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3port f{oi)aI
I Warrant You!
■T'a'cljth A7(.'//A
THOMAS MARTINDALE
PRICK, OXK DOLLAR.
COPYRIGHTED 1897
BY
THOMAS MARTINDALE.
PRESS OF
H. W. SHAW CO.
PHIIAOELPHIA.
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THCMAS MAR"! l^ f ' , '.
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THOMAS MARTI\DALE.
i
...(onteots
A jjoloyetii" 5
I >e(licati()ii 6
Mooschcad I,akt* 7
Cupid in the Wilderness i^
Calling the Moose ly
An rnexpectc<l Treat 26
Killing; the Carihon 29
More of the Moose 34
The (Ircat Northwest 41
North Dakota 8^
Hrant Shooting .S8
The yuaint Cai)e Codders 94
The Wrecker g^
A Wary Hird 104
A Glimpse at the "White" no
A I'ij^ht to the Death 120
A Lost Man and a Wonndcd Moose 12s
Adv: .itures of a Deer Ilnnter in Maine i^^
A Parting Shot ,46
APOLOQETIC.
IF it he true- that " ^ood wine net-ds no hnsh," it on^-ht
to he irne that a Rood hook mods no ai)oh)j;y. " Hut."
my reader may ask. "is yonr hook a Kood one. or <U)es
Its j-ocxhiess rest oidy on the modest opinion of its
author.'" Dear reader. I may safelvsav. with.mt stretch-
ing; the hounds of modesty, that any hook whose aim is
to lengthen and make hetter the hfeoftlie American hus-
mess man and to show him the most enjovahle wav to do
It. must ))e a K0...1 honk. •• J^ut whv tlie Americaii husi-
ness man rather than .-ni..ther>- Ht-cause lie is tlie man
whose manner of life, affords the hroadesl room for
improvement. Ik- is the man who in his fierce chase
ill er tlie almiKhly dollar forgets that there are such tliiiiKs
as heidth and happiness and pi-rsonal comfort, or if he
rememhers them it is only to see that tliev step to the side
and not stand in the way of his chase. To stop for rest
or recreation would he extravagance, especiallv as he
knows no need of t-ilher. A knowledge of the need,
however, is sure to come, and when it does he niav thank
his stars if it hasn't come too late. Vou cannot teach an
old doK new tricks nor can y.m disentangle the liahits of
a life time from their worry and care and weave the worn
threads into youthful toj.;gery.
Too late I Too late !
I am aware of the dangers that lie in wait for the
hook-writer. "Oh. that mine adversary had written a
book I- was the burden of Jobs prayer, 3,500 vears ago,
and it IS doubtful whether the roll of passing centuries
has as yet flattened out the peril. Flattering myself,
however, that I am no man's adversary. I will lake the
risk and launch my little volume, hoping for it fair
weather, favoring gales, and a broad harbor from which
to spread its wholesome freight wherever it may do the
"'^"* S"'^^^- TIIOS. M.
TO A. B. F. KINNEY.
*7f FRIEND of thirty years' acquaintance, and the best
LY all-around sportsman I have ever met; a man
^ ^^equally expert with rifle, gun or flyrod ; who lias
killed game of every species that the American
Continent affords, from the grizzly bear to the ubiquitous
rabbit, from the wild goose and its rival in migratory flight
— the mysterious brant — to the solitude-loving woodcock,
and who is besides what the world affectionately calls "a
royal good fellow. " To him this book is respectfully
dedicated by his sincere friend,
Thomas Martindai.e.
MOOSEHEAD LAKE.
Tliis way lies the j;i""i-''
— King Heniy VI.
WE left Philadelphia Saturday night, September 12th,
at 6.50, l)y the Boston express. It was hot, close and
miserably uncomfortable. The sleeping car felt like
an oven and we turned in before New York was reached,
as that was the coolest thing to do. Sunday in Boston
was rainy, raw and cold. On Monday morning, in Ban-
gor, we had to put on heavy flannels and get out overcoats.
It was election day in Maine ; yet, although it was
expected that the Republican ticket would be elected by
30,000 majority, we saw no excitement along the railroad
in our ride from Bangor to Greenville, at the head of Moose-
head Lake. No bands, no men around the polling places,
with badges on. An occasional flag floated in the frosty
air but that was all. Yet there was a silent unseen some-
thing betokening an enormous Republican vote. (We're
in the woods now and lune heard nothing of the result as
yet.) During our ride in the car a prophetic native sitting
behind us broke loose in this fashion: "Darned if I
wouldn't bet a dollar that the State would go u-nan-
i-mus for Powers, if it weren't for the fac" that some
ornery cuss would hear of my bet and go and vote for
t'other fellow, just so as I would lose it."
7
There are a number of little steamboats oti Moose-
head Lake, which ply backwards and forwards, carrying
freight and passengers. Upon a time-card, a sort of
"free and easy, go as you please schedule," we were told
our boat would leave promptly at six in the morning. So
on Tuesday we were up before five o'clock to see to our
stores, baggage and hunting outfit being aboard on time,
had breakfast in a hurry, first asking the landlord to tell
the captain of the boat that we would be aboard at six and
not to start without us. At six we were pacing the deck
of the steamer, listening to the captain and pilot swearing
at the engineer, who had not yet put in an appearance,
and the boat couldn't well go without the engineer. Half
after six came and we still waited ; the whistle was blown
repeatedljs but no sign of the man who handled the stop-
cocks. At eighteen minutes to .seven the "knight of the
stopcocks" was seen leisurely coming down a hillside as
calmly as if he were an hour ahead of time. Then we
made a start and crossed to another landing, where we
took in tow a scow with four horses, a partj' of ladies and
some lumbermen . At a quarter to eight we were off for the
"Northeast Carry," where we arrived about an hour and
a half late, which hour and a half caused us an exciting
time.
Northeast Carry is so called because it is a road or
" carry " at the northeast end of the lake ; it is two miles
long, and the other end of the "carry " lands you on the
banks of the Penobscot River. As we were loading our
canoes a party landed from down the river. In the
centre of one of their canoes a lady was seated on a
throne-like chair covered with costly Persian fugs.
PENOBSCOT hiver; loading ca\ofs for a trip into the Wilderness.
Luxurious air cushions supported " my lady's " back, and
formed a rest for her feet. An oriental robe, tinted with
all the hues of the rainbow, was gracefully thrown around
her dainty limbs, mingling its colors with those of the
autumn leaves which were strung in garlands about the
bow of the boat. A pretty scene indeed, but yet imperfect.
It needed a dusky Indian maiden, with no clothes on, to
speak of, waving a peacock fan. Then the picture might
pass, on a pinch, for that of the proud Cleopatra as she
sailed up the Cydnus to tickle the fancy and catch the
heart of her love -sick Antony.
Precisely at two o'clock Tuesday, the fifteenth, we
paddled away from Northeast Carry. We had a glorious
run to the ' 'half-way house, ' ' (ten miles down ) . The river
was bewitchiogly beautiful . The first frosts had delicately
colored the leaves of the maple and beech, while the
great waving masses of ferns that fringe the river's edge
had chinged their greens for various shades of yellow
and brown, and spreading their dainty texture along the
banks seemed anxious to show what nature could do in
the way of embroidery.
Everything looked radiant and happy — save our
three guides who were taciturn and troubled. The reason
was plain. It was half- past four in the afternoon when
we reached the "half-way house." We had stnted that
we desired particularly to be at Chesuncook Lake (twenty
miles down the river) that night, and there would have
been no trouble in doing the journey in daylight if the
steamer Comet had only been more prompt in starting
from Greenville. Now, below us, six miles down, is a
great stretch of rapids called the "Rocky Rips," a mile
and a half long. Belo'- these rapids come the Pine
Stream Falls, half a mile long.
Our three canoes were deeply loaded. Should we
or should we not risk the run ? It was finally decided to
risk it, and away we went, paddling for all we were
worth, but it was dark when we reached the head of the
" Rips," and we were "in for it."
'Tis a beautiful sight in daylight to see the canoes
on these rapids, rushing one after the other from shore to
shore, dodging this rock, sliding over that .shelf, or doub-
ling around some intruding ledge, all the while striving
to keep in the channel, which in some places is not more
than four or five feet wide. At night, however, the sight
is not quite so captivating, especially if the night be a
dark one and you happen to make up a part of the
canoe's cargo.
to
We got through, however, without any greater mis-
hap than breaking the ril) of one canoe and shii)pingsonie
water into another. A few minutes after emerging from
the l)oiling " Rocky Kips" we heard the roar of the falls
about a mile further down. The sound was grand,
and we thought we were going to have another exciting
run, but the guides said that we (the sports) would have
to get out, walk through the woods to the bott(jm of the
falls, f about a half mile.) This was to lighten the
SKv- ^ii^Kf' '
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PENOBSCOT RIVEB: B*Tf*U ON THE RAPIDS AT "HALF-WAV HOUSE.
canoes. They then rearranged the loads and started
down the falls by water while we went down by land, and
it was darker in the woods than it was on the river. We
stumbled and tripped over roots and logs, while the
guides stumbled and tripped over rocks. We got through
all right and .so did they — after a fashion. One man had
to jump out of his canoe to save it and another man
brought his canoe clown leaking. Neither man seemed
exactly happy. However, there's very little pure hap-
piness in this world and perhaps the adulterated article
tastes all the better for its mixture with a little misery.
In a few minutes the loads were changed and we
were off again down the river. After a run of about an
hour we saw the lights of the Chesuncook House looming
up bright and cheery in the distance, and in a little while
we stood within its hospitable doors. We found it chock
full of guides and "sports," and among the latter was a
goodly proportion of "lady sports." No less than four
of the "short skirt" variety, who, with their "little"
rifles, their "little" boots, their "little" jerseys, their
"little" fishing rods and their "little" fellers, made the
scene an interesting and we might say (although hanging
should be the penalty for such a pun) an amooseinf one.
c34P
la
CUPID IN THE WILDERNESS.
This love will iimlo us all. O, Cupid ! Cupid ! Cupid !
— Troilus and Ctessida.
