle trading shops and
+dwellings, and monopolize the footway, making of the business street a
+place which women may abhor at any hour, and must necessarily avoid
+after sunset. With a local-option law, that but awaits a majority vote
+to be operative in such communities, it is a strange commentary on the
+quality of our nineteenth-century civilization that the dissolute few
+should still, as of old, be able to persistently hold the whip-hand
+over the virtuous but timid many.
+
+Elsewhere in Wauzeka, there are many pretty grass-grown lanes; some
+substantial cottages; a prosperous creamery, employing the service of
+the especial pride of the village, a six-inch spouting well, driven
+for three hundred feet to the underlying stratum of lime-rock; a
+saw-mill or two, which are worked spasmodically, according to the
+log-driving stage in the Kickapoo, and some pleasant, accommodating
+people, who appear to be quite contented with their lot in life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
+
+
+There was fog on the river in the morning. Across the broad expanse of
+field and ledge which separates Wauzeka from the Wisconsin, we could
+see the great white mass of vapor, fifty feet thick, resting on the
+broad channel like a dense coverlid of down. Soon after seven o'clock,
+the cloud lifted by degrees, and then broke into ragged segments,
+which settled sluggishly for a while on the tops of the southern line
+of bluffs and screened their dark amphitheaters from view, till at
+last dissipated into thin air.
+
+We were off at eight o'clock, fifteen or twenty men coming down to the
+railway-bridge to watch the operation. One of them helped us
+materially with our bundles, while the rest sat in a row along the
+trestle, dangling their feet through the spaces between the stringers,
+and gazing at us as though we were a circus company on the move. A
+drizzle set in, just as we pushed from the bank, and we descended the
+Kickapoo under much the same conditions of atmosphere as those we had
+experienced in pulling against its swirling tide the evening before.
+
+But by nine o'clock the storm was over, and we had, for a time, a
+calm, quiet journey, a gray light which harmonized well with the
+wildly picturesque scenery, and a fresh west breeze which helped us on
+our way. We were now but twenty miles from the mouth. The parallel
+ranges of bluff come nearer together, until they are not much over a
+mile apart, and the stream, now broader, swifter, and deeper, is less
+encumbered with islands. Upon the peaty banks are the tall white
+spikes of the curious turtlehead, occasional masses of balsam-apple
+vines, the gleaming lobelia cardinalis, yellow honeysuckles just going
+out of blossom, and acres of the golden sneeze-weed, which deserves a
+better name.
+
+At Wright's Ferry, ten miles below, there are domiciled two German
+families, and on the shore is a saw-mill which is operated in the
+spring, to work up the logs which farmers bring down from the gloomy
+mountains which back the scene.
+
+Bridgeport, four miles farther,--still on the northern side,--is
+chiefly a clump of little red railway buildings set up on a high bench
+carved from the face of the bluff, their fronts resting on the
+road-bed and their rears on high scaffolding. A few big bowlders
+rolling down from the cliffs would topple Bridgeport over into the
+river. There is a covered country toll-bridge here, and the industrial
+interest of the Liliputian community is quarrying. It is the last
+hamlet on the river.
+
+A mist again formed, casting a blue tinge over the peaks and giving
+them a far distant aspect; dark clouds now and then lowered and rolled
+through the upper ravines, reflecting their inky hue upon the surface
+of the deep, gliding river. The bluffs, which had for many miles
+closely abutted the stream, at last gradually swept away to the north
+and south, to become part of the great wall which forms the eastern
+bulwark of the Upper Mississippi. At their base spreads a broad, flat
+plain, fringed with boggy woods and sandy meadows, the delta of the
+Wisconsin, which, below the Lowertown bridge of the Burlington and
+Northern railway, is cut up into flood-washed willow islands, flanked
+by a wide stretch of shifting sand-bars black with tangled roots and
+stranded logs, the debris of many a spring-time freshet.
+
+It was about half-past twelve o'clock when we came to the junction of
+the Wisconsin and the Mississippi. Upon a willow-grown sand-reef
+edging the swamp, which extends northward for five miles to the
+quaint, ancient little city of Prairie du Chien, a large barge lies
+stranded. A lone fisherman sat upon its bulwark rail, which overhangs
+the rushing waters as they here commingle. We landed with something
+akin to reverence, for this must have been about the place where
+Joliet and Marquette, two hundred and fourteen years ago, gazed with
+rapture upon the mighty Mississippi, which they had at last
+discovered, after so many thousands of miles of arduous journeying
+through a savage-haunted wilderness. And indeed it is an imposing
+sight. To the west, two miles away, rise the wooded peaks on the Iowa
+side of the great river. Northward there are pretty glimpses of cliffs
+and rocky beaches through openings in the heavy growth which covers
+the islands of the upper stream. Southward is a long vista of curving
+hills and glinting water shut in by the converging ranges. Eastward
+stretches the green delta of the Wisconsin, flanked by those imposing
+bluffs, between whose bases for two centuries has flowed a curious
+throng of humanity, savage and civilized, on errands sacred and
+profane, representing many clashing nationalities.
+
+The rain descended in a gentle shower as I was lighting a fire on
+which to cook our last canoeing meal of the season; and W---- held an
+umbrella over the already damp kindling in order to give it a chance.
+We no doubt made a comical picture as we crouched together beneath
+this shelter, jointly trying to fan the sparks into a flame, for the
+fisherman, who had been heretofore speechless, and apparently rapt in
+his occupation, burst out into a hearty laugh. When we turned to look
+at him he hid his face under his upturned coat-collar, and giggled to
+himself like a schoolgirl. He was a jolly dog, this fisherman, and
+after we had presented him with a cup of coffee and what solids we
+could spare from our now meager store, he warmed into a very
+communicative mood, and gave us much detailed, though rather highly
+colored, information about the locality, especially as to its natural
+features.
+
+The rain had ceased by the time dinner was over; so we bade farewell
+to the happy fisherman and the presiding deities of the Wisconsin, and
+pulled up the giant Mississippi to Prairie du Chien, stopping on our
+way to visit an out-of-the-way bayou, botanically famous, where
+flourishes the rare nelumbium luteum--America's nearest approach to
+the lotus of the Nile.
+
+And thus was accomplished the season's stint of six hundred miles of
+canoeing upon the Historic Waterways of Illinois and Wisconsin.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+     Algoma, 182, 186.
+
+     Allouez, Father Claude, 176, 228, 229.
+
+     American Fur Co., 145.
+
+     Anderson, Maj. Robert, U.S.A., 19.
+
+     Antoinette, Marie, Queen of France, 224.
+
+     Appleton, Wis., 23, 27, 185, 202-207, 209.
+
+     Arena Ferry, Wis., 27, 257, 262.
+
+     Arndt, Judge John P., 158.
+
+     Astor, John Jacob, 145, 232.
+
+     Atkinson, Gen. Henry, U. S. A., 19, 255.
+
+     Avoca, Wis., 270.
+
+
+     Bad Axe, battle of, 255, 266.
+
+     Baraboo River, 241.
+
+     Barth, Laurent, 143.
+
+     Beloit, Wis., 20, 26, 65.
+
+     Berlin, Wis., 21, 22, 27, 164, 173-175, 177, 240.
+
+     Black Hawk War, 18, 19, 87, 119, 250, 253-255, 266.
+
+     Black Hawk Mountain, 256.
+
+     Black River Falls, Wis., 200.
+
+     Black Wolf Point, Lake Winnebago, 191.
+
+     Blue Mound, Wis., 266.
+
+     Blue River Village, Wis., 276.
+
+     Boscobel, Wis., 27, 280, 281.
+
+     "Bourbon, The American." _See_ Williams, Eleazar.
+
+     Boydtown, Wis., 27, 281, 282.
+
+     Bridgeport, Wis., 27, 289, 290.
+
+     Buffalo Lake, 22, 160-162, 168, 173.
+
+     Butte des Morts, Lake Grand, 161, 181-183, 199.
+
+     Butte des Morts, Lake Petit, 199, 201, 202.
+
+     Butte des Morts Village, 183-185, 188.
+
+     Butterfield, Consul W., _cited_, 176.
+
+     Byron, Ill., 19, 26, 82-85.
+
+
+     Canoeing, pleasures of, 15, 16.
+
+     Canoeists, suggestions to, 23-26.
+
+     Canoes, styles of, 15, 16.
+
+     Carbon Cliff, Ill., 138, 139.
+
+     Catfish River, Wis., 18, 31-59.
+
+     Champche Keriwinke, Winnebago princess, 200, 201.
+
+     Champlain, Governor of Quebec, 175, 230.
+
+     Cherry River, 80.
+
+     Chicago, Burlington, and Northern Ry., 290.
+
+     Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Ry., 137-139.
+
+     Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Ry., 76, 82, 178, 186, 256,
+       259-265, 269, 283, 285.
+
+     Chicago and Northwestern Ry., 65, 248-250.
+
+     Cleveland, Ill., 137.
+
+     Coloma, Ill., 26, 138-140.
+
+     Como, Ill. 26, 109-111.
+
+     Crooks, Ramsay, 232.
+
+
+     Dablon, Father Claude, 229.
+
+     Dakotah Indians. _See_ Sioux and Winnebagoes.
+
+     Davis, Jefferson, 19, 145, 146.
+
+     Dekorra, Wis., 242-245.
+
+     De Korra, early fur trader, 199, 200.
+
+     Depere, Wis., 206, 225, 228, 229.
+
+     Dixon, Ill., 18, 20, 26, 87, 93, 94, 97-101, 106-108.
+
+     Dodge, Maj. Henry, 253, 255.
+
+     Doty's Island, Wis., 195-201.
+
+     Dunkirk, Wis., 52, 53.
+
+
+     Erie, Ill., 26, 124-136.
+
+     Eureka, Wis., 178.
+
+
+     First Lake, 40, 43-45.
+
+     Fond du Lac, Wis., 191.
+
+     Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien, Wis.), 145.
+
+     Fort Howard, Wis., 145, 228-234.
+
+     Fort Winnebago (Portage, Wis.), 144-146.
+
+     Four Lake country, Wis., 18, 33, 254.
+
+     Four Legs, Winnebago chief, 200, 201.
+
+     Fox Indians (_see_, also, Sacs), 176, 196-199.
+
+     Fox River, Wis., 17, 21-23, 26, 141-234, 239, 240, 255.
+
+     Fulton, Wis., 56-58.
+
+     Fur trade in Wisconsin, 189, 196-200, 207, 208, 231, 234.
+
+
+     Ganymede Springs, Ill., 89, 90.
+
+     Garlic Island, Lake Winnebago, 189-191.
+
+     Garritty, Mary, 226-228.
+
+     Grand Detour, Ill., 92-106.
+
+     Great Bend of Rock River, 105-106.
+
+     Green Bay, Wis., 23, 27, 180, 181, 185, 198, 207, 229-234, 238.
+
+     Grignon, Augustin, 184, 185, 188, 232.
+
+
+     Hanson, John H., _cited_, 224, 225.
+
+     Harney, Gen. William S., U. S. A., 145.
+
+     Helena Village, Wis., 27, 259-265.
+
+     Helena, Wis., Old, 265, 266.
+
+     Henry, Maj. James D., 253, 255.
+
+     Hoo-Tschope. _See_ Four Legs.
+
+
+     Illinois Indians, 21, 176.
+
+     Iowatuk, Winnebago princess, 189, 191.
+
+
+     Janesville, Wis., 20, 26, 60-65.
+
+     Jesuit missionaries, 21, 24, 176, 177, 180, 181, 228, 229, 231.
+
+     Joliet, Sieur de, 21, 176, 229, 239.
+
+
+     Kackalin, Grand. _See_ Kaukauna.
+
+     Kaukauna, Wis., 27, 185, 206-213.
+
+     Kellogg's trail, 106, 107.
+
+     Keokuk, Fox chief, 255.
+
+     Kickapoo Indians, 175.
+
+     Kickapoo River, Wis., 27, 284, 285, 287, 288.
+
+     Kinzie, Mrs. John H., _cited_, 146, 200.
+
+     Koshkonong, Lake, 18, 19, 59, 254.
+
+
+     Lakeside, Third Lake, 32.
+
+     Langlade, Charles de, 198, 232.
+
+     Latham Station, Ill., 76, 77.
+
+     Lawrence University, 205, 206.
+
+     Lead mines at Galena, 18.
+
+     Lecuyer, Jean B., 143, 144.
+
+     Lignery, Sieur Marchand de, 198.
+
+     Lincoln, Abraham, 19.
+
+     Little Kaukauna, Wis., 206, 216-219, 221, 225.
+
+     Lone Rock, Wis., 27, 262, 267-270.
+
+     Louis XVI., King of France, 223-225.
+
+     Louis XVII., Dauphin of France, 223-225.
+
+     Louvigny, Sieur de, 198.
+
+     Lyndon, Ill., 26, 118.
+
+
+     Madison, Wis., 18, 26.
+
+     Manhattan, Wis., 281.
+
+     Marin, Sieur de, 197, 198.
+
+     Marquette, Father James, 21, 157, 176, 229, 239.
+
+     Marquette Village, Wis., 26, 161, 166-170.
+
+     Mascoutin Indians, 175-178.
+
+     Mazomanie, Wis., 256.
+
+     Menasha, Wis., 23, 183, 185, 195, 196, 207.
+
+     Menomonee Indians, 187, 188, 196, 197, 223.
+
+     Merrimac, Wis., 27, 248-250.
+
+     Miami Indians, 175.
+
+     Milan, Ill., 139.
+
+     Milwaukee and Northern Ry., 203, 204.
+
+     Mississippi River, 21, 26, 27, 136, 138, 180, 229-231, 239,
+       253-255, 290-293.
+
+     Mohawk Indians, 222.
+
+     Montello, Wis., 22, 26, 160, 162-164, 168.
+
+     Muscoda, Wis., 23, 27, 270, 272-274.
+
+
+     Neenah, Wis., 22, 27, 183, 185, 191, 195-201, 206.
+
+     New York Indians. _See_ Oneidas.
+
+     Nicolet, Jean, 21, 175, 176, 230, 231.
+
+     Northern Insane Hospital, Wis., 189-191.
+
+
+     Omro, Wis., 22, 27, 175, 178, 179.
+
+     Oneida Indians, 222-228.
+
+     Oregon, Ill., 20, 26, 88-90.
+
+     Orion, Wis., 272.
+
+     Oshkosh, Menomonee chief, 187, 188.
+
+     Oshkosh, Wis., 27, 161, 182, 183, 185-188, 190, 207.
+
+     Ott's Farm, Madison, Wis., 33.
+
+     Owen, Ill. _See_ Latham Station.
+
+
+     Packwaukee, Wis., 26, 150, 159-161, 163.
+
+     Paine Bros., 186.
+
+     Paquette, Pierre, 144.
+
+     Penney, Josephine, 226-228.
+
+     Philippe, Louis, King of France, 225.
+
+     Pope's Springs, Wis., 60.
+
+     Porlier, James, 184, 185.
+
+     Porlier, Louis B., 184, 185.
+
+     Portage, Wis., 21, 23, 26, 27, 143-146, 160, 161, 185, 198, 206,
+       237-242.
+
+     Port Andrew, Wis., 27, 275-279.
+
+     Pottawattomie Indians, 18, 19, 87.
+
+     Poygan Lake, 22, 180, 181.
+
+     Prairie du Chien, Wis., 21, 27, 145, 238, 240, 255, 291-293.
+
+     Prairie du Sac, Wis., 23, 27, 252-256, 266.
+
+     Princeton, Wis., 22, 27, 168-172, 210.
+
+     Prophetstown, Ill., 18, 26, 118-120.
+
+     Puckawa Lake, 22, 161, 163-169.
+
+
+     Red Bird, Winnebago chief, 145.
+
+     Richland Center, Wis., 269.
+
+     Richland City, Wis., 269.
+
+     Rockford, Ill., 20, 26, 79.
+
+     Rock Island, Ill., 18, 26, 139, 140, 253.
+
+     Rock River, 17-21, 29-140, 213, 253.
+
+     Rockton, Ill., 20.
+
+     Roscoe, Ill., 74, 76.
+
+
+     Sac Indians, 18, 19, 119, 198, 253-256.
+
+     Sacramento, Wis., 177, 178.
+
+     Sauk City, Wis., 23, 256, 257.
+
+     Sawyer, Philetus, 186.
+
+     Second Lake, 33, 36-39, 43.
+
+     Shaubena, Pottawattomie chief, 18.
+
+     Sioux Indians, 230, 231, 255.
+
+     Smith's Island, Wis., 149-156.
+
+     Spring Green, Wis., 261.
+
+     Stebbinsville, Wis., 53, 54.
+
+     Sterling, Ill., 20, 26, 108, 109.
+
+     Stillman's Creek, 19, 83, 86, 87.
+
+     Stillman's defeat, 19, 87.
+
+     Stoughton, Wis., 20, 26, 42, 44, 46-50, 52.
+
+     Stuart, Robert, 232.
+
+
+     Taylor, Zachary, 19.
+
+     Third Lake, 31, 33.
+
+     Turvill's Bay, Third Lake, 32, 33.
+
+     Twiggs, Maj. David, 232.
+
+
+     Walking Cloud, a Winnebago, 200.
+
+     Wauzeka, Wis., 27, 285-288.
+
+     White Cloud, Indian prophet, 18, 119.
+
+     White River lock, 172, 173.
+
+     Williams, Eleazar, 222-228.
+
+     Williams, Mrs. Eleazar, 225, 226.
+
+     Winnebago Indians, 19, 119, 145, 166, 189, 196, 197, 199-201,
+       223, 230, 231, 238, 254, 255.
+
+     Winnebago Lake, 22, 180, 183, 189-196, 206.
+
+     Winnebago prophet. _See_ White Cloud.
+
+     Winnebago Rapids, 196-201.
+
+     Winneconne, 22, 164, 179-182.
+
+     Wisconsin Central Ry., 144, 160.
+
+     Wisconsin Heights, battle of, 254, 266.
+
+     Wisconsin River, 17, 21-23, 27, 143-146, 230, 231, 237-293.
+
+     Wisconsin River Dells, 23.
+
+     Wolf River, 179-183, 185.
+
+     Woodman, Wis., 283.
+
+     Wright's Ferry, Wis., 27, 289.
+
+     Wrightstown, Wis., 213, 214, 220.
+
+
+     Yahara River. _See_ Catfish.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Historic Waterways--Six Hundred Miles
+of Canoeing Down the Rock, Fox, and Wisconsin Rivers, by Reuben Gold Thwaites
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Historic Waterways--Six Hundred Miles of
+Canoeing Down the Rock, Fox, and Wisconsin Rivers, by Reuben Gold Thwaites
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Historic Waterways--Six Hundred Miles of Canoeing Down the Rock, Fox, and Wisconsin Rivers
+
+Author: Reuben Gold Thwaites
+
+Release Date: January 12, 2012 [EBook #38556]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC WATERWAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Bergquist, Melissa McDaniel and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="tnbox">
+<p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></p>
+<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original
+document have been preserved.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/frontcover400.jpg" width="400" height="601" alt="Cover" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h1 class="p6"><span class="smcap">Historic Waterways</span></h1>
+
+<h2 class="p2">SIX HUNDRED MILES OF CANOEING<br />
+DOWN THE ROCK, FOX, AND<br />
+WISCONSIN RIVERS</h2>
+
+<p class="center p2">BY</p>
+
+<p class="center b110">REUBEN GOLD THWAITES</p>
+
+<p class="center s80">SECRETARY OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN</p>
+
+<hr class="l15" />
+<p class="blockquot">Other roads do some violence to Nature, and bring the traveller to stare
+at her; but the river steals into the scenery it traverses without intrusion,
+silently creating and adorning it, and is free to come and go as the
+zephyr.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Thoreau</span>; <i>A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.</i></p>
+<hr class="l15" />
+
+<p class="center">CHICAGO<br />
+<span class="smcap">A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY</span><br />
+1888<br /></p>
+
+<p class="center p6"><span class="smcap">Copyright</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">By A. C. McClurg and Co.</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1888.</p>
+
+<p class="center p6 b110">This Little Volume</p>
+
+<p class="center">IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR</p>
+
+<p class="center b110">TO HIS WIFE,</p>
+
+<p class="center s90">HIS MESSMATE UPON TWO OF THE THREE VACATION<br />
+VOYAGES HEREIN RECORDED,<br />
+AND HIS FELLOW-VOYAGER DOWN THE RIVER<br />
+OF TIME.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_008.jpg" width="450" height="148" alt="Preface Header" />
+</div>
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+<hr class="l15" />
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>here is a generally accepted notion
+that a brief summer vacation, if at all
+obtainable in this busy life of ours, must be
+spent in a flight as far afield as time will allow;
+that the popular resorts in the mountains, by
+the seaside, or on the margins of the upper
+lakes must be sought for rest and enjoyment;
+that neighborhood surroundings should, in the
+mad rush for change of air and scene, be left
+behind. The result is that your average vacationist&mdash;if
+I may be allowed to coin a
+needed word&mdash;knows less of his own State
+than of any other, and is inattentive to the
+delights of nature which await inspection
+within the limits of his horizon.</p>
+
+<p>But let him mount his bicycle, his saddle-horse,
+or his family carriage, and start out
+upon a gypsy tour of a week or two along the
+country roads, exploring the hills and plains
+and valleys of&mdash;say his congressional district;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span>
+or, better by far, take his canoe, and
+with his best friend for a messmate explore
+the nearest river from source to mouth, and
+my word for it he will find novelty and fresh
+air enough to satisfy his utmost cravings;
+and when he comes to return to his counter,
+his desk, or his study, he will be conscious of
+having discovered charms in his own locality
+which he has in vain sought in the accustomed
+paths of the tourist.</p>
+
+<p>This volume is the record of six hundred
+miles of canoeing experiences on historic waterways
+in Wisconsin and Illinois during the
+summer of 1887. There has been no attempt
+at exaggeration, to color its homely incidents,
+or to picture charms where none exist. It is
+intended to be a simple, truthful narrative of
+what was seen and done upon a series of
+novel outings through the heart of the Northwest.
+If it may induce others to undertake
+similar excursions, and thus increase the little
+navy of healthy and self-satisfied canoeists,
+the object of the publication will have been
+attained.</p>
+
+<p>I am under obligations to my friend, the
+Hon. Levi Alden, for valuable assistance in
+the revision of proof-sheets.</p>
+
+<p><span class="flright">R. G. T.</span></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Madison</span>, Wis., December, 1887.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_010.jpg" width="450" height="137" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<hr class="l15" />
+
+<table summary="Table of Contents">
+<col width="270" />
+<col width="220" />
+<col width="260" />
+<tr>
+<td class="tdpage s80" colspan="2">PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">Table of Distances</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc b150" colspan="2">The Rock River.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER I.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">The Winding Yahara</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER II.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">Barbed-Wire Fences</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER III.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">An Illinois Prairie Home</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">The Half-Way House</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_74">74</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER V.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">Grand Detour Folks</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">An Ancient Mariner</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">Storm-Bound at Erie</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII.</td>
+
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">The Last Day Out</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc b150" colspan="2">The Fox River (of Green Bay).</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">FIRST LETTER.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">Smith's Island</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">SECOND LETTER.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">From Packwaukee to Berlin</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">THIRD LETTER.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">The Mascoutins</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">FOURTH LETTER.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">The Land of the Winnebagoes</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_187">187</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">FIFTH LETTER.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">Locked Through</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">SIXTH LETTER.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">The Bay Settlement</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc b150" colspan="2">The Wisconsin River.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER I.</td>
+
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">Alone in the Wilderness</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_237">237</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER II.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">The Last of the Sacs</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER III.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">A Panoramic View</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">Floating Through Fairyland</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"> <a href="#Page_275">275</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdchap" colspan="2">CHAPTER V</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="smcap">The Discovery of the Mississippi</span></td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="l15" />
+<table summary="Table of Contents-Index">
+<col width="270" />
+<col width="220" />
+<col width="260" />
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle">INDEX</td>
+<td class="tdpage"><a href="#Page_295">295</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a></span></p>
+<h2 class="p6">INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_016.jpg" width="450" height="135" alt="Introduction Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<h2>HISTORIC WATERWAYS.</h2>
+
+<hr class="l15" />
+<p><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a></p>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">P</span>rovided, reader, you have a goodly
+store of patience, stout muscles, a practiced
+fondness for the oars, a keen love of the
+picturesque and curious in nature, a capacity
+for remaining good-humored under the most
+adverse circumstances, together with a quiet
+love for that sort of gypsy life which we call
+"roughing it," canoeing may be safely recommended
+to you as one of the most delightful
+and healthful of outdoor recreations, as well
+as one of the cheapest.</p>
+
+<p>The canoe need not be of birch-bark or
+canvas, or of the Rob Roy or Racine pattern.
+A plain, substantial, light, open clinker-build
+was what we used,&mdash;thirteen feet in extreme
+length, with three-and-a-half feet beam. It
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>
+was easily portaged, held two persons comfortably
+with seventy-five pounds of baggage,
+and drew but five inches,&mdash;just enough to let
+us over the average shallows without bumping.
+It was serviceable, and stood the rough
+carries and innumerable bangs from sunken
+rocks and snags along its voyage of six hundred
+miles, without injury. It could carry a
+large sprit-sail, and, with an attachable keel,
+run close to the wind; while an awning, decided
+luxury on hot days, was readily hoisted
+on a pair of hoops attached to the gunwale on
+either side. But perhaps, where there are no
+portages necessary, an ordinary flat-bottomed
+river punt, built of three boards, would be as
+productive of good results, except as to speed,&mdash;and
+what matters speed upon such a tour
+of observation?</p>
+
+<p>It is not necessary to go to the Maine lakes
+for canoeing purposes; or to skirt the gloomy
+wastes of Labrador, or descend the angry
+current of a mountain stream. Here, in the
+Mississippi basin, practically boundless opportunities
+present themselves, at our very doors,
+to glide through the heart of a fertile and
+picturesque land, to commune with Nature,
+to drink in her beauties, to view men and
+communities from a novel standpoint, to catch
+pictures of life and manners that will always
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>
+live in one's memory. The traveler by rail
+has brief and imperfect glimpses of the landscape.
+The canoeist, from his lowly seat
+near the surface of the flood, sees the
+country practically as it was in pioneer days,
+in a state of unalloyed beauty. Each bend in
+the stream brings into view a new vista, and
+thus the bewitching scene changes as in a
+kaleidoscope. The people one meets, the variety
+of landscape one encounters, the simple
+adventures of the day, the sensation of being
+an explorer, the fresh air and simple diet,
+combined with that spirit of calm contentedness
+which overcomes the happy voyager who
+casts loose from care, are the never-failing
+attractions of such a trip.</p>
+
+<p>To those would-be canoeists who are fond
+of the romantic history of our great West, as
+well as of delightful scenery, the Fox (of
+Green Bay), the Rock, and the Wisconsin,
+each with its sharply distinctive features,
+will be found among the most interesting of
+our neighborhood rivers. And this record of
+recent voyages upon them is, I think, fairly
+representative of what sights and experiences
+await the boatman upon any of the streams
+of similar importance in the vast and well-watered
+region of the upper Mississippi valley.</p>
+
+<p>Of the three, the Rock river route, through
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span>
+the great prairies of Illinois, perhaps presents
+the greatest variety of life and scenery. The
+Rock has practically two heads: the smaller,
+in a rustic stream flowing from the north into
+swamp-girted Lake Koshkonong; the larger,
+in the four lakes at Madison, the charming
+capital of Wisconsin, which empty their waters
+into the Avon-like Catfish or Yahara,
+which in turn pours into the Rock a short
+distance below the Koshkonong lake. Our
+course was from Madison almost to the mouth
+of the Rock, near Rock Island, 267 miles of
+paddling, as the river winds.</p>
+
+<p>The student of history finds the Rock interesting
+to him because of its associations
+with the Black Hawk war of 1832. When
+the famous Sac warrior "invaded" Illinois,
+his path of progress was up the south bank
+of that stream. At Prophetstown lived his
+evil genius, the crafty White Cloud, and here
+the Hawk held council with the Pottawattomies,
+who, under good Shaubena's influence,
+rejected the war pipe. Dixon is famous as
+the site of the pioneer ferry over the Rock,
+on the line of what was the principal land
+highway between Chicago and southern Wisconsin
+and the Galena mines for a protracted
+period in each year. Here, many a notable
+party of explorers, military officials, miners,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span>
+and traders have rendezvoused in the olden
+time. Here was a rallying-point in 1832, as
+well, when Lincoln was a raw-boned militiaman
+in a scouting corps, and Robert Anderson,
+of Fort Sumter fame, Zachary Taylor,
+and Jefferson Davis were of the regular army
+under bluff old Atkinson. A grove at the
+mouth of Stillman's Creek, a Rock River
+tributary, near Byron, is the scene of the
+actual outbreak of the war. The forest where
+Black Hawk camped with the white-loving
+Pottawattomies is practically unchanged, and
+the open, rolling prairie to the south&mdash;on
+which Stillman's horsemen acted at first so
+treacherously, and afterwards as arrant cowards&mdash;is
+still there, a broad pasture-land
+miles in length, along the river. The contemporaneous
+descriptions of the "battle" field
+are readily recognizable to-day. Above, as
+far as Lake Koshkonong, the river banks are
+fraught with interest; for along them the
+soldiery followed up the Sac trail, like bloodhounds,
+and held many an unsatisfactory
+parley with the double-faced Winnebagoes.</p>
+
+<p>Rock River scenery combines the rustic,
+the romantic, and the picturesque,&mdash;prairies,
+meadows, ravines, swamps, mountainous
+bluffs, eroded palisades, wide stretches of
+densely wooded bottoms, heavy upland forests,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span>
+shallows, spits, and rapids. Birds and flowers,
+and uncommon plants and vines, delight the
+naturalist and the botanist. The many thriving
+manufacturing cities,&mdash;such as Stoughton,
+Janesville, Beloit, Rockford, Rockton,
+Dixon, Sterling, and Oregon,&mdash;furnish an
+abundance of sight-seeing. The small villages&mdash;some
+of them odd, out-of-the-way
+places, of rare types&mdash;are worthy of study to
+the curious in economics and human nature.
+The farmers are of many types; the fishermen
+one is thrown into daily communion with
+are a class unto themselves; while millers,
+bridge-tenders, boat-renters, and others whose
+callings are along-shore, present a variety of
+humanity interesting and instructive. The
+twenty-odd mill-dam portages, each having
+difficulties and incidents of its own, are well
+calculated to vary the monotony of the voyage;
+there are more or less dangers connected
+with some of the mill-races, while the lookout
+for snags, bowlders and shallows must be
+continuous, sharpening the senses of sight
+and sound; for a tip-over or the utter demolition
+of the craft may readily follow carelessness
+in this direction. The islands in the
+Rock are numerous, many of them being
+several miles in length, and nearly all heavily
+wooded. These frequent divisions of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span>
+channel often give rise to much perplexity;
+for the ordinary summer stage of water is so
+low that a loaded canoe drawing five inches
+of water is liable to be stranded in the channel
+apparently most available.</p>
+
+<p>The Fox and Wisconsin rivers&mdash;the former,
+from Portage to Green Bay, the latter
+from Portage to Prairie du Chien&mdash;form a
+water highway that has been in use by white
+men for two and a half centuries. In 1634,
+Jean Nicolet, the first explorer of the Northwest,
+passed up the Fox River, to about Berlin,
+and then went southward to visit the Illinois.
+In the month of June, 1673, Joliet and Marquette
+made their famous tour over the interlocked
+watercourse and discovered the
+Mississippi River. After they had shown the
+way, a tide of travel set in over these twin
+streams, between the Great Lakes and the
+great river,&mdash;a motley procession of Jesuit
+missionaries, explorers, traders, trappers, soldiers
+and pioneers. New England was in
+its infancy when the Fox and Wisconsin became
+an established highway for enterprising
+canoeists.</p>
+
+<p>Since the advent of the railway era this
+historic channel of communication has fallen
+into disuse. The general government has
+spent an immense sum in endeavoring to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span>
+render it navigable for the vessels in vogue
+to-day, but the result, as a whole, is a failure.
+There is no navigation on the Fox worthy of
+mention, above Berlin, and even that below is
+insignificant and intermittent. On the Wisconsin
+there is none at all, except for skiffs
+and an occasional lumber-raft.</p>
+
+<p>The canoeist of to-day, therefore, will find
+solitude and shallows enough on either river.
+But he can float, if historically inclined,
+through the dusky shadows of the past, for
+every turn of the bank has its story, and there
+is romance enough to stock a volume.</p>
+
+<p>The upper Fox is rather monotonous.
+The river twists and turns through enormous
+widespreads, grown up with wild rice and
+flecked with water-fowl. These widespreads
+occasionally free themselves of vegetable
+growth and become lakes, like the Buffalo,
+the Puckawa, and the Poygan. There is,
+however, much of interest to the student in
+natural history; while such towns as Montello,
+Princeton, Berlin, Omro, Winneconne, and
+Oshkosh are worthy of visitation. Lake
+Winnebago is a notable inland sea, and the
+canoeist feels fairly lost, in his little cockle
+shell, bobbing about over its great waves.
+The lower Fox runs between high, noble
+banks, and with frequent rapids, past Neenah,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span>
+Menasha, Appleton, and other busy manufacturing
+cities, down to Green Bay, hoary
+with age and classic in her shanty ruins.</p>
+
+<p>The Wisconsin River is the most picturesque
+of the three. Probably the best route is
+from the head of the Dells to the mouth; but
+the run from Portage to the mouth is the one
+which has the merit of antiquity, and is certainly
+a long enough jaunt to satisfy the average
+tourist. It is a wide, gloomy, mountain-girt
+valley, with great sand-bars and thickly-wooded
+morasses. Settlement is slight. Portage,
+Prairie du Sac, Sauk City, and Muscoda
+are the principal towns. The few villages
+are generally from a mile to three miles back,
+at the foot of the bluffs, out of the way of the
+flood, and the river appears to be but little
+used. It is an ideal sketching-ground. The
+canoeist with a camera will find occupation
+enough in taking views of his surroundings;
+perplexity as to what to choose amid such a
+crowd of charming scenes, will be his only
+difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>Some suggestions to those who may wish
+to undertake these or similar river trips may
+be advisable. Traveling alone will be found
+too dreary. None but a hermit could enjoy
+those long stretches of waterway, where one
+may float for a day without seeing man or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span>
+animal on the forest-bounded shores, and
+where the oppression of solitude is felt with
+such force that it requires but a slight stretch
+of imagination to carry one's self back in
+thought and feeling to the days when the
+black-robed members of the Company of
+Jesus first penetrated the gloomy wilderness.
+Upon the size of the party should depend the
+character of the preparations. If the plan is
+to spend the nights at farmhouses or village
+taverns, then a party of two will be as large as
+can secure comfortable quarters,&mdash;especially
+at a farmhouse, where but one spare bed can
+usually be found, while many are the country
+inns where the accommodations are equally
+limited. If it is intended to tent on the
+banks, then the party should be larger; for
+two persons unused to this experience would
+find it exceedingly lonesome after nightfall,
+when visions of river tramps, dissolute fishermen,
+and inquisitive hogs and bulls, pass in
+review, and the weakness of the little camp
+against such formidable odds comes to be
+fully recognized. Often, too, the camping-places
+are few and far between, and may involve
+a carry of luggage to higher lands
+beyond; on such occasions, the more assistance
+the merrier. But whatever the preparations
+for the night and breakfast, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span>
+mess-box must be relied upon for dinners
+and suppers, for there is no dining-car to be
+taken on along these water highways, and
+eating-stations are unknown. Unless there
+are several towns on the route, of over one
+thousand inhabitants, it would be well to
+carry sufficient provisions of a simple sort
+for the entire trip, for supplies are difficult to
+obtain at small villages, and the quality is
+apt to be poor. Farmhouses can generally
+be depended on for eggs, butter, and milk,&mdash;nothing
+more. For drinking-water, obtainable
+from farm-wells, carry an army canteen,
+if you can get one; if not, a stone jug will do.
+The river water is useful only for floating the
+canoe, and the offices of the bath. As to personal
+baggage, fly very light, as a draught
+of over six inches would at times work an
+estoppel to your progress on any of the three
+streams mentioned. In shipping your boat
+to any point at which you wish to embark
+upon a river, allow two or three days for
+freight-train delays.</p>
+
+<p>Be prepared to find canoeing a rough sport.
+There is plenty of hard work about it, a good
+deal of sunburn and blister. You will be
+obliged to wear your old clothes, and may not
+be overpleased to meet critical friends in the
+river towns you visit. But if you have the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span>
+true spirit of the canoeist, you will win for
+your pains an abundance of good air, good
+scenery, wholesome exercise, sound sleep,
+and something to think about all your life.</p>
+
+<hr class="l15" />
+
+<h3>TABLE OF DISTANCES.&mdash;TOTAL, 607 MILES.</h3>
+
+<table summary="Table of Distances, Rock River">
+<col width="360" />
+<col width="40" />
+<tr>
+<td class="tdplace">THE ROCK RIVER.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdmiles s80" colspan="2">MILES.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Madison to Stoughton</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">22</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Stoughton to Janesville</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">40</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Janesville to Beloit</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">18</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Beloit to Rockford</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">40</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Rockford to Byron</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">18</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Byron to Oregon</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">15</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Oregon to Dixon</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">31</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Dixon to Sterling</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">20</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Sterling to Como</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Como to Lyndon</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">14</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Lyndon to Prophetstown</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">5</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Prophetstown to Erie Ferry</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">10</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Erie Ferry to Coloma</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">25</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Coloma to mouth of river</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">14</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Mouth of river to Rock Island
+  (up Mississippi River)</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">6</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtotal">Total</td>
+<td class="tdsum">287</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<table summary="Table of Distances, Fox River" class="p2">
+<col width="360" />
+<col width="40" />
+<tr>
+<td class="tdplace">THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY).</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tdmiles s80">MILES.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Portage to Packwaukee</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">25</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Packwaukee to Montello</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Montello to Marquette</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">11
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Marquette to Princeton</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">18</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Princeton to Berlin</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">20</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Berlin to Omro</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">18</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Omro to Oshkosh</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">22</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Oshkosh to Neenah</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">20</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Neenah to Appleton</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Appleton to Kaukauna</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Kaukauna to Green Bay</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">20</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtotal">Total</td>
+<td class="tdsum">175</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<table summary="Table of Distances, Wisconsin River" class="p2">
+<col width="360" />
+<col width="40" />
+<tr>
+<td class="tdplace">THE WISCONSIN RIVER.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="tdmiles s80">MILES.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Portage to Merrimac</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">20</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Merrimac to Prairie du Sac</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">10</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Prairie du Sac to Arena Ferry</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">15</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Arena Ferry to Helena</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">8</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Helena to Lone Rock Bridge</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">14</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Lone Rock Bridge to Muscoda</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">18</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Muscoda to Port Andrew</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Port Andrew to Boscobel</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">10</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Boscobel to Boydtown</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">10</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Boydtown to Wauzeka (on Kickapoo)</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Wauzeka to Wright's Ferry</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">10</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Wright's Ferry to Bridgeport</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Bridgeport to mouth of river</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Mouth of river to Prairie du Chien
+(up Mississippi River)</td>
+<td class="tdmiles">5</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtotal">Total</td>
+<td class="tdsum">145</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Note</span>.&mdash;The above table of distances by water is based
+upon the most reliable local estimates, verified, as far as
+practicable, by official surveys.
+</p>
+
+<h2 class="p6">THE ROCK RIVER.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a></span></h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_031.jpg" width="450" height="348" alt="MAP OF THE
+ROCK RIVER" title="" />
+<p class="caption">MAP OF THE
+ROCK RIVER
+to accompany
+THWAITES&#39;S &quot;HISTORIC WATERWAYS"</p>
+<a href="images/illo_031big.jpg">View larger image</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_032.jpg" width="450" height="139" alt="Chapter I Header" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>THE ROCK RIVER.</h2>
+<hr class="l15" />
+<p><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE WINDING YAHARA.</h2>
+
+<p>It was a quarter to twelve, Monday morning,
+the 23d of May, 1887, when we took
+seats in our canoe at our own landing-stage
+on Third Lake, at Madison, spread an awning
+over two hoops, as on a Chinese house-boat,
+pushed off, waved farewell to a little group of
+curious friends, and started on our way to
+explore the Rock River of Illinois. <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+wielded the paddle astern, while I took the
+oars amidships. Despite the one hundred
+pounds of baggage and the warmth emitted
+by the glowing sun,&mdash;for the season was unusually
+advanced,&mdash;we made excellent speed,
+as we well had need in order to reach the
+mouth, a distance of two hundred and eighty
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span>
+miles as the sinuous river runs, in the seven
+days we had allotted to the task.</p>
+
+<p>It was a delightful run across the southern
+arm of the lake. There was a light breeze
+aft, which gave a graceful upward curvature
+to our low-set awning. The great elms and
+lindens at charming Lakeside&mdash;the home of
+the Wisconsin Chautauqua&mdash;droop over the
+bowlder-studded banks, their masses of greenery
+almost sweeping the water. Down in the
+deep, cool shadows groups of bass and pickerel
+and perch lazily swish; swarms of "crazy
+bugs" ceaselessly swirl around and around,
+with no apparent object in life but this
+rhythmic motion, by which they wrinkle the
+mirror-like surface into concentric circles.
+Through occasional openings in the dense
+fringe of pendent boughs, glimpses can be had
+of park-like glades, studded with columnar
+oaks, and stretching upward to hazel-grown
+knolls, which rise in irregular succession
+beyond the bank. From the thickets comes
+the fussy chatter of thrushes and cat-birds,
+calling to their young or gossiping with the
+orioles, the robins, jays, and red-breasted
+grosbeaks, who warble and twitter and scream
+and trill from more lofty heights.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour sent us spinning
+across the mouth of Turvill's Bay. At Ott's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span>
+Farm, just beyond, the bank rises with sheer
+ascent, in layers of crumbly sandstone, a
+dozen feet above the water's level. Close-cropped
+woodlawn pastures gently slope upward
+to storm-wracked orchards, and long,
+dark windbreaks of funereal spruce. Flocks
+of sheep, fresh from the shearing, trot along
+the banks, winding in and out between the
+trees, keeping us company on our way,&mdash;their
+bleating lambs following at a lope,&mdash;now
+and then stopping, in their eager, fearful curiosity,
+to view our craft, and assuming picturesque
+attitudes, worthy subjects for a
+painter's art.</p>
+
+<p>A long, hard pull through close-grown
+patches of reeds and lily-pads, encumbered
+by thick masses of green scum, brought us to
+the outlet of the lake and the head of that
+section of the Catfish River which is the
+medium through which Third Lake pours
+its overflow into Second. The four lakes of
+Madison are connected by the Catfish, the
+chief Wisconsin tributary of the Rock. Upon
+the map this relationship reminds one of
+beads strung upon a thread.</p>
+
+<p>As the result of a protracted drought, the
+water in the little stream was low, and great
+clumps of aquatic weeds came very close to
+the surface, threatening, later in the season,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span>
+an almost complete stoppage to navigation.
+But the effect of the current was at once perceptible.
+It was as if an additional rower had
+been taken on. The river, the open stream of
+which is some three rods wide at this point,
+winds like a serpent between broad marshes,
+which must at no far distant period in the
+past have been wholly submerged, thus prolonging
+the three upper lakes into a continuous
+sheet of water. From a half-mile to a
+mile back, on either side, there are low ridges,
+doubtless the ancient shores of a narrow lake
+that was probably thirty or forty miles in
+length. In high water, even now, the
+marshes are converted into widespreads,
+where the dense tangle of wild rice, reeds, and
+rushes does not wholly prevent canoe navigation;
+while little mud-bottomed lakes, a quarter
+of a mile or so in diameter, are frequently
+met with at all stages. In places, the river,
+during a drought, has a depth of not over
+eighteen inches. In such stretches, the current
+moves swiftly over hard bottoms strewn
+with gravel and the whitened sepulchres of
+snails and clams. In the widespreads, the
+progress is sluggish, the vegetable growth so
+crowding in upon the stream as to leave but a
+narrow and devious channel, requiring skill to
+pilot through; for in these labyrinthian turnings
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span>
+one is quite liable, if not closely watching
+the lazy flood, to push into some vexatious
+cul-de-sac, many rods in length, and be
+obliged to retrace, with the danger of mistaking
+a branch for the main channel.</p>
+
+<p>In the depths of the tall reeds motherly
+mud-hens are clucking, while their mates
+squat in the open water, in meditative groups,
+rising with a prolonged splash and a whirr as
+the canoe approaches within gunshot. Secluded
+among the rushes and cat-tails, nestled
+down in little clumps of stubble, are hundreds
+of the cup-shaped nests of the red-winged
+blackbird, or American starling; the females,
+in modest brown, take a rather pensive view
+of life, administering to the wants of their
+young; while the bright-hued, talkative males,
+perched on swaying stalks, fairly make the air
+hum with their cheery trills.</p>
+
+<p>Water-lilies abound everywhere. The blossoms
+of the yellow variety (nuphar advena)
+are here and there bursting in select groups,
+but as a rule the buds are still below the
+surface. In the mud lakes, the bottom is
+seen through the crystal water to be thickly
+studded with great rosettes, two and three
+feet in diameter, of corrugated ovate leaves,
+of golden russet shade, out of which are shot
+upward brilliant green stalks, some bearing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span>
+arrow-shaped leaves, and others crowned with
+the tight-wrapped buds that will soon open
+upon the water level into saffron-hued flowers.
+The plate-like leaves of the white variety
+(nymphæa tuberosa) already dot the surface,
+but the buds are not yet visible. Anchored
+by delicate stems to the creeping root-stalks,
+buried in the mud below, the leaves, when
+first emerging, are of a rich golden brown,
+but they are soon frayed by the waves, and
+soiled and eaten by myriads of water-bugs,
+slugs, and spiders, who make their homes
+on these floating islands. Pluck a leaf,
+and the many-legged spiders, the roving buccaneers
+of these miniature seas, stalk off at
+high speed, while the slugs and leeches, in a
+spirit of stubborn patriotism, prefer meeting
+death upon their native heath to politic
+emigration.</p>
+
+<p>By one o'clock we had reached the railway
+bridge at the head of Second Lake. Upon
+the trestlework were perched three boys and
+a man, fishing. They had that listless air and
+unkempt appearance which are so characteristic
+of the little groups of humanity often to
+be found on a fair day angling from piers,
+bridges, and railway embankments. Men who
+imagine the world is allied against them will
+loll away a dozen hours a day, throughout an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span>
+entire summer season, sitting on the sun-heated
+girders of an iron bridge; yet they
+would strike against any system in the work-a-day
+world which compelled them to labor
+more than eight hours for ten hours' pay.
+In going down a long stretch of water highway,
+one comes to believe that about one-quarter
+of the inhabitants, especially of the
+villages, spend their time chiefly in fishing.
+On a canoe voyage, the bridge fishermen
+and the birds are the classes of animated
+nature most frequently met with, the former
+presenting perhaps the most unique and varied
+specimens. There are fishermen and fishermen.
+I never could fancy Izaak Walton
+dangling his legs from a railroad bridge,
+soaking a worm at the end of a length of
+store twine, vainly hoping, as the hours went
+listlessly by, that a stray sucker or a diminutive
+catfish would pull the bob under and
+score a victory for patience. Now the use of
+a boat lifts this sort of thing to the dignity
+of a sport.</p>
+
+<p>Second Lake is about three miles long by a
+mile in breadth. The shores are here and
+there marshy; but as a rule they are of good,
+firm land with occasional rocky bluffs from a
+dozen to twenty feet high, rising sheer from
+a narrow beach of gravel. As we crossed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>
+over to gain the lower Catfish, a calm prevailed
+for the most part, and the awning was
+a decided comfort. Now and then, however,
+a delightful puff came ruffling the water astern,
+swelling our canvas roof and noticeably helping
+us along. Light cloudage, blown swiftly
+before upper aerial currents, occasionally
+obscured the sun,&mdash;black, gray, and white
+cumuli fantastically shaped and commingled,
+while through jagged and rapidly shifting
+gaps was to be seen with vivid effect, the
+deep blue ether beyond.</p>
+
+<p>The bluffs and glades are well wooded.
+The former have escarpments of yellow clay
+and grayish sand and gravel; here and there
+have been landslides, where great trees have
+fallen with the débris and maintain but a
+slender hold amid their new surroundings,
+leaning far out over the water, easy victims for
+the next tornado. One monarch of the woods
+had been thus precipitated into the flood; on
+one side, its trunk and giant branches were
+water-soaked and slimy, while those above
+were dead and whitened by storm. As we
+approached, scores of turtles, sunning themselves
+on the unsubmerged portion, suddenly
+ducked their heads and slid off their perches
+amid a general splash, to hidden grottos
+below; while a solitary king-fisher from his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span>
+vantage height on an upper bough hurriedly
+rose, and screamed indignance at our rude
+entry upon his preserve.</p>
+
+<p>A farmer's lad sitting squat upon his
+haunches on the beach, and another, leaning
+over a pasture-fence, holding his head
+between his hands, exhibited lamb-like curiosity
+at the awning-decked canoe, as it
+glided past their bank. Through openings
+in the forest, we caught glimpses of rolling
+upland pastures, with sod close-cropped and
+smooth as a well-kept lawn; of gray-blue
+fields, recently seeded; of farmhouses, spacious
+barns, tobacco-curing sheds,&mdash;for this
+is the heart of the Wisconsin tobacco region,&mdash;and
+those inevitable signs of rural prosperity,
+windmills, spinning around by spurts,
+obedient to the breath of the intermittent
+May-day zephyr; while little bays opened up,
+on the most distant shore, enchanting vistas
+of blue-misted ridges.</p>
+
+<p>At last, after a dreamy pull of two miles
+from the lake-head, we rounded a bold headland
+of some thirty feet in height, and entered
+Catfish Bay. Ice-pushed bowlders strew the
+shore, which is here a gentle meadow slope,
+based by a gravel beach. A herd of cattle are
+contentedly browsing, their movements attuned
+to a symphony of cow-bells dangling
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span>
+from the necks of the leaders. The scene is
+pre-eminently peaceful.</p>
+
+<p>The Catfish connecting Second Lake with
+First, has two entrances, a small flat willow
+island dividing them. Through the eastern
+channel, which is the deepest, the current
+goes down with a rush, the obstruction offered
+by numerous bowlders churning it into noisy
+rapids; but the water tames down within a
+few rods, and the canoe comes gayly gliding
+into the united stream, which now has a
+placid current of two miles per hour,&mdash;quite
+fast enough for canoeing purposes. This
+section of the Catfish is much more picturesque
+than the preceding; the shores are
+firmer; the parallel ridges sometimes closely
+shut it in, and the stream, here four or five
+rods wide, takes upon itself the characteristics
+of the conventional river. The weed and vine
+grown banks are oftentimes twenty feet in
+height, with as sharp an ascent as can be comfortably
+climbed; and the swift-rushing water
+is sometimes fringed with sumachs, elders,
+and hazel brush, with here and there willows,
+maples, lindens, and oaks. Occasionally the
+river apparently ends at the base of a steep,
+earthy bluff; but when that is reached there
+is a sudden swerve to the right or left, with
+another vista of banks,&mdash;sometimes wood-grown
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span>
+to the water's edge, again with openings
+revealing purplish-brown fields, neatly
+harrowed, stretching up to some commanding,
+forest-crowned hill-top. The blossoms
+of the wild grape burden the air with sweet
+scent; on the deep-shaded banks, amid stones
+and cool mosses, the red and yellow columbine
+gracefully nods; the mandrake, with its
+glossy green leaves, grows with tropical luxuriance;
+more in the open, appears in great
+profusion, the old maid's nightcap, in purplish
+roseate hue; the sheep-berry shrub is decked
+in masses of white blossoms; the hawthorn
+flower is detected by its sickly-sweet scent,
+and here and there are luxuriously-flowered
+locusts, specimens that have escaped from
+cultivation to take up their homes in this botanical
+wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>There are charming rustic pictures at every
+turn,&mdash;sleek herds of cattle, droves of fat
+hogs, flocks of sheep that have but recently
+doffed their winter suits, well-tended fields,
+trim-looking wire fences, neat farm-houses
+where rows of milkpans glisten upon sunny
+drying-benches, farmers and farmers' boys
+riding aristocratic-looking sulky drags and
+cultivators,&mdash;everywhere an air of agricultural
+luxuriance, rather emphasized by occasional
+log-houses, which repose as honored
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span>
+relics by the side of their pretentious successors,
+sharply contrasting the wide differences
+between pioneer life and that of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The marshes are few; and they in this
+dry season are luxuriant with coarse, glossy
+wild grass,&mdash;the only hay-crop the farmer
+will have this year,&mdash;and dotted with
+clumps of dead willow-trees, which present
+a ghostly appearance, waving their white,
+scarred limbs in the freshening breeze. The
+most beautiful spot on this section of the
+Catfish is a point some eight miles above
+Stoughton. The verdure-clad banks are high
+and steep. A lanky Norwegian farmer came
+down an angling path with a pail-yoke over his
+shoulders to get washing-water for his "woman,"
+and told us that when this country was
+sparsely settled, a third of a century ago,
+there was a mill-dam here. That was the day
+when the possession of water-power meant
+more than it does in this age of steam and
+rapid transit,&mdash;the day when every mill-site
+was supposed to be a nucleus around which a
+prosperous village must necessarily grow in
+due time. Nothing now remains as a relic of
+this particular fond hope but great hollows in
+either bank, where the clay for dam-making
+purposes has been scooped out, and a few
+rotten piles, having a slender hold upon the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span>
+bottom, against which drift-wood has lodged,
+forming a home for turtles and clumps of semi-aquatic
+grasses. <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> avers, in a spirit of
+enthusiasm, that the Catfish between Second
+and First Lakes is quite similar in parts to
+the immortal Avon, upon which Shakespeare
+canoed in the long-ago. If she is right, then
+indeed are the charms of Avon worthy the
+praise of the Muses. If the Catfish of to-day
+is ever to go down to posterity on the
+wings of poesy, however, I would wish that it
+might be with the more euphonious title of
+"Yahara,"&mdash;the original Winnebago name.
+The map-maker who first dropped the liquid
+"Yahara" for the rasping "Catfish" had no
+soul for music.</p>
+
+<p>Darting under a quaint rustic foot-bridge
+made of rough poles, which on its high trestles
+stalks over a wide expanse of reedy bog like
+a giant "stick-bug," we emerged into First
+Lake. The eastern shore, which we skirted,
+is a wide, sandy beach, backed by meadows.
+The opposite banks, two or three miles away,
+present more picturesque outlines. A stately
+wild swan kept us company for over a mile,
+just out of musket-shot, and finally took advantage
+of a patch of rushes to stop and hide.
+A small sandstone quarry on the southeast
+shore, with a lone worker, attracted our attention.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span>
+There was not a human habitation in
+sight, and it seemed odd to see a solitary man
+engaged in such labor apparently so far removed
+from the highways of commerce.
+The quarryman stuck his crowbar in a crack
+horizontally, to serve as a seat, and filled his
+pipe as we approached. We hailed him with
+inquiries, from the stone pier jutting into the
+lake at the foot of the bluff into which he was
+burrowing. He replied from his lofty perch,
+in rich Norsk brogue, that he shipped stone
+by barge to Stoughton, and good-humoredly
+added, as he struck a match and lit his bowl
+of weed, that he thought himself altogether
+too good company to ever get lonesome. We
+left the philosopher to enjoy his pipe in peace,
+and passed on around the headland.</p>
+
+<p>An iron railway bridge, shut in with high
+sides, and painted a dullish red, spans the
+Lower Catfish at the outlet of First Lake.
+A country boy, with face as dirty as it was
+solemn, stood in artistic rags at the base of
+an arch, fishing with a bit of hop-twine tied
+to the end of a lath; from a mass of sedge
+just behind him a hoarse cry arose at short
+intervals.</p>
+
+<p>"Hi, Johnny, what's that making the
+noise?</p>
+
+<p>"Bird!" sententiously responded the stoic
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>
+youth. He looked as though he had been
+bored with a silly question, and kept his eyes
+on his task.</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of a bird, Johnny?"</p>
+
+<p>"D'no!" rather raspishly. He evidently
+thought he was being guyed.</p>
+
+<p>We ran the nose of the canoe into the
+reeds. There was a splash, a wild cry of alarm,
+and up flew a great bittern. Circling about
+until we had passed on, it then drifted down to
+its former location near the uninquiring lad,&mdash;where
+doubtless it had a nest of young,
+and had been disturbed in the midst of a lecture
+on domestic discipline.</p>
+
+<p>Wide marshes again appear on either side
+of the stream. There are great and small
+bitterns at every view; plovers daintily picking
+their way over the open bogs, greedily
+feeding on countless snails; wild ducks in
+plenty, patiently waiting in the secluded
+bayous for the development of their young;
+yellow-headed troopials flitting freely about,
+uttering a choking, gulping cry; while the
+pert little wren, with his smart cock-tail,
+views the varied scene from his perch on a
+lofty rush, jealously keeping watch and ward
+over his ball-like castle, with its secret gate,
+hung among the reeds below.</p>
+
+<p>But interspersing the marshes there are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span>
+often stretches of firm bank and delightfully
+varied glimpses of hillside and wood. Three
+miles above Stoughton, we stopped for supper
+at the edge of a glade, near a quaint old bridge.
+While seated on the smooth sward, beside
+our little spread, there came a vigorous rustling
+among the branches of the trees that
+overhang the country road which winds down
+the opposite slope to the water's edge to take
+advantage of the crossing. A gypsy wagon,
+with a high, rounded, oil-cloth top soon
+emerged from the forest, and was seen to
+have been the cause of the disturbance.
+Halting at one side of the highway, three
+men and a boy jumped out, unhitched the
+horses at the pole and the jockeying stock at
+the tail-board, and led them down to water.
+Two women meanwhile set about getting supper,
+and preparations were made for a night
+camp. We confessed to a touch of sympathy
+with our new neighbors on the other shore,
+for we felt as though gypsying ourselves. The
+hoop awning on the canoe certainly had the
+general characteristics of a gypsy-wagon
+top; we knew not and cared not where night
+might overtake us; we were dependent on
+the country for our provender; were at the
+mercy of wind, weather, and the peculiarities
+of our chosen highway; and had deliberately
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span>
+turned our backs on home for a season of untrammeled
+communion with nature.</p>
+
+<p>It was during a golden sunset that, pushing
+on through a great widespread, through
+which the channel doubles and twists like a
+scotched snake, we came in sight of the little
+city of Stoughton. First, the water-works
+tower rises above the mass of trees which
+embower the settlement. Then, on nearer
+approach, through rifts in the woodland we
+catch glimpses of some of the best outlying
+residences, most of them pretty, with well-kept
+grounds. Then come the church-spires,
+the ice-houses, the barge-dock, and with a
+spurt we sweep alongside the foundry of
+Mandt's wagon-works. Depositing our oars,
+paddle, blankets, and supplies in the office, the
+canoe was pulled up on the grass and padlocked
+to a stake. The street lamps were
+lighting as we registered at the inn.</p>
+
+<p>Stoughton has about two thousand inhabitants.
+A walk about town in the evening,
+revealed a number of bright, busy shops,
+chiefly kept by Norwegians, who predominate
+in this region. Nearly every street appears
+to end in one of Mandt's numerous factory
+yards, and the wagon-making magnate seems
+to control pretty much the entire river front
+here.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_049.jpg" width="450" height="154" alt="Chapter II Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+<h2>BARBED-WIRE FENCES.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>e were off in the morning, after an
+early breakfast at the Stoughton inn.
+Our host kindly sent down his porter to help
+us over the mill-dam,&mdash;our first and easiest
+portage, and one of the few in which we
+received assistance of any kind. Below this,
+as below all of the dams on the river, there
+are broad shallows. The water in the stream,
+being at a low stage, is mainly absorbed in
+the mill-race, and the apron spreads the slight
+overflow evenly over the width of the bed, so
+that there is left a wide expanse of gravel and
+rocks below the chute, which is not covered
+sufficiently deep for navigating even our little
+craft, drawing but five inches when fully
+loaded. We soon grounded on the shallows
+and I was obliged to get out and tow the
+lightened boat to the tail of the race, where
+deeper water was henceforth assured. This
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span>
+experience became quite familiar before the
+end of the trip. I had fortunately brought a
+pair of rubbers in my satchel, and found them
+invaluable as wading-shoes, where the river
+bottom is strewn with sharp gravel and slimy
+round-heads.</p>
+
+<p>Below Stoughton the river winds along in
+most graceful curves, for the most part between
+banks from six to twenty feet high,
+with occasional pocket-marshes, in which the
+skunk-cabbage luxuriates. The stream is often
+thickly studded with lily-pads, which the
+wind, blowing fresh astern, frequently ruffles
+so as to give the appearance of rapids ahead,
+inducing caution where none is necessary.
+But every half-mile or so there are genuine
+little rapids, some of them requiring care to
+successfully shoot; in low water the canoe
+goes bumping along over the small moss-grown
+rocks, and now and then plumps solidly
+on a big one; when the stream is turbid,&mdash;as
+often happens below a pasture, where
+the cattle stir up the bank mud,&mdash;the danger
+of being overturned by scarcely submerged
+bowlders is imminent.</p>
+
+<p>There are some decidedly romantic spots,
+where little densely-wooded and grape-tangled
+glens run off at right angles, leading up to
+the bases of commanding hillocks, which they
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span>
+drain; or where the noisy little river, five or
+six rods wide, goes swishing around the foot
+of a precipitous, bush-grown bluff. It is noticeable
+that in such beauty-spots as these are
+generally to be found poverty-stricken cabins,
+the homes of small fishermen and hunters;
+while the more generous farm-houses seek the
+fertile but prosaic openings.</p>
+
+<p>All of a sudden, around a lovely bend, a
+barbed-wire fence of four strands savagely disputed
+the passage. A vigorous back-water
+stroke alone saved us from going full tilt into
+the bayonets of the enemy. We landed, and
+there was a council of war. As every stream
+in Wisconsin capable of floating a saw-log is
+"navigable" in the eye of the law, it is plain
+that this obstruction is an illegal one. Being
+an illegal fence, it follows that any canoeist is
+entitled to clip the wires, if he does not care
+to stop and prosecute the fencers for barring
+his way. The object of the structure is to
+prevent cattle from walking around through
+the shallow river into neighboring pastures.
+Along the upper Catfish, where boating is
+more frequently indulged in, farmers accomplish
+the same object by fencing in a few
+feet of the stream parallel with the shore.
+But below Stoughton, where canoeing is
+seldom practiced, the cattle-owners run their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span>
+fences directly across the river as a measure
+of economy. Taking into consideration the
+fact that the lower Catfish is seldom used as
+a highway, we concluded that we would be
+charitable and leave the fences intact, getting
+under or over them as best we might. I am
+afraid that had we known that twenty-one of
+these formidable barriers were before us, the
+council would not have agreed on so conciliatory
+a campaign.</p>
+
+<p>Having taken in our awning and disposed
+of our baggage amidships, so that nothing remained
+above the gunwale, <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>, kneeling,
+took the oars astern, while I knelt in the bow
+with the paddle borne like a battering-ram.
+Pushing off into the channel we bore down on
+the centre of the works, which were strong
+and thickly-posted, with wires drawn as tight
+as a drum-string. Catching the lower strand
+midway between two posts, on the blade end
+of the paddle, the speed of the canoe was
+checked. Then, seizing that strand with my
+right hand, so that the thick-strewn barbs
+came between my fingers, I forced it up to
+the second strand, and held the two rigidly
+together, thus making a slight arch. The
+canoe being crowded down into the water by
+sheer exercise of muscle, I crouched low in
+the bow, at the same time forcing the canoe
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span>
+under and forward through the arch. When
+half-way through, <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> was able similarly to
+clutch the wires, and perform the same office
+for the stern. This operation, ungraceful but
+effective, was frequently repeated during the
+day. When the current is swift and the wind
+fresh a special exertion is necessary on the
+part of the stern oar to keep the craft at right
+angles with the fence,&mdash;the tendency being,
+as soon as the bow is snubbed, to drift alongside
+and become entangled in the wires, with
+the danger of being either badly scratched or
+upset. It is with a feeling of no slight relief
+that a canoeist emerges from a tussle with a
+barbed-wire fence; and if hands, clothing,
+and boat have escaped without a scratch, he
+may consider himself fortunate, indeed. Before
+the day was through, when our twenty-one
+fences had been conquered without any
+serious accident, it was unanimously voted
+that the exercise was not to be recommended
+to those weak in muscle or patience.</p>
+
+<p>Eight miles below Stoughton is Dunkirk.
+There is a neat frame grist-mill there; and
+up a gentle slope to the right are four or five
+weather-beaten farm-houses, in the corners of
+the cross-roads. It was an easy portage at
+the dam. After pushing through the shallows
+below with some difficulty, we ran in under
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span>
+the shadow of a substantial wagon-bridge, and
+beached. Going up to the corners, we filled
+the canteen with ice-cold water from a moss-grown
+well, and interviewed the patriarchal
+miller, who assured us that "nigh onter a
+dozen year ago, Dunkirk had a bigger show
+for growin' than Stoughton, but the railroad
+went 'round us."</p>
+
+<p>A few miles down stream and we come to
+Stebbinsville. The water is backset by a
+mill-dam for two miles, forming a small lake.
+The course now changing, the wind came
+dead ahead, and we rowed down to the dam in
+a rolling sea, with much exertion. The river
+is six rods wide here, flowing between smooth,
+well-rounded, grass-grown banks, from fifteen
+to thirty feet in height, the fields on either side
+sloping up to wood-crowned ridges. There
+are a mill and two houses at Stebbinsville,
+and the country round about has a prosperous
+appearance. A tall, pleasant-spoken young
+miller came across the road-bridge and talked
+to us about the crops and the river, while we
+made a comfortable portage of five rods, up
+the grassy bank and through a close-cropped
+pasture, down to a sequestered little bay at
+the tail of an abandoned race, where the spray
+of the falls spattered us as we reloaded. We
+pushed off, with the joint opinion that Stebbinsville
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span>
+was a charming little place, with ideal
+riverside homes, that would be utterly spoiled
+by building the city on its site which the
+young man said his father had always hoped
+would be established there. A quarter of a
+mile below, around the bend, is a disused
+mill, thirty feet up, on the right bank. There
+is a suspended platform over a ravine, to one
+side of the building, and upon its handrail
+leaned two dusty millers, who had doubtless
+hastened across from the upper mill, to watch
+the progress down the little rapids here of
+what was indeed a novel craft to these waters.
+They waved their caps and gave us a cheery
+shout as we quickly disappeared around
+another curve; but while it still rung in our
+ears we were suddenly confronted by one of
+the tightest fences on the course, and had
+neither time nor disposition to return the
+salute.</p>
+
+<p>And so we slid along, down rapids, through
+long stretches of quiet water and scraping
+over shallows, plying both oars and paddle,
+while now and then "making" a fence and
+comparing its savagery with that of the preceding
+one. Here and there the high vine-clad
+banks, from overshadowing us would irregularly
+recede, leaving little meadows, full of
+painted-cups, the wild rose-colored phlox and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span>
+saxifrage; or bits of woodland in the dryer
+bottoms, radiant, amid the underbrush, with
+the daisy, cinque-foil, and puccoon. Kingfishers
+and blue herons abound. Great turtles,
+disturbed by the unwonted splash of oars,
+slide down high, sunny banks of sand, where
+they have been to lay their eggs, and amid a
+cloud of dust shuffle off into the water, their
+castle of safety. These eggs, so trustfully left
+to be hatched by the warmth of the sun, form
+toothsome food for coons and skunks, which
+in turn fall victims to farmers' lads,&mdash;as witness
+the rows of peltries stretched inside
+out on shingles, and tacked up on the sunny
+sides of the barns and woodsheds along the
+river highway.</p>
+
+<p>As we begin to approach the valley of the
+Rock, the hills grow higher, groups of red
+cedar appear, the banks of red clay often attain
+the height of fifty or sixty feet, broken
+by deep, staring gullies and wooded ravines,
+through which little brooklets run, the output
+of back-country springs; while the pocket-meadows
+are less frequent, although more
+charmingly diversified as to color and background.</p>
+
+<p>We had our mid-day lunch on a pleasant
+bank, that had been covered earlier in the
+season with hepatica, blood-root, and dicentra,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span>
+and was now resplendent with Solomon's seal,
+the dark-purple water-leaf, and graceful maidenhair
+ferns, with here and there a dogwood in
+full bloom. Behind us were thick woods and
+an overlooking ridge; opposite, a meadow-glade
+on which herds of cattle and black hogs
+grazed. A bell cow waded into the water,
+followed by several other members of the
+herd, and the train pensively proceeded in
+single file diagonally across the shallow stream
+to another feeding-ground below. The leader's
+bell had a peculiarly mournful note, and the
+scene strongly reminded one of an ecclesiastical
+procession.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of the afternoon the little
+village of Fulton was reached. It is a dead-alive,
+moss-grown settlement, situated on a
+prairie, through which the river has cut a
+deep channel. There are a cheese-factory,
+a grist-mill, a church, a school-house, three or
+four stores, and some twenty-five houses, with
+but a solitary boat in sight, and that of the
+punt variety. It was recess at the school as
+we rowed past, and boys and girls were chiefly
+engaged in climbing the trees which cluster
+in the little schoolhouse yard. A chorus of
+shouts and whistles greeted us from the leafy
+perches, in which we could distinguish "Shoot
+the roof!"&mdash;an exclamation called forth by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span>
+the awning, which doubtless seemed the chief
+feature of our outfit, viewed from the top of
+the bank.</p>
+
+<p>At the mill-dam, a dozen lazy, shiftless
+fellows were fishing at the foot of the chute,
+and stared at our movements with expressionless
+eyes. The portage was somewhat difficult,
+being over a high bank, across a rocky
+road, and down through a stretch of bog.
+When we had completed the carry, <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+waited in the canoe while I went up to the
+fishermen for information as to the lay of the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>"How far is it to the mouth of the Catfish,
+my friend?" I asked the most intelligent
+member of the party.</p>
+
+<p>"D'no! Never was thar." He jerked in
+his bait, to pull off a weed that had become
+entangled in it, and from the leer he gave his
+comrades it was plain that I had struck the
+would-be wag of the village.</p>
+
+<p>"How far do you think it is?" I insisted,
+curious to see how far he would carry his
+obstinacy.</p>
+
+<p>"Don' think nuthin' 'bout 't; don' care t'
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you ever hear any one say how
+far it is?" and I sat beside him on the stone
+pier, as if I had come to stay.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nah!"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you were placed in a boat here
+and had to float down to the Rock, how long
+do you imagine you'd be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aint no man goin' t' place me in no boat!
+No siree!" pugnaciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you ever row?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nah!" contemptuously; "what I want of
+a boat? Bridge 's good 'nough fer us fellers,
+a-fishin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose boat is that, over there, on the
+shore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Schoolmaster's. He's a dood, he is.
+Bridge isn't rich 'nough fer his blood. Boats
+is fer doods." And with this withering remark
+he relapsed into so intent an observation
+of his line that I thought it best to disturb
+him no longer.</p>
+
+<p>Below Fulton, the stream is quite swift and
+the scenery more rugged, the evidences of
+disastrous spring overflows and back-water
+from the Rock being visible on every hand.
+At five o'clock, we came to a point where the
+river divides into three channels, there being
+a clump of four small islands. A barbed-wire
+fence, the last we were fated to meet, was
+stretched across each channel. Selecting the
+central mouth,&mdash;for this is the delta of the
+Catfish,&mdash;we shot down with a rush, but were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span>
+soon lodged on a sandbank. It required
+wading and much pushing and twisting and
+towing before we were again off, but in the
+length of a few rods more we swung free
+into the Rock, which was to be our highway
+for over two hundred miles more of
+canoe travel.</p>
+
+<p>The Rock River is nearly a quarter of a
+mile wide at this point, and comes down with
+a majestic sweep from the north, having its
+chief source in the gloomily picturesque Lake
+Koshkonong. The banks of the river at and
+below the mouth of the Catfish, are quite imposing,
+rising into a succession of graceful, round-topped
+mounds, from fifty to one hundred feet
+high, and finely wooded except where cleared
+for pasture or as the site of farm-buildings.
+While the immediate edges of the stream are
+generally firm and grass-grown, with occasional
+gravelly beaches, there are frequent
+narrow strips of marsh at the bases of the
+mounds, especially on the left bank where
+innumerable springs send forth trickling rills
+to feed the river. A stiff wind up-stream
+had broken the surface into white caps, and
+more than counteracted the force of the lazy
+current, so that progress now depended upon
+vigorous exercise at the oars and paddle.</p>
+
+<p>Three miles above Janesville is Pope's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span>
+Springs, a pleasant summer resort, with white
+tents and gayly painted cottages commingled.
+It is situated in a park-like wood, on the right
+bank, while directly opposite are some bold,
+rocky cliffs, or palisades, their feet laved in
+the stream. We spread our supper cloth on
+the edge of a wheat-field, in view of the pretty
+scene. The sun was setting behind a bank
+of roseate clouds, and shooting up broad,
+sharply defined bands of radiance nearly to
+the zenith. The wind was blowing cold,
+wraps were essential, and we were glad to be
+on our way once more, paddling along in the
+dying light, past palisades and fields and
+meadows, reaching prosperous Janesville, on
+her rolling prairie, just as dusk was thickening
+into dark.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_062.jpg" width="450" height="137" alt="Chapter III Header" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h2>AN ILLINOIS PRAIRIE HOME.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>e had an early start from the hotel
+next morning. A prospect of the
+situation at the upper Janesville dam, from a
+neighboring bridge, revealed the fact that
+the mill-race along the left bank afforded the
+easiest portage. Reloading our craft at the
+boat-renter's staging where it had passed
+the night, we darted across the river, under
+two low-hung bridges, keeping well out of
+the overflow current and entered the race,
+making our carry over a steep and rocky
+embankment.</p>
+
+<p>Below, after passing through the centre of
+the city, the river widens considerably, as it
+cuts a deep channel through the fertile prairie,
+and taking a sudden bend to the southwest,
+becomes a lake, formed by back-water from
+the lower dam. The wind was now dead
+ahead again, and fierce. White caps came
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span>
+savagely rolling up stream. The pull down
+brought out the rowing muscles to their fullest
+tension. The canoe at times would appear
+to scarcely creep along, although oars
+and paddle would bend to their work.</p>
+
+<p>The race of the carding-mill, which we
+were now approaching, is by the left bank,
+the rest of the broad river&mdash;fully a third of
+a mile wide here&mdash;being stemmed by a ponderous,
+angling dam, the shorter leg of which
+comes dangerously close to the entrance of
+the race, which it nearly parallels. Overhead,
+fifty feet skyward, a great railway bridge
+spans the chasm. The disposition of its
+piers leaves a rowing channel but two rods
+wide, next the shore. Through this a deep,
+swift current flows, impelling itself for the
+most part over the short leg of the chute, with
+a deafening roar. Its backset, however, is
+caught in the yawning mouth of the race. It
+so happens then that from either side of an
+ugly whirling strip of doubting water, parallel
+with the shorter chute, the flood bursts forth,&mdash;to
+the left plunging impetuously over the
+apron to be dashed to vapor at its foot; to
+the right madly rushing into the narrow race,
+to turn the wheels of the carding-mill half a
+mile below. This narrow channel, under the
+bridge and next the shore, of which I have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span>
+spoken, is the only practicable entrance to
+the race.</p>
+
+<p>We had landed above and taken a panoramic
+view of the situation from the deck of
+the bridge; afterward had descended to the
+flood-gates at the entrance of the race, for
+detailed inspection and measurements. One
+of the set of three gates was partly raised, the
+bottom being but three feet above the boiling
+surface, while the great vertical iron beams
+along which the cog-wheels work were not
+over four feet apart. It would require steady
+hands to guide the canoe to the right of the
+whirl, where the flood hesitated between two
+destinations, and finally to shoot under the
+uplifted gate, which barely gave room in either
+height or breadth for the passage of the boat.
+But we arrived at the conclusion that the
+shoot was far more dangerous in appearance
+than in reality, and that it was preferable to a
+long and exceedingly irksome portage.</p>
+
+<p>So we determined to make the attempt, and
+walked back to the canoe. Disposing our
+baggage in the centre, as in the barbed-wire
+experience of the day before, <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> again took
+the oars astern and I the paddle at the bow.
+A knot of men on the bridge had been watching
+our movements with interest, and waved
+their hats at us as we came cautiously creeping
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span>
+along the shore. We went under the bridge
+with a swoop, waited till we were within three
+rods of the brink of the thundering fall, and
+then strained every muscle in sending the canoe
+shooting off at an angle into the waters bound
+for the race. We went down to the gate as
+if shot out of a cannon, but the little craft was
+easily controlled, quickly obeying every stroke
+of the paddle. Catching a projecting timber,
+it was easy to guide ourselves to the opening.
+We lay down in the bottom of the boat and
+with uplifted hands clutched the slimy gate;
+slowly, hand over hand, we passed through
+under the many internal beams and rods of
+the structure, with the boiling flood under us,
+making an echoing roar, amid which we were
+obliged to fairly shout our directions to each
+other. In the last section the release was
+given; we were fairly hurled into daylight on
+the surface of the mad torrent, and were many
+a rod down the race before we could recover
+our seats. The men on the bridge, joined by
+others, now fairly yelled themselves hoarse over
+the successful close of what was apparently
+a hazardous venture, and we waved acknowledgments
+with the paddle, as we glided away
+under the willows which overhang the long
+and narrow canal. At the isolated mill,
+where there is one of the easiest portages on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span>
+the route, the hands came flocking by dozens
+to the windows to see the craft which had
+invaded their quiet domain.</p>
+
+<p>The country toward Beloit becomes more
+hilly, especially upon the left bank, along
+which runs the Chicago and Northwestern
+railway, all the way down from Janesville.
+At the Beloit paper-mill, which was reached
+at three o'clock in the afternoon, it was found
+that owing to the low stage of water one end
+of the apron projected above the flood. With
+some difficulty as to walking on the slimy
+incline, we portaged over the face of the dam
+and went down stream through the heart of
+the pretty little college town, getting more
+or less picturesque back-door views of the
+domestic life of the community.</p>
+
+<p>Beloit being on the State line, we had now
+entered Illinois. For several miles the river
+is placid and shallow, with but a feeble current.
+Islands begin to appear, dividing the channel
+and somewhat perplexing canoeists, it being
+often quite difficult to decide which route is
+the best; as a rule, one is apt to wish
+that he had taken some other than the one
+selected.</p>
+
+<p>The dam at Rockton was reached in a two
+hours' pull. It was being repaired, stone for
+the purpose being quarried on a neighboring
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span>
+bank and transported to the scene of action
+on a flat-boat. We had been told that we
+could save several miles by going down the
+race, which cuts the base of a long detour.
