GOOD-BYE—FLOATING DOWN THE RACKETT—A BLACK FOX—A TRICK UPON THE MARTIN TRAPPERS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

We rose with the dawn the next morning, and before the sun was above the hills we were on our way down the lake, to separate as we struck the Rackett; the Doctor and Smith to return by the way of Keeseville and the Champlain, and Spalding and myself to drift down that pleasant stream to Pottsdam, and thence to the majestic St. Lawrence, to spend a fortnight among the "Thousand Islands" of that noble river. Near the outlet of the lake is a bold rocky bluff, rising right up out of the deep water twenty feet, against which the waves dash, and around which a romantic bay steals away to hide itself in the old woods. This beautiful bay is always calm, for even the narrow strait which connects it with the open water is divided by a rocky, but wooded island, shutting out alike the winds and the waves from disturbing its repose. It is surrounded by gigantic forest trees, whose shadows make it a cool retreat in the heat of noon, and whose dense foliage fills the air with freshness and fragrance when the sun is hot in the sky. Towards its head, a cold stream comes creeping around the boulders, and dancing and singing down the rocks from a copious spring, a short way back in the forest. Near where this brook enters we landed at seven o\'clock to breakfast. We supplied ourselves with fish by casting across the mouth of the little stream, while our boatmen were preparing a fire. Our sail of eight miles down the lake furnished us with appetites which gave to the beautiful speckled trout we caught there a peculiar relish. We arranged matters so that the Doctor and Smith were to return in one boat to the Saranacs, while Spalding and myself were to move on down the Rackett with the other two. Cullen and Wood were to go with us to Pottsdam, from whence our route lay by railroad to Ogdensburgh. We had, on entering the woods, dispatched our baggage to the former place to await our arrival there. At nine o\'clock we launched out upon the lake again. There are two outlets which enter the Rackett, half a mile apart, down the right hand one of which the Doctor and Smith\'s course lay, and ours down the left. We shook hands with our friends, and lay upon our oars while they passed on towards home, wishing them a pleasant voyage, and a safe return.

"I say," shouted Smith, as they were about rounding a point that would hide them from our view, "remember our compact about killing the bear. The glory of that achievement belongs to me, you know. Don\'t say a word about it when you get home till you see me. I haven\'t fully made up my mind as to the manner of capturing him, and there must be no contradictions on the subject."

"Go ahead," replied Spalding, "we\'ll be careful of your honor. drop us a line at Cape Vincent, when you\'ve digested the matter, and we\'ll stand by you. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!" And our friends disappeared from our sight on their voyage home.

"And so," said Spalding, "we are to leave this beautiful lake, and these old forests so soon. I could linger here a month still, enjoying these shady and primitive solitudes. To you and I, the quiet which one finds here is vastly more inviting than it is to the friends who have just left us. The Doctor, of necessity, leads a life of activity, feeling physical weariness as the result of his labors, but little of that strong yearning for intellectual repose which those in your profession or mine so often feel. Smith\'s life demands excitement. The absence of the cares and toil of business occasions a restlessness and desire of change, which makes him discontented here. With them the great charm of this wild region is its novelty. They enjoy its beauties for a season with peculiar relish, but as these become familiar, the spell is broken, and they turn towards home without a regret To you and I, there is something beyond this. We, too, feel and appreciate the beauty of these lakes and mountains The hill-sides and placid waters, the forest songs, and wild scenery are pleasant to us; but we enjoy them the more from the intellectual relaxation, the mental quiet and repose, which we find among them. We feel that we are resting, that the process of recuperation, intellectual as well as physical, is going on within us. We can almost trace its progress, and we feel that the time spent by us here is full of profit as well as pleasure. At all events, it is so with me, and if duty to others, whose interests it is my business to serve, did not demand my return, I could enjoy another month here with unabated pleasure."

"You have left me little," I replied, "to add to what you have already said, in expressing the sources of my enjoyment among these beautiful lakes. Fishing and hunting, considered in the abstract, are things I care but little about. They are pleasant enough in their way, but what brings me here is the strong desire as well as necessity for the repose of which you speak. There is a luxury in intellectual rest, when the brain is wearied with protracted toil, which far surpasses the mere animal enjoyment which follows relaxation from physical labor. That rest I cannot find in society. I must seek it among wild and primeval solitudes, where I can be alone with nature in her unadorned simplicity, away from the barbarisms, so to speak, of civilization, where I can act and talk and think as a natural, and not an artificial man, where I can be off my guard, and free from the weight of that armor which the conventionalities of life, the captions espionage of the world compels us to wear, un-tempted by the thousand enticements which society everywhere presents to lure us into unrest."

We drifted leisurely down the left hand channel, and entered the Rackett, bidding good-bye to the beautiful lake as a bend in the river hid it from our view. A mile below the junction, the river runs square against a precipice some sixty feet in height, wheeling off at a right angle, and stretching away though a natural meadow on either hand, of hundreds of acres in extent. At the base of this precipice, formed by the rocky point of a hill, the water is of unknown depth. Above, and fifty feet from the surface of the river, there are ledges of a foot or two in width, like shelves, along which the fox, the fisher, and possibly the panther, creep, instead of travelling over the high ridge extending back into the forest. As we rounded a point which brought us in view of this precipice, Spalding, who was in the forward boat, discovered a black object making its way along the face of the rocks. A signal for silence was given, and the boats were permitted to float with the current in the direction of the precipice. We were forty rods distant, and the animal, whatever it was, had no suspicion of danger. It paused midway across the rocks, looked about, nosing out over the water, and sat down upon its haunches, as if enjoying the beauty of the scenery around it. In the meantime, the boats had drifted within twenty rods, and Spalding, taking deliberate aim, fired. At the crack of the rifle, the animal leapt dear of the ledge, struck once against the face of the rock some twenty feet below, and then went, end over end, thirty feet into the river. As he struck the water he commenced swimming round and round in a circle, evidently bewildered by Spalding\'s bullet, or the effect of his involuntary plunge down the rocks. Our men bent to their oars, and had got within five or six rods of it, when it straightened up in alarm for the shore.

"Hold on, Cullen," said I, "lay steady for a moment." I drew upon the animal, and just as it reached the shore, fired, and it turned over dead. We found it to be a black fox, that had walked out upon the ledge, ............