Y f UMAN nature is the same the world over, and Cupid,
pj sly dog that he is, appears to know that the wild
* A^ woods and lakes and rivers of Maine are no excep-
tion to the rule. Ah , me ! if these'same woods and lakes and
rivers had tongues and knew how to use them what queer
tales they could tell, and what incidents would come to
light that now slide into the past unstoried and unrecorded !
Here, in this very wilderness,' hunting, fishing and
pleasure parties yearly congregate, and among the latter
is plenty of fit food for Cupid's powder. Young and
beautiful girls with enough will, skill and ingenuity to
paddle their own canoe and make love at the same time —
if their chaperones are sleepy enough to permit the per-
formance of such a double barreled programme.
These fishing and pleasure parties remain no longer
than the middle or latter part of September, but while
they're here the crafty little winged god is up to his chin
in business, and to be hit with Cupid's arrow is as com-
mon as trouble. Ah,
" Cupid is a knavish lad
Thus to make poor females mad."
But, with all due respect to William Shakespeare I
would remind him that it is not from out the female sex
13
alone that Cupid chooses his candidates for the mad-
house. The "knavish lad " is no respecter of persons or
sex, as the immortal William would soon discover, if his
canonized bones could hurst their cerements, (juit their
narrow bed and revisit the glimpses of the moon that
overlights this summer habitat of the curly-headed god.
Now I coMi to think of it, William's bones needn't
go to all that trouble. The sad, lamenting tone of the
words,
" (), love's bow shoots buck and doe,"
proves that he knew the ainbisexability of Cupid's tricks
quite as well as he seams to have known everything else.
AN OLD "TOTE" ROAD ALONQ THE PENOBSCOT IN EARLY OCTOBER.
Funny indeed are some of the doings and undoings
of engaged couples. Here is an instance which I hope
the interesting couple with a pair of hearts that "beat
as one" will pardon me for giving away. They made
14
the sad discoverj' that their canoe was too small to hold
an embryo bride and her best young man at the same
time ; but love that "laughs at locksmiths" surely would
not cry at a less serious emergency. Its resources are
much too ready for that. They placed two canoes side
by side, anchored them together with a pair of encircling
arms and with a guide to paddle in tin- stern of each
love-laden vessel, went on their way rejoicing.
Now these guides while they know how to paddle
know quite as well how to tattle, and tattle, in truth,
they do
Of the <loinj{s ami the wooiiij^s,
Of the billinj(s ami tlic cooiiij^s.
Of the kissiiigs and the hii^f^iiigs of tlic pair ;
Of the loviiigs, of the scoliliiij^s.
Of the rapturous enfolditi^s —
Oh, Paradise with lots of fun to spare !
Of course, the yuidcs arc only mortals, and as all
this takes place within easy reach of their eyes and ears
they would be more than mortals — or less — if they didn't
tattle, lile.ss your heart, the amount of it they have re-
tailed to me would more thati fdl a book the size of Web-
ster's Unabridged. Vou shall have the benefit of it some
day, as I intend to pick out a few of the best, the very
best of their stories and print them. Then, oh then, look
out for something rich, rare and racy ; but not lunv.
We'll first give these turtle doves a chance to get married.
A new crowd of visitors have appeared in the Maine
woods and waters. Visitors who are bent on killing the
succulent deer, the solitude-loving caribou and the lordly
moose (the noblest Roman of them all.)
15
The visitors, by the force of circumstances, are
obliged to have guides whose particular policy it is to
"speed the parting 'sport' and welcome the coming
one." In the various places where these guides meet,
(ireenville, Kineo, Northeast Carry, Chesuncook House,
Mud Carry, I<:agle Lake or Churchill Lake and hundreds
of other places, there's a great comparing of notes of the
many things said and the many things done by the de-
parted guests. As I have already hinted, I may at some
future time give you the pith of a few of these notes.
It is surprising how many Philadelphians there are
already in the woods for the fall hunting, which started
October ist, and how many more we hear of that are
coming. Kvery hotel register is well sprinkled with
names of residents of our Quaker City, more,' I think,
than from any other place. One of my guides hurt his
knee, so that the limb swelled to double its natural size.
I was considering how I could send him home (a journey
by canoe, of over five days, which with five more days,
for the return of the- guide who took him out, made the
matter a very serious one). He relieved my mind, how-
ever, by telling me he had heard of a doctor who was
camped at the head of a bog a few miles away. I put my
man at once into a canoe and paddled up to the tent ot
the Esculapian disciple whom I found to be an eminent
one and a Philadelphian. After looking at the man's
damaged limb, he said : "Well, I am an expert, or con-
sidered so, on insanity, and perhaps on one or two other of
nature's calamities, but I am not an expert on swelled legs.
However, this is what I advise you to do." And he told
him. The doctor's advice seems to have been — what a
i6
doctor's advice sometimes is not — the proper thing, for
the leg got well, liut before the man could call again to
return his thanks and tell the good doctor of the cure,
that individual had vanished further into the wilderness,
and I've not seen hitn since.
PENOBSCOT RIVER WITH ITS FIRST COAT OF ICE ; OCTOBER 1»TH, ISSS.
The natives hereabout are, in money matters, what
the Scotch call "canny." And canny enough some of
them are, to give any Scotchman points and beat him
with ease. Listen to this. A storekeeper, "a native
here and to the manner born," had a mother. I don't
wish you to infer, however, that he differed in this par-
ticular from any other storekeeper. He was a dutiful
son, and doted on his mother, showing her every mark
of filial affection. This was, of course, very commendable
in him, but she deserved it all, for report says she was a
"grand woman." In the course of human events, the
old lady became "worrited." Life's cares and troubles
came so thick and fast they began to choke up the oil in
J7
her lamp of life. It cotniuenced to flicker and grow dim
and needed only a pufFof apoplexy to i>ut it out entirely.
When the end came the son's grief wa.s touching, and the
more so as there was no jilace he could obtain a coffin
nearer than a town three days' journey away. Mow to
get there and back in time to bury the old lady decently
troubled his mind, and the indecency of burying her in
one of their common pine receptacles was more shocking
to his delicate sense of propriety than planting her in a
dry goods box. At this juncture a man who had long
known and revered the departed woman volunteered his
services to fetch a coffni. With sturdy strokes of his
paddle in the "dead " waters of the river and the deft u.se
of the pole in pushing up over the "quick" waters he
hurried on. After reaching a "carry " he almost ran
across it (two miles) to catch the first boat to the town
where coffins were for sale, made his purcha.se and speeded
back to the "carry." Putting the coffin in his canoe he
started down the river as rapidly as elbow grease and
paddle could drive him. When he landed, the son of the
deceased asked him what his charge would be for the trip.
The man replied that he would make no charge, that the
deceased had always been kind to him, and what he had
done was little enough to show the good will and respect
he had for her, and that he was glad to have been able to
make the trip as he had done. "But" he .said, "I
wouldn't mind having a plug of tobacco; mine was all
used up on the trip." The dutiful son handed him a plug
from behind the counter and in the most kind-hearted
tone said: "Ten cents, please." This he said and
nothing more.
18
CALLING THE MOOSE.
sport Koyiil, I wnriiilit von !
— Tu'iiilli Siiihi .
IN the latter diiys of Sfi)tt'ml)fr and the early weeks
of October the niaiuinotii deer known as the moose is
mating. Then it is that tiie woods of Maine, Nova
Scotia and New Hrnnswick are traversed by thousands
of sportsmen with their j^uides all in search of one thinj;
— a chance to kill a bull-moose. Now the female moose,
in one i)articular, is very like some other females of the
animal kingdom ; she is coy and capricious, leading her
lover "a merry dance o'er moss and fell," through bog
and swamp, along the margins of lakes and i)onds and
lagoons or " logans " as the latter are called in this
region. At night she comes down to the water to feed
on the roots and tops of the lily pad which grows so
abundantly in sluggish waters. If her mate be her
escort, he usually stands on the bank, eyeing his spou.se
tenderly as she feeds, and, with ears cocked, is ever ready
to protect her from all danger, real or fancied.
If the bull moose has no cow of his own but is
merely ranging and scouring the country to find a sweet-
heart that suits his fancy, then is the time he is apt to fall
into a trap and a very sure one. On a still night (and,
mind you, the night must be still) around every lake,
pond and river where the moose frequents and feeds, the
«9
-^^^
bull hears the sounds of sweetest melody ; sounds filled
with such plaintive, loving, caressing, lonely, forsaken,
"come-to-my-arnis" sort of cadence that he cannot resist
the appeals. These loving sounds, termed the "call"
with their ascending and descending notes are produced
by the guides, their instrument being a birch bark horn.
If the "call " be well .ude it will be heard by the bull
miles and miles away. Pricking up his ears he will start
on the run, thrashing through the brake, barking, bellow-
ing, grunting and in his own affectionate manner aivswer-
ing the impassioned notes of his counterfeit mistress.
When he reaches the edge of the wood he grows wary
and suspicious. He will steal up and down among the
bushes listening and scenting in a " she-may -be-fooling-
me ' ' sort of way, and sometimes it takes many nights to
convince him that he is the identical gentleman the lady
moose is "stuck on," and for whom she is so lovingly
calling. Alas, how many a bull-moose Lothario falls a
victim to his own vanity and the bewitching notes of a
birch bark horn !
Although the bull-moose is a thoroughbred Mormon,
having sometimes as many as five wives in his harem,
yet when he has one of them specially under his protec-
tion he will hardly leave a bird in hand for one in the
bush. I have myself heard him answer a " call " while
engaged in his protective duty, and then make a start,
which in this instance was for two miles ; but the loving
voice of the real moose called the wanderer back to his
protectorate duties and the family bosom. I Jieard and
saw all this. Saw him approach the water, step into it
and splash it with his feet, meanwhile looking cautiously
ao
around as if he scented danger. And there was danger
and a good deal of it in the air. In the front of a canoe
sat a hunter — one of the ' ' sports, ' ' — with rifle ready
cocked, and heart throbbing and thumping as though it
would burst the buttons off his coat. A moment of hold-
your-breath suspense, and then bang! goes the 45-90 car-
tridge, the report sounding and resounding through the
woods and over the waters for miles around. There was
another bang and yet another, but whether it was the
uncertain light or the excitement which interfered with
the hunter's aim, or whether it was due to his sitting for
hours " still as a mouse " and in an atmosphere with the
thermometer at freezing point, I can't say. But I can
say that the moose escaped unharmed, untouched by the
bullet that might have forever put an end to his Mormon
habits and Don Juanish journeys.
