It was the river, however, that attracted me most, for there was no end to its beauty and variety. In rain and sunshine, it made no difference, it kept its way, changing with every cloud and breath of air, always offering some new and better view. Of the ferry, Mr. Hayward, discarding all the devices of our competitors, adopted in their place a method better than them all; and in this I will not except the McDuffs, who made so much of their new-fangled power and patent steering-gear. Nothing could be more picturesque, either, than our device. For going up the river a little way, Mr. Hayward attached a stout wire to a great tree that grew on an island there, and uncoiling the wire, brought it down, and connected it to a rope fastened to each end of the great boat. Drawing this rope taut at the prow, the latter pointed up the stream, and so, loosening the craft from the shore, the current carried it swiftly to the other side. Of all Mr. Hayward’s methods for saving labor and cutting down expenses not one exceeded this, I thought. To prevent the wire dragging in the water, it was upheld by buoys, and these always facing about in the direction the great boat was going, added to the beauty and animation of the scene. These devices were the subject of much ridicule at first, and more especially on the part of the McDuffs, but on trial, the community coming to regard them with favor, the subject was not referred to again. Of the doings of these McDuffs little that was good could be said. Not only were they innovators in respect to the use of steam, but given, as we proved more than once, to the cutting of rates and other underhand dealings of a like nature. Such practices Mr. Hayward despised as unworthy of common carriers, nor would he be a party to them in any way; unless, indeed, it might be in the case of a large customer, but then only sparingly and under close cover, so that there could be no known excuse save weakness or pure spite for the cutting of rates on the part of others. The McDuffs were also given to misrepresenting distances, to the injury of our ferry, so far as their stories were believed by the simple-minded. In this and other ways they were a constant source of irritation and injury to trade, and to such a degree that as a way out Mr. Hayward, with great circumspection of conduct, finally proposed a trust, or consolidation of the properties. This project came nigh to happening, too, and indeed was thought to be as good as done, when word of it somehow came to the ears of the public. Upon this the community flew into a rage, accusing us of monopolistic tendencies and other and worse things, so that in the end the undertaking fell through. In the warfare that was made upon us at this time, strangely enough the most bitter were those who never made any use of the ferry to speak of. This I could not understand until Mr. Hayward explained it.