+But the boss of the dam-menders assured us
+that the race was not safe, and that we would
+"get in a trap" if we attempted it. Deeming
+discretion the better part of valor, with much
+difficulty we lifted the canoe over the high,
+jagged, stone embankment and through a bit
+of tangled swamp to the right, and took the
+longest way around. It was four or five miles
+by the bend to the village of Rockton, whose
+spires we could see at the dam, rising above
+a belt of intervening trees. It being our first
+detour of note, we were somewhat discouraged
+at having had so long a pull for so short a
+vantage; but we became well used to such
+experiences long before our journey was
+over. It was not altogether consoling to be
+informed at Rockton&mdash;which is a smart little
+manufacturing town of a thousand souls&mdash;that
+the race was perfectly practicable for
+canoes, and the tail portage easy.</p>
+
+<p>Beaching near the base of a fine wagon-bridge
+which here spans the Rock, we went
+up to a cluster of small houses on the bank
+opposite the town, to have some tea steeped,
+our prepared stock being by this time exhausted.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span>
+The people were all employed in
+the paper-mills in the village, but one good
+woman chanced to be at home for the afternoon,
+and cheerfully responded to our request
+for service. A young, neat, and buxom little
+woman she was, though rather sad-eyed and
+evidently overworked in the family struggle
+for existence. She assured us that she nowadays
+never went upon the water in an open
+boat, for she had "three times been near
+drowndid" in her life, which she thought was
+"warnin' enough for one body." Inquiry developed
+that her first "warnin'" consisted of
+having been, when she was "a gal down in
+Kansis," taken for a row in a leaky boat;
+the water came in half-way up to the thwarts,
+and would have eventually swamped the craft
+and drowned its occupants, in perhaps half
+an hour's time, if her companion had not
+luckily bethought himself to run in to shore
+and land. Another time, she and her husband
+were out rowing, when a stern-wheel
+river steamer came along, and the swell in
+her wake washed the row-boat atop of a log
+raft, and "she stuck there, ma'am, would ye
+believe, and we'd 'a' drowndid sure, with a
+storm a-comin' up, hadn't my brother-in-law,
+that was then a-courtin' of sister Jane, come
+off in a dug-out and took us in." Her last
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span>
+and most harrowing experience was in a boat
+on the Republican River in Kansas. She and
+another woman were out when a storm came
+up, and white-capped waves tossed the little
+craft about at will; but fortunately the blow
+subsided, and the women regained pluck
+enough to take the oars and row home again.
+The eyes of the paper-maker's wife were suffused
+with tears, as, seated in her rocking-chair
+by the kitchen stove and giving the teapot
+an occasional shake, doubtless to hasten
+the brew, she related these thrilling tales of
+adventure by flood, and called us to witness
+that thrice had Providence directly interposed
+in her behalf. We were obliged to acknowledge
+ourselves much impressed with the
+gravity of the dangers she had so successfully
+passed through. Her sympathy with
+the perils which we were braving, in what
+she was pleased to call our singular journey,
+was so great that the good woman declined
+to accept pay for having steeped our tea in a
+most excellent manner, and bade us an affecting
+God-speed.</p>
+
+<p>We had our supper, graced with the hot
+tea, on a pretty sward at the river end of the
+quiet lane just around the corner; while a
+dozen little children in pinafores and short
+clothes, perched on a neighboring fence,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>
+watched and discussed us as eagerly as
+though we were a circus caravan halting by
+the wayside for refreshment. The paper-maker's
+wife also came out, just as we were
+packing up for the start, and inspected the
+canoe in some detail. Her judgment was
+that in her giddiest days as an oarswoman,
+she would certainly never have dared to set
+foot in such a shell. She watched us off, just
+as the sun was disappearing, and the last
+Rockton object we saw was our tenderhearted
+friend standing on the beach at the
+end of her lane, both hands shading her eyes,
+as she watched us fade away in the gloaming.
+I have no doubt she has long ago given
+us up for lost, for her last words were, "I've
+heerd 'em tell it was a riskier river than any
+in Kansis, 'tween here an' Missip'; tek care
+ye don't git drowndid!"</p>
+
+<p>In the soft evening shadows it was cool
+enough for heavy wraps. In fact, for the
+greater part of the day <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> had worn a
+light shoulder cape. We had a beautiful
+sunset, back of a group of densely timbered
+islands. We would have been sorely tempted
+to camp out on one of these, but the night
+was setting in too cold for sleeping in the
+open air, and we had no tent with us.</p>
+
+<p>The twilight was nearly spent, and the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span>
+banks and now frequent islands were so
+heavily wooded that on the river it was rapidly
+becoming too dark to navigate among
+the shallows and devious channels. <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+volunteered to get out and look for a farmhouse,
+for none could be seen from our hollow
+way. So she landed and got up into some
+prairie wheatfields back away from the bank.
+After a half-mile's walk parallel with the river
+she sighted a prosperous-looking establishment,
+with a smart windmill, large barns, and
+a thrifty orchard, silhouetted against the fast-fading
+sunset sky. The signal was given,
+and the prow of the canoe was soon resting
+on a steep, gravely beach at the mouth of a
+ravine. Armed with the paddle, for a possible
+encounter with dogs, we went up through
+the orchard and a timothy-field sopping with
+dew, scaled the barnyard fence, passed a big
+black dog that growled savagely, but was by
+good chance chained to an old mowing-machine,
+walked up to the kitchen door and
+boldly knocked.</p>
+
+<p>No answer. The stars were coming out,
+the shadows darkening, night was fairly upon
+us, and shelter must be had, if we were obliged
+to sleep in the barn. The dog reared
+on his hind legs, and fairly howled with rage.
+A row of well-polished milk-cans on a bench
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span>
+by the windmill well, and the general air of
+thrifty neatness impelled us to persevere. An
+old German, with kindly face and bushy white
+hair, finally came, cautiously peering out beneath
+a candle which he held above his head.
+English he had none, and our German was
+too fresh from the books to be reliable in
+conversation. However, we mustered a few
+stereotyped phrases from the "familiar conversations"
+in the back of the grammar,
+which served to make the old man smile, and
+disappearing toward the cattle-sheds he soon
+returned with his daughter and son-in-law, a
+cheerful young couple who spoke good English,
+and assured us of welcome and a bed.
+They had been out milking by lantern-light
+when interrupted, and soon rejoined us with
+brimming pails.</p>
+
+<p>It did not take long to feel quite at home
+with these simple, good-hearted folk. They
+had but recently purchased the farm and were
+strangers in the community. The old man
+lived with his other children at Freeport, and
+was there only upon a visit. The young people,
+natives of Illinois, were lately married,
+their wedding-trip having been made to this
+house, where they had at once settled down
+to a thrifty career, surrounded with quite
+enough comforts for all reasonable demands,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span>
+and a few simple luxuries. <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> declared
+the kitchen to be a model of neatness and
+convenience; and the sitting-room, where we
+passed the evening with our modest entertainers,&mdash;who
+appeared quite well posted on
+current news of general importance,&mdash;showed
+evidences of being in daily use. They were
+devout Catholics, and I was pleased to find
+the patriarch drifting down the river of time
+with a heartfelt appreciation of the benefits
+of democracy, fully cognizant of what American
+institutions had done for him and his.
+Immigrating in the noon-tide of life and settling
+in a German neighborhood, he had found
+no need and had no inclination to learn our
+language. But he had prospered from the
+start, had secured for his children a good
+education at the common schools, had imbued
+them with the spirit of patriotism, had seen
+them marry happily and with a bright future,
+and at night he never retired without uttering
+a bedside prayer of gratitude that God
+had turned his footsteps to blessed America.
+As the old man told me his tale, with his
+daughter's hands resting lovingly in his while
+she served as our interpreter, and contrasted
+the hard lot of a German peasant with the independence
+of thought and speech and action
+vouchsafed the German-American farmer, who
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span>
+can win competence in a state of freedom,
+I felt a thrill of patriotism that would have
+been the making of a Fourth-of-July orator.
+I wished that thousands such as he originally
+was, still dragging out an existence in the
+fatherland, could have listened to my aged
+friend and followed in his footsteps.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_075.jpg" width="450" height="158" alt="Chapter IV Header" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<h2>THE HALF-WAY HOUSE.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he spin down to Roscoe next morning
+was delightful in every respect. The
+air was just sharp enough for vigorous exercise.
+These were the pleasantest hours we
+had yet spent. The blisters that had troubled
+us for the first three days were hardening into
+callosities, and arm and back muscles, which
+at first were sore from the unusually heavy
+strain upon them, at last were strengthened
+to their work. Thereafter we felt no physical
+inconvenience from our self-imposed task.
+At night, after a pull of eleven or twelve
+hours, relieved only by the time spent in
+lunching, in which we hourly alternated at
+the oars and paddle, slumber came as a most
+welcome visitation, while the morning ever
+found us as fresh as at the start. Let those
+afflicted with insomnia try this sort of life.
+My word for it, they will not be troubled
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>
+so long as the canoeing continues. Every
+muscle of the body moves responsive to each
+pull of the oars or sweep of the paddle; while
+the mental faculties are kept continually on
+the alert, watching for shallows, snags, and
+rapids, in which operation a few days' experience
+will render one quite expert, though
+none the less cautious.</p>
+
+<p>As we get farther down into the Illinois
+country, the herds of live-stock increase in
+size and number. Cattle may be seen by
+hundreds at one view, dotted all over the
+neighboring hills and meadows, or dreamily
+standing in the cooling stream at sultry noonday.
+Sheep, in immense flocks, bleat in deafening
+unison, the ewes and their young being
+particularly demonstrative at our appearance,
+and sometimes excitedly following us along
+the banks. Droves of black hogs and shoats
+are ploughing the sward in their search for
+sweet roots, or lying half-buried in the wet
+sand. Horses, in familiar groups, quickly
+lift their heads in startled wonder as the canopied
+canoe glides silently by,&mdash;then suddenly
+wheel, kick up their heels, sound a snort of
+alarm, and dash off at a thundering gallop,
+clods of turf filling the air behind them.
+There are charming groves and parks and
+treeless downs, and the river cuts through the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span>
+alluvial soil to a depth of eight and ten feet,
+throwing up broad beaches on either side.</p>
+
+<p>At Roscoe, three or four miles below our
+morning's starting-point, there is a collection
+of three or four neat farm-houses, each with
+its spinning windmill.</p>
+
+<p>Latham Station, nine miles below Rockton,
+was reached at ten o'clock. The post-office is
+called Owen. There is a smart little depot on
+the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway
+line, two general stores, and a half-dozen cottages,
+with a substantial-looking creamery,
+where we obtained buttermilk drawn fresh
+from one of the mammoth churns. The concern
+manufactures from three hundred to nine
+hundred pounds per day, according to the
+season, shipping chiefly to New York city.
+Leaning over the hand-rail which fences off
+the "making" room, and gossiping with the
+young man in charge, I conjured up visions
+of the days when, as a boy on the farm, I used
+to spend many weary, almost tearful hours,
+pounding an old crock churn, in which the
+butter would always act like a balky horse
+and refuse to "come" until after a long series
+of experimental coaxing. Nowadays, rustic
+youths luxuriously ride behind the plough, the
+harrow, the cultivator, the horse-rake, the hay-loader,
+and the self-binding harvester, while
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span>
+the butter-making is farmed out to a factory
+where the thing is done by steam. The
+farmer's boy of the future will live in a world
+darkened only by the frown of the district
+schoolmaster and the intermittent round of
+stable chores.</p>
+
+<div class="fares">
+<p class="center">FARE.</p>
+<table summary="Fare">
+<col width="85" />
+<col width="100" />
+<col width="60" />
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">Foot Passengere</td>
+<td>10 cts.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">Man &amp; Horse</td>
+<td>15 ct.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">single Carriage</td>
+<td>10 c.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">double &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+<td>15 c</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">each Passinger</td>
+<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;5 c</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Night Raites</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="tdr">Double Fare.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">All persons</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">Are cautioned</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">Againts useing</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">this Boat with Out</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">Permistion from</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">the Owners</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>At Latham Station we encountered the
+first ferry-boat on our trip,&mdash;a flat-bottomed
+scow with side-rails, attached by ropes and
+pulleys to a suspended wire cable, and working
+diagonally, with the force of the current.
+A sign conspicuously displayed on the craft
+bore the above legend.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From the time we had entered Illinois,
+the large, graceful, white blossoms of the
+Pennsylvanian anemone and the pink and
+white fringe of the erigeron Canadense had
+appeared in great abundance upon the river
+banks, while the wild prairie rose lent a delicate
+beauty and fragrance to the scene. On
+sandy knolls, where in early spring the anemone
+patens and crowfoot violets had thrived
+in profusion, were now to be seen the geum
+triflorum and the showy yellow puccoon; the
+long-flowered puccoon, with its delicate pale
+yellow, crape-like blossom, was just putting in
+an appearance; and little white, star-shaped
+flowers, which were strangers to us of Wisconsin,
+fairly dotted the green hillsides, mingled
+in striking contrast with dwarf blue mint.
+Bevies of great black crows, sitting in the tops
+of dead willow-trees or circling around them,
+rent the air with sepulchral squawks. Men
+and boys were cultivating in the cornfields,
+the prevalent drought painfully evidenced by
+the clouds of gray dust which enveloped them
+and their teams as they stirred up the brittle
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>There was now a fine breeze astern, and
+the awning, abandoned during the head winds
+of the day before, was again welcomed as the
+sun mounted to the zenith. At 2.30 <span class="smcap">P. M.</span>,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span>
+we were in busy Rockford, where the banks
+are twenty or twenty-five feet high, with rolling
+prairies stretching backward to the horizon,
+except where here and there a wooded
+ridge intervenes. Rockford is the metropolis
+of the valley of the Rock. It has twenty-two
+thousand inhabitants, with many elegant mansions
+visible from the river, and evidences
+upon every hand of that prosperity which
+usually follows in the train of varied manufacturing
+enterprises.</p>
+
+<p>There are numerous mills and factories along
+both sides of the river, and a protracted inspection
+of the portage facilities was necessary
+before we could decide on which bank
+to make our carry. The right was chosen.
+The portage was somewhat over two ordinary
+city blocks in length, up a steep incline and
+through a road-way tunnel under a great flouring
+mill. We had made nearly half the distance,
+and were resting for a moment, when
+a mill-driver kindly offered the use of his
+wagon, which was gratefully accepted. We
+were soon spinning down the tail of the race,
+a half-dozen millers waving a "Chautauqua
+salute" with as many dusty flour-bags, and in
+ten minutes more had left Rockford out of
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>Several miles below, there are a half-dozen
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>
+forested islands in a bunch, some of them four
+or five acres in extent, and we puzzled over
+which channel to take,&mdash;the best of them
+abounding in shallows. The one down which
+the current seemed to set the strongest was
+selected, but we had not proceeded over half
+a mile before the trees on the banks began to
+meet in arches overhead, and it was evident
+that we were ascending a tributary. It proved
+to be the Cherry River, emptying into the
+main stream from the east. The wind, now
+almost due-west, had driven the waves into
+the mouth of the Cherry, so that we mistook
+this surface movement for the current. Coming
+to a railway bridge, which we knew from
+our map did not cross the Rock, our course
+was retraced, and after some difficulty with
+snags and gravel-spits, we were once more
+upon our proper highway, trending to the
+southwest.</p>
+
+<p>Supper was eaten upon the edge of a large
+island, several miles farther down stream,
+in the shade of two wide-spreading locusts.
+Opposite are some fine, eroded sandstone palisades,
+which formation had been frequently
+met with during the day,&mdash;sometimes on
+both sides of the river, but generally on the
+left bank, which is, as a rule, the most picturesque
+along the entire course.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was still so cold when evening shadows
+thickened that camping out, with our meagre
+preparations for it, seemed impracticable; so
+we pushed on and kept a sharp lookout for
+some friendly farm-house at which to quarter
+for the night. The houses in the thickly-wooded
+bottoms, however, were generally
+quite forbidding in appearance, and the sun
+had gone down before we sighted a well-built
+stone dwelling amid a clump of graceful evergreens.
+It seemed, from the river, to be the
+very embodiment of comfortable neatness; but
+upon ascending the gentle slope and fighting
+off two or three mangy curs which came
+snarling at our heels, we found the structure
+merely a relic of gentility. There was scarcely
+a whole pane of glass in the house, there were
+eight or ten wretchedly dirty and ragged children,
+the parents were repulsive in appearance
+and manner, and a glimpse of the interior
+presented a picture of squalor which would
+have shocked a city missionary. The stately
+stone house was a den of the most abject and
+shiftless poverty, the like of which one could
+seldom see in the slums of a metropolis.
+These people were in the midst of a splendid
+farming country, had an abundance of pure
+air and water at command, and there seemed
+to be no excuse for their condition. Drink
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span>
+and laziness were doubtless the besetting sins
+in this uncanny home. Making a pretense of
+inquiring the distance to Byron, the next village
+below, we hurried from the accursed
+spot.</p>
+
+<p>A half-hour later we reached the high
+bridge of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St.
+Paul railway, above Byron, and ran our bow
+on a little beach at the base of the left bank,
+which is here thirty feet high. A section-man
+had a little cabin hard by, and his gaunt,
+talkative wife, with a chubby little boy by her
+side, had been keenly watching our approach
+from her garden-fence. She greeted us with
+a shrill but cheery voice as we clambered up
+a zigzag path and joined her upon the edge of
+the prairie.</p>
+
+<p>"Good ev'nin', folks! Whar'n earth d' ye
+come from?"</p>
+
+<p>We enlightened her in a few words.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mean t' say ye come all the way
+from Weesconsin a' down here in that thing?"
+pointing down at the canoe, which certainly
+looked quite small, at that depth, in the
+dim twilight.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly; why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye'll git drowndid, an' I'm not mistakin,
+afore ye git to Byron."</p>
+
+<p>"River dangerous, ma'am?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dang'rous ain't no name for 't. There
+was a young feller drowndid at this here
+bridge las' spring. The young feller he
+worked at the bridge-mendin', bein' a carpenter,&mdash;he
+called himself a carpenter, but
+he warn't no great fist at carpenterin', an' I
+know it,&mdash;and he boarded up at Byron. A
+'nsurance agint kim 'long and got Rollins,&mdash;the
+young feller his name was Abe Rollins,
+an' he was a bach,&mdash;to promise to 'sure his
+life for a thousand dollars, which was to go t'
+his sister, what takes in washin', an' her man
+ran away from her las' year an' nobody knows
+where he is,&mdash;which I says is good riddance,
+but she takes on as though she had los' somebody
+worth cryin' over: there's no accountin'
+for tastes. The agint says to Rollins to
+go over to the doctor's of'c' to git 'xamined
+and Rollins says, 'No, I ain't agoin' to git
+'xamined till I clean off; I'll go down an' take
+a swim at the bridge and then come back and
+strip for the doctor.' An' Rollins he took
+his swim and got sucked down inter a hole just
+yonder down there, by the openin' of Stillman's
+Creek, and he was a corpse when they
+hauled him out, down off Byron; an' he never
+hollered once but jist sunk like a stone with
+a cramp; an' his folks never got no 'nsurance
+money at all, for lackin' the doctor's c'tificate.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span>
+An' it's heaps o' folks git drowndid in
+this river, an' nobody ever hears of 'em agin;
+an' I wouldn't no more step foot in that boat
+nor the biggest ship on the sea, an' I don't
+see how you can do it, ma'am!"</p>
+
+<p>No doubt the good woman would have
+rattled on after this fashion for half the night,
+but we felt obliged, owing to the rapidly increasing
+darkness, to interrupt her with geographical
+inquiries. She assured us that
+Byron was distant some five or six miles by
+river, with, so far as she had heard, many
+shallows, whirlpools, and snags <i>en route</i>;
+while by land the village was but a mile and
+a quarter across the prairie, from the bridge.
+We accordingly made fast for the night
+where we had landed, placed our heaviest baggage
+in the tidy kitchen-sitting-room-parlor
+of our voluble friend, and trudged off over the
+fields to Byron,&mdash;a solitary light in a window
+and the occasional practice-note of a brass
+band, borne to us on the light western breeze,
+being our only guides.</p>
+
+<p>After a deal of stumbling over a rough and
+ill-defined path, which we could distinguish
+by the sense of feeling alone, we finally
+reached the exceedingly quiet little village,
+and by dint of inquiry from house to house,&mdash;in
+most of which the denizens seemed preparing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span>
+to retire for the night,&mdash;found the inn
+which had been recommended by the section-man's
+wife as the best in town. It was the
+only one. There were several commercial
+travelers in the place, and the hostelry was
+filled. But the landlord kindly surrendered
+to us his own well-appointed chamber, above
+an empty store where the village band was
+tuning up for Decoration Day. It seemed
+appropriate enough that there should be music
+to greet us, for we were now one hundred
+and thirty-four miles from Madison, and
+practically half through our voyage to the
+Mississippi.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_087.jpg" width="450" height="140" alt="Chapter V Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h2>GRAND DETOUR FOLKS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>e tramped back to the bridge in high
+spirits next morning, over the flower-strewn
+prairie. The section-man's wife was
+on hand, with her entire step-laddered brood
+of six, to see us off. As we carried down our
+traps to the beach and repacked, she kept up
+a continuous strain of talk, giving us a most
+edifying review of her life, and especially the
+particulars of how she and her "man" had
+first romantically met, while he was a gravel-train
+hand on a far western railroad, and she
+the cook in a portable construction-barracks.</p>
+
+<p>Stillman's Creek opens into the Rock from
+the east, through a pleasant glade, a few rods
+below the bridge. We took a pull up this
+historic tributary for a half-mile or more.
+It is a muddy stream, some two and a half
+rods wide, cutting down for a half-dozen feet
+through the black soil. The shores are generally
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span>
+well fringed with heavy timber, especially
+upon the northern bank, while the land
+to the south and southwest stretches upward,
+in gentle slopes, to a picturesque rolling prairie,
+abounding in wooded knolls. It was in
+the large grove on the north bank, near its
+junction with the Rock, that Black Hawk, in
+the month of May, 1832, parleyed with the
+Pottawattomies. It was here that on the
+14th of that month he learned of the treachery
+of Stillman's militiamen, and at once
+made that famous sally with his little band
+of forty braves which resulted in the rout of
+the cowardly whites, who fled pell-mell over
+the prairie toward Dixon, asserting that
+Black Hawk and two thousand blood-thirsty
+warriors were sweeping northern Illinois with
+the besom of destruction. The country round
+about appears to have undergone no appreciable
+change in the half-century intervening
+between that event and to-day. The topographical
+descriptions given in contemporaneous
+accounts of Stillman's flight will hold
+good now, and we were readily able to pick
+out the points of interest on the old battlefield.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the Rock, we made excellent
+progress. The atmosphere was bracing; and
+there being a favoring northwest breeze, our
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span>
+awning was stretched over a hoop for a sail.
+The banks were now steep inclines of white
+sand and gravel. It was like going through
+a railroad cut. But in ascending the sides, as
+we did occasionally, to secure supplies from
+farm-houses or refill our canteen with fresh
+water, there were found broad expanses of
+rolling prairie. The farm establishments increase
+in number and prosperity. Windmills
+may be counted by the scores, the cultivation
+of enormous cornfields is everywhere in
+progress, and cattle are more numerous than
+ever.</p>
+
+<p>Three or four miles above Oregon the banks
+rise to the dignity of hills, which come sweeping
+down "with verdure clad" to the very
+water's edge, and present an inspiring picture,
+quite resembling some of the most charming
+stretches of the Hudson. At the entrance to
+this lovely vista we encountered a logy little
+pleasure-steamer anchored in the midst of
+the stream, which is here nearly half of a mile
+wide, for the river now perceptibly broadens.
+The captain, a ponderous old sea-dog, wearing
+a cowboy's hat and having the face of an
+operatic pirate, with a huge pipe between
+his black teeth, sat lounging on the bulwark,
+watching the force of the current, into which
+he would listlessly expectorate. He was at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span>
+first inclined to be surly, as we hauled alongside
+and checked our course; but gradually
+softened down as we drew him out in conversation,
+and confided to us that he had in
+earlier days "sailed the salt water," a circumstance
+of which he seemed very proud. He
+also gave us some "pointers on the lay o' the
+land," as he called them, for our future guidance
+down the river,&mdash;one of which was that
+there were "dandy sceneries" below Oregon,
+in comparison with which we had thus far
+seen nothing worthy of note. As for himself,
+he said that his place on the neighboring shore
+was connected by telephone with Oregon, and
+his steamer frequently transported pleasure
+parties to points of interest above the dam.</p>
+
+<p>Ganymede Spring is on the southeast bank,
+at the base of a lofty sandstone bluff, a mile or
+so above Oregon. From the top of the bluff,
+which is ascended by a succession of steep
+flights of scaffolding stairs, a magnificent
+bird's-eye view is attainable of one of the
+finest river and forest landscapes in the
+Mississippi basin. The grounds along the
+riverside at the base are laid out in graceful
+carriage drives; and over the head of
+a neatly hewn basin, into which gushes the
+copious spring, is a marble slab thus inscribed:&mdash;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="springs">
+<p class="center">GANYMEDE'S SPRINGS,</p>
+<p class="center">named by</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Margeret Fuller</span> (Countess D. Ossoli,)</p>
+<p class="center">who named this bluff</p>
+<p class="center">EAGLE'S NEST,</p>
+<p class="center">&amp; beneath the cedars on its crest wrote</p>
+<p class="center">"Ganymede to his Eagle,"</p>
+<p class="center">July 4, 1843.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Oregon was reached just before noon. A
+walk through the business quarter revealed a
+thrifty, but oldish-looking town of about two
+thousand inhabitants. The portage on the
+east side, around a flouring-mill dam, involved
+a hard pull up the gravelly bank thirty
+feet high, and a haul of two blocks' length
+along a dusty street.</p>
+
+<p>There was a fine stretch of eroded palisades
+in front of the island on which we
+lunched. The color effect was admirable,&mdash;patches
+of gray, brown, white, and old gold,
+much corroded with iron. Vines of many
+varieties dangle from earth-filled crevices,
+and swallows by the hundreds occupy the
+dimples neatly hollowed by the action of
+the water in some ancient period when the
+stream was far broader and deeper than now.</p>
+
+<p>But at times, even in our day, the Rock is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span>
+a raging torrent. The condition of the trees
+along the river banks and on the thickly-strewn
+island pastures, shows that not many
+months before it must have been on a wild
+rampage, for the great trunks are barked by
+the ice to the height of fifteen feet above the
+present water-level. Everywhere, on banks
+and islands, are the evidences of disastrous
+floods, and the ponderous ice-breakers above
+the bridges give one an awesome notion of the
+condition of affairs at such a time. Farmers
+assured us that in the spring of 1887 the
+water was at the highest stage ever recorded
+in the history of the valley. Many of the
+railway bridges barely escaped destruction,
+while the numerous river ferries and the low
+country bridges in the bayous were destroyed
+by scores. The banks were overflowed for
+miles together, and back in the country for
+long distances, causing the hasty removal
+of families and live-stock from the bottoms;
+while ice jams, forming at the heads of the
+islands, would break, and the shattered floes
+go sweeping down with terrific force, crushing
+the largest trees like reeds, tearing away
+fences and buildings, covering islands and
+meadows with deep deposits of sand and
+mud, blazing their way through the forested
+banks, and creating sad havoc on every hand.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span>
+We were amply convinced, by the thousands
+of broken trees which littered our route,
+the snags, the mud-baked islands, the frequent
+stretches of sadly demoralized bank
+that had not yet had time to reweave its
+charitable mantle of verdure, that the Rock,
+on such a spring "tear," must indeed be a
+picture of chaos broken loose. This explained
+why these hundreds of beautiful and
+spacious islands&mdash;many of them with charming
+combinations of forest and hillock and
+meadow, and occasionally enclosing pretty
+ponds blushing with water-lilies&mdash;are none
+of them inhabited, but devoted to the pasture
+of cattle, who swim or ford the intervening
+channels, according to the stage of the flood;
+also why the picturesque bottoms on the
+main shore are chiefly occupied by the poorest
+class of farmers, who eke out their meagre
+incomes with the spoils of the gun and
+line.</p>
+
+<p>It was a quarter of five when we beached
+at the upper ferry-landing at Grand Detour.
+It is a little, tumble-down village of one or
+two small country stores, a church, and a
+dozen modest cottages; there is also, on the
+river front, a short row of deserted shops,
+their paintless battlement-fronts in a sadly
+collapsed condition, while hard by are the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span>
+ruins of two or three dismantled mills. The
+settlement is on a bit of prairie at the base of
+the preliminary flourish of the "big bend" of
+the Rock,&mdash;hence the name, Grand Detour,
+a reminiscence of the early French explorers.
+The foot of the peninsula is but half a mile
+across, while the distance around by river to
+the lower ferry, on the other side of the village
+is four miles. Having learned that the
+bottoms below here were, for a long distance,
+peculiarly gloomy and but sparsely inhabited,
+we thought it best to pass the night at Grand
+Detour. Bespeaking accommodations at the
+tavern and post-office combined, we rowed
+around the bend to the lower landing, through
+some lovely stretches of river scenery, in
+which bold palisades and delightful little
+meadows predominated.</p>
+
+<p>The walk back to the village was through
+a fine park of elms. The stage was just in
+from Dixon, with the mail. There was an
+eager little knot of villagers in the cheerful
+sitting-room of our homelike inn, watching
+the stout landlady as she distributed it in
+a checker-board rank of glass-faced boxes
+fenced off in front of a sunny window. It
+did not appear that many of those who overlooked
+the distribution of the mail had been
+favored by their correspondents. They were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span>
+chiefly concerned in seeing who did get letters
+and papers, and in "passin' the time o' day,"
+as gossiping is called in rural communities.
+Seated in a darkened corner, waiting patiently
+for supper, the announcement of which
+was an hour or more in coming, we were much
+amused at the mirror of local events which
+was unconsciously held up for us by these
+loungers of both sexes and all ages, who
+fairly filled the room, and oftentimes waxed
+hot in controversy.</p>
+
+<p>The central theme of conversation was the
+preparations under way for Decoration Day,
+which was soon to arrive. Grand Detour
+was to be favored with a speaker from Dixon,&mdash;"a
+reg'lar major from the war, gents, an'
+none o' yer m'lish fellers!" an enthusiastic
+old man with a crutch persisted in announcing.
+There were to be services at the church,
+and some exercises at the cemetery, where lie
+buried the half-dozen honored dead, Grand
+Detour's sacrifice upon the altar of the Union.
+The burning question seemed to be whether
+the village preacher would consent to offer
+prayer upon the occasion, if the church choir
+insisted on being accompanied on the brand-new
+cabinet organ which the congregation
+had voted to purchase, but to which the pastor
+and one of the leading deacons were said
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span>
+to be bitterly opposed, as smacking of worldliness
+and antichrist. Only the evening
+before, this deacon, armed with a sledgehammer
+and rope, had been seen to go to
+the sanctuary in company with his "hired
+man," and enter through one of the windows,
+which they pried up for the purpose. A good
+gossip, who lived hard by, closely watched
+such extraordinary proceedings. There was
+a great noise within, then some planks were
+pitched out of the window, soon followed by
+the deacon and his man. The window was
+shut down, the planks thrown atop of the
+horse-shed roof, and the men disappeared.
+Investigation in the morning by the witness
+revealed the fact that the choir-seats and the
+organ-platform had been torn down and removed.
+Here was a pretty how d' do! The
+wiry, raspy little woman, with her gray finger-curls
+and withered, simpering smile, had, with
+great forbearance, kept her choice bit of news
+to herself till "post-office time." Sitting in
+a big rocking-chair close to the delivery window,
+knitting vigorously on an elongated
+stocking, she demurely asserted that she
+"never wanted to say nothin' 'gin' nobody,
+or to hurt nobody's feelin's," and then detailed
+the entire circumstance to the patrons
+of the office as they came in. The excitement
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span>
+created by the story, which doubtless
+lost nothing in the telling, was at fever-heat.
+We were sorely tempted to remain over till
+Decoration Day,&mdash;when, it was freely predicted,
+there "would be some folks as'd wish
+they'd never been born,"&mdash;and see the outcome
+of this tempest in a teapot. But our
+programme, unfortunately, would not admit
+of such a diversion.</p>
+
+<p>Others came and went, but the gossipy
+little body with the gray curls rocked on,
+holding converse with both post-mistress and
+public, keeping a keen eye on the character
+of the mail matter obtained by the villagers
+and neighboring farmers, and freely commenting
+on it all; so that new-comers were kept
+quite well-informed as to the correspondence
+of those who had just departed.</p>
+
+<p>A sad-eyed little woman in rusty black
+modestly slipped in, and was handed out a
+much-creased and begrimed envelope, which
+she nervously clutched. She was hurrying
+silently away, when the gossip sharply exclaimed,
+"Good lands, Cynthi' Prescott! some
+folks don't know a body when they meet.
+'Spose ye've been hearin' from Jim at last.
+I'd been thinkin' 't was about time ye got a
+letter from his hand, ef he war ever goin'
+t' write at all. Tell ye, Cynthi' Prescott,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span>
+ye're too indulgent on that man o' yourn!
+Ef I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Cynthia Prescott, turning her black,
+deep-sunken eyes to her inquisitor, with a
+piteous, tearful look, as though stung to the
+quick, sidled out backward through the wire-screen
+door, which sprung closed with a
+vicious bang, and I saw her hurrying down
+the village street firmly grasping at her bosom
+what the mail had brought her,&mdash;probably a
+brutal demand for more money, from a worthless
+husband, who was wrecking his life-craft
+on some far-away shore.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness me! but the Gilberts is a-puttin'
+on style!" ejaculated the village censor,
+as a rather smart young horseman went out
+with a bunch of letters, and a little packet
+tied up in red twine. "That there was vis'tin'
+keerds from the printer's shop in Dixon, an'
+cost a dollar; can't fool me! There's some
+folks as hev to be leavin' keerds on folks's
+centre-tables when they goes makin' calls, for
+fear folks will be a-forgettin' their names.
+When I go a-callin', I go a-visitin' and take
+my work along an' stop an' hev a social cup
+o' tea; an' they ain't a-goin' to forgit for
+awhile, that I dropped in on 'em, neither.
+This way they hev down in Dixon, what I
+hear of, of ringin' at a bell and settin' down
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span>
+with yer bonnet on and sayin', 'How d' do,'
+an' a 'Pretty well, I thank yer,' and jumpin'
+up as if the fire bell was ringin' and goin' on
+through the whole n'ighberhood as ef ye're
+on springs, an' then a-trancin' back home and
+braggin' how many calls ye've made,&mdash;I
+ain't got no use for that; it'll do for Dixon
+folks, what catch the style from Chicargy,
+an' they git 't from Paris each year, I'm told,
+but I ain't no use for 't. Mebbe ol' man
+Gilbert is made o' money,&mdash;his women folks
+act so, with all this a-apein' the Clays, who's
+been gettin' visitin' keerds all the way from
+Chicargy, which they ordered of a book agint
+last fall, with gilt letters an' roses an' sich like
+in the corners. An' 'twas Clay's brother-in-law
+as tol' me he never did see such carryin's-on
+over at the old house, with letter-writin'
+paper sopped in cologne, an' lace curtains in
+the bed-room winders. An' ye can't tell me
+but the Gilberts, too, is a-goin' to the dogs,
+with their paper patterns from Dixon, and dress
+samples from a big shop in Chicargy, which
+I seen from the picture on the envelope was
+as big as all Grand Detour, an' both ferry-landin's
+thrown in. Grand Detour fashi'ns
+ain't good 'nough for some folks, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>And thus the busy-tongued woman discoursed
+in a vinegary tone upon the characteristics
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span>
+of Grand Detour folks, as illustrated by
+the nature of the evening mail, frequently
+interspersing her remarks with a hearty disclaimer
+of anything malicious in her temperament.
+At last, however, the supper-bell rang;
+the doughty postmistress, who had been remarkably
+discreet throughout all this village
+tirade, having darted in and out between the
+kitchen and the office, attending to her dual
+duties, locked the postal gate with a snap,
+and asked her now solitary patron, "Anything
+I can do for you, Maria?" The gossip
+gathered up her knitting, hastily averred that
+she had merely dropped in for her weekly
+paper, but now remembered that this was not
+the day for it, and ambled off, to reload with
+venom for the next day's mail.</p>
+
+<p>After supper we walked about the peaceful,
+pretty, grass-grown village. Shearing was in
+progress at the barn of the inn, and the streets
+were filled with bleating sheep and nodding
+billy-goats. The place presented many evidences
+of former prosperity, and we were told
+that a dozen years before it had boasted of a
+plough factory, two or three flouring-mills, and
+a good water-power. But the railroad that it
+was expected would come to Grand Detour
+had touched Dixon instead, with the result
+that the village industries had been removed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span>
+to Dixon, the dam had fallen in, and now there
+were less than three hundred inhabitants
+between the two ferries.</p>
+
+<p>When one of the store-keepers told me he
+had practically no country trade, but that his
+customers were the villagers alone, I was led
+to inquire what supported these three hundred
+people, who had no industries among them,
+no river traffic, owing to customary low water
+in summer, and who seemed to live on each
+other. Many of the villagers, I found, are
+laborers who work upon the neighboring
+farms and maintain their families here; a few
+are farmers, the corners of whose places run
+down to the village; others there are who
+either own or rent or "share" farms in the
+vicinity, going out to their work each day,
+much of their live stock and crops being
+housed at their village homes; there are half
+a dozen retired farmers, who have either sold
+out their places or have tenants upon them,
+and live in the village for sociability's sake, or
+to allow their children the benefit of the excellent
+local school. Mingled with these people
+are a shoemaker, a tailor, a storekeeper,
+who live upon the necessities of their neighbors.
+Two fishermen spend the summer
+here, in a tent, selling their daily catch to
+the villagers and neighboring farmers and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span>
+occasionally shipping by the daily mail-stage
+to Dixon, fourteen miles away. The preacher
+and his family are modestly supported; a
+young physician wins a scanty subsistence;
+and for considerably over half the year the
+schoolmaster shares with them what honors
+and sorrows attach to these positions of rural
+eminence. Our pleasant-spoken host was the
+driver of the Dixon stage, as well as star-route
+mail contractor, adding the conduct of a farm
+to his other duties. With his wife as postmistress,
+and a pretty, buxom daughter, who
+waited on our table and was worth her weight
+in gold, Grand Detour folks said that he was
+bound to be a millionnaire yet.</p>
+
+<p>As Grand Detour lives, so live thousands
+of just such little rural villages all over the
+country. Viewed from the railway track or
+river channel, they appear to have been once
+larger than they are to-day. The sight of
+the unpainted houses, the ruined factory, the
+empty stores, the grass and weeds in the
+street, the lack-lustre eyes of the idlers, may
+induce one to imagine that here is the home
+of hopeless poverty and despair. But although
+the railroad which they expected never came;
+or the railroad which did come went on and
+scheduled the place as a flag station; still,
+there is a certain inherent vitality here, an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span>
+undefined something that holds these people
+together, a certain degree of hopefulness
+which cannot rise to the point of ambition, a
+serene satisfaction with the things that are.
+Grand Detour folks, and folks like them,
+are as blissfully content as the denizens of
+Chicago.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_104.jpg" width="450" height="147" alt="Chapter VI Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h2>AN ANCIENT MARINER.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he clock in a neighboring kitchen was
+striking six, as we reached the lower
+ferry-landing. The grass in the streets and
+under the old elms was as wet with dew as
+though there had been a heavy shower during
+the night. The village fishermen were just
+pulling in to the little pier, returning from
+an early morning trip to their "traut-lines"
+down stream. In a long wooden cage, which
+they towed astern, was a fifty-pound sturgeon,
+together with several large cat-fish. They
+kindly hauled their cage ashore, to show us
+the monsters, which they said would probably
+be shipped, alive, to a Chicago restaurant
+which they occasionally furnished with
+curiosities in their line. These fishermen
+were rough-looking fellows in their battered
+hats and ragged, dirty overcoats, with faces
+sadly in need of water and a shave. They
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span>
+had a sad, pinched-up appearance as well, as
+though the dense fog, which was but just now
+yielding to the influence of the sun, had penetrated
+their bones and given them the chills.
+On engaging them in friendly conversation
+about their calling, they exhibited good manners
+and some knowledge of the outer world.
+Their business, they said, was precarious and,
+as we could well see, involved much exposure
+and hardship. Sometimes it meant a
+start at midnight, often amid rainstorms, fogs,
+or chilling weather, with a hard pull back
+again up-stream,&mdash;for their lines were all of
+them below Grand Detour; but to return
+with an empty boat, sometimes their luck,
+was harder yet. Knocking about in this way,
+all of the year around,&mdash;for their winters
+were similarly spent upon the lower waters
+and bayous of the Mississippi,&mdash;neither of
+them was ever thoroughly well. One was
+consumptively inclined, he told me, and being
+an old soldier, was receiving a small pension.
+A claim agent had him in hand, however, and
+his thoughts ran largely upon the prospects
+of an increase by special legislation. He
+seemed to have but little doubt that he would
+ultimately succeed. When he came into this
+looked-for fortune, he said, he would "quit
+knockin' 'round an' killin' myself fishin',"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span>
+settle down in Grand Detour for the balance
+of his days, raising his own "garden sass,
+pigs, and cow;" and some fine day would
+make a trip in his boat to the "old home
+in Injianny, whar I was raised an' 'listed in
+the war." His face fairly gleamed with pleasure
+as he thus dwelt upon the flowers of
+fancy which the pension agent had cultivated
+within him; and <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> sympathetically exclaimed,
+when we had swung into the stream
+and bidden farewell to these men who followed
+the calling of the apostles, that were
+she a congressman she would certainly vote
+for the fisherman's claim, and make happy
+one more heart in Grand Detour.</p>
+
+<p>Now commences the Great Bend of the
+Rock River. The water circuit is fourteen
+miles, the distance gained being but six by
+land. The stream is broad and shallow,
+between palisades densely surmounted with
+trees and covered thick with vines; great
+willow islands freely intersperse the course;
+everywhere are evidences of ice-floes, which
+have blazed the trees and strewn the islands
+with fallen trunks and driftwood,&mdash;a tornado
+could not have created more general havoc.
+The visible houses, few of them inviting in
+appearance, are miles apart. As had been
+foretold at the village, the outlook for lodgings
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span>
+in this dismal region is not at all encouraging.
+It was well that we had stopped at
+Grand Detour.</p>
+
+<p>Below the bend, where the country is more
+open, though the banks are still deep-cut, the
+highway to Dixon skirts the river, and for several
+miles we kept company with the stage.</p>
+
+<p>Dixon was sighted at 10 o'clock. A circus
+had pitched its tents upon the northern bank,
+just above the dam, near where we landed for
+the carry, and a crowd of small boys came
+swarming down the bank to gaze upon us,
+possibly imagining, at first, that our outfit was
+a part of the show. They accompanied us, at
+a respectful distance, as we pulled the canoe
+up a grassy incline and down through the
+vine-clad arches of a picturesque old ruin of
+a mill. Below the dam, we rowed over to the
+town, about where the famous pioneer ferry
+used to be. It was in the spring of 1826 that
+John Boles opened a trail from Peoria to
+Galena, by the way of the present locality of
+Dixon, thus shortening a trail which had been
+started by one Kellogg the year before, but
+crossed the Rock a few miles above. The
+site of Dixon at once sprang into wide popularity
+as a crossing-place, Indians being employed
+to do the ferrying. Their manner
+was simple. Lashing two canoes abreast, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span>
+wheels of one side of a wagon were placed in
+one canoe and the opposite wheels in the
+other. The horses were made to swim behind.
+In 1827 a Peoria man named Begordis
+erected a small shanty here and had half
+finished a ferry-boat when the Indians, not
+favoring competition, burned the craft on its
+stocks and advised Begordis to return to
+Peoria; being a wise man, he returned. The
+next year, Joe Ogie, a Frenchman, one of a
+race that the red men loved, and having a
+squaw for his wife, was permitted to build a
+scow, and thenceforth Indians were no longer
+needed there as common carriers. By the
+time of the Black Hawk war, Dixon, from
+whom the subsequent settlement was named,
+ran the ferry, and the crossing station had
+henceforth a name in history. A trail in those
+early days was quite as important as a railroad
+is to-day; settlements sprang up along the improved
+"Kellogg's trail," and Dixon was the
+centre of interest in all northern Illinois. Indeed,
+it being for years the only point where
+the river could be crossed by ferry, Dixon was
+as important a landmark to the settlers of the
+southern half of Wisconsin who desired to go
+to Chicago, as any within their own territory.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span>
+
+The Dixon of to-day shelters four thousand
+inhabitants and has two or three busy mills;
+although it is noticeable that along the water-power
+there are some half-dozen mill properties
+that have been burned, torn down, or
+deserted, which does not look well for the
+manufacturing prospects of the place. The
+land along the river banks is a flat prairie
+some half-mile in width, with rolling country
+beyond, sprinkled with oak groves. The
+banks are of black, sandy loam, from twelve
+to twenty feet high, based with sandy beaches.
+The shores are now and then cut with deep
+ravines, at the mouths of which are fine,
+gravelly beaches, sometimes forming considerable
+spits. These indicate that the dry,
+barren gullies, the gutters of the hillocks,
+while innocent enough in a drought, sometimes
+rise to the dignity of torrents and suddenly
+pour great volumes of drainage into the
+rapidly filling river,&mdash;so often described in
+the journals of early travelers through this
+region, as "the dark and raging Rock." This
+sort of scenery, varied by occasional limestone
+palisades,&mdash;the interesting and picturesque
+feature of the Rock, from which it derived
+its name at the hands of the aborigines,&mdash;extends
+down to beyond Sterling.</p>
+
+<p>This city, reached at 3.50 <span class="smcap">P. M.</span>, is a busy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span>
+place of ten thousand inhabitants, engaged
+in miscellaneous manufactures. Our portage
+was over the south and dry end of the
+dam. We were helped by three or four bright,
+intelligent boys, who were themselves carrying
+over a punt, preparatory to a fishing expedition
+below. Amid the hundreds of boys
+whom we met at our various portages, these
+well-bred Sterling lads were the only ones
+who even offered their assistance. Very
+likely, however, the reason may be traced to
+the fact that this was Saturday, and a school
+holiday. The boys at the week-day carries
+were the riff-raff, who are allowed to loaf upon
+the river-banks when they should be at their
+school-room desks.</p>
+
+<p>While mechanically pulling a "fisherman's
+stroke" down stream I was dreamily reflecting
+upon the necessity of enforced popular
+education, when <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>, vigilant at the steersman's
+post, mischievously broke in upon the
+brown study with, "Como's next station!
+Twenty minutes for supper!"</p>
+
+<p>And sure enough, it was a quarter past six,
+and there was Como nestled upon the edge of
+the high prairie-bank. I went up into the
+hamlet to purchase a quart of milk for supper,
+and found it a little dead-alive community of
+perhaps one hundred and twenty-five people.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span>
+There is the brick shell of a fire-gutted factory,
+with several abandoned stores, a dozen
+houses from which the paint had long since
+scaled, a rather smart-looking schoolhouse,
+and two brick dwellings of ancient pattern,&mdash;the
+homes of well-to-do farmers; while here
+and there were grass-grown depressions, which
+I was told were once the cellars of houses
+that had been moved away. On the return
+to the beach a bevy of open-mouthed women
+and children accompanied me, plying questions
+with a simplicity so rare that there was no
+thought of impertinence. <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> was talking
+with the old gray-haired ferryman, who had
+been transporting a team across as we had
+landed beside his staging. The old man
+had stayed behind, avowedly to mend his boat,
+with a stone for a hammer, but it was quite
+apparent that curiosity kept him, rather than
+the needs of his scow. He confided to us
+that Como&mdash;which was indeed prettily situated
+upon a bend of the river&mdash;had once been
+a prosperous town. But the railroad went to
+some rival place, and&mdash;the familiar story&mdash;the
+dam at Como rotted, and the village fell
+into its present dilapidated state. It is the
+fate of many a small but ambitious town
+upon a river. Settled originally because of
+the river highway, the railroads&mdash;that have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span>
+nearly killed the business of water transportation&mdash;did
+not care to go there because it
+was too far out of the short-cut path selected
+by the engineers between two more prominent
+points. Thus the community is "side-tracked,"&mdash;to
+use a bit of railway slang; and
+a side-tracked town becomes in the new civilization&mdash;which
+cares nothing for the rivers,
+but clusters along the iron ways&mdash;a town
+"as dead as a door-nail."</p>
+
+<p>We had luncheon on a high bank just out
+of sight of Como. By the time we had
+reached a point three or four miles below the
+village it was growing dark, and time to hunt
+for shelter. While I walked, or rather ran,
+along the north bank looking for a farm-house,
+<span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> guided the canoe down a particularly
+rapid current. It was really too dark to prosecute
+the search with convenience. I was
+several times misled by clumps of trees, and
+fruitlessly climbed over board or crawled under
+barbed-wire fences, and often stumbled along
+the dusty highway which at times skirted the
+bank. It was over a mile before an undoubted
+windmill appeared, dimly silhouetted against
+the blackening sky above a dense growth of
+river-timber a quarter of a mile down the
+stream. A whistle, and <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> shot the craft
+into the mouth of a black ravine, and clambered
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span>
+up the bank, at the serious risk of torn
+clothing from the thicket of blackberry-vines
+and locust saplings which covered it. Together
+we emerged upon the highway, determined
+to seek the windmill on foot; for it
+would have been impossible to sight the place
+from the river, which was now, from the overhanging
+trees on both shores and islands, as
+dark as a cavern. Just as we stepped upon
+the narrow road&mdash;which we were only able
+to distinguish because the dust was lighter in
+color than the vegetation&mdash;a farm-team came
+rumbling along over a neighboring culvert,
+and rolled into view from behind a fringe of
+bushes. The horses jumped and snorted as
+they suddenly sighted our dark forms, and
+began to plunge. The women gave a mild
+shriek, and awakened a small child which one
+of them carried in her arms. I essayed to
+snatch the bits of the frightened horses to prevent
+them from running away, for the women
+had dropped the lines, while <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> called
+out asking if there was a good farm-house
+where the windmill was. The team quieted
+down under a few soothing strokes; but the
+women persisted in screaming and uttering
+incoherent imprecations in German, while
+the child fairly roared. So I returned the
+lines to the woman in charge, and we bade
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>
+them "Guten Nacht." As they whipped up
+their animals and hurried away, with fearful
+backward glances, it suddenly occurred to us
+that we had been taken for footpads.</p>
+
+<p>We were so much amused at our adventure,
+as we walked along, almost groping our way,
+that we failed to notice a farm-gate on the
+river side of the road, until a chorus of dogs,
+just over the fence, arrested our attention.
+A half-dozen human voices were at once heard
+calling back the animals. A light shone in
+thin streaks through a black fringe of lilac-bushes,
+and in front of these was the gate.
+Opening the creaky structure, we advanced
+cautiously up what we felt to be a gravel walk,
+under an arch of evergreens and lilacs, with
+the paddle ready as a club, in case of another
+dog outbreak. But there was no need of it,
+and we soon emerged into a flood of light,
+which proceeded from a shadeless lamp within
+an open window.</p>
+
+<p>It was a spacious white farm-house. Upon
+the "stoop" of an L were standing, in attitudes
+of expectancy, a stout, well-fed, though
+rather sinister-expressioned elderly man, with
+a long gray beard, and his raw-boned, overworked
+wife, with two fair but dissatisfied-looking
+daughters, and several sons, ranging
+from twelve to twenty years. A few moments
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>
+of explanation dispelled the suspicious look
+with which we had been greeted, and it was
+soon agreed that we should, for a consideration,
+be entertained for the night and over
+Sunday; although the good woman protested
+that her house was "topsy-turvy, all torn up"
+with house-cleaning,&mdash;which excuse, by the
+way, had become quite familiar by this time,
+having been current at every house we had
+thus far entered upon our journey.</p>
+
+<p>Bringing our canoe down to the farmer's
+bank and hauling it up into the bushes, we
+returned through the orchard to the house,
+laden with baggage. Our host proved to be
+a famous story-teller. His tales, often Munchausenese,
+were inclined to be ghastly, and
+he had an o'erweening fondness for inconsequential
+detail, like some authors of serial
+tales, who write against space and tax the patience
+of their readers to its utmost endurance.
+But while one may skip the dreary pages of
+the novelist, the circumstantial story-teller
+must be borne with patiently, though the
+hours lag with leaden heels. In earlier days
+the old man had been something of a traveler,
+having journeyed to Illinois by steamboat
+on the upper lakes, from "ol' York State;"
+another time he went down the Mississippi
+River to Natchez, working his way as a deck
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span>
+hand; but the crowning event of his career
+was his having, as a driver, accompanied
+a cattle-train to New York city. A few
+years ago he tumbled down a well and was
+hauled up something of a cripple; so that his
+occupation chiefly consists in sitting around
+the house in an easy-chair, or entertaining the
+crowd at the cross-roads store with sturdy tales
+of his adventures by land and sea, spiced with
+vigorous opinions on questions of politics and
+theology. The garrulity of age, a powerful
+imagination, and a boasting disposition are
+his chief stock in trade.</p>
+
+<p>Propped up in his great chair, with one leg
+resting upon a lounge and the other aiding
+his iron-ferruled cane in pounding the floor
+by way of punctuating his remarks, "that
+ancient mariner"</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="o1">"Held us with his glittering eye;</p>
+<p>We could not choose but hear."</p></div>
+
+<p>His tales were chiefly of shooting and stabbing
+scrapes, drownings and hangings that he
+claimed to have seen, dwelling upon each
+incident with a blood-curdling particularity
+worthy of the reporter of a sensational metropolitan
+journal. The ancient man must have
+fairly walked in blood through the greater part
+of his days; while from the number of corpses
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span>
+that had been fished out of the river, at the
+head of a certain island at the foot of his orchard,
+and "laid out" in his best bedroom by
+the coroner, we began to feel as though we
+had engaged quarters at a morgue. It was
+painfully evident that these recitals were
+"chestnuts" in the house of our entertainer.
+The poor old lady had a tired-out, unhappy
+appearance, the dissatisfied-looking daughters
+yawned, and the sons talked, <i>sotto voce</i>, on
+farm matters and neighborhood gossip.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, we tore away, much to the relief of
+every one but the host, and were ushered with
+much ceremony into the ghostly bed-chamber,
+the scene of so many coroner's inquests. I
+must confess to uncanny dreams that night,&mdash;confused
+visions of Rock River giving up
+innumerable corpses, which I was compelled
+to assist in "laying out" upon the very bed I
+occupied.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_118.jpg" width="450" height="154" alt="Chapter VII Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h2>STORM-BOUND AT ERIE.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>e were somewhat jaded by the time
+Monday morning came, for Sunday
+brought not only no relief, but repetitions of
+many of the most horrible of these "tales of
+a wayside inn." It was with no slight sense
+of relief that we paid our modest bill and at
+last broke away from such ghastly associations.
+An involuntary shudder overcame me,
+as we passed the head of the island at the
+foot of our host's orchard, which he had described
+as a catch-basin for human floaters.</p>
+
+<p>Our course still lay among large, densely
+wooded islands,&mdash;many of them wholly given
+up to maples and willows,&mdash;and deep cuts
+through sun-baked mudbanks, the color of
+adobe; but occasionally there are low, gloomy
+bottoms, heavily forested, and strewn with
+flood-wood, while beyond the land rises gradually
+into prairie stretches. In the bottoms
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span>
+the trees are filled with flocks of birds,&mdash;crows,
+hawks, blackbirds, with stately blue
+herons and agile plovers foraging on the long
+gravel-spits which frequently jut far into the
+stream; ducks are frequently seen sailing
+near the shores; while divers silently dart
+and plunge ahead of the canoe, safely out of
+gunshot reach. A head wind this morning
+made rowing more difficult, by counteracting
+the influence of the current.</p>
+
+<p>We were at Lyndon at eleven o'clock.
+There is a population of about two hundred,
+clustered around a red paper-mill. The latter
+made a pretty picture standing out on the
+bold bank, backed by a number of huge stacks
+of golden straw. We met here the first
+rapids worthy of record; also an old, abandoned
+mill-dam, in the last stages of decay,
+stretching its whitened skeleton across the
+stream, a harbor for driftwood. Near the
+south bank the framework has been entirely
+swept away for a space several rods in width,
+and through this opening the pent-up current
+fiercely sweeps. We went through the centre
+of the channel thus made, with a swoop that
+gave us an impetus which soon carried our
+vessel out of sight of Lyndon and its paper-mill
+and straw-stacks.</p>
+
+<p>Prophetstown, five miles below, is prettily
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span>
+situated in an oak grove on the southern
+bank. Only the gables of a few houses can
+be seen from the river, whose banks of yellow
+clay and brown mud are here twenty-five feet
+high. During the first third of the present
+century, this place was the site of a Winnebago
+village, whose chief was White Cloud,
+a shrewd, sinister savage, half Winnebago
+and half Sac, who claimed to be a prophet.
+He was Black Hawk's evil genius during the
+uprising of 1832, and in many ways was one
+of the most remarkable aborigines known to
+Illinois history. It was at "the prophet's
+town," as White Cloud's village was known
+in pioneer days, that Black Hawk rested upon
+his ill-fated journey up the Rock, and from
+here, at the instigation of the wizard, he bade
+the United States soldiery defiance.</p>
+
+<p>There are rapids, almost continually, from
+a mile above Prophetstown to Erie, ten miles
+below. The river bed here has a sharper
+descent than customary, and is thickly strewn
+with bowlders; many of them were visible
+above the surface, at the low stage of water
+which we found, but for the greater part they
+were covered for two or three inches. What
+with these impediments, the snags that had
+been left as the legacy of last spring's flood,
+and the frequent sand-banks and gravel-spits,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span>
+navigation was attended by many difficulties
+and some dangers.</p>
+
+<p>Four or five miles below Prophetstown, a
+lone fisherman, engaged in examining a "traut-line"
+stretched between one of the numerous
+gloomy islands and the mainland, kindly informed
+us of a mile-long cut-off, the mouth of
+which was now in view, that would save us
+several miles of rowing. Here, the high
+banks had receded, with several miles of
+heavily wooded, boggy bottoms intervening.
+Floods had held high carnival, and the aspect
+of the country was wild and deserted. The
+cut-off was an ugly looking channel; but
+where our informant had gone through, with
+his unwieldy hulk, we considered it safe to venture
+with a canoe, so readily responsive to the
+slightest paddle-stroke. The current had torn
+for itself a jagged bed through the heart of a
+dense and moss-grown forest. It was a scene
+of howling desolation, rack and ruin upon
+every hand. The muddy torrent, at a velocity
+of fully eight miles an hour, went eddying and
+whirling and darting and roaring among the
+gnarled and blackened stumps, the prostrate
+trees, the twisted roots, the huge bowlders
+which studded its course. The stream was
+not wide enough for the oars; the paddle was
+the sole reliance. With eyes strained for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span>
+obstructions, we turned and twisted through
+the labyrinth, jumping along at a breakneck
+speed; and, when we finally rejoined the main
+river below, were grateful enough, for the run
+had been filled with continuous possibilities
+of a disastrous smash-up, miles away from any
+human habitation.</p>
+
+<p>The thunder-storm which had been threatening
+since early morning, soon burst upon
+us with a preliminary wind blast, followed by
+drenching rain. Running ashore on the lee
+bank, we wrapped the canvas awning around
+the baggage, and made for a thick clump of
+trees on the top of an island mudbank, where
+we stood buttoned to the neck in rubber coats.
+A vigorous "Halloo!" came sounding over
+the water. Looking up, we saw for the first
+time a small tent on the opposite shore, a
+quarter of a mile away, in front of which was
+a man shouting to us and beckoning us over.
+It was getting uncomfortably muddy under
+the trees, which had not long sufficed as an
+umbrella, and the rubber coats were not warranted
+to withstand a deluge, so we accepted
+the invitation with alacrity and paddled over
+through the pelting storm.</p>
+
+<p>Our host was a young fisherman, who
+helped us and our luggage up the slimy bank
+to his canvas quarters, which we found to be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>
+dry, although odorous of fish. While the
+storm raged without, the young man, who was
+a simple-hearted fellow, confided to us the details
+of his brief career. He had been married
+but a year, he said; his little cabin lay a
+quarter of a mile back in the woods, and, so
+as to be convenient to his lines, he was camping
+on his own wood-lot; the greater part of
+his time was spent in fishing or hunting, according
+to the season, and peddling the
+product in neighboring towns, while upon a
+few acres of clearing he raised "garden truck"
+for his household, which had recently become
+enriched by the addition of an infant son.
+The phenomenal powers of observation displayed
+by this first-born youth were reported
+with much detail by the fond father, who sat
+crouched upon a boat-sail in one corner of
+the little tent, his head between his knees, and
+smoking vile tobacco in a blackened clay pipe.
+It seemed that his wife was a ferryman's
+daughter, and her father had besought his
+son-in-law to follow the same steady calling.
+To be sure, our host declared, ferries on the
+Rock River netted their owners from $400 to
+$800 a year, which he considered a goodly
+sum, and his father-in-law had offered to purchase
+an established plant for him. But the
+young fellow said that ferrying was a dog's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span>
+life, and "kept a feller home like barn chores;"
+he preferred to fish and hunt, earning far less
+but retaining independence of movement, so
+rejected the offer and settled down, avowedly
+for life, in his present precarious occupation.
+As a result, the indignant old man had forbidden
+him to again enter the parental ferry-house
+until he agreed to accept his proposals,
+and there was henceforth to be a standing
+family quarrel. The fisherman having appealed
+to my judgment, I endeavored with
+mild caution to argue him out of his position
+on the score of consideration for his wife and
+little one; but he was not to be gainsaid,
+and firmly, though with admirable good nature,
+persisted in defending his roving tendencies.
+In the course of our conversation
+I learned that the ferrymen, who are more
+numerous on the lower than on the upper
+Rock, pay an annual license fee of five dollars
+each, in consideration of which they are guarantied
+a monopoly of the business at their
+stands, no other line being allowed within one
+mile of an existing ferry.</p>
+
+<p>Within an hour and a half the storm had
+apparently passed over, and we continued our
+journey. But after supper another shower
+and a stiff head wind came up, and we were
+well bedraggled by the time a ferry-landing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span>
+near the little village of Erie was reached.
+The bottoms are here a mile or two in width,
+with occasional openings in the woods, where
+small fields are cultivated by the poorer class
+of farmers, who were last spring much damaged
+by the flood which swept this entire
+country.</p>
+
+<p>The ferryman, a good-natured young athlete,
+was landing a farm-wagon and team as
+we pulled in upon the muddy roadway.
+When questioned about quarters, he smiled
+and pointing to his little cabin, a few rods
+off in the bushes, said,&mdash;"We've four people
+to sleep in two rooms; it's sure we can't
+take ye; I'd like to, otherwise. But Erie's
+only a mile away."</p>
+
+<p>We assured him that with these muddy
+swamp roads, and in our wet condition, nothing
+but absolute necessity would induce us to
+take a mile's tramp. The parley ended in our
+being directed to a small farm-house a quarter
+of a mile inland, where luckless travelers, belated
+on the dreary bottoms, were occasionally
+kept. Making the canoe fast for the night,
+we strung our baggage-packs upon the paddle
+which we carried between us, and set out
+along a devious way, through a driving mist
+which blackened the twilight into dusk, to
+find this place of public entertainment.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is a little, one-story, dilapidated farm-house,
+standing a short distance from the
+country road, amid a clump of poplar trees.
+Forcing our way through the hingeless gate,
+the violent removal of which threatened the
+immediate destruction of several lengths of
+rickety fence, we walked up to the open front
+door and applied for shelter.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am; we sometimes keeps tavern,
+ma'am," replied a large, greasy-looking, black-haired
+woman of some forty years, as, her
+hands folded within her up-turned apron, she
+courtesied to <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>.</p>
+
+<p>We were at once shown into a frowsy
+apartment which served as parlor, sitting-room
+and parental dormitory. There was huddled
+together an odd, slouchy combination of articles
+of shabby furniture and cheap decorations,
+peculiar, in the country, to all three classes of
+rooms, the evidences of poverty, shiftlessness,
+and untasteful pretentiousness upon every
+side. A huge, wheezy old cabinet organ was
+set diagonally in one corner, and upon this, as
+we entered, a young woman was pounding
+and paddling with much vigor, while giving
+us sidelong glances of curiosity. She was a
+neighbor, on an evening visit, decked out in
+a smart jockey-cap, with a green ostrich tip
+and bright blue ribbons, and gay in a new
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span>
+calico dress,&mdash;a yellow field thickly planted
+to purple pineapples. A jaunty, forward creature,
+in pimples and curls, she rattled away
+through a Moody and Sankey hymn-book, the
+wheezes and groans of the antique instrument
+coming in like mournful ejaculations from the
+amen corner at a successful revival. Having
+exhausted her stock of tunes, she wheeled
+around upon her stool, and after declaring to
+her half-dozen admiring auditors that her
+hands were "as tired as after the mornin's
+milkin'" abruptly accosted <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>: "Ma'am,
+kin ye play on the orgin?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> confessed her inability, chiefly from
+lack of practice in the art of incessantly
+working the pedals.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the trick o' the hul business, ma'am,
+is the blowin'. It's all in gettin' the bellers to
+work even like. There's a good many what
+kin learn the playin' part of it without no
+teacher; but there has to be lessons to learn
+the bellers. Don't ye have no orgin, when
+ye're at home?" she asked sharply, as if to
+guage the social standing of the new guest.</p>
+
+<p><span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> modestly confessed to never having
+possessed such an instrument.</p>
+
+<p>"Down in these parts," rejoined the young
+woman, as she "worked the bellers" into a
+strain or two of "Hold the Fort," apparently
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span>
+to show how easy it came to trained feet, "no
+house is now considered quite up to the fashi'n
+as ain't got a orgin." The rain being now
+over, she soon departed, evidently much disgusted
+at <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>'s lack of organic culture.</p>
+
+<p>The bed-chamber into which we were shown
+was a marvel. It opened off the main room
+and was, doubtless, originally a cupboard.
+Seven feet square, with a broad, roped bedstead
+occupying the entire length, a bedside space
+of but two feet wide was left. Much of this
+being filled with butter firkins, chains, a trunk,
+and a miscellaneous riff-raff of household
+lumber, the standing-room was restricted to
+two feet square, necessitating the use of the
+bed as a dressing-place, after the fashion of a
+sleeping-car bunk. This cubby-hole of a room
+was also the wardrobe for the women of
+the household, the walls above the bed being
+hung nearly two feet deep with the oddest collection
+of calico and gingham gowns, bustles,
+hoopskirts, hats, bonnets, and winter underwear
+I think I had ever laid eyes on.</p>
+
+<p>Much of this condition of affairs was not
+known, however, until next morning; for it was
+as dark as Egypt within, except for a few faint
+rays of light which came straggling through
+the cracks in the board partition separating
+us from the sitting-room candle. We had no
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span>
+sooner crossed the threshold of our little box
+than the creaky old cleat door was gently
+closed upon us and buttoned by our hostess
+upon the outside, as the only means of keeping
+it shut; and we were left free to grope
+about among these mysteries as best we
+might. We had hardly recovered from our
+astonishment at thus being locked into a dark
+hole the size of a fashionable lady's trunk,
+and were quietly laughing over this odd adventure,
+when the landlady applied her mouth
+to a crack and shouted, as if she would have
+waked the dead: "Hi, there! Ye'd better
+shet the winder to keep the bugs out!" A
+few minutes later, returning to the crack, she
+added, "Ef ye's cold in the night, jest haul
+down some o' them clothes atop o' ye which
+ye'll find on the wall."</p>
+
+<p>Repressing our mirth, we assured our good
+hostess that we would have a due regard for
+our personal safety. The window, not at first
+discernible, proved to be a hole in the wall,
+some two feet square, which brought in little
+enough fresh air, at the best. It was fortunate
+that the night was cool, although our
+hostess's best gowns were not needed to supplement
+the horse-blankets under which we
+slept the sleep of weary canoeists.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_130.jpg" width="450" height="136" alt="Chapter VIII Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h2>THE LAST DAY OUT.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he following day opened brightly. We
+had breakfast in the tavern kitchen, <i>en
+famille</i>. The husband, whom we had not
+met before, was a short, smooth-faced, voluble,
+overgrown-boy sort of man. The mother was
+dumpy, coarse, and good-natured. They had
+a greasy, easy-tempered daughter of eighteen,
+with a frowsy head, and a face like a full
+moon; while the heir of the household, somewhat
+younger, was a gaping, grinning youth
+of the Simple Simon order, who shovelled
+mashed potatoes into his mouth alternately
+with knife and fork, and took bites of bread
+large enough for a ravenous dog. The old
+grandmother, with a face like parchment and
+one gleaming eye, sat in a low rocking-chair
+by the stove, crooning over a corn-cob pipe
+and using the wood-box for a cuspadore. She
+had a vinegary, slangy tongue, and being
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>
+somewhat deaf, would break in upon the conversation
+with remarks sharper than they
+were pat.</p>
+
+<p>With our host, a glib and rapid talker in a
+swaggering tone, one could not but be much
+amused, as he exhibited a degree of self-appreciation
+that was decidedly refreshing. He
+had been a veteran in the War of the Rebellion,
+he proudly assured us, and pointed with
+his knife to his discharge-paper, which was
+hung up in an old looking-glass frame by the
+side of the clock.</p>
+
+<p>"Gemmen,"&mdash;he invariably thus addressed
+us, as though we were a coterie of checker-players
+at a village grocery,&mdash;"Gemmen,
+when I seen how them Johnny Rebs was a usin'
+our boys in them prison pens down thar at
+Andersonville and Libbie and 'roun' thar,
+I jist says to myself, says I, 'Joe, my boy,
+you go now an' do some'n' fer yer country;
+a crack shot like you is, Joe,' says I to myself,
+'as kin hit a duck on the wing, every time,
+an' no mistake, oughtn't ter be a-lyin 'roun'
+home an' doin' no'hun to put down the rebellion;
+it's a shame,' says I, 'when our boys
+is a-suff'r'n' down thar on Mason 'n' Dixie's
+line;' an' so I jined, an' I stuck her out, gemmen,
+till the thing was done; they ain't no
+coward 'bout me, ef I <i>hev</i> the sayin' of it!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Were you wounded, sir?" asked <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>,
+sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I wa'n't hurt at all,&mdash;that is, so to
+speak, wounded. But thar were a sort of a
+doctor feller 'round here las' winter, a-stoppin'
+at Erie; an' he called at my place, an' he
+says, 'No'hun the matter wi' you, a-growin
+out o' the war?' says he; an' I says, 'No'hun
+that I know'd on,' says I,&mdash;'I'm a-eatin' my
+reg'l'r victuals whin I don't have the shakes,'
+says I. 'Ah!' says he, 'you've the shakes?'
+he says; 'an' don't you know you ketched 'em
+in the war?' 'I ketched 'em a-gettin' m'lairy
+in the bottoms,' says I, 'a-duck-shootin', in
+which I kin hit a bird on the wing every time
+an' no mistake,' says I. 'Now,' he says, 'hold
+on a minute; you didn't hev shakes afore the
+war?' says he. 'Not as much,' I says, not
+knowin' what the feller was drivin' at, 'but
+some; I was a kid then, and kids don't shake
+much,' says I. 'Hold up! hold up!' he says,
+'you 're wrong, an' ye know it; ye don't hev
+no mem'ry goin' back so far about phys'cal
+conditions,' says he. Well, gemmen, sure
+'nough, when I kem to think things over,
+and talk it up with the doctor chap, I 'lowed
+he was right. Then he let on he was a claim
+agint, an' I let him try his hand on workin'
+up a pension for me, for he says I wa'n't to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span>
+pay no'hun 'less the thing went through. But
+I hearn tell, down at Erie, that they is a-goin'
+agin these private claims nowadays at Washin'ton,
+an' I don't know what my show is.
+But I ought to hev a pension, an' no mistake,
+gemmen. They wa'n't no fellers did
+harder work 'n me in the war, ef I <i>do</i> say it
+myself."</p>
+
+<p><span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> ventured to ask what battles our
+host had been in.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I wa'n't in no reg'lar battle,&mdash;that
+is, right <i>in</i> one. Thar was a few of us detailed
+ter tek keer of gov'ment prop'ty near
+C'lumby, South Car'liny, when Wade Hamptin
+was a-burnin' things down thar. We
+was four miles away from the fightin,' an'
+I was jest a-achin' to git in thar. What I
+wanted was to git a bead on ol' Wade himself,&mdash;an'
+ef I do say it myself, the ol' man
+would 'a' hunted his hole, gemmen. When I
+get a sight on a duck, gemmen, that duck's
+mine, an' no mistake. An' ef I'd 'a' sighted
+Wade Hamptin, then good-by Wade! I tol'
+the cap'n what I wanted, but he said as how
+I was more use a-takin' keer of the supplies.
+That cap'n hadn't no enterprise 'bout him.
+Things would 'a' been different at C'lumby,
+ef I'd had my way, an' don't ye forgit it!
+There was heaps o' blood spilt unnecessary
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span>
+by us boys, a-fightin' to save the ol' flag,&mdash;an'
+we 're willin' to do it agin, gemmen, an'
+no mistake!"</p>
+
+<p>The old woman had been listening eagerly
+to this narrative, evidently quite proud of her
+boy's achievements, but not hearing all that
+had been said. She now broke out, in shrill,
+high notes,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Joe ought ter 'a' had a pension, he had, wi'
+his chills 'tracted in the war. He wuk'd hard,
+Joe did, a hul ten months, doin' calvary service,
+the last year o' the war; an' he kem
+nigh onter shootin' ol' Wade Hamptin, an'
+a-makin' a name for himself, an' p'r'aps a good
+office with a title an' all that; only they kep'
+him back with the ammernition wagin, 'count
+o' the kurnil's jealousy,&mdash;for Joe is a dead
+shot, ma'am, if I'm his mother as says it, and
+keeps the family in ducks half the year 'roun',
+an' the kurnil know'd Joe was a-bilin' over to
+git to the front."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you were in the cavalry service,
+then?" I said to our landlord, by way of helping
+along the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>There was a momentary silence, broken by
+Simple Simon, who wiped his knife on his
+tongue, and made a wild attack on the butter
+dish.</p>
+
+<p>"Pa, he druv a mule team for gov'ment;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span>
+an' we got a picter in the album, tuk of him
+when he were just a-goin' inter battle, with a
+big ammernition wagin on behind. Pa, in
+the picter, is a-ridin' o' one o' the mules, an'
+any one'd know him right off."</p>
+
+<p>This sudden revelation of the strength of
+the veteran's claim to glory and a pension,
+put a damper upon his reminiscences of the
+war; and giving the innocent Simon a savage
+leer, he soon contrived to turn the conversation
+upon his wonderful exploits in duck-shooting
+and fishing&mdash;industries in the
+pursuit of which he, with so many of his
+fellow-farmers on the bottoms, appeared to be
+more eager than in tilling the soil.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite evident that the breakfast we
+were eating was a special spread in honor of
+probably the only guests the quondam tavern
+had had these many months. Canoeists
+must not be too particular about the fare set
+before them; but on this occasion we were
+able to swallow but a few mouthfuls of the
+repast and our lunch-basket was drawn on
+as soon as we were once more afloat. It is a
+great pity that so many farmers' wives are
+the wretched cooks they are. With an abundance
+of good materials already about them,
+and rare opportunities for readily acquiring
+more, tens of thousands of rural dames do
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span>
+manage to prepare astonishingly inedible meals,&mdash;sour,
+doughy bread; potatoes which, if
+boiled, are but half cooked, and if mashed, are
+floated with abominable butter or pastey flour
+gravy; salt pork either swimming in a bowl
+of grease or fried to a leathery chip; tea
+and coffee extremely weak or strong enough
+to kill an ox, as chance may dictate, and inevitably
+adulterated beyond recognition; eggs
+that are spoiled by being fried to the consistency
+of rubber, in a pan of fat deep enough
+to float doughnuts; while the biscuits are
+yellow and bitter with saleratus. This bill of
+fare, warranted to destroy the best of appetites,
+will be recognized by too many of my
+readers as that to be found at the average
+American farm-house, although we all doubtless
+know of some magnificent exceptions,
+which only prove the rule. We establish public
+cooking-schools in our cities, and economists
+like Edward Atkinson and hygienists
+like the late Dio Lewis assiduously explain
+to the metropolitan poor their processes of
+making a tempting meal out of nothing; but
+our most crying need in this country to-day
+is a training-school for rural housewives,
+where they may be taught to evolve a respectable
+and economical spread out of the great
+abundance with which they are surrounded.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span>
+It is no wonder that country boys drift to the
+cities, where they can obtain properly cooked
+food and live like rational beings.</p>
+
+<p>The river continues to widen as we approach
+the junction with the Mississippi,&mdash;thirty-nine
+miles below Erie,&mdash;and to assume
+the characteristics of the great river into
+which it pours its flood. The islands increase
+in number and in size, some of them being
+over a mile in length by a quarter of a
+mile in breadth; the bottoms frequently resolve
+themselves into wide morasses, thickly
+studded with great elms, maples, and cotton-woods,
+among which the spring flood has
+wrought direful destruction. The scene becomes
+peculiarly desolate and mournful, often
+giving one the impression of being far removed
+from civilization, threading the course of some
+hitherto unexplored stream. Penetrate the
+deep fringe of forest and morass on foot,
+however, and smiling prairies are found beyond,
+stretching to the horizon and cut up
+into prosperous farms. The river is here
+from a half to three-quarters of a mile broad,
+but the shallows and snags are as numerous
+as ever and navigation is continually attended
+with some danger of being either grounded or
+capsized.</p>
+
+<p>Now and then the banks become firmer,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span>
+with charming vistas of high, wooded hills
+coming down to the water's edge; broad
+savannas intervene, decked out with variegated
+flora, prominent being the elsewhere
+rare atragene Americana, the spider-wort, the
+little blue lobelia, and the cup-weed. These
+savannas are apparently overflowed in times
+of exceptionally high water; and there are
+evidences that the stream has occasionally
+changed its course, through the sunbaked
+banks of ashy-gray mud, in years long past.</p>
+
+<p>At Cleveland, a staid little village on an
+open plain, which we reached soon after the
+dinner-hour, there is an unused mill-dam going
+to decay. In the centre, the main current
+has washed out a breadth of three or four
+rods, through which the pent-up stream
+rushes with a roar and a hundred whirlpools.
+It is an ugly crevasse, but a careful examination
+showed the passage to be feasible, so we
+retreated an eighth of a mile up-stream, took
+our bearings, and went through with a speed
+that nearly took our breath away and appeared
+to greatly astonish a half-dozen fishermen idly
+angling from the dilapidated apron on either
+side. It was like going through Cleveland on
+the fast mail.</p>
+
+<p>Fourteen miles above the mouth of the
+Rock, is the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span>
+railroad bridge, with Carbon Cliff on the
+north and Coloma on the south, each one
+mile from the river. The day had been dark,
+with occasional slight showers and a stiff head
+wind, so that progress had been slow. We
+began to deem it worth while to inquire about
+the condition of affairs at the mouth. Under
+the bridge, sitting on a bowlder at the base
+of the north abutment, an intelligent-appearing
+man in a yellow oiled-cloth suit, accompanied
+by a bright-eyed lad, peacefully fished. Stopping
+to question them, we found them both
+well-informed as to the railway time-tables of
+the vicinity and the topography of the lower
+river. They told us that the scenery for the
+next fourteen miles was similar, in its dark
+desolation, to that which we had passed
+through during the day; also that owing to
+the great number of islands and the labyrinth
+of channels both in the Rock and on the east
+side of the Mississippi, we should find it
+practically impossible to know when we had
+reached the latter; we should doubtless proceed
+several miles below the mouth of the
+Rock before we noticed that the current was
+setting persistently south, and then would
+have an exceedingly difficult task in retracing
+our course and pulling up-stream to our destination,
+Rock Island, which is six miles
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span>
+north of the delta of the Rock. They strongly
+advised our going into Rock Island by rail.
