preparing a fire.  Our sail of eight miles down the lake furnished us with appetites which gave to the beautiful speckled trout we caught there a peculiar relish.  We arranged matters so that the Doctor and Smith were to return in one boat to the Saranacs, while Spalding and myself were to move on down the Rackett with the other two.  Cullen and Wood were to go with us to Pottsdam, from whence our route lay by railroad to Ogdensburgh.  We had, on entering the woods, dispatched our baggage to the former place to await our arrival there.  At nine o’clock we launched out upon the lake again.  There are two outlets which enter the Rackett, half a mile apart, down the right hand one of which the Doctor and Smith’s course lay, and ours down the left.  We shook hands with our friends, and lay upon our oars while they passed on towards home, wishing them a pleasant voyage, and a safe return.

“I say,” shouted Smith, as they were about rounding a point that would hide them from our view, “remember our compact about killing the bear.  The glory of that achievement belongs to me, you know.  Don’t say a word about it when you get home till you see me.  I haven’t fully made up my mind as to the manner of capturing him, and there must be no contradictions on the subject.”

“Go ahead,” replied Spalding, “we’ll be careful of your honor.  Drop us a line at Cape Vincent, when you’ve digested the matter, and we’ll stand by you.  Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!” And our friends disappeared from our sight on their voyage home.

“And so,” said Spalding, “we are to leave this beautiful lake, and these old forests so soon.  I could linger here a month still, enjoying these shady and primitive solitudes.  To you and I, the quiet which one finds here is vastly more inviting than it is to the friends who have just left us.  The Doctor, of necessity, leads a life of activity, feeling physical weariness as the result of his labors, but little of that strong yearning for intellectual repose which those in your profession or mine so often feel.  Smith’s life demands excitement.  The absence of the cares and toil of business occasions a restlessness and desire of change, which makes him discontented here.  With them the great charm of this wild region is its novelty.  They enjoy its beauties for a season with peculiar relish, but as these become familiar, the spell is broken, and they turn towards home without a regret To you and I, there is something beyond this.  We, too, feel and appreciate the beauty of these lakes and mountains The hill-sides and placid waters, the forest songs, and wild scenery are pleasant to us; but we enjoy them the more from the intellectual relaxation, the mental quiet and repose, which we find among them.  We feel that we are resting, that the process of recuperation, intellectual as well as physical, is going on within us.  We can almost trace its progress, and we feel that the time spent by us here is full of profit as well as pleasure.  At all events, it is so with me, and if duty to others, whose interests it is my business to serve, did not demand my return, I could enjoy another month here with unabated pleasure.”