The sport of moose hunting is one that requires a
great deal of patience and perseverance under such trying
difficulties as exposure to cold and lo.ss of sleep. But
your reward is ample — plenty of excitement, and if suc-
cessful, a magnificent antlered head as a trophy of your
prowess.
Last night my guide and I set out to paddle up the
inlet of a little lake we are encamped upon, with the
intention of "calling" if it should be still enough
to do so. There was some wind on the lake, but we
thought there might be little or none in the forest-shel-
tered inlet. I was tucked down in the front of the canoe
with blankets, to keep my legs warm (for it is cold, very
cold, up here), with heavy woolen socks drawn over my
boots and a woolen cap down over my ears. We paddled
31
ft
about a mile and found the wind worse than it was on tlie
lake below, and so strong as to make it hard canoeing.
In a big bog on the right-hand side we heard a branch
break. We stopped and listened. A deer, we both
thought, as another and another branch broke. Then
came the sound of heavy footfalls and we knew a moose
was "coming to the water." We listened intently, so
intently that I could hear the ticking of my watch,
though it was buried under a sweater, a coat and an
overcoat ; nay, more, I heard— perhaps it may have been
fancy — the stretching of my elastic suspenders as I
breathed. Soon we distinguished through the dark of
the moonless night a great object, big as a hippopotanuis,
move down the bank and step into the water. The guide
pushed the canoe up deftly and silently, but the wind wna
at its worst at this time and blew the canoe diagonally
against a tree top sticking out of the water on the other
shore. This made a noise, little it is true, but yet it
sounded, oh, how great ! Just then we saw another huge
object on the bank. Now, up to this time, we could not
make out whether the monster in the water was a bull or
a cow-moose (and it was rather important to know which »
as a fine of $ioo and three months impris nnient is the
penalty imposed for shooting a cow.)
It was so dark I couldn't see whether the big object
had horns or not ; but the guide settled the problem with
" be quick ! that's him on the bank — now down him !"
I raised my rifle, aimed for what I believed to be his
shoulder, and pulled the trigger, but, horror of horrors,
the hammer wouldn't budge ; again I sighted and pulled,
and yet again, but all to no purpose. My rifle was more
harmless than a pocket pistol loaded with Jersey applejack.
The cow soon took alarm, floundered up the bank and in
the twinkling of an eye they were both gone, he bellow-
ing and barking through the alders, crashing down every-
thing before him in his mad rage and fury, and she
silently stealing away in the darktiess and seclusion.
There were two very disgusted men that night — one
because the other didn't shoot and the other because his
rifle wouldn't shoot. On coming into camp I made an
examination of the trouble and found that on account of
several days' steady rain the lock of the rifle had become
so rusty (although greased every day) that it would not
work, and thereby the life of a bull-moose was probably
saved. A job idso awaits a gunsmith, if one can be
found, capable of taking a rifle apart and fixing it so that
it will obey the trigger, at least one time out of three.
We have now been in the woods in the northern part
of Maine for over three weeks. In that time, I think,
we've had but two fine days, the rest being made up of
wind, rain, snow and ice; winds from all points of the
compass ; winds strong, to the strength of a gale, then
softening down to a zephyr, but still they were winds ;
cold winds, warm winds, moist winds, dry winds (you
see we're "moose calling," and you cannot call moose
successfully in windy weather; that is the reason we notice
the wind). Rains? Yes, of all degrees and conditions ;
soft rains and hard rains, gentle rains and furious down-
pours — one of which is now having things its own way
as I write this. My guides are building a break-rain,
break -weather, break-water Tor whatever you may please
to call it) of fir trees. They are planning where to put
as
^^^m^^^ ^ ^SS^w^mSm
1^'
the "door," but as the rain seems to blow from every-
where, it will probable result in carrying the fir grove
clear around the camp.
During this miserable rainy spell I have watched the
game with some interest (what little of it I've been able
to see) to learn how they relish the damp humor of
Jupiter Pluvius. They seem to fancy it no more than do
their enemies the human bipeds.
Yesterday I observed some partridges huddled under
a big log, with feathers wet and all their glory of color
and fluffy sleekness departed. The cock bird looked
woe-begone and cheap and ragged — a dripping melancholy
shadow and I thought of the poet's lament :
" Shades of the mighty can it be
That this all remains of thee ?' '
To-day I started a deer from out of a clump of young
pines, where he had been sheltering himself. Again I
came across an old doe standing under a couple of big
cedar trees, and after she had " lit out " I went and sat
down in her ".arbor." Although the rain was coming
down in streams, yet none fell on me and I spent there a
couple of happy hours watching the capers of the only
living things that had the courage to brave the storm —
the red squirrels. They were busily occupied in laying
up their winter stores which seemingly were to consist of
pine cones, as each had one of these in his mouth. I
noticed, though, they took good care to run along the
ground under the logs, and not on top of them.
We take the weather philosophically, because we're
well prepared for it, having plenty of dry clothes, a big
34
amp to come to, a roaring fire, an abundance of the finest
game in the world to eat, clear spring water (a mineral
spring at that) to drink, good appetites and rugged
strength to go out upon a big tramp every day, no matter
whether the weather is what it ought to be or whether it
isn't.
It is asserted that at least fifteen hundred sportsmen
are now in the Maine woods. If so, there'll be fully two
thousand guides, making an army of say three thousand
five hundred people, many of them with only a week or
ten days' time at their disposal, and .some of them accom-
panied by ladies. So, while it is bad for us it is much
worse for " the other fellers," whose short supply of time
won't allow them to wait for the glad sunshine to come.
Why, therefore should we complain ?
as
AN UNEXPECTED TPKAT.
Who conu's liLMe? My doe?
—Merty Wives.
*T\ COUPLE of evenii'gs since we had a quiet spell for a
lV few hours, and my guide and I started out moose
* V " calling. " We pushed our canor very cautiously
up the inlet of the little lake we're camped on, paddling
as lightly as possible, stopping frequently to listen, peer-
ing with expectant eyes into every bunch of alders, every
clump of young pines, hoping against hope that we might
see a moose "coming to water.' ' It was about five in the
afternoon, and the scenery along the brook was clothed in
beauty beyond the poets fancv or the painter's pdete.
The brown and green tints of the frosted and un frosted
ferns ; the tufts of waving grasses with their green blades
tipped with yellow ; the alders just beginning to put on
their autumn brown ; the red maple, the yellow birch, the
dark green pines, the sta'ely juniper, the sad cypress, and
all mirrored in the tawny stream Uiat flowed lazily
beneath, without a ripple to disturb or fret the reigning
silence.
Silence } Yes ! Nature seemed to be up to her neck
Ml the depths of the hush hs the guide shoved our canoe
( • a pine root to anchor it. After he did so, he t ok up
Mi;5 birch bark h. rn and gave the three "calls" of the
ouvi noose. First, the short, tremulous wail; then the
26
more urgent and commanding one, and, lastly, the long,
resonant, loving, coaxing, beseeching appeal, which no
living bull-moose with iu\y bowels of compassion can
resist. To produce this call the guide winds the horn
around in continued circles, the motion giving the sound
tJiat trembling, undulating effect which the genuine
article always has.
Immediately after the "call" we heard a branch
break in the woods to the right of us, a hundred yards,
pel haps, away. I took up my field-glass and watched
until I saw a couple of bewitching eyes, a pair of ears,
erect and vigilant, and the peculiarly graceful neck which
I knew could belong only to the doe deer. She .stood
between two cedars and for a while watched us intently,
then stole carefully up the stream to where it turned sharp
to the left and where a bank covered with marsh gra.ss
made a pretty foreground for the picture. Here she
planted herself, rigid, with nostrils dilated, ears standing
straight up, eyes fixed on us, and with every other indica-
tion that we were the only object that at present occu-
pied her attention and curiosity. The guide gave the
moose "calls " every few minutes and they could be heard
miles away, yet there she stood, truly, ' 'a thing of beauty ' '
if not a joj' forever.
The day waned, the sun sank behind a nia.ss of
clouds, twilight came and went, still there she stood,
motionless, entranced, bewitched silhouetted against the
evening sky like a graceful statue. And when the cloak
of night shut us from her sight then her curiosity seemed
to become uncontrollable. We could not .see, but heard
her cro.ss the brook softly, then steal down the left bank
*7
1
hi!
ii
i
Ii
Hi
h
picking her way daintily behind the alders and cedar trees
until she was abreast of us. A few minutes of silence
and we could almost imagine her letting loose her curi-
osity : "Who can these mortals be? Are they living
creatures ? And what heavenly music that was ! Poor
things, how can they sit so long on the water and keep so
still ! And what are they after anyway ? ' ' She no doubt
thought all this if she didn't say it. Then she stepped
out in the open and came so close to the canoe we
could almost have hit her with a paddle. Did we shoot !
No, sir ! No thought had we of killing that trusting,
unsuspecting creature, whose beauty and grace of form
and pose had for an hour entranced our sense with a
vision of loveliness we can never forget. Venison ? Why
we would have gone without the dainty dish for many a
day rather than have gotten it by the foul murder of that
gentle, soft-eyed, gazelle-like doe of Chesuncook Lake.
ir^
•>tfe;^.dl$:«ji^
28
KILLING THE CARIBOU.
Here's sport indeed !
— Cymti-linf.
WE had been semi-prisoners for about three weeks,
with rains and high winds, which effectually pre-
vented the hunting of big game successfully in
the location of our camp. Karly on the morning of
Monday, October 5th, my guide said to me " suppose we
go and try to hunt that dam." We had heard a great
many stories about a dam at the head of the stream
which forms the inlet to our little lake but were
inclined to think some of these stories Munchausenish.