+The present landing was the last chance to
+strike a railway, except at Milan, twelve miles
+below. It was now so late that we could not
+hope to reach Milan before dark; there were
+no stopping-places <i>en route</i>, and Milan was
+farther from Rock Island than either Carbon
+Cliff or Coloma, with less frequent railway
+service.</p>
+
+<p>For these and other reasons, we decided to
+accept this advice, and to ship from Coloma.
+Taking a final spurt down to a ferry-landing
+a quarter of a mile beyond, on the south
+bank, we beached our canoe at 5.05 <span class="smcap">P.M.</span>,
+having voyaged two hundred and sixty-seven
+miles in somewhat less than seven days and
+a half. Leaving <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> to gossip with the
+ferryman's wife, who came down to the bank
+with an armful of smiling twins, to view a
+craft so strange to her vision, I went up into
+the country to engage a team to take our
+boat upon its last portage. After having
+been gruffly refused by a churlish farmer,
+who doubtless recognized no difference between
+a canoeist and a tramp, I struck a bargain
+with a negro cultivating a cornfield with
+a span of coal-black mules, and in half an
+hour he was at the ferry-landing with a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span>
+wagon. Washing out the canoe and chaining
+in the oars and paddle, we lifted it into
+the wagon-box, piled our baggage on top, and
+set off over the hills and fields to Coloma,
+<span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> and I trudging behind the dray, ankle
+deep in mud, for the late rains had well moistened
+the black prairie soil. It was a unique
+and picturesque procession.</p>
+
+<p>In less than an hour we were in Rock Island,
+and our canoe was on its way by freight
+to Portage, preparatory to my tour with our
+friend the Doctor,&mdash;down the Fox River of
+Green Bay.</p>
+
+<h2 class="p6">THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY).</h2>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_143.jpg" width="450" height="315" alt="MAP OF THE
+FOX-WISCONSIN RIVERS" title="" />
+<p class="caption">MAP OF THE
+FOX-WISCONSIN RIVERS
+to accompany
+THWAITES&#39;S &quot;HISTORIC WATERWAYS&quot;</p>
+<p><a href="images/illo_143big.jpg">View larger image</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_144.jpg" width="450" height="135" alt="First Letter Header" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY).</h2>
+<p><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a></p>
+<hr class="l15" />
+<h2>FIRST LETTER.</h2>
+
+<h2>SMITH'S ISLAND.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap left65">Packwaukee, Wis.</span>, June 7, 1887.</p>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>y dear <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>: It was 2.25 <span class="smcap">P. M.</span> yesterday
+when the Doctor and I launched
+the old canoe upon the tan-colored water of
+the government canal at Portage, and pointed
+her nose in the direction of the historic Fox.
+You will remember that the canal traverses
+the low sandy plain which separates the Fox
+from the Wisconsin on a line very nearly
+parallel to where tradition locates Barth's and
+Lecuyer's wagon-portage a hundred years
+ago. It was a profitable business in the
+olden days, when the Fox-Wisconsin highway
+was extensively patronized, to thus transport
+river craft over this mile and a half of bog.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>
+The toll<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> collected by these French creoles
+and their successors down to the days of
+Paquette added materially to the cost of goods
+and peltries. In times of exceptionally high
+water the Wisconsin overflowed into the Fox,
+which is ordinarily five feet lower than the
+former, and canoes could readily cross the
+portage afloat, quite independent of the forwarding
+agents. In this generation the Wisconsin
+is kept to her bounds by levees; but
+the government canal furnishes a free highway.
+The railroads have spoiled water-navigation,
+however; and the canal, like the most
+of the Fox and Wisconsin river-improvement,
+is fast relapsing into a costly relic. The timbered
+sides are rotting, the peat and sand are
+bulging them in, the locks are shaky and worm-eaten,
+and several moss-covered barges and a
+stranded old ruin of a steamboat turned out to
+grass tell a sad story of official abandonment.</p>
+
+<p>The scenic effects from the canal are not
+enlivening. There is a wide expanse of
+bog, relieved by some grass-grown railway
+side-tracks and the forlorn freight-depot of
+the Wisconsin Central road. A few battered
+sheds yet remain of old Fort Winnebago
+on a lonesome hillock near where the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span>
+canal joins the Fox; while beyond to the
+north as far as the eye can reach there is a
+stretch of wild-rice swamp, through which the
+government dredges have scooped a narrow
+channel, about as picturesque as a cranberry-marsh
+drain.</p>
+
+<p>Life at Fort Winnebago during the second
+quarter of this century must have been lonesome
+indeed, its nearest neighbors being Forts
+Crawford and Howard, each nearly two hundred
+miles away. A mile or two to the southwest
+is a pretty wooded ridge, girting the
+Wisconsin River, upon which the city of Portage
+is now situated. Then it was a forest,
+and the camping-ground of Winnebagoes, who
+hung around the post in the half-threatening
+attitude of beggars who might make trouble
+if not adequately bribed with gifts. The fort
+was erected in 1828-29 at the solicitation of
+John Jacob Astor (the American Fur Company),
+to protect his trade against encroachments
+from these Winnebago rascals, who had
+become quite impudent during the Red Bird
+disturbance at Prairie du Chien, in 1827. Jefferson
+Davis was one of the three first-lieutenants
+in the original garrison, in which
+Harney, of Mexican war fame, was a captain.
+Davis was detailed to the charge of a squad
+sent to cut timbers for the fort in a Wisconsin
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span>
+River pinery just above the portage, and
+thus became one of the pioneer lumbermen of
+Wisconsin. It is related, too, that Davis,
+who was an amateur cabinet-maker, designed
+some very odd wardrobes and other pieces of
+furniture for the officers' chambers, which
+were the wonder and admiration of every
+occupant for years to come.<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> In 1853, when
+Secretary of War, the whilom subaltern issued
+an order for the sale of the fort so
+intimately connected with his army career,
+and its crazy buildings henceforth became
+tenements.</p>
+
+<p>For a dozen miles beyond the Fox River
+end of the canal the river, as I have before
+said, is dredged out through the swamp like a
+big ditch. The artificial banks of sand and
+peat which line it are generally well grown
+with mare's-tail, beautiful clumps of wild
+roses, purple vetch, great beds of sensitive
+ferns, and masses of Pennsylvania anemone,
+while the pools are decked with water-anemone.
+Nature is doing her best to hide the
+deformities wrought by man. The valley is
+generally about a mile in width, ridges of
+wooded knolls hemming in the broad expanse
+of reeds and rice and willow clumps. Occasionally
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span>
+the engineers have allowed the ditch
+to swerve in graceful lines and to hug closely
+the firmer soil in the lower benches of the
+knolls, where the banks of red and yellow clay
+attain a height of ten or a dozen feet, crowned
+with oaks and elms or pleasant glades. A modest
+farm-house now and then appears upon
+such a shore, with the front yard running
+down to the water's edge.</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon shadows are lengthening,
+and farmers' boys are leading their horses
+down to drink, after the day's labor in the
+fields. Black and yellow collies are gathering
+in the cows,&mdash;some of them soberly and
+quickly corral obedient herds, while others
+yelp and snap at the heads of the affrighted
+animals, and in the noise and confusion seem
+to make but little progress. Collies have
+human-like infirmities.</p>
+
+<p>We had supper at seven o'clock, under a
+tree which overhangs a weedy bank, with
+a high pasture back of us, sloping up to a
+wooded hill, at the base of which is a cluster
+of three neatly painted farm-houses, whose
+dogs bayed at us from the distance, but did
+not venture to approach. A half-hour later,
+the sun's setting warned us that quarters for
+the night must soon be secured. Stopping
+at the base of a boggy pasture-wood, we ascended
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span>
+through a sterile field, accursed with
+sheep-sorrel, and through gaps in several crazy
+fences, to what had seemed to us from the
+river a comfortable, repose-inviting house,
+commandingly situated on a hill-top among
+the trees. Near approach revealed a scene
+of desolation. The barriers were down, two
+spare-ribbed horses were nipping a scant supper
+among the weeds in a dark corner of an
+otherwise deserted barn-yard, the window-sashes
+were generally paneless, the porch was
+in a state of collapse, sand-burrs choked the
+paths, and to our knock at the kitchen door
+the only response was a hollow echo. The deserted
+house looked uncanny in the gloaming,
+and we retired to our boat wondering what
+evil spell had been cast over the place, and
+whether the horses in the barn-yard had been
+deliberately left behind to die of starvation.</p>
+
+<p>The river now takes upon itself many devious
+windings in a great widespread over two
+miles broad. The government engineers have
+here left it in all its original crookedness, and
+the twists and turns are as fantastic and complicated
+as those of the Teutonic pretzel in its
+native land. As the twilight thickened, great
+swarms of lake-flies rose from the sedges and
+beat their way up-stream, the noise of their
+multitudinous wings being at times like the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span>
+roar of a neighboring waterfall, as they formed
+a ceaselessly moving canopy over our heads.
+It was noticeable that the flies kept very
+closely to the windings of the river, as if
+guided only by the glittering flood beneath
+them. The mass of the procession kept its
+way up the stream, but upon the outskirts
+could be seen a few individuals, apparently
+larger than the average, flying back and forth
+as if marshaling the host.</p>
+
+<p>Two miles below the deserted house, we
+stopped opposite another marshy bank, where
+a rude skiff lay tied to a shaky fence projecting
+far out into the reeds. Pushing our way
+in, we beached in the slimy shore-mud and
+scrambled upon the land, where the tall grass
+was now as sloppy with dew as though it had
+been rained upon. It was getting quite dark
+now, but through a cleft in the hills the moon
+was seen to be just rising above a cloud-bathed
+horizon, and a small house, neat-looking,
+though destitute of paint, was sharply
+silhouetted against the lightening sky, at the
+head of a gentle slope. By the time we had
+waded through a quarter of a mile of thriving
+timothy we were wet to the skin below the
+knees and dusted all over with pollen.</p>
+
+<p>Seven children, mostly boys, and gently step-laddered
+down from fourteen years, greeted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span>
+us at the summit with a loud "Hello!" in
+shrill unison. They stood in a huddle by
+the woodpile, holding down and admonishing
+a very mild-looking collie, which they evidently
+imagined was filled with an overweening
+desire instantly to devour us. "Hello
+there! who be ye?" shouted the oldest lad and
+the spokesman of the party. He was a tall,
+spare boy, and by the light of the rising
+moon we could see he was sharp-featured,
+good-natured, and intelligent.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the Doctor, bantering, "that's
+what we'd like to know. You tell us who
+you are, and we'll tell you who we are. Now
+that's fair, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," replied the boy, respectfully, as
+he touched his rimless straw hat; "our
+name's Smith; all 'cept that boy there,"
+pointing to a sturdy little twelve-year-old,
+"an' he's a Bixby, he is."</p>
+
+<p>"The Smith family's a big one, I should
+say," the Doctor remarked, as he audibly
+counted the party.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, this ain't all on 'em, sir; there's two
+in the house, a-hidin' 'cause o' strangers, besides
+the baby, which ma and pa has with
+'em inter Packwaukee, a-shoppin'. This is
+Smith's Island, sir. Didn't ye ever hear o'
+Smith's Island?"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We acknowledged our ignorance, up to
+this time, of the existence of any such feature
+in the geography of Wisconsin. But the lad,
+now joined by the others, who had by this
+time vanquished their bashfulness and all
+wanted to talk at once, assured us that we
+were actually on Smith's Island; that Smith's
+Island had an area of one hundred acres, was
+surrounded on the east by the river, and everywhere
+else by either a bayou or a marsh that
+had to be crossed with a boat in the spring;
+that there were three families of Smiths there,
+and this group represented but one branch of
+the clan.</p>
+
+<p>"We're all Smiths, sir, but this boy, who's
+a Bixby; an' he's our cousin and only a-visitin'."</p>
+
+<p>After having gained a thorough knowledge
+of the topography and population of Smith's
+Island, we ventured to ask whether it was presumable
+that the parental Smiths, when they
+returned home from the village, would be willing
+to entertain us for the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess not, sir," replied the spokesman,
+the idea appearing to strike him humorously;
+"there's so many of us now, sir, that we're
+packed in pretty close, an' the Bixby boy has
+to sleep atop o' the orgin. But I think Uncle
+Jim might; he kept a tramp over night once,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span>
+an' give him his breakfus', too, in the bargain."</p>
+
+<p>The prospect as to Uncle Jim was certainly
+encouraging, and it was now too late to go
+further. It seemed necessary to stop on
+Smith's Island for the night, even if we were
+restricted to quartering in the corn-crib which
+the Smith boy kindly put at our disposal in
+case of Uncle Jim's refusal,&mdash;with the additional
+inducement that he would lend us the
+collie for company and to "keep off rats,"
+which he intimated were phenomenally numerous
+on this swamp-girt hill.</p>
+
+<p>The entire troop of urchins accompanied us
+down to the bank to make fast for the night,
+and helped us up with our baggage to the
+corn-crib, where we disturbed a large family
+of hens which were using the airy structure
+as a summer dormitory. Then, with the two
+oldest boys as pilots, we set off along the
+ridge to find the domicile of Uncle Jim, who
+had established a reputation for hospitality by
+having once entertained a way-worn tramp.</p>
+
+<p>The moon had now swung clear of the
+trees on the edge of the river basin, and
+gleamed through a great cleft in the blue-black
+clouds, investing the landscape with a
+luminous glow. Along the eastern horizon a
+dark forest-girt ridge hemmed in the reedy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>
+widespread, through which the gleaming Fox
+twisted and doubled upon itself like a silvery
+serpent in agony. The Indians, who have an
+eye to the picturesque in Nature, tell us that
+once a monster snake lay down for the night
+in the swamp between the portage and the lake
+of the Winnebagoes. The dew accumulated
+upon it as it lay, and when the morning came
+it wriggled and shook the water from its back,
+and disappeared down the river which it had
+thus created in its nocturnal bed. I had
+never fully appreciated the aptness of the
+legend until last night, when I had that
+bird's-eye view of the valley of the Fox
+from the summit of Smith's Island. To our
+left, the timothy-field sloped gracefully down
+to the sedgy couch of the serpent; to our
+right, there were pastures and oak openings,
+with glimpses of the moonlit bayou below,
+across which a dark line led to a forest,&mdash;the
+narrow roadway leading from Smith's to the
+outer world. At the edge of a small wood-lot
+our guides stopped, telling us to keep on
+along the path, over two stiles and through a
+barn-yard gate, till we saw a light; the light
+would be Uncle Jim's.</p>
+
+<p>A cloud was by this time overcasting the
+moon, and a distant rumble told us that the
+night would be stormy. Groping our way
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span>
+through the copse, we passed the barriers,
+and, according to promise, the blinding light
+of a kerosene lamp standing on the ledge
+of an open window burst upon us. Then a
+door opened, and the form of a tall, stalwart
+man stood upon the threshold, a striking
+silhouette. It was Uncle Jim peering into
+the darkness, for he had heard footsteps in
+the yard. We were greeted cordially on the
+porch, and shown into a cosey sitting-room,
+where Uncle Jim had been reading his weekly
+paper, and Uncle Jim's wife, smiling sweetly
+amid her curl-papers, was engaged on a bit of
+crochet. Charmingly hospitable people they
+are. They have been married but a year or
+two, are without children, and have a pleasant
+cottage furnished simply but in excellent taste.
+Such delightful little homes are rare in the
+country, and the Doctor couldn't help telling
+Uncle Jim so, whereat the latter was very
+properly pleased. Uncle Jim is a fine-looking,
+manly fellow, six feet two in his stockings,
+he told us; and his pretty, blooming
+wife, though young, has the fine manners of
+the olden school. We were earnestly invited
+to stop for the night before we had fairly
+stated our case, and in five minutes were
+talking on politics, general news, and agriculture,
+as though we had always lived on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span>
+Smith's Island and had just dropped in for an
+evening's chat. I am sure you would have
+enjoyed it, <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>, it was such a contrast to
+our night at the Erie tavern,&mdash;only a week
+ago, though it seems a month. One sees
+and feels so much, canoeing, that the days
+are like weeks of ordinary travel. Two hundred
+miles by river are more full of the
+essence of life than two thousand by rail.</p>
+
+<p>We had an excellent bed and an appetizing
+breakfast. The flood-gates of heaven had
+been opened during the night, and Smith's
+Island shaken to its peaty foundations by
+great thunder-peals. Uncle Jim was happy,
+for the pasturage would be improved, and the
+corn crop would have a "show." Uncle
+Jim's wife said there would now be milk
+enough to make butter for market; and the
+hens would do better, for somehow they never
+would lay regularly during the drought we
+had been experiencing. And so we talked
+on while the "clearing showers" lasted. I
+told Uncle Jim that I was surprised to see
+him raising anything at all in what was apparently
+sand. He acknowledged that the
+soil was light, and inclined to blow away on
+the slightest aerial provocation, but he nevertheless
+managed to get twenty bushels of
+wheat to the acre, and the lowlands gave him
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span>
+an abundance of hay and pasturage. He was
+decidedly in favor of mixed crops, himself,
+and was gradually getting into the stock line,
+as he wanted a crop that could "walk itself
+into market." The Doctor inquired about
+the health of the neighborhood, which he
+found to be excellent. He is much of a gallant,
+you know; and Uncle Jim's wife was
+pleasantly flustered when, in his most winning
+tones, the disciple of Æsculapius declared
+that the climate that could produce
+such splendid complexions as hers&mdash;and
+Uncle Jim's&mdash;must indeed be rated as available
+for a sanitarium.</p>
+
+<p>By a quarter to eight o'clock this morning
+the storm had ceased, and the eastern sky
+brightened. Our kind friends bade us a cheery
+farewell, we retraced our steps to the corn-crib,
+the Smith boys helped us down with
+our load, and just as our watches touched
+eight we shoved off into the stream, and were
+once more afloat upon the serpentine trail.</p>
+
+<p>These great wild-rice widespreads&mdash;sloughs,
+the natives call them&mdash;are doubtless
+the beds of ancient lakes. In coursing
+through them, the bayous, the cul-de-sacs, are
+so frequent, and the stream switches off upon
+such unexpected tangents, that it is sometimes
+perplexing to ascertain which body of sluggish
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>
+water is the main channel. Marquette found
+this out when he ascended the Fox in 1673.
+He says, in his relation of the voyage, "The
+way is so cut up by marshes and little lakes
+that it is easy to go astray, especially as the
+river is so covered with wild oats [wild rice]
+that you can hardly discover the channel;
+hence, we had good need of our two guides."</p>
+
+<p>Little bog-islands, heavily grown with aspens
+and willows, occasionally dot the seas of
+rice. They often fairly hum with the varied
+notes of the red-winged blackbird, the rusty
+grackle, and our American robin, while whistling
+plovers are seen upon the mud-spits,
+snapping up the choicest of the snails. And
+such bullfrogs! I have not heard their like
+since, when a boy, living on the verge of a
+New England pond, I imagined their hollow
+rumble of a roundelay to bear the burden of
+"Paddy, go 'round! Go 'round and 'round!"
+This in accordance with a local tradition
+which says that Paddy, coming home one
+night o'erfull of the "craithur," came to the
+edge of the pond, which stopped his progress.
+The friendly frogs, who themselves enjoy a
+soaking, advised him to go around the obstruction;
+and as the wild refrain kept on,
+Paddy did indeed "go 'round, and 'round" till
+morning and his better-half found him, a foot-sore
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span>
+and a soberer man. They tell us that
+on the Fox River the frogs say, "Judge
+Arndt! Arndt! Judge Arndt!" Old Judge
+Arndt was one of the celebrities in the early
+day at Green Bay; he was a fur-trader, and
+accustomed, with his gang of <i>voyageurs</i>, to
+navigate the Fox and Wisconsin with heavily
+laden canoes and Mackinaw boats. A Frenchman,
+he had a gastronomic affection for frogs'
+legs, and many a branch of the house of Rana
+was cast into mourning in the neighborhood
+of his nightly camps. The story goes, therefore,
+that unto this time whenever a boat is
+seen upon the river, sentinel frogs give out
+the signal cry of "Judge Arndt!" by way of
+deadly warning to their kind. Certain it is
+that the valley of the upper Fox, by day or
+by night, is resonant with the bellow of the
+amphibious bull. It is not always "Judge
+Arndt!" but occasionally, as if miles and
+miles away, one hears a sudden twanging
+note, like that of the finger-snapped bass
+string of a violin; whereas the customary
+refrain may be likened to the deep reverberations
+of the bass-viol. Add the countless
+chatter and whistle of the birds, the ear-piercing
+hum of the cicada, and the muffled
+chimes from scores of sheep and cow bells
+on the hillside pastures, and we have an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span>
+orchestral accompaniment upon our voyage
+that could be fully appreciated only in a
+Chinese theatre.</p>
+
+<p>In the pockets and the sloughs, we find
+thousands of yellow and white water-lilies,
+and sometimes progress is impeded by masses
+of creeping root-stalks which have been torn
+from their muddy bed by the upheaval of the
+ice, and now float about in great rafts, firmly
+anchored by the few whose extremities are
+still imbedded in the ooze.</p>
+
+<p>Fishing-boats were also occasionally met
+with this morning, occupied by Packwaukee
+people; for in the widespreads just above this
+village, the pickerel thrives mightily off the
+swarms of perch who love these reedy seas;
+and the weighty sturgeon often swallows a
+hook and gives his captor many a frenzied
+tug before he consents to enter the "live-box"
+which floats behind each craft.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_161.jpg" width="450" height="133" alt="Second Letter Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a></p>
+<h2>SECOND LETTER.</h2>
+
+<h2>FROM PACKWAUKEE TO BERLIN.</h2>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap left65">Berlin, Wis.,</span> June 8, 1887.</p>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>y dear <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>: Packwaukee is twenty-five
+miles by river below Portage, and
+at the head of Buffalo Lake. It is a tumble-down
+little place, with about one hundred
+inhabitants, half of whom appeared to be
+engaged in fishing. A branch of the Wisconsin
+Central Railway, running south from
+Stevens Point to Portage, passes through
+the town, with a spur track running along the
+north shore of the lake to Montello, seven
+miles east. Regular trains stop at Packwaukee,
+while the engine draws a pony train
+out to Montello to pick up the custom of
+that thriving village. Packwaukee apparently
+had great pretensions once, with her battlement-fronts
+and verandaed inn; but that day
+has long passed, and a picturesque float-bridge,
+mossy and decayed, remains the sole point of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span>
+artistic interest. A dozen boys were angling
+from its battered hand-rail, as we painfully
+crept with our craft through a small tunnel
+where the abutment had been washed out by
+the stream. We emerged covered with cobwebs
+and sawdust, to be met by boys eagerly
+soliciting us to purchase their fish. The
+Doctor, somewhat annoyed by their pertinacity
+as he vigorously dusted himself with
+his handkerchief, declared, in the vernacular
+of the river, that we were "clean busted;" and
+I have no doubt the lads believed his mild
+fib, for we looked just then as though we had
+seen hard times in our day.</p>
+
+<p>Our general course had hitherto been northward,
+but was now eastward for a few miles and
+afterward southeastward as far as Marquette.
+Buffalo Lake is seven miles long by from a
+third to three quarters of a mile broad. The
+banks are for the most part sandy, and from
+five to fifty feet high. The river here merely
+fills its bed; being deeper, the wild rice and
+reeds do not grow upon its skirts. Were there
+a half-dozen more feet of water, the Fox
+would be a chain of lakes from Portage to
+Oshkosh. As it is, we have Buffalo, Puckawa,
+and Grand Butte des Morts, which are
+among the prettiest of the inland seas of Wisconsin.
+The knolls about Buffalo Lake are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span>
+pleasant, round-topped elevations, for the most
+part wooded, and between them are little
+prairies, generally sandy, but occasionally
+covered with dark loam.</p>
+
+<p>The day had, by noon, developed into one
+of the hottest of the season. The run down
+Buffalo Lake was a torrid experience long to be
+remembered. The air was motionless, the
+sky without clouds; we had good need of our
+awning. The Doctor, who is always experimenting,
+picked up a flat stone on the beach,
+so warm as to burn his fingers, and tried to
+fry an egg upon it by simple solar heat, but
+the venture failed and a burning-glass was
+needed to complete the operation.</p>
+
+<p>Montello occupies a position at the foot of
+the lake, commanding the entire sheet of water.
+The knoll upon which the village is for the
+most part built is nearly one hundred feet
+high, and the simple spire of an old white
+church pitched upon the summit is a landmark
+readily discernible in Packwaukee, seven miles
+distant. There is a government lock at Montello,
+and a small water-power. A levee protects
+from overflow a portion of the town which
+is situated somewhat below the lake level.
+The government pays the lock-keepers thirty
+dollars per month for about eight months in
+the year, and house-rent the year round.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span>
+Tollage is no longer required, and the keepers
+are obliged by the regulations of the engineering
+department to open the gates for all
+comers, even a saw-log. But the services of
+the keepers are so seldom required in these
+days that we find they are not to be easily
+roused from their slumbers, and it is easier
+and quicker to make the portage at the average
+up-river lock. Our carry at Montello was
+two and a half rods, over a sandy bank, where
+a solitary small boy, who had been catching
+crayfish with a dip-net, carefully examined
+our outfit and propounded the inquiry, "Be
+you fellers on the guv'ment job?"</p>
+
+<p>Below the lock for three or four miles, the
+river is again a mere canal, but the rigid banks
+of dredge-trash are for the most part covered
+with a thrifty vegetation, and have assumed
+charms of their own. This stage passed, and
+the river resumes a natural appearance,&mdash;a
+placid stream, with now and then a slough, or
+perhaps banks of peat and sand, ten feet high
+and fairly well hung with trees and shrubs.</p>
+
+<p>As we approach the head of Lake Puckawa,
+the widespreads broaden, with rows of hills
+two or three miles back, on either side,&mdash;the
+river mowing a narrow swath through the
+expanse of reeds and flags and rice which
+unites their bases. Where the widespread
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span>
+becomes a pond, and the lake commences,
+there is a sandbar, the dregs of the upper
+channel. A government dredge-machine was
+at work, cutting out a water-way through the
+obstruction,&mdash;or, rather, had been at work,
+for it was seven o'clock by this time, the men
+had finished their supper, and were enjoying
+themselves upon the neat deck of the boarding-house
+barge, in a neighboring bayou,
+smoking their pipes and reading newspapers.
+It was a comfortable picture.</p>
+
+<p>A stern-wheel freight steamer, big and cumbersome,
+came slowly into the mouth of the
+channel as we left it, bound up, for Montello.
+As we glided along her side, a safe distance
+from the great wheelbarrow paddle, she
+loomed above us, dark and awesome, like a
+whale overlooking a minnow. It was the "T.
+S. Chittenden," wood-laden. The "Chittenden"
+and the "Ellen Hardy" are the only boats
+navigating the upper Fox this season, above
+Berlin. Their trips are supposed to be semi-weekly,
+but as a matter of fact they dodge
+around, all the way from Winneconne to
+Montello, picking up what freight they can
+and making a through trip perhaps once a
+week. It is poor picking, I am told, and the
+profits but barely pay for maintaining the
+service.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There now being no place to land, without
+the great labor of poling the canoe through the
+dense reed swamp to the sides, we had supper
+on board,&mdash;the Doctor deftly spreading a
+bit of canvas on the bottom between us, for
+a cloth, and attractively displaying our lunch
+to the best advantage. I leisurely paddled
+meanwhile, occasionally resting to take a
+mouthful or to sip of the lemonade, in the
+preparation of which the Doctor is such an
+adept. And thus we drifted down Lake Puckawa,
+amid the delightful sunset glow and the
+long twilight which followed,&mdash;the Doctor,
+cake in one hand and a glass of lemonade in
+the other, becoming quite animated in a detailed
+description of a patient he had seen in
+a Vienna hospital, whose food was introduced
+through a slit in his throat. The Doctor is
+an enthusiast in his profession, and would stop
+to advise St. Peter, at the gate, to try his
+method for treating locksmith-palsy.</p>
+
+<p>We noticed a great number of black terns
+as we progressed, perched upon snags at the
+head of the lake. They are fearless birds,
+and would allow us to drift within paddle's
+length before they would rise and, slowly
+wheeling around our heads, settle again upon
+their roosts, as soon as we had passed on.</p>
+
+<p>Lake Puckawa is eight miles long by perhaps
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span>
+two miles wide, running west and east.
+Five miles down the eastern shore, the quaint
+little village of Marquette is situated on a
+pleasant slope which overlooks the lake from
+end to end. Marquette is on the site of an
+Indian fur-trading camp, this lake being for
+many years a favorite resort of the Winnebagoes.
+There are about three hundred inhabitants
+there, and it is something of a
+mystery as to how they all scratch a living;
+for the town is dying, if not already dead,&mdash;about
+the only bit of life noticeable there
+being a rather pretty club-house owned by a
+party of Chicago gentlemen, who come to
+Lake Puckawa twice a year to shoot ducks,
+it being one of the best sporting-grounds in
+the State. That is to say, they have heretofore
+come twice a year, but the villagers were
+bewailing the passage by the legislature, last
+winter, of a bill prohibiting spring shooting,
+thus cutting off the business of Marquette by
+one half. Marquette, like so many other
+dead river-towns, appears to have been at one
+time a community of some importance.
+There are two deserted saw-mills and two or
+three abandoned warehouses, all boarded up
+and falling into decay, while nearly every
+store-building in the place has shutters nailed
+over the windows, and a once substantial sidewalk
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span>
+has become such a rotten snare that the
+natives use the grass-grown street for a footpath.
+The good people are so tenacious of
+the rights of visiting sportsmen that there is
+no angling, I was told, except by visitors, and
+we inquired in vain for fish at the dilapidated
+little hotel where we slept and breakfasted.
+At the hostlery we were welcomed with
+open arms, and the landlady's boy, who officiated
+as clerk, porter, and chambermaid,
+assured us that the village schoolmaster had
+been the only guest for six weeks past.</p>
+
+<p>It is certainly a quiet spot. The Doctor,
+who knows all about these things, diagnosed
+the lake and declared it to be a fine field for
+fly-fishing. He had waxed so enthusiastic
+over the numbers of nesting ducks which we
+disturbed as we came down through the reeds,
+in the early evening, that I had all I could do
+to keep him from breaking the new game law,
+although he stoutly declared that revolvers
+didn't count. The postmaster&mdash;a pleasant
+old gentleman in spectacles, who also keeps
+the drug store, deals in ammunition, groceries,
+and shoes, and is an agent for agricultural
+machinery&mdash;got very friendly with the Doctor,
+and confided to him the fact that if the
+latter would come next fall to Markesan, ten
+miles distant, over the sands, and telephone
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span>
+up that he was there, a team would be sent
+down for him; then, with the postmaster for
+a guide, fish and fowl would soon be obliged
+to seek cover. It is needless to add that
+the Doctor struck a bargain with the postmaster
+and promised to be on hand without
+fail. I never saw our good friend so wild
+with delight, and the postmaster became as
+happy as if he had just concluded a cash
+contract for a car-load of ammunition.</p>
+
+<p>The schoolmaster, a very accommodating
+young man, helped us down to the beach this
+morning with our load. Anticipating numerous
+lakes and widespreads, where we might
+gain advantage of the wind, we had brought
+a sprit sail along, together with a temporary
+keel. The sail helped us frequently yesterday,
+especially in Buffalo Lake, but the wind
+had died down after we passed Montello. This
+morning, however, there was a good breeze
+again, but quartering, and the keel became
+essential. This we now attached to our craft,
+and it was nearly seven o'clock before we were
+off, although we had had breakfast at 5.30.</p>
+
+<p>The "Ellen Hardy" was at the dock, loading
+with wheat for Princeton. She is a
+trimmer, faster craft than the "Chittenden."
+The engineer told us that the present stage
+of water was but two and a half feet in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span>
+upper Fox, this year and last being the driest
+on record. He informed us that the freight
+business was "having the spots knocked off it"
+by the railroads, and there was hardly enough
+to make it worth while getting up steam.</p>
+
+<p>Three miles down is the mouth of the lake.
+There being two outlets around a large marsh,
+we were somewhat confused in trying to find
+the proper channel. We ascertained, after
+going a mile and a half out of our way to
+the south, that the northern extremity of the
+marsh is the one to steer for. The river continues
+to wind along between marshy shores,
+although occasionally hugging a high bank of
+red clay or skirting a knoll of shifting sand;
+now and then these knolls rise to the dignity
+of hills, red with sorrel and sparsely covered
+with scrubby pines and oaks.</p>
+
+<p>It was noon when we reached the lock
+above Princeton. The lock-keeper, a remarkably
+round-shouldered German, is a pleasant,
+gossipy fellow, fond of his long pipe and his
+very fat frau. Upon invitation, we made ourselves
+quite at home in the lock-house, a pleasant
+little brick structure in a plot of made
+land, the entire establishment having that
+rather stiffly neat, ship-shape appearance peculiar
+to life-saving stations, navy-yards, and
+military barracks. The good frau steeped for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span>
+us a pot of tea, and in other ways helped us
+to grace our dinner, which we spread on a
+bench under a grape arbor, by the side of the
+yawning stone basin of the lock.</p>
+
+<p>The "Ellen Hardy," which had left Marquette
+nearly an hour later than we, came along
+while we were at dinner, waking the echoes
+with three prolonged steam groans. We took
+advantage of the circumstance to lock through
+in her company. This was our first experience
+of the sort, so we were naturally rather
+timid as we brushed her great paddle, going
+in, and stole along under her overhanging
+deck, for she quite filled the lock. The captain
+kindly allowed the liliputian to glide
+through in advance of his steamer, however,
+when the gates were once more opened, and
+we felt, as we shot out, as though we had
+emerged from under the belly of a monster.</p>
+
+<p>Beaching again, below the lock, we returned
+to finish our dinner. The keeper asked for a
+ride to Princeton village, three miles below,
+and we admitted him to our circle,&mdash;pipe,
+market-basket and all, though it caused the
+canoe to sink uncomfortably near to the gunwale.
+Going down, our voluble friend talked
+very freely about his affairs. He said that
+his pay of $30 per month ran from about the
+middle of April to the first of December, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span>
+averaged him, the year round, about $20 and
+house-rent. He had but little to do, and got
+along very comfortably on the twenty-five
+acres of marsh-land which the government
+owned, by raising pigs and cows, a few vegetables,
+and hay enough for his stock. He admitted
+that this was "a heap better" than he
+could do in the fatherland.</p>
+
+<p>"I shoost dell you, mine frient," he said to
+me, as he grinned and refilled his pipe, "dot
+Shermany vos a nice guntry, and Bismarck
+he vos a grade feller, und I vos brout I vos a
+Sherman; but I dells mine vooman vot I dells
+you,&mdash;I mooch rahder read aboud 'em in mine
+Sherman newsbaper, dan vot I voot leef dere
+myself, already. I roon avay vrom dem conscrip'
+fellers, und I shoost never seed de time
+vot I voot go back again. In dot ol' guntry,
+I vos nuttings boot a beasant feller; unt in
+dis guntry I vos a goov'ment off'cer, vich
+makes grade diff'rence, already."</p>
+
+<p>He chuckled a good deal to himself when
+asked what he thought about the Fox-Wisconsin
+river-improvement, but finally said that
+government must spend its surplus some way,&mdash;if
+not in this, it would in another,&mdash;and
+he could not object to a scheme which gave
+him his bread and butter. He said that the
+improvement operations scattered a good deal
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span>
+of money throughout the valley, for labor and
+supplies, but expressed his doubts as to the
+ultimate national value of the work, unless the
+shifting Wisconsin River, thus far unnavigable
+for steamers, should be canalled from the portage
+to its mouth. He is an honest fellow,
+and appears to utilize his abundance of leisure
+in reading the newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>At Princeton village,&mdash;a thriving country
+town on a steep bank, with unkempt backyards
+running down to and defiling the river,&mdash;we
+again came across the "Ellen Hardy."
+She was unloading her light cargo of wheat
+as we arrived, and left Princeton an eighth of
+a mile behind us. We now had a pleasant
+little race to White River lock, seven miles below.
+With sail set, and paddles to help, we
+led her easily as far as the lock. But we
+thought to gain time by portaging over the
+dam, and she gained a lead of at least a mile,
+although we frequently caught sight of her
+towering white hull across the widespreads,
+by dint of standing on the thwarts and peering
+over the tall walls of wild rice which shut us
+in as closely as though we had been canoeing
+in a railroad cut.</p>
+
+<p>It had been fair and cloudy by turns to-day,
+but delightfully cool,&mdash;a wonderful improvement
+on yesterday, when we fairly sweltered,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span>
+coming down Buffalo Lake. In the middle of
+the afternoon, below White River, a thunder-storm
+overtook us in a widespread several
+miles in extent. Seeking a willow island
+which abutted on the channel, we made a tent
+of the sail and stood the brief storm quite
+comfortably. We then pushed on, and,
+rubber-coated, weathered the few clearing
+showers in the boat, for we were anxious to
+reach Berlin by evening.</p>
+
+<p>At Berlin lock, twelve miles below White
+River, we portaged the dam, and, getting into
+a two-mile current, ate our supper on board.
+The river now begins to have firmer banks,
+and to approach the ridges upon the southern
+rim of its basin.</p>
+
+<p>We reached Berlin in the twilight, the landscape
+of hill and meadow being softened in
+the golden glow. The better portion of this
+beautiful little city of forty-five hundred inhabitants
+is situated on a ridge, closely skirted
+by the river, with the poorer quarters on the
+flats spreading away on either side. There
+are many charming homes and the main
+business street has an air of active prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>We went into dock alongside of the "Ellen
+Hardy."
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_175.jpg" width="450" height="141" alt="Third Letter Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a></p>
+<h2>THIRD LETTER</h2>
+
+<h2>THE MASCOUTINS.</h2>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap left65">Oshkosh, Wis.,</span> June 9, 1887.</p>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>y Dear <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>: As we passed out of
+Berlin this morning, a government
+dredger was at work by the river-side. We
+paused on our paddles for some time, to watch
+the workings of the ingenious mechanism.
+There was something demoniac in the action
+of the monster, as it craned its jointed neck
+amid a quick chorus of jerky puffs from the
+engine and an accompaniment of rattling
+chains. Reaching far out over the bubbling
+water, it would open its great iron jaws with
+a savage clank and, pausing a moment to
+gather its energies, dive swiftly into the roily
+depth; after swaying to and fro as if struggling
+with its prey, it soon reappeared, bearing
+in its filthy maw a ton or two of blue-black
+ooze, the water escaping through its teeth in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span>
+a score of hissing torrents; then, turning aside
+to the heap of dredge-trash, suddenly vomited
+forth the foul-smelling mess, and returned for
+another charge. It was a singularly fascinating
+sight, though wofully uncanny.</p>
+
+<p>From Berlin down to Omro, pleasant prairie
+slopes come down at intervals to the water's
+edge, on the south bank; the feature of the
+north side being wide expanses of bog, the
+home of the cranberry, for which this region
+is famous. The best marshes, however, are
+the pockets, back among the ridges; from
+these, great drainage-ditches, with flooding
+gates, come furrowing through the peat, in
+dark lines as straight as an arrow, and empty
+into the river. It was somewhere about here,
+nearer Berlin than Omro,&mdash;but exactly where,
+no man now knoweth,&mdash;that the ancient
+Indian "nation" of the Mascoutins was located
+over two centuries ago; their neighbors,
+if not their village comrades, being the Miamis
+and the Kickapoos. Champlain, the intrepid
+founder of Quebec, had heard of their warring
+disposition as early as 1615. In 1634 Jean
+Nicolet, the first white man known to have set
+foot upon territory now included in the State of
+Wisconsin, came in a bark canoe as far up the
+Fox River as the Mascoutins, and after stopping
+a time with them, journeyed southward
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span>
+to the country of the Illinois.<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Allouez and
+his companions also came hither in 1670, and
+the good father, in the official report of his adventurous
+canoeing trip, says the fort of these
+people was located a French league (2.4 English
+miles) "over beautiful prairies" to the
+south of the river. Joliet and Marquette, on
+their way to discover the Mississippi River,
+arrived at the fort of the Mascoutins on June 7,
+1673, and the latter gives this graceful sketch
+of the oak openings hereabouts, which have
+not meanwhile perceptibly changed their characteristics:
+"I felt no little pleasure in beholding
+the position of this town; the view
+is beautiful and very picturesque, for from the
+eminence on which it is perched, the eye discovers
+on every side prairies spreading away
+beyond its reach, interspersed with thickets
+or groves of lofty trees."</p>
+
+<p>The Mascoutins are now a lost tribe. As
+the result of warring habits, they in turn were
+crowded to the wall, and a generation after
+Marquette's visit the banks of their river knew
+them no more; the Foxes, from whom the
+stream ultimately took its name, were then
+predominant, and long continued the masters
+of the highway.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sacramento&mdash;"as dead as a door-nail,
+sir"&mdash;lies sprawled out over a pleasant
+riverside slope to the south. There is the
+customary air of fallen grandeur at Sacramento,&mdash;big
+hopes gone to decay; battlement-fronts,
+houseless cellars, a universal
+lack of paint. The railroads, the real highways
+of our present civilization, have killed
+these little river towns that are away from
+the track, and they will never be resurrected.
+The day of inland water navigation, except
+for canoeists, is nearing its close. Settlement
+clings to the neighborhood of the rails,
+and generally avoids rivers as an obstruction
+to free transit. The towns that have to be
+reached by a country ferry are rotting,&mdash;they
+are off the line of progress. Sacramento
+boasts a spouting well by the river-bank, a
+mammoth village ash-leach, and fond memories
+of the day when it was "a bigger town
+than Berlin." As we stood in the spray of
+the fountain, filling our canteen with the
+purest and coldest of water, I speculated upon
+the strong probability of Sacramento being on
+the identical bank where the Jesuits beached
+their canoes to walk across country to the
+old Indian village. And the Doctor, apt to
+be irreverent as to aboriginal lore, suggested
+that the defunct Sacramento should have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span>
+written over its gate this motto: "Gone to
+join the Mascoutins!"</p>
+
+<p>Eureka, a few miles farther down, is also
+paintless, and her river-front is artistic with
+the crumbling ruins of two or three long-deserted
+saw-mills. A new Eureka appears,
+however, to be slowly building up, to one
+side of the dead little hamlet,&mdash;for there are
+smart steam flouring-mill and a model little
+cheese-factory in full swing here. The cheese
+man, an accommodating young fellow who appeared
+quite up to the times, and is a direct
+shipper to the London market, took a just
+pride in showing us over his establishment,
+and stocked our mess-box with samples of his
+best brands.</p>
+
+<p>Omro spreads over a sandy plain, upon
+both sides of the river,&mdash;an excellent wagon-bridge
+crossing the stream near that of the
+Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway.
+Omro, which is the headquarters of the
+Wisconsin Spiritualists, who have quite a
+settlement hereabouts, is growing somewhat,
+after a long period of stagnation, having at
+present a population of fifteen hundred.</p>
+
+<p>The "Ellen Hardy," which had now caught
+up with us, after chasing the canoe from
+Berlin down, went through the draw in our
+company. As the crew rolled off a small
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span>
+consignment of freight, the captain&mdash;a raw-boned,
+red-faced, and thoroughly good-humored
+man&mdash;leaned out of the pilot-house window
+and pleasantly chaffed us about our lowly
+conveyance. The conversation ended by his
+offering to give us a "lift" through the great
+Winneconne widespread, to the point where
+the Wolf joins the Fox, nine or ten miles
+below. The "Ellen" was bound for Winneconne
+and other points up the Wolf, so could
+help us no farther. Of course we accepted
+the kindly offer, and fastening our painter to a
+belaying-pin on the "Ellen's" port, scrambled
+up to the freight-deck just as the pilot-bell
+rang "Forward!" in the smoky little engine-room
+far aft.</p>
+
+<p>While I went aloft to enjoy the bird's-eye
+view obtainable from the pilot-house, the
+Doctor discussed fishing with the engineer,
+whom he found on closer acquaintance to be
+a rare, though much-begrimed philosopher.
+This engineer is a wizened-up little man,
+with a face like a prematurely dried apple,
+but his eyes gleam with a kindly light, and
+he is an inveterate angler. We had noticed
+him at every stopping stage,&mdash;his head,
+shoulders, and arms reaching out of the abbreviated
+rear window of his caboose,&mdash;dangling
+a line astern. The Doctor learned that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span>
+this was his invariable habit. He kept
+the cook's galley in fish, and utilized each
+leisure half-hour in the pursuit of his favorite
+amusement. The engineer, good man, had
+fished, he said, in nearly every known sea,
+and the Doctor declared that he "could many
+a wondrous fish-tale unfold." In fact, the
+Doctor declared him to be the most interesting
+character he had ever met with, outside
+of a hospital, and said he should surely report
+to his favorite medical journal this remarkable
+case of abnormal persistency in an art, amid
+the most discouraging physical surroundings.
+He thought the man's brain should be dissected,
+in the cause of science.</p>
+
+<p>The Wolf, which has its rise 150 miles
+nor'-nor'west of Green Bay, in a Forest-county
+lakelet, and takes generous, south-trending
+curves away down to Lake Poygan, is properly
+the noble stream which pours into Lake
+Winnebago from the northwest, and then,
+with a mighty rush, forces its way northeastward
+to the Great Lakes, along the base of
+the watershed which parallels the western
+coast of Lake Michigan and terminates in the
+sands of the Sturgeon-Bay country. The
+Jesuit fathers, in seeking the Mississippi,
+traced this river above Lake Winnebago, and
+on reaching the great widespread at the head
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span>
+of the Grand Butte des Morts, where the
+tributary flowing from the southwest empties
+its lazy flood into the rushing Fox, pursued
+that tributary to the portage and erroneously
+called their highway by one name, from Green
+Bay to the carry. Thus the long-unexplored
+main river, above the junction, came to be
+treated on the maps as a tributary, and to be
+dubbed the Wolf. This geographical mistake
+has been so long persisted in that correction
+becomes impracticable, and we must
+continue to style the branch the trunk.</p>
+
+<p>This has been a delightful day; the heavens
+were clear and blue, and a gentle northeaster
+fanned our faces in the pilot-house,
+from which vantage-point, nearly thirty feet
+above the river-level, there was obtainable a
+bird's-eye view well worthy of canvas. The
+wild-rice bog, through which the Fox, here
+not over thirty yards wide, twists like the
+snapper of a whip, is from ten to fifteen miles
+wide,&mdash;a sea of living green, across which
+the breeze sends a regular succession of
+waves, losing themselves upon the far-distant
+shores. Upon the northwestern horizon, the
+Wolf comes stealing down at the base of a
+range of wooded hills. To the west, a flashing
+line tells where Lake Poygan "holds her
+mirror to the sun." The tall smoke-stacks of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span>
+the Winneconne saw-mills occupy the middle
+ground westward. To the east, in the
+centre of the picture, one catches glimpses of
+the consolidated stream, as its goodly flood
+quickly glides southeasterly, on a short spurt
+toward the Grand Butte des Morts, at the
+head of which is the old fur-trading village
+of the same name. Far southeastward, below
+the lake, there is just discernible the
+great brick chimney of a mammoth planing-mill,&mdash;an
+Algoma landmark,&mdash;and just behind
+that the black cloud resting above the
+Oshkosh factories. It is a broad, bounteous
+sweep of level landscape,&mdash;monotonous, of
+course, but imposing from mere immensity.</p>
+
+<p>At the union of the rivers we bade farewell
+to our friend the captain; and the Doctor
+secured a promise from the engineer to send
+in his photograph to the hospital with which
+the former is connected. The "Ellen Hardy"
+stopped her engine as we cast off. In another
+minute, the great stern-wheel began to
+splash again, and we were bobbing up and
+down on the bubbly swell, waving farewell
+to our fellow-travelers and turning our prow
+to the southeast, while the roving "Ellen"
+shaped her course to Winneconne, where a
+lot of laths, destined for Princeton, awaited
+her arrival.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The low ridge which forms the eastern
+bank of the Wolf, down to the junction, soon
+slopes off to the northeast, in the direction
+of Appleton, leaving a broad, level plain, of
+great fertility, between it and Lakes Grand
+Butte des Morts and Winnebago. On this
+plain are built the cities of Oshkosh, Neenah,
+and Menasha. Across it, the northeaster,
+freshening to a lively breeze, had full sweep,
+and stirred up the Grand Butte des Morts
+into a wild display of opposition to our progress.
+Serried ranks of white-caps came
+sweeping across the lake, beating on our port
+bow, and the little sail, almost bursting with
+fulness, careened the canoe to the gunwale,
+as it swept gayly along through the foam.
+The paddles were necessary to keep her well
+abreast of the tide, and there was exercise
+enough in the operation to prevent drowsiness.
+The spray flew like a drizzling summer
+shower, but our baggage and stores were well
+covered down, and the weather was too warm
+for a body dampener to be uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>We passed the dark, gloomy, tumbled-down,
+but picturesque village of Butte des
+Morts, just before entering the lake. Of the
+twenty-five or so houses in the place, all but
+two or three are guiltless of paint. There is
+a quaintness about the simple architecture,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span>
+which gives Butte des Morts a distinctive appearance.
+To the initiated, it betokens the
+remains of an old fur-trading post; and this
+was the genesis of Butte des Morts. It was
+in 1818 that Augustin Grignon and James
+Porlier, men intimately connected with the
+history of the French-Indian fur-trade in
+Wisconsin, set up their shanty dwellings and
+warehouses on a little lakeside knoll a mile below
+the present village, which was founded by
+their <i>voyageurs</i> on the site of an old Menomonee
+town and cemetery. Some of these
+post-buildings, together with the remains of
+the watch-tower, from which the traders obtained
+long advance notice of the approach
+of travelers, red or white, are still standing.
+As we sped by, I pointed out to the Doctor
+the location of these venerable relics, which
+I had, with proper enthusiasm, carefully inspected
+fully a dozen summers before, and he
+suggested that the knowledge of the approach
+of a possible customer, by means of the tower,
+gave the traders an excellent opportunity to
+mark up the goods.</p>
+
+<p>James Porlier's son and successor, Louis
+B. Porlier, now an aged man, is the present
+occupant of the establishment, which is one
+of the oldest landmarks in Wisconsin; and
+there, also, died the famous Augustin Grignon,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span>
+historian of his clan. Butte des Morts, in
+the early day of the northwest, was something
+more than a trading-post. Situated
+near the union of the upper Fox and the
+Wolf, it was the rallying-point for both valleys,&mdash;long
+before Appleton, Neenah, Menasha
+or Oshkosh were known, or any of the
+towns on the upper Fox. It was the only
+white man's stopping-place between the portage
+and Kaukauna. The mail trail between
+Green Bay and the portage crossed here,&mdash;for
+strange to say, the great south-stretching
+widespread, which lies like a map before the
+village, was in those days firm enough for a
+horse to traverse with safety; while to-day a
+boat can be pushed anywhere between the
+rushes and rice, and it is <i>par excellence</i> the
+great breeding-ground of this section for
+muskrats and water-fowl. A scow-ferry was
+maintained in pioneer times for the benefit of
+the mail-carrier and other travelers. Butte
+des Morts is mentioned in most of the journals
+left us by travelers over the Fox-Wisconsin
+watercourse, previous to 1835, and
+here several important Indian treaties were
+consummated by government commissioners.</p>
+
+<p>It is somewhat over fifteen miles from the
+mouth of the Wolf to Oshkosh. The run
+down the lake seemed unusually protracted,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span>
+for the city was clearly in sight the entire
+way, and the distance, over the flat expanse,
+was deceptive. Algoma, now a portion of
+Oshkosh, was something of a settlement long
+before the lower town began to grow. But
+the latter finally overtook and swallowed the
+original hamlet. Algoma is now chiefly devoted
+to the homes of the employees in the
+great planing and saw-milling establishments
+of Philetus Sawyer, Wisconsin's senior United
+States senator, and the wealthy Paine Brothers.
+The residences of these lumber kings are on
+a slope to the north of the iron wagon-bridge,
+under which we swept as the booming whistles
+of the busy locality, in unison with a noisy
+chorus of steam-gongs farther down the river,
+sounded the hour of six. Through the gantlet
+of the mills, with their outlying rafts, their
+lines of piling, and their great yards of newly
+sawn lumber, we sped quickly on. A half-hour
+later, we were turning up into a peaceful
+little dock alongside the south approach to
+the St. Paul railway-bridge, the canoe's quarters
+for the night. The sun was just plunging
+below the clear-cut prairie horizon, as we
+walked across the fields to the home of our
+expectant friends.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_188.jpg" width="450" height="144" alt="Fourth Letter Header" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a></p>
+
+<h2>FOURTH LETTER.</h2>
+<h2>THE LAND OF THE WINNEBAGOES.</h2>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap left65">Appleton, Wis.</span>, June 10, 1887.</p>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>y dear <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>: We had a late start
+to-day from Oshkosh. It was half-past
+nine o'clock by the time we had reloaded
+our traps, pushed off from the railway embankment,
+and received the God-speed of
+<span class="nowrp">M&mdash;&mdash;</span>, who had come down to see us off.
+The busy town, with its twenty-two thousand
+thrifty people, was all astir. The factories
+and the mills were resonant with the clang
+and rattle of industry, and across the two
+wagon-bridges of the city proper there were
+continual streams of traffic.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose that Oshkosh is, in its way, as
+widely known throughout this country as almost
+any city in it. The name is strikingly
+outlandish, being equaled only by Kalamazoo,
+and furnishes the butt of many a newspaper
+joke and comic rhyme. Old chief Oshkosh,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span>
+whose cognomen signifies "brave" in Menomonee
+speech, was the head man of his
+dusky tribe, a half-century ago. He was a
+doughty, wrinkled hero, o'er fond of fire-water,
+and wore a battered silk hat for a crown.
+About 1840, when the settlement here was
+four years old, the Government offered to
+establish a post-office if the inhabitants would
+unite on a name for the place. The whites
+favored Athens, but the Indians, half-breeds,
+and traders round about Butte des Morts,
+wanted their friend Oshkosh immortalized, so
+they came down to the new settlement in
+force, and the election being a free-for-all,
+carried the day. It is said that the Grignons
+were so anxious in behalf of the Menomonee
+sachem that they had a number of squaws
+array themselves in trousers and cast ballots
+like the bucks. And it was fortunate, as
+events proved, that the election turned out
+as it did, for the oddity of the name has
+been a permanent advertisement for a very
+bright community. Oshkosh, as hackneyed
+"Athens," would have been lost to fame.
+Nobody would think of going to "Athens" to
+"have fun with the boys."</p>
+
+<p>The morning air was as clear as a bell,&mdash;a
+pleasant northeast zephyr, coming in off the
+body of the lake, slightly ruffling the surface
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span>
+and reducing the temperature to a delightful
+tone. The wind not being fair, the sail was useless,
+so we paddled along through the broad
+river, into the lake and northward past a fishermen's
+colony, rows of great ice-houses, the
+water-works park, and beautiful lake-shore
+residences, to Garlic Island. It was half-past
+twelve, <span class="smcap">P.M.</span>, when we tied up at the crazy
+pier which projects from this islet of the
+loud-smelling vegetable. A half-century ago
+Garlic Island was the home of Iowatuk, the
+beautiful aboriginal relict of a French fur-trader,&mdash;an
+Indian princess, the old settlers
+called her; at all events, she is reputed to
+have been a most exemplary person, well-possessed
+of this world's goods, as well as a
+large family of half-breed children. The
+island is charmingly situated, a half-mile or
+more out from the main land, opposite the
+Northern Insane Hospital; it is a forest of
+ancient elms, surrounded by a bowlder-strewn
+beach of some three quarters of a mile in
+length, and occupied by a summer-hotel establishment.
+The name "Garlic Island" does
+not sound very well for a fashionable resort,
+so the insular territory has been dubbed
+"Island Park" of late; but "Garlic" has good
+staying qualities, and I doubt if they can ever
+efface the objectionable pioneer title.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We had our dinner on the sward near the
+pier, convenient to a pump, and were entertained
+by watching the approach of a little
+steam-launch, loaded with a party of "resorters"
+who had doubtless been shopping in
+Oshkosh, the smoke from whose chimneys
+rose above the tree-tops, five miles to the
+southwest. There were some of the usual
+types,&mdash;the languid Southern woman, with
+her two pouting boys in charge of a rather
+savage-looking colored nurse, who dragged
+the little fellows out over the gang-plank, one
+in each hand, as though they had been bags
+of flour; a fashionable dame, from some
+northern metropolis, all ribbons and furbelows,
+starch and whalebones, accompanied by
+her willowy daughter of twenty, almost her
+counterpart as to dress, with a pert young
+miss of fourteen, in abbreviated gown and
+overgrown hat, bringing up the rear with the
+family pug; a dawdling young Anglo-maniac
+sucked the handle of his cane and looked
+sweetly on the society girl, whose papa, apparently
+a tired-out broker, in a well made
+business costume and a wretched straw hat,
+stayed behind to treat the skipper to a prime
+cigar and arrange for a fishing excursion.</p>
+
+<p>There is a fine view from the island. The
+hills and cliffs of Calumet County, a dozen
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span>
+miles to the east, are dimly visible. Toward
+Fond du Lac, on the south, the horizon is the
+lake. South-southwestward, Black Wolf Point
+runs out, just over the verge, and the tops of
+the tall trees upon it peep up into view, like
+shadowy pile-work. Westward are the well-kept
+hospital grounds, fringed with stately
+elms overhanging the firm, gravelly beach,
+studded with ice-heaved bowlders, which extends
+northward to Neenah. The view to
+the north and northeast is delightfully hazy,
+being now dark with delicate fringes of forest
+which cap the occasional limestone promontories,
+and again losing itself in a watery
+sky-line.</p>
+
+<p>We had two pleasant hours at this island-home
+of the lovely Iowatuk, walking around
+it on the bowldered beach, and reveling in
+the shade of the grand old elms. By the time
+we were ready to resume our voyage, the
+wind had died down, the lake was as smooth
+as a marble slab, and the sun's rays reflected
+from it converted the atmosphere to the temperature
+of a bake-oven. No sooner had we
+pushed out beyond the deep shadows of the
+trees than it seemed as though we had at one
+paddle-stroke shot into the waters of a tropic
+sea. The awning was at once raised, and
+served to somewhat mitigate our sufferings,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span>
+but the dazzling reflection was there still, to
+the great discomfort of our eyes.</p>
+
+<p>After two miles of distress, a bank of light
+but sharply broken clouds appeared on the
+northeastern horizon, and soon a gentle breeze
+brought blessed relief. In a few minutes
+more, ripples danced upon our starboard quarter,
+and then the awning had to come down,
+for it filled like a fixed sail and counteracted
+the effect of the paddles. The Doctor, who,
+you know full well, never paddles when he
+can sail, insisted on running up into the wind
+and spreading the canvas. He was just in
+time, for a squall struck us as he was adjusting
+the boom sprit, and nearly sent him overboard
+while attempting to regain his seat.
+Little black squalls now rapidly succeeded
+each other, the wind freshening between the
+gusts; and the Doctor, who was the sailing-master,
+had to exercise rare vigilance, for the
+breeze was rapidly developing into a young
+gale, and the ripples had now grown to be by
+far the largest waves our little craft had yet
+encountered. The situation began to be
+somewhat serious, as the clouds thickened
+and the white-caps broke upon the west beach
+with a sullen roar. We therefore deemed it
+advisable to run into a little harbor to the lee
+of a wooded spit, and hold council.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was a wild, storm-tossed headland, two
+thirds of the distance down from the island,
+and the spit was but one of its many points.
+We landed and made an extended exploration,
+deeming it possible that we might be obliged
+to pass the night here; but the result of our
+discoveries was to discourage any such project.
+For a half-mile back or more the forest
+proved to be a tangled swamp, filled with
+fallen timber and sink-holes, while quicksands
+lined the harbor where the canoe
+peacefully rested behind an outlying fringe of
+gnarled elms. We wandered up and down the
+gravelly beach, in the spray of the breakers,
+scrambling over great bowlders and overhanging
+trunks whose foundations had been sapped
+by storm-driven floods; but everywhere was
+the same hard, forbidding scene of desolation,
+with the angry surface of the lake and the
+canopy of wind-clouds filling out a picture
+which, the Doctor suggested, could have only
+been satisfactorily executed in water-colors.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of our wanderings, which
+were sadly destructive to clothes and shoe-leather,
+we had some comical adventures.
+The Doctor hasn't got over laughing about
+one of them yet. We came to an apparently
+shallow lagoon, perhaps three rods wide and a
+dozen long, beyond which we desired to penetrate.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span>
+It was bedded with sand and covered
+with green slime. The Doctor had, just before,
+divested himself of shoes and stockings
+and rolled his trousers above his knees, in an
+enthusiastic hunt for a particularly ponderous
+frog, which he desired to pickle in the cause
+of science. He playfully offered to carry me
+across the pool on his back, and thus save me
+the trouble of imitating his style of undress.
+With some misgivings as to the result, I
+finally mounted. We progressed favorably
+as far as the centre, when suddenly I felt my
+transport sinking; he gave a desperate lunge
+as the water suddenly reached his waist, I
+sprang forward over his head, and losing my
+balance, sprawled out flat upon the slimy
+water. I hardly know how we reached firm
+ground again, but when we did, we were a
+sorry-looking pair, as you can well imagine.
+The Doctor thought it high sport, as he
+wrung out his clothes and spread them upon a
+bowlder to dry, and I tried hard to join in his
+boisterous hilarity; but somehow, as I scraped
+the gluey slime from my only canoeing suit,
+with a bit of old drift shingle, and contemplated
+the soppy condition of my wardrobe, I
+know there must have been a tinge of sadness
+in my gaze. It was too much like being
+shipwrecked on a desert island.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As we sat, clad in rubber coats, sunning
+ourselves on the lee side of a fallen tree and
+waiting for our garments to again become
+wearable, the Doctor read to me an article
+from his medical journal, describing a novel
+surgical operation on somebody's splintered
+backbone, copiously illustrating the selection
+with vivid reports of his own hospital observations
+in that direction. This sort of thing
+was well calculated to send the shivers down
+one's spinal column, but the Doctor certainly
+made the theme quite interesting and the
+half-hour necessary to the drying process
+soon passed.</p>
+
+<p>By this time it was plain to be seen that
+the velocity of the wind was not going to
+increase before sundown, although it had not
+slacked. We determined to try the sea again,
+and pushed out through the breakers, with
+sail close-hauled and baggage canvased.
+Taking a bold offing into the teeth of the
+gale, we ran out well into the lower lake, and
+then, on a port tack, had a fine run down to
+Doty's Island, which divides the lower Fox
+into two channels. The city of Neenah, noted
+for its flouring and paper mills, is built upon
+both sides of the southern channel, or Neenah
+River; Menasha, with several factories, but
+apparently less prosperous than the other,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span>
+guards the north channel,&mdash;the twin cities
+dividing the island between them. The government
+lock is at Menasha, while at Neenah
+there is a fine water-power, with a fall of
+twelve or fifteen feet,&mdash;the "Winnebago
+Rapids" of olden time.</p>
+
+<p>It was into Neenah channel that we came
+flying so gayly, before the wind. There is a
+fine park on the mainland shore, with a smartly
+painted summer hotel and half a dozen pretty
+cottages that would do credit to a seaside resort.
+To the right the island is studded with
+picturesque old elms, shading a closely cropped
+turf, upon which cattle peacefully graze, while
+here and there among the trees are old-fashioned
+white cottages, with green blinds, quite
+after the style of a sleepy New-England village,&mdash;a
+charming scene of semi-rustic life;
+while to seaward Lake Winnebago tosses and
+rolls, almost to the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>Doty's is an historic landmark. The rapids
+here necessitated a portage, and from the
+earliest times there have been Indian villages
+on the island, more or less permanent in character,&mdash;Menomonee,
+Fox, and Winnebago in
+turn. As white traffic over the Fox-Wisconsin
+watercourse grew, so grew the importance
+of this village, whatever the tribe of its inhabitants;
+for the bucks found employment in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span>
+helping the empty boats over the rapids and
+in "toting" the goods over the portage-trail.
+The Foxes overreached themselves by setting
+up as toll-gatherers. It is related&mdash;but historians
+are somewhat misty as to the details&mdash;that
+in the winter of 1706-7 a French
+captain, Marin by name, was sent out by the
+governor of New France to chastise the blackmailers.
+At the head of a large party of
+French creoles and half-breeds, he ascended
+the lower Fox on snowshoes, surprising the
+aborigines in their principal village, here at
+Winnebago Rapids, and slaughtering them by
+the hundreds. Afterward, this same Marin
+conducted a summer expedition against the
+Foxes. His boats were filled with armed
+men and covered down with oilcloth, as
+traders were wont to treat their goods <i>en
+voyage</i>, to escape a wetting. Only two men
+were visible in each boat, paddling and steering.
+Nearly fifteen hundred dusky tax-gatherers
+were discovered squatting on the
+beach at the foot of the rapids, awaiting the
+arrival of the flotilla. The canoes were
+ranged along the shore. Upon a signal being
+given, the coverings were thrown off and
+volley after volley of hot lead poured into
+the mob of unsuspecting savages, a swivel-gun
+in Marin's boat aiding in the slaughter.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span>
+Tradition has it that over a thousand Foxes
+fell in that brutal assault. In 1716 another
+captain of New France, named De Louvigny,
+is reported to have stormed the audacious
+Foxes. They had not, it seems, been exterminated
+by previous massacres, for five hundred
+warriors and three thousand squaws are
+alleged to have been collected within a palisaded
+fort, somewhere in the neighborhood
+of these rapids. De Louvigny is credited
+with having captured the fort after a three
+days' siege, but granted the enemy the honors
+of war. Twelve years later the Foxes had
+again become so troublesome as to need chastisement.
+This time the agent chosen to
+command the expedition was De Lignery,
+among whose lieutenants was the noted
+Charles de Langlade, Wisconsin's first white
+settler. But the redskins had become wise,
+after their fashion, and fled before the Frenchmen,
+who found the villages on the Fox,
+lower and upper, deserted. The invaders
+burned every wigwam and cornfield in sight,
+from Green Bay to the portage. This expedition
+appears to have been followed by others,
+until the Foxes, with the allied Sacs, fled the
+valley, never to return. Much of this is
+traditionary.</p>
+
+<p>The widening of the Fox below Doty's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span>
+Island was called Lac Petit Butte des Morts,&mdash;"Lake
+Little Hill of the Dead," to distinguish
+it from the "Great Hill of the Dead,"
+above Oshkosh.</p>
+
+<p>It has long been claimed that the thousands
+of Foxes who at various times fell victims to
+these massacres in behalf of the French fur-trade
+were buried in great pits at Petit Butte
+des Morts,&mdash;near Winnebago Rapids. But
+modern investigators lean to the opinion that
+the "little hill of the dead" was merely an
+ordinary Indian cemetery, and the mound or
+mounds there are prehistoric tumuli, common
+enough in the neighborhood of Wisconsin
+lakes. A like conclusion, also, has been arrived
+at in regard to the Grand Butte des
+Morts. However, this is something that the
+archæological committee must settle among
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The Winnebagoes succeeded the Foxes,
+and Doty's Island became the seat of their
+power. The master spirit among them for a
+quarter of a century previous to the fall of
+New France was a French fur-trader named
+De Korra or De Cora, who had a Winnebago
+"princess" for a squaw. They had a numerous
+progeny, which De Korra left to his wife's
+charge when called to serve under Montcalm
+in the defence of Quebec. He was killed in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span>
+a sortie, and Madame De Korra and her
+brood relapsed into barbarism. One half of
+the Winnebagoes now living are descendants,
+more or less direct, of this sturdy old fur-trader,
+and bear his name, which is also perpetuated,
+with varied orthography, in many a
+northwestern stream and hamlet. During
+the first third of the present century Hoo-Tschope,
+or Four Legs, was the dusky magnate
+at this Winnebago capital.<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Four Legs
+was a cunning rascal, well known to the earliest
+pioneers, but he at last fell a victim to his
+greatest enemy, the bottle. Last month I
+was visiting among the Winnebagoes around
+Black River Falls. Desiring to have a "talk"
+with Walking Cloud, a wizened-faced redskin
+of some seventy-two years, I went out
+with my interpreters over the hills and
+through the valley of the Black, nearly a
+dozen miles, before I found him and his
+squatting in their wigwams at the base of
+a bold bluff, fronted by a lovely bit of vale.
+Cloud's decrepit squaw, blind in one eye
+and wofully garrulous, hobbled up to us, and
+sinking to her knees in front of me, held out
+a dirty, bony hand, with nails like the claws
+of a bird, murmuring, "Give! Give!" I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span>
+dropped a coin into the outstretched palm; she
+grinned and chattered like an animated skeleton,
+and crawled away on her witch-like
+crutch. This was the once far-famed and
+beautiful princess of the Winnebagoes, the
+winsome Champche Keriwinke, or Flash of
+Lightning, eldest daughter of Hoo-Tschope.
+How are the mighty fallen!</p>
+
+<p>We portaged around the island end of the
+Neenah dam and met the customary shallows
+below the obstruction. But soon finding
+a narrow, rock-imbedded channel, we glided
+swiftly down the stream, through the thrifty
+town, past the mills and under the bridges,
+just as the six o'clock bells had sounded and
+the factory hands were thronging homeward,
+their tin dinner-pails glistening in the sun.
+Scores of them stopped to lean over the
+bridge-rails, and curiously watched us as we
+threaded the shallows; for canoes long ago
+ceased to be a daily spectacle at Winnebago
+Rapids.</p>
+
+<p>Little Lake Butte des Morts, just below,
+is where the river spreads to a full mile in
+breadth, the average width of the stream being
+less than one half that. The wind was fair,
+and we came swooping down into the lake,
+which is two or three miles long. A half-hour
+before sunset we hauled up at a high
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span>
+mossy glade on the north shore, and had delightful
+down-stream glimpses of deep vine-clad,
+naturally terraced banks, the slopes and
+summits being generally well wooded. A party
+of young men and women were having a camp
+near us. The woods echoed with their laughing
+shouts. A number, with their chaperone,
+a lovely and lively old lady, in a white cap
+with satin ribbons, came down to the shore
+to inspect our little vessel and question us as
+to our unusual voyage. We returned the call
+and played lawn tennis with fair partners, until
+the fact that we must reach Appleton to-night
+suddenly dawned upon us, and we bade a hasty
+farewell to our joyous wayside friends.</p>
+
+<p>It was a charming run down to Appleton,
+between the park-like banks, which rise to an
+altitude of fifty feet or more. Every now and
+then a pretty summer residence stands prominently
+out upon a bluff-head, an architectural
+gem in a setting of oaks and luxurious pines.
+At their bases flows the deep flood of the
+Lower Fox, black as Erebus in the shadows,
+but smiling brightly in the patchy sunlight,
+and thickly decked with great bubbles which
+fairly leap along the course, eager to reach
+their far-off ocean goal. But swifter by far
+than the bubbles went our canoe as we set
+the paddles deeply and bent to our work, for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>
+the waters were strange to us, the night was
+setting in, and Appleton must be made. It
+will not do to traverse these rivers after dark
+unless well acquainted with the currents, the
+snags, and the dams, for disaster may readily
+overtake the unwary.</p>
+
+<p>Cautiously we now crept along, for in the
+fast-fading twilight we could just discern the
+outlines of the Appleton paper-mills and a
+labyrinth of railway bridges, while the air
+fairly trembled with the mingled roar of water
+and of mighty gearing. Across the rapid
+stream shot piercing rays from the windows
+of the electric works, whose dynamos furnish
+light for the town and power for the street
+railway. A fisherman, tugging against the
+current, shouted to us to keep hard on the
+eastern bank, and in a few minutes more we
+glided by the stone pier which buttresses the
+upper dam, and pulled up in a little dead-water
+cove at the base of the Milwaukee and Northern
+railway bridge. The bridge-tender's
+children came down to meet us; the man
+himself soon followed; we were permitted to
+chain up for the night at his pier, and to deposit
+our bulky baggage in his kitchen; he
+accompanied us over the long bridge which
+spans the noisy apron and the rushing race.
+A misstep between the ties would send one
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span>
+on a short cut to the hereafter, but we safely
+crossed, ascended two or three steep flights
+of stairs to the top of the bank, and in a
+minute or two more were speeding up town
+to our hotel, aboard an electric street railway
+car.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_206.jpg" width="450" height="135" alt="Fifth Letter Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a></p>
+<h2>FIFTH LETTER.</h2>
+<h2>LOCKED THROUGH.</h2>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap left55">Little Kaukauna, Wis.</span>, June 11, 1887.</p>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>y Dear <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>: We took an extended
+stroll around Appleton after
+breakfast. It is a beautiful city,&mdash;the gem
+of the Lower Fox. The banks are nearly
+one hundred feet high above the river level.
+They are deeply cut with ravines. Hillside
+torrents, quickly formed by heavy rains, as
+quickly empty into the stream, draining the
+plateau of its superfluous surface water, and
+in the operation carving these great gulches
+through the soft clay. And so there are
+many steep inclines in the Appleton highways,
+and the ravines are frequently bridged
+by dizzy trestle-works; but the greater part
+of the city is on a high, level plain, the wealthy
+dwellers courting the summits of the river
+banks, where the valley view is panoramic.
+The little Methodist college, with its high-sounding
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>
+title of Lawrence University, is an
+excellent institution, and said to be growing;
+it gives a certain scholastic tinge to Appleton
+society, which might otherwise be given up to
+the worship of Mammon, for there is much
+wealth among the manufacturers who rule
+the city, and prosperity attends their reign.</p>
+
+<p>There is a good natural water-power here,
+but the Fox-Wisconsin improvement has
+made it one of the finest in the world. If
+the improvement scheme is a flat failure elsewhere,
+as is beginning to be generally believed,
+it certainly has been the making of
+this valley of the Lower Fox. From Lake
+Winnebago down to the mouth, the rapids are
+frequent, the chief being at Neenah, Appleton,
+Kaukauna, Little Kaukauna, and Depere.
+Of the twenty-six locks from Portage down,
+seventeen are below our stopping-point of
+last night; the fall at each, at this stage of
+water being about twelve feet on the average.
+Each of these locks involves a dam; and
+when the stream is thus stemmed and all
+repairs maintained, at the expense of the general
+government, it is a simple matter to tap
+the reservoir, carry a race along the bank, and
+have water-power <i>ad libitum</i>. Not half the
+water-power in sight, not a tenth of that possible
+is used. There is enough here, experts
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span>
+declare, to turn the machinery of the world.
+No wonder the beautiful valley of the Lower
+Fox is rich, and growing richer.</p>
+
+<p>It was no holiday excursion to portage
+around the Appleton locks this morning. At
+none of them could we find the tenders, for
+the Menasha lock being broken, there is no
+through navigation from Oshkosh to Green
+Bay this week, and way traffic is slight. We
+had neglected to furnish ourselves with a tin
+horn, and the vigorous use of lung power
+failed to achieve the desired result. The
+banks being steep and covered with rock
+chips left by the stone-cutters employed on
+the work, we had some awkward carries, and
+felt, as we finally passed the cordon and set
+out on the straight eastward stretch for Kaukauna,
+that we were earning our daily bread.</p>
+
+<p>Kaukauna, the Grand Kackalin of the
+Jesuits and early French traders, is ten miles
+below Appleton. Here are the most formidable
+rapids on the river, the fall being sixty
+feet, down an irregular series of jagged limestone
+stairs some half mile in extent. Indians,
+in their light bark canoes and practically without
+baggage, can, in high water, make the
+passage, up or down, by closely hugging the
+deeper and stiller water on the north bank;
+but the French traders invariably portaged
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span>
+their goods, allowing the voyageurs to carry
+over the empty boats, the men walking in the
+water by the side, pushing, hauling, and balancing,
+amid a stream of oaths from their
+bourgeois, or master, who remained at his
+post. I had had an idea that in our little craft
+we might safely make the venture of a shoot
+down the stairs, by exercising caution and
+following the Indian channel. But this was
+previous to arrival. Leaving the Doctor to
+guard the canoe from a crowd of Kaukauna
+urchins, who were disposed to be over-familiar
+with our property, I went down through a
+boggy field to view the situation. It is a
+grand sight, looking up from the bottom of
+the rapids. The water is low, and at every
+few rods masses of rock project above the
+seething flood, specimens of what line the
+channel. The torrent comes down with a
+mighty roar, lashing itself into a fury of spray
+and foam as it leaps around and over the obstructions,
+and takes great lunges from step to
+step. There are several curves in the basin
+of the cataract, which add to its artistic effect,
+while it is deeply fringed by stunted pines
+and scrub oaks, having but a slender footing
+in the shallow turf which covers the underlying
+stratum of limestone. Whatever may
+be the condition of the falls at Kaukauna in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span>
+high water, it is certain that at this stage a
+canoe would be dashed to splinters quite early
+in the attempt to scale them.</p>
+
+<p>But a portage of half a mile was not to our
+taste in the torrid temperature we have been
+experiencing to-day, and we determined to
+maintain the rights of free navigators by
+obliging the tenders to put us through the
+five great locks, which are here necessary to
+lower vessels from the upper to the lower
+level. These tenders receive ample compensation,
+and many of them are notoriously
+lazy. It is but seldom that they are compelled
+to exercise their muscles on the gates;
+for navigation on the Fox is spasmodic and
+unimportant. As I have said in one of my
+previous letters, even a saw-log has the right of
+way; and government paid a goodly sum to
+the speculators from whom it purchased this
+improvement, that free tollage might be established
+here for all time. And so it was
+that, perhaps soured a little by our Appleton
+experience, we determined at last to test the
+matter and assert the privileges of American
+citizens on a national highway.</p>
+
+<p>On regaining my messmate, we took a
+general view of Kaukauna,&mdash;which spreads
+over the banks and a prairie bottom on both
+sides of the river, and is a growing, bustling,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span>
+freshly built little factory town,&mdash;and then
+re-embarked to try our fortune at the lock-gates.
+Heretofore we had considerately portaged
+every one of these obstructions, except
+at Princeton, where we went through under
+the "Ellen Hardy's" wing.</p>
+
+<p>A stalwart Irishman, in his shirt-sleeves,
+and smoking a clay pipe with that air of dogged
+indifference peculiar to so many government
+officials, leaned over a capstan at the
+upper lock, and dreamily stared at the approaching
+canoe. The lock was full, the last
+boat having passed up a day or two before.
+The upper gates being open, we pushed in,
+and took up our station in the centre of the
+basin, to avoid the "suck" during the emptying
+process. The Doctor took out of the
+locker a copy of his medical journal and I a
+novel, and we settled down as though we had
+come to stay. The Irishman's face was at
+first a picture of dumb astonishment, and
+then he sullenly picked up his coat from the
+grass, and began to walk off in the direction
+of the town.</p>
+
+<p>"Hi, my friend!" shouted the Doctor, good-naturedly.
