to win
that fame, leaving behind him a number of finished and unfinished
writings, most of which were afterward published.

He could handle oars as well as write of them, could skate like his
hero in "Love and Skates," and was good at all manly sports. He
traveled much, visited Europe twice, lived two years at the Isthmus of
Panama, and returning from there across the plains (an adventurous trip
at that time), learned in those far western wilds to manage and
understand the half-tamed horses and untamed savages about whom he
writes so well. This varied experience gave a freedom and power to his
pen that the readers of the ST. NICHOLAS are not too young to perceive
and appreciate.]

Almost sunset. I pulled my boat's head round, and made for home.

I had been floating with the tide, drifting athwart the long shadows
under the western bank, shooting across the whirls and eddies of the
rapid strait, grappling to one and another of the good-natured sloops
and schooners that swept along the highway to the great city, near at
hand.

For an hour I had sailed over the fleet, smooth glimmering water, free
and careless as a sea-gull. Now I must 'bout ship and tussle with the
whole force of the tide at the jaws of Hellgate. I did not know that
not for that day only, but for life, my floating gayly with the stream
was done.

I pulled in under the eastern shore, and began to give way with all my
boyish force.

I was a little fellow, only ten years old, but my pretty white skiff
was little, in proportion, and so were my sculls, and we were all used
to work together.

As I faced about, a carriage came driving furiously along the turn of
the shore. The road followed the water's edge. I was pulling close to
the rocks to profit by every eddy. The carriage whirled by so near me
that I could recognize one of the two persons within. No mistaking that
pale, keen face. He evidently saw and recognized me also. He looked out
at the window and signaled the coachman to stop. But before the horses
could be pulled into a trot he gave a sign to go on again. The carriage
disappeared at a turn of the shore.

This encounter strangely dispirited me. My joy in battling with the
tide, in winning upward, foot by foot, boat's length after boat's
length, gave place to a forlorn doubt whether I could hold my
own--whether I should not presently be swept away.

The tide seemed to run more sternly than I had ever known it. It made a
plaything of