We made no haste to leave the hospitable dock at Woodmont. The day was ideal and our camera was chaffing under long idleness. I had passed this point a score of times on daylight trains of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and longed for an opportunity to tarry here. On our voyage in "Sometub" we realized the oft-repeated wish and made the most of it.

A heartless motor, however, robbed the "heart of Maryland" of much of its heartsomeness—for us. Leaving Woodmont about the middle of the forenoon on Wednesday, July 19, we ran past the ancient settlement of Sir John's Run, proceeded on under the shadow of Round Mountain, in Maryland, and picturesque Lover's Leap, in West Virginia, and glided into the prosperous looking town of Hancock shortly after 2 o'clock. Hancock gained fame in the winter of 1861-62 when Stonewall Jackson, from the hills south of the Potomac, deigned to throw a few shells into this Maryland village. It was not a sanguinary battle, but at that early period in the war it was considered a bold thing for the Confederate leader to do, and for the time being disturbed the "alls-quiet-along-the-Potomac" that had become stereotyped in the reports of the military situation farther down the stream. At Hancock a short spur of the Baltimore and Ohio runs up to Berkley Springs, a watering place that boasts of patronage by Virginia aristocrats back in George Washington's time.

Resolved that we would forego the luxury of luncheon on board, we tied up under the highway bridge, left "Sometub" in charge of the toll-keeper and strolled into town. At the hotel we were too late for dinner and were told that the dining room would not be open for the service of supper until 6 o'clock. In desperation we sought a restaurant—and in two minutes regretted that we had not prepared our own luncheon on the boat.

Isn't it peculiar how the smallest trifles will alter the most elaborate plans? A trifling ham sandwich in a two by four restaurant caused us to evacuate Hancock forthwith. We had intended to remain here a day or longer, run over to Berkley Springs and perhaps go fishing. Instead we left town so precipitately that we forgot to stop at the postoffice and ask if our mail had been forwarded.

When we lighted our lantern we were annoyed for the first time by a swarm of mosquitoes. We had been warned before the trip that these insects on the canal were related to the Jersey "man-eaters" and would make life miserable on our cruise. We were prepared for their ravages, but fortunately a little breeze sprang up after nightfall and they gave us no more trouble. They were the only militant mosquitoes that we saw between Cumberland and Georgetown.

As if gloating over our discomfiture in having lost our motive power, a double-bass bullfrog started in to make the night hideous. His favorite singing dias was in the pool right under the bow of the boat. When a stone was thrown in his direction he retreated into deep water, but invariably returned. Late in the night I hit upon the expedient of pouring a pint of 30-cent gasoline on the water. The croaker croaked no more.

In the morning a little tinkering was rewarded by the motor showing signs of renewing operations and we started in high hopes, but after a few hundred rods it was apparent that we were making little speed and we limped into the tiny hamlet of Ernestville where we stopped for supplies and fresh water. Ernestville is a poor shopping center and fresh water and kerosene were about all we could obtain.

Along this stretch of the canal it is paralleled for a considerable distance by the old National Pike, which on this particular morning was thronged by automobile tourists. As they sped by we knew that they would be in Hagerstown in an hour. We wondered if we would reach there in a day. It was apparent now that we must take our crippled motor to a garage and Hagerstown was the nearest point where we could obtain the services of a mechanic skilled in repairing marine engines. To reach Hagerstown from the canal we decided to stop at Williamsport and this was now our goal.

Then into our lives came a heroic figure. Just at that moment he appeared the greatest man in the world—philanthropist, navigator, philosopher! He was the skipper of Canal Boat No. 18 which swept majestically down the pool. His boat appeared as big and formidable as the new superdreadnaught Pennsylvania. Dexterous work with the paddle enabled us to get in its lee. Up there on his quarterdeck stood the skipper. I since believe that he must have resembled Noah, but to we two—we felt like castaways—he was indeed a mighty admiral. But he was the admiral of a friendly power and amid all his dignity there was a benign expression also of stern consideration for a brother mariner in distress. We gazed at him and his noble craft in mute appeal.

