e barkeeper and said he "guessed
he'd have to take it back." The unsuspecting purveyor of liquor that
both cheers and inebriates, grumbled considerably, emptied the bottle of
water into the demijohn of whisky, handed back the bottle to the
apparently disconsolate seeker after credit, and told him to "get out."

Naturally, no second order was necessary. Five minutes later, the entire
party could have been seen sharing the contents of the bottle which had
not been emptied, but which they lost no time in emptying. The trick
answered its purpose admirably. When, about two weeks later, the man who
had played it was again in the town, he called at the saloon to pay for
the whisky. He was treated very kindly, but hints were freely given as
to the necessity of a keeper accompanying him on his travels. In other
words, the bar-keeper declined distinctly to believe that he had been
hoodwinked as stated. This feature of the joke was, in the opinion of
its perpetrators, the most amusing feature of all, and it need hardly be
said that very little effort was made to disabuse the unbelieving but
somewhat over-credulous bar-keeper.

The Columbia River is one of the most interesting and remarkable on the
continent. Rising, as it does, quite near the source of the Missouri
River, it runs, by a very circuitous route, to the Pacific Ocean, being
in places very narrow, and in others abnormally wide. The Dalles of the
Columbia are known the world over. They are situated some sixty or
seventy miles west of the city of Portland, and are within easy distance
of the American Mount Blanc. They extend from Dalles Station, a small
town on the Union Pacific Railroad, to Celilo, another station about
fifteen miles farther east. Between these two points the bed of the
Columbia is greatly reduced in width, and its boundaries are two huge
walls of rock, which rise almost perpendicularly from the water level.
The width of the chasm, through which the water rushes wildly, varies
considerably, but at no point in the western section does it exceed 130
feet, although on either side of the Dalles the width of the river
itself ranged from about 2,000 to much more than 2,500 feet.

As the volume of water is enormous at this point, especially after rain
and much melting of snow, there is often a rise of fifty feet in a few
hours in the narrow channel of the Dalles. Sometimes the rise exceeds
seventy feet, and an effect most extraordinary in character results.
F