Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/301

268 and, at the last moment, wanted us to buy a gallon of "old stock ale, seven year old."

It took us some hours to forget the barbarian. A handsome young trapper, logman, and railroad worker, lower down, who knew him well, told us that the lout was known along the river as a coward, a braggart, and "a man that was no good, anyhow."

The Susquehanna is, in one respect, quite unlike any other river on which I have canoed. There is an endless recurrence of half-mile and mile long deep stretches, and then a brawling rapid. The river rarely makes a bend without shoaling to a foot or two of water; and this is invariably ended by a bar, with a swift descent beyond. These shallow places have been utilized as "eel-racks," by driving stakes or piling stones in a zig-zag line across the river. From Towanda down to Wilkesbarre, with a bold, wooded hill, or "mountain," always on one side, and sometimes on both, the deep stretches become deeper and longer; but in a very few places is the "slow water" more than two or three miles in length.

We had brought a small tent with us, and we carried some provisions,—prepared coffee, Liebig's extract of beef, a jar of delicious butter (which we broke and lost on the third day), a can of corned beef, some "hard tack," and some