"Ketch the line!"

Like spent swimmers grasping for a straw, we seized the line and made it fast. For the second time "Sometub" was humiliated by being towed by a prosaic freight boat.

Two miles an hour is top speed for a laden canal boat and No. 18's tired mules kept well inside this limit. At the end of the towline we nosed along in perfect complacency. We chatted with the skipper, admired the scenery, examined our maps of the route, chaffed the villagers, ate our luncheon, jogged the motor, read a little, took short naps and made ourselves absolutely comfortable. Our only effort was to keep on the shady side of the boat, for the weather was the hottest we had endured. As a remedy for tired nerves I can testify to the curative qualities of canalboating.

The skipper was a man of parts. He had run the canal for more than 20 years. He had walked every inch of the towpath from Cumberland to Washington every hour of the day and night and he declared that he could pace those 184 miles with his eyes blindfolded. He recognized every hill and house and tree and could tell their history. He knew all the neighborhood gossip, and all the neighbors knew him.

Toward the end of the drowsy afternoon we floated into the little village of Four Locks which takes its name from the fact that a chain of four locks are here. No. 18 cast us off and we prepared to paddle through. To our surprise the motor condescended to run. At the time I was ready to believe that it heard the mule driver's sublime cussing and was frightened into obedience.

With the motor running again we soon passed No. 18 and snorted off around a sharp bend, through Two Locks where we were lowered into the waters of the Potomac. I say "snorted" advisedly. "Sometub" exhibited colt-like behavior when unleashed from the slow-moving canal craft. The towpath follows the northern bank of the river and the boats hug the shore closely, but we careened far out into the stream. "Sometub" had found a nautical playground more spacious than it had ever enjoyed before.

After a two-mile run on the river we entered another lock and once more were confined to the comparatively narrow channel of the canal. We found all conditions favorable and at sunset we crossed the great stone aqueduct over the winding Conococheague and a few minutes later tied up at the Williamsport lock.

I was now on familiar ground. Eleven years before I had visited historic Williamsport in quest of newspaper "feature stories," and a decade had witnessed but little change in the place. In the early days of the Federal government Williamsport was a pretentious bidder as the seat for the national capital. In the Civil War it was a sort of Pryzmyl, having been taken and retaken by the armies of both the north and the south, but the town itself was of no importance except as the key to strategic positions beyond. Here in June, 1863, the vanguard of Lee's conquering legions crossed the Potomac when they swept down the Shenandoah and crossed triumphantly into Pennsylvania, and here less than a month later their ragged columns made a bold stand against Meade's victorious forces while the retreating Confederates waited for the flood to subside so that they could withdraw into Virginia. Along the street that leads down to the river are many of the old houses whose walls resounded with the tread of those valiant armies—Union and Confederate. In those houses, too, many a soldier suffered the agony of wounds received in the desperate charges at Gettysburg. Of those southern heroes who raced with death from that immortal field, scores gave up their lives here in sight of their native Virginia hills.

Williamsport today is another of those outposts for supplying alcoholic drinks to bleary-eyed pilgrims from West Virginia and in consequence does not afford hotel accommodations for the ordinary traveler. After trying in vain to get dinner, we boarded a trolley car and 40 minutes later reached Hagerstown where we stopped for the night, enjoying the solid luxury of a "room with bath connecting."

Mr. Pattison accompanied us to Williamsport in the afternoon to see "Sometub" and to join a little reunion with Col. George W. McCardell, the veteran editor of the Williamsport Leader. Editor McCardell had been looking for me for eleven years and we were somewhat in doubt as to the outcome of the interview. The reason for his desire to lay hands on me was, as nearly as I can remember, the following paragraph which was printed over my name in the Pittsburgh Gazette in the summer of 1905:

The Williamsport Leader is more than a journalistic enterprise—it is a well founded institution. It is the oracle of rockribbed Democracy, the unflinching champion of pure Jeffersonism and unfaltering Andyjacksonism.... The editor will take two pairs of Maryland frying-size chickens on subscription, but of his Virginia subscribers he requires three pairs in advance because, he says, the Maryland pullets are better and more tender.

