found him full of _railroad frogs_.” That story brings to mind the champion storyteller of northern Michigan who acted as occasional oarsman for the Skegemog guests. He was generally known as the “Cheerful Liar,” and his kinship to Baron Munchausen was put beyond the shadow of a doubt by the variety and character of his stories. After a somewhat careful study of the man, at least one of his occasional companions became convinced that he did not prevaricate consciously. His was simply a case of an over-grown and exuberant imagination. Given a tiny bit of fact as a starter, that imagination began to caper about without let or hindrance until the most incredible story resulted. He was a great comrade, always good-natured, always personally interested in the fishing, a lover of the woods and the water, ready at all times with an interesting story and never telling the same one twice. What more can one reasonably ask in an oarsman? In earlier days he had lived in another part of the state, and most of his alleged adventures were localized on or near Clearwater Lake. As accurately as we could compute, the fish which he claimed to have caught in this one lake would have been sufficient to cover the southern peninsula of Michigan to a depth of seventeen feet, six inches, and then leave some four hundred fish unused. One of the most fascinating of his many delightful yarns concerned his adventure with a giant pickerel: “Cousin Jim Smith and I,” the narrator began, “were fishin’ one lowery day on Clearwater Lake in a cranky little boat, when Jim hooked on to a pick’rel. The fish put up a tough fight and Jim got excited and kept standin’ up in the boat and I a-yellin’ to him to se’down. Bimeby Jim got ‘im into the boat, and then jumped up again, and over we went. When I saw we were goin’ I grabbed for the line and got holt just above the spoon. That pick’rel pulled and I hung on and he took me clear to the bottom in eighteen foot of water. When we got down there, I grabbed that fish with both hands, tucked him under my left arm, gave a big spring and shot up to the top of the water. What does that pick’rel do as soon as we reached the top, but slip out from under my arm and make for the bottom again, me hangin’ on to the line close to the spoon. When we reached the bottom I tucked him under my arm again, gave another spring, came to the top; the fish squirmed out again, and--well, I don’t know how many times we made the trip up and back, but just when I was about tuckered, some fellows in another boat came up and pulled us both in. That pick’rel weighed twenty-two pounds.” The thoughtful critic will easily separate the element of historic fact from the mythical accretions in this story, and be able to retain Jim and a fishing trip and a big “pick’rel,” even if compelled to reject the account of the numerous subaqueous excursions.