CONTENTS. PAGE CASTLE NOWHERE ....... 7 PETER THE PARSON ...... 99 . JEANNETTE . . ....... . . . 136 THE OLD AGENCY . . . . MISERY LANDING ......, 176 208 SOLOMON . . . ...... WlLHELMINA . ST. CLAIR FLATS . ...... THE LADY OF LITTLE FISHING . 236 270 . . ..... . 832740 304 351 THREE of these stories originally appeared in the At- lantic Monthly, two in Scribners Monthly, and one each in Harpers Magazine, The Galaxy, and Appletons Journal. CASTLE NOWHERE. many years ago the shore bordering the head -LN of Lake Michigan, the northern curve of that silver sea, was a wilderness unexplored. It is a wil- derness still, showing even now on the school-maps nothing save an empty waste of colored paper, gen- erally a pale, cold yellow suitable to the climate, all the way from Point St. Ignace to the iron ports on the Little Bay de Noquet, or Badderknock in lake phraseology, a hundred miles of nothing, according to the map-makers, who, knowing nothing of the re- gion, set it down accordingly, withholding even those long-legged letters, Chip-pe-was, Eic-ca-rees, that stretch accommodatingly across so much townless ter- ritory farther west. This northern curve is and always has been off the route to anywhere and mortals, even Indians, prefer as a general rule, when once started, to go somewhere. The earliest Jesuit explorers and the captains of yesterdays schooners had this in com- mon, that they could not, being human, resist a cross- cut and thus, whether bark canoes of two centuries ago or the high, narrow propellers of to-day, one and all, coming and going, they veer to the southeast or west, and sail gayly out of sight, leaving this north- ern curve of ours unvisited and alone. A wildernessstill, but not unexplored for that railroad of the future which is to make of British America a garden of roses, and turn the wild trappers of the Hudsons Bay Company into gently smiling congressmen, has it not sent its missionaries thither, to the astonishment and joy of the beasts that dwell therein Accord- ing to tradition, these men surveyed the territory, and then crossed over those of them at least whom the beasts had spared to the lower peninsula, where, the pleasing variety of swamps being added to the labyrinth of pines and sand-hills, they soon lost themselves, and to this day have never found what they lost. As the gleam of a camp-fire is occasion- ally seen, and now and then a distant shout heard by the hunter passing along the outskirts, it is sup- posed that they stilL are in there somewhere, surveying Not long ago, however, no white mans foot had penetrated within our curve. Across the great river and over the deadly plains, down to the burning clime of Mexico and up to the arctic darkness, journeyed our countrymen, gold to gather and strange countries to see but this little pocket of land and water passed they by without a glance, inasmuch as no iron mountains rose among its pines, no copperlay hidden in its sand ridges, no harbors dented its shores. Thus it re- mained an unknown region, and enjoyed life accord- ingly...