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.

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.

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.