CHAPTER IV.

THE DOCTOR'S STORY--A SLIPPERY FISH--A LAWSUIT AND A COMPROMISE.


There seems to be a law, or rather a habit pertaining to forest life,
into which every one falls, while upon excursions such as ours.
Stories occupy the place of books, and tales of the marvellous furnish
a substitute for the evening papers. Not that there should be any set
rule or system, in regard to the ordering of the matter, but a sort of
spontaneous movement, an implied understanding, growing out of the
necessities of the position of isolation occupied by those who are
away from the resources of civilization. The doctor had a genius for
story telling, or rather a genius for invention, which required only a
moderate development of the organ of credulity on the part of his
hearers, to render him unrivalled. There was an appearance of frank
earnestness about his manner of relating his adventures, which,
however improbable or even impossible as matter of fact they might be,
commanded, for the moment, absolute credence.

"They've a curious fish in the St. Lawrence," said the doctor, as he
knocked the ashes from his meerschaum, and refilled it, "known among
the fishermen of that river as the LAWYER. I have never seen it among
any other of the waters of this country, and never there but once. It
never bites at a hook, and is taken only by gill-nets, or the seine.
Everybody," he continued, "has visited the Thousand Islands, or if
everybody has not, he had better go there at once. He will find them,