None of our guides had ever seen the dam and had
only hearsay for its location and distance. One
maintained it was but five miles away; another six,
and the third one vowed it was a good eight miles off;
besides there are two branches to the stream, and no one
knew on which branch the dam was placed. So the guide
and I started in light hunting order, with a few bouillon
capsules which were to serve us for dinner and supper
and possibly breakfast, if we shouldn't get back that
night. We found a "spotted" path through the woods
that led to an old ' ' tote ' ' road up which we went splash-
ing through the water accumulated by weeks of rain ; up
to our very knees in mud sometimes, slipping, falling and
stumbling over cedar roots, climbing over and under
a9
rr
pi
windfalls, until we reached an old lumber camp, which
the guide went down to ijivestigate. Xo. Maine guide
can pass an old camp for the first time without having a
" look in " to see if anything's been left that he can make
use of. Before he reached the buildings three deer, one
of them a big buck, jumped out of some raspberry bushes,
and bounded away over the creek and into the woods
beyond .
I started for them and stalked them for nearly an
hour, until I came within shooting distance of the does ;
but although I heard the l)uck I could not get my eyes
upon him, and the does I did not want; so I returned to
the road. We now had a journey of three and a half
miles over a road probably as bad as could be found any-
where ; that is, if mud, water, alders, alder roots, cedar
root-, windfalls and slippery rf)cks could make it so.
There's an end to all things, however, and the road
finally led us to a " landing" on the brook where a large
number of logs were left high and dry from the last drive,
Some of them, in fact, looked as if they had been there
for years. There were probably half a million feet
in and near this spot We crossed the brook and found
a logging road, which we followed for a mile or more,
but no signs of a dam. We heard an occasional deer
cracking a dry limb in the dense wood or thicket of small
pines, which bordered the roadway on either side, but
couldn't get a sight of them. Here the guide said we'd
better turn back, as we were going in the wrong direction,
but I proposed walking at any rate half a mile further,
and probably we might find something worth shooting at.
We made one turn in the road when we heard a branch
30
ii
break in front of us. We stopped to listen, and soon a
calf caribou catne out from the rij^lit hand side.
It looked up and down, saw us, l)Ut moved into the
forest on the other side (which was here o\w\\ and filled
with stunted spruce trees, growinj^ in a thick bed of
moss). The calf was followed a minute later by a cow.
The guide whispered, "now look out for horns." Hut
still another cow came out and crossed the road, followed
by a sight I shall never forget. A pair of monster antlers
were very slowly pushed out into the road, and after them
the head and neck of as grand a caribou bull as sun ever
shone upon. It was fully a second later before the animal
came into full view.
The guide whispers, "Hit him in the slumlder ; be
steady and sure." And I was sure, for when I fired my
45-90 rifle almost at the same ijistant the caribou dropped
in his tracks. He hadn't moved an inch after being hit.
The ball had pa.s,sed through his left shoulder and out at
the neck. We soon covered the hundred yards or more
of distance which separated us from his lordship, whom
we found down on his kncrs unable to rise. And then a
battle royal started between Lon Barnes, the guide, and
the bull. Barnes wanted to finish him with the back of
the ax, and in order to do .so, he would angle around him,
trying to get in a blow on the forehead. The caribou,
however, although unable to raise himself to his feet,
could, and did, swing his great head and antlers around
in every direction with vicious and lightning-like move-
ment. Had he caught the guide with his "frontlets " or
antlers it would have been a sorry day for that individual.
Another shot from my rifle, however, settled the matter.
3«
1'
M (
{■
ui '.
TH6 "SPORT" AND HIS NOBLE PRIZE.
3a
We then eleviited his head and shouhlers ujn)!! some skids,
that were in tlie road, so as to keep Iiini in ^ood shape,
and then tramped hack to our camp, a walk of fully six
miles. Next day, our three ^'uides, my son and' I went
hack, takinj,' a camera with us, and, althou^di the morn-
ing was rainy and s(|ually, we obtained a fairly good
picture of him. As he was frozci pretty stiff, the men
raised him up on his feet, and, fastening a rope from each
antler to a couple of trees on both sides of the road (so
as to hold his head up, and thus steady the whole car-
ca.ss), the photographer (my young son] was enabled to
take him in a standing position.
The guides skimied him, taking his head off
unskinned. The next day, in order to incur no risk of
having the head spoiled by the wet weather or careless
skinning. I sent a guide with it to (ireenville (a three
days' journey there and back. The bull was fourteen
years old. The antlers are thirty -two inches long from
the base of skull to the tips, and have thirteen points
on each side.
The taxidermist to whom the head was sent .said it
was the fine.st he had ever seen and the largest he had
any record of. On the night of the fifth of October,
although very tired and badly used up with our fright-
fully hard walk, neither the guide (Barnes) nor I slept
nuich. The caribou would haunt our sleep. We could
see him almost every minute of the night and even now
the memory of the scene is as fresh and vivid as it was
on that day, and I am sure will be for many moons to
come.
33
1
MORE OF THE MOOSE.
i
The PnrnKon of Aiiinials.
— Hamlet.
THE same moniing of the caribou hunt, we left the
old bull lying in the road, and started back upon
our tracks, at about eleven o'clock, to prosecute our
search for the dam we had originally started out to find.
Upon reaching the brook we followed it upward some
distance, until the guide, who was quite "done up,'' said
he'd make a fire and boil some hot water in a tin dipper
for my dinner. I decided, however, to pufUi on until I
found that dam, telling him to stay where he was until
my return.
The stream here
was choked up with
cut logs, which made
it nice and easy walk-
ing, or easy jump-
ing from log to log.
Twenty minutes of
tliis sort of travel
and I reached the
long-looked- for dam.
.
jfe, 4
■ it_ 'i* & Aj
BARNES, THE QUIDE, " DONE UP " ON A CARIBOU HUNT,
DRAWS COMFORT FROM HIS PIPE.
34
Climbing on top of it my eye caught the view of as lovely
a spot for big game to feed in as could well be imagined.
The water had been drawn oflF during the late spring,
and a luxurious growth of swale grass, cranberry bushes
and young alder shoots had sprung up in wild and wanton
profusion.
I sat me down on the dam and let my senses wallow
in the sight. A stiff breeze was blowing, swaying the
tall grasses into waves of graceful motion and bringing to
my ear a gentle rustling sound— a twittering /)/«^//.v.v////,;,
as it were, in one of Nature's pastorales, and which all
lovers of her rural melodies will recognize and appreciate.
After my fancy had jjlayed awhile it ran up against
the thought: "What a tempting sanctuary is this for
big game! Surely it won't be long without its antlered
heads and arched necks." Instinctively, I crept behind
some bushes and watched and waited. Fifteen or twenty
minutes passed and without my expectations being filled.
Then I thought of my tin cup of bouillon, and, fearing it
would be spoiled, reluctantly left tiie enticing spot and
traveled back over the logs to where the guide was wait-
ing for me.
After drinking my bouillon I told the guide how
near the dam was ; what a wonderfully attractive spot for
game it must be, told him to take my ride and go up and
look at some big moose tracks that I luul found, and I
would boil another cup of water for his dinner while he
was gone. The fire had burned down low. I put on
more wood and sat and watched the roaring blaze, and
whistled while supreme contentment oozed out of me
35
Eill
I
IfV i
^; •
\y
from every pore. My reverie lasted till broken by Barnes^
who rushed in with hardly enough wind left to shape his^
words. He told nie that just as he got to the dam a
young buU-moo.se, with a monstrouslj'^ big cow-moose, had
come out of the woods and were feeding in the open clo.se
to the dam. It didn't take long for us to get back to that
dam. We jumped like gymnasts across the logs and
made some leaps that might have caused the kangaroo
to uiush and hide her head in her pouch.
We approached the dam itself, however, very care-
fully, and peered over the edge of it to the open space
beyond. The bull was not in sight and the cow was more
than five hundred yards away. Thej*, no doubt, had
scented the smoke from our fire, although the wind was
verj' nearly directly in our favor. But we soon saw that
the cow was uneasy and suspicious. She would raise her
mane up and then elevate her head in the air, holding it
there for a minute or so, and then start feeding again.
This she did three times, and then she gave a call that
was almost instantly answered by the bull, who came
rushing out of the woods to the back and to the right of
her, as she ran to meet him. Then they wheeled about,,
threw up their great heads, and with dilating nostrils,
both sniffed the suspicious scent which had alarmed the
cow so much. They were at this moment fully six to
seven hundred yards ofl^, and would soon make a dash for
the woods, for every moment seemed to increase their
alarm.
I said to Barnes: "What do you think about it^
Can I down that bull at this distance?' '
36
u
"I don't think you can, but there's no telling what
a 45-90 rifle can do. If you're going to try it you'd
better begin, as they'll soon be off."
I decided to try the shot, and still keeping under the
edge of the dam, I fired, aiming for the bull's shoulder.
My shot was a clean miss. Then we saw a .scene that
illustrated the amount of human nature that underlies the
instinct of the moose. As the report of the rifle rang out
and echoed around the edges of the forest encircling the
open space, the cow-moose ran here and there in every
direction, as if fear had entirely dethroned her courage
and prudence. But the bull stood still, rigid, erect, his
mane up, while every hair on his body bristled defiance.
I fired cartridge No. 2. making another miss, and a
repetition of the scene just described followed, the bull
standing still as ever. I reasoned that the strong quar-
tering wind to the right was deflecting the bullets, .so I
aimed a third time a little more to the left, and fired.
You should have .seen the sight that followed. The
bullet had struck tiie bull and he started with a rush and
a crash like a locomotive off the rails. Away he went,
straight for the woods to the left. The guide and I then
sprang upon tlie top of the dam and watched the cow who
was still running about in the open, thoroughly panic-
struck. A couple of minutes elapsed and then the bull,
although wounded, ran back out of his stronghold of
timber to get the cow in out of danger. This gave me a
chance to fire three more shots at him. While he was
circling around the cow to lead her into the safe seclusion
of the woods, he see.ned to say : ' ' You can shoot at me
37
ur
all you like, and kill me if you can, but I'll save my frou
or perish in the attempt !"
