frogs, and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.'

"And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, 'Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you.'

"And then Smiley says, 'That's all right-that's all right-if you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog.' And so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait.

"So he set there a good while, thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open, and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot-filled him pretty near up to his chin-and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says:

"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore-paws just even with Dan'l's, and I'll give the word.' Then he says, 'One-two-three-git!' and him and the feller

touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders -so-like a Frenchman, but it warn't no use he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a church, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was dis

gusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course.

"The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder so-at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog.'

"Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, 'I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw'd off for-I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him -he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.' And he ketched Dan'l by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, 'Why, blame my cats if he don't weigh five pound!' and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man-he set the frog down and took out after the feller, but he never ketched him. And:

HE BELCHED OUT A DOUBLE
HANDFUL OF SHOT.

[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up to see what was wanted.] "A turning to me as he moved away, he said: 'Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy-I ain't going to be gone a second.'

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away.

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he button-holed me and re-commenced:

"Well, this-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no tail, only jest a short stump like a bannanner, and However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear about the afflicted cow, but took my leave.

WARM HAIR.

TALKING about warm hair, a lady in Milwaukee, whose hair very nearly matches the brick in the Wisconsin Building, and who has been joked about her red hair until she goes around and shoots the last few thousand who make ancient remarks about it, says she heard a new thing on red hair the other day. A friend from the East said to her, "Mrs. I rather like this Skeneateles hair of yours." She didn't like to ask questions, but finally curiosity got the best of her, and she asked, "Well, what in the name of the thirteen apostles is Skaneateles hair?" "Oh," says he, as he got on the other side of the table, and held his elbow up over his head so the press board wouldn't hurt, "Skeneateles is about forty miles beyond Auburn, you know." He is now carried in a sling, and his friends have to get a pass from the matron of the hospital to see him-Newspaper.

A FIGHT WITH A TROUT.

BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.

HARLES DUDLEY WARNER was born at Plainfield, Mass., in 1829. His boyhood was spent in the country, but he received a collegiate training, and after some years' experience as surveyor in the West, he took up the study of the law, and entered upon its practice in Philadelphia. He removed thence to Chicago, and then returned to the East, and formed the connection with the Hartford Courant, which still continues. In this journal were published the papers "My Summer in a Garden,” the first expression of his delicate and characteristic humor, which received general recognition. It was followed by the "Backlog Studies," his work in collaboration with Mr. Clemens, "The Gilded Age," and his different volumes of travel "Saunterings," "Winter on the Nile," etc. He contributed to American History a delightful monograph on "Captain Jolun Smith," and has written a critical biography of Washington Irving.

TROUT-FISHING in the Adirondacks would be a more attractive pastime than it is, but for the popular notion of its danger. The trout is a retiring and harmless animal, except when he is aroused and forced into a combat; and then his agility, fierceness and vindictiveness become apparent. No one who has studied the excellent pictures representing men in an open boat, exposed to the assaults of long-enraged trout flying at them through the open air with open mouth, ever ventures with his rod upon the lonely lakes of the forest without a certain terror, or ever reads of the exploits of daring fishermen without a feeling of admiration for their heroism. Most of their adventures are thrilling, and all of them are, in narration, more or less unjust to the trout: in fact, the object of them seems to be to exhibit, at the expense of the trout, the shrewdness, the skill, and the muscular power of the sportsman. My own simple story has few of these recommendations.

We had built our bark camp one summer, and were staying on one of the popular lakes of the Saranac region. It would be a very pretty region if it were not so flat; if the margins of the lakes had not been flooded by dams at the outlets-which have killed the trees, and left a rim of ghastly dead-wood like the swamps of the under-world pictured by Doré's bizarre pencil-and if the

pianos at the hotels were in tune. It would be an excellent sporting-region also (for there is water enough) if the fish commissioners would stock the waters, and if previous hunters had not pulled all the hair and skin off from the deers' tails. Formerly sportsmen had a habit of catching the deer by the tails, and of being dragged in mere wantonness round and round the shores. It is well known that, if you seize a deer by this "holt," the skin will slip off like the peel from a banana. This reprehensible practice

was carried so far, that the traveler is now hourly pained by the sight of peeled-tail deer mournfully sneaking about the wood.

We had been hearing, for weeks, of a small lake in the heart of the virgin forest, some ten miles from our camp, which was alive with trout, unsophisticated, hungry trout: the inlet to it was described as stiff with them. In my imagination I saw them lying there in ranks and rows, each a foot long, three tiers deep, a solid mass. The lake had never been visited, except by stray sable-hunters in the winter, and was known as the Unknown Pond. I determined to explore it; fully expecting, however, that it would prove to be a delusion, as such mysterious haunts of the trout usually are. Confiding my purpose to Luke, we secretly made our preparations, and stole away from the shanty one morning at daybreak. Each of us carried a boat, a pair of blankets, a sack of bread, pork, and maple-sugar; while I had my case of rods, creel, and book of flies, and Luke had an axe and the kitchen utensils. We think nothing of loads of this sort in the woods.

LUKE.

Five miles through a tamarack-swamp brought us to the inlet of Unknown Pond, upon which we embarked our fleet, and paddled down its vagrant waters. They were at first sluggish, winding among triste fir-trees, but gradually developed a strong current. At the end of three miles a loud roar ahead warned us that we