+"We are waiting to get locked
+through."</p>
+
+<p>The tender returned a step, his eyes opened
+wide, his brows knit, and in his wrath he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span>
+stuttered, "Ph-h-a-t! Locked through in
+that theer s-s-k-i-ff? Ye're cr-razy, mon!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not at all. We understand our rights,
+and wish you to lock us through. And, if
+you please, we're in something of a hurry."
+As I said this I consulted my watch, and after
+returning it to my pocket resumed a vacant
+gaze upon the outspread leaves of the novel.</p>
+
+<p>The tender&mdash;for we had guessed rightly;
+it was the tender&mdash;advanced to the edge of
+the basin, and looked with inexpressible scorn
+upon our Liliputian craft. "Now, look here,
+gints," he said, somewhat more conciliatory,
+"I've been here for twinty years, an' know
+the law; an' the law don't admit no skiffs, ye
+mind y'ur eye. An' the divil a bit of lockage
+will ye git here, an' mind that!" And
+then he walked away.</p>
+
+<p>We were very patient. The rim of the
+lock became lined with small boys and smaller
+girls, for this is Saturday, and a school holiday;
+and there was great wonderment at the men
+in the canoe, who "were having a bloody old
+row with Barney, the lock-tinder," as one boy
+vigorously expressed the situation to a bevy
+of new-comers. By and by Barney returned
+to see if we were still there. We were, and
+were so abstracted that we did not heed his
+presence.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Will, ye ain't gone yit, I see?" said
+Barney.</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor roused himself, and pulling out
+his watch, appeared to be greatly surprised.
+"I do declare," he ejaculated, "if we haven't
+been waiting here nearly half an hour! I
+say, my man, this sort of delay is inexcusable.
+It will read badly in a report to the
+Engineering Bureau. What is your number,
+sir?" And with a stern expression he produced
+his tablets, prepared to jot down the
+numeral.</p>
+
+<p>Barney was clearly weakening. His return
+to see if the "bluff" had worked was an evidence
+of that. The Doctor's severe official
+manner, and our quiet persistence appeared
+to convince Barney that he had made a grave
+mistake. So he hurried off to the lower
+capstans, growling something about being
+"oft'n fooled with fish'n' parties." When we
+were through we left Barney a cigar on the
+curbing, and gently admonished him never
+again to be so rude to canoeists, or some day
+he would get reported. As we pushed off he
+bade us an affectionate farewell, and said he
+had sent his "lad" ahead to see that we had
+no trouble at the four lower locks. We did
+not see the lad; but certain it is that the other
+tenders were prompt and courteous, and we
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span>
+felt that the cigars which we distributed along
+the Kaukauna Canal were not illy bestowed.</p>
+
+<p>Progress was slow to-day, owing to the
+delays in locking. Ordinarily, we make from
+thirty to forty miles,&mdash;on the Rock, you
+remember, we averaged forty. But it was
+nearly sunset when we passed under the old
+wagon bridge at Wrightstown, only seventeen
+miles below our starting-point of this morning.
+We paused for a minute or two, to talk with
+a peaceably disposed lad, who was the sole patron
+of the bridge and lay sprawled across the
+board foot-walk, with his head under the railing,
+fishing as contentedly as though he lay
+on a grassy bank, after the manner of the
+gentle Izaak. When old Mr. Wright was
+around, Wrightstown may have been quite
+a place. But it is now going the way of so
+many river towns. There is a small, rickety
+saw-mill in operation, to which farmers from
+the back country haul in pine logs, of which
+there are some hundreds neatly piled in an
+adjoining field. Another saw-mill shell is
+hard by, the home of owls and bats,&mdash;a deserted
+skeleton, whose spirit, in the shape of
+machinery, has departed to Ashland, a more
+modern paradise of the buzz-saw. The village,
+dressed in that tone of pearly gray with
+which kind Nature decks those habitations
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span>
+left paintless by neglectful man,&mdash;is prettily
+situated on the high banks which uniformly
+hedge in the Lower Fox. On the highest
+knoll of all is a modest little frame church
+whose spire&mdash;white, after a fashion&mdash;is a
+prominent landmark to river travelers. There
+are the remains of once well-kept gardens,
+upon the upper terraces; of somewhat elaborate
+fences, now swaying to and fro and weak
+in the knees; of sidewalks which have become
+pitfalls; of impenetrable thickets of lilacs,
+hedging lonely spots that once were homes.
+On the village street, only a few idlers were
+seen, gathered in knots of two or three in
+front of the barber shop and the saloons; the
+smith at his forge was working late, shoeing
+a country team; and two angular dames, in
+rusty sun-bonnets, were gossiping over a barn-yard
+gate. That was all we saw of Wrightstown,
+as we drifted northward in company
+with the reeling bubbles, down through the
+deepening shadow cast by the western bank.</p>
+
+<p>Here and there, where the land chances to
+slope gently to the water's edge, are small
+piles of logs, drawn on farm sleds during the
+winter season from depleted pineries, all the
+way from three to ten miles back. When
+wanted at the saw-mills down the river, or
+just above, at Wrightstown, they are loosely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span>
+made up into small rafts and poled to market.
+Along the stream there are but few pines left,
+and they generally crown some rocky ledge,
+not easily accessible. A few small clumps are
+preserved, however, relics of the forest's former
+state, to adorn private grounds or enhance
+the gloomy tone of little hillside cemeteries.
+There must have been an impressive grandeur
+about the scenery of the Lower Fox in the
+early day, before the woodman's axe leveled
+the great pines which then swept down in
+solid rank to the river beach, closely hedging
+in the dark and rapid flood.</p>
+
+<p>We lunched upon a stone terrace, above
+which swayed in the evening breeze the
+dense, solemn branches of a giant native, one
+of the last of his fated race. The channel
+curved below, and the range of vision was
+short, between the stately banks, heavily
+fringed as they are with aspen and scrub-oak.
+As we sat in the gathering gloom and gayly
+chatted over the simple adventures which are
+making up this week of ideal vacation life,
+there came up from the depths below the
+steady swish and pant of a river steamboat,&mdash;rare
+object upon our lonesome journey. As
+the bulky craft came slowly around the bend,
+the pant became a subdued roar, awakening a
+dull echo from the wooded slopes. A small
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span>
+knot of passengers lolled around the pilot-house,
+on which we were just able to discern
+the name "Evalyn, of Oshkosh," in burnished
+gilt; on the freight deck there were bales and
+boxes of merchandise, and heaps of lumber;
+two stokers were feeding cord-wood to the
+furnace flames, which lit the scene with lurid
+glare, after the fashion of theatric fires; the
+roustabouts were fastening night lanterns to
+the rails. The V-shaped wake of her wheelbarrow
+stern broke upon the shores like a
+tidal wave, and the canoe, luckily well fastened
+to the roots of a stranded tree, bobbed
+up and down as would a chip tossed on the
+billows.</p>
+
+<p>Four miles below Wrightstown is Little
+Kaukauna. There are three or four cottages
+here, well up on the pleasant western bank,
+overlooking a deserted saw-mill property;
+while just beyond, a government lock does
+duty whenever needed, and the rest of the
+now broadened stream is stemmed by a magnificent
+dam, from the foot of which arises
+a dense cloud of vapor, such is the force of
+the torrent which pours with a mighty sweep
+over the great chute. As we stole down
+upon the hamlet, the moon, a day or two past
+full, was just rising over the opposite hillocks;
+a tall pine standing out boldly from its lesser
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span>
+fellows, was weirdly silhouetted across her
+beaming face, and in the cottage windows
+lights gleamed a homely welcome.</p>
+
+<p>We were cordially received at the house of
+the patriarch of the settlement. We made
+our craft secure for the night, "toted" our
+baggage up the bank, and paused upon the
+broad porch of our new-found friend to contemplate
+a most charming moonlit view of
+river and forest and glade and cataract; the
+cloud of mist rising high above the roaring
+declivity seemed as an incense offering to
+the goddess of the night.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_219.jpg" width="450" height="146" alt="Sixth Letter Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a></p>
+
+<h2>SIXTH LETTER.</h2>
+<h2>THE BAY SETTLEMENT.</h2>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap left65">Green Bay, Wis.,</span> June 13, 1887.</p>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>y Dear W&mdash;&mdash;: We had a quiet Sunday
+at Little Kaukauna. Being a
+delightful day, we went with our entertainers
+to the country church, a mile or two back
+across the fields, and whiled away the rest
+of the time in strolling through the woods
+and gossiping with the farmers about the
+crops and the government improvement,&mdash;fertile
+themes. It appears that this diminutive
+hamlet of four or five houses anticipates a
+"boom," and there is some feverish anxiety
+as to how much village lots ought to bring as
+a "starter" when the rush actually opens.
+A syndicate has purchased the long-abandoned
+water-power, and it is whispered that paper-mills
+are to be erected, with cottages for operatives,
+and all that sort of thing. Then, the
+church and the depot will have to be brought
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span>
+into town; the proprietor of the cross-roads
+grocery, now out on the "country road," will
+be erecting a brick "block" by the river side;
+somebody will be starting a daily paper,
+printed from stereotype plates imported from
+Oshkosh or Chicago; and a summer resort
+hotel with a magnetic spring, will doubtless
+cap the climax of village greatness. I shall
+look with interest on reports from the Little
+Kaukauna boom.</p>
+
+<p>It was nine o'clock this morning before we
+dipped paddle and bore down to the lock
+gates. The good-natured tender "dropped"
+us through with much alacrity. The river
+gradually widens, and here and there the
+high rolling banks recede for some distance,
+and marshes and bayous, excellent hunting-grounds,
+border the stream. A half mile
+below the lock we noticed a roughly built hut,
+open at front, such as would quarter a pig in
+the shanty outskirts of a great city. It
+looked lonesome, on the edge of a wide bog,
+with no other sign of habitation, either human
+or animal, in the watery landscape. Curiosity
+impelled us to stop. Crossing a plank, which
+rested one end on a snag and the other on a
+stone in front of the three-sided structure, we
+peered in. A bundle of rags lay in one
+corner of the floor of loosely laid boards; in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span>
+another was a heap of clamshells, the contents
+of which had doubtless been cooked over a
+little fire which still smouldered in a neighboring
+clump of reeds. The odors were noisome,
+and a foot rise of water would have
+swamped out the dweller in this strange
+abode. We at once took it for granted that
+this was either the home of an Indian or a
+tramp. Just as we were leaving, however,
+a frowsy, dirty, but apparently good-tempered
+fisherman came rowing up and claimed the
+cabin as his home. He said that he spent
+the greater part of the year in this filthy hole,
+hunting or fishing according to the season; in
+the winter, he boarded up the front, leaving a
+hole to crawl out of, and banked the hut about
+with reeds and muck. Wrightstown was his
+market; and he "managed to scratch," he
+said, by being economical. I asked him how
+much it cost him in cash to exist in this
+state, which was but slightly removed from
+the condition of our ancestral cave-dwellers.
+He thought that with twenty-five dollars in
+cash, he could "manage to scratch finely"
+for an entire year, and have besides "a week
+off with the boys,"&mdash;in other words, one prolonged
+drinking bout,&mdash;at Wrightstown.
+He complained, however, that he seldom received
+money, being mainly put off with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span>
+barter. The poor fellow, evidently something
+of a simpleton, is probably the victim
+of sharp practice occasionally. As we
+paddled away from this singular character,
+the Doctor said that he had a novel-writing
+friend, given to the sensational, to whom he
+would like to introduce The Wild Fisherman
+of Little Kaukauna; he thought there was
+material for a romance here, particularly if it
+could be proved, as was quite possible, that
+the hut man was the lost heir of a British
+dukedom.</p>
+
+<p>But the site of another and a stranger romance
+is but half a mile farther down. The
+river there suddenly broadens into a basin,
+fully half a mile in width. To the east,
+the banks are quite abrupt. The westward
+shore is a gentle, grass-grown slope, stretching
+up beyond a charming little bay formed
+by a spit of meadow. Near the sandy beach of
+this bay a country highway passes, winding
+in and out and up and down, as it follows the
+river and the bases of the knolls. Above
+this and commanding delightful glimpses of
+forest and stream and bayou and prairie, a
+goodly hillock is crowned, some seventy-five
+feet above the water's edge, with a dark, unpainted,
+time-worn, moss-grown house, part
+log and part frame, set in a deep tangle of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span>
+lilacs and crabs. The quaint old structure is
+of the simple pioneer pattern,&mdash;a story and
+a half, with gables on the north and south
+ends of the main part; and a small transverse
+wing to the rear, with connecting rooms.
+The ancient picket gate creaks on its one
+rusty hinge. The front door has the appearance
+of being nailed up, and across its frame
+a dozen fat spiders, most successful of fly
+fishers, have stretched their gluey nets. The
+path, once leading thither, is now o'ergrown
+with grass and lilacs, while in the surrounding
+snarl of weeds and poplar suckers are seen
+the blossoming remnants of peonies, and a
+few old-fashioned garden shrubs.</p>
+
+<p>The ground is historic. The house is an
+ancient landmark. It was the old home of
+Eleazar Williams, in his day Episcopal missionary
+and pretender to the throne of France.
+Williams was the reputed son of a mixed-blood
+couple of the Mohawk band of Indians;
+in early life, he claimed to have been born in
+the vicinity of Montreal, in 1792. A bright
+youth, he was educated for the ministry of
+the Protestant Episcopal church and sent as a
+missionary in 1816-1817 to the Oneida Indians,
+then located in Oneida county, New
+York. During the war of 1812, he had been
+employed as a spy by the American authorities
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span>
+to trace the movements of British troops in
+Canada. Williams, from the first, became
+engaged in intrigues among the New York
+Indians, and was the originator of the movement
+which resulted, in 1822, in the purchase
+by the war department of a large strip of
+land from the Menomonees and Winnebagoes,
+along the Lower Fox River, and the
+removal hither of several of the New York
+bands, accompanied by the scheming priest.
+But the result was jealousy between the newcomers
+and the original tribes, with sixteen
+years of confusion and turmoil, during which
+Congress was frequently engaged in settling
+the squabbles that arose. Williams's original
+idea was said, by those who knew him best,
+to be the "total subjugation of the whole
+[Green Bay] country and the establishment
+of an Indian government, of which he was to
+be sole dictator."<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>But his purpose failed. He came to be
+recognized as an unscrupulous fellow, and the
+majority of the whites and Indians on the
+Lower Fox, as well as his clerical brethren,
+regarded him with contempt. In 1853, Williams,
+baffled in every other field of notoriety
+which he had worked, suddenly posed before
+the American public as Louis XVII., hereditary
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span>
+sovereign of France. Upon the downfall
+of the Bourbons in 1792, you will remember
+that Louis XVI. and his queen, Marie Antoinette,
+were beheaded, while their son, the
+dauphin Louis, an imbecile child of eight,
+was cast into the temple tower by the revolutionists.
+It is officially recorded that after an
+imprisonment of two years the dauphin died
+in the tower and was buried. But the story
+was started and popularly believed, that the
+real dauphin had been abducted by the royalists
+and another child cunningly substituted
+to die there in the dauphin's place. The story
+went that the dauphin had been sent to
+America and all traces of him lost, thus giving
+any adventurer of the requisite age and sufficiently
+obscure birth, opportunity to seek such
+honor as might be gained in claiming identity
+with the escaped prisoner. Williams was too
+young by eight years to be the dauphin;
+he was clearly of Indian extraction,&mdash;a fair
+type of the half-breed, in color, form, and
+feature. But he succeeded in deceiving a
+number of good people, including several
+leading doctors in his church; while an Episcopal
+clergyman named John H. Hanson
+attempted, in two articles in "Putnam's Magazine,"
+in 1853, and afterwards in an elaborate
+book, "The Lost Prince," to prove conclusively
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span>
+to the world that Williams was indeed
+the son of the executed monarch. While
+those who really knew Williams treated his
+claims as fraudulent, and his dusky father and
+mother protested under oath that Eleazar was
+their son, and every allegation of Williams, in
+the premises, had been often exposed as false,
+there were still many who believed in him.
+The excitement attracted attention in France.
+One or two royalists came over to see Williams,
+but left disappointed; and Louis Philippe
+sent him a present of some finely bound
+books, believing him to be the innocent victim
+of a delusion. Williams died in 1858, keeping
+up his absurd pretensions to the last.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this house near Little Kaukauna
+that Williams lived for so many years, managing
+and preaching to his scattered flock of
+immigrant Indians, and forever seeking some
+sort of especially profitable employment, such
+as accompanying tribal delegations to Washington,
+or acting as special commissioner at
+government payments. In the earliest days,
+the house was situated on the spit of meadow
+I have previously spoken of; but when the
+dam at Depere raised the water, the frame
+was carried to this higher position.</p>
+
+<p>Williams's wife, an octoroon, whose portrait
+shows her to have been a thick-set, stolid sort
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span>
+of woman, died here, a year ago, and is buried
+hard by. The present occupants of the house
+are Mary Garritty, an Indian woman of sixty-five
+years, and her half-breed daughter,
+Josephine Penney, who in turn has an infant
+child of two. Mary was reared by the
+Williamses, and told us many a curious story
+of life at the "agency," as she called it, during
+the time when "Mr. Williams and Ma" were
+alive. Josephine, who confided to me that
+she was thirty years old, was regularly
+adopted by Mrs. Williams, for whose memory
+both women seem to have a very strong respect.
+What little personal property was left
+by the old woman goes to her grandchildren,
+intelligent and well-educated Oshkosh citizens,
+but Josephine has the sandy farm of sixty-five
+acres. She took me into the attic to exhibit
+such relics of the alleged dauphin as
+had not been disposed of by the administrator
+of the estate. There were a hundred or
+two mice-eaten volumes, mainly theological
+and school text-books; several old volumes of
+sermons,&mdash;for Eleazar is said to have considered
+it better taste in him to copy a discourse
+from an approved authority than to
+endeavor to compose one that would not satisfy
+him half as well; a boxful of manuscript
+odds and ends, chiefly letters, Indian glossaries
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span>
+and copied sermons; two or three
+leather-bound trunks, a copper tea-kettle used
+by him upon his long boat journeys, and a
+pair of antiquated brass candlesticks.</p>
+
+<p>Then we descended to the old orchard.
+Mary pointed out the spot, a rod or two south
+of the dwelling, where Williams had his library
+and mission-office in a log-house that has
+long since been removed for firewood. In
+this cabin, which had floor dimensions of fifteen
+by twenty feet, Williams met his Indian
+friends and transacted business with them.
+Mary, in her querulous tone, said that in those
+days the place abounded with Indians, night
+and day, and as they always expected to be
+fed, she had her hands full attending to their
+wants. "There wa'n't no peace at all, sir,
+so long as Mr. Williams were here; when he
+were gone there wa'n't so many of them, an'
+we got a rest, which I were mighty thankful
+for." Garrulous Mary, in her moccasins and
+blanket skirt, with a complexion like brown
+parchment and as wrinkled,&mdash;almost a full-blood
+herself,&mdash;has lived so long apart from
+her people that she appears to have forgotten
+her race, and inveighed right vigorously
+against the unthrifty and beggarly habits
+of the aborigines. "I hate them pesky
+Indians," she cried in a burst of righteous
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span>
+indignation, and then turned to croon over
+Josephine's baby, as veritable a "little
+Indian boy" as I ever met with in a forest
+wigwam. "He's a fine feller, isn't he?"
+she cried, as she chucked her grandson
+under the chin; "some says as he looks like
+Mr. Williams, sir." The Doctor, who is a
+judge of babies, declared, in a professional
+tone that did not admit of contradiction, that
+the infant was, indeed, a fine specimen of
+humanity.</p>
+
+<p>And thus we left the two women in a most
+contented frame of mind, and descended to
+the beach, bearing with us Josephine's parting
+salute, shouted from the garden gate,&mdash;"Call
+agin, whene'er ye pass this way!"</p>
+
+<p>Depere is five miles below. The banks
+are bold as far as there; but beyond, they
+flatten out into gently sloping meadows, varied
+here and there by the re-approach of a
+high ridge on the eastern shore,&mdash;the western
+getting to be quite marshy by the time
+Fort Howard is reached.</p>
+
+<p>At Depere are the first rapids of the Fox,
+the fall being about twelve feet. From the
+earliest period recorded by the French
+explorers, there was a polyglot Indian settlement
+upon the portage-trail, and in December,
+1669, the Jesuit missionary Allouez
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span>
+established St. Francis Xavier mission here,
+the locality being henceforth styled "Rapide
+des Peres." It was from this station that
+Allouez, Dablon, Joliet, and Marquette started
+upon their memorable canoe voyages up the
+Fox, in search of benighted heathen and the
+Mississippi River. For over a century Rapide
+des Peres was a prominent landmark in Northwestern
+history. The Depere of to-day is a
+solid-looking town, with an iron furnace, saw-mills,
+and other industries; and after a long
+period of stagnation is experiencing a healthy
+business revival.</p>
+
+<p>Unable to find the tender at this the last lock
+on our course, we portaged after the manner
+of old-time canoeists, and set out upon the
+home stretch of six miles. Green Bay, upon
+the eastern bank and Fort Howard upon the
+western, were well in view; and, it being not
+past two o'clock in the afternoon of a cool
+and somewhat cloudy day, we allowed the
+current to be our chief propeller, only now
+and then using the paddles to keep our bark
+well in the main current.</p>
+
+<p>The many pretty residences of South Green
+Bay, including the ruins of Navarino, Astor,
+and Shanty Town, are situated well up on an
+attractive sloping ridge; but the land soon
+drops to an almost swampy level, upon which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span>
+the greater portion of the business quarter is
+built. Opposite, Fort Howard with her mills
+and coal-docks skirts a wide-spreading bog,
+much of the flat, sleepy old town being built
+on a foundation of saw-mill offal. Historically,
+both sides of the river may be practically
+treated as the old "Bay Settlement" for two
+and a half centuries one of the most conspicuous
+outposts of American civilization.
+Here came savage-trained Nicolet, exploring
+agent of Champlain, in 1634, when Plymouth
+colony was still in swaddling-clothes. It was
+the day when the China Sea was supposed
+to be somewhere in the neighborhood of the
+Great Lakes. Nicolet had heard that at Green
+Bay he would meet a strange people, who had
+come from beyond "a great water" to the
+west. He was therefore prepared to meet
+here a colony of Chinamen or Japanese, if
+indeed Green Bay were not the Orient itself.
+His mistake was a natural one. The "strange
+people" were Winnebago Indians. A branch
+of the Dakotahs, or Sioux, a distinct race from
+the Algonquins, they forced themselves across
+the Mississippi River, up the Wisconsin, and
+down the Fox, to Green Bay, entering the Algonquin
+territory like a wedge, and forever
+after maintaining their foothold upon this interlocked
+water highway. "The great water,"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span>
+supposed by Nicolet to mean the China Sea,
+was the Mississippi River, beyond which barrier
+the Dakotah race held full sway. As he
+approached, one of his Huron guides was sent
+forward to herald his coming. Landing near
+the mouth of the river, he attired himself in a
+gorgeous damask gown, decorated with gayly
+colored birds and flowers, expecting to meet
+mandarins who would be similarly dressed.
+A horde of four or five thousand naked savages
+greeted him. He advanced, discharging
+the pistols which he held in either hand, and
+women and children fled in terror from the
+manitou who carried with him lightning and
+thunder.</p>
+
+<p>The mouth of the Fox was always a favorite
+rallying-point for the savages of this section of
+the Northwest, and many a notable council has
+been held here between tribes of painted red
+men and Jesuits, traders, explorers, and military
+officers. Being the gateway of one of
+the two great routes to the Mississippi, many
+notable exploring and military expeditions
+have rested here; and French, English, and
+Americans in turn have maintained forts to
+protect the interests of territorial possession
+and the fur-trade.</p>
+
+<p>Here it was that a white man first set foot
+on Wisconsin soil; and here, also, in 1745,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span>
+the De Langlades, first permanent settlers of
+the Badger State, reared their log cabins and
+initiated a semblance of white man's civilization.
+Green Bay, now hoary with age, has
+had an eventful, though not stirring history.
+For a hundred years she was a distributing-point
+for the fur-trade.</p>
+
+<p>The descendants of the De Langlades, the
+Grignons and other colonists of nearly a century
+and a half standing, are still on the spot;
+and the gossip of the hour among the <i>voyageurs</i>
+and old traders still left among us is of
+John Jacob Astor, Ramsay Crooks, Robert
+Stuart, Major Twiggs, and other characters
+of the early years of our century, whose names
+are well known to frontier history. The creole
+quarter of this ancient town, shiftless and improvident
+to-day as it always has been, lives
+in an atmosphere hazy with poetic glamour,
+reveling in the recollection of a once festive,
+half-savage life, when the <i>courier de bois</i> and
+the <i>engagé</i> were in the ascendency at this forest
+outpost, and the fur-trade the be-all and
+end-all of commercial enterprise. Your <i>voyageur</i>,
+scratching a painful living for a hybrid
+brood from his meager potato patch, bemoans
+the day when Yankee progressiveness dammed
+the Fox for Yankee saw-mills, into whose insatiable
+maws were swept the forests of his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span>
+youth, and remembers nought but the sweets
+of his early calling among his boon companions,
+the denizens of the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>In Shanty Town, Astor, and Navarino there
+yet remain many dwellings and trading warehouses
+of the olden time,&mdash;unpainted, gaunt,
+poverty-stricken, but with their hand-hewed
+skeletons of oak still intact beneath the rags
+of a century's decay. A hundred years is a
+period quite long enough in our land to warrant
+the brand of antiquity, although a mere
+nothing in the prolonged career of the Old
+World. In the rapidly developing West, a
+hundred years and less mark the gap between
+a primeval wilderness and a complete
+civilization. Time, like space, is, after all, but
+comparative. In these hundred years the
+Northwest has developed from nothing to
+everything. It is as great a period, judging
+by results, as ten centuries in Europe,&mdash;perhaps
+fifteen. America is said to have no
+history. On the contrary, it has the most
+romantic of histories; but it has lived faster
+and crowded more and greater deeds into the
+past hundred years than slow-going Europe
+in the last ten hundred. The American centenarian
+of to-day is older by far than the
+fabled Methuselah.</p>
+
+<p>Green Bay, classic in her shanty ruins, has
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span>
+been somewhat halting in her advance, for the
+creoles hamper progressiveness. But as the
+<i>voyageurs</i> and their immediate progeny
+gradually pass away, the community creeps
+out from the shadow of the past and
+asserts itself. The ancient town appears to
+be taking on a new and healthy growth, in
+strange contrast to the severe and battered
+architecture of frontier times. Socially,
+Green Bay is delightful. There are many old
+families, whose founders were engaged in
+superintending the fur-trade and transportation
+lines, or holding government office,
+civil or military, at the wilderness post. This
+element, well educated and reared in comfort,
+gives a tone of dignified, old-school hospitality
+to the best society,&mdash;it is the Knickerbocker
+Colony of the Bay Settlement.</p>
+
+<p>At four o'clock we pushed into a canal in
+front of the Fort Howard railway depot, and
+half an hour later had crossed the bridge and
+were registered at a Green Bay hotel. The
+Doctor, called home to resume the humdrum
+of his hospital life, will leave for the South
+to-morrow noon. I shall remain here for a
+week, reposing in the shades of antiquity.</p>
+
+<h2 class="p6">THE WISCONSIN RIVER.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a></span></h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_238.jpg" width="450" height="137" alt="Wisconsin Chapter 1 Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a></p>
+
+<h2>THE WISCONSIN RIVER.</h2>
+<hr class="l15" />
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h2>ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">O</span>ur watches, for a wonder, coincided
+on Monday afternoon, Aug. 22, 1887.
+This phenomenon is so rare that <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> made
+a note in her diary to the effect that for
+once in its long career my time-piece was
+right. It was five minutes past two. The
+place was the beach at Portage, just below
+the old red wagon-bridge which here spans
+the gloomy Wisconsin. A teamster had
+hauled us, our canoe, and our baggage from
+the depot to the verge of a sand-bank; and
+we had dragged our faithful craft down
+through a tangle of sand-burrs and tin cans
+to the water's edge, and packed the locker for
+its third and final voyage of the season. A
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span>
+German housewife, with red kerchief, cap, and
+tucked-up skirt, stood out in the water on the
+edge of a gravel-spit, engaged in her weekly
+wrestle with the family wash,&mdash;a picturesque,
+foreign-looking scene. On the summit of a
+sandy promontory to our left, two other German
+housewives leaned over a pig-yard fence
+and gazed intently down at these strange
+preparations. Back of us were the wooded
+sand-drifts of Portage, once a famous camping-ground
+of the Winnebagoes; before us, the
+dark, treacherous river, with its shallows and
+its mysterious depths; beyond that, great
+stretches of sand-fields thick-strewn with willow
+forests and, three or four miles away,
+the forbidding range of the Baraboo Bluffs,
+veiled in the heavy mist which was rapidly
+closing upon the valley.</p>
+
+<p>We feared that we were booked for a stormy
+trip, as we pushed out into the bubble-strewn
+current and found that a cold east wind was
+blowing over the flats and rowing-jackets were
+essential.</p>
+
+<p>Portage City, a town of twenty-five hundred
+inhabitants, occupies the southeastern bank
+for a mile down. Like Green Bay and Prairie
+du Chien, it was an outgrowth of the necessities
+of the early fur-trade. Upon the death of
+that trade it languished and for a generation
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span>
+or two was utterly stagnant. As a rural
+trading centre it has since grown into a state
+of fair prosperity, although the presence of
+many of the old-time buildings of the Indian
+traders and transporters gives to much of the
+town a sadly decayed appearance. For two
+or three miles we had Portage in view, down
+a straight course, until at last the thickening
+mist hid the time-worn houses from view, and
+we were fairly on our way down the historic
+Wisconsin, in the wake of Joliet and Marquette,
+who first traversed this highway to the
+Mississippi, two hundred and fourteen years
+ago.</p>
+
+<p>Marquette, in the journal of his memorable
+voyage, says of the Wisconsin, "It is very
+broad, with a sandy bottom, forming many
+shallows, which render navigation very difficult."
+The river has been frequently described
+in the journals of later voyagers, and
+government engineers have written long reports
+upon its condition, but they have not
+bettered Marquette's comprehensive phrase.</p>
+
+<p>The general government has spent enormous
+sums in an endeavor to make the Fox-Wisconsin
+water highway practicable for the
+passage of large steam-vessels between the
+Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. It
+was of great service, in its natural state, for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span>
+the passage into the heart of the continent of
+that motley procession of priests, explorers,
+cavaliers, soldiers, trappers, and traders who
+paddled their canoes through here for nearly
+two hundred years, the pioneers of French,
+English, and American civilization in turn.
+It is still a tempting scheme, to tap the main
+artery of America, and allow modern vessels
+of burden to make the circuit between the
+lakes and the gulf. The Fox River is reasonably
+tractable, although this season the stage
+of water above Berlin has been hardly high
+enough to float a flat-boat. But the Wisconsin
+remains, despite the hundreds of wing-dams
+which line her shores, a fickle jade upon
+whom no reliance whatever can be placed.
+The current and the sand-banks shift about
+at their sweet will over a broad valley, and
+the pilot of one season would scarcely recognize
+the stream another. Navigation for
+crafts drawing over a foot of water is practically
+impossible in seasons of drought, and
+uncertain in all. A noted engineer has
+playfully said that the Wisconsin can never
+be regulated, "until the bottom is lathed and
+plastered;" and another officially reported,
+over fifteen years ago, that nothing short of
+a continuous canal along the bank, from
+Portage to Prairie du Chien, will suffice to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span>
+meet the expectations of those who favor the
+government improvement of this impossible
+highway.</p>
+
+<p>In the neighborhood of Portage, the wing-dams,&mdash;composed
+of mattresses of willow
+boughs, weighted with stone,&mdash;are in a
+reasonable degree of preservation and in
+places appear to be of some avail in contracting
+the channel. But elsewhere down the
+river, they are generally mere hindrances to
+canoeing. The current, as it caroms from
+shore to shore, pays but little heed to these
+obstructions and we often found it swiftest
+over the places where black lines of willow
+twigs bob and sway above the surface of the
+rushing water; while the channel staked out
+by the engineers was the site of a sand-field,
+studded with aspen-brush.</p>
+
+<p>It is a lonely run of an hour and a half
+down to the mouth of the Baraboo River,
+through the mazes of the wing-dams, surrounded
+by desolate bottom lands of sand and
+wooded bog. The east wind had brought a
+smart shower by the time we had arrived off
+the mouth of this northern tributary and we
+hauled up at a low, forested bank just below
+the junction, where rubber coats were
+brought out and canvas spread over the stores.
+The rain soon settled into a mere drizzle,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span>
+and <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>, ever eager in her botanical researches,
+wandered about regardless of wet
+feet, investigating the flora of the locality.
+The yellow sneeze-weed and purple iron-weed
+predominate in great clumps upon the verge
+of the bank, and lend a cheerful tone to what
+would otherwise be a desolate landscape.</p>
+
+<p>The drizzle finally ceasing, we were again
+afloat, and after shooting by scores of wing-dams
+that had been "snowed under" by shifting
+sand, and floating over others that were
+in the heart of the present channel, we came
+to Dekorra, some seven miles below Portage.
+Dekorra is a quaint little hamlet, with just
+five weather-worn houses and a blacksmith-shop
+in sight, nestled in a hollow at the base
+of a bluff on the southern bank. The river
+courses at its feet, and from the top of a naked
+cliff a ferry-wire stretches high above the
+stream and loses itself among the trees on the
+opposite bottoms. The east wind whistled a
+pretty note as it was split by the swaying
+thread, and the anvil by the smith's forge
+rang out in unison, clear as a well-toned bell.
+A crude cemetery, apparently containing far
+more graves than Dekorra's present census
+would show inhabitants, flanks the faded-out
+settlement on the shoulder of an adjoining
+hill. The road to the tattered ferry-boat,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span>
+rotting on the beach, gave but little evidence
+of recent use, for Dekorra is a relic.</p>
+
+<p>The valley of the Wisconsin is from three
+to five miles broad, flanked on either side,
+below the Portage, by an undulating range of
+imposing bluffs, from one hundred and fifty
+to three hundred and fifty feet in height.
+They are heavily wooded, as a rule, although
+there is much variety,&mdash;pleasant grass-grown
+slopes; naked, water-washed escarpments,
+rising sheer above the stream; terraced hills,
+with eroded faces, ascending in a regular succession
+of benches to the cliff-like tops; steep
+uplands, either covered with a dense and regular
+growth of forest, or shattered by fire
+or tornado. The ravines and pocket-fields
+between the bluffs are often of exceeding
+beauty, especially when occupied by a modest
+little village,&mdash;or better, by some small settler,
+whose outlet to the country beyond the edge
+of his mountain basin may be seen threading
+the woodlands which tower above him, or zigzagging
+through a neighboring pass, worn
+deep by some impatient spring torrent in a
+hurry to reach the river level.</p>
+
+<p>Between these ranges stretches a wide expanse
+of bottoms, either bog or sand plain,
+over all of which the river flows at high
+water, and through which the swift current
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span>
+twists and bounds like a serpent in agony,
+constantly cutting out new channels and filling
+up the old, obeying laws of its own, ever defying
+the calculations of pilots and engineers.
+As it thus sweeps along, wherever its fancy
+listeth, here to-day and there to-morrow, it
+forms innumerable islands which greatly add
+to the picturesqueness of the view. Now and
+then there are two or three parallel channels,
+running along for miles before they join, perplexing
+the traveler with a labyrinth of water
+paths. These islands are often mere sandbars,
+sometimes as barren as Sahara, again
+thick-grown with willows and seedling aspens;
+but for the most part they are well-wooded,
+their banks gay with the season's flowers, and
+luxuriant vines hanging in deep festoons from
+the trees which overhang the flood. At their
+heads, often high up among the branches of
+the elms, are great masses of driftwood, the
+remains of shattered lumber-rafts or saw-mill
+offal from the great northern pineries, evidencing
+the height of the spring flood which
+so often converts the Wisconsin into an
+Amazon.</p>
+
+<p>Because of this spreading habit of the
+stream, the few villages along the way are
+planted on the higher land at the base of the
+bluffs, or on an occasional sandy pocket-plateau
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span>
+which the river, as in ages past it has
+worn its bed to lower levels, has left high
+and dry above present overflows. Some of
+these towns, in their fear of floods, are situated
+two or three miles back from the water
+highway; others, where the channel chances
+to closely hug a line of bluffs, are directly abutting
+the river, which is crossed at such points
+by either a ferry or a toll-bridge.</p>
+
+<p>Desolate as is the prospect from Dekorra's
+front door, we found the limestone cliff there,
+a mine of attractiveness. The river has
+worn miniature caves and grottoes in its
+base; at the mouths of several of these there
+are little rocky beaches, whose overhanging
+walls are flecked with ferns, lichens, and
+graceful columbines.</p>
+
+<p>At six o'clock that evening, in the midst of
+a dispiriting Scotch mist, we disembarked
+upon the northern bank, at the foot of a
+wooded bluff, and prepared to settle for the
+night. Fortunately, we had advance knowledge
+of the sparseness of settlement along
+the river, and had come with a tent and a
+cooking outfit, prepared for camping in case
+of need. Upon a rocky bench, fifty feet up
+from the water, we stretched a rope between
+two trees, to serve in lieu of a ridge-pole, and
+pitched our canvas domicile. It was a lonesome
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span>
+spot which we had chosen for our night's
+halt. Owing to the configuration of the bluffs,
+it was unlikely that any person dwelt within
+a mile of us on our shore. Across the valley,
+we looked over several miles of bottom woods,
+while far up on the opposite slopes could just
+be discerned the gables of two white farm-houses,
+peering out from a wilderness of trees
+stretching far and wide, till its limits were
+lost in the gathering fog.</p>
+
+<p>It was pitchy dark by the time we had completed
+our camping arrangements, and <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+announced that the coffee was boiling over.
+I fancy we two must have presented a rather
+forlorn appearance, as we crouched at our
+evening meal around the sputtering little fire,
+clad in heavy jackets and rubber coats, for
+the atmosphere was raw and clammy. The
+wood was wet, and the shifting gusts would
+persist in blowing the smoke in our eyes,
+whichever position we took. Every falling
+bough, or rustle of a water-laden sapling, was
+suggestive of tramps or of inquisitive hogs or
+cattle, for we knew not what neighbors we
+had; many a time we paused, and peering
+out into the black night, listened intently for
+further developments. And then the strange
+noises from the river, unnoticed during daylight,
+were not conducive to mental ease,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span>
+when we nervously associated them with
+roving fishermen, or perhaps tramps, attracted
+by our light from the opposite shore. Sometimes
+we felt positive that we heard the
+muffled creak of oars, fast approaching; then
+would come loud splashes and gurgles, and
+ever and anon it would seem as if some one
+were slapping the water with a board. Now
+near, now far away, approaching and receding
+by turns, these mysterious sounds continued
+through the night, occasionally relieved by
+moments of absolute silence. We afterward
+discovered that these were the customary
+refrains sung by the gay tide, as it washed
+over the wing-dams, swished around the sandbanks,
+and dashed against great snags and
+island heads.</p>
+
+<p>But we did not know this then, and a certain
+uneasy lonesomeness overcame us as
+strangers to the scene; and I must confess
+that, despite our philosophizing, there was
+but little sleep for us that first camp out.
+A neglect to procure straw to soften our
+rocky couches, and a woful insufficiency of
+bed-clothing for a phenomenally cold August
+night, added to our manifold discomforts.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_249.jpg" width="450" height="145" alt="Wisconsin Chapter II Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE LAST OF THE SACS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">D</span>awn came at five, and none too soon.
+But after thawing out over the breakfast
+fire and draining the coffee-pot dry, we
+were wondrously rejuvenated; and as we
+struck camp, were right merry between ourselves
+over the foolish nervousness of the
+night. There was still a raw northwest wind,
+but the clouds soon broke, and when, at half-past
+six, we again pushed out into the swift-flowing
+stream, it was evident that the day
+would be bright and comfortably cool.</p>
+
+<p>We had some splendid vistas of bluff-girt
+scenery this morning, especially near Merrimac,
+where some of the elevations are the
+highest along the river. There are a score
+of houses at Merrimac, which is the point
+where the Chicago and Northwestern railway
+crosses, over an immense iron bridge 1736
+feet long, spanning two broad channels and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span>
+the sand island which divides them. The
+village is on a rolling plateau some fifty feet
+above the water level, on the northern side.
+Climbing up to the bridge-tender's house, that
+one-armed veteran of the spans, whose service
+here is as old as the bridge, told me that it
+was seldom indeed the river highway was
+used in these days. "The railroads kill this
+here water business," he said.</p>
+
+<p>I found the tender to be something of a
+philosopher. Most bridge-tenders and fishermen,
+and others who pursue lonely occupations
+and have much spare time on their
+hands, are philosophers. That their speculations
+are sometimes cloudy does not detract
+from their local reputation of being deep
+thinkers. The Merrimac tender was given
+to geology, I found, and some of his ideas
+concerning the origin of the bluffs and the
+glacial streaks, and all that sort of thing,
+would create marked attention in any scientific
+journal. He had some original notions,
+too, about the habits of the stream above
+which he had almost hourly walked, day and
+night, the seasons round, for sixteen long
+years. The ice invariably commenced to
+form on the bottom of the river, he stoutly
+claimed, and then rose to the surface,&mdash;the
+ingenious reason given for this remarkable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span>
+phenomenon being that the underlying sand
+was colder than the water. These and other
+novel results of his observation, our philosophical
+friend good-humoredly communicated,
+together with scraps of local tradition
+regarding the Black Hawk War, and lurid
+tales of the old lumber-raft days. At last,
+however, his hour came for walking the spans,
+and we descended to our boat. As we shot
+into the main channel, far above us a red flag
+fluttered from the draw, and we knew it to be
+the parting salute of the grizzled sentinel.</p>
+
+<p>At the head of an island half a mile below,
+it is said there are the remains of an Indian
+fort. We landed with some difficulty, for the
+current sweeps by its wooded shore with particular
+zest. Our examination of the locality,
+however, revealed no other earth lines than
+might have been formed by a rushing flood.
+But as a reward for our endeavors, we found
+the lobelia cardinalis in wonderful profusion,
+mingled in striking contrast of color with
+the iron and sneeze weeds, and the common
+spurge. The prickly ash, with its little scarlet
+berry, was common upon this as upon other
+islands, and the elms were of remarkable
+size.</p>
+
+<p>We were struck, as we passed along where
+the river chanced to wash the feet of steepy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span>
+slopes, with the peculiar ridging of the turf.
+The water having undermined these banks,
+the friable soil upon their shoulders had slid,
+regularly breaking the sod into long horizontal
+strips a foot or two wide, the white
+sand gleaming between the rows of rusty
+green. Sometimes the shores were thus
+striped with zebra-like regularity for miles
+together, presenting a very singular and artificial
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Prominent features of the morning's voyage,
+also, were deep bowlder-strewn and often
+heavily wooded ravines running down from
+the bluffs. Although perfectly dry at this
+season, it can be seen that they are the beds
+of angry torrents in the spring, and many a
+poor farmer's field is deeply cut with such
+gulches, which rapidly grow in this light soil
+as the years go on. We stopped at one such
+farm, and walked up the great breach to very
+near the house, up to which we clambered,
+over rocks and through sand-burrs and thickets,
+being met at the gate by a noisy dog, that
+appeared to be suspicious of strangers who
+approached his master's castle by means of
+the covered way. The farmer's wife, as she
+supplied us with exquisite dairy products,
+said that the metes and bounds of their little
+domain were continually changing; four acres
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span>
+of their best meadow had been washed out
+within two years, their wood-lot was being
+gradually undermined, and the ravine was
+eating into their ploughed land with the persistence
+of a cancer. On the other hand, her
+sister's acres, down the river a mile or two,
+on the other bank, were growing in extent.
+However, she thought their "luck would
+change one of these seasons," and the river
+swish off upon another tangent.</p>
+
+<p>Upon returning by the gully, we found that
+its sunny, sloping walls, where not wooded
+with willows and oak saplings, were resplendent
+with floral treasures, chief among them
+being the gerardia, golden-rod in several varieties,
+tall white asters, a blue lobelia, and vervain,
+while the seeds of the Oswego tea, prairie
+clover, bed-straw, and wild roses were in
+all the glory of ripeness. There was a broad,
+pebbly beach at the base of the torrent's
+bed, thick-grown with yearling willows. A
+stranded pine-log, white with age and worn
+smooth by a generation of storms, lay firmly
+imbedded among the shingle. The temperature
+was still low enough to induce us to
+court the sunshine, and, leaning against this
+hoary castaway from the far North, we sat
+for a while and basked in the radiant smiles
+of Sol.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Prairie du Sac, thirty miles below Portage,
+is historically noted as the site for several
+generations of the chief village of the Sac Indians.
+Some of the earliest canoeists over this
+water-route, in the seventeenth and eighteenth
+centuries, describe the aboriginal community
+in some detail. The dilapidated white village
+of to-day numbers but four hundred and
+fifty inhabitants,&mdash;about one-fourth of the
+population assigned to the old red-skin town.
+The "prairie" is an oak-opening plateau, more
+or less fertile, at the base of the northern range
+of bluffs, which here takes a sudden sweep
+inland for three or four miles.</p>
+
+<p>The Sacs had deserted this basin plain by
+the close of the eighteenth century, and taken
+up their chief quarters in the neighborhood
+of Rock Island, near the mouth of Rock
+River, in close proximity to their allies, the
+Foxes, who now kept watch and ward over
+the west bank of the Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>By a strange fatality it chanced that in the
+last days of July, 1832, the deluded Sac
+leader, Black Hawk, flying from the wrath of
+the Illinois and Wisconsin militiamen, under
+Henry and Dodge, chose this seat of the
+ancient power of his tribe to be one of the
+scenes of that fearful tragedy which proved
+the death-blow to Sac ambition. Black Hawk,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span>
+after long hiding in the morasses of the Rock
+above Lake Koshkonong, suddenly flew from
+cover, hoping to cross the Wisconsin River
+at Prairie du Sac, and by plunging across the
+mountainous country over a trail known to
+the Winnebagoes, who played fast and loose
+with him as with the whites, to get beyond the
+Mississippi in quiet, as he had been originally
+ordered to do. His retreat was discovered when
+but a day old; and the militiamen hurried on
+through the Jefferson swamps and the forests
+of the Four Lake country, harrying the fugitives
+in the rear. At the summit of the Wisconsin
+Heights, on the south bank, overlooking
+this old Sac plain on the north, Black Hawk
+and his rear-guard stood firm, to allow the
+women and children and the majority of his
+band of two thousand to cross the intervening
+bottoms and the island-strewn river.
+The unfortunate leader sat upon a white horse
+on the summit of the peak now called by his
+name, and shouted directions to his handful
+of braves. The movements of the latter were
+well executed, and Black Hawk showed good
+generalship; but the militiamen were also
+well handled, and had superior supplies of
+ammunition, so when darkness fell the fated
+ravine and the wooded bottoms below were
+strewn with Indian bodies, and victory was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span>
+with the whites. During the night the surviving
+fugitives, now ragged, foot-sore, and starving,
+crossed the river by swimming. A party
+of fifty or so, chiefly non-combatants, made a
+raft, and floated down the Wisconsin, to be
+slaughtered near its mouth by a detail of
+regulars and Winnebagoes from Prairie du
+Chien; but the mass of the party flying westward
+in hot haste over the prairie of the Sacs,
+headed for the Mississippi. They lined their
+rugged path with the dead and dying victims
+of starvation and despair, and a sorry lot these
+people were when the Bad Axe was finally
+reached, and the united army of regulars and
+militiamen under Atkinson, Henry, and Dodge,
+overtook them. The "battle" there was a
+slaughter of weaklings. But few escaped
+across the great river, and the bloodthirsty
+Sioux despatched nearly all of those.</p>
+
+<p>Black Hawk was surrendered by the servile
+Winnebagoes, and after being exhibited in the
+Eastern cities, he was turned over to the besotted
+Keokuk for safe-keeping. He died, this
+last of the Sacs, poor, foolish old man, a few
+years later; and his bones, stolen for an Iowa
+museum, were cremated twenty years after
+in a fire which destroyed that institution. A
+sad history is that of this once famous people.
+We glory over the stately progress of the white
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span>
+man's civilization, but if we venture to examine
+with care the paths of that progress, we find
+our imperial chariot to be as the car of
+Juggernaut.</p>
+
+<p>The view from the house verandas which
+overhang the high bank at Prairie du Sac, is
+superb. Eastward a half mile away, the
+grand, corrugated bluffs of Black Hawk and
+the Sugar Loaf tower to a height of over
+three hundred feet above the river level;
+while their lesser companions, heavily forested,
+continue the range, north and south,
+as far as the eye can reach. The river
+crosses the foreground with a majestic sweep,
+while for several miles to the west and southwest
+stretches the wooded plain, backed by
+a curved line of gloomy hills which complete
+the rim of the basin.</p>
+
+<p>A mile below, on the same plain, is Sauk
+City, a shabby town of about a thousand inhabitants.
+A spur track of the Chicago, Milwaukee,
+and St. Paul railway runs up here from
+Mazomanie, crossing the river, which is nearly
+half a mile wide, on an iron bridge. A large
+and prosperous brewery appears to be the
+chief industry of the place. Slaughter-houses
+abut upon the stream, in the very centre of the
+village. These and the squalid back-door
+yards which run down to the bank do not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span>
+make up an attractive picture to the canoeist.
+River towns differ very much in this respect.
+Some of them present a neat front to the
+water thoroughfare, with flower-gardens and
+well-kept yards and street-ends, while others
+regard the river as a sewer and the banks as
+a common dumping ground, giving the traveler
+by boat a view of filth, disorder, and
+general unsightliness which is highly repulsive.
+I have often found, on landing at some
+villages of this latter class, that the dwellings
+and business blocks which, riverward, are
+sad spectacles of foulness and unthrift, have
+quite pretentious fronts along the land highway
+which the townsfolk patronize. It is as
+if some fair dame, who prided herself on her
+manners and costume, had rags beneath
+her fine silks, and unwashed hands within her
+dainty gloves. This coming in at the back
+door of river towns reveals many a secret of
+sham.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fine run down to Arena ferry,
+thirteen miles below Sauk City. The skies
+had become leaden and the atmosphere gray,
+and the sparse, gnarled poplars on some of
+the storm-swept bluffs had a ghostly effect.
+Here and there, fires had blasted the mountainous
+slopes, and a light aspen growth was
+hastening to garb with vivid green the blackened
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span>
+ruins. But the general impression was
+that of dark, gloomy forests of oak, linden,
+maple, and elms, on both upland and bottom;
+with now and then a noble pine cresting a
+shattered cliff.</p>
+
+<p>There were fitful gleams of sunshine, during
+which the temperature was as high as
+could be comfortably tolerated; but the
+northwest wind swept sharply down through
+the ravines, and whenever the heavens became
+overcast, jackets were at once essential.</p>
+
+<p>The islands became more frequent, as we
+progressed. Many of them are singularly
+beautiful. The swirling current gradually
+undermines their bases, causing the trees
+to topple toward the flood, with many graceful
+effects of outline, particularly when viewed
+above the island head. And the colors, too,
+at this season, are charmingly variegated.
+The sapping of a tree's foundations brings early
+decay; and the maples, especially, are thus
+early in the season gay with the autumnal
+tints of gold and wine and purple, objects of
+striking beauty for miles away. Under the
+arches of the toppling trees, and inside the
+lines of snags which mark the islet's former
+limits, the current goes swishing through,
+white with bubbles and dancing foam. Crouching
+low, to escape the twigs, one can have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span>
+enchanting rides beneath these bowers, and
+catch rare glimpses of the insulated flora on
+the swift-passing banks. The stately spikes
+of the cardinal lobelia fairly dazzle the eye
+with their gleaming color; and great masses
+of brilliant yellow sneeze-weed and the deep
+purple of the iron-weed present a symphony
+which would delight a disciple of Whistler.
+Thus are the islands ever being destroyed and
+new ones formed. Those bottom lands, over
+there, where great forests are rooted, will
+have their turn yet, and the buffeted sand-bars
+of to-day given a restful chance to become
+bottoms. The game of shuttlecock and battledoor
+has been going on in this dark and
+awesome gorge since Heaven knows when.
+Man's attempt to control its movements seem
+puny indeed.</p>
+
+<p>At six o'clock that evening we had arrived
+at the St. Paul railway bridge at Helena.
+The tender and his wife are a hospitable
+couple, and we engaged quarters in their cosy
+home at the southern end of the bridge. Mrs.
+<span class="nowrp">P&mdash;&mdash;</span> has a delightful flower-garden, which
+looks like an oasis in the wilderness of sand
+and bog thereabout. Twenty-three years ago,
+when these worthy people first took charge
+of the bridge, the earth for this walled-in
+beauty spot was imported by rail from a more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span>
+fertile valley than the Wisconsin; and here
+the choicest of bulbs and plants are grown
+with rare floricultural skill, and the trainmen
+all along the division are resplendent in
+button-hole bouquets, the year round, products
+of the bridge-house bower at Helena.
+<span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> and Mrs. <span class="nowrp">P&mdash;&mdash;</span> at once struck up an
+enthusiastic botanical friendship.</p>
+
+<p>Bridge houses are generally most forlorn
+specimens of railway architecture, and have
+a barricaded look, as though tramps were altogether
+too frequent along the route, and
+occasionally made trouble for the watchers of
+the ties. This one, originally forbidding
+enough, has been transformed into a winsome
+vine-clad home, gay with ivies, Madeira vines,
+and passion, moon, and trumpet flowers, covering
+from view the professional dull green
+affected by "the company's" boss painter.
+The made garden, to one side, was choking
+with a wealth of bedding plants and greenhouse
+rarities of every hue and shape of
+blossom and leaf.</p>
+
+<p>A dozen feet below the railroad level,
+spread wide morasses and sand patches,
+thick grown with swamp elms and willows.
+Down the track, a half mile to the south,
+Helena's fifty inhabitants are grouped in a
+dozen faded dwellings. Three miles westward,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span>
+across the river, is the pretty and
+flourishing village of Spring Green.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to say that in the isolated
+home of these lovers of flowers, we had
+comfortable quarters. <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> said that it
+was very much like putting up at Rudder
+Grange.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_263.jpg" width="450" height="142" alt="Wisconsin Chapter III Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+<h2>A PANORAMIC VIEW.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he fog on the river was so thick, next
+morning, that objects four rods away
+were not visible. To navigate among the
+snags and shallows under such conditions
+was impossible. But <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> closely investigated
+the garden while waiting for the
+mist to rise, and Mr. <span class="nowrp">P&mdash;&mdash;</span> entertained me
+with intelligent reminiscences of his long
+experience here. It had been four years,
+he said, since he last swung the draw for a
+river craft. That was a small steamboat
+attempting to make the passage, on what
+was considered a good stage of water, from
+Portage to the mouth. She spent two weeks
+in passing from Arena to Lone Rock, a
+distance of twenty-two miles, and was finally
+abandoned on a sand-bank for the season.
+He doubted whether he would have occasion
+again to swing the great span. As for lumber
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span>
+rafts, but three or four small ones had
+passed down this year, for the railroads were
+transporting the product of the great mills
+on the Upper Wisconsin, about as cheap as
+it could be driven down river and with far
+less risk of disaster. The days of river traffic
+were numbered, he declared, and the little
+towns that had so long been supported by the
+raftsmen, on their long and weary journey
+from the northern pineries to the Hannibal
+and St. Louis markets, were dying of starvation.</p>
+
+<p>I questioned our host as to his opinion of
+the value of the Fox-Wisconsin river improvement.
+He was cautious at first, and claimed
+that the money appropriated had "done a great
+deal of good to the poor people along the line."
+Closer inquiry developed the fact that these
+poor people had been employed in building
+the wing dams, for which local contracts had
+been let. When his opinion of the value of
+these dams was sought, Mr. <span class="nowrp">P&mdash;&mdash;</span> admitted
+that the general opinion along the river was,
+that they were "all nonsense," as he put it.
+Contracts had been let to Tom, Dick, and
+Harry, in the river villages, who had made
+a show of work, in the absence of inspectors,
+by sinking bundles of twigs and covering
+them with sand. Stone that had been hauled
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span>
+to the banks, to weight the mattresses, had
+remained unused for so long that popular
+judgment awarded it to any man who was
+enterprising enough to cart it away; thus
+was many a barn foundation hereabouts built
+out of government material. Sand-ballasted
+wing-dams built one season were washed out
+the next; and so government money has
+been recklessly frittered away. Such sort of
+management is responsible for the loose morality
+of the public concerning anything the
+general government has in hand. A man
+may steal from government with impunity,
+who would be socially ostracized for cheating
+his neighbor. There exists a popular sentiment
+along this river, as upon its twin, the
+Fox, that government is bound to squander
+about so much money every year in one way
+or another, and that the denizens of these two
+valleys are entitled to their share of the plunder.
+One honest captain on the Fox said to
+me, "If it wa'n't for this here appropriation,
+Wisconsin wouldn't get her proportion of the
+public money what each State is regularly
+entitled to; so I think it's necessary to keep
+this here scheme a-goin', for to get our dues;
+of course the thing ain't much good, so far as
+what is claimed for it goes, but it keeps
+money movin' in these valleys and makes
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span>
+times easier,&mdash;and that's what guvment's
+for." The honest skipper would have been
+shocked, probably, if I had called him a
+socialist, for a few minutes after he was declaiming
+right vigorously against Herr Most
+and the Chicago anarchists.</p>
+
+<p>It was half-past nine before the warmth of
+the sun's rays had dissipated the vapor, and
+we ventured to set forth. It proved to be an
+enchanting day in every respect.</p>
+
+<p>A mile or so below the bridge we came to
+the charming site, on the southern bank, at
+the base of a splendid limestone bluff, of the
+village of Old Helena, now a nameless clump
+of battered dwellings. There is a ferry here
+and a wooden toll-bridge in process of erection.
+The naked cliff, rising sheer above the
+rapid current, was, early in this century, utilized
+as a shot tower. There are lead mines
+some fifteen miles south, that were worked
+nearly fifty years before Wisconsin became
+even a Territory; and hither the pigs were, as
+late as 1830, laboriously drawn by wagons, to
+be precipitated down a rude stone shaft built
+against this cliff, and thus converted into shot.
+Much of the lead used by the Indians and
+white trappers of the region came from the
+Helena tower, and its product was in great
+demand during the Black Hawk War in 1832.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span>
+The remains of the shaft are still to be seen,
+although much overgrown with vines and
+trees.</p>
+
+<p>Old Helena, in the earlier shot-tower days,
+was one of the "boom" towns of "the howling
+West." But the boom soon collapsed, and
+it was a deserted village even at the time of
+the Black Hawk disturbance. After the battle
+of Wisconsin Heights, opposite Prairie du
+Sac, the white army, now out of supplies, retired
+southwest to Blue Mound, the nearest
+lead diggings, for recuperation. Spending
+a few days there, they marched northwest to
+Helena. The logs and slabs which had been
+used in constructing the shanties here were
+converted into rafts, and upon them the Wisconsin
+was crossed, the operation consuming
+two days. A few miles north, Black Hawk's
+trail, trending westward to the Bad Axe, was
+reached, and soon after that came the final
+struggle.</p>
+
+<p>We found many groups of pines, this morning,
+in the amphitheater between the bluffs,
+and under them the wintergreen berries in
+rich profusion. Some of the little pocket
+farms in these depressions are delightful bits
+of rugged landscape. In the fields of corn,
+now neatly shocked, the golden pumpkins
+seemed as if in imminent danger of rolling
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span>
+down hill. There are curious effects in
+architecture, where the barns and other
+outbuildings far overtop the dwellings, and
+have to be reached by flights of steps or
+angling paths. Yet here and there are pleasant,
+gently rolling fields, nearer the bank, and
+smooth, sugar-loaf mounds upon which cattle
+peacefully graze. The buckwheat patches are
+white with blossom. Now and then can just
+be distinguished the forms of men and women
+husking maize upon some fertile upland bench.
+And so goes on the day. Now, with pretty
+glimpses of rural life, often reminding one
+of Rhineland views, without the castles; then,
+swishing off through the heart of the bottoms
+for miles, shut in except from distant views of
+the hill-tops, and as excluded from humanity,
+in these vistas of sand and morass, as though
+traversing a wilderness; anon, darting past
+deserted rocky slopes or through the dark
+shadow of beetling cliffs, and the gloomy
+forests which crown them.</p>
+
+<p>Lone Rock ferry is nearly fourteen miles
+below Helena bridge. As we came in view,
+the boat was landing a doctor's gig at the
+foot of a bold, naked bluff, on the southern
+bank. The doctor and the ferryman gave
+civil answers to our queries about distances,
+and expressed great astonishment when answered,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span>
+in turn, that we were bound for the
+mouth of the river. "Mighty dull business,"
+the doctor remarked, "traveling in that little
+cockle-shell; I should think you'd feel afraid,
+ma'am, on this big, lonesome river; my wife
+don't dare look at a boat, and I always feel
+skittish coming over on the ferry." I assured
+him that canoeing was far from being a dull
+business, and <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> good-humoredly added
+that she had as yet seen nothing to be afraid
+of. The doctor laughed and said something,
+as he clicked up his bony nag, about "tastes
+differing, anyhow." And, the ferryman trudging
+behind,&mdash;the smoke from his cabin
+chimney was rising above the tree-tops in
+a neighboring ravine,&mdash;the little cortege
+wound its way up the rough, angling roadway
+fashioned out of the face of the bluff, and
+soon vanished around a corner. Lone Rock
+village is a mile and a half inland to the
+south.</p>
+
+<p>Just below, the cliff overhangs the stream,
+its base having been worn into by centuries
+of ceaseless washing. On a narrow beach beneath,
+a group of cows were chewing their
+cuds in an atmosphere of refreshing coolness.
+From the rocky roof above them hung ferns
+in many varieties,&mdash;maidenhair, the wood,
+the sensitive, and the bladder; while in clefts
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span>
+and grottos, or amid great heaps of rock
+debris, hard by, there were generous masses
+of king fern, lobelia cardinalis, iron and sneeze
+weed, golden-rod, daisies, closed gentian, and
+eupatorium, in startling contrasts of vivid
+color. It being high noon, we stopped and
+landed at this bit of fairy land, ate our dinner,
+and botanized. There was a tinge of
+triumphant scorn in <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>'s voice, when,
+emerging from a spring-head grotto, bearing
+in one arm a brilliant bouquet of wild flowers
+and in the other a mass of fern fronds, she
+cried, "To think of his calling canoeing a
+dull business!"</p>
+
+<p>Richland City, on the northern bank, five
+miles down, is a hamlet of fifteen or twenty
+houses, some of them quite neat in appearance.
+Nestled in a grove of timber on a plain
+at the base of the bluffs, the village presents
+a quaint old-country appearance for a long
+distance up-stream. The St. Paul railway,
+which skirts the northern bank after crossing
+the Helena bridge, sends out a spur northward
+from Richland City, to Richland Center,
+the chief town in Richland county.</p>
+
+<p>Two miles below Richland City, we landed
+at the foot of an imposing bluff, which rises
+sharply for three hundred feet or more from the
+water's edge. It is practically treeless on the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span>
+river side. We ascended it through a steep
+gorge washed by a spring torrent. Strewn
+with bowlders and hung with bushes and an
+occasional thicket of elms and oaks, the path
+was rough but sure. From the heights above,
+the dark valley lay spread before us like a
+map. Ten miles away, to our left, a splash of
+white in a great field of green marked the
+location of Lone Rock village; five miles to
+the right, a spire or two rising above the
+trees indicated where Muscoda lay far back
+from the river reaches; while in front, two
+miles away, peaceful little Avoca was sunning
+its gray roofs on a gently rising ground.
+Between these settlements and the parallel
+ranges which hemmed in the panoramic view,
+lay a wide expanse of willow-grown sand-fields,
+forested morasses, and island meadows
+through which the many-channeled river cut
+its devious way. In the middle foreground,
+far below us, some cattle were being driven
+through a bushy marsh by boys and dogs.
+The cows looked the size of kittens to us at
+our great elevation, but such was the purity
+of the atmosphere that the shouts and yelps
+of the drivers rose with wonderful clearness,
+and the rustling of the brush was as if in an
+adjoining lot. The noise seemed so disproportioned
+to the size of the objects occasioning
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span>
+it, that this acoustic effect was at first
+rather startling.</p>
+
+<p>The whitewashed cabin of a squatter and
+his few log outbuildings occupy a little basin
+to one side of the bluff. His cattle were
+ranging over the hillsides, attended by a colly.
+The family were rather neatly dressed, but
+there did not appear to be over an acre of
+land level enough for cultivation, and that was
+entirely devoted to Indian corn. It was something
+of a mystery how this man could earn a
+living in his cooped-up mountain home. But
+the honest-looking fellow seemed quite contented,
+sitting in the shade of his woodpile
+smoking a corncob pipe, surrounded by a half
+dozen children. He cheerfully responded to
+my few queries, as we stopped at his well on
+the return to our boat. The good wife, a
+buxom woman with pretty blue eyes set in a
+smiling face, was peeling a pan of potatoes on
+the porch, near by, while one foot rocked a
+rude cradle ingeniously formed out of a barrel
+head and a lemon box. She seemed
+mightily pleased as <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span> stroked the face
+of the chubby infant within, and made inquiries
+as to the ages of the step-laddered
+brood; and the father, too, fairly beamed with
+satisfaction as he placed his hands on the
+golden curls of his two oldest misses and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span>
+proudly exhibited their little tricks of precocity.
+There can be no poverty under such a
+roof. Millionnaires might well envy the peaceful
+contentment of these hillside squatters.</p>
+
+<p>Down to Muscoda we followed the rocky
+and wood-crowned northern bank, along which
+the country highway is cut out. The swift
+current closely hugs it, and there was needed
+but slight exertion with the paddles to lead a
+sewing-machine agent, whom we found to be
+urging his horse into a vain attempt to distance
+the canoe. As he seemed to court a
+race, we had determined not to be outdone,
+and were not.</p>
+
+<p>Orion, on the northern side, just above
+Muscoda, is a deserted town. It must have
+been a pretentious place at one time. There
+are a dozen empty business buildings, now
+tenanted by bats and spiders. On one shop
+front, a rotting sign displays the legend,
+"World's Exchange;" there is also a "Globe
+Hotel," and the remains of a bank or two.
+Alders, lilacs, and gnarled apple-trees in many
+deserted clumps, tell where the houses once
+were; and the presence, among these ruins, of
+a family or two of squalid children only emphasizes
+the dreary loneliness. Orion was
+once a "boom" town, they tell us,&mdash;an expressive
+epitaph.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A thin, outcropping substratum of sandstone
+is noticeable in this section of the river.
+It underlies the sandy plains which abut the
+Wisconsin in the Muscoda region, and lines
+the bed of the stream; near the banks, where
+there is but a slight depth of water, rapids
+are sometimes noticeable, the rocky bottom
+being now and then scaled off into a stairlike
+form, for the fall is here much sharper than
+customary.</p>
+
+<p>Because of an outlying shelf of this sandstone,
+bordered by rapids, but covered with
+only a few inches of dead water, we had some
+difficulty in landing at Muscoda beach, on the
+southern shore. Some stout poling and lifting
+were essential before reaching land. Muscoda
+was originally situated on the bank,
+which rises gently from the water; but as the
+river trade fell off, the village drifted up
+nearer the bluff, a mile south over the plain,
+in order to avoid the spring floods. There is
+a toll-bridge here and a large brewery, with
+extensive cattle-sheds strung along the shore.
+A few scattering houses connect these establishments
+with the sleepy but neat little hamlet
+of some five hundred inhabitants. After a
+brisk walk up town, in the fading sunlight,
+which cast a dazzling glimmer on the
+whitened dunes and heightened the size of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span>
+the dwarfed herbage, we returned to the canoe,
+and cast off to seek camping quarters for the
+night, down-stream.</p>
+
+<p>A mile below, on the opposite bank, a
+large straw-stack by the side of a small farmhouse
+attracted our attention. We stopped
+to investigate. There was a good growth of
+trees upon a gentle slope, a few rods from shore,
+and a beach well strewn with drift-wood. The
+farmer who greeted us was pleasant-spoken,
+and readily gave us permission to pitch our tent
+in the copse and partake freely of his straw.</p>
+
+<p>Now more accustomed to the river's ways,
+we keenly enjoyed our supper, seated around
+our little camp-fire in the early dark. We
+had occasional glimpses of the lights in Muscoda,
+through the swaying trees on the bottoms
+to the south; an owl, on a neighboring
+island, incessantly barked like a terrier; the
+whippoorwills were sounding their mournful
+notes from over the gliding river, and now
+and then a hoarse grunt or querulous squeal
+in the wood-lot behind us gave notice that we
+were quartered in a hog pasture. Soon the
+moon came out and brilliantly lit the opens,&mdash;the
+glistening river, the stretches of white
+sand, the farmer's fields,&mdash;and intensified the
+sepulchral shadows of the lofty bluffs which
+overhang the scene.
+</p>
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_276.jpg" width="450" height="149" alt="Wisconsin Chapter IV Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<h2>FLOATING THROUGH FAIRYLAND.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">U</span>ndisturbed by hogs or river tramps,
+we slept soundly until seven, the following
+morning. There was a heavy fog again,
+but by the time we had leisurely eaten our
+breakfast, struck camp, and had a pleasant
+chat with our farmer host and his "hired
+man," who had come down to the bank to
+make us a call, the mists had rolled away before
+the advances of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>At half past ten we were at Port Andrew,
+eight miles below camp on the north shore.
+The Port, or what is left of it, lies stretched
+along a narrow bench of sand, based with
+rock, some forty feet above the water, with
+a high, naked bluff backing it to the north.
+There is barely room for the buildings, on
+either side of its one avenue paralleling the
+river; this street is the country road, which
+skirts the bank, connecting the village with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span>
+the sparse settlements, east and west. In the
+old rafting days, the Port was a stopping-place
+for the lumber pilots. There being neither
+rafts nor pilots, nowadays, there is no business
+for the Port, except what few dollars may be
+picked up from the hunters who frequent this
+place each fall, searching for woodcock. But
+even the woodcocking industry has been overdone
+here, and two sportsmen whom we met
+on the beach declared that there were not
+enough birds remaining to pay for the trouble
+of getting here. For, indeed, Port Andrew
+is quite off the paths of modern civilization.
+There is practically no communication with
+the country over the bluffs, northward; and
+Blue River, the nearest railway station, to
+which there is a tri-weekly mail, is four miles
+southward, over the bottoms, with an uncertain
+ferryage between. There are less than
+fifty human beings in Port Andrew now, but
+double that number of dogs, the latter mostly
+of the pointer breed, kept for the benefit of
+huntsmen.</p>
+
+<p>We climbed the bank and went over to the
+post-office and general store. It seems to be
+the only business establishment left alive in
+the hamlet; although there are a dozen deserted
+buildings which were stores in the long
+ago, but are now ghostly wrecks, open to wind
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span>
+and weather on every side, and, with sunken
+ridge-poles, waiting for the first good wind-storm
+to furnish an excuse for a general collapse.
+A sleepy, greasy-looking lad, whose
+originally white shirt-front was sadly stained
+with water-melon juice, had charge of the
+meager concern. He said that the farmers
+north of the bluffs traded in towns more accessible
+than this, and that south of the
+stream, Blue River, being a railroad place,
+was "knockin' the spots off'n the Port."
+Ten years ago, he had heard his "pa" say
+the Port was "a likely place," but it "ain't
+much shakes now."</p>
+
+<p>But there is a certain quaintness about
+these ruins of Port Andrew that is quite
+attractive. A deep ravine, cut through the
+shale-rock, comes winding down from a pass
+among the bluffs, severing the hamlet in twain.
+Over it there is sprung a high-arched, rough
+stone bridge, with crenelled walls, quite as
+artistic in its way as may be found in pictures
+of ancient English brook-crossings. On the
+summit of a rising-ground beyond, stands
+the solitary, whitened skeleton of a once spacious
+inn, a broad double-decked veranda
+stretching across its river front, and hitching-posts
+and drinking-trough now almost lost to
+view in a jungle of docks and sand-burrs.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span>
+The cracks in the rotten veranda floors are
+lined with grass; the once broad highway is
+now reduced to an unfrequented trail through
+the yielding sand, which is elsewhere hid
+under a flowery mantle made up of delicate,
+fringed blossoms of pinkish purple, called by
+the natives "Pike's weed," and the rich yellow
+and pale gold of the familiar "butter and eggs."
+The peculiar effect of color, outline, and perspective,
+that hazy August day, was indeed
+charming. But we were called from our rapt
+contemplation of the picture, by the assemblage
+around us of half the population of Port
+Andrew, led by the young postmaster and
+accompanied by a drove of playful hounds.
+The impression had somehow got abroad that
+we had come to prospect for an iron mine, in
+the bed of the old ravine, and there was a
+general desire to see how the thing was done.
+The popular disappointment was evidently
+great, when we descended from our perch on
+the old bridge wall, and returned to the little
+vessel on the beach, which had meanwhile
+been closely overhauled by a knot of inquisitive
+urchins. A part of the crowd followed
+us down, plying innocent questions by the
+score, while on the summit of the bank
+above stood a watchful group of women and
+girls, some in huge sun-bonnets, others with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span>
+aprons thrown over their heads. There was
+a general waving of hats and aprons from the
+shore, as we shot off into the current again,
+and our "Good-by!" was answered by a
+cheery chorus. It is evident that Port Andrew
+does not have many exciting episodes in
+her aimless, far-away life.</p>
+
+<p>Flocks of crows were seen to-day, winging
+their funereal flight from shore to shore, and
+uttering dismal croaks. The islands presented
+a more luxurious flora than we had
+yet seen; the marsh grass upon them was
+rank and tall, the overhanging trees sumptuously
+vine-clad, the autumn tints deeper and
+richer than before, the banks glowing with cardinal
+and yellow and purple; while on the sandy
+shores we saw loosestrife, white asters, the
+sensitive plant, golden-rod, and button-bush.
+Blue herons drifted through the air on their
+wide-spread wings, heads curved back upon
+their shoulders, and legs hanging straight
+down, to settle at last upon barren sand-spits,
+and stand in silent contemplation of some
+pool of dead water where perhaps a stray fish
+might reward their watchfulness. Solitary
+kingfishers kept their vigils on the numerous
+snags. Now and then a turtle shuffled from
+his perch and went tumbling with a loud
+splash into his favorite watering-place.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Although yet too early for Indian summer,
+the day became, by noon, very like those
+which are the delight of a protracted northwestern
+autumn. A golden haze threw a
+mystic veil over the landscape; distant shore
+lines were obliterated, sand and sky and
+water at times merged in an indistinct blur,
+and distances were deceptive. Now and then
+the vistas of white sand-fields would apparently
+stretch on to infinity. Again, the river
+would seem wholly girt with cliffs and we in
+the bottom of a huge mountain basin, from
+which egress was impossible; or the stream
+would for a time appear a boundless lake.
+The islands ahead were as if floating in space,
+and there were weird reflections of far-away
+objects in the waters near us. While these
+singular effects lasted we trimmed our bark to
+the swift-gliding current, and floated along
+through fairy-land, unwilling to break the
+charm by disturbing the mirrored surface of
+the flood.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the dinner hour we came in sight
+of the Boscobel toll-bridge,&mdash;an ugly, clumsy
+structure, housed-in like a tunnel, and as dark
+as a pocket. I was never quite able to understand
+why some bridge-makers should cover
+their structures in this fashion, and others, in
+the same locality, leave them open to wind and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span>
+weather. So far as my unexpert observation
+goes, covered bridges are no more durable
+than the open, and they are certainly less
+cheerful and comely. A chill always comes
+over me as I enter one of these damp and
+gloomy hollow-ways; and the thought of how
+well adapted they are to the purposes of the
+thug or the footpad is not a particularly pleasant
+one for the lonely traveler by night. A
+dead little river hamlet, now in abject ruins,&mdash;Manhattan
+by name,&mdash;occupies the rugged
+bank at the north end of the long bridge;
+while southward, Boscobel is out of sight, a
+mile and a half inland, across the bottoms.
+The bluff overtopping Manhattan is a quarry
+of excellent hard sandstone, and a half dozen
+men were dressing blocks for shipment, on
+the rocky shore above us. They and their
+families constitute Manhattan.</p>
+
+<p>Eight miles down river, also on the north
+bank, is Boydtown. There are two houses
+there, in a sandy glen at the base of a group
+of heavily wooded foot-hills. At one of the
+dwellings&mdash;a neat, slate-colored cottage&mdash;we
+found a cheery, black-eyed woman sitting on
+the porch with a brood of five happy children
+playing about her. As she hurried away
+to get the butter and milk which we had
+asked for, she apologized for being seen to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span>
+enjoy this unwonted leisure, apparently not
+desirous that we should suppose her to be any
+other than the hard-working little body which
+her hands and driving manner proclaimed her
+to be. When she returned with our supplies
+she said that they had "got through thrashin',"
+the day before, and she was enjoying the
+luxury of a rest preparatory to an accumulated
+churning. I looked incredulously at the sandy
+waste in which this little home was planted,
+and the good woman explained that their farm
+lay farther back, on fair soil, although the present
+dry season had not been the best for crops.</p>
+
+<p>Her brown-faced boy of ten and two little
+girls of about eight&mdash;the laughing faces and
+crow-black curls of the latter hid under immense
+flapping sun-bonnets&mdash;accompanied
+us to the bayou by which we had approached
+Boydtown. They had a gay, unrestrained
+manner that was quite captivating, and we
+were glad to have them row alongside of us
+for a way down-stream in the unwieldy family
+punt, the lad handling the crude oars and the
+girls huddled together on the stern seat, covered
+by their great sun-bonnet flaps, as with a
+cape. They were "goin' grapein'," they said;
+and at an island where the vines hung dark
+with purple clusters, they piped "Good-by,
+you uns!" in tittering unison.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By this time, the weather had changed.
+The haze had lifted. The sky had quickly
+become overcast with leaden rainclouds, and
+an occasional big drop gave warning of an
+approaching storm. A few miles below Boydtown,
+we stopped to replenish our canteen at
+the St. Paul railway's fine iron bridge, the
+last crossing on that line between Milwaukee
+and Prairie du Chien. On the southern end
+of the bridge is Woodman; on the northern
+bank, the tender's house. As we were in
+the northern channel, it was impracticable to
+reach the village, separated from us by wide
+islands and long stretches of swamp and forest,
+except by walking the bridge and the
+mile or two of trestle-work approaches to the
+south. As for the bridge-house, there chanced
+to be no spare quarters for us there. So we
+voted to trust to fortune and push on, although
+the tender's wife, a pleasant, English-faced
+woman, with black, sparkling eyes and
+a hospitable smile, was much exercised in
+spirit, and thought we were running some
+hazard of a wetting.</p>
+
+<p>The skies lightened for a time, and then
+there came rolling up from over the range to
+the southwest great jagged rifts of black
+clouds, ugly "thunder heads," which seemed
+to presage a deluge. Below them, veiling the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span>
+tallest peaks, tossed and sped the light-footed
+couriers of the wind, and we saw the dark-green
+bosom of the upper forests heave with
+the emotions of the air, while the rushing
+stream below flowed on unruffled. The river
+is here united in one broad channel. At the
+first evidence of a blow, we hurried across to
+the windward bank. We were landing at the
+swampy, timber-strewn base of a precipitous
+cliff as the wind passed over the valley, and
+had just completed our preparations for shelter
+when the rain began to come in blinding
+sheets.</p>
+
+<p>The possibility of having to spend the
+night under the sepulchral arches of this forested
+morass was not pleasant to contemplate.