And just as soon as she was headed and started
right, then he got away also, both entering the woods to
the left.
And then the question was: What shall we do?
Barnes said: "Let's go back to camp and give him a
chance to lie down. If he's mortally wounded we'll
find him, but I fear you've given him only a flesh
wound," We stopped at our fire for Barnes to drink his
bouillon which now was cold, and then commenced our
eight-mile journey to our tent. On the road down, before
we reached the logging camp, where we had started the
buck deer and the two does the day before, I crept along
very cautioiisly, hoping to catch a sight of the big l)uck.
The road that led by the old camp had a path in which
were several long logs leading lengthwise from the road
right to the camp, and walking on these logs with rubber
boots made no noise at all. Suddenly I came upon no
less than six deer feeding in and arou.id a lot of rasp-
berry bushes. Four of them were so bunched at one
time I could have placed a bullet that would have gone,
possibly through four of them, certainly through three.
But they were all does ; the buck wasn't there and I stole
back to the "tote" road without even alarming them.
It was dark when we reached camp. We were tired,
very tired. The excitement of the day had been so great
that neither guide nor ' ' sport ' ' could sleep . The caribou ,
and the moose, and the six deer kept marching in proces-
sion through our mind, followed by the queries : " Will
38
we find the moose? Is he killed? Will anything get at
the caribou during the night and mutilate him ?' ' In our
mind's eye we saw the old fellow dropping in his tracks,
saw the bull-moose rushing from the woods to coax the
wife of his bosom back from the reach of bullets and into
a place of safety.
And thus the day's adventures would re-enact them-
selves with vividness and over and over again till daylight
broke. Then ready and eager to solve our caribou queries,
if they were solvable, all the guides (three), my son and
myself had breakfast, shouldered camera, axes, rifles and
ropes and started off with the intention first to photograph
and skin the caribou and .secure his head and then to trail
the wounded moose. It was half-past one when we reached
the dam, and in a few minutes we found the trail of the
bull by discovering a pool of blood in the swale grass and
another considerable pool on the edge of the woods.
After that the trail of the cow-moose and the bull were
so intermixed that it was hard to unravel them. But
there were five of us, and each would every minute or
two discover a trace, a splash of blood on the side of a
tree, or a drop on a leaf, or a streak of it on some dead-
fall the wounded moose had stepped over. At one place
he had passed between two trees, which had been a tight
fit, as it showed the blood from where he was struck (on
the left hip) down his leg as far as the knee. At another
place he had stopped and quite a circle of blood was
formed. But nowhere was there any sign that he had
lain down. Nowhere was there blood enough to show
that he had been mortally hit. We followed his trail for
over two hours and then reluctantly concluded that our
moose would live and prosper perhaps for many a year to
come, as he would always in future be duly careful to
keep as far away from the range of a rifle as his haunts
and habits would permit, and he would never, never
again feed in a meadow in daylight during the open
season, for a moose only needs to be shot at once to
make him forever after the most careful animal that roams
the wild, wild woods.
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THE GREAT NORTHWEST
Well hast ihoii lessoii'd iis.
— 7'i/iis Andoiiiciis.
HK first thing that struck my attention on my trip,
was Canada's nagging policy in regard to American
travel.
I had two guns and a case of shells on which duty
was claimed. These, I explained, had been in use over
six years, and that I was only going to shoot a few days
in Canada and then would return with them across the
borders, but my explanation had no weight. The shells
were coutited and duty at the rate of 35 per cent, exacted
upon them, with conditions that if I took the guns back
out of Canada within two months they would refund the
duty, but not if they should be kept a day over that limit.
Such is international courte.sy between two countries with
a border line of four thousand miles.
I passed through the famous " Soo " Canal, where
our Government is enforcing its " retaliatioji policy"
against Canada. It was therefore interesting to hear the
conversations of the Canadians and Americans on the
vessel and along the canal. We were detained there four
hours in getting an entrance to the lock. The Canadians
point out the fact that their own canal, which is now in
course of construction, will be finished in two years, and
then will come their time to retaliate by putting up the
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tolls to American vessels in the Welland and other Cana-
dian water-ways. They say it was a small, petty thing
for a great country like the United States to do, and that
Canada will more than get even in the long run.
The Americans, on tlie other hand, say it serves the
Canadians right, for they are always nagging and bullying
us behind England on the fisheries, the Behring Sea and
other questions, and it is time to teach them a lesson.
The commerce passing through this canal in Canadian
bottoms is very small, last year being onlj' a little over 4
per cent, of the whole. Out of an almost continuous
procession of steamers, tugs and sailing vessels which we
passed in the "Soo" River only one was Canadian, and
she was a small fishing smack. So, pecuniarily, the
retaliation policy doesn't amount to nuich; it is the sting
and smart of it that counts. American craft go through
free and Canadian craft pay 20 cents per ton toll.
It is said that more tonnage passes through the
" Soo " Canal than through the famous Suez Canal. The
"Soo" Canal is open only about .seven months in the
year, and it is totally inadequate for the immense traffic
passing through it ; therefore our Government is building
a new canal, with a lock 800 feet long, 80 feet wide and
21 feet deep. The present lock is 515 feet in length, with
a 60 foot entrance, 80 foot inside and about 14 foot 6 in
depth. The Canadian Government is making theirs 1000
feet long and 60 feet wide throughout, but if they do not
put on an increased force of workmen it will be five years
before it can be completed . The United States Canal is
reasonably sure of completion within two years.
42
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There is jio object lesso.i equal to this catial for
demonstrating the enormous resources of the great North-
west. As far as the eye could reach in both directions
was an unending procession of vessels bound both up the
lakes and down ; those passing down being loaded to the
deep water line with iron ore. grain, lumber, etc. ; those
passing up, with coal and general merchandise. And so
it is every day while navigation is open.
What a lot of people with diversified pursuits our
Canadian Pacific steamer was carrying ! Sitting opposite
to me at table was a typical Englishman, formerlv a cof-
fee planter in Ceylon, but now a large land proi>netor i,i
Manitoba. Another Englishman had been out to the
East Indies elephant shooting, and was on his wav to the
Rocky Mountains to try his hand on the grizzl'v bear.
He was a strenuous advocate of the Martini-Henry rifle
for large game, and woukhrt think of shooting a Win-
chester (probably because it is American). A number of
passengers were going to shoot prairie chickens, ducks,
etc., others were on their way to buy land near Winni-
peg. One wanted to sell land up there, and wanted to
sell it badly. Merchants were returning from England,
Montreal and Toronto, having bought their fall and win-
ter stock : others were journeying across the contnient
en route to Japan and China.
Coming up the "Soo" (or Sault Ste Marie) River,
out of Georgian Bay, on Sunday last. I was profoundly
mipressed with the magnitude of the resources of the
great Northwest. An almost continuous string of grain
or ore laden schooners, steamers, barges and "whale-
backs" kept passing us for miles and miles, and on
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arriving at the mouth of the canal, which is hut a mile
long, we were detained five hours waiting our turn to get
through its one lock. The vessel in front of us was the
largest steamer on the lakes — the Mariposa — over 4000
tons burthen, and while the lock comfortably acconuno-
dated four large schooners at one lockage, this steamer
just about filled the lock, so that no other vessel could
enter. She belonged to Ashtabula, O., and was going
up with a light cargo of coal and would load iron ore for
her return trip. The Canadians seem to think that our
Govennnent made a mistake in enforcing the retaliation
policy on this canal but don't care very much about it,
now that the astonishment and surprise at the action have
worn away. The Canadian Pacific Railway is the prin-
cipal and about the only sufferer, and they cannot be very
severely hit, as the total Canadian tomiage passing through
the canal last year was, as I have said, but a fraction over
4 per cent, of the whole.
On reaching Fort William (an old Hudson Bay
Company's fort), the very first thing to attract my notice
was a big wagon load of fine French clarets, brandies
and Canadian whiskies, marked "Hudson Bay Company."
I know not how strong the proof of the liquors may have
been, but I do know that the load itself was to me proof
strong as Holy Writ, that the people up this way have
expensive tastes and the wherewithal to gratify them.
From an unusually intelligent and well informed commer-
cial traveler, Robert Atkinson, of London, Canada, I
learned that the head offices of the Hudson Bay Company
for this district are at Winnipeg, and that on his last trip
to that town there were no less than thirty-two drummers
44
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at the principal hotel ; that these represented the dry goods
and ready-made clothing interests alone, and that the buyers
for these de])artnients of the Hudson Hay Company looked
at every man's samples before they bought a dollar's
worth. Now, as this company also sells groceries, wines,
crockery, hardware, drugs, stoves atid tinwHre, guns,
ammunition, etc., the reader will easily see what an
enormous trade they still monopolize up here.
At Fort William the C. P. R. R. has three big grain
elevators, which at the present time are full to the roof,
and yet they are shipping by lake and through the
canal as fast as they can get boats loaded. The capacity
of these elevators are 1,250,000 bushels. The train we
met at Fort William was the trans-continental express.
It had eleven cars, two of which were filled with
Chinese passengers ticketed through from New York
to China. Two cars of colonists were going out to
.settle at different points on the line. The cars were clean
and comfortable-looking, and were u.sed at night as sleep-
ers, having the same arrangement as to berths as the
Pullmans, without, of course, the luxurious appoint-
ments which characterize the latter. There is but one
through train a day, and this averages about twenty- two
miles an hour.
The road is a single track, well ballasted, has splen-
did rolling stock and good motive power. I am informed
that the management of the line contemplates bestowing
the .same attentions on the through first-class passengers
as the trans-Atlantic steamship companies do, such as
passing fresh fruit, beef tea, lemonade, etc., around to the
passengers frequently during the day. This will be an
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innovation that other lines would do well to follow. The
Michi>?an Central already has commenced to present
bouquets of flowers to passenjjers on reaching? a certain
station. Such little attentions do not cost much and they
make a good advertisement.
