"Oh, Hickey! Whoop!" exclaimed Martha, as she went off in wild screams of laughter. "Kin you swim?" she asked, with the coolness of the mountain-maiden she was.
"No, no," sputtered the Doctor.
"I reckon you'll tow good. Jest gimme your han', an' keep your feet down, an' me an' Alec 'ill tow you ashore to dreen. Hit's like you're purty wet."
He was soon landed by the stalwart Martha and Alec, and, while he attitudinized for draining, the Professor amused himself with taking an instantaneous photograph.
"By gum! he mought hev drownded," said Tim Price to the Professor. "The Doctor hain't a good shape fer towin', but he floats higher than any craft of his length I ever seed on Elk River."
Just as the golden light of evening cast its sheen upon the river the camp-tents came in sight, where a group of natives stood waiting the arrival of the fishers to "hear what luck they'd hed."
Colonel Bangem and Bess carried off equal honors in greatest count,—sixty-two bass and five salmon each. Martha, with her five-pounder, was weight champion. Mrs. Bangem had the only blue pike. The Professor claimed that, besides his twoscore fish, he had illustrations enough for a comic annual; and the Doctor asserted that he knew more about bass than any of them, for he had been down where they lived, and was of the opinion that he had swallowed a couple.
Bess Bangem said to the Professor, as they went up the bank together, "I had a great mind to count you in with my fish, to beat father; but I caught you long ago, so it would not have been fair."
TOBE HODGE.