+The storm abated, however, within
+half an hour, and we were then able to distinguish
+a large white house apparently set
+back in an open field a half mile or more
+from the opposite shore.</p>
+
+<p>Re-embarking, we headed that way, and
+found a wood-fringed stream several rods
+wide, pouring a vigorous flood into the Wisconsin,
+from the north. Our map showed it
+to be the Kickapoo, an old-time logging river,
+and the house must be an outlying member
+of the small railroad village of Wauzeka. A
+consultation was held on board, at the mouth
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span>
+of the Kickapoo. On the Wisconsin not a
+house was to be seen, as far as the eye could
+reach, and wide stretches of swamp and
+wooded bog appeared to line both its banks.
+The prospect of paddling up the mad little
+Kickapoo for a mile to Wauzeka was dispiriting,
+but we decided to do it; for night
+was coming on, our tent, even could we find
+a good camping ground in this marshy wilderness,
+was disposed to be leaky, and a steady
+drizzle continued to sound a muffled tattoo
+on our rubber coats. A voluble fisherman,
+caught out in the rain like ourselves, came
+swinging into the tributary, with his cranky
+punt, just as we were setting our paddles for
+a vigorous pull up-stream. We had his company,
+side by side, till we reached the St. Paul
+railway trestle, and beached at the foot of a
+deserted stave mill, in whose innermost recesses
+we deposited our traps. Guided by
+the village shoemaker's boy, who had been
+playing by the river side, we started up the
+track to find the hotel, nearly a half mile
+away.</p>
+
+<p>It is a quiet, comfortable, old-fashioned little
+inn, this hostelry at Wauzeka. The landlord
+greeted his storm-bound guests with
+polite urbanity, and with none of that inquisitiveness
+so common in rural hosts. At supper,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span>
+we met the village philosopher, a quaint,
+lone old man who has an opinion of his own
+upon most human subjects, and more than
+dares to voice it,&mdash;insists, in fact, on having
+it known of all men. A young commercial
+traveler, the only other patron of the establishment,
+sadly guyed our philosophical messmate
+by securing his verdict on a wide range
+of topics, from the latest league game to abstruse
+questions of theology. The philosopher
+bit, and the drummer was in high feather
+as he crinkled the corners of his mouth behind
+his huge moustache, and looked slyly
+around for encouragement that was not
+offered.</p>
+
+<p>Wauzeka is, in one respect, like too many
+other country villages. Three saloons disfigure
+the main street, and in front of them
+are little knots of noisy loafers, in the evening,
+filling up the rickety, variously graded
+sidewalk to the gutter, and necessitating the
+running of a loathsome gauntlet to those who
+may wish to pass that way. The boy who
+can grow up in such an atmosphere, unpolluted,
+must be of rare material, or his parents
+exceptionally judicious. There are few large
+cities where one can see the liquor traffic
+carried on with such disgusting boldness
+as in hamlets like this, where screenless,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span>
+open-doored saloons of a vile character jostle
+trading shops and dwellings, and monopolize
+the footway, making of the business street a
+place which women may abhor at any hour,
+and must necessarily avoid after sunset.
+With a local-option law, that but awaits a majority
+vote to be operative in such communities,
+it is a strange commentary on the quality
+of our nineteenth-century civilization that the
+dissolute few should still, as of old, be able to
+persistently hold the whip-hand over the virtuous
+but timid many.</p>
+
+<p>Elsewhere in Wauzeka, there are many
+pretty grass-grown lanes; some substantial
+cottages; a prosperous creamery, employing
+the service of the especial pride of the village,
+a six-inch spouting well, driven for three hundred
+feet to the underlying stratum of lime-rock;
+a saw-mill or two, which are worked
+spasmodically, according to the log-driving
+stage in the Kickapoo, and some pleasant,
+accommodating people, who appear to be quite
+contented with their lot in life.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_289.jpg" width="450" height="140" alt="Wisconsin Chapter V Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+<h2>THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>here was fog on the river in the
+morning. Across the broad expanse of
+field and ledge which separates Wauzeka from
+the Wisconsin, we could see the great white
+mass of vapor, fifty feet thick, resting on the
+broad channel like a dense coverlid of down.
+Soon after seven o'clock, the cloud lifted by
+degrees, and then broke into ragged segments,
+which settled sluggishly for a while on the
+tops of the southern line of bluffs and screened
+their dark amphitheaters from view, till at last
+dissipated into thin air.</p>
+
+<p>We were off at eight o'clock, fifteen or
+twenty men coming down to the railway-bridge
+to watch the operation. One of them
+helped us materially with our bundles, while
+the rest sat in a row along the trestle, dangling
+their feet through the spaces between the
+stringers, and gazing at us as though we were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span>
+a circus company on the move. A drizzle set
+in, just as we pushed from the bank, and we
+descended the Kickapoo under much the
+same conditions of atmosphere as those we
+had experienced in pulling against its swirling
+tide the evening before.</p>
+
+<p>But by nine o'clock the storm was over, and
+we had, for a time, a calm, quiet journey, a
+gray light which harmonized well with the
+wildly picturesque scenery, and a fresh west
+breeze which helped us on our way. We
+were now but twenty miles from the mouth.
+The parallel ranges of bluff come nearer
+together, until they are not much over a mile
+apart, and the stream, now broader, swifter,
+and deeper, is less encumbered with islands.
+Upon the peaty banks are the tall white spikes
+of the curious turtlehead, occasional masses
+of balsam-apple vines, the gleaming lobelia
+cardinalis, yellow honeysuckles just going out
+of blossom, and acres of the golden sneeze-weed,
+which deserves a better name.</p>
+
+<p>At Wright's Ferry, ten miles below, there
+are domiciled two German families, and on the
+shore is a saw-mill which is operated in the
+spring, to work up the logs which farmers
+bring down from the gloomy mountains which
+back the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Bridgeport, four miles farther,&mdash;still on the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span>
+northern side,&mdash;is chiefly a clump of little
+red railway buildings set up on a high bench
+carved from the face of the bluff, their fronts
+resting on the road-bed and their rears on
+high scaffolding. A few big bowlders rolling
+down from the cliffs would topple Bridgeport
+over into the river. There is a covered country
+toll-bridge here, and the industrial interest
+of the Liliputian community is quarrying. It
+is the last hamlet on the river.</p>
+
+<p>A mist again formed, casting a blue tinge
+over the peaks and giving them a far distant
+aspect; dark clouds now and then lowered
+and rolled through the upper ravines, reflecting
+their inky hue upon the surface of the
+deep, gliding river. The bluffs, which had
+for many miles closely abutted the stream, at
+last gradually swept away to the north and
+south, to become part of the great wall which
+forms the eastern bulwark of the Upper Mississippi.
+At their base spreads a broad, flat
+plain, fringed with boggy woods and sandy
+meadows, the delta of the Wisconsin, which,
+below the Lowertown bridge of the Burlington
+and Northern railway, is cut up into flood-washed
+willow islands, flanked by a wide
+stretch of shifting sand-bars black with
+tangled roots and stranded logs, the debris of
+many a spring-time freshet.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was about half-past twelve o'clock when we
+came to the junction of the Wisconsin and the
+Mississippi. Upon a willow-grown sand-reef
+edging the swamp, which extends northward
+for five miles to the quaint, ancient little city
+of Prairie du Chien, a large barge lies stranded.
+A lone fisherman sat upon its bulwark rail,
+which overhangs the rushing waters as they
+here commingle. We landed with something
+akin to reverence, for this must have been
+about the place where Joliet and Marquette,
+two hundred and fourteen years ago, gazed
+with rapture upon the mighty Mississippi,
+which they had at last discovered, after so
+many thousands of miles of arduous journeying
+through a savage-haunted wilderness. And
+indeed it is an imposing sight. To the west,
+two miles away, rise the wooded peaks on
+the Iowa side of the great river. Northward
+there are pretty glimpses of cliffs and rocky
+beaches through openings in the heavy growth
+which covers the islands of the upper stream.
+Southward is a long vista of curving hills and
+glinting water shut in by the converging
+ranges. Eastward stretches the green delta
+of the Wisconsin, flanked by those imposing
+bluffs, between whose bases for two centuries
+has flowed a curious throng of humanity,
+savage and civilized, on errands sacred
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span>
+and profane, representing many clashing nationalities.</p>
+
+<p>The rain descended in a gentle shower as I
+was lighting a fire on which to cook our last
+canoeing meal of the season; and <span class="nowrp">W&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+held an umbrella over the already damp kindling
+in order to give it a chance. We no doubt
+made a comical picture as we crouched together
+beneath this shelter, jointly trying to
+fan the sparks into a flame, for the fisherman,
+who had been heretofore speechless, and apparently
+rapt in his occupation, burst out into
+a hearty laugh. When we turned to look at
+him he hid his face under his upturned coat-collar,
+and giggled to himself like a schoolgirl.
+He was a jolly dog, this fisherman, and
+after we had presented him with a cup of
+coffee and what solids we could spare from
+our now meager store, he warmed into a very
+communicative mood, and gave us much detailed,
+though rather highly colored, information
+about the locality, especially as to its
+natural features.</p>
+
+<p>The rain had ceased by the time dinner was
+over; so we bade farewell to the happy fisherman
+and the presiding deities of the Wisconsin,
+and pulled up the giant Mississippi to
+Prairie du Chien, stopping on our way to visit
+an out-of-the-way bayou, botanically famous,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span>
+where flourishes the rare nelumbium luteum&mdash;America's
+nearest approach to the lotus of
+the Nile.</p>
+
+<p>And thus was accomplished the season's
+stint of six hundred miles of canoeing upon
+the Historic Waterways of Illinois and
+Wisconsin.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6">
+<img src="images/illo_296.jpg" width="450" height="116" alt="Index Header" title="" />
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></a></p>
+<div class="index">
+<h2>INDEX.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Algoma, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Allouez, Father Claude, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</p>
+
+<p>American Fur Co., <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Anderson, Maj. Robert, U.S.A., <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Antoinette, Marie, Queen of France, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Appleton, Wis., <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>-<a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Arena Ferry, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Arndt, Judge John P., <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Astor, John Jacob, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Atkinson, Gen. Henry, U. S. A., <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Avoca, Wis., <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Bad Axe, battle of, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Baraboo River, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Barth, Laurent, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Beloit, Wis., <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Berlin, Wis., <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>-<a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Black Hawk War, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>-<a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Black Hawk Mountain, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Black River Falls, Wis., <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Black Wolf Point, Lake Winnebago, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Blue Mound, Wis., <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Blue River Village, Wis., <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Boscobel, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</p>
+
+<p>"Bourbon, The American." <i>See</i> <a href="#Williams">Williams, Eleazar</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Boydtown, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Bridgeport, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Buffalo Lake, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>-<a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Butte des Morts, Lake Grand, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>-<a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Butte des Morts, Lake Petit, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Butte des Morts Village, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>-<a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Butterfield, Consul W., <i>cited</i>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Byron, Ill., <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>-<a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Canoeing, pleasures of, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Canoeists, suggestions to, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>-<a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Canoes, styles of, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Carbon Cliff, Ill., <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Catfish" id="Catfish"></a>Catfish River, Wis., <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>-<a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Champche Keriwinke, Winnebago princess, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Champlain, Governor of Quebec, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry River, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Chicago, Burlington, and Northern Ry., <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Ry., <a href="#Page_137">137</a>-<a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Ry., <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>-<a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Chicago and Northwestern Ry., <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>-<a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Cleveland, Ill., <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Coloma, Ill., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Como, Ill. 26, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>-<a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Crooks, Ramsay, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Dablon, Father Claude, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Dakotah Indians. <i>See</i> <a href="#Sioux">Sioux</a> and <a href="#Winnebagos">Winnebagoes</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Davis, Jefferson, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Dekorra, Wis., <a href="#Page_242">242</a>-<a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</p>
+
+<p>De Korra, early fur trader, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Depere, Wis., <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Dixon, Ill., <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>-<a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>-<a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Dodge, Maj. Henry, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Doty's Island, Wis., <a href="#Page_195">195</a>-<a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Dunkirk, Wis., <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Erie, Ill., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>-<a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Eureka, Wis., <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">First Lake, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>-<a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Fond du Lac, Wis., <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien, Wis.), <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Fort Howard, Wis., <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>-<a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Fort Winnebago (Portage, Wis.), <a href="#Page_144">144</a>-<a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Four Lake country, Wis., <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="FourLegs" id="FourLegs"></a>Four Legs, Winnebago chief, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Fox Indians (<i>see</i>, also, Sacs), <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Fox River, Wis., <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Fulton, Wis., <a href="#Page_56">56</a>-<a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Fur trade in Wisconsin, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>-<a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Ganymede Springs, Ill., <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Garlic Island, Lake Winnebago, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>-<a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Garritty, Mary, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>-<a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Grand Detour, Ill., <a href="#Page_92">92</a>-<a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Great Bend of Rock River, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>-<a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Green Bay, Wis., <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>-<a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Grignon, Augustin, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Hanson, John H., <i>cited</i>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Harney, Gen. William S., U. S. A., <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Helena Village, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>-<a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Helena, Wis., Old, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Henry, Maj. James D., <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Hoo-Tschope. <i>See</i> <a href="#FourLegs">Four Legs</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Illinois Indians, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Iowatuk, Winnebago princess, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Janesville, Wis., <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>-<a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Jesuit missionaries, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Joliet, Sieur de, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Kackalin, Grand. <i>See</i> <a href="#Kaukauna">Kaukauna</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Kaukauna" id="Kaukauna"></a>Kaukauna, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>-<a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Kellogg's trail, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Keokuk, Fox chief, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Kickapoo Indians, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Kickapoo River, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Kinzie, Mrs. John H., <i>cited</i>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Koshkonong, Lake, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Lakeside, Third Lake, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Langlade, Charles de, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="LathamStation" id="LathamStation"></a>Latham Station, Ill., <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence University, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Lead mines at Galena, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Lecuyer, Jean B., <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Lignery, Sieur Marchand de, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln, Abraham, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Little Kaukauna, Wis., <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>-<a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Lone Rock, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>-<a href="#Page_270">270</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Louis XVI., King of France, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>-<a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Louis XVII., Dauphin of France, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>-<a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Louvigny, Sieur de, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Lyndon, Ill., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Madison, Wis., <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Manhattan, Wis., <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Marin, Sieur de, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Marquette, Father James, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Marquette Village, Wis., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>-<a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Mascoutin Indians, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>-<a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Mazomanie, Wis., <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Menasha, Wis., <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Menomonee Indians, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Merrimac, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>-<a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Miami Indians, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Milan, Ill., <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Milwaukee and Northern Ry., <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Mississippi River, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>-<a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>-<a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>-<a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Mohawk Indians, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Montello, Wis., <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>-<a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Muscoda, Wis., <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>-<a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Neenah, Wis., <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>-<a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</p>
+
+<p>New York Indians. <i>See</i> <a href="#Oneidas">Oneidas</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Nicolet, Jean, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Northern Insane Hospital, Wis., <a href="#Page_189">189</a>-<a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Omro, Wis., <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Oneidas" id="Oneidas"></a>Oneida Indians, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>-<a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Oregon, Ill., <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>-<a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Orion, Wis., <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Oshkosh, Menomonee chief, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Oshkosh, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>-<a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Ott's Farm, Madison, Wis., <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Owen, Ill. <i>See</i> <a href="#LathamStation">Latham Station</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Packwaukee, Wis., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>-<a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Paine Bros., <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Paquette, Pierre, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Penney, Josephine, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>-<a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Philippe, Louis, King of France, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Pope's Springs, Wis., <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Porlier, James, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Porlier, Louis B., <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Portage, Wis., <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>-<a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>-<a href="#Page_242">242</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Port Andrew, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>-<a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Pottawattomie Indians, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Poygan Lake, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Prairie du Chien, Wis., <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>-<a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Prairie du Sac, Wis., <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>-<a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Princeton, Wis., <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>-<a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Prophetstown, Ill., <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>-<a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Puckawa Lake, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>-<a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Red Bird, Winnebago chief, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Richland Center, Wis., <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Richland City, Wis., <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Rockford, Ill., <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Rock Island, Ill., <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Rock River, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>-<a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Rockton, Ill., <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Roscoe, Ill., <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Sac Indians, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>-<a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Sacramento, Wis., <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Sauk City, Wis., <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Sawyer, Philetus, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Second Lake, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>-<a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Shaubena, Pottawattomie chief, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Sioux" id="Sioux"></a>Sioux Indians, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Smith's Island, Wis., <a href="#Page_149">149</a>-<a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Spring Green, Wis., <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Stebbinsville, Wis., <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Sterling, Ill., <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Stillman's Creek, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Stillman's defeat, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Stoughton, Wis., <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>-<a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Stuart, Robert, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="p2">Taylor, Zachary, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Third Lake, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Turvill's Bay, Third Lake, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Twiggs, Maj. David, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Walking Cloud, a Winnebago, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Wauzeka, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>-<a href="#Page_288">288</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="White_Cloud" id="White_Cloud"></a>White Cloud, Indian prophet, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</p>
+
+<p>White River lock, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Williams" id="Williams"></a>Williams, Eleazar, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>-<a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Williams, Mrs. Eleazar, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Winnebagos" id="Winnebagos"></a>Winnebago Indians, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>-<a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Winnebago Lake, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>-<a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Winnebago prophet. <i>See</i> <a href="#White_Cloud">White Cloud</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Winnebago Rapids, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>-<a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Winneconne, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>-<a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Wisconsin Central Ry., <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Wisconsin Heights, battle of, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Wisconsin River, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>-<a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>-<a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Wisconsin River Dells, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf River, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>-<a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Woodman, Wis., <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Wright's Ferry, Wis., <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Wrightstown, Wis., <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Yahara River. <i>See</i> <a href="#Catfish">Catfish</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes p6">
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See Mrs. Kinzie's "Wau-Bun" for a description of the
+difficulties of travel in "the early day," via Dixon's Ferry.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Ten dollars per boat, and fifty cents per 100 lbs. of
+goods.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Described in Mrs. Kinzie's "Wau-Bun," which gives
+many interesting reminiscences of life at the old post.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Butterfield's "Discovery of the Northwest" (Cincinnati,
+1861).</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See Mrs. Kinzie's "Wau-Bun" for reminiscences of
+Four Legs.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. ii. p. 425.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Historic Waterways--Six Hundred Miles
+of Canoeing Down the Rock, Fox, and Wisconsin Rivers, by Reuben Gold Thwaites
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC WATERWAYS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 38556-h.htm or 38556-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/5/5/38556/
+
+Produced by Greg Bergquist, Melissa McDaniel and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
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+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
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@@ -0,0 +1,6582 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Historic Waterways--Six Hundred Miles of
+Canoeing Down the Rock, Fox, and Wisconsin Rivers, by Reuben Gold Thwaites
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Historic Waterways--Six Hundred Miles of Canoeing Down the Rock, Fox, and Wisconsin Rivers
+
+Author: Reuben Gold Thwaites
+
+Release Date: January 12, 2012 [EBook #38556]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC WATERWAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Bergquist, Melissa McDaniel and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
+  been preserved.  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+HISTORIC WATERWAYS
+
+
+
+
+     HISTORIC WATERWAYS
+
+     SIX HUNDRED MILES OF CANOEING
+     DOWN THE ROCK, FOX, AND
+     WISCONSIN RIVERS
+
+     BY
+     REUBEN GOLD THWAITES
+     SECRETARY OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN
+
+        Other roads do some violence to Nature, and bring the
+        traveller to stare at her; but the river steals into the
+        scenery it traverses without intrusion, silently creating
+        and adorning it, and is free to come and go as the
+        zephyr.--THOREAU; _A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
+        Rivers._
+
+     CHICAGO
+     A. C. MCCLURG AND COMPANY
+     1888
+
+
+
+
+     COPYRIGHT
+     BY A. C. MCCLURG AND CO.
+     A.D. 1888.
+
+
+
+
+     This Little Volume
+
+     IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR
+
+     TO HIS WIFE,
+
+     HIS MESSMATE UPON TWO OF THE THREE VACATION
+     VOYAGES HEREIN RECORDED,
+     AND HIS FELLOW-VOYAGER DOWN THE RIVER
+     OF TIME.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+There is a generally accepted notion that a brief summer vacation, if
+at all obtainable in this busy life of ours, must be spent in a flight
+as far afield as time will allow; that the popular resorts in the
+mountains, by the seaside, or on the margins of the upper lakes must
+be sought for rest and enjoyment; that neighborhood surroundings
+should, in the mad rush for change of air and scene, be left behind.
+The result is that your average vacationist--if I may be allowed to
+coin a needed word--knows less of his own State than of any other, and
+is inattentive to the delights of nature which await inspection within
+the limits of his horizon.
+
+But let him mount his bicycle, his saddle-horse, or his family
+carriage, and start out upon a gypsy tour of a week or two along the
+country roads, exploring the hills and plains and valleys of--say his
+congressional district; or, better by far, take his canoe, and with
+his best friend for a messmate explore the nearest river from source
+to mouth, and my word for it he will find novelty and fresh air enough
+to satisfy his utmost cravings; and when he comes to return to his
+counter, his desk, or his study, he will be conscious of having
+discovered charms in his own locality which he has in vain sought in
+the accustomed paths of the tourist.
+
+This volume is the record of six hundred miles of canoeing experiences
+on historic waterways in Wisconsin and Illinois during the summer of
+1887. There has been no attempt at exaggeration, to color its homely
+incidents, or to picture charms where none exist. It is intended to be
+a simple, truthful narrative of what was seen and done upon a series
+of novel outings through the heart of the Northwest. If it may induce
+others to undertake similar excursions, and thus increase the little
+navy of healthy and self-satisfied canoeists, the object of the
+publication will have been attained.
+
+I am under obligations to my friend, the Hon. Levi Alden, for valuable
+assistance in the revision of proof-sheets.
+
+     R. G. T.
+     MADISON, Wis., December, 1887.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                             PAGE
+
+     INTRODUCTION                              15
+
+     TABLE OF DISTANCES                        26
+
+
+     The Rock River
+
+       CHAPTER I.
+
+     THE WINDING YAHARA                        31
+
+       CHAPTER II.
+
+     BARBED-WIRE FENCES                        48
+
+       CHAPTER III.
+
+     AN ILLINOIS PRAIRIE HOME                  61
+
+       CHAPTER IV.
+
+     THE HALF-WAY HOUSE                        74
+
+       CHAPTER V.
+
+     GRAND DETOUR FOLKS                        86
+
+       CHAPTER VI.
+
+     AN ANCIENT MARINER                       103
+
+       CHAPTER VII.
+
+     STORM-BOUND AT ERIE                      117
+
+       CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     THE LAST DAY OUT                         129
+
+
+     The Fox River (of Green Bay).
+
+       FIRST LETTER.
+
+     SMITH'S ISLAND                           143
+
+       SECOND LETTER.
+
+     FROM PACKWAUKEE TO BERLIN                160
+
+       THIRD LETTER.
+
+     THE MASCOUTINS                           174
+
+       FOURTH LETTER.
+
+     THE LAND OF THE WINNEBAGOES              187
+
+       FIFTH LETTER.
+
+     LOCKED THROUGH                           205
+
+       SIXTH LETTER.
+
+     THE BAY SETTLEMENT                       218
+
+
+     The Wisconsin River.
+
+       CHAPTER I.
+
+     ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS                 237
+
+       CHAPTER II.
+
+     THE LAST OF THE SACS                    248
+
+       CHAPTER III.
+
+     A PANORAMIC VIEW                        262
+
+       CHAPTER IV.
+
+     FLOATING THROUGH FAIRYLAND              275
+
+       CHAPTER V
+
+     THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI        288
+
+
+     INDEX                                   295
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+
+
+HISTORIC WATERWAYS.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+Provided, reader, you have a goodly store of patience, stout muscles,
+a practiced fondness for the oars, a keen love of the picturesque and
+curious in nature, a capacity for remaining good-humored under the
+most adverse circumstances, together with a quiet love for that sort
+of gypsy life which we call "roughing it," canoeing may be safely
+recommended to you as one of the most delightful and healthful of
+outdoor recreations, as well as one of the cheapest.
+
+The canoe need not be of birch-bark or canvas, or of the Rob Roy or
+Racine pattern. A plain, substantial, light, open clinker-build was
+what we used,--thirteen feet in extreme length, with three-and-a-half
+feet beam. It was easily portaged, held two persons comfortably with
+seventy-five pounds of baggage, and drew but five inches,--just enough
+to let us over the average shallows without bumping. It was
+serviceable, and stood the rough carries and innumerable bangs from
+sunken rocks and snags along its voyage of six hundred miles, without
+injury. It could carry a large sprit-sail, and, with an attachable
+keel, run close to the wind; while an awning, decided luxury on hot
+days, was readily hoisted on a pair of hoops attached to the gunwale
+on either side. But perhaps, where there are no portages necessary, an
+ordinary flat-bottomed river punt, built of three boards, would be as
+productive of good results, except as to speed,--and what matters
+speed upon such a tour of observation?
+
+It is not necessary to go to the Maine lakes for canoeing purposes; or
+to skirt the gloomy wastes of Labrador, or descend the angry current
+of a mountain stream. Here, in the Mississippi basin, practically
+boundless opportunities present themselves, at our very doors, to
+glide through the heart of a fertile and picturesque land, to commune
+with Nature, to drink in her beauties, to view men and communities
+from a novel standpoint, to catch pictures of life and manners that
+will always live in one's memory. The traveler by rail has brief and
+imperfect glimpses of the landscape. The canoeist, from his lowly seat
+near the surface of the flood, sees the country practically as it was
+in pioneer days, in a state of unalloyed beauty. Each bend in the
+stream brings into view a new vista, and thus the bewitching scene
+changes as in a kaleidoscope. The people one meets, the variety of
+landscape one encounters, the simple adventures of the day, the
+sensation of being an explorer, the fresh air and simple diet,
+combined with that spirit of calm contentedness which overcomes the
+happy voyager who casts loose from care, are the never-failing
+attractions of such a trip.
+
+To those would-be canoeists who are fond of the romantic history of
+our great West, as well as of delightful scenery, the Fox (of Green
+Bay), the Rock, and the Wisconsin, each with its sharply distinctive
+features, will be found among the most interesting of our neighborhood
+rivers. And this record of recent voyages upon them is, I think,
+fairly representative of what sights and experiences await the boatman
+upon any of the streams of similar importance in the vast and
+well-watered region of the upper Mississippi valley.
+
+Of the three, the Rock river route, through the great prairies of
+Illinois, perhaps presents the greatest variety of life and scenery.
+The Rock has practically two heads: the smaller, in a rustic stream
+flowing from the north into swamp-girted Lake Koshkonong; the larger,
+in the four lakes at Madison, the charming capital of Wisconsin, which
+empty their waters into the Avon-like Catfish or Yahara, which in turn
+pours into the Rock a short distance below the Koshkonong lake. Our
+course was from Madison almost to the mouth of the Rock, near Rock
+Island, 267 miles of paddling, as the river winds.
+
+The student of history finds the Rock interesting to him because of
+its associations with the Black Hawk war of 1832. When the famous Sac
+warrior "invaded" Illinois, his path of progress was up the south bank
+of that stream. At Prophetstown lived his evil genius, the crafty
+White Cloud, and here the Hawk held council with the Pottawattomies,
+who, under good Shaubena's influence, rejected the war pipe. Dixon is
+famous as the site of the pioneer ferry over the Rock, on the line of
+what was the principal land highway between Chicago and southern
+Wisconsin and the Galena mines for a protracted period in each year.
+Here, many a notable party of explorers, military officials, miners,
+and traders have rendezvoused in the olden time. Here was a
+rallying-point in 1832, as well, when Lincoln was a raw-boned
+militiaman in a scouting corps, and Robert Anderson, of Fort Sumter
+fame, Zachary Taylor, and Jefferson Davis were of the regular army
+under bluff old Atkinson. A grove at the mouth of Stillman's Creek, a
+Rock River tributary, near Byron, is the scene of the actual outbreak
+of the war. The forest where Black Hawk camped with the white-loving
+Pottawattomies is practically unchanged, and the open, rolling prairie
+to the south--on which Stillman's horsemen acted at first so
+treacherously, and afterwards as arrant cowards--is still there, a
+broad pasture-land miles in length, along the river. The
+contemporaneous descriptions of the "battle" field are readily
+recognizable to-day. Above, as far as Lake Koshkonong, the river banks
+are fraught with interest; for along them the soldiery followed up the
+Sac trail, like bloodhounds, and held many an unsatisfactory parley
+with the double-faced Winnebagoes.
+
+Rock River scenery combines the rustic, the romantic, and the
+picturesque,--prairies, meadows, ravines, swamps, mountainous bluffs,
+eroded palisades, wide stretches of densely wooded bottoms, heavy
+upland forests, shallows, spits, and rapids. Birds and flowers, and
+uncommon plants and vines, delight the naturalist and the botanist.
+The many thriving manufacturing cities,--such as Stoughton,
+Janesville, Beloit, Rockford, Rockton, Dixon, Sterling, and
+Oregon,--furnish an abundance of sight-seeing. The small
+villages--some of them odd, out-of-the-way places, of rare types--are
+worthy of study to the curious in economics and human nature. The
+farmers are of many types; the fishermen one is thrown into daily
+communion with are a class unto themselves; while millers,
+bridge-tenders, boat-renters, and others whose callings are
+along-shore, present a variety of humanity interesting and
+instructive. The twenty-odd mill-dam portages, each having
+difficulties and incidents of its own, are well calculated to vary the
+monotony of the voyage; there are more or less dangers connected with
+some of the mill-races, while the lookout for snags, bowlders and
+shallows must be continuous, sharpening the senses of sight and sound;
+for a tip-over or the utter demolition of the craft may readily follow
+carelessness in this direction. The islands in the Rock are numerous,
+many of them being several miles in length, and nearly all heavily
+wooded. These frequent divisions of the channel often give rise to
+much perplexity; for the ordinary summer stage of water is so low that
+a loaded canoe drawing five inches of water is liable to be stranded
+in the channel apparently most available.
+
+The Fox and Wisconsin rivers--the former, from Portage to Green Bay,
+the latter from Portage to Prairie du Chien--form a water highway that
+has been in use by white men for two and a half centuries. In 1634,
+Jean Nicolet, the first explorer of the Northwest, passed up the Fox
+River, to about Berlin, and then went southward to visit the Illinois.
+In the month of June, 1673, Joliet and Marquette made their famous
+tour over the interlocked watercourse and discovered the Mississippi
+River. After they had shown the way, a tide of travel set in over
+these twin streams, between the Great Lakes and the great river,--a
+motley procession of Jesuit missionaries, explorers, traders,
+trappers, soldiers and pioneers. New England was in its infancy when
+the Fox and Wisconsin became an established highway for enterprising
+canoeists.
+
+Since the advent of the railway era this historic channel of
+communication has fallen into disuse. The general government has spent
+an immense sum in endeavoring to render it navigable for the vessels
+in vogue to-day, but the result, as a whole, is a failure. There is no
+navigation on the Fox worthy of mention, above Berlin, and even that
+below is insignificant and intermittent. On the Wisconsin there is
+none at all, except for skiffs and an occasional lumber-raft.
+
+The canoeist of to-day, therefore, will find solitude and shallows
+enough on either river. But he can float, if historically inclined,
+through the dusky shadows of the past, for every turn of the bank has
+its story, and there is romance enough to stock a volume.
+
+The upper Fox is rather monotonous. The river twists and turns through
+enormous widespreads, grown up with wild rice and flecked with
+water-fowl. These widespreads occasionally free themselves of
+vegetable growth and become lakes, like the Buffalo, the Puckawa, and
+the Poygan. There is, however, much of interest to the student in
+natural history; while such towns as Montello, Princeton, Berlin,
+Omro, Winneconne, and Oshkosh are worthy of visitation. Lake Winnebago
+is a notable inland sea, and the canoeist feels fairly lost, in his
+little cockle shell, bobbing about over its great waves. The lower Fox
+runs between high, noble banks, and with frequent rapids, past
+Neenah, Menasha, Appleton, and other busy manufacturing cities, down
+to Green Bay, hoary with age and classic in her shanty ruins.
+
+The Wisconsin River is the most picturesque of the three. Probably the
+best route is from the head of the Dells to the mouth; but the run
+from Portage to the mouth is the one which has the merit of antiquity,
+and is certainly a long enough jaunt to satisfy the average tourist.
+It is a wide, gloomy, mountain-girt valley, with great sand-bars and
+thickly-wooded morasses. Settlement is slight. Portage, Prairie du
+Sac, Sauk City, and Muscoda are the principal towns. The few villages
+are generally from a mile to three miles back, at the foot of the
+bluffs, out of the way of the flood, and the river appears to be but
+little used. It is an ideal sketching-ground. The canoeist with a
+camera will find occupation enough in taking views of his
+surroundings; perplexity as to what to choose amid such a crowd of
+charming scenes, will be his only difficulty.
+
+Some suggestions to those who may wish to undertake these or similar
+river trips may be advisable. Traveling alone will be found too
+dreary. None but a hermit could enjoy those long stretches of
+waterway, where one may float for a day without seeing man or animal
+on the forest-bounded shores, and where the oppression of solitude is
+felt with such force that it requires but a slight stretch of
+imagination to carry one's self back in thought and feeling to the
+days when the black-robed members of the Company of Jesus first
+penetrated the gloomy wilderness. Upon the size of the party should
+depend the character of the preparations. If the plan is to spend the
+nights at farmhouses or village taverns, then a party of two will be
+as large as can secure comfortable quarters,--especially at a
+farmhouse, where but one spare bed can usually be found, while many
+are the country inns where the accommodations are equally limited. If
+it is intended to tent on the banks, then the party should be larger;
+for two persons unused to this experience would find it exceedingly
+lonesome after nightfall, when visions of river tramps, dissolute
+fishermen, and inquisitive hogs and bulls, pass in review, and the
+weakness of the little camp against such formidable odds comes to be
+fully recognized. Often, too, the camping-places are few and far
+between, and may involve a carry of luggage to higher lands beyond; on
+such occasions, the more assistance the merrier. But whatever the
+preparations for the night and breakfast, the mess-box must be relied
+upon for dinners and suppers, for there is no dining-car to be taken
+on along these water highways, and eating-stations are unknown. Unless
+there are several towns on the route, of over one thousand
+inhabitants, it would be well to carry sufficient provisions of a
+simple sort for the entire trip, for supplies are difficult to obtain
+at small villages, and the quality is apt to be poor. Farmhouses can
+generally be depended on for eggs, butter, and milk,--nothing more.
+For drinking-water, obtainable from farm-wells, carry an army canteen,
+if you can get one; if not, a stone jug will do. The river water is
+useful only for floating the canoe, and the offices of the bath. As to
+personal baggage, fly very light, as a draught of over six inches
+would at times work an estoppel to your progress on any of the three
+streams mentioned. In shipping your boat to any point at which you
+wish to embark upon a river, allow two or three days for freight-train
+delays.
+
+Be prepared to find canoeing a rough sport. There is plenty of hard
+work about it, a good deal of sunburn and blister. You will be obliged
+to wear your old clothes, and may not be overpleased to meet critical
+friends in the river towns you visit. But if you have the true spirit
+of the canoeist, you will win for your pains an abundance of good air,
+good scenery, wholesome exercise, sound sleep, and something to
+think about all your life.
+
+      TABLE OF DISTANCES.--TOTAL, 607 MILES.
+
+      THE ROCK RIVER.
+
+                                        MILES.
+
+     Madison to Stoughton                 22
+     Stoughton to Janesville              40
+     Janesville to Beloit                 18
+     Beloit to Rockford                   40
+     Rockford to Byron                    18
+     Byron to Oregon                      15
+     Oregon to Dixon                      31
+     Dixon to Sterling                    20
+     Sterling to Como                      9
+     Como to Lyndon                       14
+     Lyndon to Prophetstown                5
+     Prophetstown to Erie Ferry           10
+     Erie Ferry to Coloma                 25
+     Coloma to mouth of river             14
+     Mouth of river to Rock Island
+       (up Mississippi River)              6
+                                         ---
+     Total                               287
+
+       THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY).
+
+                                        MILES.
+
+     Portage to Packwaukee                25
+     Packwaukee to Montello                7
+     Montello to Marquette                11
+     Marquette to Princeton               18
+     Princeton to Berlin                  20
+     Berlin to Omro                       18
+     Omro to Oshkosh                      22
+     Oshkosh to Neenah                    20
+     Neenah to Appleton                    7
+     Appleton to Kaukauna                  7
+     Kaukauna to Green Bay                20
+                                         ---
+     Total                               175
+
+       THE WISCONSIN RIVER.
+
+                                        MILES.
+
+     Portage to Merrimac                  20
+     Merrimac to Prairie du Sac           10
+     Prairie du Sac to Arena Ferry        15
+     Arena Ferry to Helena                 8
+     Helena to Lone Rock Bridge           14
+     Lone Rock Bridge to Muscoda          18
+     Muscoda to Port Andrew                9
+     Port Andrew to Boscobel              10
+     Boscobel to Boydtown                 10
+     Boydtown to Wauzeka (on Kickapoo)     7
+     Wauzeka to Wright's Ferry            10
+     Wright's Ferry to Bridgeport          4
+     Bridgeport to mouth of river          7
+     Mouth of river to Prairie du Chien
+     (up Mississippi River)                5
+                                         ---
+     Total                               145
+
+NOTE.--The above table of distances by water is based upon the most
+reliable local estimates, verified, as far as practicable, by official
+surveys.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK RIVER.
+
+  [Illustration: MAP OF THE ROCK RIVER to accompany THWAITES'S
+  "HISTORIC WATERWAYS"]
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK RIVER.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE WINDING YAHARA.
+
+
+It was a quarter to twelve, Monday morning, the 23d of May, 1887, when
+we took seats in our canoe at our own landing-stage on Third Lake, at
+Madison, spread an awning over two hoops, as on a Chinese house-boat,
+pushed off, waved farewell to a little group of curious friends, and
+started on our way to explore the Rock River of Illinois. W----
+wielded the paddle astern, while I took the oars amidships. Despite
+the one hundred pounds of baggage and the warmth emitted by the
+glowing sun,--for the season was unusually advanced,--we made
+excellent speed, as we well had need in order to reach the mouth, a
+distance of two hundred and eighty miles as the sinuous river runs,
+in the seven days we had allotted to the task.
+
+It was a delightful run across the southern arm of the lake. There was
+a light breeze aft, which gave a graceful upward curvature to our
+low-set awning. The great elms and lindens at charming Lakeside--the
+home of the Wisconsin Chautauqua--droop over the bowlder-studded
+banks, their masses of greenery almost sweeping the water. Down in the
+deep, cool shadows groups of bass and pickerel and perch lazily swish;
+swarms of "crazy bugs" ceaselessly swirl around and around, with no
+apparent object in life but this rhythmic motion, by which they
+wrinkle the mirror-like surface into concentric circles. Through
+occasional openings in the dense fringe of pendent boughs, glimpses
+can be had of park-like glades, studded with columnar oaks, and
+stretching upward to hazel-grown knolls, which rise in irregular
+succession beyond the bank. From the thickets comes the fussy chatter
+of thrushes and cat-birds, calling to their young or gossiping with
+the orioles, the robins, jays, and red-breasted grosbeaks, who warble
+and twitter and scream and trill from more lofty heights.
+
+A quarter of an hour sent us spinning across the mouth of Turvill's
+Bay. At Ott's Farm, just beyond, the bank rises with sheer ascent, in
+layers of crumbly sandstone, a dozen feet above the water's level.
+Close-cropped woodlawn pastures gently slope upward to storm-wracked
+orchards, and long, dark windbreaks of funereal spruce. Flocks of
+sheep, fresh from the shearing, trot along the banks, winding in and
+out between the trees, keeping us company on our way,--their bleating
+lambs following at a lope,--now and then stopping, in their eager,
+fearful curiosity, to view our craft, and assuming picturesque
+attitudes, worthy subjects for a painter's art.
+
+A long, hard pull through close-grown patches of reeds and lily-pads,
+encumbered by thick masses of green scum, brought us to the outlet of
+the lake and the head of that section of the Catfish River which is
+the medium through which Third Lake pours its overflow into Second.
+The four lakes of Madison are connected by the Catfish, the chief
+Wisconsin tributary of the Rock. Upon the map this relationship
+reminds one of beads strung upon a thread.
+
+As the result of a protracted drought, the water in the little stream
+was low, and great clumps of aquatic weeds came very close to the
+surface, threatening, later in the season, an almost complete
+stoppage to navigation. But the effect of the current was at once
+perceptible. It was as if an additional rower had been taken on. The
+river, the open stream of which is some three rods wide at this point,
+winds like a serpent between broad marshes, which must at no far
+distant period in the past have been wholly submerged, thus prolonging
+the three upper lakes into a continuous sheet of water. From a
+half-mile to a mile back, on either side, there are low ridges,
+doubtless the ancient shores of a narrow lake that was probably thirty
+or forty miles in length. In high water, even now, the marshes are
+converted into widespreads, where the dense tangle of wild rice,
+reeds, and rushes does not wholly prevent canoe navigation; while
+little mud-bottomed lakes, a quarter of a mile or so in diameter, are
+frequently met with at all stages. In places, the river, during a
+drought, has a depth of not over eighteen inches. In such stretches,
+the current moves swiftly over hard bottoms strewn with gravel and the
+whitened sepulchres of snails and clams. In the widespreads, the
+progress is sluggish, the vegetable growth so crowding in upon the
+stream as to leave but a narrow and devious channel, requiring skill
+to pilot through; for in these labyrinthian turnings one is quite
+liable, if not closely watching the lazy flood, to push into some
+vexatious cul-de-sac, many rods in length, and be obliged to retrace,
+with the danger of mistaking a branch for the main channel.
+
+In the depths of the tall reeds motherly mud-hens are clucking, while
+their mates squat in the open water, in meditative groups, rising with
+a prolonged splash and a whirr as the canoe approaches within gunshot.
+Secluded among the rushes and cat-tails, nestled down in little clumps
+of stubble, are hundreds of the cup-shaped nests of the red-winged
+blackbird, or American starling; the females, in modest brown, take a
+rather pensive view of life, administering to the wants of their
+young; while the bright-hued, talkative males, perched on swaying
+stalks, fairly make the air hum with their cheery trills.
+
+Water-lilies abound everywhere. The blossoms of the yellow variety
+(nuphar advena) are here and there bursting in select groups, but as a
+rule the buds are still below the surface. In the mud lakes, the
+bottom is seen through the crystal water to be thickly studded with
+great rosettes, two and three feet in diameter, of corrugated ovate
+leaves, of golden russet shade, out of which are shot upward brilliant
+green stalks, some bearing arrow-shaped leaves, and others crowned
+with the tight-wrapped buds that will soon open upon the water level
+into saffron-hued flowers. The plate-like leaves of the white variety
+(nymphaea tuberosa) already dot the surface, but the buds are not yet
+visible. Anchored by delicate stems to the creeping root-stalks,
+buried in the mud below, the leaves, when first emerging, are of a
+rich golden brown, but they are soon frayed by the waves, and soiled
+and eaten by myriads of water-bugs, slugs, and spiders, who make their
+homes on these floating islands. Pluck a leaf, and the many-legged
+spiders, the roving buccaneers of these miniature seas, stalk off at
+high speed, while the slugs and leeches, in a spirit of stubborn
+patriotism, prefer meeting death upon their native heath to politic
+emigration.
+
+By one o'clock we had reached the railway bridge at the head of Second
+Lake. Upon the trestlework were perched three boys and a man, fishing.
+They had that listless air and unkempt appearance which are so
+characteristic of the little groups of humanity often to be found on a
+fair day angling from piers, bridges, and railway embankments. Men who
+imagine the world is allied against them will loll away a dozen hours
+a day, throughout an entire summer season, sitting on the sun-heated
+girders of an iron bridge; yet they would strike against any system in
+the work-a-day world which compelled them to labor more than eight
+hours for ten hours' pay. In going down a long stretch of water
+highway, one comes to believe that about one-quarter of the
+inhabitants, especially of the villages, spend their time chiefly in
+fishing. On a canoe voyage, the bridge fishermen and the birds are the
+classes of animated nature most frequently met with, the former
+presenting perhaps the most unique and varied specimens. There are
+fishermen and fishermen. I never could fancy Izaak Walton dangling his
+legs from a railroad bridge, soaking a worm at the end of a length of
+store twine, vainly hoping, as the hours went listlessly by, that a
+stray sucker or a diminutive catfish would pull the bob under and
+score a victory for patience. Now the use of a boat lifts this sort of
+thing to the dignity of a sport.
+
+Second Lake is about three miles long by a mile in breadth. The shores
+are here and there marshy; but as a rule they are of good, firm land
+with occasional rocky bluffs from a dozen to twenty feet high, rising
+sheer from a narrow beach of gravel. As we crossed over to gain the
+lower Catfish, a calm prevailed for the most part, and the awning was
+a decided comfort. Now and then, however, a delightful puff came
+ruffling the water astern, swelling our canvas roof and noticeably
+helping us along. Light cloudage, blown swiftly before upper aerial
+currents, occasionally obscured the sun,--black, gray, and white
+cumuli fantastically shaped and commingled, while through jagged and
+rapidly shifting gaps was to be seen with vivid effect, the deep blue
+ether beyond.
+
+The bluffs and glades are well wooded. The former have escarpments of
+yellow clay and grayish sand and gravel; here and there have been
+landslides, where great trees have fallen with the debris and maintain
+but a slender hold amid their new surroundings, leaning far out over
+the water, easy victims for the next tornado. One monarch of the woods
+had been thus precipitated into the flood; on one side, its trunk and
+giant branches were water-soaked and slimy, while those above were
+dead and whitened by storm. As we approached, scores of turtles,
+sunning themselves on the unsubmerged portion, suddenly ducked their
+heads and slid off their perches amid a general splash, to hidden
+grottos below; while a solitary king-fisher from his vantage height
+on an upper bough hurriedly rose, and screamed indignance at our rude
+entry upon his preserve.
+
+A farmer's lad sitting squat upon his haunches on the beach, and
+another, leaning over a pasture-fence, holding his head between his
+hands, exhibited lamb-like curiosity at the awning-decked canoe, as it
+glided past their bank. Through openings in the forest, we caught
+glimpses of rolling upland pastures, with sod close-cropped and smooth
+as a well-kept lawn; of gray-blue fields, recently seeded; of
+farmhouses, spacious barns, tobacco-curing sheds,--for this is the
+heart of the Wisconsin tobacco region,--and those inevitable signs of
+rural prosperity, windmills, spinning around by spurts, obedient to
+the breath of the intermittent May-day zephyr; while little bays
+opened up, on the most distant shore, enchanting vistas of blue-misted
+ridges.
+
+At last, after a dreamy pull of two miles from the lake-head, we
+rounded a bold headland of some thirty feet in height, and entered
+Catfish Bay. Ice-pushed bowlders strew the shore, which is here a
+gentle meadow slope, based by a gravel beach. A herd of cattle are
+contentedly browsing, their movements attuned to a symphony of
+cow-bells dangling from the necks of the leaders. The scene is
+pre-eminently peaceful.
+
+The Catfish connecting Second Lake with First, has two entrances, a
+small flat willow island dividing them. Through the eastern channel,
+which is the deepest, the current goes down with a rush, the
+obstruction offered by numerous bowlders churning it into noisy
+rapids; but the water tames down within a few rods, and the canoe
+comes gayly gliding into the united stream, which now has a placid
+current of two miles per hour,--quite fast enough for canoeing
+purposes. This section of the Catfish is much more picturesque than
+the preceding; the shores are firmer; the parallel ridges sometimes
+closely shut it in, and the stream, here four or five rods wide, takes
+upon itself the characteristics of the conventional river. The weed
+and vine grown banks are oftentimes twenty feet in height, with as
+sharp an ascent as can be comfortably climbed; and the swift-rushing
+water is sometimes fringed with sumachs, elders, and hazel brush, with
+here and there willows, maples, lindens, and oaks. Occasionally the
+river apparently ends at the base of a steep, earthy bluff; but when
+that is reached there is a sudden swerve to the right or left, with
+another vista of banks,--sometimes wood-grown to the water's edge,
+again with openings revealing purplish-brown fields, neatly harrowed,
+stretching up to some commanding, forest-crowned hill-top. The
+blossoms of the wild grape burden the air with sweet scent; on the
+deep-shaded banks, amid stones and cool mosses, the red and yellow
+columbine gracefully nods; the mandrake, with its glossy green leaves,
+grows with tropical luxuriance; more in the open, appears in great
+profusion, the old maid's nightcap, in purplish roseate hue; the
+sheep-berry shrub is decked in masses of white blossoms; the hawthorn
+flower is detected by its sickly-sweet scent, and here and there are
+luxuriously-flowered locusts, specimens that have escaped from
+cultivation to take up their homes in this botanical wilderness.
+
+There are charming rustic pictures at every turn,--sleek herds of
+cattle, droves of fat hogs, flocks of sheep that have but recently
+doffed their winter suits, well-tended fields, trim-looking wire
+fences, neat farm-houses where rows of milkpans glisten upon sunny
+drying-benches, farmers and farmers' boys riding aristocratic-looking
+sulky drags and cultivators,--everywhere an air of agricultural
+luxuriance, rather emphasized by occasional log-houses, which repose
+as honored relics by the side of their pretentious successors,
+sharply contrasting the wide differences between pioneer life and that
+of to-day.
+
+The marshes are few; and they in this dry season are luxuriant with
+coarse, glossy wild grass,--the only hay-crop the farmer will have
+this year,--and dotted with clumps of dead willow-trees, which present
+a ghostly appearance, waving their white, scarred limbs in the
+freshening breeze. The most beautiful spot on this section of the
+Catfish is a point some eight miles above Stoughton. The verdure-clad
+banks are high and steep. A lanky Norwegian farmer came down an
+angling path with a pail-yoke over his shoulders to get washing-water
+for his "woman," and told us that when this country was sparsely
+settled, a third of a century ago, there was a mill-dam here. That was
+the day when the possession of water-power meant more than it does in
+this age of steam and rapid transit,--the day when every mill-site was
+supposed to be a nucleus around which a prosperous village must
+necessarily grow in due time. Nothing now remains as a relic of this
+particular fond hope but great hollows in either bank, where the clay
+for dam-making purposes has been scooped out, and a few rotten piles,
+having a slender hold upon the bottom, against which drift-wood has
+lodged, forming a home for turtles and clumps of semi-aquatic grasses.
+W---- avers, in a spirit of enthusiasm, that the Catfish between
+Second and First Lakes is quite similar in parts to the immortal Avon,
+upon which Shakespeare canoed in the long-ago. If she is right, then
+indeed are the charms of Avon worthy the praise of the Muses. If the
+Catfish of to-day is ever to go down to posterity on the wings of
+poesy, however, I would wish that it might be with the more euphonious
+title of "Yahara,"--the original Winnebago name. The map-maker who
+first dropped the liquid "Yahara" for the rasping "Catfish" had no
+soul for music.
+
+Darting under a quaint rustic foot-bridge made of rough poles, which
+on its high trestles stalks over a wide expanse of reedy bog like a
+giant "stick-bug," we emerged into First Lake. The eastern shore,
+which we skirted, is a wide, sandy beach, backed by meadows. The
+opposite banks, two or three miles away, present more picturesque
+outlines. A stately wild swan kept us company for over a mile, just
+out of musket-shot, and finally took advantage of a patch of rushes to
+stop and hide. A small sandstone quarry on the southeast shore, with a
+lone worker, attracted our attention. There was not a human
+habitation in sight, and it seemed odd to see a solitary man engaged
+in such labor apparently so far removed from the highways of commerce.
+The quarryman stuck his crowbar in a crack horizontally, to serve as a
+seat, and filled his pipe as we approached. We hailed him with
+inquiries, from the stone pier jutting into the lake at the foot of
+the bluff into which he was burrowing. He replied from his lofty
+perch, in rich Norsk brogue, that he shipped stone by barge to
+Stoughton, and good-humoredly added, as he struck a match and lit his
+bowl of weed, that he thought himself altogether too good company to
+ever get lonesome. We left the philosopher to enjoy his pipe in peace,
+and passed on around the headland.
+
+An iron railway bridge, shut in with high sides, and painted a dullish
+red, spans the Lower Catfish at the outlet of First Lake. A country
+boy, with face as dirty as it was solemn, stood in artistic rags at
+the base of an arch, fishing with a bit of hop-twine tied to the end
+of a lath; from a mass of sedge just behind him a hoarse cry arose at
+short intervals.
+
+"Hi, Johnny, what's that making the noise?
+
+"Bird!" sententiously responded the stoic youth. He looked as though
+he had been bored with a silly question, and kept his eyes on his
+task.
+
+"What kind of a bird, Johnny?"
+
+"D'no!" rather raspishly. He evidently thought he was being guyed.
+
+We ran the nose of the canoe into the reeds. There was a splash, a
+wild cry of alarm, and up flew a great bittern. Circling about until
+we had passed on, it then drifted down to its former location near the
+uninquiring lad,--where doubtless it had a nest of young, and had been
+disturbed in the midst of a lecture on domestic discipline.
+
+Wide marshes again appear on either side of the stream. There are
+great and small bitterns at every view; plovers daintily picking their
+way over the open bogs, greedily feeding on countless snails; wild
+ducks in plenty, patiently waiting in the secluded bayous for the
+development of their young; yellow-headed troopials flitting freely
+about, uttering a choking, gulping cry; while the pert little wren,
+with his smart cock-tail, views the varied scene from his perch on a
+lofty rush, jealously keeping watch and ward over his ball-like
+castle, with its secret gate, hung among the reeds below.
+
+But interspersing the marshes there are often stretches of firm bank
+and delightfully varied glimpses of hillside and wood. Three miles
+above Stoughton, we stopped for supper at the edge of a glade, near a
+quaint old bridge. While seated on the smooth sward, beside our little
+spread, there came a vigorous rustling among the branches of the trees
+that overhang the country road which winds down the opposite slope to
+the water's edge to take advantage of the crossing. A gypsy wagon,
+with a high, rounded, oil-cloth top soon emerged from the forest, and
+was seen to have been the cause of the disturbance. Halting at one
+side of the highway, three men and a boy jumped out, unhitched the
+horses at the pole and the jockeying stock at the tail-board, and led
+them down to water. Two women meanwhile set about getting supper, and
+preparations were made for a night camp. We confessed to a touch of
+sympathy with our new neighbors on the other shore, for we felt as
+though gypsying ourselves. The hoop awning on the canoe certainly had
+the general characteristics of a gypsy-wagon top; we knew not and
+cared not where night might overtake us; we were dependent on the
+country for our provender; were at the mercy of wind, weather, and the
+peculiarities of our chosen highway; and had deliberately turned our
+backs on home for a season of untrammeled communion with nature.
+
+It was during a golden sunset that, pushing on through a great
+widespread, through which the channel doubles and twists like a
+scotched snake, we came in sight of the little city of Stoughton.
+First, the water-works tower rises above the mass of trees which
+embower the settlement. Then, on nearer approach, through rifts in the
+woodland we catch glimpses of some of the best outlying residences,
+most of them pretty, with well-kept grounds. Then come the
+church-spires, the ice-houses, the barge-dock, and with a spurt we
+sweep alongside the foundry of Mandt's wagon-works. Depositing our
+oars, paddle, blankets, and supplies in the office, the canoe was
+pulled up on the grass and padlocked to a stake. The street lamps were
+lighting as we registered at the inn.
+
+Stoughton has about two thousand inhabitants. A walk about town in the
+evening, revealed a number of bright, busy shops, chiefly kept by
+Norwegians, who predominate in this region. Nearly every street
+appears to end in one of Mandt's numerous factory yards, and the
+wagon-making magnate seems to control pretty much the entire river
+front here.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+BARBED-WIRE FENCES.
+
+
+We were off in the morning, after an early breakfast at the Stoughton
+inn. Our host kindly sent down his porter to help us over the
+mill-dam,--our first and easiest portage, and one of the few in which
+we received assistance of any kind. Below this, as below all of the
+dams on the river, there are broad shallows. The water in the stream,
+being at a low stage, is mainly absorbed in the mill-race, and the
+apron spreads the slight overflow evenly over the width of the bed, so
+that there is left a wide expanse of gravel and rocks below the chute,
+which is not covered sufficiently deep for navigating even our little
+craft, drawing but five inches when fully loaded. We soon grounded on
+the shallows and I was obliged to get out and tow the lightened boat
+to the tail of the race, where deeper water was henceforth assured.
+This experience became quite familiar before the end of the trip. I
+had fortunately brought a pair of rubbers in my satchel, and found
+them invaluable as wading-shoes, where the river bottom is strewn with
+sharp gravel and slimy round-heads.
+
+Below Stoughton the river winds along in most graceful curves, for the
+most part between banks from six to twenty feet high, with occasional
+pocket-marshes, in which the skunk-cabbage luxuriates. The stream is
+often thickly studded with lily-pads, which the wind, blowing fresh
+astern, frequently ruffles so as to give the appearance of rapids
+ahead, inducing caution where none is necessary. But every half-mile
+or so there are genuine little rapids, some of them requiring care to
+successfully shoot; in low water the canoe goes bumping along over the
+small moss-grown rocks, and now and then plumps solidly on a big one;
+when the stream is turbid,--as often happens below a pasture, where
+the cattle stir up the bank mud,--the danger of being overturned by
+scarcely submerged bowlders is imminent.
+
+There are some decidedly romantic spots, where little densely-wooded
+and grape-tangled glens run off at right angles, leading up to the
+bases of commanding hillocks, which they drain; or where the noisy
+little river, five or six rods wide, goes swishing around the foot of
+a precipitous, bush-grown bluff. It is noticeable that in such
+beauty-spots as these are generally to be found poverty-stricken
+cabins, the homes of small fishermen and hunters; while the more
+generous farm-houses seek the fertile but prosaic openings.
+
+All of a sudden, around a lovely bend, a barbed-wire fence of four
+strands savagely disputed the passage. A vigorous back-water stroke
+alone saved us from going full tilt into the bayonets of the enemy. We
+landed, and there was a council of war. As every stream in Wisconsin
+capable of floating a saw-log is "navigable" in the eye of the law, it
+is plain that this obstruction is an illegal one. Being an illegal
+fence, it follows that any canoeist is entitled to clip the wires, if
+he does not care to stop and prosecute the fencers for barring his
+way. The object of the structure is to prevent cattle from walking
+around through the shallow river into neighboring pastures. Along the
+upper Catfish, where boating is more frequently indulged in, farmers
+accomplish the same object by fencing in a few feet of the stream
+parallel with the shore. But below Stoughton, where canoeing is seldom
+practiced, the cattle-owners run their fences directly across the
+river as a measure of economy. Taking into consideration the fact that
+the lower Catfish is seldom used as a highway, we concluded that we
+would be charitable and leave the fences intact, getting under or over
+them as best we might. I am afraid that had we known that twenty-one
+of these formidable barriers were before us, the council would not
+have agreed on so conciliatory a campaign.
+
+Having taken in our awning and disposed of our baggage amidships, so
+that nothing remained above the gunwale, W----, kneeling, took the
+oars astern, while I knelt in the bow with the paddle borne like a
+battering-ram. Pushing off into the channel we bore down on the centre
+of the works, which were strong and thickly-posted, with wires drawn
+as tight as a drum-string. Catching the lower strand midway between
+two posts, on the blade end of the paddle, the speed of the canoe was
+checked. Then, seizing that strand with my right hand, so that the
+thick-strewn barbs came between my fingers, I forced it up to the
+second strand, and held the two rigidly together, thus making a slight
+arch. The canoe being crowded down into the water by sheer exercise of
+muscle, I crouched low in the bow, at the same time forcing the canoe
+under and forward through the arch. When half-way through, W---- was
+able similarly to clutch the wires, and perform the same office for
+the stern. This operation, ungraceful but effective, was frequently
+repeated during the day. When the current is swift and the wind fresh
+a special exertion is necessary on the part of the stern oar to keep
+the craft at right angles with the fence,--the tendency being, as soon
+as the bow is snubbed, to drift alongside and become entangled in the
+wires, with the danger of being either badly scratched or upset. It is
+with a feeling of no slight relief that a canoeist emerges from a
+tussle with a barbed-wire fence; and if hands, clothing, and boat have
+escaped without a scratch, he may consider himself fortunate, indeed.
+Before the day was through, when our twenty-one fences had been
+conquered without any serious accident, it was unanimously voted that
+the exercise was not to be recommended to those weak in muscle or
+patience.
+
+Eight miles below Stoughton is Dunkirk. There is a neat frame
+grist-mill there; and up a gentle slope to the right are four or five
+weather-beaten farm-houses, in the corners of the cross-roads. It was
+an easy portage at the dam. After pushing through the shallows below
+with some difficulty, we ran in under the shadow of a substantial
+wagon-bridge, and beached. Going up to the corners, we filled the
+canteen with ice-cold water from a moss-grown well, and interviewed
+the patriarchal miller, who assured us that "nigh onter a dozen year
+ago, Dunkirk had a bigger show for growin' than Stoughton, but the
+railroad went 'round us."
+
+A few miles down stream and we come to Stebbinsville. The water is
+backset by a mill-dam for two miles, forming a small lake. The course
+now changing, the wind came dead ahead, and we rowed down to the dam
+in a rolling sea, with much exertion. The river is six rods wide here,
+flowing between smooth, well-rounded, grass-grown banks, from fifteen
+to thirty feet in height, the fields on either side sloping up to
+wood-crowned ridges. There are a mill and two houses at Stebbinsville,
+and the country round about has a prosperous appearance. A tall,
+pleasant-spoken young miller came across the road-bridge and talked to
+us about the crops and the river, while we made a comfortable portage
+of five rods, up the grassy bank and through a close-cropped pasture,
+down to a sequestered little bay at the tail of an abandoned race,
+where the spray of the falls spattered us as we reloaded. We pushed
+off, with the joint opinion that Stebbinsville was a charming little
+place, with ideal riverside homes, that would be utterly spoiled by
+building the city on its site which the young man said his father had
+always hoped would be established there. A quarter of a mile below,
+around the bend, is a disused mill, thirty feet up, on the right bank.
+There is a suspended platform over a ravine, to one side of the
+building, and upon its handrail leaned two dusty millers, who had
+doubtless hastened across from the upper mill, to watch the progress
+down the little rapids here of what was indeed a novel craft to these
+waters. They waved their caps and gave us a cheery shout as we quickly
+disappeared around another curve; but while it still rung in our ears
+we were suddenly confronted by one of the tightest fences on the
+course, and had neither time nor disposition to return the salute.
+
+And so we slid along, down rapids, through long stretches of quiet
+water and scraping over shallows, plying both oars and paddle, while
+now and then "making" a fence and comparing its savagery with that of
+the preceding one. Here and there the high vine-clad banks, from
+overshadowing us would irregularly recede, leaving little meadows,
+full of painted-cups, the wild rose-colored phlox and saxifrage; or
+bits of woodland in the dryer bottoms, radiant, amid the underbrush,
+with the daisy, cinque-foil, and puccoon. Kingfishers and blue herons
+abound. Great turtles, disturbed by the unwonted splash of oars, slide
+down high, sunny banks of sand, where they have been to lay their
+eggs, and amid a cloud of dust shuffle off into the water, their
+castle of safety. These eggs, so trustfully left to be hatched by the
+warmth of the sun, form toothsome food for coons and skunks, which in
+turn fall victims to farmers' lads,--as witness the rows of peltries
+stretched inside out on shingles, and tacked up on the sunny sides of
+the barns and woodsheds along the river highway.
+
+As we begin to approach the valley of the Rock, the hills grow higher,
+groups of red cedar appear, the banks of red clay often attain the
+height of fifty or sixty feet, broken by deep, staring gullies and
+wooded ravines, through which little brooklets run, the output of
+back-country springs; while the pocket-meadows are less frequent,
+although more charmingly diversified as to color and background.
+
+We had our mid-day lunch on a pleasant bank, that had been covered
+earlier in the season with hepatica, blood-root, and dicentra, and
+was now resplendent with Solomon's seal, the dark-purple water-leaf,
+and graceful maidenhair ferns, with here and there a dogwood in full
+bloom. Behind us were thick woods and an overlooking ridge; opposite,
+a meadow-glade on which herds of cattle and black hogs grazed. A bell
+cow waded into the water, followed by several other members of the
+herd, and the train pensively proceeded in single file diagonally
+across the shallow stream to another feeding-ground below. The
+leader's bell had a peculiarly mournful note, and the scene strongly
+reminded one of an ecclesiastical procession.
+
+In the middle of the afternoon the little village of Fulton was
+reached. It is a dead-alive, moss-grown settlement, situated on a
+prairie, through which the river has cut a deep channel. There are a
+cheese-factory, a grist-mill, a church, a school-house, three or four
+stores, and some twenty-five houses, with but a solitary boat in
+sight, and that of the punt variety. It was recess at the school as we
+rowed past, and boys and girls were chiefly engaged in climbing the
+trees which cluster in the little schoolhouse yard. A chorus of shouts
+and whistles greeted us from the leafy perches, in which we could
+distinguish "Shoot the roof!"--an exclamation called forth by the
+awning, which doubtless seemed the chief feature of our outfit, viewed
+from the top of the bank.
+
+At the mill-dam, a dozen lazy, shiftless fellows were fishing at the
+foot of the chute, and stared at our movements with expressionless
+eyes. The portage was somewhat difficult, being over a high bank,
+across a rocky road, and down through a stretch of bog. When we had
+completed the carry, W---- waited in the canoe while I went up to the
+fishermen for information as to the lay of the country.
+
+"How far is it to the mouth of the Catfish, my friend?" I asked the
+most intelligent member of the party.
+
+"D'no! Never was thar." He jerked in his bait, to pull off a weed
+that had become entangled in it, and from the leer he gave his
+comrades it was plain that I had struck the would-be wag of the
+village.
+
+"How far do you think it is?" I insisted, curious to see how far he
+would carry his obstinacy.
+
+"Don' think nuthin' 'bout 't; don' care t' know."
+
+"Didn't you ever hear any one say how far it is?" and I sat beside him
+on the stone pier, as if I had come to stay.
+
+"Nah!"
+
+"Suppose you were placed in a boat here and had to float down to the
+Rock, how long do you imagine you'd be?"
+
+"Aint no man goin' t' place me in no boat! No siree!" pugnaciously.
+
+"Don't you ever row?"
+
+"Nah!" contemptuously; "what I want of a boat? Bridge 's good 'nough
+fer us fellers, a-fishin'."
+
+"Whose boat is that, over there, on the shore?"
+
+"Schoolmaster's. He's a dood, he is. Bridge isn't rich 'nough fer his
+blood. Boats is fer doods." And with this withering remark he relapsed
+into so intent an observation of his line that I thought it best to
+disturb him no longer.
+
+Below Fulton, the stream is quite swift and the scenery more rugged,
+the evidences of disastrous spring overflows and back-water from the
+Rock being visible on every hand. At five o'clock, we came to a point
+where the river divides into three channels, there being a clump of
+four small islands. A barbed-wire fence, the last we were fated to
+meet, was stretched across each channel. Selecting the central
+mouth,--for this is the delta of the Catfish,--we shot down with a
+rush, but were soon lodged on a sandbank. It required wading and much
+pushing and twisting and towing before we were again off, but in the
+length of a few rods more we swung free into the Rock, which was to be
+our highway for over two hundred miles more of canoe travel.
+
+The Rock River is nearly a quarter of a mile wide at this point, and
+comes down with a majestic sweep from the north, having its chief
+source in the gloomily picturesque Lake Koshkonong. The banks of the
+river at and below the mouth of the Catfish, are quite imposing,
+rising into a succession of graceful, round-topped mounds, from fifty
+to one hundred feet high, and finely wooded except where cleared for
+pasture or as the site of farm-buildings. While the immediate edges of
+the stream are generally firm and grass-grown, with occasional
+gravelly beaches, there are frequent narrow strips of marsh at the
+bases of the mounds, especially on the left bank where innumerable
+springs send forth trickling rills to feed the river. A stiff wind
+up-stream had broken the surface into white caps, and more than
+counteracted the force of the lazy current, so that progress now
+depended upon vigorous exercise at the oars and paddle.
+
+Three miles above Janesville is Pope's Springs, a pleasant summer
+resort, with white tents and gayly painted cottages commingled. It is
+situated in a park-like wood, on the right bank, while directly
+opposite are some bold, rocky cliffs, or palisades, their feet laved
+in the stream. We spread our supper cloth on the edge of a
+wheat-field, in view of the pretty scene. The sun was setting behind a
+bank of roseate clouds, and shooting up broad, sharply defined bands
+of radiance nearly to the zenith. The wind was blowing cold, wraps
+were essential, and we were glad to be on our way once more, paddling
+along in the dying light, past palisades and fields and meadows,
+reaching prosperous Janesville, on her rolling prairie, just as dusk
+was thickening into dark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+AN ILLINOIS PRAIRIE HOME.
+
+
+We had an early start from the hotel next morning. A prospect of the
+situation at the upper Janesville dam, from a neighboring bridge,
+revealed the fact that the mill-race along the left bank afforded the
+easiest portage. Reloading our craft at the boat-renter's staging
+where it had passed the night, we darted across the river, under two
+low-hung bridges, keeping well out of the overflow current and entered
+the race, making our carry over a steep and rocky embankment.
+
+Below, after passing through the centre of the city, the river widens
+considerably, as it cuts a deep channel through the fertile prairie,
+and taking a sudden bend to the southwest, becomes a lake, formed by
+back-water from the lower dam. The wind was now dead ahead again, and
+fierce. White caps came savagely rolling up stream. The pull down
+brought out the rowing muscles to their fullest tension. The canoe at
+times would appear to scarcely creep along, although oars and paddle
+would bend to their work.
+
+The race of the carding-mill, which we were now approaching, is by the
+left bank, the rest of the broad river--fully a third of a mile wide
+here--being stemmed by a ponderous, angling dam, the shorter leg of
+which comes dangerously close to the entrance of the race, which it
+nearly parallels. Overhead, fifty feet skyward, a great railway bridge
+spans the chasm. The disposition of its piers leaves a rowing channel
+but two rods wide, next the shore. Through this a deep, swift current
+flows, impelling itself for the most part over the short leg of the
+chute, with a deafening roar. Its backset, however, is caught in the
+yawning mouth of the race. It so happens then that from either side of
+an ugly whirling strip of doubting water, parallel with the shorter
+chute, the flood bursts forth,--to the left plunging impetuously over
+the apron to be dashed to vapor at its foot; to the right madly
+rushing into the narrow race, to turn the wheels of the carding-mill
+half a mile below. This narrow channel, under the bridge and next the
+shore, of which I have spoken, is the only practicable entrance to
+the race.
+
+We had landed above and taken a panoramic view of the situation from
+the deck of the bridge; afterward had descended to the flood-gates at
+the entrance of the race, for detailed inspection and measurements.
+One of the set of three gates was partly raised, the bottom being but
+three feet above the boiling surface, while the great vertical iron
+beams along which the cog-wheels work were not over four feet apart.
+It would require steady hands to guide the canoe to the right of the
+whirl, where the flood hesitated between two destinations, and finally
+to shoot under the uplifted gate, which barely gave room in either
+height or breadth for the passage of the boat. But we arrived at the
+conclusion that the shoot was far more dangerous in appearance than in
+reality, and that it was preferable to a long and exceedingly irksome
+portage.
+
+So we determined to make the attempt, and walked back to the canoe.
+Disposing our baggage in the centre, as in the barbed-wire experience
+of the day before, W---- again took the oars astern and I the paddle
+at the bow. A knot of men on the bridge had been watching our
+movements with interest, and waved their hats at us as we came
+cautiously creeping along the shore. We went under the bridge with a
+swoop, waited till we were within three rods of the brink of the
+thundering fall, and then strained every muscle in sending the canoe
+shooting off at an angle into the waters bound for the race. We went
+down to the gate as if shot out of a cannon, but the little craft was
+easily controlled, quickly obeying every stroke of the paddle.
+Catching a projecting timber, it was easy to guide ourselves to the
+opening. We lay down in the bottom of the boat and with uplifted hands
+clutched the slimy gate; slowly, hand over hand, we passed through
+under the many internal beams and rods of the structure, with the
+boiling flood under us, making an echoing roar, amid which we were
+obliged to fairly shout our directions to each other. In the last
+section the release was given; we were fairly hurled into daylight on
+the surface of the mad torrent, and were many a rod down the race
+before we could recover our seats. The men on the bridge, joined by
+others, now fairly yelled themselves hoarse over the successful close
+of what was apparently a hazardous venture, and we waved
+acknowledgments with the paddle, as we glided away under the willows
+which overhang the long and narrow canal. At the isolated mill, where
+there is one of the easiest portages on the route, the hands came
+flocking by dozens to the windows to see the craft which had invaded
+their quiet domain.
+
+The country toward Beloit becomes more hilly, especially upon the left
+bank, along which runs the Chicago and Northwestern railway, all the
+way down from Janesville. At the Beloit paper-mill, which was reached
+at three o'clock in the afternoon, it was found that owing to the low
+stage of water one end of the apron projected above the flood. With
+some difficulty as to walking on the slimy incline, we portaged over
+the face of the dam and went down stream through the heart of the
+pretty little college town, getting more or less picturesque back-door
+views of the domestic life of the community.
+
+Beloit being on the State line, we had now entered Illinois. For
+several miles the river is placid and shallow, with but a feeble
+current. Islands begin to appear, dividing the channel and somewhat
+perplexing canoeists, it being often quite difficult to decide which
+route is the best; as a rule, one is apt to wish that he had taken
+some other than the one selected.
+
+The dam at Rockton was reached in a two hours' pull. It was being
+repaired, stone for the purpose being quarried on a neighboring bank
+and transported to the scene of action on a flat-boat. We had been
+told that we could save several miles by going down the race, which
+cuts the base of a long detour. But the boss of the dam-menders
+assured us that the race was not safe, and that we would "get in a
+trap" if we attempted it. Deeming discretion the better part of valor,
+with much difficulty we lifted the canoe over the high, jagged, stone
+embankment and through a bit of tangled swamp to the right, and took
+the longest way around. It was four or five miles by the bend to the
+village of Rockton, whose spires we could see at the dam, rising above
+a belt of intervening trees. It being our first detour of note, we
+were somewhat discouraged at having had so long a pull for so short a
+vantage; but we became well used to such experiences long before our
+journey was over. It was not altogether consoling to be informed at
+Rockton--which is a smart little manufacturing town of a thousand
+souls--that the race was perfectly practicable for canoes, and the
+tail portage easy.
+
+Beaching near the base of a fine wagon-bridge which here spans the
+Rock, we went up to a cluster of small houses on the bank opposite the
+town, to have some tea steeped, our prepared stock being by this time
+exhausted. The people were all employed in the paper-mills in the
+village, but one good woman chanced to be at home for the afternoon,
+and cheerfully responded to our request for service. A young, neat,
+and buxom little woman she was, though rather sad-eyed and evidently
+overworked in the family struggle for existence. She assured us that
+she nowadays never went upon the water in an open boat, for she had
+"three times been near drowndid" in her life, which she thought was
+"warnin' enough for one body." Inquiry developed that her first
+"warnin'" consisted of having been, when she was "a gal down in
+Kansis," taken for a row in a leaky boat; the water came in half-way
+up to the thwarts, and would have eventually swamped the craft and
+drowned its occupants, in perhaps half an hour's time, if her
+companion had not luckily bethought himself to run in to shore and
+land. Another time, she and her husband were out rowing, when a
+stern-wheel river steamer came along, and the swell in her wake washed
+the row-boat atop of a log raft, and "she stuck there, ma'am, would ye
+believe, and we'd 'a' drowndid sure, with a storm a-comin' up, hadn't
+my brother-in-law, that was then a-courtin' of sister Jane, come off
+in a dug-out and took us in." Her last and most harrowing experience
+was in a boat on the Republican River in Kansas. She and another woman
+were out when a storm came up, and white-capped waves tossed the
+little craft about at will; but fortunately the blow subsided, and the
+women regained pluck enough to take the oars and row home again. The
+eyes of the paper-maker's wife were suffused with tears, as, seated in
+her rocking-chair by the kitchen stove and giving the teapot an
+occasional shake, doubtless to hasten the brew, she related these
+thrilling tales of adventure by flood, and called us to witness that
+thrice had Providence directly interposed in her behalf. We were
+obliged to acknowledge ourselves much impressed with the gravity of
+the dangers she had so successfully passed through. Her sympathy with
+the perils which we were braving, in what she was pleased to call our
+singular journey, was so great that the good woman declined to accept
+pay for having steeped our tea in a most excellent manner, and bade us
+an affecting God-speed.
+
+We had our supper, graced with the hot tea, on a pretty sward at the
+river end of the quiet lane just around the corner; while a dozen
+little children in pinafores and short clothes, perched on a
+neighboring fence, watched and discussed us as eagerly as though we
+were a circus caravan halting by the wayside for refreshment. The
+paper-maker's wife also came out, just as we were packing up for the
+start, and inspected the canoe in some detail. Her judgment was that
+in her giddiest days as an oarswoman, she would certainly never have
+dared to set foot in such a shell. She watched us off, just as the sun
+was disappearing, and the last Rockton object we saw was our
+tenderhearted friend standing on the beach at the end of her lane,
+both hands shading her eyes, as she watched us fade away in the
+gloaming. I have no doubt she has long ago given us up for lost, for
+her last words were, "I've heerd 'em tell it was a riskier river than
+any in Kansis, 'tween here an' Missip'; tek care ye don't git
+drowndid!"
+
+In the soft evening shadows it was cool enough for heavy wraps. In
+fact, for the greater part of the day W---- had worn a light shoulder
+cape. We had a beautiful sunset, back of a group of densely timbered
+islands. We would have been sorely tempted to camp out on one of
+these, but the night was setting in too cold for sleeping in the open
+air, and we had no tent with us.
+
+The twilight was nearly spent, and the banks and now frequent islands
+were so heavily wooded that on the river it was rapidly becoming too
+dark to navigate among the shallows and devious channels. W----
+volunteered to get out and look for a farmhouse, for none could be
+seen from our hollow way. So she landed and got up into some prairie
+wheatfields back away from the bank. After a half-mile's walk parallel
+with the river she sighted a prosperous-looking establishment, with a
+smart windmill, large barns, and a thrifty orchard, silhouetted
+against the fast-fading sunset sky. The signal was given, and the prow
+of the canoe was soon resting on a steep, gravely beach at the mouth
+of a ravine. Armed with the paddle, for a possible encounter with
+dogs, we went up through the orchard and a timothy-field sopping with
+dew, scaled the barnyard fence, passed a big black dog that growled
+savagely, but was by good chance chained to an old mowing-machine,
+walked up to the kitchen door and boldly knocked.