The city of Winnipeg, with a population of 25,000,
was a veritable surprise to me. It has broad streets, half
as wide again as our Market Street, four lines of street
car tracks, electric lights, electric railways, opera house
(with Margaret Mather now playing there), fine stores, and
a hotel that would put to shame any we have in Philadel-
phia. It has a frontage on the main street of 216 feet, is
seven stories high, with a rotunda forty by ninety feet, a
dining-liall fifty feet wide, ninety feet long and twenty-six
feet high, grandly lighted by three copper electroliers,
aided by a blaze of wall fixtures. Then there are massive
stone fire-places and also a l)alcony at one end, where an
orchestra enlivens the diinier hour.
The hotel has turkish and ordinary Ixiths, private
supper and dining-rooms, is heated by steam and lighted
throughout by an elaborate electric plant. The charges
are from $3 to #7 per day, and the hotel is well supported.
This hotel, this city, this Canadian Pacific Railroad, with
its progressive management, are indexes of the enterprise
of the Canadian Northwest. Here the "star of empire
may well hold its sway;" here future provinces and
cities will rise from the level table land of the prairies,
by the limpid waters of the Assinil)oine and Red Rivers,
and become rich, prosperous and happy in the lavish and
generous returns from the tillage of the fruitful soil.
Future colonies will leave their mother country, where
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the "dry husks of poverty " arc their support to find liere
a Kh)rious paradise of plenty. Here will grow up a
strotiH:-lunKed, magnetic generation, which must wield a
beneficent influence upon the rest of Canada, and why
not upon sections of our own country that must surely
come in contact with its almost boundless agricultural
wealth and resources ?
As we were about leaving Winnipeg yesterday, a
banker of that lively tovvn, in speaking of the boundless
expanse of rich wheat lands around Winnipeg, said :
" While the land in the neighborhood of Winnipeg raises
fine wheat and lots of it, one tlious.ind miles further north
they raise just as much wheat U> the acre and just as
good." Onethou.sand miles further north. Thinkof it!
I do not know and could not find out in what latitude
Winnipeg is situated, I asked the clerk at the Manitoba
House, among others. He said he really couldn't tell,
but one thing sure, it is an awful cold latitude. The
railway guide says it is one thousand four hundr^^d and
twenty-four njiles from Montreal, and yet good lands
are being cultivated a thousand miles still further north.
This fact helps to explain tlie enormous quantities of
freight the Canadian Pacific Railroad is sending down,
both by rail and water, to the lakes and through the St.
I^awrence River.
At Regina, the capital of the province of A.s.siniboia,
we were much interested in the House of Parliament,
the Governor's Mansion and the barracks and drill ground
of the famous mounted police force. All are equipped
with electric lights and other modern conveniences.
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The mounted police is said to be the best force
of its kind in the world, and numbers over one thousand
men. They patrol the whole Northwest, including the
provinces of Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Athabasca and
Alberta, keeping in order the Indian population as well
as the rest of the inhabitants who might be inclined to
stray from the right path.
Canada's treatment of the Indian problem has long
been acknowledged as wiser, more humane and more suc-
cessful than ours has been, and, as a result, we see the
prairies dotted everywhere with Indian tents, the men
being occupied with the business of farming or grazing of
cattle. They follow these pursuits contentedly and appar-
ently with good financial results. They are well dressed,
seemingly prosperous and have overcome their instinctive
desire ior the excitement of the hunter's life.
What a sad sight is the great square piles of buffalo
bones stacked up at different stations awaiting shipment
to the East, where they usefully wind up their existence
in the sugar refineries and manufactories of phosphates.
The men who gather the bones up on the prairies and
haul them to the station get six dollars per ton. As an
indication of the extent of the business, the quantity sent
forward from Moosejaw Station alone is counted by the
hundred carloads.
When it is recollected that the few pounds of bleached
bones, forming one skelton and bringing perhaps ten
ce .ts at the cars, were once the framewc A of the noblest
animal that ever roamed over the continent, and that had
he even been slightly protected by law, by common sense
or by humane feelings, he would have furnished us with the
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luxurious robe and succulent meat for years to come, the
sight is indeed a sorrowful one. Soon these ghastly piles
of bones will be carried away and nothing left to mark
the haunts and history of the buffalo except tradition and
the scarred sides of the slopes and valleys where he dug
out his ' ' wallow. ' '
The coyote we saw very often after passing Moose-
jaw; also foxes and badgers, and as for gophers, their
name is legion. Wild geese, ducks and snipe we also
saw on many fresh water ponds and lakes. To-morrow,
the 15th, the close season for the prairie chicken expires,
and thousands of guns will be cracking away during the
day and to the end of the season. We start out at four in
the morning and expect to have a chance at a flock of wild
geese that settle towards sundown in some wheat stubble
a half mile from here. We also intend trying our guns
on the plump and gamey prairie hen.
This afternoon we were out snipe shooting for a few
hours, and on our tramp passed quite a number of Indian
tents and villages, but neither the Indians nor their mot-
ley variety of dogs paid any attention to us, excepting
one old buck with a red blanket thrown over his shoul-
ders. This fellow followed us silently around, watching
us intently, and although saying nothing seemed to be
piling up a lot of thinking.
A party of ladies and gentlemen are expr \ here
to-morrow in their private car on a shooting trip to the
coast. They eat and sleep in the car, and have been, so
far, very successful in shooting and fishing. We pas.sed
them twenty miles away this forenoon. They expect to
start from here on side hunt for antelope and bears.
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AN OLD 'TOTE" ROAD; THE AUTHOR WITH HIS RIFLE IN THE DISTANCE.
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I am writing this letter sitting down on the broad
prairie beside a palace car (where we are luxuriously
housed and fed), waiting until the beds are made up and
breakfast is prepared. It is something certainly novel as
well as very pleasant to sit down in this latitude to a
dinner of wild roast goose, teal duck, prairie chicken,
fresh peaches, sweet potatoes, ice cream, etc., with plenty
of drinkables besides, and served by competent waiters.
For all this luxury we are indebted to the Worcester
(Mass.) Excursion Company, who are on their twenty-
second annual shooting tour, and who have invited us to
join them for the season. Seven gentlemen of the party
started, with nineteen horses, tents, provisions, etc., for a
hunt after antelopes and grizzly bears, their destination
being some thirty miles from Maple Creek. They expect
to be gone a week, and of course each man will not be
satisfied until he bags his antelope or has had a wrestle
with a bear; in the meantime, we that are left are content
to worry the prairie chicken and mallard duck with our
dogs and guns.
One through train from the Pacific and one from the
Atlantic stop here for a few minutes each day, and on
their arrival the platform is crowded with Indians dressed
up in their best "bib and tucker," which means plenty
of feathers, paint and tomahawk. With a special eye to
business and the white man's pocket book they come
provided with their peculiar wares, such as buff'alo liorns
nicely moiuited as hat racks, trinkets of various kinds,
pipes, etc. For some reason or other the Indian has a
superstition against being photographed. Now almost
every train has its kodak fiend, and no sooner does he
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catch a glimpse of "Poor Lo" than out comes his box
and the fun begins. On Saturday one of these enthusi-
astic fiends tried to get a snap shot at an old ' ' buck "but
didn't meet with much success. The moment the old
fellow saw the photographer getting ready to point his
box he rushed at him with an uplifted stick, janmied him
against the car, took possession of his kodak and doubt-
less would have wiped up the floor with the picturetaker
had the mounted police not interfered and ordered him
back into the train. Yet the fiend wasn't satisfied. He
went into the car and thrust the camera out of one of the
windows. Instantly the alarm was given, and every
squaw and brave, to the number of thirty or more, dived
under the station platform, leaving the discomfited artist
to the jeers and hooting of the crowd. One of the ladies
of our hunting car, not knowing of this trait in the
Indian's character, saw a bunch of squaws lounging
around. She got out her kodak and commenced to fix
it for a snap shot, when one of the .squaws, in her native
tongue, threatened her with violence if she turned "that
eye" on them. The lady didn't understand the panto-
mime, and proceeded to take the picture. The squaw
very angrily pulled a big stone out from under her blanket
and threw it with all her force, hitting her on the wrist,
inflicting a painful blow. There will be no further use
for the kodak on this car for awhile. The telegraph
operator here says the Indian is equally afraid of the
"ticker," and it is hard work to get them near it.
On the night of the great prize fight between ' ' Mr.' '
Sullivan and "Mr." Corbett the cowboys, ranchers,
railway men, and in fact all the inhabitants of this
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frontier settlement, were in and around the station. Tlie
newspapers of Montana, the Dakotas and Nebraska
having formed a syndicate to have the news wired to
them in detail, it was sent over the Canadian Pacific
wires. The operator sat in his office, and in a conver-
sational tone read the account of the fight as it passed
over the wires, when it would be communicated to the
outside crowd. Toward the last, when the "big fellow,' '
"Mr." Sullivan, was getting the worst of it, the excite-
ment of the listeners was so great they couldn't keep still.
Even the stolid Indian got enthused and grunted his sat-
isfaction, and when the last sentence was ticked out, then
pandemonium was let loose. The only hotel in the town
was besieged with thirsty customers, and all night long
the yelpings of the coyote were blended with the yells
of excited humanity.
The Bishop of Q'Appell, who is a baronet of Eng-
land as well as Bishop, preached a sermon in the little
chapel here yesterday that was remarkable for its pro-
fundity as well as its eloquence. He is the leader in a
movement among the Northwest churchmen which is
intended to give new life to the Church of England by
trying to arouse it from its apparent lethargy and by
claiming for it the undivided support of the people on the
ground of its traditions, history and venerable age. In
his discourse he easily disposes of the dij^senting churches
and then in a learned argument he paid his respects to the
Roman Catholic Church and proceeded to show that the
Church of England was centuries older than the Roman
Church. It seemed a great waste of force to preach such
a sermon to the little handful of people he had for an
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audience, but as he leaves this country to spend his last
days in England, after preaching here for twenty-six
years, he no doubt thought it well to give the people
something to think about.
The Canadian Pacific Railway being the most acces-
sible route between Alaska and the East, some very val-
uable train loads of merchandise pass over its rails.