I resolved to meet the editor and finish the argument. Mr. Pattison led the way to a new and prosperously attractive sanctum. It was publication day—Friday—and Col. McCardell, after a strenuous week, stood with folded arms beside an imposing stone with type still wet from the day's "run." My wife, who embodies the traditions of five generations of the editor's brand of politics but who stood ready to defend the quality of Virginia chicken against the world, was the first to enter the den of the journalistic lion. It was a clever ruse on Mr. Pattison's part, for first of all Col. McCardell is a chivalrous southern gentleman. Why, of course, Virginia fried chicken is the finest in the land. And Virginia women compose the very flower of American womanhood. Their presence here is welcomed like the May-time sunshine. The Potomac ripples softly when they cross the river and in the trees on the Maryland shore the summer zephyrs sing sweet benisons to the fair daughters of the Old Dominion.

And when I entered the feud of eleven years had vanished. I could only blush and bow my acknowledgements.

With fond good-byes to Col. McCardell and Mr. Pattison we departed in the mid-afternoon bound for Mercerville by twilight in the hope that we would have the following day to spend on Antietam battlefield. But we had not reckoned with the elements. Four miles below Williamsport a terrific storm burst upon us. So sudden was the tempest that we were obliged to tie to the towpath bank to prevent the furious gales of wind from capsizing the boat. For a few minutes it seemed that our canopy would be torn to tatters. Our lines gave way and I climbed out to steady the heaving craft. Then it rained in such torrents that it momentarily took away my breath. Vivid flashes of lightning and deafening thunder followed in instant succession. The wind wrenched big sycamores from their roots and they crashed across the miry towpath like jackstraws thrown by an angry giant. The storm lasted more than an hour but a steady patter of rain followed. Our supplies stored under the deck and protected by the poncho were dry, but our clothes were dripping and the temperature had turned chill and raw. Darkness was coming on and we prepared to tie up for the night. How bright and warm looked the blue flame from the canned alcohol while we boiled our coffee!

It was a gloomy outlook, but southern hospitality which proved the silver lining to every dark cloud on our cruise, once more intervened. A farmer rode down the towpath and invited us to go to his house for the night. Our good Samaritan was Mr. J. H. Wine, whose home nestles snugly under the mountain beside the canal. We accepted with haste that we hoped would indicate our extreme gratitude and soon had our dripping duds spread out on the backs of chairs before the range in the spacious kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Wine tendered us the guest room and we sought slumber early. Only the outdoor enthusiast would have been worthy of the frugal breakfast in the morning. We thanked our good hosts and prepared to depart. The question of remuneration for favors invariably was spurned by the hospitable people on the canal.

The sun came out gloriously and we hoped to reach Mercerville by noon. We did, but there the motor balked again and we spent two hours trying to fix it. We gave up the thought of visiting Antietam and about the time the shadows began to lengthen, started solemnly toward Shepherdstown, five honest miles down the canal. We paddled and towed alternately, making even slower progress than in the wake of No. 18. Darkness came on and we were still on the lonely path. About 9 o'clock we reached a lock and were told that Shepherdstown was still a mile beyond. A storm was gathering and the lockmaster invited us to tie up and spend the night in his house notwithstanding that it would place several members of his large family at an inconvenience. We agreed to leave the boat, but insisted on going to Shepherdstown where we could find a hotel and a garage mechanic.

In our race with the storm we were the first under the wire. Fleeing across the bridge over the Potomac we breathlessly climbed the hill and along a dark street to the center of the town whither we had been directed to the hotel. Suddenly we rounded a corner into an electric-lighted thoroughfare and stood before the entrance of the Rumsey House. Our clothes were wrinkled and we were splashed with mud from head to foot. We still carried our lighted lantern and the crowd at the hotel gazed at us with expressions twixt curiosity and amazement. The proprietor was moved to commiseration.

"Come in here, you-all, right away," he said.