+
+No answer. The stars were coming out, the shadows darkening, night was
+fairly upon us, and shelter must be had, if we were obliged to sleep
+in the barn. The dog reared on his hind legs, and fairly howled with
+rage. A row of well-polished milk-cans on a bench by the windmill
+well, and the general air of thrifty neatness impelled us to
+persevere. An old German, with kindly face and bushy white hair,
+finally came, cautiously peering out beneath a candle which he held
+above his head. English he had none, and our German was too fresh from
+the books to be reliable in conversation. However, we mustered a few
+stereotyped phrases from the "familiar conversations" in the back of
+the grammar, which served to make the old man smile, and disappearing
+toward the cattle-sheds he soon returned with his daughter and
+son-in-law, a cheerful young couple who spoke good English, and
+assured us of welcome and a bed. They had been out milking by
+lantern-light when interrupted, and soon rejoined us with brimming
+pails.
+
+It did not take long to feel quite at home with these simple,
+good-hearted folk. They had but recently purchased the farm and were
+strangers in the community. The old man lived with his other children
+at Freeport, and was there only upon a visit. The young people,
+natives of Illinois, were lately married, their wedding-trip having
+been made to this house, where they had at once settled down to a
+thrifty career, surrounded with quite enough comforts for all
+reasonable demands, and a few simple luxuries. W---- declared the
+kitchen to be a model of neatness and convenience; and the
+sitting-room, where we passed the evening with our modest
+entertainers,--who appeared quite well posted on current news of
+general importance,--showed evidences of being in daily use. They were
+devout Catholics, and I was pleased to find the patriarch drifting
+down the river of time with a heartfelt appreciation of the benefits
+of democracy, fully cognizant of what American institutions had done
+for him and his. Immigrating in the noon-tide of life and settling in
+a German neighborhood, he had found no need and had no inclination to
+learn our language. But he had prospered from the start, had secured
+for his children a good education at the common schools, had imbued
+them with the spirit of patriotism, had seen them marry happily and
+with a bright future, and at night he never retired without uttering a
+bedside prayer of gratitude that God had turned his footsteps to
+blessed America. As the old man told me his tale, with his daughter's
+hands resting lovingly in his while she served as our interpreter, and
+contrasted the hard lot of a German peasant with the independence of
+thought and speech and action vouchsafed the German-American farmer,
+who can win competence in a state of freedom, I felt a thrill of
+patriotism that would have been the making of a Fourth-of-July orator.
+I wished that thousands such as he originally was, still dragging out
+an existence in the fatherland, could have listened to my aged friend
+and followed in his footsteps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE HALF-WAY HOUSE.
+
+
+The spin down to Roscoe next morning was delightful in every respect.
+The air was just sharp enough for vigorous exercise. These were the
+pleasantest hours we had yet spent. The blisters that had troubled us
+for the first three days were hardening into callosities, and arm and
+back muscles, which at first were sore from the unusually heavy strain
+upon them, at last were strengthened to their work. Thereafter we felt
+no physical inconvenience from our self-imposed task. At night, after
+a pull of eleven or twelve hours, relieved only by the time spent in
+lunching, in which we hourly alternated at the oars and paddle,
+slumber came as a most welcome visitation, while the morning ever
+found us as fresh as at the start. Let those afflicted with insomnia
+try this sort of life. My word for it, they will not be troubled so
+long as the canoeing continues. Every muscle of the body moves
+responsive to each pull of the oars or sweep of the paddle; while the
+mental faculties are kept continually on the alert, watching for
+shallows, snags, and rapids, in which operation a few days' experience
+will render one quite expert, though none the less cautious.
+
+As we get farther down into the Illinois country, the herds of
+live-stock increase in size and number. Cattle may be seen by hundreds
+at one view, dotted all over the neighboring hills and meadows, or
+dreamily standing in the cooling stream at sultry noonday. Sheep, in
+immense flocks, bleat in deafening unison, the ewes and their young
+being particularly demonstrative at our appearance, and sometimes
+excitedly following us along the banks. Droves of black hogs and
+shoats are ploughing the sward in their search for sweet roots, or
+lying half-buried in the wet sand. Horses, in familiar groups, quickly
+lift their heads in startled wonder as the canopied canoe glides
+silently by,--then suddenly wheel, kick up their heels, sound a snort
+of alarm, and dash off at a thundering gallop, clods of turf filling
+the air behind them. There are charming groves and parks and treeless
+downs, and the river cuts through the alluvial soil to a depth of
+eight and ten feet, throwing up broad beaches on either side.
+
+At Roscoe, three or four miles below our morning's starting-point,
+there is a collection of three or four neat farm-houses, each with its
+spinning windmill.
+
+Latham Station, nine miles below Rockton, was reached at ten o'clock.
+The post-office is called Owen. There is a smart little depot on the
+Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway line, two general stores, and
+a half-dozen cottages, with a substantial-looking creamery, where we
+obtained buttermilk drawn fresh from one of the mammoth churns. The
+concern manufactures from three hundred to nine hundred pounds per
+day, according to the season, shipping chiefly to New York city.
+Leaning over the hand-rail which fences off the "making" room, and
+gossiping with the young man in charge, I conjured up visions of the
+days when, as a boy on the farm, I used to spend many weary, almost
+tearful hours, pounding an old crock churn, in which the butter would
+always act like a balky horse and refuse to "come" until after a long
+series of experimental coaxing. Nowadays, rustic youths luxuriously
+ride behind the plough, the harrow, the cultivator, the horse-rake,
+the hay-loader, and the self-binding harvester, while the
+butter-making is farmed out to a factory where the thing is done by
+steam. The farmer's boy of the future will live in a world darkened
+only by the frown of the district schoolmaster and the intermittent
+round of stable chores.
+
+     ______________________________________
+     |                                    |
+     |            FARE.                   |
+     |                                    |
+     |  Foot Passengere          10 cts.  |
+     |  Man & Horse              15 ct.   |
+     |  single Carriage          10 c.    |
+     |  double "                 15 c     |
+     |  each Passinger            5 c     |
+     |                                    |
+     |  Night Raites       Double Fare.   |
+     |                                    |
+     |        All persons                 |
+     |        Are cautioned               |
+     |        Againts useing              |
+     |        this Boat with Out          |
+     |        Permistion from             |
+     |        the Owners                  |
+     |____________________________________|
+
+At Latham Station we encountered the first ferry-boat on our trip,--a
+flat-bottomed scow with side-rails, attached by ropes and pulleys to a
+suspended wire cable, and working diagonally, with the force of the
+current. A sign conspicuously displayed on the craft bore the above
+legend.
+
+From the time we had entered Illinois, the large, graceful, white
+blossoms of the Pennsylvanian anemone and the pink and white fringe of
+the erigeron Canadense had appeared in great abundance upon the river
+banks, while the wild prairie rose lent a delicate beauty and
+fragrance to the scene. On sandy knolls, where in early spring the
+anemone patens and crowfoot violets had thrived in profusion, were now
+to be seen the geum triflorum and the showy yellow puccoon; the
+long-flowered puccoon, with its delicate pale yellow, crape-like
+blossom, was just putting in an appearance; and little white,
+star-shaped flowers, which were strangers to us of Wisconsin, fairly
+dotted the green hillsides, mingled in striking contrast with dwarf
+blue mint. Bevies of great black crows, sitting in the tops of dead
+willow-trees or circling around them, rent the air with sepulchral
+squawks. Men and boys were cultivating in the cornfields, the
+prevalent drought painfully evidenced by the clouds of gray dust which
+enveloped them and their teams as they stirred up the brittle earth.
+
+There was now a fine breeze astern, and the awning, abandoned during
+the head winds of the day before, was again welcomed as the sun
+mounted to the zenith. At 2.30 P. M., we were in busy Rockford, where
+the banks are twenty or twenty-five feet high, with rolling prairies
+stretching backward to the horizon, except where here and there a
+wooded ridge intervenes. Rockford is the metropolis of the valley of
+the Rock. It has twenty-two thousand inhabitants, with many elegant
+mansions visible from the river, and evidences upon every hand of that
+prosperity which usually follows in the train of varied manufacturing
+enterprises.
+
+There are numerous mills and factories along both sides of the river,
+and a protracted inspection of the portage facilities was necessary
+before we could decide on which bank to make our carry. The right was
+chosen. The portage was somewhat over two ordinary city blocks in
+length, up a steep incline and through a road-way tunnel under a great
+flouring mill. We had made nearly half the distance, and were resting
+for a moment, when a mill-driver kindly offered the use of his wagon,
+which was gratefully accepted. We were soon spinning down the tail of
+the race, a half-dozen millers waving a "Chautauqua salute" with as
+many dusty flour-bags, and in ten minutes more had left Rockford out
+of sight.
+
+Several miles below, there are a half-dozen forested islands in a
+bunch, some of them four or five acres in extent, and we puzzled over
+which channel to take,--the best of them abounding in shallows. The
+one down which the current seemed to set the strongest was selected,
+but we had not proceeded over half a mile before the trees on the
+banks began to meet in arches overhead, and it was evident that we
+were ascending a tributary. It proved to be the Cherry River, emptying
+into the main stream from the east. The wind, now almost due-west, had
+driven the waves into the mouth of the Cherry, so that we mistook this
+surface movement for the current. Coming to a railway bridge, which we
+knew from our map did not cross the Rock, our course was retraced, and
+after some difficulty with snags and gravel-spits, we were once more
+upon our proper highway, trending to the southwest.
+
+Supper was eaten upon the edge of a large island, several miles
+farther down stream, in the shade of two wide-spreading locusts.
+Opposite are some fine, eroded sandstone palisades, which formation
+had been frequently met with during the day,--sometimes on both sides
+of the river, but generally on the left bank, which is, as a rule, the
+most picturesque along the entire course.
+
+It was still so cold when evening shadows thickened that camping out,
+with our meagre preparations for it, seemed impracticable; so we
+pushed on and kept a sharp lookout for some friendly farm-house at
+which to quarter for the night. The houses in the thickly-wooded
+bottoms, however, were generally quite forbidding in appearance, and
+the sun had gone down before we sighted a well-built stone dwelling
+amid a clump of graceful evergreens. It seemed, from the river, to be
+the very embodiment of comfortable neatness; but upon ascending the
+gentle slope and fighting off two or three mangy curs which came
+snarling at our heels, we found the structure merely a relic of
+gentility. There was scarcely a whole pane of glass in the house,
+there were eight or ten wretchedly dirty and ragged children, the
+parents were repulsive in appearance and manner, and a glimpse of the
+interior presented a picture of squalor which would have shocked a
+city missionary. The stately stone house was a den of the most abject
+and shiftless poverty, the like of which one could seldom see in the
+slums of a metropolis. These people were in the midst of a splendid
+farming country, had an abundance of pure air and water at command,
+and there seemed to be no excuse for their condition. Drink and
+laziness were doubtless the besetting sins in this uncanny home.
+Making a pretense of inquiring the distance to Byron, the next village
+below, we hurried from the accursed spot.
+
+A half-hour later we reached the high bridge of the Chicago, Milwaukee
+and St. Paul railway, above Byron, and ran our bow on a little beach
+at the base of the left bank, which is here thirty feet high. A
+section-man had a little cabin hard by, and his gaunt, talkative wife,
+with a chubby little boy by her side, had been keenly watching our
+approach from her garden-fence. She greeted us with a shrill but
+cheery voice as we clambered up a zigzag path and joined her upon the
+edge of the prairie.
+
+"Good ev'nin', folks! Whar'n earth d' ye come from?"
+
+We enlightened her in a few words.
+
+"Don't mean t' say ye come all the way from Weesconsin a' down here in
+that thing?" pointing down at the canoe, which certainly looked quite
+small, at that depth, in the dim twilight.
+
+"Certainly; why not?"
+
+"Ye'll git drowndid, an' I'm not mistakin, afore ye git to Byron."
+
+"River dangerous, ma'am?"
+
+"Dang'rous ain't no name for 't. There was a young feller drowndid at
+this here bridge las' spring. The young feller he worked at the
+bridge-mendin', bein' a carpenter,--he called himself a carpenter, but
+he warn't no great fist at carpenterin', an' I know it,--and he
+boarded up at Byron. A 'nsurance agint kim 'long and got Rollins,--the
+young feller his name was Abe Rollins, an' he was a bach,--to promise
+to 'sure his life for a thousand dollars, which was to go t' his
+sister, what takes in washin', an' her man ran away from her las' year
+an' nobody knows where he is,--which I says is good riddance, but she
+takes on as though she had los' somebody worth cryin' over: there's no
+accountin' for tastes. The agint says to Rollins to go over to the
+doctor's of'c' to git 'xamined and Rollins says, 'No, I ain't agoin'
+to git 'xamined till I clean off; I'll go down an' take a swim at the
+bridge and then come back and strip for the doctor.' An' Rollins he
+took his swim and got sucked down inter a hole just yonder down there,
+by the openin' of Stillman's Creek, and he was a corpse when they
+hauled him out, down off Byron; an' he never hollered once but jist
+sunk like a stone with a cramp; an' his folks never got no 'nsurance
+money at all, for lackin' the doctor's c'tificate. An' it's heaps o'
+folks git drowndid in this river, an' nobody ever hears of 'em agin;
+an' I wouldn't no more step foot in that boat nor the biggest ship on
+the sea, an' I don't see how you can do it, ma'am!"
+
+No doubt the good woman would have rattled on after this fashion for
+half the night, but we felt obliged, owing to the rapidly increasing
+darkness, to interrupt her with geographical inquiries. She assured us
+that Byron was distant some five or six miles by river, with, so far
+as she had heard, many shallows, whirlpools, and snags _en route_;
+while by land the village was but a mile and a quarter across the
+prairie, from the bridge. We accordingly made fast for the night
+where we had landed, placed our heaviest baggage in the tidy
+kitchen-sitting-room-parlor of our voluble friend, and trudged off
+over the fields to Byron,--a solitary light in a window and the
+occasional practice-note of a brass band, borne to us on the light
+western breeze, being our only guides.
+
+After a deal of stumbling over a rough and ill-defined path, which we
+could distinguish by the sense of feeling alone, we finally reached
+the exceedingly quiet little village, and by dint of inquiry from
+house to house,--in most of which the denizens seemed preparing to
+retire for the night,--found the inn which had been recommended by the
+section-man's wife as the best in town. It was the only one. There
+were several commercial travelers in the place, and the hostelry was
+filled. But the landlord kindly surrendered to us his own
+well-appointed chamber, above an empty store where the village band
+was tuning up for Decoration Day. It seemed appropriate enough that
+there should be music to greet us, for we were now one hundred and
+thirty-four miles from Madison, and practically half through our
+voyage to the Mississippi.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+GRAND DETOUR FOLKS.
+
+
+We tramped back to the bridge in high spirits next morning, over the
+flower-strewn prairie. The section-man's wife was on hand, with her
+entire step-laddered brood of six, to see us off. As we carried down
+our traps to the beach and repacked, she kept up a continuous strain
+of talk, giving us a most edifying review of her life, and especially
+the particulars of how she and her "man" had first romantically met,
+while he was a gravel-train hand on a far western railroad, and she
+the cook in a portable construction-barracks.
+
+Stillman's Creek opens into the Rock from the east, through a pleasant
+glade, a few rods below the bridge. We took a pull up this historic
+tributary for a half-mile or more. It is a muddy stream, some two and
+a half rods wide, cutting down for a half-dozen feet through the black
+soil. The shores are generally well fringed with heavy timber,
+especially upon the northern bank, while the land to the south and
+southwest stretches upward, in gentle slopes, to a picturesque rolling
+prairie, abounding in wooded knolls. It was in the large grove on the
+north bank, near its junction with the Rock, that Black Hawk, in the
+month of May, 1832, parleyed with the Pottawattomies. It was here that
+on the 14th of that month he learned of the treachery of Stillman's
+militiamen, and at once made that famous sally with his little band of
+forty braves which resulted in the rout of the cowardly whites, who
+fled pell-mell over the prairie toward Dixon, asserting that Black
+Hawk and two thousand blood-thirsty warriors were sweeping northern
+Illinois with the besom of destruction. The country round about
+appears to have undergone no appreciable change in the half-century
+intervening between that event and to-day. The topographical
+descriptions given in contemporaneous accounts of Stillman's flight
+will hold good now, and we were readily able to pick out the points of
+interest on the old battlefield.
+
+Returning to the Rock, we made excellent progress. The atmosphere was
+bracing; and there being a favoring northwest breeze, our awning was
+stretched over a hoop for a sail. The banks were now steep inclines of
+white sand and gravel. It was like going through a railroad cut. But
+in ascending the sides, as we did occasionally, to secure supplies
+from farm-houses or refill our canteen with fresh water, there were
+found broad expanses of rolling prairie. The farm establishments
+increase in number and prosperity. Windmills may be counted by the
+scores, the cultivation of enormous cornfields is everywhere in
+progress, and cattle are more numerous than ever.
+
+Three or four miles above Oregon the banks rise to the dignity of
+hills, which come sweeping down "with verdure clad" to the very
+water's edge, and present an inspiring picture, quite resembling some
+of the most charming stretches of the Hudson. At the entrance to this
+lovely vista we encountered a logy little pleasure-steamer anchored in
+the midst of the stream, which is here nearly half of a mile wide, for
+the river now perceptibly broadens. The captain, a ponderous old
+sea-dog, wearing a cowboy's hat and having the face of an operatic
+pirate, with a huge pipe between his black teeth, sat lounging on the
+bulwark, watching the force of the current, into which he would
+listlessly expectorate. He was at first inclined to be surly, as we
+hauled alongside and checked our course; but gradually softened down
+as we drew him out in conversation, and confided to us that he had in
+earlier days "sailed the salt water," a circumstance of which he
+seemed very proud. He also gave us some "pointers on the lay o' the
+land," as he called them, for our future guidance down the river,--one
+of which was that there were "dandy sceneries" below Oregon, in
+comparison with which we had thus far seen nothing worthy of note. As
+for himself, he said that his place on the neighboring shore was
+connected by telephone with Oregon, and his steamer frequently
+transported pleasure parties to points of interest above the dam.
+
+Ganymede Spring is on the southeast bank, at the base of a lofty
+sandstone bluff, a mile or so above Oregon. From the top of the bluff,
+which is ascended by a succession of steep flights of scaffolding
+stairs, a magnificent bird's-eye view is attainable of one of the
+finest river and forest landscapes in the Mississippi basin. The
+grounds along the riverside at the base are laid out in graceful
+carriage drives; and over the head of a neatly hewn basin, into which
+gushes the copious spring, is a marble slab thus inscribed:
+
+_______________________________________________
+|                                             |
+|           GANYMEDE'S SPRINGS,               |
+|                                             |
+|                 named by                    |
+|                                             |
+|    MARGERET FULLER (Countess D. Ossoli,)    |
+|                                             |
+|             who named this bluff            |
+|                                             |
+|                EAGLE'S NEST,                |
+|                                             |
+|   & beneath the cedars on its crest wrote   |
+|                                             |
+|           "Ganymede to his Eagle,"          |
+|                                             |
+|                 July 4, 1843.               |
+|_____________________________________________|
+
+Oregon was reached just before noon. A walk through the business
+quarter revealed a thrifty, but oldish-looking town of about two
+thousand inhabitants. The portage on the east side, around a
+flouring-mill dam, involved a hard pull up the gravelly bank thirty
+feet high, and a haul of two blocks' length along a dusty street.
+
+There was a fine stretch of eroded palisades in front of the island on
+which we lunched. The color effect was admirable,--patches of gray,
+brown, white, and old gold, much corroded with iron. Vines of many
+varieties dangle from earth-filled crevices, and swallows by the
+hundreds occupy the dimples neatly hollowed by the action of the water
+in some ancient period when the stream was far broader and deeper than
+now.
+
+But at times, even in our day, the Rock is a raging torrent. The
+condition of the trees along the river banks and on the thickly-strewn
+island pastures, shows that not many months before it must have been
+on a wild rampage, for the great trunks are barked by the ice to the
+height of fifteen feet above the present water-level. Everywhere, on
+banks and islands, are the evidences of disastrous floods, and the
+ponderous ice-breakers above the bridges give one an awesome notion of
+the condition of affairs at such a time. Farmers assured us that in
+the spring of 1887 the water was at the highest stage ever recorded in
+the history of the valley. Many of the railway bridges barely escaped
+destruction, while the numerous river ferries and the low country
+bridges in the bayous were destroyed by scores. The banks were
+overflowed for miles together, and back in the country for long
+distances, causing the hasty removal of families and live-stock from
+the bottoms; while ice jams, forming at the heads of the islands,
+would break, and the shattered floes go sweeping down with terrific
+force, crushing the largest trees like reeds, tearing away fences and
+buildings, covering islands and meadows with deep deposits of sand and
+mud, blazing their way through the forested banks, and creating sad
+havoc on every hand. We were amply convinced, by the thousands of
+broken trees which littered our route, the snags, the mud-baked
+islands, the frequent stretches of sadly demoralized bank that had not
+yet had time to reweave its charitable mantle of verdure, that the
+Rock, on such a spring "tear," must indeed be a picture of chaos
+broken loose. This explained why these hundreds of beautiful and
+spacious islands--many of them with charming combinations of forest
+and hillock and meadow, and occasionally enclosing pretty ponds
+blushing with water-lilies--are none of them inhabited, but devoted to
+the pasture of cattle, who swim or ford the intervening channels,
+according to the stage of the flood; also why the picturesque bottoms
+on the main shore are chiefly occupied by the poorest class of
+farmers, who eke out their meagre incomes with the spoils of the gun
+and line.
+
+It was a quarter of five when we beached at the upper ferry-landing at
+Grand Detour. It is a little, tumble-down village of one or two small
+country stores, a church, and a dozen modest cottages; there is also,
+on the river front, a short row of deserted shops, their paintless
+battlement-fronts in a sadly collapsed condition, while hard by are
+the ruins of two or three dismantled mills. The settlement is on a
+bit of prairie at the base of the preliminary flourish of the "big
+bend" of the Rock,--hence the name, Grand Detour, a reminiscence of
+the early French explorers. The foot of the peninsula is but half a
+mile across, while the distance around by river to the lower ferry, on
+the other side of the village is four miles. Having learned that the
+bottoms below here were, for a long distance, peculiarly gloomy and
+but sparsely inhabited, we thought it best to pass the night at Grand
+Detour. Bespeaking accommodations at the tavern and post-office
+combined, we rowed around the bend to the lower landing, through some
+lovely stretches of river scenery, in which bold palisades and
+delightful little meadows predominated.
+
+The walk back to the village was through a fine park of elms. The
+stage was just in from Dixon, with the mail. There was an eager little
+knot of villagers in the cheerful sitting-room of our homelike inn,
+watching the stout landlady as she distributed it in a checker-board
+rank of glass-faced boxes fenced off in front of a sunny window. It
+did not appear that many of those who overlooked the distribution of
+the mail had been favored by their correspondents. They were chiefly
+concerned in seeing who did get letters and papers, and in "passin'
+the time o' day," as gossiping is called in rural communities. Seated
+in a darkened corner, waiting patiently for supper, the announcement
+of which was an hour or more in coming, we were much amused at the
+mirror of local events which was unconsciously held up for us by these
+loungers of both sexes and all ages, who fairly filled the room, and
+oftentimes waxed hot in controversy.
+
+The central theme of conversation was the preparations under way for
+Decoration Day, which was soon to arrive. Grand Detour was to be
+favored with a speaker from Dixon,--"a reg'lar major from the war,
+gents, an' none o' yer m'lish fellers!" an enthusiastic old man with a
+crutch persisted in announcing. There were to be services at the
+church, and some exercises at the cemetery, where lie buried the
+half-dozen honored dead, Grand Detour's sacrifice upon the altar of
+the Union. The burning question seemed to be whether the village
+preacher would consent to offer prayer upon the occasion, if the
+church choir insisted on being accompanied on the brand-new cabinet
+organ which the congregation had voted to purchase, but to which the
+pastor and one of the leading deacons were said to be bitterly
+opposed, as smacking of worldliness and antichrist. Only the evening
+before, this deacon, armed with a sledgehammer and rope, had been seen
+to go to the sanctuary in company with his "hired man," and enter
+through one of the windows, which they pried up for the purpose. A
+good gossip, who lived hard by, closely watched such extraordinary
+proceedings. There was a great noise within, then some planks were
+pitched out of the window, soon followed by the deacon and his man.
+The window was shut down, the planks thrown atop of the horse-shed
+roof, and the men disappeared. Investigation in the morning by the
+witness revealed the fact that the choir-seats and the organ-platform
+had been torn down and removed. Here was a pretty how d' do! The wiry,
+raspy little woman, with her gray finger-curls and withered, simpering
+smile, had, with great forbearance, kept her choice bit of news to
+herself till "post-office time." Sitting in a big rocking-chair close
+to the delivery window, knitting vigorously on an elongated stocking,
+she demurely asserted that she "never wanted to say nothin' 'gin'
+nobody, or to hurt nobody's feelin's," and then detailed the entire
+circumstance to the patrons of the office as they came in. The
+excitement created by the story, which doubtless lost nothing in the
+telling, was at fever-heat. We were sorely tempted to remain over till
+Decoration Day,--when, it was freely predicted, there "would be some
+folks as'd wish they'd never been born,"--and see the outcome of this
+tempest in a teapot. But our programme, unfortunately, would not admit
+of such a diversion.
+
+Others came and went, but the gossipy little body with the gray curls
+rocked on, holding converse with both post-mistress and public,
+keeping a keen eye on the character of the mail matter obtained by the
+villagers and neighboring farmers, and freely commenting on it all; so
+that new-comers were kept quite well-informed as to the correspondence
+of those who had just departed.
+
+A sad-eyed little woman in rusty black modestly slipped in, and was
+handed out a much-creased and begrimed envelope, which she nervously
+clutched. She was hurrying silently away, when the gossip sharply
+exclaimed, "Good lands, Cynthi' Prescott! some folks don't know a body
+when they meet. 'Spose ye've been hearin' from Jim at last. I'd been
+thinkin' 't was about time ye got a letter from his hand, ef he war
+ever goin' t' write at all. Tell ye, Cynthi' Prescott, ye're too
+indulgent on that man o' yourn! Ef I--"
+
+But Cynthia Prescott, turning her black, deep-sunken eyes to her
+inquisitor, with a piteous, tearful look, as though stung to the
+quick, sidled out backward through the wire-screen door, which sprung
+closed with a vicious bang, and I saw her hurrying down the village
+street firmly grasping at her bosom what the mail had brought
+her,--probably a brutal demand for more money, from a worthless
+husband, who was wrecking his life-craft on some far-away shore.
+
+"Goodness me! but the Gilberts is a-puttin' on style!" ejaculated the
+village censor, as a rather smart young horseman went out with a bunch
+of letters, and a little packet tied up in red twine. "That there was
+vis'tin' keerds from the printer's shop in Dixon, an' cost a dollar;
+can't fool me! There's some folks as hev to be leavin' keerds on
+folks's centre-tables when they goes makin' calls, for fear folks will
+be a-forgettin' their names. When I go a-callin', I go a-visitin' and
+take my work along an' stop an' hev a social cup o' tea; an' they
+ain't a-goin' to forgit for awhile, that I dropped in on 'em, neither.
+This way they hev down in Dixon, what I hear of, of ringin' at a bell
+and settin' down with yer bonnet on and sayin', 'How d' do,' an' a
+'Pretty well, I thank yer,' and jumpin' up as if the fire bell was
+ringin' and goin' on through the whole n'ighberhood as ef ye're on
+springs, an' then a-trancin' back home and braggin' how many calls
+ye've made,--I ain't got no use for that; it'll do for Dixon folks,
+what catch the style from Chicargy, an' they git 't from Paris each
+year, I'm told, but I ain't no use for 't. Mebbe ol' man Gilbert is
+made o' money,--his women folks act so, with all this a-apein' the
+Clays, who's been gettin' visitin' keerds all the way from Chicargy,
+which they ordered of a book agint last fall, with gilt letters an'
+roses an' sich like in the corners. An' 'twas Clay's brother-in-law as
+tol' me he never did see such carryin's-on over at the old house, with
+letter-writin' paper sopped in cologne, an' lace curtains in the
+bed-room winders. An' ye can't tell me but the Gilberts, too, is
+a-goin' to the dogs, with their paper patterns from Dixon, and dress
+samples from a big shop in Chicargy, which I seen from the picture on
+the envelope was as big as all Grand Detour, an' both ferry-landin's
+thrown in. Grand Detour fashi'ns ain't good 'nough for some folks, I
+reckon."
+
+And thus the busy-tongued woman discoursed in a vinegary tone upon the
+characteristics of Grand Detour folks, as illustrated by the nature
+of the evening mail, frequently interspersing her remarks with a
+hearty disclaimer of anything malicious in her temperament. At last,
+however, the supper-bell rang; the doughty postmistress, who had been
+remarkably discreet throughout all this village tirade, having darted
+in and out between the kitchen and the office, attending to her dual
+duties, locked the postal gate with a snap, and asked her now solitary
+patron, "Anything I can do for you, Maria?" The gossip gathered up her
+knitting, hastily averred that she had merely dropped in for her
+weekly paper, but now remembered that this was not the day for it, and
+ambled off, to reload with venom for the next day's mail.
+
+After supper we walked about the peaceful, pretty, grass-grown
+village. Shearing was in progress at the barn of the inn, and the
+streets were filled with bleating sheep and nodding billy-goats. The
+place presented many evidences of former prosperity, and we were told
+that a dozen years before it had boasted of a plough factory, two or
+three flouring-mills, and a good water-power. But the railroad that it
+was expected would come to Grand Detour had touched Dixon instead,
+with the result that the village industries had been removed to
+Dixon, the dam had fallen in, and now there were less than three
+hundred inhabitants between the two ferries.
+
+When one of the store-keepers told me he had practically no country
+trade, but that his customers were the villagers alone, I was led to
+inquire what supported these three hundred people, who had no
+industries among them, no river traffic, owing to customary low water
+in summer, and who seemed to live on each other. Many of the
+villagers, I found, are laborers who work upon the neighboring farms
+and maintain their families here; a few are farmers, the corners of
+whose places run down to the village; others there are who either own
+or rent or "share" farms in the vicinity, going out to their work each
+day, much of their live stock and crops being housed at their village
+homes; there are half a dozen retired farmers, who have either sold
+out their places or have tenants upon them, and live in the village
+for sociability's sake, or to allow their children the benefit of the
+excellent local school. Mingled with these people are a shoemaker, a
+tailor, a storekeeper, who live upon the necessities of their
+neighbors. Two fishermen spend the summer here, in a tent, selling
+their daily catch to the villagers and neighboring farmers and
+occasionally shipping by the daily mail-stage to Dixon, fourteen miles
+away. The preacher and his family are modestly supported; a young
+physician wins a scanty subsistence; and for considerably over half
+the year the schoolmaster shares with them what honors and sorrows
+attach to these positions of rural eminence. Our pleasant-spoken host
+was the driver of the Dixon stage, as well as star-route mail
+contractor, adding the conduct of a farm to his other duties. With his
+wife as postmistress, and a pretty, buxom daughter, who waited on our
+table and was worth her weight in gold, Grand Detour folks said that
+he was bound to be a millionnaire yet.
+
+As Grand Detour lives, so live thousands of just such little rural
+villages all over the country. Viewed from the railway track or river
+channel, they appear to have been once larger than they are to-day.
+The sight of the unpainted houses, the ruined factory, the empty
+stores, the grass and weeds in the street, the lack-lustre eyes of the
+idlers, may induce one to imagine that here is the home of hopeless
+poverty and despair. But although the railroad which they expected
+never came; or the railroad which did come went on and scheduled the
+place as a flag station; still, there is a certain inherent vitality
+here, an undefined something that holds these people together, a
+certain degree of hopefulness which cannot rise to the point of
+ambition, a serene satisfaction with the things that are. Grand Detour
+folks, and folks like them, are as blissfully content as the denizens
+of Chicago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+AN ANCIENT MARINER.
+
+
+The clock in a neighboring kitchen was striking six, as we reached the
+lower ferry-landing. The grass in the streets and under the old elms
+was as wet with dew as though there had been a heavy shower during the
+night. The village fishermen were just pulling in to the little pier,
+returning from an early morning trip to their "traut-lines" down
+stream. In a long wooden cage, which they towed astern, was a
+fifty-pound sturgeon, together with several large cat-fish. They
+kindly hauled their cage ashore, to show us the monsters, which they
+said would probably be shipped, alive, to a Chicago restaurant which
+they occasionally furnished with curiosities in their line. These
+fishermen were rough-looking fellows in their battered hats and
+ragged, dirty overcoats, with faces sadly in need of water and a
+shave. They had a sad, pinched-up appearance as well, as though the
+dense fog, which was but just now yielding to the influence of the
+sun, had penetrated their bones and given them the chills. On engaging
+them in friendly conversation about their calling, they exhibited good
+manners and some knowledge of the outer world. Their business, they
+said, was precarious and, as we could well see, involved much exposure
+and hardship. Sometimes it meant a start at midnight, often amid
+rainstorms, fogs, or chilling weather, with a hard pull back again
+up-stream,--for their lines were all of them below Grand Detour; but
+to return with an empty boat, sometimes their luck, was harder yet.
+Knocking about in this way, all of the year around,--for their winters
+were similarly spent upon the lower waters and bayous of the
+Mississippi,--neither of them was ever thoroughly well. One was
+consumptively inclined, he told me, and being an old soldier, was
+receiving a small pension. A claim agent had him in hand, however, and
+his thoughts ran largely upon the prospects of an increase by special
+legislation. He seemed to have but little doubt that he would
+ultimately succeed. When he came into this looked-for fortune, he
+said, he would "quit knockin' 'round an' killin' myself fishin',"
+settle down in Grand Detour for the balance of his days, raising his
+own "garden sass, pigs, and cow;" and some fine day would make a trip
+in his boat to the "old home in Injianny, whar I was raised an'
+'listed in the war." His face fairly gleamed with pleasure as he thus
+dwelt upon the flowers of fancy which the pension agent had cultivated
+within him; and W---- sympathetically exclaimed, when we had swung
+into the stream and bidden farewell to these men who followed the
+calling of the apostles, that were she a congressman she would
+certainly vote for the fisherman's claim, and make happy one more
+heart in Grand Detour.
+
+Now commences the Great Bend of the Rock River. The water circuit is
+fourteen miles, the distance gained being but six by land. The stream
+is broad and shallow, between palisades densely surmounted with trees
+and covered thick with vines; great willow islands freely intersperse
+the course; everywhere are evidences of ice-floes, which have blazed
+the trees and strewn the islands with fallen trunks and driftwood,--a
+tornado could not have created more general havoc. The visible houses,
+few of them inviting in appearance, are miles apart. As had been
+foretold at the village, the outlook for lodgings in this dismal
+region is not at all encouraging. It was well that we had stopped at
+Grand Detour.
+
+Below the bend, where the country is more open, though the banks are
+still deep-cut, the highway to Dixon skirts the river, and for several
+miles we kept company with the stage.
+
+Dixon was sighted at 10 o'clock. A circus had pitched its tents upon
+the northern bank, just above the dam, near where we landed for the
+carry, and a crowd of small boys came swarming down the bank to gaze
+upon us, possibly imagining, at first, that our outfit was a part of
+the show. They accompanied us, at a respectful distance, as we pulled
+the canoe up a grassy incline and down through the vine-clad arches of
+a picturesque old ruin of a mill. Below the dam, we rowed over to the
+town, about where the famous pioneer ferry used to be. It was in the
+spring of 1826 that John Boles opened a trail from Peoria to Galena,
+by the way of the present locality of Dixon, thus shortening a trail
+which had been started by one Kellogg the year before, but crossed the
+Rock a few miles above. The site of Dixon at once sprang into wide
+popularity as a crossing-place, Indians being employed to do the
+ferrying. Their manner was simple. Lashing two canoes abreast, the
+wheels of one side of a wagon were placed in one canoe and the
+opposite wheels in the other. The horses were made to swim behind. In
+1827 a Peoria man named Begordis erected a small shanty here and had
+half finished a ferry-boat when the Indians, not favoring competition,
+burned the craft on its stocks and advised Begordis to return to
+Peoria; being a wise man, he returned. The next year, Joe Ogie, a
+Frenchman, one of a race that the red men loved, and having a squaw
+for his wife, was permitted to build a scow, and thenceforth Indians
+were no longer needed there as common carriers. By the time of the
+Black Hawk war, Dixon, from whom the subsequent settlement was named,
+ran the ferry, and the crossing station had henceforth a name in
+history. A trail in those early days was quite as important as a
+railroad is to-day; settlements sprang up along the improved
+"Kellogg's trail," and Dixon was the centre of interest in all
+northern Illinois. Indeed, it being for years the only point where the
+river could be crossed by ferry, Dixon was as important a landmark to
+the settlers of the southern half of Wisconsin who desired to go to
+Chicago, as any within their own territory.[1]
+
+The Dixon of to-day shelters four thousand inhabitants and has two or
+three busy mills; although it is noticeable that along the water-power
+there are some half-dozen mill properties that have been burned, torn
+down, or deserted, which does not look well for the manufacturing
+prospects of the place. The land along the river banks is a flat
+prairie some half-mile in width, with rolling country beyond,
+sprinkled with oak groves. The banks are of black, sandy loam, from
+twelve to twenty feet high, based with sandy beaches. The shores are
+now and then cut with deep ravines, at the mouths of which are fine,
+gravelly beaches, sometimes forming considerable spits. These indicate
+that the dry, barren gullies, the gutters of the hillocks, while
+innocent enough in a drought, sometimes rise to the dignity of
+torrents and suddenly pour great volumes of drainage into the rapidly
+filling river,--so often described in the journals of early travelers
+through this region, as "the dark and raging Rock." This sort of
+scenery, varied by occasional limestone palisades,--the interesting
+and picturesque feature of the Rock, from which it derived its name at
+the hands of the aborigines,--extends down to beyond Sterling.
+
+This city, reached at 3.50 P. M., is a busy place of ten thousand
+inhabitants, engaged in miscellaneous manufactures. Our portage was
+over the south and dry end of the dam. We were helped by three or four
+bright, intelligent boys, who were themselves carrying over a punt,
+preparatory to a fishing expedition below. Amid the hundreds of boys
+whom we met at our various portages, these well-bred Sterling lads
+were the only ones who even offered their assistance. Very likely,
+however, the reason may be traced to the fact that this was Saturday,
+and a school holiday. The boys at the week-day carries were the
+riff-raff, who are allowed to loaf upon the river-banks when they
+should be at their school-room desks.
+
+While mechanically pulling a "fisherman's stroke" down stream I was
+dreamily reflecting upon the necessity of enforced popular education,
+when W----, vigilant at the steersman's post, mischievously broke in
+upon the brown study with, "Como's next station! Twenty minutes for
+supper!"
+
+And sure enough, it was a quarter past six, and there was Como nestled
+upon the edge of the high prairie-bank. I went up into the hamlet to
+purchase a quart of milk for supper, and found it a little dead-alive
+community of perhaps one hundred and twenty-five people. There is the
+brick shell of a fire-gutted factory, with several abandoned stores, a
+dozen houses from which the paint had long since scaled, a rather
+smart-looking schoolhouse, and two brick dwellings of ancient
+pattern,--the homes of well-to-do farmers; while here and there were
+grass-grown depressions, which I was told were once the cellars of
+houses that had been moved away. On the return to the beach a bevy of
+open-mouthed women and children accompanied me, plying questions with
+a simplicity so rare that there was no thought of impertinence. W----
+was talking with the old gray-haired ferryman, who had been
+transporting a team across as we had landed beside his staging. The
+old man had stayed behind, avowedly to mend his boat, with a stone for
+a hammer, but it was quite apparent that curiosity kept him, rather
+than the needs of his scow. He confided to us that Como--which was
+indeed prettily situated upon a bend of the river--had once been a
+prosperous town. But the railroad went to some rival place, and--the
+familiar story--the dam at Como rotted, and the village fell into its
+present dilapidated state. It is the fate of many a small but
+ambitious town upon a river. Settled originally because of the river
+highway, the railroads--that have nearly killed the business of water
+transportation--did not care to go there because it was too far out of
+the short-cut path selected by the engineers between two more
+prominent points. Thus the community is "side-tracked,"--to use a bit
+of railway slang; and a side-tracked town becomes in the new
+civilization--which cares nothing for the rivers, but clusters along
+the iron ways--a town "as dead as a door-nail."
+
+We had luncheon on a high bank just out of sight of Como. By the time
+we had reached a point three or four miles below the village it was
+growing dark, and time to hunt for shelter. While I walked, or rather
+ran, along the north bank looking for a farm-house, W---- guided the
+canoe down a particularly rapid current. It was really too dark to
+prosecute the search with convenience. I was several times misled by
+clumps of trees, and fruitlessly climbed over board or crawled under
+barbed-wire fences, and often stumbled along the dusty highway which
+at times skirted the bank. It was over a mile before an undoubted
+windmill appeared, dimly silhouetted against the blackening sky above
+a dense growth of river-timber a quarter of a mile down the stream. A
+whistle, and W---- shot the craft into the mouth of a black ravine,
+and clambered up the bank, at the serious risk of torn clothing from
+the thicket of blackberry-vines and locust saplings which covered it.
+Together we emerged upon the highway, determined to seek the windmill
+on foot; for it would have been impossible to sight the place from the
+river, which was now, from the overhanging trees on both shores and
+islands, as dark as a cavern. Just as we stepped upon the narrow
+road--which we were only able to distinguish because the dust was
+lighter in color than the vegetation--a farm-team came rumbling along
+over a neighboring culvert, and rolled into view from behind a fringe
+of bushes. The horses jumped and snorted as they suddenly sighted our
+dark forms, and began to plunge. The women gave a mild shriek, and
+awakened a small child which one of them carried in her arms. I
+essayed to snatch the bits of the frightened horses to prevent them
+from running away, for the women had dropped the lines, while W----
+called out asking if there was a good farm-house where the windmill
+was. The team quieted down under a few soothing strokes; but the women
+persisted in screaming and uttering incoherent imprecations in German,
+while the child fairly roared. So I returned the lines to the woman in
+charge, and we bade them "Guten Nacht." As they whipped up their
+animals and hurried away, with fearful backward glances, it suddenly
+occurred to us that we had been taken for footpads.
+
+We were so much amused at our adventure, as we walked along, almost
+groping our way, that we failed to notice a farm-gate on the river
+side of the road, until a chorus of dogs, just over the fence,
+arrested our attention. A half-dozen human voices were at once heard
+calling back the animals. A light shone in thin streaks through a
+black fringe of lilac-bushes, and in front of these was the gate.
+Opening the creaky structure, we advanced cautiously up what we felt
+to be a gravel walk, under an arch of evergreens and lilacs, with the
+paddle ready as a club, in case of another dog outbreak. But there was
+no need of it, and we soon emerged into a flood of light, which
+proceeded from a shadeless lamp within an open window.
+
+It was a spacious white farm-house. Upon the "stoop" of an L were
+standing, in attitudes of expectancy, a stout, well-fed, though rather
+sinister-expressioned elderly man, with a long gray beard, and his
+raw-boned, overworked wife, with two fair but dissatisfied-looking
+daughters, and several sons, ranging from twelve to twenty years. A
+few moments of explanation dispelled the suspicious look with which
+we had been greeted, and it was soon agreed that we should, for a
+consideration, be entertained for the night and over Sunday; although
+the good woman protested that her house was "topsy-turvy, all torn up"
+with house-cleaning,--which excuse, by the way, had become quite
+familiar by this time, having been current at every house we had thus
+far entered upon our journey.
+
+Bringing our canoe down to the farmer's bank and hauling it up into
+the bushes, we returned through the orchard to the house, laden with
+baggage. Our host proved to be a famous story-teller. His tales, often
+Munchausenese, were inclined to be ghastly, and he had an o'erweening
+fondness for inconsequential detail, like some authors of serial
+tales, who write against space and tax the patience of their readers
+to its utmost endurance. But while one may skip the dreary pages of
+the novelist, the circumstantial story-teller must be borne with
+patiently, though the hours lag with leaden heels. In earlier days the
+old man had been something of a traveler, having journeyed to Illinois
+by steamboat on the upper lakes, from "ol' York State;" another time
+he went down the Mississippi River to Natchez, working his way as a
+deck hand; but the crowning event of his career was his having, as a
+driver, accompanied a cattle-train to New York city. A few years ago
+he tumbled down a well and was hauled up something of a cripple; so
+that his occupation chiefly consists in sitting around the house in an
+easy-chair, or entertaining the crowd at the cross-roads store with
+sturdy tales of his adventures by land and sea, spiced with vigorous
+opinions on questions of politics and theology. The garrulity of age,
+a powerful imagination, and a boasting disposition are his chief stock
+in trade.
+
+Propped up in his great chair, with one leg resting upon a lounge and
+the other aiding his iron-ferruled cane in pounding the floor by way
+of punctuating his remarks, "that ancient mariner"
+
+     "Held us with his glittering eye;
+     We could not choose but hear."
+
+His tales were chiefly of shooting and stabbing scrapes, drownings and
+hangings that he claimed to have seen, dwelling upon each incident
+with a blood-curdling particularity worthy of the reporter of a
+sensational metropolitan journal. The ancient man must have fairly
+walked in blood through the greater part of his days; while from the
+number of corpses that had been fished out of the river, at the head
+of a certain island at the foot of his orchard, and "laid out" in his
+best bedroom by the coroner, we began to feel as though we had engaged
+quarters at a morgue. It was painfully evident that these recitals
+were "chestnuts" in the house of our entertainer. The poor old lady
+had a tired-out, unhappy appearance, the dissatisfied-looking
+daughters yawned, and the sons talked, _sotto voce_, on farm matters
+and neighborhood gossip.
+
+Finally, we tore away, much to the relief of every one but the host,
+and were ushered with much ceremony into the ghostly bed-chamber, the
+scene of so many coroner's inquests. I must confess to uncanny dreams
+that night,--confused visions of Rock River giving up innumerable
+corpses, which I was compelled to assist in "laying out" upon the very
+bed I occupied.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] See Mrs. Kinzie's "Wau-Bun" for a description of the difficulties
+of travel in "the early day," via Dixon's Ferry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+STORM-BOUND AT ERIE.
+
+
+We were somewhat jaded by the time Monday morning came, for Sunday
+brought not only no relief, but repetitions of many of the most
+horrible of these "tales of a wayside inn." It was with no slight
+sense of relief that we paid our modest bill and at last broke away
+from such ghastly associations. An involuntary shudder overcame me, as
+we passed the head of the island at the foot of our host's orchard,
+which he had described as a catch-basin for human floaters.
+
+Our course still lay among large, densely wooded islands,--many of
+them wholly given up to maples and willows,--and deep cuts through
+sun-baked mudbanks, the color of adobe; but occasionally there are
+low, gloomy bottoms, heavily forested, and strewn with flood-wood,
+while beyond the land rises gradually into prairie stretches. In the
+bottoms the trees are filled with flocks of birds,--crows, hawks,
+blackbirds, with stately blue herons and agile plovers foraging on the
+long gravel-spits which frequently jut far into the stream; ducks are
+frequently seen sailing near the shores; while divers silently dart
+and plunge ahead of the canoe, safely out of gunshot reach. A head
+wind this morning made rowing more difficult, by counteracting the
+influence of the current.
+
+We were at Lyndon at eleven o'clock. There is a population of about
+two hundred, clustered around a red paper-mill. The latter made a
+pretty picture standing out on the bold bank, backed by a number of
+huge stacks of golden straw. We met here the first rapids worthy of
+record; also an old, abandoned mill-dam, in the last stages of decay,
+stretching its whitened skeleton across the stream, a harbor for
+driftwood. Near the south bank the framework has been entirely swept
+away for a space several rods in width, and through this opening the
+pent-up current fiercely sweeps. We went through the centre of the
+channel thus made, with a swoop that gave us an impetus which soon
+carried our vessel out of sight of Lyndon and its paper-mill and
+straw-stacks.
+
+Prophetstown, five miles below, is prettily situated in an oak grove
+on the southern bank. Only the gables of a few houses can be seen from
+the river, whose banks of yellow clay and brown mud are here
+twenty-five feet high. During the first third of the present century,
+this place was the site of a Winnebago village, whose chief was White
+Cloud, a shrewd, sinister savage, half Winnebago and half Sac, who
+claimed to be a prophet. He was Black Hawk's evil genius during the
+uprising of 1832, and in many ways was one of the most remarkable
+aborigines known to Illinois history. It was at "the prophet's town,"
+as White Cloud's village was known in pioneer days, that Black Hawk
+rested upon his ill-fated journey up the Rock, and from here, at the
+instigation of the wizard, he bade the United States soldiery
+defiance.
+
+There are rapids, almost continually, from a mile above Prophetstown
+to Erie, ten miles below. The river bed here has a sharper descent
+than customary, and is thickly strewn with bowlders; many of them were
+visible above the surface, at the low stage of water which we found,
+but for the greater part they were covered for two or three inches.
+What with these impediments, the snags that had been left as the
+legacy of last spring's flood, and the frequent sand-banks and
+gravel-spits, navigation was attended by many difficulties and some
+dangers.
+
+Four or five miles below Prophetstown, a lone fisherman, engaged in
+examining a "traut-line" stretched between one of the numerous gloomy
+islands and the mainland, kindly informed us of a mile-long cut-off,
+the mouth of which was now in view, that would save us several miles
+of rowing. Here, the high banks had receded, with several miles of
+heavily wooded, boggy bottoms intervening. Floods had held high
+carnival, and the aspect of the country was wild and deserted. The
+cut-off was an ugly looking channel; but where our informant had gone
+through, with his unwieldy hulk, we considered it safe to venture with
+a canoe, so readily responsive to the slightest paddle-stroke. The
+current had torn for itself a jagged bed through the heart of a dense
+and moss-grown forest. It was a scene of howling desolation, rack and
+ruin upon every hand. The muddy torrent, at a velocity of fully eight
+miles an hour, went eddying and whirling and darting and roaring among
+the gnarled and blackened stumps, the prostrate trees, the twisted
+roots, the huge bowlders which studded its course. The stream was not
+wide enough for the oars; the paddle was the sole reliance. With eyes
+strained for obstructions, we turned and twisted through the
+labyrinth, jumping along at a breakneck speed; and, when we finally
+rejoined the main river below, were grateful enough, for the run had
+been filled with continuous possibilities of a disastrous smash-up,
+miles away from any human habitation.
+
+The thunder-storm which had been threatening since early morning, soon
+burst upon us with a preliminary wind blast, followed by drenching
+rain. Running ashore on the lee bank, we wrapped the canvas awning
+around the baggage, and made for a thick clump of trees on the top of
+an island mudbank, where we stood buttoned to the neck in rubber
+coats. A vigorous "Halloo!" came sounding over the water. Looking up,
+we saw for the first time a small tent on the opposite shore, a
+quarter of a mile away, in front of which was a man shouting to us and
+beckoning us over. It was getting uncomfortably muddy under the trees,
+which had not long sufficed as an umbrella, and the rubber coats were
+not warranted to withstand a deluge, so we accepted the invitation
+with alacrity and paddled over through the pelting storm.
+
+Our host was a young fisherman, who helped us and our luggage up the
+slimy bank to his canvas quarters, which we found to be dry, although
+odorous of fish. While the storm raged without, the young man, who was
+a simple-hearted fellow, confided to us the details of his brief
+career. He had been married but a year, he said; his little cabin lay
+a quarter of a mile back in the woods, and, so as to be convenient to
+his lines, he was camping on his own wood-lot; the greater part of his
+time was spent in fishing or hunting, according to the season, and
+peddling the product in neighboring towns, while upon a few acres of
+clearing he raised "garden truck" for his household, which had
+recently become enriched by the addition of an infant son. The
+phenomenal powers of observation displayed by this first-born youth
+were reported with much detail by the fond father, who sat crouched
+upon a boat-sail in one corner of the little tent, his head between
+his knees, and smoking vile tobacco in a blackened clay pipe. It
+seemed that his wife was a ferryman's daughter, and her father had
+besought his son-in-law to follow the same steady calling. To be sure,
+our host declared, ferries on the Rock River netted their owners from
+$400 to $800 a year, which he considered a goodly sum, and his
+father-in-law had offered to purchase an established plant for him.
+But the young fellow said that ferrying was a dog's life, and "kept a
+feller home like barn chores;" he preferred to fish and hunt, earning
+far less but retaining independence of movement, so rejected the offer
+and settled down, avowedly for life, in his present precarious
+occupation. As a result, the indignant old man had forbidden him to
+again enter the parental ferry-house until he agreed to accept his
+proposals, and there was henceforth to be a standing family quarrel.
+The fisherman having appealed to my judgment, I endeavored with mild
+caution to argue him out of his position on the score of consideration
+for his wife and little one; but he was not to be gainsaid, and
+firmly, though with admirable good nature, persisted in defending his
+roving tendencies. In the course of our conversation I learned that
+the ferrymen, who are more numerous on the lower than on the upper
+Rock, pay an annual license fee of five dollars each, in consideration
+of which they are guarantied a monopoly of the business at their
+stands, no other line being allowed within one mile of an existing
+ferry.
+
+Within an hour and a half the storm had apparently passed over, and we
+continued our journey. But after supper another shower and a stiff
+head wind came up, and we were well bedraggled by the time a
+ferry-landing near the little village of Erie was reached. The
+bottoms are here a mile or two in width, with occasional openings in
+the woods, where small fields are cultivated by the poorer class of
+farmers, who were last spring much damaged by the flood which swept
+this entire country.
+
+The ferryman, a good-natured young athlete, was landing a farm-wagon
+and team as we pulled in upon the muddy roadway. When questioned about
+quarters, he smiled and pointing to his little cabin, a few rods off
+in the bushes, said,--"We've four people to sleep in two rooms; it's
+sure we can't take ye; I'd like to, otherwise. But Erie's only a mile
+away."
+
+We assured him that with these muddy swamp roads, and in our wet
+condition, nothing but absolute necessity would induce us to take a
+mile's tramp. The parley ended in our being directed to a small
+farm-house a quarter of a mile inland, where luckless travelers,
+belated on the dreary bottoms, were occasionally kept. Making the
+canoe fast for the night, we strung our baggage-packs upon the paddle
+which we carried between us, and set out along a devious way, through
+a driving mist which blackened the twilight into dusk, to find this
+place of public entertainment.
+
+It is a little, one-story, dilapidated farm-house, standing a short
+distance from the country road, amid a clump of poplar trees. Forcing
+our way through the hingeless gate, the violent removal of which
+threatened the immediate destruction of several lengths of rickety
+fence, we walked up to the open front door and applied for shelter.
+
+"Yes, ma'am; we sometimes keeps tavern, ma'am," replied a large,
+greasy-looking, black-haired woman of some forty years, as, her hands
+folded within her up-turned apron, she courtesied to W----.
+
+We were at once shown into a frowsy apartment which served as parlor,
+sitting-room and parental dormitory. There was huddled together an
+odd, slouchy combination of articles of shabby furniture and cheap
+decorations, peculiar, in the country, to all three classes of rooms,
+the evidences of poverty, shiftlessness, and untasteful
+pretentiousness upon every side. A huge, wheezy old cabinet organ was
+set diagonally in one corner, and upon this, as we entered, a young
+woman was pounding and paddling with much vigor, while giving us
+sidelong glances of curiosity. She was a neighbor, on an evening
+visit, decked out in a smart jockey-cap, with a green ostrich tip and
+bright blue ribbons, and gay in a new calico dress,--a yellow field
+thickly planted to purple pineapples. A jaunty, forward creature, in
+pimples and curls, she rattled away through a Moody and Sankey
+hymn-book, the wheezes and groans of the antique instrument coming in
+like mournful ejaculations from the amen corner at a successful
+revival. Having exhausted her stock of tunes, she wheeled around upon
+her stool, and after declaring to her half-dozen admiring auditors
+that her hands were "as tired as after the mornin's milkin'" abruptly
+accosted W----: "Ma'am, kin ye play on the orgin?"
+
+W---- confessed her inability, chiefly from lack of practice in the
+art of incessantly working the pedals.
+
+"That's the trick o' the hul business, ma'am, is the blowin'. It's all
+in gettin' the bellers to work even like. There's a good many what kin
+learn the playin' part of it without no teacher; but there has to be
+lessons to learn the bellers. Don't ye have no orgin, when ye're at
+home?" she asked sharply, as if to guage the social standing of the
+new guest.
+
+W---- modestly confessed to never having possessed such an instrument.
+
+"Down in these parts," rejoined the young woman, as she "worked the
+bellers" into a strain or two of "Hold the Fort," apparently to show
+how easy it came to trained feet, "no house is now considered quite up
+to the fashi'n as ain't got a orgin." The rain being now over, she
+soon departed, evidently much disgusted at W----'s lack of organic
+culture.
+
+The bed-chamber into which we were shown was a marvel. It opened off
+the main room and was, doubtless, originally a cupboard. Seven feet
+square, with a broad, roped bedstead occupying the entire length, a
+bedside space of but two feet wide was left. Much of this being filled
+with butter firkins, chains, a trunk, and a miscellaneous riff-raff of
+household lumber, the standing-room was restricted to two feet square,
+necessitating the use of the bed as a dressing-place, after the
+fashion of a sleeping-car bunk. This cubby-hole of a room was also the
+wardrobe for the women of the household, the walls above the bed being
+hung nearly two feet deep with the oddest collection of calico and
+gingham gowns, bustles, hoopskirts, hats, bonnets, and winter
+underwear I think I had ever laid eyes on.
+
+Much of this condition of affairs was not known, however, until next
+morning; for it was as dark as Egypt within, except for a few faint
+rays of light which came straggling through the cracks in the board
+partition separating us from the sitting-room candle. We had no
+sooner crossed the threshold of our little box than the creaky old
+cleat door was gently closed upon us and buttoned by our hostess upon
+the outside, as the only means of keeping it shut; and we were left
+free to grope about among these mysteries as best we might. We had
+hardly recovered from our astonishment at thus being locked into a
+dark hole the size of a fashionable lady's trunk, and were quietly
+laughing over this odd adventure, when the landlady applied her mouth
+to a crack and shouted, as if she would have waked the dead: "Hi,
+there! Ye'd better shet the winder to keep the bugs out!" A few
+minutes later, returning to the crack, she added, "Ef ye's cold in the
+night, jest haul down some o' them clothes atop o' ye which ye'll find
+on the wall."
+
+Repressing our mirth, we assured our good hostess that we would have a
+due regard for our personal safety. The window, not at first
+discernible, proved to be a hole in the wall, some two feet square,
+which brought in little enough fresh air, at the best. It was
+fortunate that the night was cool, although our hostess's best gowns
+were not needed to supplement the horse-blankets under which we slept
+the sleep of weary canoeists.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE LAST DAY OUT.
+
+
+The following day opened brightly. We had breakfast in the tavern
+kitchen, _en famille_. The husband, whom we had not met before, was a
+short, smooth-faced, voluble, overgrown-boy sort of man. The mother
+was dumpy, coarse, and good-natured. They had a greasy, easy-tempered
+daughter of eighteen, with a frowsy head, and a face like a full moon;
+while the heir of the household, somewhat younger, was a gaping,
+grinning youth of the Simple Simon order, who shovelled mashed
+potatoes into his mouth alternately with knife and fork, and took
+bites of bread large enough for a ravenous dog. The old grandmother,
+with a face like parchment and one gleaming eye, sat in a low
+rocking-chair by the stove, crooning over a corn-cob pipe and using
+the wood-box for a cuspadore. She had a vinegary, slangy tongue, and
+being somewhat deaf, would break in upon the conversation with
+remarks sharper than they were pat.
+
+With our host, a glib and rapid talker in a swaggering tone, one could
+not but be much amused, as he exhibited a degree of self-appreciation
+that was decidedly refreshing. He had been a veteran in the War of the
+Rebellion, he proudly assured us, and pointed with his knife to his
+discharge-paper, which was hung up in an old looking-glass frame by
+the side of the clock.
+
+"Gemmen,"--he invariably thus addressed us, as though we were a
+coterie of checker-players at a village grocery,--"Gemmen, when I seen
+how them Johnny Rebs was a usin' our boys in them prison pens down
+thar at Andersonville and Libbie and 'roun' thar, I jist says to
+myself, says I, 'Joe, my boy, you go now an' do some'n' fer yer
+country; a crack shot like you is, Joe,' says I to myself, 'as kin hit
+a duck on the wing, every time, an' no mistake, oughtn't ter be a-lyin
+'roun' home an' doin' no'hun to put down the rebellion; it's a shame,'
+says I, 'when our boys is a-suff'r'n' down thar on Mason 'n' Dixie's
+line;' an' so I jined, an' I stuck her out, gemmen, till the thing was
+done; they ain't no coward 'bout me, ef I _hev_ the sayin' of it!"
+
+"Were you wounded, sir?" asked W----, sympathetically.
+
+"No, I wa'n't hurt at all,--that is, so to speak, wounded. But thar
+were a sort of a doctor feller 'round here las' winter, a-stoppin' at
+Erie; an' he called at my place, an' he says, 'No'hun the matter wi'
+you, a-growin out o' the war?' says he; an' I says, 'No'hun that I
+know'd on,' says I,--'I'm a-eatin' my reg'l'r victuals whin I don't
+have the shakes,' says I. 'Ah!' says he, 'you've the shakes?' he says;
+'an' don't you know you ketched 'em in the war?' 'I ketched 'em
+a-gettin' m'lairy in the bottoms,' says I, 'a-duck-shootin', in which
+I kin hit a bird on the wing every time an' no mistake,' says I.
+'Now,' he says, 'hold on a minute; you didn't hev shakes afore the
+war?' says he. 'Not as much,' I says, not knowin' what the feller was
+drivin' at, 'but some; I was a kid then, and kids don't shake much,'
+says I. 'Hold up! hold up!' he says, 'you 're wrong, an' ye know it;
+ye don't hev no mem'ry goin' back so far about phys'cal conditions,'
+says he. Well, gemmen, sure 'nough, when I kem to think things over,
+and talk it up with the doctor chap, I 'lowed he was right. Then he
+let on he was a claim agint, an' I let him try his hand on workin' up
+a pension for me, for he says I wa'n't to pay no'hun 'less the thing
+went through. But I hearn tell, down at Erie, that they is a-goin'
+agin these private claims nowadays at Washin'ton, an' I don't know
+what my show is. But I ought to hev a pension, an' no mistake, gemmen.
+They wa'n't no fellers did harder work 'n me in the war, ef I _do_ say
+it myself."
+
+W---- ventured to ask what battles our host had been in.
+
+"Well, I wa'n't in no reg'lar battle,--that is, right _in_ one. Thar
+was a few of us detailed ter tek keer of gov'ment prop'ty near
+C'lumby, South Car'liny, when Wade Hamptin was a-burnin' things down
+thar. We was four miles away from the fightin,' an' I was jest
+a-achin' to git in thar. What I wanted was to git a bead on ol' Wade
+himself,--an' ef I do say it myself, the ol' man would 'a' hunted his
+hole, gemmen. When I get a sight on a duck, gemmen, that duck's mine,
+an' no mistake. An' ef I'd 'a' sighted Wade Hamptin, then good-by
+Wade! I tol' the cap'n what I wanted, but he said as how I was more
+use a-takin' keer of the supplies. That cap'n hadn't no enterprise
+'bout him. Things would 'a' been different at C'lumby, ef I'd had my
+way, an' don't ye forgit it! There was heaps o' blood spilt
+unnecessary by us boys, a-fightin' to save the ol' flag,--an' we 're
+willin' to do it agin, gemmen, an' no mistake!"
+
+The old woman had been listening eagerly to this narrative, evidently
+quite proud of her boy's achievements, but not hearing all that had
+been said. She now broke out, in shrill, high notes,--
+
+"Joe ought ter 'a' had a pension, he had, wi' his chills 'tracted in
+the war. He wuk'd hard, Joe did, a hul ten months, doin' calvary
+service, the last year o' the war; an' he kem nigh onter shootin' ol'
+Wade Hamptin, an' a-makin' a name for himself, an' p'r'aps a good
+office with a title an' all that; only they kep' him back with the
+ammernition wagin, 'count o' the kurnil's jealousy,--for Joe is a dead
+shot, ma'am, if I'm his mother as says it, and keeps the family in
+ducks half the year 'roun', an' the kurnil know'd Joe was a-bilin'
+over to git to the front."
+
+"Ah! you were in the cavalry service, then?" I said to our landlord,
+by way of helping along the conversation.
+
+There was a momentary silence, broken by Simple Simon, who wiped his
+knife on his tongue, and made a wild attack on the butter dish.
+
+"Pa, he druv a mule team for gov'ment; an' we got a picter in the
+album, tuk of him when he were just a-goin' inter battle, with a big
+ammernition wagin on behind. Pa, in the picter, is a-ridin' o' one o'
+the mules, an' any one'd know him right off."
+
+This sudden revelation of the strength of the veteran's claim to glory
+and a pension, put a damper upon his reminiscences of the war; and
+giving the innocent Simon a savage leer, he soon contrived to turn the
+conversation upon his wonderful exploits in duck-shooting and
+fishing--industries in the pursuit of which he, with so many of his
+fellow-farmers on the bottoms, appeared to be more eager than in
+tilling the soil.
+
+It was quite evident that the breakfast we were eating was a special
+spread in honor of probably the only guests the quondam tavern had had
+these many months. Canoeists must not be too particular about the fare
+set before them; but on this occasion we were able to swallow but a
+few mouthfuls of the repast and our lunch-basket was drawn on as soon
+as we were once more afloat. It is a great pity that so many farmers'
+wives are the wretched cooks they are. With an abundance of good
+materials already about them, and rare opportunities for readily
+acquiring more, tens of thousands of rural dames do manage to prepare
+astonishingly inedible meals,--sour, doughy bread; potatoes which, if
+boiled, are but half cooked, and if mashed, are floated with
+abominable butter or pastey flour gravy; salt pork either swimming in
+a bowl of grease or fried to a leathery chip; tea and coffee extremely
+weak or strong enough to kill an ox, as chance may dictate, and
+inevitably adulterated beyond recognition; eggs that are spoiled by
+being fried to the consistency of rubber, in a pan of fat deep enough
+to float doughnuts; while the biscuits are yellow and bitter with
+saleratus. This bill of fare, warranted to destroy the best of
+appetites, will be recognized by too many of my readers as that to be
+found at the average American farm-house, although we all doubtless
+know of some magnificent exceptions, which only prove the rule. We
+establish public cooking-schools in our cities, and economists like
+Edward Atkinson and hygienists like the late Dio Lewis assiduously
+explain to the metropolitan poor their processes of making a tempting
+meal out of nothing; but our most crying need in this country to-day
+is a training-school for rural housewives, where they may be taught to
+evolve a respectable and economical spread out of the great abundance
+with which they are surrounded. It is no wonder that country boys
+drift to the cities, where they can obtain properly cooked food and
+live like rational beings.
+
+The river continues to widen as we approach the junction with the
+Mississippi,--thirty-nine miles below Erie,--and to assume the
+characteristics of the great river into which it pours its flood. The
+islands increase in number and in size, some of them being over a mile
+in length by a quarter of a mile in breadth; the bottoms frequently
+resolve themselves into wide morasses, thickly studded with great
+elms, maples, and cotton-woods, among which the spring flood has
+wrought direful destruction. The scene becomes peculiarly desolate and
+mournful, often giving one the impression of being far removed from
+civilization, threading the course of some hitherto unexplored stream.
+Penetrate the deep fringe of forest and morass on foot, however, and
+smiling prairies are found beyond, stretching to the horizon and cut
+up into prosperous farms. The river is here from a half to
+three-quarters of a mile broad, but the shallows and snags are as
+numerous as ever and navigation is continually attended with some
+danger of being either grounded or capsized.
+
+Now and then the banks become firmer, with charming vistas of high,
+wooded hills coming down to the water's edge; broad savannas
+intervene, decked out with variegated flora, prominent being the
+elsewhere rare atragene Americana, the spider-wort, the little blue
+lobelia, and the cup-weed. These savannas are apparently overflowed in
+times of exceptionally high water; and there are evidences that the
+stream has occasionally changed its course, through the sunbaked banks
+of ashy-gray mud, in years long past.
+
+At Cleveland, a staid little village on an open plain, which we
+reached soon after the dinner-hour, there is an unused mill-dam going
+to decay. In the centre, the main current has washed out a breadth of
+three or four rods, through which the pent-up stream rushes with a
+roar and a hundred whirlpools. It is an ugly crevasse, but a careful
+examination showed the passage to be feasible, so we retreated an
+eighth of a mile up-stream, took our bearings, and went through with a
+speed that nearly took our breath away and appeared to greatly
+astonish a half-dozen fishermen idly angling from the dilapidated
+apron on either side. It was like going through Cleveland on the fast
+mail.
+
+Fourteen miles above the mouth of the Rock, is the Chicago, Burlington
+and Quincy railroad bridge, with Carbon Cliff on the north and Coloma
+on the south, each one mile from the river. The day had been dark,
+with occasional slight showers and a stiff head wind, so that progress
+had been slow. We began to deem it worth while to inquire about the
+condition of affairs at the mouth. Under the bridge, sitting on a
+bowlder at the base of the north abutment, an intelligent-appearing
+man in a yellow oiled-cloth suit, accompanied by a bright-eyed lad,
+peacefully fished. Stopping to question them, we found them both
+well-informed as to the railway time-tables of the vicinity and the
+topography of the lower river. They told us that the scenery for the
+next fourteen miles was similar, in its dark desolation, to that which
+we had passed through during the day; also that owing to the great
+number of islands and the labyrinth of channels both in the Rock and
+on the east side of the Mississippi, we should find it practically
+impossible to know when we had reached the latter; we should doubtless
+proceed several miles below the mouth of the Rock before we noticed
+that the current was setting persistently south, and then would have
+an exceedingly difficult task in retracing our course and pulling
+up-stream to our destination, Rock Island, which is six miles north
+of the delta of the Rock. They strongly advised our going into Rock
+Island by rail. The present landing was the last chance to strike a
+railway, except at Milan, twelve miles below. It was now so late that
+we could not hope to reach Milan before dark; there were no
+stopping-places _en route_, and Milan was farther from Rock Island
+than either Carbon Cliff or Coloma, with less frequent railway
+service.
+
+For these and other reasons, we decided to accept this advice, and to
+ship from Coloma. Taking a final spurt down to a ferry-landing a
+quarter of a mile beyond, on the south bank, we beached our canoe at
+5.05 P.M., having voyaged two hundred and sixty-seven miles in
+somewhat less than seven days and a half. Leaving W---- to gossip with
+the ferryman's wife, who came down to the bank with an armful of
+smiling twins, to view a craft so strange to her vision, I went up
+into the country to engage a team to take our boat upon its last
+portage. After having been gruffly refused by a churlish farmer, who
+doubtless recognized no difference between a canoeist and a tramp, I
+struck a bargain with a negro cultivating a cornfield with a span of
+coal-black mules, and in half an hour he was at the ferry-landing with
+a wagon. Washing out the canoe and chaining in the oars and paddle,
+we lifted it into the wagon-box, piled our baggage on top, and set off
+over the hills and fields to Coloma, W---- and I trudging behind the
+dray, ankle deep in mud, for the late rains had well moistened the
+black prairie soil. It was a unique and picturesque procession.
+
+In less than an hour we were in Rock Island, and our canoe was on its
+way by freight to Portage, preparatory to my tour with our friend the
+Doctor,--down the Fox River of Green Bay.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY).
+
+  [Illustration: MAP OF THE FOX-WISCONSIN RIVERS to accompany
+  THWAITES'S "HISTORIC WATERWAYS"]
+
+
+
+
+THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY).
+
+
+
+
+FIRST LETTER.
+
+SMITH'S ISLAND.
+
+
+     PACKWAUKEE, WIS., June 7, 1887.
+
+My dear W----: It was 2.25 P. M. yesterday when the Doctor and I
+launched the old canoe upon the tan-colored water of the government
+canal at Portage, and pointed her nose in the direction of the
+historic Fox. You will remember that the canal traverses the low sandy
+plain which separates the Fox from the Wisconsin on a line very nearly
+parallel to where tradition locates Barth's and Lecuyer's
+wagon-portage a hundred years ago. It was a profitable business in the
+olden days, when the Fox-Wisconsin highway was extensively patronized,
+to thus transport river craft over this mile and a half of bog. The
+toll[2] collected by these French creoles and their successors down to
+the days of Paquette added materially to the cost of goods and
+peltries. In times of exceptionally high water the Wisconsin
+overflowed into the Fox, which is ordinarily five feet lower than the
+former, and canoes could readily cross the portage afloat, quite
+independent of the forwarding agents. In this generation the
+Wisconsin is kept to her bounds by levees; but the government canal
+furnishes a free highway. The railroads have spoiled water-navigation,
+however; and the canal, like the most of the Fox and Wisconsin
+river-improvement, is fast relapsing into a costly relic. The timbered
+sides are rotting, the peat and sand are bulging them in, the locks
+are shaky and worm-eaten, and several moss-covered barges and a
+stranded old ruin of a steamboat turned out to grass tell a sad story
+of official abandonment.
+
+The scenic effects from the canal are not enlivening. There is a wide
+expanse of bog, relieved by some grass-grown railway side-tracks and
+the forlorn freight-depot of the Wisconsin Central road. A few
+battered sheds yet remain of old Fort Winnebago on a lonesome hillock
+near where the canal joins the Fox; while beyond to the north as far
+as the eye can reach there is a stretch of wild-rice swamp, through
+which the government dredges have scooped a narrow channel, about as
+picturesque as a cranberry-marsh drain.
+
+Life at Fort Winnebago during the second quarter of this century must
+have been lonesome indeed, its nearest neighbors being Forts Crawford
+and Howard, each nearly two hundred miles away. A mile or two to the
+southwest is a pretty wooded ridge, girting the Wisconsin River, upon
+which the city of Portage is now situated. Then it was a forest, and
+the camping-ground of Winnebagoes, who hung around the post in the
+half-threatening attitude of beggars who might make trouble if not
+adequately bribed with gifts. The fort was erected in 1828-29 at the
+solicitation of John Jacob Astor (the American Fur Company), to
+protect his trade against encroachments from these Winnebago rascals,
+who had become quite impudent during the Red Bird disturbance at
+Prairie du Chien, in 1827. Jefferson Davis was one of the three
+first-lieutenants in the original garrison, in which Harney, of
+Mexican war fame, was a captain. Davis was detailed to the charge of a
+squad sent to cut timbers for the fort in a Wisconsin River pinery
+just above the portage, and thus became one of the pioneer lumbermen
+of Wisconsin. It is related, too, that Davis, who was an amateur
+cabinet-maker, designed some very odd wardrobes and other pieces of
+furniture for the officers' chambers, which were the wonder and
+admiration of every occupant for years to come.[3] In 1853, when
+Secretary of War, the whilom subaltern issued an order for the sale of
+the fort so intimately connected with his army career, and its crazy
+buildings henceforth became tenements.
+
+For a dozen miles beyond the Fox River end of the canal the river, as
+I have before said, is dredged out through the swamp like a big ditch.
+The artificial banks of sand and peat which line it are generally well
+grown with mare's-tail, beautiful clumps of wild roses, purple vetch,
+great beds of sensitive ferns, and masses of Pennsylvania anemone,
+while the pools are decked with water-anemone. Nature is doing her
+best to hide the deformities wrought by man. The valley is generally
+about a mile in width, ridges of wooded knolls hemming in the broad
+expanse of reeds and rice and willow clumps. Occasionally the
+engineers have allowed the ditch to swerve in graceful lines and to
+hug closely the firmer soil in the lower benches of the knolls, where
+the banks of red and yellow clay attain a height of ten or a dozen
+feet, crowned with oaks and elms or pleasant glades. A modest
+farm-house now and then appears upon such a shore, with the front yard
+running down to the water's edge.
+
+The afternoon shadows are lengthening, and farmers' boys are leading
+their horses down to drink, after the day's labor in the fields. Black
+and yellow collies are gathering in the cows,--some of them soberly
+and quickly corral obedient herds, while others yelp and snap at the
+heads of the affrighted animals, and in the noise and confusion seem
+to make but little progress. Collies have human-like infirmities.
+
+We had supper at seven o'clock, under a tree which overhangs a weedy
+bank, with a high pasture back of us, sloping up to a wooded hill, at
+the base of which is a cluster of three neatly painted farm-houses,
+whose dogs bayed at us from the distance, but did not venture to
+approach. A half-hour later, the sun's setting warned us that quarters
+for the night must soon be secured. Stopping at the base of a boggy
+pasture-wood, we ascended through a sterile field, accursed with
+sheep-sorrel, and through gaps in several crazy fences, to what had
+seemed to us from the river a comfortable, repose-inviting house,
+commandingly situated on a hill-top among the trees. Near approach
+revealed a scene of desolation. The barriers were down, two
+spare-ribbed horses were nipping a scant supper among the weeds in a
+dark corner of an otherwise deserted barn-yard, the window-sashes were
+generally paneless, the porch was in a state of collapse, sand-burrs
+choked the paths, and to our knock at the kitchen door the only
+response was a hollow echo. The deserted house looked uncanny in the
+gloaming, and we retired to our boat wondering what evil spell had
+been cast over the place, and whether the horses in the barn-yard had
+been deliberately left behind to die of starvation.
+
+The river now takes upon itself many devious windings in a great
+widespread over two miles broad. The government engineers have here
+left it in all its original crookedness, and the twists and turns are
+as fantastic and complicated as those of the Teutonic pretzel in its
+native land. As the twilight thickened, great swarms of lake-flies
+rose from the sedges and beat their way up-stream, the noise of their
+multitudinous wings being at times like the roar of a neighboring
+waterfall, as they formed a ceaselessly moving canopy over our heads.
+It was noticeable that the flies kept very closely to the windings of
+the river, as if guided only by the glittering flood beneath them. The
+mass of the procession kept its way up the stream, but upon the
+outskirts could be seen a few individuals, apparently larger than the
+average, flying back and forth as if marshaling the host.
+
+Two miles below the deserted house, we stopped opposite another marshy
+bank, where a rude skiff lay tied to a shaky fence projecting far out
+into the reeds. Pushing our way in, we beached in the slimy shore-mud
+and scrambled upon the land, where the tall grass was now as sloppy
+with dew as though it had been rained upon. It was getting quite dark
+now, but through a cleft in the hills the moon was seen to be just
+rising above a cloud-bathed horizon, and a small house, neat-looking,
+though destitute of paint, was sharply silhouetted against the
+lightening sky, at the head of a gentle slope. By the time we had
+waded through a quarter of a mile of thriving timothy we were wet to
+the skin below the knees and dusted all over with pollen.
+
+Seven children, mostly boys, and gently step-laddered down from
+fourteen years, greeted us at the summit with a loud "Hello!" in
+shrill unison. They stood in a huddle by the woodpile, holding down
+and admonishing a very mild-looking collie, which they evidently
+imagined was filled with an overweening desire instantly to devour us.
+"Hello there! who be ye?" shouted the oldest lad and the spokesman of
+the party. He was a tall, spare boy, and by the light of the rising
+moon we could see he was sharp-featured, good-natured, and
+intelligent.
+
+"Well," said the Doctor, bantering, "that's what we'd like to know.