Probably one of the most valuable trains of freight ever
hauled in the same number of cars passed through here
yesterday. It was a train made up of ten cars of seal skins,
booked through to London . Each car was valued at over
$200,000 — over $2,000,000 in all. The train had a wreck
coming down the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. It
parted in two ; the back portion ran into the front, smash-
ing things up very generally. What a calamity it would
have been — what a rude shock to the American feminine
heart had that train and its precious cargo been destroyed
by fire! How many of the "lords of creation" would
have been obliged to put their hand a little deeper inta
their pockets next Christm?^ if the heart of their better-
half should be filled with love for a new seal skin ! But
thanks to a providential decree that ordered otherwise,
the calamity didn't happen. The train passed in safety
and let us hope that its beloved cargo will survive the
boisterous gales of the Atlantic and come back to us in the
shape of that most beautiful of all the adorning apparel of
woman — that warm, glossy, cosy, fascinatingly lovely, but
awfully expensive, seal skin sacque.
We reached Crane Lake on September 20th. During
our ride in the Hunting car Yellowstone we had matured
our plans for a big day's sport, and we got it. I saw more
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sport in that one day — the 21st — than I ever saw before in
a month. To briefly sketch the exciting incidents of the
day would, perhaps, prove interesting, as all mankind,
particularly the Anglo saxon part of it, has an instinctive
interest, more or less keen, in everything that relates to
hunting.
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AN OLD "TOTE" ROAD; SIGNS OF COMING WINTER.
There were four of us. We got up long before break
of day as silently as we could, so as not to disturl) the
ladies of the party (for, mind you, there are five ladies
journeying across the continent and back in the "Yellow-
stone"). We got away about "five o'clock in the morn-
ing," just as the geese were commencing to fly from the
lake to the neighboring wheat fields. We were posted
along a low ridge, with strict orders to lie down quiet and
snug in some thorn bushes (to lie "quiet and snug" in a
thorn bush requires practice). When a flock came near
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we were to jump up, single out a goose and give him
some No. i shot.
The day was breaking in the East and shedding its
faint gray light over the prairie. The dainty colors of the
wild flowers, their pale yellows, their pinks and their
purples were just becoming discernible in Nature's prairie
panorama which was soon to spread itself and rapture us
with its beauty.
And now comes the cry of the wild goose : ' ' Honk !
Honk ! Honk ! ' ' Looking up we see a long line of them
approaching high overhead. Crack ! go the guns and
away go the geese leaving none of their company behind.
Down we dodge again and another flock comes in sight.
As before, another go of the guns and another go of
the geese ; and thus flock after flock fly over us in their
peculiar wedge-shape order, but all too high. However,
we venture another crack at them. This time one is seen
to drop down a little, recover himself, get back into the
flock, drop again a few yards, and then, to our surprise,
tumble heels over head, striking the earth a quarter of a
mile away. A grain of buckshot did the work.
The morning flight is over and only one goose is
bagged. Now we munch a few apples and take the
setter dogs and start for the gamey prairie chicken,
which out here is really the pin-tailed grouse that goes
before civilization, while the regular prairie hen follows
civilization. The first bird that is flushed is taken by
the youngest shot, my son James — boy of 15 years — and
beautifully stopped. The second bird is similarly treated
by the same gunner. The birds now are popping up all
around, and we all get our share.
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We go back to the car, have breakfast, and off we
tramp to Crane Lake, about four miles away. Reaching
the water, we find it literally covered in places with
ducks, snipe, geese, yellow legs, pelicans, curlew and
plover. A few shots started the whole aggregation in
motion— mallards, plover and Wilson snip begin to
tumble until we are loaded with all we can carry. A
gunner away off across the prairie is heard to fire two
barrels, then to shout, jump, run, and throw his hands
up. No one seemed to know what was disturbing him,
but in a moment we see two dogs coming at a furious
rate. No; one is a coyote, the other is a dog in full
chase. Four guns are discharged with No. 5 shot at the
slinking coyote, but he gets out of danger in a few
minutes. Then a monster bird comes flapping leisurely
around the shore. It i.s a pelican, and, as if to tease us
and waste our shells, he flaps .serenely by in front of each
gunner .several times, each time getting the contents of
shells from No. 5 down to buckshot. He is hit from
every angle, some twenty-five shells in all having been
fired at him. We could hear the shot strike and then
drop into the water, and yet Mr. Pelican is still "winking
the other eye" and will continue to wink it at anything
less than a rifle.
With our game belts loaded to their fullest capacity
(mine must have weighed forty pounds, although it felt
like a ton), we started back, killing more prairie chickens
on the road, and arriving in time for dinner (five o'clock),
having been out just twelve hours. What exhilaration
was crowded into those twelve hours ! One who has
never been out in this rarified highly electric atmosphere
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cannot understand or appreciate the glories of sucli a
hunt on such a day — the sun comfortably warm, with a
cool wind waving the rich prairie grass and rippling the
water so that it shone from the distance like burnished sil-
ver. Along the edges of the sloughs which empty into the
lake the green willows, stirred with the wind, were waving
their graceful limbs, while the bright prairie flowers and
the sage brush did their part toward making a picture
hard to match and not easy to be forgotten .
After dinner we had singing, whistling (by as good
a whistler as ever "cocked a lip") and piano playing
(two of the ladies being good musicians). When our
concert was over and we were about retiring, a knock
was heard at the car door, and the members of the only
family residing within miles of the station were announced
as callers. So again the strains of one of Beethoven's
immortal sonatas and a nocturne of Chopin's were invoked
to entertain the visitors, who were two ladies and a gen-
tleman, the latter superintending a ranch of 10,000 acres.
The latest fashions, the price of wheat (54 cents a bushel)
the climate, the habits of the wild fowl around the lake,
were discussed. After a pleasant two hours' entertain-
ment the visitors were shown to the car door, saying it
was the pleasantest night they had ever spent in their
lives, and so ended our day's hunt and pleasure at Crane
Lake, Assiniboia Territory.
For months there was no rain in the regions guiuied
over by our party and we pursued our sport without alloy
or hindrance. When we were on the Frazer River, in
Vancouver, six of our party who had started away on a
hunt after caribou and bears, returned to the car on
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Sunday, after a trip of seven days, during which time they
rode 130 miles over an ahnost impenetrable country, and
among the mountains some 4500 feet above tide level.
For eight miles of that distance the road was so rough
that horses could not be taken through, and the camp
stuff had to be dragged and pitched over fallen timber,
around rocks, under rocks and over rocks. One of the
party claims this to be his twenty-second annual hunting
trip, and he vows he never saw anything to equal it for
roughness and difficulties. They bristled with every step.
One caribou and three deer were shot, and as they
couldn't drag their game out of the country after killing
it, they gave up the hunt as a bad job and returned to
the car, having taken three days to go up the mountains
and two to return.
Two of the hunters, Me.ssrs. W. E. Harmon and J.
G. Brewer, of Boston, had come out determined to get
some big game, even if they had to go alone after it.
They hired an Indian guide and a cook, got pack horses
and provisions and again started out into the mountains
where they proposed hunting big horn sheep up above
the snow line. They made their way through from Can-
adian territory into the United States, arriving at Spokane,
Washington a distance of 245 miles, camping up in the
snow for several days, climbing around snow peaks in
moccasins, but always trying to keep face to the wind.
They finally succeeded in killing four mountain sheep
and three deer, but the hardships and exposure they
endured, as evidenced by their torn flesh and clothing,
will keep them from trying it again for some time at least.
As years glide by and civilization approaches nearer and
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nearer to the jjreat mountain ranges, the l)ig horns and
wild goats of the snow-covered peaks are pushed farther
and farther I)ack, so that it will not he long before these
nimble-footed and beautiful creatures will follow the fate
of the buffalo.
At Sicanious, a town of about one hundred people,
on the main line of the C. P. R. in British Columbia,
lives Colonel Forester, who was in China when the great
rebellion broke out in which (General (iordon won his
fame. Colonel Forester was recjuested by the foreign
merchants in China to organize and drill what forces
could be hastily gathered up, and to take charge of the
defense, which he did so successfully that he was offered
supreme command of the forces operating against the
rebels. He declined, however, in favor of General Gor-
don. He has a large number of decorations, presents and
letters testifying to his bravery and executive ability, and
is quietly and modestly living out the remnant of his days
in this lonely hamlet.
The scenery along the Frazer River is of the wildest,
most interesting and most startling character. Fabulous
amounts of money were spent in the construction of this
part of the Canadian Pacific Railway. For a great dis-
tance it is a succession of tunnels, trestles, bridges and
deep rock cuttings, the line clinging to the bald sides of
the mountains and overlooking the Frazer River that
rushes along seething and foaming, and in some places a
thousand feet below. On the opposite side is the old
government road, which was made necessary years ago
by reason of the gold excitement on this river, and also
to facilitate the valuable salmon fishing. The road is now
60
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rapidly goinji^ to ruin. We passed thousntids of frames
of fishing tents left standing by their Indian owners.
Wherever the river narrowed to a gorge, there they
could be seen in the most inaccessible positions and fixed
on the rocks like so many barnacles. How the Indians
managed to get there and stay there is hard to imagine.
ALLEGA8H RIVtR, HEADWATERS OF RIVER ST. JOHN, CANADA.
The town of Vancouver is experiencing a real estate
fever of a very acute and inflammatory character. This
is all owing to its being the terminus of the Canadian
Pacific and also of the magnificent line of steamers run-
ning to China and Japan. The town has a population of
about 15,000, is situated on a fine bay, with a rich mineral,
lumber and agricultural country tributary to it. The grit
and enterprise displayed there is such that even Phila-
delphia might copy with advantage. The Northern
Pacific Railroad wants to have an entrance there in order
to reap a share in the rich Oriental trade pouring through
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the town from the great steamers plying to Japan. What
did this little town of 15,000 people do to encourage the
designs of the railway people ? They put the question to
popular vote, and the result was that they decided to give
the railroad $300,000 as a bonus to enter the town.
