he does not take as beautiful a string of river trout as can be found
in these parts, let him set it down to the score of accident, for the
trout are there in the warm days of August. If he has a curiosity to
know what there is above these Little Falls, let him try his
angle-worms in the brook just over the ridge, and he will find out. I
claim to have discovered these choice fishing places some seasons
since, and have kept them for my own private use and amusement. Nobody
seemed to know of them. When the trout refused to be taken elsewhere,
I have always found them here, abundant, greedy, and ready to be taken
by any decently skillful effort. I regard these places as in some sort
my private property, and I mention them privately and in confidence to
the reader, trusting that my right will be respected.

We finished our evening meal while the sun was yet above the western
hills, and sat with our pipes around a smudge, made upon the broad
flat rock, which recedes with a gentle acclivity from the shore, where
the Bog River enters the lake, looking out over the stirless waters.
It was a beautiful view, so calm, so still and placid, and yet so
wild. The islands seemed to stand out clear from the water, to be
lifted up, as it were, from the lake, so perfectly moveless and
polished was its surface. On a grassy point to the right, and a
hundred rods distant, two deer were quietly feeding, while in a little
bay on the left, a brood of young ducks were sporting and skimming
along the water in playful gyrations around their staid and watchful
mother. On the outstretched arm of a dead tree on the island before
us, sat a bald eagle, pluming himself; and high above the lake the
osprey soared, turning his piercing eye downward, watching for
his prey.

"I've been thinking," said Smith, as he refilled his pipe, "of what