SPIKED BOOTS: SKETCHES OF THE NORTH COUNTRY.

By Robert E. Pike'25. Eatontown, N.J., 1959. 193 pp. $3.50.

Dartmouth alumni who have met in New Hampshire's North Country various characters they would like to know better now have that opportunity, even though vicariously.

Like many undergraduates and alumni, the author fished, hunted and explored the headwaters of the Connecticut and the Androscoggin. In the process of those enjoyable pursuits he met many notable residents and was introduced to still others by the venerable Old Vern.

But unlike most of us, he kept notes of these informal interviews and set forth his character sketches in print, thus assuring literary immortality to such colorful individuals as my onetime colleague, the late and lamented Jigger Johnson, whom Old Vern described as "the only man I ever knew who could drink pure alcohol straight - I've seen others try it, but they never lived to tell about it."

A chapter is devoted to Old Man Palmer, who made five violins at his hermitage up the Swift Diamond in the College Grant, where he lived his last fifteen years, but couldn't play a tune. Another chapter describes the fabulous George Van Dyke, first big-time stumpage operator on the College Grant.

These characters and many more are described in fascinating detail by an author who earned their confidence and thereby learned their outlook on life. They were rugged souls in an era fast drawing to a close. It is fitting their memory should be thus perpetuated.