+You tell us who you are, and we'll tell you who we are. Now that's
+fair, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the boy, respectfully, as he touched his rimless
+straw hat; "our name's Smith; all 'cept that boy there," pointing to a
+sturdy little twelve-year-old, "an' he's a Bixby, he is."
+
+"The Smith family's a big one, I should say," the Doctor remarked, as
+he audibly counted the party.
+
+"Oh, this ain't all on 'em, sir; there's two in the house, a-hidin'
+'cause o' strangers, besides the baby, which ma and pa has with 'em
+inter Packwaukee, a-shoppin'. This is Smith's Island, sir. Didn't ye
+ever hear o' Smith's Island?"
+
+We acknowledged our ignorance, up to this time, of the existence of
+any such feature in the geography of Wisconsin. But the lad, now
+joined by the others, who had by this time vanquished their
+bashfulness and all wanted to talk at once, assured us that we were
+actually on Smith's Island; that Smith's Island had an area of one
+hundred acres, was surrounded on the east by the river, and everywhere
+else by either a bayou or a marsh that had to be crossed with a boat
+in the spring; that there were three families of Smiths there, and
+this group represented but one branch of the clan.
+
+"We're all Smiths, sir, but this boy, who's a Bixby; an' he's our
+cousin and only a-visitin'."
+
+After having gained a thorough knowledge of the topography and
+population of Smith's Island, we ventured to ask whether it was
+presumable that the parental Smiths, when they returned home from the
+village, would be willing to entertain us for the night.
+
+"Guess not, sir," replied the spokesman, the idea appearing to strike
+him humorously; "there's so many of us now, sir, that we're packed in
+pretty close, an' the Bixby boy has to sleep atop o' the orgin. But I
+think Uncle Jim might; he kept a tramp over night once, an' give him
+his breakfus', too, in the bargain."
+
+The prospect as to Uncle Jim was certainly encouraging, and it was now
+too late to go further. It seemed necessary to stop on Smith's Island
+for the night, even if we were restricted to quartering in the
+corn-crib which the Smith boy kindly put at our disposal in case of
+Uncle Jim's refusal,--with the additional inducement that he would
+lend us the collie for company and to "keep off rats," which he
+intimated were phenomenally numerous on this swamp-girt hill.
+
+The entire troop of urchins accompanied us down to the bank to make
+fast for the night, and helped us up with our baggage to the
+corn-crib, where we disturbed a large family of hens which were using
+the airy structure as a summer dormitory. Then, with the two oldest
+boys as pilots, we set off along the ridge to find the domicile of
+Uncle Jim, who had established a reputation for hospitality by having
+once entertained a way-worn tramp.
+
+The moon had now swung clear of the trees on the edge of the river
+basin, and gleamed through a great cleft in the blue-black clouds,
+investing the landscape with a luminous glow. Along the eastern
+horizon a dark forest-girt ridge hemmed in the reedy widespread,
+through which the gleaming Fox twisted and doubled upon itself like a
+silvery serpent in agony. The Indians, who have an eye to the
+picturesque in Nature, tell us that once a monster snake lay down for
+the night in the swamp between the portage and the lake of the
+Winnebagoes. The dew accumulated upon it as it lay, and when the
+morning came it wriggled and shook the water from its back, and
+disappeared down the river which it had thus created in its nocturnal
+bed. I had never fully appreciated the aptness of the legend until
+last night, when I had that bird's-eye view of the valley of the Fox
+from the summit of Smith's Island. To our left, the timothy-field
+sloped gracefully down to the sedgy couch of the serpent; to our
+right, there were pastures and oak openings, with glimpses of the
+moonlit bayou below, across which a dark line led to a forest,--the
+narrow roadway leading from Smith's to the outer world. At the edge of
+a small wood-lot our guides stopped, telling us to keep on along the
+path, over two stiles and through a barn-yard gate, till we saw a
+light; the light would be Uncle Jim's.
+
+A cloud was by this time overcasting the moon, and a distant rumble
+told us that the night would be stormy. Groping our way through the
+copse, we passed the barriers, and, according to promise, the blinding
+light of a kerosene lamp standing on the ledge of an open window burst
+upon us. Then a door opened, and the form of a tall, stalwart man
+stood upon the threshold, a striking silhouette. It was Uncle Jim
+peering into the darkness, for he had heard footsteps in the yard. We
+were greeted cordially on the porch, and shown into a cosey
+sitting-room, where Uncle Jim had been reading his weekly paper, and
+Uncle Jim's wife, smiling sweetly amid her curl-papers, was engaged on
+a bit of crochet. Charmingly hospitable people they are. They have
+been married but a year or two, are without children, and have a
+pleasant cottage furnished simply but in excellent taste. Such
+delightful little homes are rare in the country, and the Doctor
+couldn't help telling Uncle Jim so, whereat the latter was very
+properly pleased. Uncle Jim is a fine-looking, manly fellow, six feet
+two in his stockings, he told us; and his pretty, blooming wife,
+though young, has the fine manners of the olden school. We were
+earnestly invited to stop for the night before we had fairly stated
+our case, and in five minutes were talking on politics, general news,
+and agriculture, as though we had always lived on Smith's Island and
+had just dropped in for an evening's chat. I am sure you would have
+enjoyed it, W----, it was such a contrast to our night at the Erie
+tavern,--only a week ago, though it seems a month. One sees and feels
+so much, canoeing, that the days are like weeks of ordinary travel.
+Two hundred miles by river are more full of the essence of life than
+two thousand by rail.
+
+We had an excellent bed and an appetizing breakfast. The flood-gates
+of heaven had been opened during the night, and Smith's Island shaken
+to its peaty foundations by great thunder-peals. Uncle Jim was happy,
+for the pasturage would be improved, and the corn crop would have a
+"show." Uncle Jim's wife said there would now be milk enough to make
+butter for market; and the hens would do better, for somehow they
+never would lay regularly during the drought we had been experiencing.
+And so we talked on while the "clearing showers" lasted. I told Uncle
+Jim that I was surprised to see him raising anything at all in what
+was apparently sand. He acknowledged that the soil was light, and
+inclined to blow away on the slightest aerial provocation, but he
+nevertheless managed to get twenty bushels of wheat to the acre, and
+the lowlands gave him an abundance of hay and pasturage. He was
+decidedly in favor of mixed crops, himself, and was gradually getting
+into the stock line, as he wanted a crop that could "walk itself into
+market." The Doctor inquired about the health of the neighborhood,
+which he found to be excellent. He is much of a gallant, you know; and
+Uncle Jim's wife was pleasantly flustered when, in his most winning
+tones, the disciple of AEsculapius declared that the climate that could
+produce such splendid complexions as hers--and Uncle Jim's--must
+indeed be rated as available for a sanitarium.
+
+By a quarter to eight o'clock this morning the storm had ceased, and
+the eastern sky brightened. Our kind friends bade us a cheery
+farewell, we retraced our steps to the corn-crib, the Smith boys
+helped us down with our load, and just as our watches touched eight we
+shoved off into the stream, and were once more afloat upon the
+serpentine trail.
+
+These great wild-rice widespreads--sloughs, the natives call them--are
+doubtless the beds of ancient lakes. In coursing through them, the
+bayous, the cul-de-sacs, are so frequent, and the stream switches off
+upon such unexpected tangents, that it is sometimes perplexing to
+ascertain which body of sluggish water is the main channel. Marquette
+found this out when he ascended the Fox in 1673. He says, in his
+relation of the voyage, "The way is so cut up by marshes and little
+lakes that it is easy to go astray, especially as the river is so
+covered with wild oats [wild rice] that you can hardly discover the
+channel; hence, we had good need of our two guides."
+
+Little bog-islands, heavily grown with aspens and willows,
+occasionally dot the seas of rice. They often fairly hum with the
+varied notes of the red-winged blackbird, the rusty grackle, and our
+American robin, while whistling plovers are seen upon the mud-spits,
+snapping up the choicest of the snails. And such bullfrogs! I have not
+heard their like since, when a boy, living on the verge of a New
+England pond, I imagined their hollow rumble of a roundelay to bear
+the burden of "Paddy, go 'round! Go 'round and 'round!" This in
+accordance with a local tradition which says that Paddy, coming home
+one night o'erfull of the "craithur," came to the edge of the pond,
+which stopped his progress. The friendly frogs, who themselves enjoy a
+soaking, advised him to go around the obstruction; and as the wild
+refrain kept on, Paddy did indeed "go 'round, and 'round" till morning
+and his better-half found him, a foot-sore and a soberer man. They
+tell us that on the Fox River the frogs say, "Judge Arndt! Arndt!
+Judge Arndt!" Old Judge Arndt was one of the celebrities in the early
+day at Green Bay; he was a fur-trader, and accustomed, with his gang
+of _voyageurs_, to navigate the Fox and Wisconsin with heavily laden
+canoes and Mackinaw boats. A Frenchman, he had a gastronomic affection
+for frogs' legs, and many a branch of the house of Rana was cast into
+mourning in the neighborhood of his nightly camps. The story goes,
+therefore, that unto this time whenever a boat is seen upon the river,
+sentinel frogs give out the signal cry of "Judge Arndt!" by way of
+deadly warning to their kind. Certain it is that the valley of the
+upper Fox, by day or by night, is resonant with the bellow of the
+amphibious bull. It is not always "Judge Arndt!" but occasionally, as
+if miles and miles away, one hears a sudden twanging note, like that
+of the finger-snapped bass string of a violin; whereas the customary
+refrain may be likened to the deep reverberations of the bass-viol.
+Add the countless chatter and whistle of the birds, the ear-piercing
+hum of the cicada, and the muffled chimes from scores of sheep and cow
+bells on the hillside pastures, and we have an orchestral
+accompaniment upon our voyage that could be fully appreciated only in
+a Chinese theatre.
+
+In the pockets and the sloughs, we find thousands of yellow and white
+water-lilies, and sometimes progress is impeded by masses of creeping
+root-stalks which have been torn from their muddy bed by the upheaval
+of the ice, and now float about in great rafts, firmly anchored by the
+few whose extremities are still imbedded in the ooze.
+
+Fishing-boats were also occasionally met with this morning, occupied
+by Packwaukee people; for in the widespreads just above this village,
+the pickerel thrives mightily off the swarms of perch who love these
+reedy seas; and the weighty sturgeon often swallows a hook and gives
+his captor many a frenzied tug before he consents to enter the
+"live-box" which floats behind each craft.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] Ten dollars per boat, and fifty cents per 100 lbs. of goods.
+
+[3] Described in Mrs. Kinzie's "Wau-Bun," which gives many interesting
+reminiscences of life at the old post.
+
+
+
+
+SECOND LETTER.
+
+FROM PACKWAUKEE TO BERLIN.
+
+
+     BERLIN, WIS., June 8, 1887.
+
+My dear W----: Packwaukee is twenty-five miles by river below Portage,
+and at the head of Buffalo Lake. It is a tumble-down little place,
+with about one hundred inhabitants, half of whom appeared to be
+engaged in fishing. A branch of the Wisconsin Central Railway, running
+south from Stevens Point to Portage, passes through the town, with a
+spur track running along the north shore of the lake to Montello,
+seven miles east. Regular trains stop at Packwaukee, while the engine
+draws a pony train out to Montello to pick up the custom of that
+thriving village. Packwaukee apparently had great pretensions once,
+with her battlement-fronts and verandaed inn; but that day has long
+passed, and a picturesque float-bridge, mossy and decayed, remains the
+sole point of artistic interest. A dozen boys were angling from its
+battered hand-rail, as we painfully crept with our craft through a
+small tunnel where the abutment had been washed out by the stream. We
+emerged covered with cobwebs and sawdust, to be met by boys eagerly
+soliciting us to purchase their fish. The Doctor, somewhat annoyed by
+their pertinacity as he vigorously dusted himself with his
+handkerchief, declared, in the vernacular of the river, that we were
+"clean busted;" and I have no doubt the lads believed his mild fib,
+for we looked just then as though we had seen hard times in our day.
+
+Our general course had hitherto been northward, but was now eastward
+for a few miles and afterward southeastward as far as Marquette.
+Buffalo Lake is seven miles long by from a third to three quarters of
+a mile broad. The banks are for the most part sandy, and from five to
+fifty feet high. The river here merely fills its bed; being deeper,
+the wild rice and reeds do not grow upon its skirts. Were there a
+half-dozen more feet of water, the Fox would be a chain of lakes from
+Portage to Oshkosh. As it is, we have Buffalo, Puckawa, and Grand
+Butte des Morts, which are among the prettiest of the inland seas of
+Wisconsin. The knolls about Buffalo Lake are pleasant, round-topped
+elevations, for the most part wooded, and between them are little
+prairies, generally sandy, but occasionally covered with dark loam.
+
+The day had, by noon, developed into one of the hottest of the season.
+The run down Buffalo Lake was a torrid experience long to be
+remembered. The air was motionless, the sky without clouds; we had
+good need of our awning. The Doctor, who is always experimenting,
+picked up a flat stone on the beach, so warm as to burn his fingers,
+and tried to fry an egg upon it by simple solar heat, but the venture
+failed and a burning-glass was needed to complete the operation.
+
+Montello occupies a position at the foot of the lake, commanding the
+entire sheet of water. The knoll upon which the village is for the
+most part built is nearly one hundred feet high, and the simple spire
+of an old white church pitched upon the summit is a landmark readily
+discernible in Packwaukee, seven miles distant. There is a government
+lock at Montello, and a small water-power. A levee protects from
+overflow a portion of the town which is situated somewhat below the
+lake level. The government pays the lock-keepers thirty dollars per
+month for about eight months in the year, and house-rent the year
+round. Tollage is no longer required, and the keepers are obliged by
+the regulations of the engineering department to open the gates for
+all comers, even a saw-log. But the services of the keepers are so
+seldom required in these days that we find they are not to be easily
+roused from their slumbers, and it is easier and quicker to make the
+portage at the average up-river lock. Our carry at Montello was two
+and a half rods, over a sandy bank, where a solitary small boy, who
+had been catching crayfish with a dip-net, carefully examined our
+outfit and propounded the inquiry, "Be you fellers on the guv'ment
+job?"
+
+Below the lock for three or four miles, the river is again a mere
+canal, but the rigid banks of dredge-trash are for the most part
+covered with a thrifty vegetation, and have assumed charms of their
+own. This stage passed, and the river resumes a natural appearance,--a
+placid stream, with now and then a slough, or perhaps banks of peat
+and sand, ten feet high and fairly well hung with trees and shrubs.
+
+As we approach the head of Lake Puckawa, the widespreads broaden, with
+rows of hills two or three miles back, on either side,--the river
+mowing a narrow swath through the expanse of reeds and flags and rice
+which unites their bases. Where the widespread becomes a pond, and
+the lake commences, there is a sandbar, the dregs of the upper
+channel. A government dredge-machine was at work, cutting out a
+water-way through the obstruction,--or, rather, had been at work, for
+it was seven o'clock by this time, the men had finished their supper,
+and were enjoying themselves upon the neat deck of the boarding-house
+barge, in a neighboring bayou, smoking their pipes and reading
+newspapers. It was a comfortable picture.
+
+A stern-wheel freight steamer, big and cumbersome, came slowly into
+the mouth of the channel as we left it, bound up, for Montello. As we
+glided along her side, a safe distance from the great wheelbarrow
+paddle, she loomed above us, dark and awesome, like a whale
+overlooking a minnow. It was the "T. S. Chittenden," wood-laden. The
+"Chittenden" and the "Ellen Hardy" are the only boats navigating the
+upper Fox this season, above Berlin. Their trips are supposed to be
+semi-weekly, but as a matter of fact they dodge around, all the way
+from Winneconne to Montello, picking up what freight they can and
+making a through trip perhaps once a week. It is poor picking, I am
+told, and the profits but barely pay for maintaining the service.
+
+There now being no place to land, without the great labor of poling
+the canoe through the dense reed swamp to the sides, we had supper on
+board,--the Doctor deftly spreading a bit of canvas on the bottom
+between us, for a cloth, and attractively displaying our lunch to the
+best advantage. I leisurely paddled meanwhile, occasionally resting to
+take a mouthful or to sip of the lemonade, in the preparation of which
+the Doctor is such an adept. And thus we drifted down Lake Puckawa,
+amid the delightful sunset glow and the long twilight which
+followed,--the Doctor, cake in one hand and a glass of lemonade in the
+other, becoming quite animated in a detailed description of a patient
+he had seen in a Vienna hospital, whose food was introduced through a
+slit in his throat. The Doctor is an enthusiast in his profession, and
+would stop to advise St. Peter, at the gate, to try his method for
+treating locksmith-palsy.
+
+We noticed a great number of black terns as we progressed, perched
+upon snags at the head of the lake. They are fearless birds, and would
+allow us to drift within paddle's length before they would rise and,
+slowly wheeling around our heads, settle again upon their roosts, as
+soon as we had passed on.
+
+Lake Puckawa is eight miles long by perhaps two miles wide, running
+west and east. Five miles down the eastern shore, the quaint little
+village of Marquette is situated on a pleasant slope which overlooks
+the lake from end to end. Marquette is on the site of an Indian
+fur-trading camp, this lake being for many years a favorite resort of
+the Winnebagoes. There are about three hundred inhabitants there, and
+it is something of a mystery as to how they all scratch a living; for
+the town is dying, if not already dead,--about the only bit of life
+noticeable there being a rather pretty club-house owned by a party of
+Chicago gentlemen, who come to Lake Puckawa twice a year to shoot
+ducks, it being one of the best sporting-grounds in the State. That is
+to say, they have heretofore come twice a year, but the villagers were
+bewailing the passage by the legislature, last winter, of a bill
+prohibiting spring shooting, thus cutting off the business of
+Marquette by one half. Marquette, like so many other dead river-towns,
+appears to have been at one time a community of some importance. There
+are two deserted saw-mills and two or three abandoned warehouses, all
+boarded up and falling into decay, while nearly every store-building
+in the place has shutters nailed over the windows, and a once
+substantial sidewalk has become such a rotten snare that the natives
+use the grass-grown street for a footpath. The good people are so
+tenacious of the rights of visiting sportsmen that there is no
+angling, I was told, except by visitors, and we inquired in vain for
+fish at the dilapidated little hotel where we slept and breakfasted.
+At the hostlery we were welcomed with open arms, and the landlady's
+boy, who officiated as clerk, porter, and chambermaid, assured us that
+the village schoolmaster had been the only guest for six weeks past.
+
+It is certainly a quiet spot. The Doctor, who knows all about these
+things, diagnosed the lake and declared it to be a fine field for
+fly-fishing. He had waxed so enthusiastic over the numbers of nesting
+ducks which we disturbed as we came down through the reeds, in the
+early evening, that I had all I could do to keep him from breaking the
+new game law, although he stoutly declared that revolvers didn't
+count. The postmaster--a pleasant old gentleman in spectacles, who
+also keeps the drug store, deals in ammunition, groceries, and shoes,
+and is an agent for agricultural machinery--got very friendly with the
+Doctor, and confided to him the fact that if the latter would come
+next fall to Markesan, ten miles distant, over the sands, and
+telephone up that he was there, a team would be sent down for him;
+then, with the postmaster for a guide, fish and fowl would soon be
+obliged to seek cover. It is needless to add that the Doctor struck a
+bargain with the postmaster and promised to be on hand without fail. I
+never saw our good friend so wild with delight, and the postmaster
+became as happy as if he had just concluded a cash contract for a
+car-load of ammunition.
+
+The schoolmaster, a very accommodating young man, helped us down to
+the beach this morning with our load. Anticipating numerous lakes and
+widespreads, where we might gain advantage of the wind, we had brought
+a sprit sail along, together with a temporary keel. The sail helped us
+frequently yesterday, especially in Buffalo Lake, but the wind had
+died down after we passed Montello. This morning, however, there was a
+good breeze again, but quartering, and the keel became essential. This
+we now attached to our craft, and it was nearly seven o'clock before
+we were off, although we had had breakfast at 5.30.
+
+The "Ellen Hardy" was at the dock, loading with wheat for Princeton.
+She is a trimmer, faster craft than the "Chittenden." The engineer
+told us that the present stage of water was but two and a half feet in
+the upper Fox, this year and last being the driest on record. He
+informed us that the freight business was "having the spots knocked
+off it" by the railroads, and there was hardly enough to make it worth
+while getting up steam.
+
+Three miles down is the mouth of the lake. There being two outlets
+around a large marsh, we were somewhat confused in trying to find the
+proper channel. We ascertained, after going a mile and a half out of
+our way to the south, that the northern extremity of the marsh is the
+one to steer for. The river continues to wind along between marshy
+shores, although occasionally hugging a high bank of red clay or
+skirting a knoll of shifting sand; now and then these knolls rise to
+the dignity of hills, red with sorrel and sparsely covered with
+scrubby pines and oaks.
+
+It was noon when we reached the lock above Princeton. The lock-keeper,
+a remarkably round-shouldered German, is a pleasant, gossipy fellow,
+fond of his long pipe and his very fat frau. Upon invitation, we made
+ourselves quite at home in the lock-house, a pleasant little brick
+structure in a plot of made land, the entire establishment having that
+rather stiffly neat, ship-shape appearance peculiar to life-saving
+stations, navy-yards, and military barracks. The good frau steeped
+for us a pot of tea, and in other ways helped us to grace our dinner,
+which we spread on a bench under a grape arbor, by the side of the
+yawning stone basin of the lock.
+
+The "Ellen Hardy," which had left Marquette nearly an hour later than
+we, came along while we were at dinner, waking the echoes with three
+prolonged steam groans. We took advantage of the circumstance to lock
+through in her company. This was our first experience of the sort, so
+we were naturally rather timid as we brushed her great paddle, going
+in, and stole along under her overhanging deck, for she quite filled
+the lock. The captain kindly allowed the liliputian to glide through
+in advance of his steamer, however, when the gates were once more
+opened, and we felt, as we shot out, as though we had emerged from
+under the belly of a monster.
+
+Beaching again, below the lock, we returned to finish our dinner. The
+keeper asked for a ride to Princeton village, three miles below, and
+we admitted him to our circle,--pipe, market-basket and all, though it
+caused the canoe to sink uncomfortably near to the gunwale. Going
+down, our voluble friend talked very freely about his affairs. He said
+that his pay of $30 per month ran from about the middle of April to
+the first of December, and averaged him, the year round, about $20
+and house-rent. He had but little to do, and got along very
+comfortably on the twenty-five acres of marsh-land which the
+government owned, by raising pigs and cows, a few vegetables, and hay
+enough for his stock. He admitted that this was "a heap better" than
+he could do in the fatherland.
+
+"I shoost dell you, mine frient," he said to me, as he grinned and
+refilled his pipe, "dot Shermany vos a nice guntry, and Bismarck he
+vos a grade feller, und I vos brout I vos a Sherman; but I dells mine
+vooman vot I dells you,--I mooch rahder read aboud 'em in mine Sherman
+newsbaper, dan vot I voot leef dere myself, already. I roon avay vrom
+dem conscrip' fellers, und I shoost never seed de time vot I voot go
+back again. In dot ol' guntry, I vos nuttings boot a beasant feller;
+unt in dis guntry I vos a goov'ment off'cer, vich makes grade
+diff'rence, already."
+
+He chuckled a good deal to himself when asked what he thought about
+the Fox-Wisconsin river-improvement, but finally said that government
+must spend its surplus some way,--if not in this, it would in
+another,--and he could not object to a scheme which gave him his bread
+and butter. He said that the improvement operations scattered a good
+deal of money throughout the valley, for labor and supplies, but
+expressed his doubts as to the ultimate national value of the work,
+unless the shifting Wisconsin River, thus far unnavigable for
+steamers, should be canalled from the portage to its mouth. He is an
+honest fellow, and appears to utilize his abundance of leisure in
+reading the newspapers.
+
+At Princeton village,--a thriving country town on a steep bank, with
+unkempt backyards running down to and defiling the river,--we again
+came across the "Ellen Hardy." She was unloading her light cargo of
+wheat as we arrived, and left Princeton an eighth of a mile behind us.
+We now had a pleasant little race to White River lock, seven miles
+below. With sail set, and paddles to help, we led her easily as far as
+the lock. But we thought to gain time by portaging over the dam, and
+she gained a lead of at least a mile, although we frequently caught
+sight of her towering white hull across the widespreads, by dint of
+standing on the thwarts and peering over the tall walls of wild rice
+which shut us in as closely as though we had been canoeing in a
+railroad cut.
+
+It had been fair and cloudy by turns to-day, but delightfully cool,--a
+wonderful improvement on yesterday, when we fairly sweltered, coming
+down Buffalo Lake. In the middle of the afternoon, below White River,
+a thunder-storm overtook us in a widespread several miles in extent.
+Seeking a willow island which abutted on the channel, we made a tent
+of the sail and stood the brief storm quite comfortably. We then
+pushed on, and, rubber-coated, weathered the few clearing showers in
+the boat, for we were anxious to reach Berlin by evening.
+
+At Berlin lock, twelve miles below White River, we portaged the dam,
+and, getting into a two-mile current, ate our supper on board. The
+river now begins to have firmer banks, and to approach the ridges upon
+the southern rim of its basin.
+
+We reached Berlin in the twilight, the landscape of hill and meadow
+being softened in the golden glow. The better portion of this
+beautiful little city of forty-five hundred inhabitants is situated on
+a ridge, closely skirted by the river, with the poorer quarters on the
+flats spreading away on either side. There are many charming homes and
+the main business street has an air of active prosperity.
+
+We went into dock alongside of the "Ellen Hardy."
+
+
+
+
+THIRD LETTER
+
+THE MASCOUTINS.
+
+
+     OSHKOSH, WIS., June 9, 1887.
+
+My Dear W----: As we passed out of Berlin this morning, a government
+dredger was at work by the river-side. We paused on our paddles for
+some time, to watch the workings of the ingenious mechanism. There was
+something demoniac in the action of the monster, as it craned its
+jointed neck amid a quick chorus of jerky puffs from the engine and an
+accompaniment of rattling chains. Reaching far out over the bubbling
+water, it would open its great iron jaws with a savage clank and,
+pausing a moment to gather its energies, dive swiftly into the roily
+depth; after swaying to and fro as if struggling with its prey, it
+soon reappeared, bearing in its filthy maw a ton or two of blue-black
+ooze, the water escaping through its teeth in a score of hissing
+torrents; then, turning aside to the heap of dredge-trash, suddenly
+vomited forth the foul-smelling mess, and returned for another charge.
+It was a singularly fascinating sight, though wofully uncanny.
+
+From Berlin down to Omro, pleasant prairie slopes come down at
+intervals to the water's edge, on the south bank; the feature of the
+north side being wide expanses of bog, the home of the cranberry, for
+which this region is famous. The best marshes, however, are the
+pockets, back among the ridges; from these, great drainage-ditches,
+with flooding gates, come furrowing through the peat, in dark lines as
+straight as an arrow, and empty into the river. It was somewhere about
+here, nearer Berlin than Omro,--but exactly where, no man now
+knoweth,--that the ancient Indian "nation" of the Mascoutins was
+located over two centuries ago; their neighbors, if not their village
+comrades, being the Miamis and the Kickapoos. Champlain, the intrepid
+founder of Quebec, had heard of their warring disposition as early as
+1615. In 1634 Jean Nicolet, the first white man known to have set foot
+upon territory now included in the State of Wisconsin, came in a bark
+canoe as far up the Fox River as the Mascoutins, and after stopping a
+time with them, journeyed southward to the country of the
+Illinois.[4] Allouez and his companions also came hither in 1670, and
+the good father, in the official report of his adventurous canoeing
+trip, says the fort of these people was located a French league (2.4
+English miles) "over beautiful prairies" to the south of the river.
+Joliet and Marquette, on their way to discover the Mississippi River,
+arrived at the fort of the Mascoutins on June 7, 1673, and the latter
+gives this graceful sketch of the oak openings hereabouts, which have
+not meanwhile perceptibly changed their characteristics: "I felt no
+little pleasure in beholding the position of this town; the view is
+beautiful and very picturesque, for from the eminence on which it is
+perched, the eye discovers on every side prairies spreading away
+beyond its reach, interspersed with thickets or groves of lofty
+trees."
+
+The Mascoutins are now a lost tribe. As the result of warring habits,
+they in turn were crowded to the wall, and a generation after
+Marquette's visit the banks of their river knew them no more; the
+Foxes, from whom the stream ultimately took its name, were then
+predominant, and long continued the masters of the highway.
+
+Sacramento--"as dead as a door-nail, sir"--lies sprawled out over a
+pleasant riverside slope to the south. There is the customary air of
+fallen grandeur at Sacramento,--big hopes gone to decay;
+battlement-fronts, houseless cellars, a universal lack of paint. The
+railroads, the real highways of our present civilization, have killed
+these little river towns that are away from the track, and they will
+never be resurrected. The day of inland water navigation, except for
+canoeists, is nearing its close. Settlement clings to the neighborhood
+of the rails, and generally avoids rivers as an obstruction to free
+transit. The towns that have to be reached by a country ferry are
+rotting,--they are off the line of progress. Sacramento boasts a
+spouting well by the river-bank, a mammoth village ash-leach, and fond
+memories of the day when it was "a bigger town than Berlin." As we
+stood in the spray of the fountain, filling our canteen with the
+purest and coldest of water, I speculated upon the strong probability
+of Sacramento being on the identical bank where the Jesuits beached
+their canoes to walk across country to the old Indian village. And the
+Doctor, apt to be irreverent as to aboriginal lore, suggested that the
+defunct Sacramento should have written over its gate this motto:
+"Gone to join the Mascoutins!"
+
+Eureka, a few miles farther down, is also paintless, and her
+river-front is artistic with the crumbling ruins of two or three
+long-deserted saw-mills. A new Eureka appears, however, to be slowly
+building up, to one side of the dead little hamlet,--for there are
+smart steam flouring-mill and a model little cheese-factory in full
+swing here. The cheese man, an accommodating young fellow who appeared
+quite up to the times, and is a direct shipper to the London market,
+took a just pride in showing us over his establishment, and stocked
+our mess-box with samples of his best brands.
+
+Omro spreads over a sandy plain, upon both sides of the river,--an
+excellent wagon-bridge crossing the stream near that of the Chicago,
+Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway. Omro, which is the headquarters of
+the Wisconsin Spiritualists, who have quite a settlement hereabouts,
+is growing somewhat, after a long period of stagnation, having at
+present a population of fifteen hundred.
+
+The "Ellen Hardy," which had now caught up with us, after chasing the
+canoe from Berlin down, went through the draw in our company. As the
+crew rolled off a small consignment of freight, the captain--a
+raw-boned, red-faced, and thoroughly good-humored man--leaned out of
+the pilot-house window and pleasantly chaffed us about our lowly
+conveyance. The conversation ended by his offering to give us a "lift"
+through the great Winneconne widespread, to the point where the Wolf
+joins the Fox, nine or ten miles below. The "Ellen" was bound for
+Winneconne and other points up the Wolf, so could help us no farther.
+Of course we accepted the kindly offer, and fastening our painter to a
+belaying-pin on the "Ellen's" port, scrambled up to the freight-deck
+just as the pilot-bell rang "Forward!" in the smoky little engine-room
+far aft.
+
+While I went aloft to enjoy the bird's-eye view obtainable from the
+pilot-house, the Doctor discussed fishing with the engineer, whom he
+found on closer acquaintance to be a rare, though much-begrimed
+philosopher. This engineer is a wizened-up little man, with a face
+like a prematurely dried apple, but his eyes gleam with a kindly
+light, and he is an inveterate angler. We had noticed him at every
+stopping stage,--his head, shoulders, and arms reaching out of the
+abbreviated rear window of his caboose,--dangling a line astern. The
+Doctor learned that this was his invariable habit. He kept the cook's
+galley in fish, and utilized each leisure half-hour in the pursuit of
+his favorite amusement. The engineer, good man, had fished, he said,
+in nearly every known sea, and the Doctor declared that he "could many
+a wondrous fish-tale unfold." In fact, the Doctor declared him to be
+the most interesting character he had ever met with, outside of a
+hospital, and said he should surely report to his favorite medical
+journal this remarkable case of abnormal persistency in an art, amid
+the most discouraging physical surroundings. He thought the man's
+brain should be dissected, in the cause of science.
+
+The Wolf, which has its rise 150 miles nor'-nor'west of Green Bay, in
+a Forest-county lakelet, and takes generous, south-trending curves
+away down to Lake Poygan, is properly the noble stream which pours
+into Lake Winnebago from the northwest, and then, with a mighty rush,
+forces its way northeastward to the Great Lakes, along the base of the
+watershed which parallels the western coast of Lake Michigan and
+terminates in the sands of the Sturgeon-Bay country. The Jesuit
+fathers, in seeking the Mississippi, traced this river above Lake
+Winnebago, and on reaching the great widespread at the head of the
+Grand Butte des Morts, where the tributary flowing from the southwest
+empties its lazy flood into the rushing Fox, pursued that tributary to
+the portage and erroneously called their highway by one name, from
+Green Bay to the carry. Thus the long-unexplored main river, above the
+junction, came to be treated on the maps as a tributary, and to be
+dubbed the Wolf. This geographical mistake has been so long persisted
+in that correction becomes impracticable, and we must continue to
+style the branch the trunk.
+
+This has been a delightful day; the heavens were clear and blue, and a
+gentle northeaster fanned our faces in the pilot-house, from which
+vantage-point, nearly thirty feet above the river-level, there was
+obtainable a bird's-eye view well worthy of canvas. The wild-rice bog,
+through which the Fox, here not over thirty yards wide, twists like
+the snapper of a whip, is from ten to fifteen miles wide,--a sea of
+living green, across which the breeze sends a regular succession of
+waves, losing themselves upon the far-distant shores. Upon the
+northwestern horizon, the Wolf comes stealing down at the base of a
+range of wooded hills. To the west, a flashing line tells where Lake
+Poygan "holds her mirror to the sun." The tall smoke-stacks of the
+Winneconne saw-mills occupy the middle ground westward. To the east,
+in the centre of the picture, one catches glimpses of the consolidated
+stream, as its goodly flood quickly glides southeasterly, on a short
+spurt toward the Grand Butte des Morts, at the head of which is the
+old fur-trading village of the same name. Far southeastward, below the
+lake, there is just discernible the great brick chimney of a mammoth
+planing-mill,--an Algoma landmark,--and just behind that the black
+cloud resting above the Oshkosh factories. It is a broad, bounteous
+sweep of level landscape,--monotonous, of course, but imposing from
+mere immensity.
+
+At the union of the rivers we bade farewell to our friend the captain;
+and the Doctor secured a promise from the engineer to send in his
+photograph to the hospital with which the former is connected. The
+"Ellen Hardy" stopped her engine as we cast off. In another minute,
+the great stern-wheel began to splash again, and we were bobbing up
+and down on the bubbly swell, waving farewell to our fellow-travelers
+and turning our prow to the southeast, while the roving "Ellen" shaped
+her course to Winneconne, where a lot of laths, destined for
+Princeton, awaited her arrival.
+
+The low ridge which forms the eastern bank of the Wolf, down to the
+junction, soon slopes off to the northeast, in the direction of
+Appleton, leaving a broad, level plain, of great fertility, between it
+and Lakes Grand Butte des Morts and Winnebago. On this plain are built
+the cities of Oshkosh, Neenah, and Menasha. Across it, the
+northeaster, freshening to a lively breeze, had full sweep, and
+stirred up the Grand Butte des Morts into a wild display of opposition
+to our progress. Serried ranks of white-caps came sweeping across the
+lake, beating on our port bow, and the little sail, almost bursting
+with fulness, careened the canoe to the gunwale, as it swept gayly
+along through the foam. The paddles were necessary to keep her well
+abreast of the tide, and there was exercise enough in the operation to
+prevent drowsiness. The spray flew like a drizzling summer shower, but
+our baggage and stores were well covered down, and the weather was too
+warm for a body dampener to be uncomfortable.
+
+We passed the dark, gloomy, tumbled-down, but picturesque village of
+Butte des Morts, just before entering the lake. Of the twenty-five or
+so houses in the place, all but two or three are guiltless of paint.
+There is a quaintness about the simple architecture, which gives
+Butte des Morts a distinctive appearance. To the initiated, it
+betokens the remains of an old fur-trading post; and this was the
+genesis of Butte des Morts. It was in 1818 that Augustin Grignon and
+James Porlier, men intimately connected with the history of the
+French-Indian fur-trade in Wisconsin, set up their shanty dwellings
+and warehouses on a little lakeside knoll a mile below the present
+village, which was founded by their _voyageurs_ on the site of an old
+Menomonee town and cemetery. Some of these post-buildings, together
+with the remains of the watch-tower, from which the traders obtained
+long advance notice of the approach of travelers, red or white, are
+still standing. As we sped by, I pointed out to the Doctor the
+location of these venerable relics, which I had, with proper
+enthusiasm, carefully inspected fully a dozen summers before, and he
+suggested that the knowledge of the approach of a possible customer,
+by means of the tower, gave the traders an excellent opportunity to
+mark up the goods.
+
+James Porlier's son and successor, Louis B. Porlier, now an aged man,
+is the present occupant of the establishment, which is one of the
+oldest landmarks in Wisconsin; and there, also, died the famous
+Augustin Grignon, historian of his clan. Butte des Morts, in the
+early day of the northwest, was something more than a trading-post.
+Situated near the union of the upper Fox and the Wolf, it was the
+rallying-point for both valleys,--long before Appleton, Neenah,
+Menasha or Oshkosh were known, or any of the towns on the upper Fox.
+It was the only white man's stopping-place between the portage and
+Kaukauna. The mail trail between Green Bay and the portage crossed
+here,--for strange to say, the great south-stretching widespread,
+which lies like a map before the village, was in those days firm
+enough for a horse to traverse with safety; while to-day a boat can be
+pushed anywhere between the rushes and rice, and it is _par
+excellence_ the great breeding-ground of this section for muskrats and
+water-fowl. A scow-ferry was maintained in pioneer times for the
+benefit of the mail-carrier and other travelers. Butte des Morts is
+mentioned in most of the journals left us by travelers over the
+Fox-Wisconsin watercourse, previous to 1835, and here several
+important Indian treaties were consummated by government
+commissioners.
+
+It is somewhat over fifteen miles from the mouth of the Wolf to
+Oshkosh. The run down the lake seemed unusually protracted, for the
+city was clearly in sight the entire way, and the distance, over the
+flat expanse, was deceptive. Algoma, now a portion of Oshkosh, was
+something of a settlement long before the lower town began to grow.
+But the latter finally overtook and swallowed the original hamlet.
+Algoma is now chiefly devoted to the homes of the employees in the
+great planing and saw-milling establishments of Philetus Sawyer,
+Wisconsin's senior United States senator, and the wealthy Paine
+Brothers. The residences of these lumber kings are on a slope to the
+north of the iron wagon-bridge, under which we swept as the booming
+whistles of the busy locality, in unison with a noisy chorus of
+steam-gongs farther down the river, sounded the hour of six. Through
+the gantlet of the mills, with their outlying rafts, their lines of
+piling, and their great yards of newly sawn lumber, we sped quickly
+on. A half-hour later, we were turning up into a peaceful little dock
+alongside the south approach to the St. Paul railway-bridge, the
+canoe's quarters for the night. The sun was just plunging below the
+clear-cut prairie horizon, as we walked across the fields to the home
+of our expectant friends.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[4] Butterfield's "Discovery of the Northwest" (Cincinnati, 1861).
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH LETTER.
+
+THE LAND OF THE WINNEBAGOES.
+
+
+     APPLETON, WIS., June 10, 1887.
+
+My dear W----: We had a late start to-day from Oshkosh. It was
+half-past nine o'clock by the time we had reloaded our traps, pushed
+off from the railway embankment, and received the God-speed of M----,
+who had come down to see us off. The busy town, with its twenty-two
+thousand thrifty people, was all astir. The factories and the mills
+were resonant with the clang and rattle of industry, and across the
+two wagon-bridges of the city proper there were continual streams of
+traffic.
+
+I suppose that Oshkosh is, in its way, as widely known throughout this
+country as almost any city in it. The name is strikingly outlandish,
+being equaled only by Kalamazoo, and furnishes the butt of many a
+newspaper joke and comic rhyme. Old chief Oshkosh, whose cognomen
+signifies "brave" in Menomonee speech, was the head man of his dusky
+tribe, a half-century ago. He was a doughty, wrinkled hero, o'er fond
+of fire-water, and wore a battered silk hat for a crown. About 1840,
+when the settlement here was four years old, the Government offered to
+establish a post-office if the inhabitants would unite on a name for
+the place. The whites favored Athens, but the Indians, half-breeds,
+and traders round about Butte des Morts, wanted their friend Oshkosh
+immortalized, so they came down to the new settlement in force, and
+the election being a free-for-all, carried the day. It is said that
+the Grignons were so anxious in behalf of the Menomonee sachem that
+they had a number of squaws array themselves in trousers and cast
+ballots like the bucks. And it was fortunate, as events proved, that
+the election turned out as it did, for the oddity of the name has been
+a permanent advertisement for a very bright community. Oshkosh, as
+hackneyed "Athens," would have been lost to fame. Nobody would think
+of going to "Athens" to "have fun with the boys."
+
+The morning air was as clear as a bell,--a pleasant northeast zephyr,
+coming in off the body of the lake, slightly ruffling the surface and
+reducing the temperature to a delightful tone. The wind not being
+fair, the sail was useless, so we paddled along through the broad
+river, into the lake and northward past a fishermen's colony, rows of
+great ice-houses, the water-works park, and beautiful lake-shore
+residences, to Garlic Island. It was half-past twelve, P.M., when we
+tied up at the crazy pier which projects from this islet of the
+loud-smelling vegetable. A half-century ago Garlic Island was the home
+of Iowatuk, the beautiful aboriginal relict of a French
+fur-trader,--an Indian princess, the old settlers called her; at all
+events, she is reputed to have been a most exemplary person,
+well-possessed of this world's goods, as well as a large family of
+half-breed children. The island is charmingly situated, a half-mile or
+more out from the main land, opposite the Northern Insane Hospital; it
+is a forest of ancient elms, surrounded by a bowlder-strewn beach of
+some three quarters of a mile in length, and occupied by a
+summer-hotel establishment. The name "Garlic Island" does not sound
+very well for a fashionable resort, so the insular territory has been
+dubbed "Island Park" of late; but "Garlic" has good staying qualities,
+and I doubt if they can ever efface the objectionable pioneer title.
+
+We had our dinner on the sward near the pier, convenient to a pump,
+and were entertained by watching the approach of a little
+steam-launch, loaded with a party of "resorters" who had doubtless
+been shopping in Oshkosh, the smoke from whose chimneys rose above the
+tree-tops, five miles to the southwest. There were some of the usual
+types,--the languid Southern woman, with her two pouting boys in
+charge of a rather savage-looking colored nurse, who dragged the
+little fellows out over the gang-plank, one in each hand, as though
+they had been bags of flour; a fashionable dame, from some northern
+metropolis, all ribbons and furbelows, starch and whalebones,
+accompanied by her willowy daughter of twenty, almost her counterpart
+as to dress, with a pert young miss of fourteen, in abbreviated gown
+and overgrown hat, bringing up the rear with the family pug; a
+dawdling young Anglo-maniac sucked the handle of his cane and looked
+sweetly on the society girl, whose papa, apparently a tired-out
+broker, in a well made business costume and a wretched straw hat,
+stayed behind to treat the skipper to a prime cigar and arrange for a
+fishing excursion.
+
+There is a fine view from the island. The hills and cliffs of Calumet
+County, a dozen miles to the east, are dimly visible. Toward Fond du
+Lac, on the south, the horizon is the lake. South-southwestward, Black
+Wolf Point runs out, just over the verge, and the tops of the tall
+trees upon it peep up into view, like shadowy pile-work. Westward are
+the well-kept hospital grounds, fringed with stately elms overhanging
+the firm, gravelly beach, studded with ice-heaved bowlders, which
+extends northward to Neenah. The view to the north and northeast is
+delightfully hazy, being now dark with delicate fringes of forest
+which cap the occasional limestone promontories, and again losing
+itself in a watery sky-line.
+
+We had two pleasant hours at this island-home of the lovely Iowatuk,
+walking around it on the bowldered beach, and reveling in the shade of
+the grand old elms. By the time we were ready to resume our voyage,
+the wind had died down, the lake was as smooth as a marble slab, and
+the sun's rays reflected from it converted the atmosphere to the
+temperature of a bake-oven. No sooner had we pushed out beyond the
+deep shadows of the trees than it seemed as though we had at one
+paddle-stroke shot into the waters of a tropic sea. The awning was at
+once raised, and served to somewhat mitigate our sufferings, but the
+dazzling reflection was there still, to the great discomfort of our
+eyes.
+
+After two miles of distress, a bank of light but sharply broken clouds
+appeared on the northeastern horizon, and soon a gentle breeze brought
+blessed relief. In a few minutes more, ripples danced upon our
+starboard quarter, and then the awning had to come down, for it filled
+like a fixed sail and counteracted the effect of the paddles. The
+Doctor, who, you know full well, never paddles when he can sail,
+insisted on running up into the wind and spreading the canvas. He was
+just in time, for a squall struck us as he was adjusting the boom
+sprit, and nearly sent him overboard while attempting to regain his
+seat. Little black squalls now rapidly succeeded each other, the wind
+freshening between the gusts; and the Doctor, who was the
+sailing-master, had to exercise rare vigilance, for the breeze was
+rapidly developing into a young gale, and the ripples had now grown to
+be by far the largest waves our little craft had yet encountered. The
+situation began to be somewhat serious, as the clouds thickened and
+the white-caps broke upon the west beach with a sullen roar. We
+therefore deemed it advisable to run into a little harbor to the lee
+of a wooded spit, and hold council.
+
+It was a wild, storm-tossed headland, two thirds of the distance down
+from the island, and the spit was but one of its many points. We
+landed and made an extended exploration, deeming it possible that we
+might be obliged to pass the night here; but the result of our
+discoveries was to discourage any such project. For a half-mile back
+or more the forest proved to be a tangled swamp, filled with fallen
+timber and sink-holes, while quicksands lined the harbor where the
+canoe peacefully rested behind an outlying fringe of gnarled elms. We
+wandered up and down the gravelly beach, in the spray of the breakers,
+scrambling over great bowlders and overhanging trunks whose
+foundations had been sapped by storm-driven floods; but everywhere was
+the same hard, forbidding scene of desolation, with the angry surface
+of the lake and the canopy of wind-clouds filling out a picture which,
+the Doctor suggested, could have only been satisfactorily executed in
+water-colors.
+
+In the course of our wanderings, which were sadly destructive to
+clothes and shoe-leather, we had some comical adventures. The Doctor
+hasn't got over laughing about one of them yet. We came to an
+apparently shallow lagoon, perhaps three rods wide and a dozen long,
+beyond which we desired to penetrate. It was bedded with sand and
+covered with green slime. The Doctor had, just before, divested
+himself of shoes and stockings and rolled his trousers above his
+knees, in an enthusiastic hunt for a particularly ponderous frog,
+which he desired to pickle in the cause of science. He playfully
+offered to carry me across the pool on his back, and thus save me the
+trouble of imitating his style of undress. With some misgivings as to
+the result, I finally mounted. We progressed favorably as far as the
+centre, when suddenly I felt my transport sinking; he gave a desperate
+lunge as the water suddenly reached his waist, I sprang forward over
+his head, and losing my balance, sprawled out flat upon the slimy
+water. I hardly know how we reached firm ground again, but when we
+did, we were a sorry-looking pair, as you can well imagine. The Doctor
+thought it high sport, as he wrung out his clothes and spread them
+upon a bowlder to dry, and I tried hard to join in his boisterous
+hilarity; but somehow, as I scraped the gluey slime from my only
+canoeing suit, with a bit of old drift shingle, and contemplated the
+soppy condition of my wardrobe, I know there must have been a tinge of
+sadness in my gaze. It was too much like being shipwrecked on a desert
+island.
+
+As we sat, clad in rubber coats, sunning ourselves on the lee side of
+a fallen tree and waiting for our garments to again become wearable,
+the Doctor read to me an article from his medical journal, describing
+a novel surgical operation on somebody's splintered backbone,
+copiously illustrating the selection with vivid reports of his own
+hospital observations in that direction. This sort of thing was well
+calculated to send the shivers down one's spinal column, but the
+Doctor certainly made the theme quite interesting and the half-hour
+necessary to the drying process soon passed.
+
+By this time it was plain to be seen that the velocity of the wind was
+not going to increase before sundown, although it had not slacked. We
+determined to try the sea again, and pushed out through the breakers,
+with sail close-hauled and baggage canvased. Taking a bold offing into
+the teeth of the gale, we ran out well into the lower lake, and then,
+on a port tack, had a fine run down to Doty's Island, which divides
+the lower Fox into two channels. The city of Neenah, noted for its
+flouring and paper mills, is built upon both sides of the southern
+channel, or Neenah River; Menasha, with several factories, but
+apparently less prosperous than the other, guards the north
+channel,--the twin cities dividing the island between them. The
+government lock is at Menasha, while at Neenah there is a fine
+water-power, with a fall of twelve or fifteen feet,--the "Winnebago
+Rapids" of olden time.
+
+It was into Neenah channel that we came flying so gayly, before the
+wind. There is a fine park on the mainland shore, with a smartly
+painted summer hotel and half a dozen pretty cottages that would do
+credit to a seaside resort. To the right the island is studded with
+picturesque old elms, shading a closely cropped turf, upon which
+cattle peacefully graze, while here and there among the trees are
+old-fashioned white cottages, with green blinds, quite after the style
+of a sleepy New-England village,--a charming scene of semi-rustic
+life; while to seaward Lake Winnebago tosses and rolls, almost to the
+horizon.
+
+Doty's is an historic landmark. The rapids here necessitated a
+portage, and from the earliest times there have been Indian villages
+on the island, more or less permanent in character,--Menomonee, Fox,
+and Winnebago in turn. As white traffic over the Fox-Wisconsin
+watercourse grew, so grew the importance of this village, whatever the
+tribe of its inhabitants; for the bucks found employment in helping
+the empty boats over the rapids and in "toting" the goods over the
+portage-trail. The Foxes overreached themselves by setting up as
+toll-gatherers. It is related--but historians are somewhat misty as to
+the details--that in the winter of 1706-7 a French captain, Marin by
+name, was sent out by the governor of New France to chastise the
+blackmailers. At the head of a large party of French creoles and
+half-breeds, he ascended the lower Fox on snowshoes, surprising the
+aborigines in their principal village, here at Winnebago Rapids, and
+slaughtering them by the hundreds. Afterward, this same Marin
+conducted a summer expedition against the Foxes. His boats were filled
+with armed men and covered down with oilcloth, as traders were wont to
+treat their goods _en voyage_, to escape a wetting. Only two men were
+visible in each boat, paddling and steering. Nearly fifteen hundred
+dusky tax-gatherers were discovered squatting on the beach at the foot
+of the rapids, awaiting the arrival of the flotilla. The canoes were
+ranged along the shore. Upon a signal being given, the coverings were
+thrown off and volley after volley of hot lead poured into the mob of
+unsuspecting savages, a swivel-gun in Marin's boat aiding in the
+slaughter. Tradition has it that over a thousand Foxes fell in that
+brutal assault. In 1716 another captain of New France, named De
+Louvigny, is reported to have stormed the audacious Foxes. They had
+not, it seems, been exterminated by previous massacres, for five
+hundred warriors and three thousand squaws are alleged to have been
+collected within a palisaded fort, somewhere in the neighborhood of
+these rapids. De Louvigny is credited with having captured the fort
+after a three days' siege, but granted the enemy the honors of war.
+Twelve years later the Foxes had again become so troublesome as to
+need chastisement. This time the agent chosen to command the
+expedition was De Lignery, among whose lieutenants was the noted
+Charles de Langlade, Wisconsin's first white settler. But the redskins
+had become wise, after their fashion, and fled before the Frenchmen,
+who found the villages on the Fox, lower and upper, deserted. The
+invaders burned every wigwam and cornfield in sight, from Green Bay to
+the portage. This expedition appears to have been followed by others,
+until the Foxes, with the allied Sacs, fled the valley, never to
+return. Much of this is traditionary.
+
+The widening of the Fox below Doty's Island was called Lac Petit
+Butte des Morts,--"Lake Little Hill of the Dead," to distinguish it
+from the "Great Hill of the Dead," above Oshkosh.
+
+It has long been claimed that the thousands of Foxes who at various
+times fell victims to these massacres in behalf of the French
+fur-trade were buried in great pits at Petit Butte des Morts,--near
+Winnebago Rapids. But modern investigators lean to the opinion that
+the "little hill of the dead" was merely an ordinary Indian cemetery,
+and the mound or mounds there are prehistoric tumuli, common enough in
+the neighborhood of Wisconsin lakes. A like conclusion, also, has been
+arrived at in regard to the Grand Butte des Morts. However, this is
+something that the archaeological committee must settle among
+themselves.
+
+The Winnebagoes succeeded the Foxes, and Doty's Island became the seat
+of their power. The master spirit among them for a quarter of a
+century previous to the fall of New France was a French fur-trader
+named De Korra or De Cora, who had a Winnebago "princess" for a squaw.
+They had a numerous progeny, which De Korra left to his wife's charge
+when called to serve under Montcalm in the defence of Quebec. He was
+killed in a sortie, and Madame De Korra and her brood relapsed into
+barbarism. One half of the Winnebagoes now living are descendants,
+more or less direct, of this sturdy old fur-trader, and bear his name,
+which is also perpetuated, with varied orthography, in many a
+northwestern stream and hamlet. During the first third of the present
+century Hoo-Tschope, or Four Legs, was the dusky magnate at this
+Winnebago capital.[5] Four Legs was a cunning rascal, well known to
+the earliest pioneers, but he at last fell a victim to his greatest
+enemy, the bottle. Last month I was visiting among the Winnebagoes
+around Black River Falls. Desiring to have a "talk" with Walking
+Cloud, a wizened-faced redskin of some seventy-two years, I went out
+with my interpreters over the hills and through the valley of the
+Black, nearly a dozen miles, before I found him and his squatting in
+their wigwams at the base of a bold bluff, fronted by a lovely bit of
+vale. Cloud's decrepit squaw, blind in one eye and wofully garrulous,
+hobbled up to us, and sinking to her knees in front of me, held out a
+dirty, bony hand, with nails like the claws of a bird, murmuring,
+"Give! Give!" I dropped a coin into the outstretched palm; she
+grinned and chattered like an animated skeleton, and crawled away on
+her witch-like crutch. This was the once far-famed and beautiful
+princess of the Winnebagoes, the winsome Champche Keriwinke, or Flash
+of Lightning, eldest daughter of Hoo-Tschope. How are the mighty
+fallen!
+
+We portaged around the island end of the Neenah dam and met the
+customary shallows below the obstruction. But soon finding a narrow,
+rock-imbedded channel, we glided swiftly down the stream, through the
+thrifty town, past the mills and under the bridges, just as the six
+o'clock bells had sounded and the factory hands were thronging
+homeward, their tin dinner-pails glistening in the sun. Scores of them
+stopped to lean over the bridge-rails, and curiously watched us as we
+threaded the shallows; for canoes long ago ceased to be a daily
+spectacle at Winnebago Rapids.
+
+Little Lake Butte des Morts, just below, is where the river spreads to
+a full mile in breadth, the average width of the stream being less
+than one half that. The wind was fair, and we came swooping down into
+the lake, which is two or three miles long. A half-hour before sunset
+we hauled up at a high mossy glade on the north shore, and had
+delightful down-stream glimpses of deep vine-clad, naturally terraced
+banks, the slopes and summits being generally well wooded. A party of
+young men and women were having a camp near us. The woods echoed with
+their laughing shouts. A number, with their chaperone, a lovely and
+lively old lady, in a white cap with satin ribbons, came down to the
+shore to inspect our little vessel and question us as to our unusual
+voyage. We returned the call and played lawn tennis with fair
+partners, until the fact that we must reach Appleton to-night suddenly
+dawned upon us, and we bade a hasty farewell to our joyous wayside
+friends.
+
+It was a charming run down to Appleton, between the park-like banks,
+which rise to an altitude of fifty feet or more. Every now and then a
+pretty summer residence stands prominently out upon a bluff-head, an
+architectural gem in a setting of oaks and luxurious pines. At their
+bases flows the deep flood of the Lower Fox, black as Erebus in the
+shadows, but smiling brightly in the patchy sunlight, and thickly
+decked with great bubbles which fairly leap along the course, eager to
+reach their far-off ocean goal. But swifter by far than the bubbles
+went our canoe as we set the paddles deeply and bent to our work, for
+the waters were strange to us, the night was setting in, and Appleton
+must be made. It will not do to traverse these rivers after dark
+unless well acquainted with the currents, the snags, and the dams, for
+disaster may readily overtake the unwary.
+
+Cautiously we now crept along, for in the fast-fading twilight we
+could just discern the outlines of the Appleton paper-mills and a
+labyrinth of railway bridges, while the air fairly trembled with the
+mingled roar of water and of mighty gearing. Across the rapid stream
+shot piercing rays from the windows of the electric works, whose
+dynamos furnish light for the town and power for the street railway. A
+fisherman, tugging against the current, shouted to us to keep hard on
+the eastern bank, and in a few minutes more we glided by the stone
+pier which buttresses the upper dam, and pulled up in a little
+dead-water cove at the base of the Milwaukee and Northern railway
+bridge. The bridge-tender's children came down to meet us; the man
+himself soon followed; we were permitted to chain up for the night at
+his pier, and to deposit our bulky baggage in his kitchen; he
+accompanied us over the long bridge which spans the noisy apron and
+the rushing race. A misstep between the ties would send one on a
+short cut to the hereafter, but we safely crossed, ascended two or
+three steep flights of stairs to the top of the bank, and in a minute
+or two more were speeding up town to our hotel, aboard an electric
+street railway car.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[5] See Mrs. Kinzie's "Wau-Bun" for reminiscences of Four Legs.
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH LETTER.
+
+LOCKED THROUGH.
+
+
+     LITTLE KAUKAUNA, WIS., June 11, 1887.
+
+My Dear W----: We took an extended stroll around Appleton after
+breakfast. It is a beautiful city,--the gem of the Lower Fox. The
+banks are nearly one hundred feet high above the river level. They are
+deeply cut with ravines. Hillside torrents, quickly formed by heavy
+rains, as quickly empty into the stream, draining the plateau of its
+superfluous surface water, and in the operation carving these great
+gulches through the soft clay. And so there are many steep inclines in
+the Appleton highways, and the ravines are frequently bridged by dizzy
+trestle-works; but the greater part of the city is on a high, level
+plain, the wealthy dwellers courting the summits of the river banks,
+where the valley view is panoramic. The little Methodist college, with
+its high-sounding title of Lawrence University, is an excellent
+institution, and said to be growing; it gives a certain scholastic
+tinge to Appleton society, which might otherwise be given up to the
+worship of Mammon, for there is much wealth among the manufacturers
+who rule the city, and prosperity attends their reign.
+
+There is a good natural water-power here, but the Fox-Wisconsin
+improvement has made it one of the finest in the world. If the
+improvement scheme is a flat failure elsewhere, as is beginning to be
+generally believed, it certainly has been the making of this valley of
+the Lower Fox. From Lake Winnebago down to the mouth, the rapids are
+frequent, the chief being at Neenah, Appleton, Kaukauna, Little
+Kaukauna, and Depere. Of the twenty-six locks from Portage down,
+seventeen are below our stopping-point of last night; the fall at
+each, at this stage of water being about twelve feet on the average.
+Each of these locks involves a dam; and when the stream is thus
+stemmed and all repairs maintained, at the expense of the general
+government, it is a simple matter to tap the reservoir, carry a race
+along the bank, and have water-power _ad libitum_. Not half the
+water-power in sight, not a tenth of that possible is used. There is
+enough here, experts declare, to turn the machinery of the world. No
+wonder the beautiful valley of the Lower Fox is rich, and growing
+richer.
+
+It was no holiday excursion to portage around the Appleton locks this
+morning. At none of them could we find the tenders, for the Menasha
+lock being broken, there is no through navigation from Oshkosh to
+Green Bay this week, and way traffic is slight. We had neglected to
+furnish ourselves with a tin horn, and the vigorous use of lung power
+failed to achieve the desired result. The banks being steep and
+covered with rock chips left by the stone-cutters employed on the
+work, we had some awkward carries, and felt, as we finally passed the
+cordon and set out on the straight eastward stretch for Kaukauna, that
+we were earning our daily bread.
+
+Kaukauna, the Grand Kackalin of the Jesuits and early French traders,
+is ten miles below Appleton. Here are the most formidable rapids on
+the river, the fall being sixty feet, down an irregular series of
+jagged limestone stairs some half mile in extent. Indians, in their
+light bark canoes and practically without baggage, can, in high water,
+make the passage, up or down, by closely hugging the deeper and
+stiller water on the north bank; but the French traders invariably
+portaged their goods, allowing the voyageurs to carry over the empty
+boats, the men walking in the water by the side, pushing, hauling, and
+balancing, amid a stream of oaths from their bourgeois, or master, who
+remained at his post. I had had an idea that in our little craft we
+might safely make the venture of a shoot down the stairs, by
+exercising caution and following the Indian channel. But this was
+previous to arrival. Leaving the Doctor to guard the canoe from a
+crowd of Kaukauna urchins, who were disposed to be over-familiar with
+our property, I went down through a boggy field to view the situation.
+It is a grand sight, looking up from the bottom of the rapids. The
+water is low, and at every few rods masses of rock project above the
+seething flood, specimens of what line the channel. The torrent comes
+down with a mighty roar, lashing itself into a fury of spray and foam
+as it leaps around and over the obstructions, and takes great lunges
+from step to step. There are several curves in the basin of the
+cataract, which add to its artistic effect, while it is deeply fringed
+by stunted pines and scrub oaks, having but a slender footing in the
+shallow turf which covers the underlying stratum of limestone.
+Whatever may be the condition of the falls at Kaukauna in high water,
+it is certain that at this stage a canoe would be dashed to splinters
+quite early in the attempt to scale them.
+
+But a portage of half a mile was not to our taste in the torrid
+temperature we have been experiencing to-day, and we determined to
+maintain the rights of free navigators by obliging the tenders to put
+us through the five great locks, which are here necessary to lower
+vessels from the upper to the lower level. These tenders receive ample
+compensation, and many of them are notoriously lazy. It is but seldom
+that they are compelled to exercise their muscles on the gates; for
+navigation on the Fox is spasmodic and unimportant. As I have said in
+one of my previous letters, even a saw-log has the right of way; and
+government paid a goodly sum to the speculators from whom it purchased
+this improvement, that free tollage might be established here for all
+time. And so it was that, perhaps soured a little by our Appleton
+experience, we determined at last to test the matter and assert the
+privileges of American citizens on a national highway.
+
+On regaining my messmate, we took a general view of Kaukauna,--which
+spreads over the banks and a prairie bottom on both sides of the
+river, and is a growing, bustling, freshly built little factory
+town,--and then re-embarked to try our fortune at the lock-gates.
+Heretofore we had considerately portaged every one of these
+obstructions, except at Princeton, where we went through under the
+"Ellen Hardy's" wing.
+
+A stalwart Irishman, in his shirt-sleeves, and smoking a clay pipe
+with that air of dogged indifference peculiar to so many government
+officials, leaned over a capstan at the upper lock, and dreamily
+stared at the approaching canoe. The lock was full, the last boat
+having passed up a day or two before. The upper gates being open, we
+pushed in, and took up our station in the centre of the basin, to
+avoid the "suck" during the emptying process. The Doctor took out of
+the locker a copy of his medical journal and I a novel, and we settled
+down as though we had come to stay. The Irishman's face was at first a
+picture of dumb astonishment, and then he sullenly picked up his coat
+from the grass, and began to walk off in the direction of the town.
+
+"Hi, my friend!" shouted the Doctor, good-naturedly. "We are waiting
+to get locked through."
+
+The tender returned a step, his eyes opened wide, his brows knit, and
+in his wrath he stuttered, "Ph-h-a-t! Locked through in that theer
+s-s-k-i-ff? Ye're cr-razy, mon!"
+
+"Oh, not at all. We understand our rights, and wish you to lock us
+through. And, if you please, we're in something of a hurry." As I said
+this I consulted my watch, and after returning it to my pocket resumed
+a vacant gaze upon the outspread leaves of the novel.
+
+The tender--for we had guessed rightly; it was the tender--advanced to
+the edge of the basin, and looked with inexpressible scorn upon our
+Liliputian craft. "Now, look here, gints," he said, somewhat more
+conciliatory, "I've been here for twinty years, an' know the law; an'
+the law don't admit no skiffs, ye mind y'ur eye. An' the divil a bit
+of lockage will ye git here, an' mind that!" And then he walked away.
+
+We were very patient. The rim of the lock became lined with small boys
+and smaller girls, for this is Saturday, and a school holiday; and
+there was great wonderment at the men in the canoe, who "were having a
+bloody old row with Barney, the lock-tinder," as one boy vigorously
+expressed the situation to a bevy of new-comers. By and by Barney
+returned to see if we were still there. We were, and were so
+abstracted that we did not heed his presence.
+
+"Will, ye ain't gone yit, I see?" said Barney.
+
+The Doctor roused himself, and pulling out his watch, appeared to be
+greatly surprised. "I do declare," he ejaculated, "if we haven't been
+waiting here nearly half an hour! I say, my man, this sort of delay is
+inexcusable. It will read badly in a report to the Engineering Bureau.
+What is your number, sir?" And with a stern expression he produced his
+tablets, prepared to jot down the numeral.
+
+Barney was clearly weakening. His return to see if the "bluff" had
+worked was an evidence of that. The Doctor's severe official manner,
+and our quiet persistence appeared to convince Barney that he had made
+a grave mistake. So he hurried off to the lower capstans, growling
+something about being "oft'n fooled with fish'n' parties." When we
+were through we left Barney a cigar on the curbing, and gently
+admonished him never again to be so rude to canoeists, or some day he
+would get reported. As we pushed off he bade us an affectionate
+farewell, and said he had sent his "lad" ahead to see that we had no
+trouble at the four lower locks. We did not see the lad; but certain
+it is that the other tenders were prompt and courteous, and we felt
+that the cigars which we distributed along the Kaukauna Canal were not
+illy bestowed.
+
+Progress was slow to-day, owing to the delays in locking. Ordinarily,
+we make from thirty to forty miles,--on the Rock, you remember, we
+averaged forty. But it was nearly sunset when we passed under the old
+wagon bridge at Wrightstown, only seventeen miles below our
+starting-point of this morning. We paused for a minute or two, to talk
+with a peaceably disposed lad, who was the sole patron of the bridge
+and lay sprawled across the board foot-walk, with his head under the
+railing, fishing as contentedly as though he lay on a grassy bank,
+after the manner of the gentle Izaak. When old Mr. Wright was around,
+Wrightstown may have been quite a place. But it is now going the way
+of so many river towns. There is a small, rickety saw-mill in
+operation, to which farmers from the back country haul in pine logs,
+of which there are some hundreds neatly piled in an adjoining field.
+Another saw-mill shell is hard by, the home of owls and bats,--a
+deserted skeleton, whose spirit, in the shape of machinery, has
+departed to Ashland, a more modern paradise of the buzz-saw. The
+village, dressed in that tone of pearly gray with which kind Nature
+decks those habitations left paintless by neglectful man,--is
+prettily situated on the high banks which uniformly hedge in the Lower
+Fox. On the highest knoll of all is a modest little frame church whose
+spire--white, after a fashion--is a prominent landmark to river
+travelers. There are the remains of once well-kept gardens, upon the
+upper terraces; of somewhat elaborate fences, now swaying to and fro
+and weak in the knees; of sidewalks which have become pitfalls; of
+impenetrable thickets of lilacs, hedging lonely spots that once were
+homes. On the village street, only a few idlers were seen, gathered in
+knots of two or three in front of the barber shop and the saloons; the
+smith at his forge was working late, shoeing a country team; and two
+angular dames, in rusty sun-bonnets, were gossiping over a barn-yard
+gate. That was all we saw of Wrightstown, as we drifted northward in
+company with the reeling bubbles, down through the deepening shadow
+cast by the western bank.
+
+Here and there, where the land chances to slope gently to the water's
+edge, are small piles of logs, drawn on farm sleds during the winter
+season from depleted pineries, all the way from three to ten miles
+back. When wanted at the saw-mills down the river, or just above, at
+Wrightstown, they are loosely made up into small rafts and poled to
+market. Along the stream there are but few pines left, and they
+generally crown some rocky ledge, not easily accessible. A few small
+clumps are preserved, however, relics of the forest's former state, to
+adorn private grounds or enhance the gloomy tone of little hillside
+cemeteries. There must have been an impressive grandeur about the
+scenery of the Lower Fox in the early day, before the woodman's axe
+leveled the great pines which then swept down in solid rank to the
+river beach, closely hedging in the dark and rapid flood.
+
+We lunched upon a stone terrace, above which swayed in the evening
+breeze the dense, solemn branches of a giant native, one of the last
+of his fated race. The channel curved below, and the range of vision
+was short, between the stately banks, heavily fringed as they are with
+aspen and scrub-oak. As we sat in the gathering gloom and gayly
+chatted over the simple adventures which are making up this week of
+ideal vacation life, there came up from the depths below the steady
+swish and pant of a river steamboat,--rare object upon our lonesome
+journey. As the bulky craft came slowly around the bend, the pant
+became a subdued roar, awakening a dull echo from the wooded slopes. A
+small knot of passengers lolled around the pilot-house, on which we
+were just able to discern the name "Evalyn, of Oshkosh," in burnished
+gilt; on the freight deck there were bales and boxes of merchandise,
+and heaps of lumber; two stokers were feeding cord-wood to the furnace
+flames, which lit the scene with lurid glare, after the fashion of
+theatric fires; the roustabouts were fastening night lanterns to the
+rails. The V-shaped wake of her wheelbarrow stern broke upon the
+shores like a tidal wave, and the canoe, luckily well fastened to the
+roots of a stranded tree, bobbed up and down as would a chip tossed on
+the billows.
+
+Four miles below Wrightstown is Little Kaukauna. There are three or
+four cottages here, well up on the pleasant western bank, overlooking
+a deserted saw-mill property; while just beyond, a government lock
+does duty whenever needed, and the rest of the now broadened stream is
+stemmed by a magnificent dam, from the foot of which arises a dense
+cloud of vapor, such is the force of the torrent which pours with a
+mighty sweep over the great chute. As we stole down upon the hamlet,
+the moon, a day or two past full, was just rising over the opposite
+hillocks; a tall pine standing out boldly from its lesser fellows,
+was weirdly silhouetted across her beaming face, and in the cottage
+windows lights gleamed a homely welcome.
+
+We were cordially received at the house of the patriarch of the
+settlement. We made our craft secure for the night, "toted" our
+baggage up the bank, and paused upon the broad porch of our new-found
+friend to contemplate a most charming moonlit view of river and forest
+and glade and cataract; the cloud of mist rising high above the
+roaring declivity seemed as an incense offering to the goddess of the
+night.
+
+
+
+
+SIXTH LETTER.
+
+THE BAY SETTLEMENT.
+
+
+     GREEN BAY, WIS., June 13, 1887.
+
+My Dear W----: We had a quiet Sunday at Little Kaukauna. Being a
+delightful day, we went with our entertainers to the country church, a
+mile or two back across the fields, and whiled away the rest of the
+time in strolling through the woods and gossiping with the farmers
+about the crops and the government improvement,--fertile themes. It
+appears that this diminutive hamlet of four or five houses anticipates
+a "boom," and there is some feverish anxiety as to how much village
+lots ought to bring as a "starter" when the rush actually opens. A
+syndicate has purchased the long-abandoned water-power, and it is
+whispered that paper-mills are to be erected, with cottages for
+operatives, and all that sort of thing. Then, the church and the depot
+will have to be brought into town; the proprietor of the cross-roads
+grocery, now out on the "country road," will be erecting a brick
+"block" by the river side; somebody will be starting a daily paper,
+printed from stereotype plates imported from Oshkosh or Chicago; and a
+summer resort hotel with a magnetic spring, will doubtless cap the
+climax of village greatness. I shall look with interest on reports
+from the Little Kaukauna boom.
+
+It was nine o'clock this morning before we dipped paddle and bore down
+to the lock gates. The good-natured tender "dropped" us through with
+much alacrity. The river gradually widens, and here and there the high
+rolling banks recede for some distance, and marshes and bayous,
+excellent hunting-grounds, border the stream. A half mile below the
+lock we noticed a roughly built hut, open at front, such as would
+quarter a pig in the shanty outskirts of a great city. It looked
+lonesome, on the edge of a wide bog, with no other sign of habitation,
+either human or animal, in the watery landscape. Curiosity impelled us
+to stop. Crossing a plank, which rested one end on a snag and the
+other on a stone in front of the three-sided structure, we peered in.
+A bundle of rags lay in one corner of the floor of loosely laid
+boards; in another was a heap of clamshells, the contents of which
+had doubtless been cooked over a little fire which still smouldered in
+a neighboring clump of reeds. The odors were noisome, and a foot rise
+of water would have swamped out the dweller in this strange abode. We
+at once took it for granted that this was either the home of an Indian
+or a tramp. Just as we were leaving, however, a frowsy, dirty, but
+apparently good-tempered fisherman came rowing up and claimed the
+cabin as his home. He said that he spent the greater part of the year
+in this filthy hole, hunting or fishing according to the season; in
+the winter, he boarded up the front, leaving a hole to crawl out of,
+and banked the hut about with reeds and muck. Wrightstown was his
+market; and he "managed to scratch," he said, by being economical. I
+asked him how much it cost him in cash to exist in this state, which
+was but slightly removed from the condition of our ancestral
+cave-dwellers. He thought that with twenty-five dollars in cash, he
+could "manage to scratch finely" for an entire year, and have besides
+"a week off with the boys,"--in other words, one prolonged drinking
+bout,--at Wrightstown. He complained, however, that he seldom received
+money, being mainly put off with barter. The poor fellow, evidently
+something of a simpleton, is probably the victim of sharp practice
+occasionally. As we paddled away from this singular character, the
+Doctor said that he had a novel-writing friend, given to the
+sensational, to whom he would like to introduce The Wild Fisherman of
+Little Kaukauna; he thought there was material for a romance here,
+particularly if it could be proved, as was quite possible, that the
+hut man was the lost heir of a British dukedom.
+
+But the site of another and a stranger romance is but half a mile
+farther down. The river there suddenly broadens into a basin, fully
+half a mile in width. To the east, the banks are quite abrupt. The
+westward shore is a gentle, grass-grown slope, stretching up beyond a
+charming little bay formed by a spit of meadow. Near the sandy beach
+of this bay a country highway passes, winding in and out and up and
+down, as it follows the river and the bases of the knolls. Above this
+and commanding delightful glimpses of forest and stream and bayou and
+prairie, a goodly hillock is crowned, some seventy-five feet above the
+water's edge, with a dark, unpainted, time-worn, moss-grown house,
+part log and part frame, set in a deep tangle of lilacs and crabs.
+The quaint old structure is of the simple pioneer pattern,--a story
+and a half, with gables on the north and south ends of the main part;
+and a small transverse wing to the rear, with connecting rooms. The
+ancient picket gate creaks on its one rusty hinge. The front door has
+the appearance of being nailed up, and across its frame a dozen fat
+spiders, most successful of fly fishers, have stretched their gluey
+nets. The path, once leading thither, is now o'ergrown with grass and
+lilacs, while in the surrounding snarl of weeds and poplar suckers are
+seen the blossoming remnants of peonies, and a few old-fashioned
+garden shrubs.
+
+The ground is historic. The house is an ancient landmark. It was the
+old home of Eleazar Williams, in his day Episcopal missionary and
+pretender to the throne of France. Williams was the reputed son of a
+mixed-blood couple of the Mohawk band of Indians; in early life, he
+claimed to have been born in the vicinity of Montreal, in 1792. A
+bright youth, he was educated for the ministry of the Protestant
+Episcopal church and sent as a missionary in 1816-1817 to the Oneida
+Indians, then located in Oneida county, New York. During the war of
+1812, he had been employed as a spy by the American authorities to
+trace the movements of British troops in Canada. Williams, from the
+first, became engaged in intrigues among the New York Indians, and was
+the originator of the movement which resulted, in 1822, in the
+purchase by the war department of a large strip of land from the
+Menomonees and Winnebagoes, along the Lower Fox River, and the removal
+hither of several of the New York bands, accompanied by the scheming
+priest. But the result was jealousy between the newcomers and the
+original tribes, with sixteen years of confusion and turmoil, during
+which Congress was frequently engaged in settling the squabbles that
+arose. Williams's original idea was said, by those who knew him best,
+to be the "total subjugation of the whole [Green Bay] country and the
+establishment of an Indian government, of which he was to be sole
+dictator."[6]
+
+But his purpose failed. He came to be recognized as an unscrupulous
+fellow, and the majority of the whites and Indians on the Lower Fox,
+as well as his clerical brethren, regarded him with contempt. In 1853,
+Williams, baffled in every other field of notoriety which he had
+worked, suddenly posed before the American public as Louis XVII.,
+hereditary sovereign of France. Upon the downfall of the Bourbons in
+1792, you will remember that Louis XVI. and his queen, Marie
+Antoinette, were beheaded, while their son, the dauphin Louis, an
+imbecile child of eight, was cast into the temple tower by the
+revolutionists. It is officially recorded that after an imprisonment
+of two years the dauphin died in the tower and was buried. But the
+story was started and popularly believed, that the real dauphin had
+been abducted by the royalists and another child cunningly substituted
+to die there in the dauphin's place. The story went that the dauphin
+had been sent to America and all traces of him lost, thus giving any
+adventurer of the requisite age and sufficiently obscure birth,
+opportunity to seek such honor as might be gained in claiming identity
+with the escaped prisoner. Williams was too young by eight years to be
+the dauphin; he was clearly of Indian extraction,--a fair type of the
+half-breed, in color, form, and feature. But he succeeded in deceiving
+a number of good people, including several leading doctors in his
+church; while an Episcopal clergyman named John H. Hanson attempted,
+in two articles in "Putnam's Magazine," in 1853, and afterwards in an
+elaborate book, "The Lost Prince," to prove conclusively to the world
+that Williams was indeed the son of the executed monarch. While those
+who really knew Williams treated his claims as fraudulent, and his
+dusky father and mother protested under oath that Eleazar was their
+son, and every allegation of Williams, in the premises, had been often
+exposed as false, there were still many who believed in him. The
+excitement attracted attention in France. One or two royalists came
+over to see Williams, but left disappointed; and Louis Philippe sent
+him a present of some finely bound books, believing him to be the
+innocent victim of a delusion. Williams died in 1858, keeping up his
+absurd pretensions to the last.
+
+It was in this house near Little Kaukauna that Williams lived for so
+many years, managing and preaching to his scattered flock of immigrant
+Indians, and forever seeking some sort of especially profitable
+employment, such as accompanying tribal delegations to Washington, or
+acting as special commissioner at government payments. In the earliest
+days, the house was situated on the spit of meadow I have previously
+spoken of; but when the dam at Depere raised the water, the frame was
+carried to this higher position.
