he first house which I came to as to the whereabouts of the hotel, I was
informed by a sour-visaged old female, that if I wanted to drink and get
drunk, I must go farther on; but that if I wished to behave in a quiet
and respectable manner, and could live %without liquor, I could stay in
her house, which was at once post office, Temperance Hotel, and very
respectable. Being weary and footsore, I. did not feel disposed to seek
farther, for the place looked clean, the river was close at hand, and the
whole aspect of the scene was suggestive of rest. In the evening hours
myriads of mosquitoes and flying things of minutest size came forth from
the wooded hills and did their best towards making life a misery; so bad
were they that I welcomed a passing navvy who dropped in as a real
godsend.

"You're come up to look after work on this North Pacific Railroad, I
guess?" he commenced-he was a Southern Irish man, but "guessed" all the
same--"well, now, look here, the North Pacific Railroad will never be
like the U.P. (Union Pacific) I worked there, and I know what it was; it
was bully, I can tell you. A chap lay in his bunk all day and got two
dollars and a half for doing it; ay, and bit the boss on the head with
his shovel if the boss gave him any d---- chat. No, sirree, the North
Pacific will never be like that."

I could not help thinking that it was perhaps quite as well for the North
Pacific Railroad Company and the boss if they never were destined to
rival the Union Pacific Company as pictured by my companion; but I did
not attempt to say so, as it might have come under the heading of
"d---- chat," worthy only of being replied to by that convincing argument,
the shovel.

A good night's sleep and a swim in the St. Louis river banished all trace
of toil. I left Fond-du-Lac early in the afternoon, and, descending by a
small steamer the many-winding St. Louis River, soon came in sight of the
town of Duluth. The heat had become excessive; the Bay of St. Louis, shut
in on all sides by lofty hills, lay under a mingled mass of thunder-cloud
and sunshine; far out in Lake Superior vivid lightnings flashed over the
gloomy water and long rolls of thunder shook the hills around. On board
our little steamboat the atmosphere was stifling, and could not have been
short of 100 degrees in the coolest place (it was 93 at six o'clock same
evening in the hotel at Duluth); there was nothing for it but to lie
quietly on a wooden bench and liste