re boating and fishing. Boats abound--row-boats, sail-boats, and
steam-launches for excursion parties. The river consequently presents
an animated appearance in the season, and the prettiest effects are
produced by the white sails dipping about among the green islands. The
favorite boat is a canoe with a small sail stepped forward, which is
steered without centre-board or rudder, merely by a change of position
in the boat of the man who holds the sheet. While the fishermen are
here, it would seem that the long, snaky pickerel is the chief game
pursued and caught. But this is not the case when the fishermen return
home, for then it appears that they have been dealing mainly with
muskallonge, and with bass by the way. No other part of the country
originates so many excellent fish stories as the Sixteen Hundred and
Ninety-two Islands, and King had heard so many of them that he suspected
there must be fish in these waters. That afternoon, when they returned
from Gananoque he accosted an old fisherman who sat in his boat at the
wharf awaiting a customer.

"I suppose there is fishing here in the season?"

The man glanced up, but deigned no reply to such impertinence.

"Could you take us where we would be likely to get any muskallonge?"

"Likely?" asked the man. "What do you suppose I am here for?"

"I beg your pardon. I'm a stranger here. I'd like to try my hand at a
muskallonge. About how do they run here as to size?"

"Well," said the fisherman, relenting a little, "that depends upon who
takes you out. If you want a little sport, I can take you to it. They
are running pretty well this season, or were a week ago."

"Is it too late?"

"Well, they are scarcer than they were, unless you know where to go. I
call forty pounds light for a muskallonge; fifty to seventy is about my
figure. If you ain't used to this kind of fishing, and go with me, you'd
better tie yourself in the boat. They are a powerful fish. You see that
little island yonder? A muskallonge dragged me in this boat four times
round that island one day, and just as I thought I was tiring him out he
jumped clean over the island, and I had to cut the line."

King thought he had heard something like this before, and he engaged
the man for the next day. That evening was the last of the grand
illuminations for the season, and our party went out in the Crossman
steam-launch to see it. Although some of the cottages were vacated, and
the display was not so extensiv