+
+Williams's wife, an octoroon, whose portrait shows her to have been a
+thick-set, stolid sort of woman, died here, a year ago, and is buried
+hard by. The present occupants of the house are Mary Garritty, an
+Indian woman of sixty-five years, and her half-breed daughter,
+Josephine Penney, who in turn has an infant child of two. Mary was
+reared by the Williamses, and told us many a curious story of life at
+the "agency," as she called it, during the time when "Mr. Williams and
+Ma" were alive. Josephine, who confided to me that she was thirty
+years old, was regularly adopted by Mrs. Williams, for whose memory
+both women seem to have a very strong respect. What little personal
+property was left by the old woman goes to her grandchildren,
+intelligent and well-educated Oshkosh citizens, but Josephine has the
+sandy farm of sixty-five acres. She took me into the attic to exhibit
+such relics of the alleged dauphin as had not been disposed of by the
+administrator of the estate. There were a hundred or two mice-eaten
+volumes, mainly theological and school text-books; several old volumes
+of sermons,--for Eleazar is said to have considered it better taste in
+him to copy a discourse from an approved authority than to endeavor to
+compose one that would not satisfy him half as well; a boxful of
+manuscript odds and ends, chiefly letters, Indian glossaries and
+copied sermons; two or three leather-bound trunks, a copper tea-kettle
+used by him upon his long boat journeys, and a pair of antiquated
+brass candlesticks.
+
+Then we descended to the old orchard. Mary pointed out the spot, a rod
+or two south of the dwelling, where Williams had his library and
+mission-office in a log-house that has long since been removed for
+firewood. In this cabin, which had floor dimensions of fifteen by
+twenty feet, Williams met his Indian friends and transacted business
+with them. Mary, in her querulous tone, said that in those days the
+place abounded with Indians, night and day, and as they always
+expected to be fed, she had her hands full attending to their wants.
+"There wa'n't no peace at all, sir, so long as Mr. Williams were here;
+when he were gone there wa'n't so many of them, an' we got a rest,
+which I were mighty thankful for." Garrulous Mary, in her moccasins
+and blanket skirt, with a complexion like brown parchment and as
+wrinkled,--almost a full-blood herself,--has lived so long apart from
+her people that she appears to have forgotten her race, and inveighed
+right vigorously against the unthrifty and beggarly habits of the
+aborigines. "I hate them pesky Indians," she cried in a burst of
+righteous indignation, and then turned to croon over Josephine's
+baby, as veritable a "little Indian boy" as I ever met with in a
+forest wigwam. "He's a fine feller, isn't he?" she cried, as she
+chucked her grandson under the chin; "some says as he looks like Mr.
+Williams, sir." The Doctor, who is a judge of babies, declared, in a
+professional tone that did not admit of contradiction, that the infant
+was, indeed, a fine specimen of humanity.
+
+And thus we left the two women in a most contented frame of mind, and
+descended to the beach, bearing with us Josephine's parting salute,
+shouted from the garden gate,--"Call agin, whene'er ye pass this way!"
+
+Depere is five miles below. The banks are bold as far as there; but
+beyond, they flatten out into gently sloping meadows, varied here and
+there by the re-approach of a high ridge on the eastern shore,--the
+western getting to be quite marshy by the time Fort Howard is reached.
+
+At Depere are the first rapids of the Fox, the fall being about twelve
+feet. From the earliest period recorded by the French explorers, there
+was a polyglot Indian settlement upon the portage-trail, and in
+December, 1669, the Jesuit missionary Allouez established St. Francis
+Xavier mission here, the locality being henceforth styled "Rapide des
+Peres." It was from this station that Allouez, Dablon, Joliet, and
+Marquette started upon their memorable canoe voyages up the Fox, in
+search of benighted heathen and the Mississippi River. For over a
+century Rapide des Peres was a prominent landmark in Northwestern
+history. The Depere of to-day is a solid-looking town, with an iron
+furnace, saw-mills, and other industries; and after a long period of
+stagnation is experiencing a healthy business revival.
+
+Unable to find the tender at this the last lock on our course, we
+portaged after the manner of old-time canoeists, and set out upon the
+home stretch of six miles. Green Bay, upon the eastern bank and Fort
+Howard upon the western, were well in view; and, it being not past two
+o'clock in the afternoon of a cool and somewhat cloudy day, we allowed
+the current to be our chief propeller, only now and then using the
+paddles to keep our bark well in the main current.
+
+The many pretty residences of South Green Bay, including the ruins of
+Navarino, Astor, and Shanty Town, are situated well up on an
+attractive sloping ridge; but the land soon drops to an almost swampy
+level, upon which the greater portion of the business quarter is
+built. Opposite, Fort Howard with her mills and coal-docks skirts a
+wide-spreading bog, much of the flat, sleepy old town being built
+on a foundation of saw-mill offal. Historically, both sides of the
+river may be practically treated as the old "Bay Settlement" for two
+and a half centuries one of the most conspicuous outposts of
+American civilization. Here came savage-trained Nicolet, exploring
+agent of Champlain, in 1634, when Plymouth colony was still in
+swaddling-clothes. It was the day when the China Sea was supposed to
+be somewhere in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes. Nicolet had heard
+that at Green Bay he would meet a strange people, who had come from
+beyond "a great water" to the west. He was therefore prepared to meet
+here a colony of Chinamen or Japanese, if indeed Green Bay were not
+the Orient itself. His mistake was a natural one. The "strange people"
+were Winnebago Indians. A branch of the Dakotahs, or Sioux, a distinct
+race from the Algonquins, they forced themselves across the
+Mississippi River, up the Wisconsin, and down the Fox, to Green Bay,
+entering the Algonquin territory like a wedge, and forever after
+maintaining their foothold upon this interlocked water highway. "The
+great water," supposed by Nicolet to mean the China Sea, was the
+Mississippi River, beyond which barrier the Dakotah race held full
+sway. As he approached, one of his Huron guides was sent forward to
+herald his coming. Landing near the mouth of the river, he attired
+himself in a gorgeous damask gown, decorated with gayly colored birds
+and flowers, expecting to meet mandarins who would be similarly
+dressed. A horde of four or five thousand naked savages greeted him.
+He advanced, discharging the pistols which he held in either hand, and
+women and children fled in terror from the manitou who carried with
+him lightning and thunder.
+
+The mouth of the Fox was always a favorite rallying-point for the
+savages of this section of the Northwest, and many a notable council
+has been held here between tribes of painted red men and Jesuits,
+traders, explorers, and military officers. Being the gateway of one of
+the two great routes to the Mississippi, many notable exploring and
+military expeditions have rested here; and French, English, and
+Americans in turn have maintained forts to protect the interests of
+territorial possession and the fur-trade.
+
+Here it was that a white man first set foot on Wisconsin soil; and
+here, also, in 1745, the De Langlades, first permanent settlers of
+the Badger State, reared their log cabins and initiated a semblance of
+white man's civilization. Green Bay, now hoary with age, has had an
+eventful, though not stirring history. For a hundred years she was a
+distributing-point for the fur-trade.
+
+The descendants of the De Langlades, the Grignons and other colonists
+of nearly a century and a half standing, are still on the spot; and
+the gossip of the hour among the _voyageurs_ and old traders still
+left among us is of John Jacob Astor, Ramsay Crooks, Robert Stuart,
+Major Twiggs, and other characters of the early years of our century,
+whose names are well known to frontier history. The creole quarter of
+this ancient town, shiftless and improvident to-day as it always has
+been, lives in an atmosphere hazy with poetic glamour, reveling in the
+recollection of a once festive, half-savage life, when the _courier de
+bois_ and the _engage_ were in the ascendency at this forest outpost,
+and the fur-trade the be-all and end-all of commercial enterprise.
+Your _voyageur_, scratching a painful living for a hybrid brood from
+his meager potato patch, bemoans the day when Yankee progressiveness
+dammed the Fox for Yankee saw-mills, into whose insatiable maws were
+swept the forests of his youth, and remembers nought but the sweets
+of his early calling among his boon companions, the denizens of the
+wilderness.
+
+In Shanty Town, Astor, and Navarino there yet remain many dwellings
+and trading warehouses of the olden time,--unpainted, gaunt,
+poverty-stricken, but with their hand-hewed skeletons of oak still
+intact beneath the rags of a century's decay. A hundred years is a
+period quite long enough in our land to warrant the brand of
+antiquity, although a mere nothing in the prolonged career of the Old
+World. In the rapidly developing West, a hundred years and less mark
+the gap between a primeval wilderness and a complete civilization.
+Time, like space, is, after all, but comparative. In these hundred
+years the Northwest has developed from nothing to everything. It is as
+great a period, judging by results, as ten centuries in
+Europe,--perhaps fifteen. America is said to have no history. On the
+contrary, it has the most romantic of histories; but it has lived
+faster and crowded more and greater deeds into the past hundred years
+than slow-going Europe in the last ten hundred. The American
+centenarian of to-day is older by far than the fabled Methuselah.
+
+Green Bay, classic in her shanty ruins, has been somewhat halting in
+her advance, for the creoles hamper progressiveness. But as the
+_voyageurs_ and their immediate progeny gradually pass away, the
+community creeps out from the shadow of the past and asserts itself.
+The ancient town appears to be taking on a new and healthy growth, in
+strange contrast to the severe and battered architecture of frontier
+times. Socially, Green Bay is delightful. There are many old families,
+whose founders were engaged in superintending the fur-trade and
+transportation lines, or holding government office, civil or military,
+at the wilderness post. This element, well educated and reared in
+comfort, gives a tone of dignified, old-school hospitality to the best
+society,--it is the Knickerbocker Colony of the Bay Settlement.
+
+At four o'clock we pushed into a canal in front of the Fort Howard
+railway depot, and half an hour later had crossed the bridge and were
+registered at a Green Bay hotel. The Doctor, called home to resume the
+humdrum of his hospital life, will leave for the South to-morrow noon.
+I shall remain here for a week, reposing in the shades of antiquity.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. ii. p. 425.
+
+
+
+
+THE WISCONSIN RIVER.
+
+
+
+
+THE WISCONSIN RIVER.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS.
+
+
+Our watches, for a wonder, coincided on Monday afternoon, Aug. 22,
+1887. This phenomenon is so rare that W---- made a note in her diary
+to the effect that for once in its long career my time-piece was
+right. It was five minutes past two. The place was the beach at
+Portage, just below the old red wagon-bridge which here spans the
+gloomy Wisconsin. A teamster had hauled us, our canoe, and our baggage
+from the depot to the verge of a sand-bank; and we had dragged our
+faithful craft down through a tangle of sand-burrs and tin cans to the
+water's edge, and packed the locker for its third and final voyage of
+the season. A German housewife, with red kerchief, cap, and tucked-up
+skirt, stood out in the water on the edge of a gravel-spit, engaged in
+her weekly wrestle with the family wash,--a picturesque,
+foreign-looking scene. On the summit of a sandy promontory to our
+left, two other German housewives leaned over a pig-yard fence and
+gazed intently down at these strange preparations. Back of us were the
+wooded sand-drifts of Portage, once a famous camping-ground of the
+Winnebagoes; before us, the dark, treacherous river, with its shallows
+and its mysterious depths; beyond that, great stretches of sand-fields
+thick-strewn with willow forests and, three or four miles away, the
+forbidding range of the Baraboo Bluffs, veiled in the heavy mist which
+was rapidly closing upon the valley.
+
+We feared that we were booked for a stormy trip, as we pushed out into
+the bubble-strewn current and found that a cold east wind was blowing
+over the flats and rowing-jackets were essential.
+
+Portage City, a town of twenty-five hundred inhabitants, occupies the
+southeastern bank for a mile down. Like Green Bay and Prairie du
+Chien, it was an outgrowth of the necessities of the early fur-trade.
+Upon the death of that trade it languished and for a generation or
+two was utterly stagnant. As a rural trading centre it has since grown
+into a state of fair prosperity, although the presence of many of the
+old-time buildings of the Indian traders and transporters gives to
+much of the town a sadly decayed appearance. For two or three miles we
+had Portage in view, down a straight course, until at last the
+thickening mist hid the time-worn houses from view, and we were fairly
+on our way down the historic Wisconsin, in the wake of Joliet and
+Marquette, who first traversed this highway to the Mississippi, two
+hundred and fourteen years ago.
+
+Marquette, in the journal of his memorable voyage, says of the
+Wisconsin, "It is very broad, with a sandy bottom, forming many
+shallows, which render navigation very difficult." The river has been
+frequently described in the journals of later voyagers, and government
+engineers have written long reports upon its condition, but they have
+not bettered Marquette's comprehensive phrase.
+
+The general government has spent enormous sums in an endeavor to make
+the Fox-Wisconsin water highway practicable for the passage of large
+steam-vessels between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. It
+was of great service, in its natural state, for the passage into the
+heart of the continent of that motley procession of priests,
+explorers, cavaliers, soldiers, trappers, and traders who paddled
+their canoes through here for nearly two hundred years, the pioneers
+of French, English, and American civilization in turn. It is still a
+tempting scheme, to tap the main artery of America, and allow modern
+vessels of burden to make the circuit between the lakes and the gulf.
+The Fox River is reasonably tractable, although this season the stage
+of water above Berlin has been hardly high enough to float a
+flat-boat. But the Wisconsin remains, despite the hundreds of
+wing-dams which line her shores, a fickle jade upon whom no reliance
+whatever can be placed. The current and the sand-banks shift about at
+their sweet will over a broad valley, and the pilot of one season
+would scarcely recognize the stream another. Navigation for crafts
+drawing over a foot of water is practically impossible in seasons of
+drought, and uncertain in all. A noted engineer has playfully said
+that the Wisconsin can never be regulated, "until the bottom is lathed
+and plastered;" and another officially reported, over fifteen years
+ago, that nothing short of a continuous canal along the bank, from
+Portage to Prairie du Chien, will suffice to meet the expectations of
+those who favor the government improvement of this impossible highway.
+
+In the neighborhood of Portage, the wing-dams,--composed of mattresses
+of willow boughs, weighted with stone,--are in a reasonable degree of
+preservation and in places appear to be of some avail in contracting
+the channel. But elsewhere down the river, they are generally mere
+hindrances to canoeing. The current, as it caroms from shore to shore,
+pays but little heed to these obstructions and we often found it
+swiftest over the places where black lines of willow twigs bob and
+sway above the surface of the rushing water; while the channel staked
+out by the engineers was the site of a sand-field, studded with
+aspen-brush.
+
+It is a lonely run of an hour and a half down to the mouth of the
+Baraboo River, through the mazes of the wing-dams, surrounded by
+desolate bottom lands of sand and wooded bog. The east wind had
+brought a smart shower by the time we had arrived off the mouth of
+this northern tributary and we hauled up at a low, forested bank just
+below the junction, where rubber coats were brought out and canvas
+spread over the stores. The rain soon settled into a mere drizzle,
+and W----, ever eager in her botanical researches, wandered about
+regardless of wet feet, investigating the flora of the locality. The
+yellow sneeze-weed and purple iron-weed predominate in great clumps
+upon the verge of the bank, and lend a cheerful tone to what would
+otherwise be a desolate landscape.
+
+The drizzle finally ceasing, we were again afloat, and after shooting
+by scores of wing-dams that had been "snowed under" by shifting sand,
+and floating over others that were in the heart of the present
+channel, we came to Dekorra, some seven miles below Portage. Dekorra
+is a quaint little hamlet, with just five weather-worn houses and a
+blacksmith-shop in sight, nestled in a hollow at the base of a bluff
+on the southern bank. The river courses at its feet, and from the top
+of a naked cliff a ferry-wire stretches high above the stream and
+loses itself among the trees on the opposite bottoms. The east wind
+whistled a pretty note as it was split by the swaying thread, and the
+anvil by the smith's forge rang out in unison, clear as a well-toned
+bell. A crude cemetery, apparently containing far more graves than
+Dekorra's present census would show inhabitants, flanks the faded-out
+settlement on the shoulder of an adjoining hill. The road to the
+tattered ferry-boat, rotting on the beach, gave but little evidence
+of recent use, for Dekorra is a relic.
+
+The valley of the Wisconsin is from three to five miles broad, flanked
+on either side, below the Portage, by an undulating range of imposing
+bluffs, from one hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty feet in
+height. They are heavily wooded, as a rule, although there is much
+variety,--pleasant grass-grown slopes; naked, water-washed
+escarpments, rising sheer above the stream; terraced hills, with
+eroded faces, ascending in a regular succession of benches to the
+cliff-like tops; steep uplands, either covered with a dense and
+regular growth of forest, or shattered by fire or tornado. The ravines
+and pocket-fields between the bluffs are often of exceeding beauty,
+especially when occupied by a modest little village,--or better, by
+some small settler, whose outlet to the country beyond the edge of his
+mountain basin may be seen threading the woodlands which tower above
+him, or zigzagging through a neighboring pass, worn deep by some
+impatient spring torrent in a hurry to reach the river level.
+
+Between these ranges stretches a wide expanse of bottoms, either bog
+or sand plain, over all of which the river flows at high water, and
+through which the swift current twists and bounds like a serpent in
+agony, constantly cutting out new channels and filling up the old,
+obeying laws of its own, ever defying the calculations of pilots and
+engineers. As it thus sweeps along, wherever its fancy listeth, here
+to-day and there to-morrow, it forms innumerable islands which greatly
+add to the picturesqueness of the view. Now and then there are two or
+three parallel channels, running along for miles before they join,
+perplexing the traveler with a labyrinth of water paths. These islands
+are often mere sandbars, sometimes as barren as Sahara, again
+thick-grown with willows and seedling aspens; but for the most part
+they are well-wooded, their banks gay with the season's flowers, and
+luxuriant vines hanging in deep festoons from the trees which overhang
+the flood. At their heads, often high up among the branches of the
+elms, are great masses of driftwood, the remains of shattered
+lumber-rafts or saw-mill offal from the great northern pineries,
+evidencing the height of the spring flood which so often converts the
+Wisconsin into an Amazon.
+
+Because of this spreading habit of the stream, the few villages along
+the way are planted on the higher land at the base of the bluffs, or
+on an occasional sandy pocket-plateau which the river, as in ages
+past it has worn its bed to lower levels, has left high and dry above
+present overflows. Some of these towns, in their fear of floods, are
+situated two or three miles back from the water highway; others, where
+the channel chances to closely hug a line of bluffs, are directly
+abutting the river, which is crossed at such points by either a ferry
+or a toll-bridge.
+
+Desolate as is the prospect from Dekorra's front door, we found the
+limestone cliff there, a mine of attractiveness. The river has worn
+miniature caves and grottoes in its base; at the mouths of several of
+these there are little rocky beaches, whose overhanging walls are
+flecked with ferns, lichens, and graceful columbines.
+
+At six o'clock that evening, in the midst of a dispiriting Scotch
+mist, we disembarked upon the northern bank, at the foot of a wooded
+bluff, and prepared to settle for the night. Fortunately, we had
+advance knowledge of the sparseness of settlement along the river, and
+had come with a tent and a cooking outfit, prepared for camping in
+case of need. Upon a rocky bench, fifty feet up from the water, we
+stretched a rope between two trees, to serve in lieu of a ridge-pole,
+and pitched our canvas domicile. It was a lonesome spot which we had
+chosen for our night's halt. Owing to the configuration of the bluffs,
+it was unlikely that any person dwelt within a mile of us on our
+shore. Across the valley, we looked over several miles of bottom
+woods, while far up on the opposite slopes could just be discerned the
+gables of two white farm-houses, peering out from a wilderness of
+trees stretching far and wide, till its limits were lost in the
+gathering fog.
+
+It was pitchy dark by the time we had completed our camping
+arrangements, and W---- announced that the coffee was boiling over. I
+fancy we two must have presented a rather forlorn appearance, as we
+crouched at our evening meal around the sputtering little fire, clad
+in heavy jackets and rubber coats, for the atmosphere was raw and
+clammy. The wood was wet, and the shifting gusts would persist in
+blowing the smoke in our eyes, whichever position we took. Every
+falling bough, or rustle of a water-laden sapling, was suggestive of
+tramps or of inquisitive hogs or cattle, for we knew not what
+neighbors we had; many a time we paused, and peering out into the
+black night, listened intently for further developments. And then the
+strange noises from the river, unnoticed during daylight, were not
+conducive to mental ease, when we nervously associated them with
+roving fishermen, or perhaps tramps, attracted by our light from the
+opposite shore. Sometimes we felt positive that we heard the muffled
+creak of oars, fast approaching; then would come loud splashes and
+gurgles, and ever and anon it would seem as if some one were slapping
+the water with a board. Now near, now far away, approaching and
+receding by turns, these mysterious sounds continued through the
+night, occasionally relieved by moments of absolute silence. We
+afterward discovered that these were the customary refrains sung by
+the gay tide, as it washed over the wing-dams, swished around the
+sandbanks, and dashed against great snags and island heads.
+
+But we did not know this then, and a certain uneasy lonesomeness
+overcame us as strangers to the scene; and I must confess that,
+despite our philosophizing, there was but little sleep for us that
+first camp out. A neglect to procure straw to soften our rocky
+couches, and a woful insufficiency of bed-clothing for a phenomenally
+cold August night, added to our manifold discomforts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE LAST OF THE SACS.
+
+
+Dawn came at five, and none too soon. But after thawing out over the
+breakfast fire and draining the coffee-pot dry, we were wondrously
+rejuvenated; and as we struck camp, were right merry between ourselves
+over the foolish nervousness of the night. There was still a raw
+northwest wind, but the clouds soon broke, and when, at half-past six,
+we again pushed out into the swift-flowing stream, it was evident that
+the day would be bright and comfortably cool.
+
+We had some splendid vistas of bluff-girt scenery this morning,
+especially near Merrimac, where some of the elevations are the highest
+along the river. There are a score of houses at Merrimac, which is the
+point where the Chicago and Northwestern railway crosses, over an
+immense iron bridge 1736 feet long, spanning two broad channels and
+the sand island which divides them. The village is on a rolling
+plateau some fifty feet above the water level, on the northern side.
+Climbing up to the bridge-tender's house, that one-armed veteran of
+the spans, whose service here is as old as the bridge, told me that it
+was seldom indeed the river highway was used in these days. "The
+railroads kill this here water business," he said.
+
+I found the tender to be something of a philosopher. Most
+bridge-tenders and fishermen, and others who pursue lonely occupations
+and have much spare time on their hands, are philosophers. That their
+speculations are sometimes cloudy does not detract from their local
+reputation of being deep thinkers. The Merrimac tender was given to
+geology, I found, and some of his ideas concerning the origin of the
+bluffs and the glacial streaks, and all that sort of thing, would
+create marked attention in any scientific journal. He had some
+original notions, too, about the habits of the stream above which he
+had almost hourly walked, day and night, the seasons round, for
+sixteen long years. The ice invariably commenced to form on the bottom
+of the river, he stoutly claimed, and then rose to the surface,--the
+ingenious reason given for this remarkable phenomenon being that the
+underlying sand was colder than the water. These and other novel
+results of his observation, our philosophical friend good-humoredly
+communicated, together with scraps of local tradition regarding the
+Black Hawk War, and lurid tales of the old lumber-raft days. At last,
+however, his hour came for walking the spans, and we descended to our
+boat. As we shot into the main channel, far above us a red flag
+fluttered from the draw, and we knew it to be the parting salute of
+the grizzled sentinel.
+
+At the head of an island half a mile below, it is said there are the
+remains of an Indian fort. We landed with some difficulty, for the
+current sweeps by its wooded shore with particular zest. Our
+examination of the locality, however, revealed no other earth lines
+than might have been formed by a rushing flood. But as a reward for
+our endeavors, we found the lobelia cardinalis in wonderful profusion,
+mingled in striking contrast of color with the iron and sneeze weeds,
+and the common spurge. The prickly ash, with its little scarlet berry,
+was common upon this as upon other islands, and the elms were of
+remarkable size.
+
+We were struck, as we passed along where the river chanced to wash the
+feet of steepy slopes, with the peculiar ridging of the turf. The
+water having undermined these banks, the friable soil upon their
+shoulders had slid, regularly breaking the sod into long horizontal
+strips a foot or two wide, the white sand gleaming between the rows of
+rusty green. Sometimes the shores were thus striped with zebra-like
+regularity for miles together, presenting a very singular and
+artificial appearance.
+
+Prominent features of the morning's voyage, also, were deep
+bowlder-strewn and often heavily wooded ravines running down from the
+bluffs. Although perfectly dry at this season, it can be seen that
+they are the beds of angry torrents in the spring, and many a poor
+farmer's field is deeply cut with such gulches, which rapidly grow in
+this light soil as the years go on. We stopped at one such farm, and
+walked up the great breach to very near the house, up to which we
+clambered, over rocks and through sand-burrs and thickets, being met
+at the gate by a noisy dog, that appeared to be suspicious of
+strangers who approached his master's castle by means of the covered
+way. The farmer's wife, as she supplied us with exquisite dairy
+products, said that the metes and bounds of their little domain were
+continually changing; four acres of their best meadow had been washed
+out within two years, their wood-lot was being gradually undermined,
+and the ravine was eating into their ploughed land with the
+persistence of a cancer. On the other hand, her sister's acres, down
+the river a mile or two, on the other bank, were growing in extent.
+However, she thought their "luck would change one of these seasons,"
+and the river swish off upon another tangent.
+
+Upon returning by the gully, we found that its sunny, sloping walls,
+where not wooded with willows and oak saplings, were resplendent with
+floral treasures, chief among them being the gerardia, golden-rod in
+several varieties, tall white asters, a blue lobelia, and vervain,
+while the seeds of the Oswego tea, prairie clover, bed-straw, and wild
+roses were in all the glory of ripeness. There was a broad, pebbly
+beach at the base of the torrent's bed, thick-grown with yearling
+willows. A stranded pine-log, white with age and worn smooth by a
+generation of storms, lay firmly imbedded among the shingle. The
+temperature was still low enough to induce us to court the sunshine,
+and, leaning against this hoary castaway from the far North, we sat
+for a while and basked in the radiant smiles of Sol.
+
+Prairie du Sac, thirty miles below Portage, is historically noted as
+the site for several generations of the chief village of the Sac
+Indians. Some of the earliest canoeists over this water-route, in the
+seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, describe the aboriginal
+community in some detail. The dilapidated white village of to-day
+numbers but four hundred and fifty inhabitants,--about one-fourth of
+the population assigned to the old red-skin town. The "prairie" is an
+oak-opening plateau, more or less fertile, at the base of the northern
+range of bluffs, which here takes a sudden sweep inland for three or
+four miles.
+
+The Sacs had deserted this basin plain by the close of the eighteenth
+century, and taken up their chief quarters in the neighborhood of Rock
+Island, near the mouth of Rock River, in close proximity to their
+allies, the Foxes, who now kept watch and ward over the west bank of
+the Mississippi.
+
+By a strange fatality it chanced that in the last days of July, 1832,
+the deluded Sac leader, Black Hawk, flying from the wrath of the
+Illinois and Wisconsin militiamen, under Henry and Dodge, chose this
+seat of the ancient power of his tribe to be one of the scenes of that
+fearful tragedy which proved the death-blow to Sac ambition. Black
+Hawk, after long hiding in the morasses of the Rock above Lake
+Koshkonong, suddenly flew from cover, hoping to cross the Wisconsin
+River at Prairie du Sac, and by plunging across the mountainous
+country over a trail known to the Winnebagoes, who played fast and
+loose with him as with the whites, to get beyond the Mississippi in
+quiet, as he had been originally ordered to do. His retreat was
+discovered when but a day old; and the militiamen hurried on through
+the Jefferson swamps and the forests of the Four Lake country,
+harrying the fugitives in the rear. At the summit of the Wisconsin
+Heights, on the south bank, overlooking this old Sac plain on the
+north, Black Hawk and his rear-guard stood firm, to allow the women
+and children and the majority of his band of two thousand to cross the
+intervening bottoms and the island-strewn river. The unfortunate
+leader sat upon a white horse on the summit of the peak now called by
+his name, and shouted directions to his handful of braves. The
+movements of the latter were well executed, and Black Hawk showed good
+generalship; but the militiamen were also well handled, and had
+superior supplies of ammunition, so when darkness fell the fated
+ravine and the wooded bottoms below were strewn with Indian bodies,
+and victory was with the whites. During the night the surviving
+fugitives, now ragged, foot-sore, and starving, crossed the river by
+swimming. A party of fifty or so, chiefly non-combatants, made a raft,
+and floated down the Wisconsin, to be slaughtered near its mouth by a
+detail of regulars and Winnebagoes from Prairie du Chien; but the mass
+of the party flying westward in hot haste over the prairie of the
+Sacs, headed for the Mississippi. They lined their rugged path with
+the dead and dying victims of starvation and despair, and a sorry lot
+these people were when the Bad Axe was finally reached, and the united
+army of regulars and militiamen under Atkinson, Henry, and Dodge,
+overtook them. The "battle" there was a slaughter of weaklings. But
+few escaped across the great river, and the bloodthirsty Sioux
+despatched nearly all of those.
+
+Black Hawk was surrendered by the servile Winnebagoes, and after being
+exhibited in the Eastern cities, he was turned over to the besotted
+Keokuk for safe-keeping. He died, this last of the Sacs, poor, foolish
+old man, a few years later; and his bones, stolen for an Iowa museum,
+were cremated twenty years after in a fire which destroyed that
+institution. A sad history is that of this once famous people. We
+glory over the stately progress of the white man's civilization, but
+if we venture to examine with care the paths of that progress, we find
+our imperial chariot to be as the car of Juggernaut.
+
+The view from the house verandas which overhang the high bank at
+Prairie du Sac, is superb. Eastward a half mile away, the grand,
+corrugated bluffs of Black Hawk and the Sugar Loaf tower to a height
+of over three hundred feet above the river level; while their lesser
+companions, heavily forested, continue the range, north and south, as
+far as the eye can reach. The river crosses the foreground with a
+majestic sweep, while for several miles to the west and southwest
+stretches the wooded plain, backed by a curved line of gloomy hills
+which complete the rim of the basin.
+
+A mile below, on the same plain, is Sauk City, a shabby town of about
+a thousand inhabitants. A spur track of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and
+St. Paul railway runs up here from Mazomanie, crossing the river,
+which is nearly half a mile wide, on an iron bridge. A large and
+prosperous brewery appears to be the chief industry of the place.
+Slaughter-houses abut upon the stream, in the very centre of the
+village. These and the squalid back-door yards which run down to the
+bank do not make up an attractive picture to the canoeist. River
+towns differ very much in this respect. Some of them present a neat
+front to the water thoroughfare, with flower-gardens and well-kept
+yards and street-ends, while others regard the river as a sewer and
+the banks as a common dumping ground, giving the traveler by boat a
+view of filth, disorder, and general unsightliness which is highly
+repulsive. I have often found, on landing at some villages of this
+latter class, that the dwellings and business blocks which, riverward,
+are sad spectacles of foulness and unthrift, have quite pretentious
+fronts along the land highway which the townsfolk patronize. It is as
+if some fair dame, who prided herself on her manners and costume, had
+rags beneath her fine silks, and unwashed hands within her dainty
+gloves. This coming in at the back door of river towns reveals many a
+secret of sham.
+
+It was a fine run down to Arena ferry, thirteen miles below Sauk City.
+The skies had become leaden and the atmosphere gray, and the sparse,
+gnarled poplars on some of the storm-swept bluffs had a ghostly
+effect. Here and there, fires had blasted the mountainous slopes, and
+a light aspen growth was hastening to garb with vivid green the
+blackened ruins. But the general impression was that of dark, gloomy
+forests of oak, linden, maple, and elms, on both upland and bottom;
+with now and then a noble pine cresting a shattered cliff.
+
+There were fitful gleams of sunshine, during which the temperature was
+as high as could be comfortably tolerated; but the northwest wind
+swept sharply down through the ravines, and whenever the heavens
+became overcast, jackets were at once essential.
+
+The islands became more frequent, as we progressed. Many of them are
+singularly beautiful. The swirling current gradually undermines their
+bases, causing the trees to topple toward the flood, with many
+graceful effects of outline, particularly when viewed above the island
+head. And the colors, too, at this season, are charmingly variegated.
+The sapping of a tree's foundations brings early decay; and the
+maples, especially, are thus early in the season gay with the autumnal
+tints of gold and wine and purple, objects of striking beauty for
+miles away. Under the arches of the toppling trees, and inside the
+lines of snags which mark the islet's former limits, the current goes
+swishing through, white with bubbles and dancing foam. Crouching low,
+to escape the twigs, one can have enchanting rides beneath these
+bowers, and catch rare glimpses of the insulated flora on the
+swift-passing banks. The stately spikes of the cardinal lobelia fairly
+dazzle the eye with their gleaming color; and great masses of
+brilliant yellow sneeze-weed and the deep purple of the iron-weed
+present a symphony which would delight a disciple of Whistler. Thus
+are the islands ever being destroyed and new ones formed. Those bottom
+lands, over there, where great forests are rooted, will have their
+turn yet, and the buffeted sand-bars of to-day given a restful chance
+to become bottoms. The game of shuttlecock and battledoor has been
+going on in this dark and awesome gorge since Heaven knows when. Man's
+attempt to control its movements seem puny indeed.
+
+At six o'clock that evening we had arrived at the St. Paul railway
+bridge at Helena. The tender and his wife are a hospitable couple, and
+we engaged quarters in their cosy home at the southern end of the
+bridge. Mrs. P---- has a delightful flower-garden, which looks like an
+oasis in the wilderness of sand and bog thereabout. Twenty-three years
+ago, when these worthy people first took charge of the bridge, the
+earth for this walled-in beauty spot was imported by rail from a more
+fertile valley than the Wisconsin; and here the choicest of bulbs and
+plants are grown with rare floricultural skill, and the trainmen all
+along the division are resplendent in button-hole bouquets, the year
+round, products of the bridge-house bower at Helena. W---- and Mrs.
+P---- at once struck up an enthusiastic botanical friendship.
+
+Bridge houses are generally most forlorn specimens of railway
+architecture, and have a barricaded look, as though tramps were
+altogether too frequent along the route, and occasionally made trouble
+for the watchers of the ties. This one, originally forbidding enough,
+has been transformed into a winsome vine-clad home, gay with ivies,
+Madeira vines, and passion, moon, and trumpet flowers, covering from
+view the professional dull green affected by "the company's" boss
+painter. The made garden, to one side, was choking with a wealth of
+bedding plants and greenhouse rarities of every hue and shape of
+blossom and leaf.
+
+A dozen feet below the railroad level, spread wide morasses and sand
+patches, thick grown with swamp elms and willows. Down the track, a
+half mile to the south, Helena's fifty inhabitants are grouped in a
+dozen faded dwellings. Three miles westward, across the river, is the
+pretty and flourishing village of Spring Green.
+
+It is needless to say that in the isolated home of these lovers of
+flowers, we had comfortable quarters. W---- said that it was very much
+like putting up at Rudder Grange.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A PANORAMIC VIEW.
+
+
+The fog on the river was so thick, next morning, that objects four
+rods away were not visible. To navigate among the snags and shallows
+under such conditions was impossible. But W---- closely investigated
+the garden while waiting for the mist to rise, and Mr. P----
+entertained me with intelligent reminiscences of his long experience
+here. It had been four years, he said, since he last swung the draw
+for a river craft. That was a small steamboat attempting to make the
+passage, on what was considered a good stage of water, from Portage to
+the mouth. She spent two weeks in passing from Arena to Lone Rock, a
+distance of twenty-two miles, and was finally abandoned on a sand-bank
+for the season. He doubted whether he would have occasion again to
+swing the great span. As for lumber rafts, but three or four small
+ones had passed down this year, for the railroads were transporting
+the product of the great mills on the Upper Wisconsin, about as cheap
+as it could be driven down river and with far less risk of disaster.
+The days of river traffic were numbered, he declared, and the little
+towns that had so long been supported by the raftsmen, on their long
+and weary journey from the northern pineries to the Hannibal and St.
+Louis markets, were dying of starvation.
+
+I questioned our host as to his opinion of the value of the
+Fox-Wisconsin river improvement. He was cautious at first, and claimed
+that the money appropriated had "done a great deal of good to the poor
+people along the line." Closer inquiry developed the fact that these
+poor people had been employed in building the wing dams, for which
+local contracts had been let. When his opinion of the value of these
+dams was sought, Mr. P---- admitted that the general opinion along the
+river was, that they were "all nonsense," as he put it. Contracts had
+been let to Tom, Dick, and Harry, in the river villages, who had made
+a show of work, in the absence of inspectors, by sinking bundles of
+twigs and covering them with sand. Stone that had been hauled to the
+banks, to weight the mattresses, had remained unused for so long that
+popular judgment awarded it to any man who was enterprising enough to
+cart it away; thus was many a barn foundation hereabouts built out of
+government material. Sand-ballasted wing-dams built one season were
+washed out the next; and so government money has been recklessly
+frittered away. Such sort of management is responsible for the loose
+morality of the public concerning anything the general government has
+in hand. A man may steal from government with impunity, who would be
+socially ostracized for cheating his neighbor. There exists a popular
+sentiment along this river, as upon its twin, the Fox, that government
+is bound to squander about so much money every year in one way or
+another, and that the denizens of these two valleys are entitled to
+their share of the plunder. One honest captain on the Fox said to me,
+"If it wa'n't for this here appropriation, Wisconsin wouldn't get her
+proportion of the public money what each State is regularly entitled
+to; so I think it's necessary to keep this here scheme a-goin', for to
+get our dues; of course the thing ain't much good, so far as what is
+claimed for it goes, but it keeps money movin' in these valleys and
+makes times easier,--and that's what guvment's for." The honest
+skipper would have been shocked, probably, if I had called him a
+socialist, for a few minutes after he was declaiming right vigorously
+against Herr Most and the Chicago anarchists.
+
+It was half-past nine before the warmth of the sun's rays had
+dissipated the vapor, and we ventured to set forth. It proved to be an
+enchanting day in every respect.
+
+A mile or so below the bridge we came to the charming site, on the
+southern bank, at the base of a splendid limestone bluff, of the
+village of Old Helena, now a nameless clump of battered dwellings.
+There is a ferry here and a wooden toll-bridge in process of erection.
+The naked cliff, rising sheer above the rapid current, was, early in
+this century, utilized as a shot tower. There are lead mines some
+fifteen miles south, that were worked nearly fifty years before
+Wisconsin became even a Territory; and hither the pigs were, as late
+as 1830, laboriously drawn by wagons, to be precipitated down a rude
+stone shaft built against this cliff, and thus converted into shot.
+Much of the lead used by the Indians and white trappers of the region
+came from the Helena tower, and its product was in great demand during
+the Black Hawk War in 1832. The remains of the shaft are still to be
+seen, although much overgrown with vines and trees.
+
+Old Helena, in the earlier shot-tower days, was one of the "boom"
+towns of "the howling West." But the boom soon collapsed, and it was a
+deserted village even at the time of the Black Hawk disturbance. After
+the battle of Wisconsin Heights, opposite Prairie du Sac, the white
+army, now out of supplies, retired southwest to Blue Mound, the
+nearest lead diggings, for recuperation. Spending a few days there,
+they marched northwest to Helena. The logs and slabs which had been
+used in constructing the shanties here were converted into rafts, and
+upon them the Wisconsin was crossed, the operation consuming two days.
+A few miles north, Black Hawk's trail, trending westward to the Bad
+Axe, was reached, and soon after that came the final struggle.
+
+We found many groups of pines, this morning, in the amphitheater
+between the bluffs, and under them the wintergreen berries in rich
+profusion. Some of the little pocket farms in these depressions are
+delightful bits of rugged landscape. In the fields of corn, now neatly
+shocked, the golden pumpkins seemed as if in imminent danger of
+rolling down hill. There are curious effects in architecture, where
+the barns and other outbuildings far overtop the dwellings, and have
+to be reached by flights of steps or angling paths. Yet here and there
+are pleasant, gently rolling fields, nearer the bank, and smooth,
+sugar-loaf mounds upon which cattle peacefully graze. The buckwheat
+patches are white with blossom. Now and then can just be distinguished
+the forms of men and women husking maize upon some fertile upland
+bench. And so goes on the day. Now, with pretty glimpses of rural
+life, often reminding one of Rhineland views, without the castles;
+then, swishing off through the heart of the bottoms for miles, shut in
+except from distant views of the hill-tops, and as excluded from
+humanity, in these vistas of sand and morass, as though traversing a
+wilderness; anon, darting past deserted rocky slopes or through the
+dark shadow of beetling cliffs, and the gloomy forests which crown
+them.
+
+Lone Rock ferry is nearly fourteen miles below Helena bridge. As we
+came in view, the boat was landing a doctor's gig at the foot of a
+bold, naked bluff, on the southern bank. The doctor and the ferryman
+gave civil answers to our queries about distances, and expressed great
+astonishment when answered, in turn, that we were bound for the
+mouth of the river. "Mighty dull business," the doctor remarked,
+"traveling in that little cockle-shell; I should think you'd feel
+afraid, ma'am, on this big, lonesome river; my wife don't dare look at
+a boat, and I always feel skittish coming over on the ferry." I
+assured him that canoeing was far from being a dull business, and
+W---- good-humoredly added that she had as yet seen nothing to be
+afraid of. The doctor laughed and said something, as he clicked up his
+bony nag, about "tastes differing, anyhow." And, the ferryman trudging
+behind,--the smoke from his cabin chimney was rising above the
+tree-tops in a neighboring ravine,--the little cortege wound its way
+up the rough, angling roadway fashioned out of the face of the bluff,
+and soon vanished around a corner. Lone Rock village is a mile and a
+half inland to the south.
+
+Just below, the cliff overhangs the stream, its base having been worn
+into by centuries of ceaseless washing. On a narrow beach beneath, a
+group of cows were chewing their cuds in an atmosphere of refreshing
+coolness. From the rocky roof above them hung ferns in many
+varieties,--maidenhair, the wood, the sensitive, and the bladder;
+while in clefts and grottos, or amid great heaps of rock debris, hard
+by, there were generous masses of king fern, lobelia cardinalis, iron
+and sneeze weed, golden-rod, daisies, closed gentian, and eupatorium,
+in startling contrasts of vivid color. It being high noon, we stopped
+and landed at this bit of fairy land, ate our dinner, and botanized.
+There was a tinge of triumphant scorn in W----'s voice, when, emerging
+from a spring-head grotto, bearing in one arm a brilliant bouquet of
+wild flowers and in the other a mass of fern fronds, she cried, "To
+think of his calling canoeing a dull business!"
+
+Richland City, on the northern bank, five miles down, is a hamlet of
+fifteen or twenty houses, some of them quite neat in appearance.
+Nestled in a grove of timber on a plain at the base of the bluffs, the
+village presents a quaint old-country appearance for a long distance
+up-stream. The St. Paul railway, which skirts the northern bank after
+crossing the Helena bridge, sends out a spur northward from Richland
+City, to Richland Center, the chief town in Richland county.
+
+Two miles below Richland City, we landed at the foot of an imposing
+bluff, which rises sharply for three hundred feet or more from the
+water's edge. It is practically treeless on the river side. We
+ascended it through a steep gorge washed by a spring torrent. Strewn
+with bowlders and hung with bushes and an occasional thicket of elms
+and oaks, the path was rough but sure. From the heights above, the
+dark valley lay spread before us like a map. Ten miles away, to our
+left, a splash of white in a great field of green marked the location
+of Lone Rock village; five miles to the right, a spire or two rising
+above the trees indicated where Muscoda lay far back from the river
+reaches; while in front, two miles away, peaceful little Avoca was
+sunning its gray roofs on a gently rising ground. Between these
+settlements and the parallel ranges which hemmed in the panoramic
+view, lay a wide expanse of willow-grown sand-fields, forested
+morasses, and island meadows through which the many-channeled river
+cut its devious way. In the middle foreground, far below us, some
+cattle were being driven through a bushy marsh by boys and dogs. The
+cows looked the size of kittens to us at our great elevation, but such
+was the purity of the atmosphere that the shouts and yelps of the
+drivers rose with wonderful clearness, and the rustling of the brush
+was as if in an adjoining lot. The noise seemed so disproportioned to
+the size of the objects occasioning it, that this acoustic effect was
+at first rather startling.
+
+The whitewashed cabin of a squatter and his few log outbuildings
+occupy a little basin to one side of the bluff. His cattle were
+ranging over the hillsides, attended by a colly. The family were
+rather neatly dressed, but there did not appear to be over an acre of
+land level enough for cultivation, and that was entirely devoted to
+Indian corn. It was something of a mystery how this man could earn a
+living in his cooped-up mountain home. But the honest-looking fellow
+seemed quite contented, sitting in the shade of his woodpile smoking a
+corncob pipe, surrounded by a half dozen children. He cheerfully
+responded to my few queries, as we stopped at his well on the return
+to our boat. The good wife, a buxom woman with pretty blue eyes set in
+a smiling face, was peeling a pan of potatoes on the porch, near by,
+while one foot rocked a rude cradle ingeniously formed out of a barrel
+head and a lemon box. She seemed mightily pleased as W---- stroked the
+face of the chubby infant within, and made inquiries as to the ages of
+the step-laddered brood; and the father, too, fairly beamed with
+satisfaction as he placed his hands on the golden curls of his two
+oldest misses and proudly exhibited their little tricks of precocity.
+There can be no poverty under such a roof. Millionnaires might well
+envy the peaceful contentment of these hillside squatters.
+
+Down to Muscoda we followed the rocky and wood-crowned northern bank,
+along which the country highway is cut out. The swift current closely
+hugs it, and there was needed but slight exertion with the paddles to
+lead a sewing-machine agent, whom we found to be urging his horse into
+a vain attempt to distance the canoe. As he seemed to court a race, we
+had determined not to be outdone, and were not.
+
+Orion, on the northern side, just above Muscoda, is a deserted town.
+It must have been a pretentious place at one time. There are a dozen
+empty business buildings, now tenanted by bats and spiders. On one
+shop front, a rotting sign displays the legend, "World's Exchange;"
+there is also a "Globe Hotel," and the remains of a bank or two.
+Alders, lilacs, and gnarled apple-trees in many deserted clumps, tell
+where the houses once were; and the presence, among these ruins, of a
+family or two of squalid children only emphasizes the dreary
+loneliness. Orion was once a "boom" town, they tell us,--an expressive
+epitaph.
+
+A thin, outcropping substratum of sandstone is noticeable in this
+section of the river. It underlies the sandy plains which abut the
+Wisconsin in the Muscoda region, and lines the bed of the stream; near
+the banks, where there is but a slight depth of water, rapids are
+sometimes noticeable, the rocky bottom being now and then scaled off
+into a stairlike form, for the fall is here much sharper than
+customary.
+
+Because of an outlying shelf of this sandstone, bordered by rapids,
+but covered with only a few inches of dead water, we had some
+difficulty in landing at Muscoda beach, on the southern shore. Some
+stout poling and lifting were essential before reaching land. Muscoda
+was originally situated on the bank, which rises gently from the
+water; but as the river trade fell off, the village drifted up nearer
+the bluff, a mile south over the plain, in order to avoid the spring
+floods. There is a toll-bridge here and a large brewery, with
+extensive cattle-sheds strung along the shore. A few scattering houses
+connect these establishments with the sleepy but neat little hamlet of
+some five hundred inhabitants. After a brisk walk up town, in the
+fading sunlight, which cast a dazzling glimmer on the whitened dunes
+and heightened the size of the dwarfed herbage, we returned to the
+canoe, and cast off to seek camping quarters for the night,
+down-stream.
+
+A mile below, on the opposite bank, a large straw-stack by the side of
+a small farmhouse attracted our attention. We stopped to investigate.
+There was a good growth of trees upon a gentle slope, a few rods from
+shore, and a beach well strewn with drift-wood. The farmer who greeted
+us was pleasant-spoken, and readily gave us permission to pitch our
+tent in the copse and partake freely of his straw.
+
+Now more accustomed to the river's ways, we keenly enjoyed our supper,
+seated around our little camp-fire in the early dark. We had
+occasional glimpses of the lights in Muscoda, through the swaying
+trees on the bottoms to the south; an owl, on a neighboring island,
+incessantly barked like a terrier; the whippoorwills were sounding
+their mournful notes from over the gliding river, and now and then a
+hoarse grunt or querulous squeal in the wood-lot behind us gave notice
+that we were quartered in a hog pasture. Soon the moon came out and
+brilliantly lit the opens,--the glistening river, the stretches of
+white sand, the farmer's fields,--and intensified the sepulchral
+shadows of the lofty bluffs which overhang the scene.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+FLOATING THROUGH FAIRYLAND.
+
+
+Undisturbed by hogs or river tramps, we slept soundly until seven, the
+following morning. There was a heavy fog again, but by the time we had
+leisurely eaten our breakfast, struck camp, and had a pleasant chat
+with our farmer host and his "hired man," who had come down to the
+bank to make us a call, the mists had rolled away before the advances
+of the sun.
+
+At half past ten we were at Port Andrew, eight miles below camp on the
+north shore. The Port, or what is left of it, lies stretched along a
+narrow bench of sand, based with rock, some forty feet above the
+water, with a high, naked bluff backing it to the north. There is
+barely room for the buildings, on either side of its one avenue
+paralleling the river; this street is the country road, which skirts
+the bank, connecting the village with the sparse settlements, east
+and west. In the old rafting days, the Port was a stopping-place for
+the lumber pilots. There being neither rafts nor pilots, nowadays,
+there is no business for the Port, except what few dollars may be
+picked up from the hunters who frequent this place each fall,
+searching for woodcock. But even the woodcocking industry has been
+overdone here, and two sportsmen whom we met on the beach declared
+that there were not enough birds remaining to pay for the trouble of
+getting here. For, indeed, Port Andrew is quite off the paths of
+modern civilization. There is practically no communication with the
+country over the bluffs, northward; and Blue River, the nearest
+railway station, to which there is a tri-weekly mail, is four miles
+southward, over the bottoms, with an uncertain ferryage between. There
+are less than fifty human beings in Port Andrew now, but double that
+number of dogs, the latter mostly of the pointer breed, kept for the
+benefit of huntsmen.
+
+We climbed the bank and went over to the post-office and general
+store. It seems to be the only business establishment left alive in
+the hamlet; although there are a dozen deserted buildings which were
+stores in the long ago, but are now ghostly wrecks, open to wind and
+weather on every side, and, with sunken ridge-poles, waiting for the
+first good wind-storm to furnish an excuse for a general collapse. A
+sleepy, greasy-looking lad, whose originally white shirt-front was
+sadly stained with water-melon juice, had charge of the meager
+concern. He said that the farmers north of the bluffs traded in towns
+more accessible than this, and that south of the stream, Blue River,
+being a railroad place, was "knockin' the spots off'n the Port." Ten
+years ago, he had heard his "pa" say the Port was "a likely place,"
+but it "ain't much shakes now."
+
+But there is a certain quaintness about these ruins of Port Andrew
+that is quite attractive. A deep ravine, cut through the shale-rock,
+comes winding down from a pass among the bluffs, severing the hamlet
+in twain. Over it there is sprung a high-arched, rough stone bridge,
+with crenelled walls, quite as artistic in its way as may be found in
+pictures of ancient English brook-crossings. On the summit of a
+rising-ground beyond, stands the solitary, whitened skeleton of a once
+spacious inn, a broad double-decked veranda stretching across its
+river front, and hitching-posts and drinking-trough now almost lost to
+view in a jungle of docks and sand-burrs. The cracks in the rotten
+veranda floors are lined with grass; the once broad highway is now
+reduced to an unfrequented trail through the yielding sand, which is
+elsewhere hid under a flowery mantle made up of delicate, fringed
+blossoms of pinkish purple, called by the natives "Pike's weed," and
+the rich yellow and pale gold of the familiar "butter and eggs." The
+peculiar effect of color, outline, and perspective, that hazy August
+day, was indeed charming. But we were called from our rapt
+contemplation of the picture, by the assemblage around us of half the
+population of Port Andrew, led by the young postmaster and accompanied
+by a drove of playful hounds. The impression had somehow got abroad
+that we had come to prospect for an iron mine, in the bed of the old
+ravine, and there was a general desire to see how the thing was done.
+The popular disappointment was evidently great, when we descended from
+our perch on the old bridge wall, and returned to the little vessel on
+the beach, which had meanwhile been closely overhauled by a knot of
+inquisitive urchins. A part of the crowd followed us down, plying
+innocent questions by the score, while on the summit of the bank above
+stood a watchful group of women and girls, some in huge sun-bonnets,
+others with aprons thrown over their heads. There was a general
+waving of hats and aprons from the shore, as we shot off into the
+current again, and our "Good-by!" was answered by a cheery chorus. It
+is evident that Port Andrew does not have many exciting episodes in
+her aimless, far-away life.
+
+Flocks of crows were seen to-day, winging their funereal flight from
+shore to shore, and uttering dismal croaks. The islands presented a
+more luxurious flora than we had yet seen; the marsh grass upon them
+was rank and tall, the overhanging trees sumptuously vine-clad, the
+autumn tints deeper and richer than before, the banks glowing with
+cardinal and yellow and purple; while on the sandy shores we saw
+loosestrife, white asters, the sensitive plant, golden-rod, and
+button-bush. Blue herons drifted through the air on their wide-spread
+wings, heads curved back upon their shoulders, and legs hanging
+straight down, to settle at last upon barren sand-spits, and stand in
+silent contemplation of some pool of dead water where perhaps a stray
+fish might reward their watchfulness. Solitary kingfishers kept their
+vigils on the numerous snags. Now and then a turtle shuffled from his
+perch and went tumbling with a loud splash into his favorite
+watering-place.
+
+Although yet too early for Indian summer, the day became, by noon,
+very like those which are the delight of a protracted northwestern
+autumn. A golden haze threw a mystic veil over the landscape; distant
+shore lines were obliterated, sand and sky and water at times merged
+in an indistinct blur, and distances were deceptive. Now and then the
+vistas of white sand-fields would apparently stretch on to infinity.
+Again, the river would seem wholly girt with cliffs and we in the
+bottom of a huge mountain basin, from which egress was impossible; or
+the stream would for a time appear a boundless lake. The islands ahead
+were as if floating in space, and there were weird reflections of
+far-away objects in the waters near us. While these singular effects
+lasted we trimmed our bark to the swift-gliding current, and floated
+along through fairy-land, unwilling to break the charm by disturbing
+the mirrored surface of the flood.
+
+Soon after the dinner hour we came in sight of the Boscobel
+toll-bridge,--an ugly, clumsy structure, housed-in like a tunnel, and
+as dark as a pocket. I was never quite able to understand why some
+bridge-makers should cover their structures in this fashion, and
+others, in the same locality, leave them open to wind and weather. So
+far as my unexpert observation goes, covered bridges are no more
+durable than the open, and they are certainly less cheerful and
+comely. A chill always comes over me as I enter one of these damp and
+gloomy hollow-ways; and the thought of how well adapted they are to
+the purposes of the thug or the footpad is not a particularly pleasant
+one for the lonely traveler by night. A dead little river hamlet, now
+in abject ruins,--Manhattan by name,--occupies the rugged bank at the
+north end of the long bridge; while southward, Boscobel is out of
+sight, a mile and a half inland, across the bottoms. The bluff
+overtopping Manhattan is a quarry of excellent hard sandstone, and a
+half dozen men were dressing blocks for shipment, on the rocky shore
+above us. They and their families constitute Manhattan.
+
+Eight miles down river, also on the north bank, is Boydtown. There are
+two houses there, in a sandy glen at the base of a group of heavily
+wooded foot-hills. At one of the dwellings--a neat, slate-colored
+cottage--we found a cheery, black-eyed woman sitting on the porch with
+a brood of five happy children playing about her. As she hurried away
+to get the butter and milk which we had asked for, she apologized for
+being seen to enjoy this unwonted leisure, apparently not desirous
+that we should suppose her to be any other than the hard-working
+little body which her hands and driving manner proclaimed her to be.
+When she returned with our supplies she said that they had "got
+through thrashin'," the day before, and she was enjoying the luxury of
+a rest preparatory to an accumulated churning. I looked incredulously
+at the sandy waste in which this little home was planted, and the good
+woman explained that their farm lay farther back, on fair soil,
+although the present dry season had not been the best for crops.
+
+Her brown-faced boy of ten and two little girls of about eight--the
+laughing faces and crow-black curls of the latter hid under immense
+flapping sun-bonnets--accompanied us to the bayou by which we had
+approached Boydtown. They had a gay, unrestrained manner that was
+quite captivating, and we were glad to have them row alongside of us
+for a way down-stream in the unwieldy family punt, the lad handling
+the crude oars and the girls huddled together on the stern seat,
+covered by their great sun-bonnet flaps, as with a cape. They were
+"goin' grapein'," they said; and at an island where the vines hung
+dark with purple clusters, they piped "Good-by, you uns!" in tittering
+unison.
+
+By this time, the weather had changed. The haze had lifted. The sky
+had quickly become overcast with leaden rainclouds, and an occasional
+big drop gave warning of an approaching storm. A few miles below
+Boydtown, we stopped to replenish our canteen at the St. Paul
+railway's fine iron bridge, the last crossing on that line between
+Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien. On the southern end of the bridge is
+Woodman; on the northern bank, the tender's house. As we were in the
+northern channel, it was impracticable to reach the village, separated
+from us by wide islands and long stretches of swamp and forest, except
+by walking the bridge and the mile or two of trestle-work approaches
+to the south. As for the bridge-house, there chanced to be no spare
+quarters for us there. So we voted to trust to fortune and push on,
+although the tender's wife, a pleasant, English-faced woman, with
+black, sparkling eyes and a hospitable smile, was much exercised in
+spirit, and thought we were running some hazard of a wetting.
+
+The skies lightened for a time, and then there came rolling up from
+over the range to the southwest great jagged rifts of black clouds,
+ugly "thunder heads," which seemed to presage a deluge. Below them,
+veiling the tallest peaks, tossed and sped the light-footed couriers
+of the wind, and we saw the dark-green bosom of the upper forests
+heave with the emotions of the air, while the rushing stream below
+flowed on unruffled. The river is here united in one broad channel. At
+the first evidence of a blow, we hurried across to the windward bank.
+We were landing at the swampy, timber-strewn base of a precipitous
+cliff as the wind passed over the valley, and had just completed our
+preparations for shelter when the rain began to come in blinding
+sheets.
+
+The possibility of having to spend the night under the sepulchral
+arches of this forested morass was not pleasant to contemplate. The
+storm abated, however, within half an hour, and we were then able to
+distinguish a large white house apparently set back in an open field a
+half mile or more from the opposite shore.
+
+Re-embarking, we headed that way, and found a wood-fringed stream
+several rods wide, pouring a vigorous flood into the Wisconsin, from
+the north. Our map showed it to be the Kickapoo, an old-time logging
+river, and the house must be an outlying member of the small railroad
+village of Wauzeka. A consultation was held on board, at the mouth of
+the Kickapoo. On the Wisconsin not a house was to be seen, as far as
+the eye could reach, and wide stretches of swamp and wooded bog
+appeared to line both its banks. The prospect of paddling up the mad
+little Kickapoo for a mile to Wauzeka was dispiriting, but we decided
+to do it; for night was coming on, our tent, even could we find a good
+camping ground in this marshy wilderness, was disposed to be leaky,
+and a steady drizzle continued to sound a muffled tattoo on our rubber
+coats. A voluble fisherman, caught out in the rain like ourselves,
+came swinging into the tributary, with his cranky punt, just as we
+were setting our paddles for a vigorous pull up-stream. We had his
+company, side by side, till we reached the St. Paul railway trestle,
+and beached at the foot of a deserted stave mill, in whose innermost
+recesses we deposited our traps. Guided by the village shoemaker's
+boy, who had been playing by the river side, we started up the track
+to find the hotel, nearly a half mile away.
+
+It is a quiet, comfortable, old-fashioned little inn, this hostelry at
+Wauzeka. The landlord greeted his storm-bound guests with polite
+urbanity, and with none of that inquisitiveness so common in rural
+hosts. At supper, we met the village philosopher, a quaint, lone old
+man who has an opinion of his own upon most human subjects, and more
+than dares to voice it,--insists, in fact, on having it known of all
+men. A young commercial traveler, the only other patron of the
+establishment, sadly guyed our philosophical messmate by securing his
+verdict on a wide range of topics, from the latest league game to
+abstruse questions of theology. The philosopher bit, and the drummer
+was in high feather as he crinkled the corners of his mouth behind his
+huge moustache, and looked slyly around for encouragement that was not
+offered.
+
+Wauzeka is, in one respect, like too many other country villages.
+Three saloons disfigure the main street, and in front of them are
+little knots of noisy loafers, in the evening, filling up the rickety,
+variously graded sidewalk to the gutter, and necessitating the running
+of a loathsome gauntlet to those who may wish to pass that way. The
+boy who can grow up in such an atmosphere, unpolluted, must be of rare
+material, or his parents exceptionally judicious. There are few large
+cities where one can see the liquor traffic carried on with such
+disgusting boldness as in hamlets like this, where screenless,
+open-doored saloons of a vile character jostle trading shops and
+dwellings, and monopolize the footway, making of the business street a
+place which women may abhor at any hour, and must necessarily avoid
+after sunset. With a local-option law, that but awaits a majority vote
+to be operative in such communities, it is a strange commentary on the
+quality of our nineteenth-century civilization that the dissolute few
+should still, as of old, be able to persistently hold the whip-hand
+over the virtuous but timid many.
+
+Elsewhere in Wauzeka, there are many pretty grass-grown lanes; some
+substantial cottages; a prosperous creamery, employing the service of
+the especial pride of the village, a six-inch spouting well, driven
+for three hundred feet to the underlying stratum of lime-rock; a
+saw-mill or two, which are worked spasmodically, according to the
+log-driving stage in the Kickapoo, and some pleasant, accommodating
+people, who appear to be quite contented with their lot in life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
+
+
+There was fog on the river in the morning. Across the broad expanse of
+field and ledge which separates Wauzeka from the Wisconsin, we could
+see the great white mass of vapor, fifty feet thick, resting on the
+broad channel like a dense coverlid of down. Soon after seven o'clock,
+the cloud lifted by degrees, and then broke into ragged segments,
+which settled sluggishly for a while on the tops of the southern line
+of bluffs and screened their dark amphitheaters from view, till at
+last dissipated into thin air.
+
+We were off at eight o'clock, fifteen or twenty men coming down to the
+railway-bridge to watch the operation. One of them helped us
+materially with our bundles, while the rest sat in a row along the
+trestle, dangling their feet through the spaces between the stringers,
+and gazing at us as though we were a circus company on the move. A
+drizzle set in, just as we pushed from the bank, and we descended the
+Kickapoo under much the same conditions of atmosphere as those we had
+experienced in pulling against its swirling tide the evening before.
+
+But by nine o'clock the storm was over, and we had, for a time, a
+calm, quiet journey, a gray light which harmonized well with the
+wildly picturesque scenery, and a fresh west breeze which helped us on
+our way. We were now but twenty miles from the mouth. The parallel
+ranges of bluff come nearer together, until they are not much over a
+mile apart, and the stream, now broader, swifter, and deeper, is less
+encumbered with islands. Upon the peaty banks are the tall white
+spikes of the curious turtlehead, occasional masses of balsam-apple
+vines, the gleaming lobelia cardinalis, yellow honeysuckles just going
+out of blossom, and acres of the golden sneeze-weed, which deserves a
+better name.
+
+At Wright's Ferry, ten miles below, there are domiciled two German
+families, and on the shore is a saw-mill which is operated in the
+spring, to work up the logs which farmers bring down from the gloomy
+mountains which back the scene.
+
+Bridgeport, four miles farther,--still on the northern side,--is
+chiefly a clump of little red railway buildings set up on a high bench
+carved from the face of the bluff, their fronts resting on the
+road-bed and their rears on high scaffolding. A few big bowlders
+rolling down from the cliffs would topple Bridgeport over into the
+river. There is a covered country toll-bridge here, and the industrial
+interest of the Liliputian community is quarrying. It is the last
+hamlet on the river.
+
+A mist again formed, casting a blue tinge over the peaks and giving
+them a far distant aspect; dark clouds now and then lowered and rolled
+through the upper ravines, reflecting their inky hue upon the surface
+of the deep, gliding river. The bluffs, which had for many miles
+closely abutted the stream, at last gradually swept away to the north
+and south, to become part of the great wall which forms the eastern
+bulwark of the Upper Mississippi. At their base spreads a broad, flat
+plain, fringed with boggy woods and sandy meadows, the delta of the
+Wisconsin, which, below the Lowertown bridge of the Burlington and
+Northern railway, is cut up into flood-washed willow islands, flanked
+by a wide stretch of shifting sand-bars black with tangled roots and
+stranded logs, the debris of many a spring-time freshet.
+
+It was about half-past twelve o'clock when we came to the junction of
+the Wisconsin and the Mississippi. Upon a willow-grown sand-reef
+edging the swamp, which extends northward for five miles to the
+quaint, ancient little city of Prairie du Chien, a large barge lies
+stranded. A lone fisherman sat upon its bulwark rail, which overhangs
+the rushing waters as they here commingle. We landed with something
+akin to reverence, for this must have been about the place where
+Joliet and Marquette, two hundred and fourteen years ago, gazed with
+rapture upon the mighty Mississippi, which they had at last
+discovered, after so many thousands of miles of arduous journeying
+through a savage-haunted wilderness. And indeed it is an imposing
+sight. To the west, two miles away, rise the wooded peaks on the Iowa
+side of the great river. Northward there are pretty glimpses of cliffs
+and rocky beaches through openings in the heavy growth which covers
+the islands of the upper stream. Southward is a long vista of curving
+hills and glinting water shut in by the converging ranges. Eastward
+stretches the green delta of the Wisconsin, flanked by those imposing
+bluffs, between whose bases for two centuries has flowed a curious
+throng of humanity, savage and civilized, on errands sacred and
+profane, representing many clashing nationalities.
+
+The rain descended in a gentle shower as I was lighting a fire on
+which to cook our last canoeing meal of the season; and W---- held an
+umbrella over the already damp kindling in order to give it a chance.
+We no doubt made a comical picture as we crouched together beneath
+this shelter, jointly trying to fan the sparks into a flame, for the
+fisherman, who had been heretofore speechless, and apparently rapt in
+his occupation, burst out into a hearty laugh. When we turned to look
+at him he hid his face under his upturned coat-collar, and giggled to
+himself like a schoolgirl. He was a jolly dog, this fisherman, and
+after we had presented him with a cup of coffee and what solids we
+could spare from our now meager store, he warmed into a very
+communicative mood, and gave us much detailed, though rather highly
+colored, information about the locality, especially as to its natural
+features.
+
+The rain had ceased by the time dinner was over; so we bade farewell
+to the happy fisherman and the presiding deities of the Wisconsin, and
+pulled up the giant Mississippi to Prairie du Chien, stopping on our
+way to visit an out-of-the-way bayou, botanically famous, where
+flourishes the rare nelumbium luteum--America's nearest approach to
+the lotus of the Nile.
+
+And thus was accomplished the season's stint of six hundred miles of
+canoeing upon the Historic Waterways of Illinois and Wisconsin.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+     Algoma, 182, 186.
+
+     Allouez, Father Claude, 176, 228, 229.
+
+     American Fur Co., 145.
+
+     Anderson, Maj. Robert, U.S.A., 19.
+
+     Antoinette, Marie, Queen of France, 224.
+
+     Appleton, Wis., 23, 27, 185, 202-207, 209.
+
+     Arena Ferry, Wis., 27, 257, 262.
+
+     Arndt, Judge John P., 158.
+
+     Astor, John Jacob, 145, 232.
+
+     Atkinson, Gen. Henry, U. S. A., 19, 255.
+
+     Avoca, Wis., 270.
+
+
+     Bad Axe, battle of, 255, 266.
+
+     Baraboo River, 241.
+
+     Barth, Laurent, 143.
+
+     Beloit, Wis., 20, 26, 65.
+
+     Berlin, Wis., 21, 22, 27, 164, 173-175, 177, 240.
+
+     Black Hawk War, 18, 19, 87, 119, 250, 253-255, 266.
+
+     Black Hawk Mountain, 256.
+
+     Black River Falls, Wis., 200.
+
+     Black Wolf Point, Lake Winnebago, 191.
+
+     Blue Mound, Wis., 266.
+
+     Blue River Village, Wis., 276.
+
+     Boscobel, Wis., 27, 280, 281.
+
+     "Bourbon, The American." _See_ Williams, Eleazar.
+
+     Boydtown, Wis., 27, 281, 282.
+
+     Bridgeport, Wis., 27, 289, 290.
+
+     Buffalo Lake, 22, 160-162, 168, 173.
+
+     Butte des Morts, Lake Grand, 161, 181-183, 199.
+
+     Butte des Morts, Lake Petit, 199, 201, 202.
+
+     Butte des Morts Village, 183-185, 188.
+
+     Butterfield, Consul W., _cited_, 176.
+
+     Byron, Ill., 19, 26, 82-85.
+
+
+     Canoeing, pleasures of, 15, 16.
+
+     Canoeists, suggestions to, 23-26.
+
+     Canoes, styles of, 15, 16.
+
+     Carbon Cliff, Ill., 138, 139.
+
+     Catfish River, Wis., 18, 31-59.
+
+     Champche Keriwinke, Winnebago princess, 200, 201.
+
+     Champlain, Governor of Quebec, 175, 230.
+
+     Cherry River, 80.
+
+     Chicago, Burlington, and Northern Ry., 290.
+
+     Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Ry., 137-139.
+
+     Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Ry., 76, 82, 178, 186, 256,
+       259-265, 269, 283, 285.
+
+     Chicago and Northwestern Ry., 65, 248-250.
+
+     Cleveland, Ill., 137.
+
+     Coloma, Ill., 26, 138-140.
+
+     Como, Ill. 26, 109-111.
+
+     Crooks, Ramsay, 232.
+
+
+     Dablon, Father Claude, 229.
+
+     Dakotah Indians. _See_ Sioux and Winnebagoes.
+
+     Davis, Jefferson, 19, 145, 146.
+
+     Dekorra, Wis., 242-245.
+
+     De Korra, early fur trader, 199, 200.
+
+     Depere, Wis., 206, 225, 228, 229.
+
+     Dixon, Ill., 18, 20, 26, 87, 93, 94, 97-101, 106-108.
+
+     Dodge, Maj. Henry, 253, 255.
+
+     Doty's Island, Wis., 195-201.
+
+     Dunkirk, Wis., 52, 53.
+
+
+     Erie, Ill., 26, 124-136.
+
+     Eureka, Wis., 178.
+
+
+     First Lake, 40, 43-45.
+
+     Fond du Lac, Wis., 191.
+
+     Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien, Wis.), 145.
+
+     Fort Howard, Wis., 145, 228-234.
+
+     Fort Winnebago (Portage, Wis.), 144-146.
+
+     Four Lake country, Wis., 18, 33, 254.
+
+     Four Legs, Winnebago chief, 200, 201.
+
+     Fox Indians (_see_, also, Sacs), 176, 196-199.
+
+     Fox River, Wis., 17, 21-23, 26, 141-234, 239, 240, 255.
+
+     Fulton, Wis., 56-58.
+
+     Fur trade in Wisconsin, 189, 196-200, 207, 208, 231, 234.
+
+
+     Ganymede Springs, Ill., 89, 90.
+
+     Garlic Island, Lake Winnebago, 189-191.
+
+     Garritty, Mary, 226-228.
+
+     Grand Detour, Ill., 92-106.
+
+     Great Bend of Rock River, 105-106.
+
+     Green Bay, Wis., 23, 27, 180, 181, 185, 198, 207, 229-234, 238.
+
+     Grignon, Augustin, 184, 185, 188, 232.
+
+
+     Hanson, John H., _cited_, 224, 225.
+
+     Harney, Gen. William S., U. S. A., 145.
+
+     Helena Village, Wis., 27, 259-265.
+
+     Helena, Wis., Old, 265, 266.
+
+     Henry, Maj. James D., 253, 255.
+
+     Hoo-Tschope. _See_ Four Legs.
+
+
+     Illinois Indians, 21, 176.
+
+     Iowatuk, Winnebago princess, 189, 191.
+
+
+     Janesville, Wis., 20, 26, 60-65.
+
+     Jesuit missionaries, 21, 24, 176, 177, 180, 181, 228, 229, 231.
+
+     Joliet, Sieur de, 21, 176, 229, 239.
+
+
+     Kackalin, Grand. _See_ Kaukauna.
+
+     Kaukauna, Wis., 27, 185, 206-213.
+
+     Kellogg's trail, 106, 107.
+
+     Keokuk, Fox chief, 255.
+
+     Kickapoo Indians, 175.
+
+     Kickapoo River, Wis., 27, 284, 285, 287, 288.
+
+     Kinzie, Mrs. John H., _cited_, 146, 200.
+
+     Koshkonong, Lake, 18, 19, 59, 254.
+
+
+     Lakeside, Third Lake, 32.
+
+     Langlade, Charles de, 198, 232.
+
+     Latham Station, Ill., 76, 77.
+
+     Lawrence University, 205, 206.
+
+     Lead mines at Galena, 18.
+
+     Lecuyer, Jean B., 143, 144.
+
+     Lignery, Sieur Marchand de, 198.
+
+     Lincoln, Abraham, 19.
+
+     Little Kaukauna, Wis., 206, 216-219, 221, 225.
+
+     Lone Rock, Wis., 27, 262, 267-270.
+
+     Louis XVI., King of France, 223-225.
+
+     Louis XVII., Dauphin of France, 223-225.
+
+     Louvigny, Sieur de, 198.
+
+     Lyndon, Ill., 26, 118.
+
+
+     Madison, Wis., 18, 26.
+
+     Manhattan, Wis., 281.
+
+     Marin, Sieur de, 197, 198.
+
+     Marquette, Father James, 21, 157, 176, 229, 239.
+
+     Marquette Village, Wis., 26, 161, 166-170.
+
+     Mascoutin Indians, 175-178.
+
+     Mazomanie, Wis., 256.
+
+     Menasha, Wis., 23, 183, 185, 195, 196, 207.
+
+     Menomonee Indians, 187, 188, 196, 197, 223.
+
+     Merrimac, Wis., 27, 248-250.
+
+     Miami Indians, 175.
+
+     Milan, Ill., 139.
+
+     Milwaukee and Northern Ry., 203, 204.
+
+     Mississippi River, 21, 26, 27, 136, 138, 180, 229-231, 239,
+       253-255, 290-293.
+
+     Mohawk Indians, 222.
+
+     Montello, Wis., 22, 26, 160, 162-164, 168.
+
+     Muscoda, Wis., 23, 27, 270, 272-274.
+
+
+     Neenah, Wis., 22, 27, 183, 185, 191, 195-201, 206.
+
+     New York Indians. _See_ Oneidas.
+
+     Nicolet, Jean, 21, 175, 176, 230, 231.
+
+     Northern Insane Hospital, Wis., 189-191.
+
+
+     Omro, Wis., 22, 27, 175, 178, 179.
+
+     Oneida Indians, 222-228.
+
+     Oregon, Ill., 20, 26, 88-90.
+
+     Orion, Wis., 272.
+
+     Oshkosh, Menomonee chief, 187, 188.
+
+     Oshkosh, Wis., 27, 161, 182, 183, 185-188, 190, 207.
+
+     Ott's Farm, Madison, Wis., 33.
+
+     Owen, Ill. _See_ Latham Station.
+
+
+     Packwaukee, Wis., 26, 150, 159-161, 163.
+
+     Paine Bros., 186.
+
+     Paquette, Pierre, 144.
+
+     Penney, Josephine, 226-228.
+
+     Philippe, Louis, King of France, 225.
+
+     Pope's Springs, Wis., 60.
+
+     Porlier, James, 184, 185.
+
+     Porlier, Louis B., 184, 185.
+
+     Portage, Wis., 21, 23, 26, 27, 143-146, 160, 161, 185, 198, 206,
+       237-242.
+
+     Port Andrew, Wis., 27, 275-279.
+
+     Pottawattomie Indians, 18, 19, 87.
+
+     Poygan Lake, 22, 180, 181.
+
+     Prairie du Chien, Wis., 21, 27, 145, 238, 240, 255, 291-293.
+
+     Prairie du Sac, Wis., 23, 27, 252-256, 266.
+
+     Princeton, Wis., 22, 27, 168-172, 210.
+
+     Prophetstown, Ill., 18, 26, 118-120.
+
+     Puckawa Lake, 22, 161, 163-169.
+
+
+     Red Bird, Winnebago chief, 145.
+
+     Richland Center, Wis., 269.
+
+     Richland City, Wis., 269.
+
+     Rockford, Ill., 20, 26, 79.
+
+     Rock Island, Ill., 18, 26, 139, 140, 253.
+
+     Rock River, 17-21, 29-140, 213, 253.
+
+     Rockton, Ill., 20.
+
+     Roscoe, Ill., 74, 76.
+
+
+     Sac Indians, 18, 19, 119, 198, 253-256.
+
+     Sacramento, Wis., 177, 178.
+
+     Sauk City, Wis., 23, 256, 257.
+
+     Sawyer, Philetus, 186.
+
+     Second Lake, 33, 36-39, 43.
+
+     Shaubena, Pottawattomie chief, 18.
+
+     Sioux Indians, 230, 231, 255.
+
+     Smith's Island, Wis., 149-156.
+
+     Spring Green, Wis., 261.
+
+     Stebbinsville, Wis., 53, 54.
+
+     Sterling, Ill., 20, 26, 108, 109.
+
+     Stillman's Creek, 19, 83, 86, 87.
+
+     Stillman's defeat, 19, 87.
+
+     Stoughton, Wis., 20, 26, 42, 44, 46-50, 52.
+
+     Stuart, Robert, 232.
+
+
+     Taylor, Zachary, 19.
+
+     Third Lake, 31, 33.
+
+     Turvill's Bay, Third Lake, 32, 33.
+
+     Twiggs, Maj. David, 232.
+
+
+     Walking Cloud, a Winnebago, 200.
+
+     Wauzeka, Wis., 27, 285-288.
+
+     White Cloud, Indian prophet, 18, 119.
+
+     White River lock, 172, 173.
+
+     Williams, Eleazar, 222-228.
+
+     Williams, Mrs. Eleazar, 225, 226.
+
+     Winnebago Indians, 19, 119, 145, 166, 189, 196, 197, 199-201,
+       223, 230, 231, 238, 254, 255.
+
+     Winnebago Lake, 22, 180, 183, 189-196, 206.
+
+     Winnebago prophet. _See_ White Cloud.
+
+     Winnebago Rapids, 196-201.
+
+     Winneconne, 22, 164, 179-182.
+
+     Wisconsin Central Ry., 144, 160.
+
+     Wisconsin Heights, battle of, 254, 266.
+
+     Wisconsin River, 17, 21-23, 27, 143-146, 230, 231, 237-293.
+
+     Wisconsin River Dells, 23.
+
+     Wolf River, 179-183, 185.
+
+     Woodman, Wis., 283.
+
+     Wright's Ferry, Wis., 27, 289.
+
+     Wrightstown, Wis., 213, 214, 220.
+
+
+     Yahara River. _See_ Catfish.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Historic Waterways--Six Hundred Miles
+of Canoeing Down the Rock, Fox, and Wisconsin Rivers, by Reuben Gold Thwaites
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