Think of it, you Philadelpnia Councilmen ; you, who
voted so often and worked so hard to keep the Baltimore
and Ohio out of the city ; you who kept the Philadelphia
and Reading bowing and scraping before your committees
for years ; you who kept the Belt Line so long out in the
cold, and you who fought so long and fiercely against
elevated railroads in our "Traction" ridden city. Ah.
there are some profitable lessons that may be learned
by getting away from home, and probably there is none
that needs a lesson of that sort more than the average
Philadelphia Councilman. Let us hope and tru.-,t, how-
ever, tjiat the Quaker city has got through with her nap
and that her eyes are open wide enough to see that when
railroads knock at her doors for admission they should be
welcomed not repelled.
We arrived at Morley, Alberta, September 25th.
The town consists of one store, three dwellings and the
railroad station, having a total population of about
twenty. It is of importance by reason of its being the
distributing point for the reservation of the tribe of
Stoney Indians. Large herds of cattle are pastured there
by the Canadian Government to provide a weekly supply
of meat during the year for the Indians, and the
annual payment of five dollars per head is made and
blankets distributed in accordance with the treaty stip-
ulations.
62
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The Indians are settled along the valley of the Bow
River, some in tepees, but most of them insubstantial and
well-built log houses, each family having a small cul-
tivated patch of ground on which they raise potatoes,
cabbage and other vegetables, while their ponies are hob-
bled near by and their cattle range the prairie. They
seem to spend a happy contented life altogether diiTerent
from the non-treaty Indians, whose bad traits I observed so
markedly in Maple Creek, and whose good qualities were
not to be discovered with the naked eye. I talked with
a number of those who spoke English, and spoke it quite
as well as the majority of white men . They had traveled
some, could read and write, treated their wives and fam-
ilies with consideration, and, moreover, had accumulated
a little wealth outside of the Government allowance.
One Indian told me that he had not seen his father
since he was a boy. until this summer, when his father
wrote him a letter asking him to visit him at a point a
long distance still further north. He took a team of
horses and drove there, the round trip occupying two
weeks of traveling. He spent one week with his parents,
and spoke of them very affectionately and dutifully.
The Stoney tribe speak the "Cree" language and
belong to that race of brave figliters. A Mr. McDougal,
who resides near Morley, has translated the Bible and the
new Testament (as well as a book of hymns ) into the Cree
characters (which are said to be very simple and easily
learned), and he preaches to them and instructs them in
their own tongue. He is a wealthy rancher, one of the
oldest residents and has seen the prairies when they
teemed with roaming herds of buffalo, elk, antelope and
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deer His house contains more stuffed specimens of
" animated nature " than any other in this territory.
Some years since an enthusiastic young woman came
out here as a missionary from Massachusetts. She was
very successful in her work, and among her converts was
a "noble Indian," whom she induced to go to college,
where he studied faithfully and well, and on graduating
was ordained to the ministry. He went back to Morley,
made love to the young missionary, was accepted and
married her. They are happy, and, whi^e the wife's fam-
ily is said to have ostracised her, she seems to be satisfied.
Thirteen of our party, including four ladies, started
on a chicken hunt to a point some twelve miles from this
place. As the Indians indulge in shooting chickens from
the saddles of their ponies, and thus depleting their
numbers, it was necessary to take teams and drive this
distance before we found the birds which even then were
in only limited numbers and as wild as hares. When we
arrived on the shooting ground it was nearly noon, and
as the birds had finished their morning feeding and were
found on the edge of the brush fringing a little stream,
we had hard work getting more than a glimpse of them
before they would be out of sight. Taking long flights
made it slow shooting. However we made a fiiirly good
bag, and, as it is always the practice of this party of
sportsmen and sportswomen to shoot only what they can
use to advantage, we gave up the sport and the hard work
in good season and enjoyed a glorious ride back, watch-
ing the forms and ever-changing shadows of the Rocky
Mountains, which, though eighteen miles distant, seemed
close enough to be reached in a half-hour's walk.
64
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We were told that at Bow River all we had to do was
to throw ill our fish lines, and with any sort of a fly we
could catch all the speckled trout we could handle, and
that Morley was the point on the Bow which gave the
best results; but— how often these " buts " come in to
upset trout- fishing calculation, and this particular "but"
did it effectually— a roadniaster on the Canadian Pacific
had been drowned in the treacherous current and the
authorities, hoping to bring his body to the surface,
exploded dynamite in all the pools up and down the
river for five miles. These explosions, though they did
not raise the body, certainly did raise the d 1 with the
fish, killing nearly all of them. And thus, once more our
fond hopes and fancy of hauling in the speckled beauties
on our seven-ounce rods were scattered to the winds.
After a whole day's throwing and coaxing with all sorts
of flies, minnows and bait we succeeded in landing only a
paltrj^ dozen or so.
Ten persons having lost their lives in the river near
here within a few months, the ranchers, cowboys and even
the Indians hold it very much in awe. The water is icy
cold, from the melting snow and ice rushing down from
the Rocky Mountains; the current is swift, full of eddies,
rapids and whirlpools; and the stone on the bottom slip-
pery as an eel. Woe betide the man who should lose his
footing in fording or get over head in it in any shape ; his
chances of getting out would be slim indeed.
We arrived in Banff" early in the morning and slipped
out before breakfast to see the town and spy out the
points of attraction which the Canadian Pacific has set
such store by. The town is nil— nein— nix. A few log
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huts, a small brick church, a dozen or more frame shanty
stores, and stumps and fallen trees galore.
But the attractions are there, and they are attractions,
too, with no nonsense about them. "Whatever the com-
pany has advertised to perform, that it will perform, or
your money refunded," would apply very well. The
luxurious C. P. R. R. Hotel, about two miles from the
station, newly built, superbly furnished and lighted,
spacious, comfortable and well kept, is a "number one "
drawing card. A sanitarium, a few pretty, small hotels,
glorious drives among glorious mountains capped with
everlasting snow, a park, twenty -six miles long by ten
miles wide, embracing parts of the Bow, Spray and Cas-
cade Rivers; the Hot Sulphur Springs, the Warm Sul-
phur Springs, bridle paths and walks up the various
peaks and the unrivaled landscape all aglow with the
brilliant tints of its autumn foliage, make a combination
of attractions that has already proved strong enough to
draw tourists from all parts of this Continent and a great
many from Europe as well — a fact that the register at the
big hotel fully attests.
My choice in this list of attractions was to take a
warm sulphur bath and then scale a mountain. Now
isn't it unique to take a bath in an enclosure open at the
top, where the white caps of the mountains are .seen all
around you and the rain pouring in ? And yet we are
swimming in a pool of sulphur waif * at the natural tem-
perature of ninety degrees, and with plenty of room for
diving, fancy swimming and frolics generally.
The mountain climb was equally worthy of remem-
brance. I wasn't at all ambitious of "going" for one of
66
the 6cKX) foot giants. I selected a modest 1200 foot fellow
called Tunnel Mountain, and in face ot fierce winds and
gusts of rain (which on the higher peaks fell in the form
of snow) I scaled it in about an hour and a half. The
view from the top was as enchanting and ravishing as
mortal eye ever rested on. Neither poet nor painter
could even faintly describe or picture it. Why should
I then, who have not the gift of either, attempt to do
what cannot be done? Suffice it to say, it is imprinted
on my memory and likely to stay there.
ONE OF OUR CAMPS.
Coming down, like numerous other would-be smart
ones, I thought it an easy matter to leave the carefully
graded path and by traveling straight down save time and
distance. Very soon my feet .slipped from under me ;
down on my back I slid, grasping at shrubs, stones and
plants in my rapid descent, which kept up until its
67
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unpleasant speed was stopped by running into a tree;
With scratched hands, torn pants, a bruised back and a
little more wisdom, I concluded to keep to the path for
the remainder of the distance.
Did it ever strike you how many difficulties there are
to be encountered, the distances to be covered and the
obstacles to be surmounted in the search after speckled
trout ? It struck us, but not until after we had tried it.
We had so many promises of good trout fishing on this
trip, with so many disappointments, that when we reached
Banff and found that, although there was any quantity of
trout there, it was close season in the park, and we
couldn't fish, we were about giving up all idea of ever
seeing one. Just then we stumbled over a fellow who
told us of a wonderful little lake, recently discovered and
only fished in for the first time two months ago, at Castle
Mountain, seventeen miles from Banff.
On the promise that it was full of trout and notwith-
standing the warning that he doubted whether we could
rough it enough to get there, we determined to go and
find out whether he was a fish romancer or not. Our car
was pulled there in the early morning. A guide had
come with us from Banff, who filled us with bouncing
predictions of the luck we were going to have but kept
very dark about the difficulties and dangers of the trip.
Seven of us started with him, unconscious of what was
before us. He had led us along a small creek to a frail
crossing on a slippery fallen tree, over which one man
promptly tumbled and had to start back for dry clothes.
We then came to the Bow River, which here is a
raging torrent, deep and treacherous. Stretched across
63
diagonally was a very long boom, made by strapping a
string of two logs together and held to the shore by stout
wire cables. It is the only crossing this side of Banff,
seventeen miles away. On account of the fierce rush of
waters this string of logs was swaying up and down, with
the boiling water surging over them here and there, the
inner log half covered with slimy, rotten bark, that peeled
and slipped off under foot.
The guide had on shoes with sharp-pointed spikes,
which enabled him to skip across the logs with the ease
and grace of a dancing master; we had on rubber boots,
slippery as glass. There were two logs reaching to the
boom and over these the guide, seeing we were not in his
"skipping" condition advised us to creep on our hands
and knees.
Four of us started across with our feet placed cross-;
wise of the logs. On getting about a third of the way
over the guide halloed at the top of his voice: "Look
out you don't slip over; if you do, hang on to the logs
like grim death or you're a goner ! Xo man can swim in
this water; he'd be sucked under and into Davy Jones'
locker 'fore he could say Jack Robinson !"
This cheerful bit of information had the effect of
making us doubly cautious. By dint of balancing and
poising, and feeling with our feet for the least slimy
places we at last got .safely over. We then had time to
realize what idiotic fools we had been to risk our lives on
such a crossing, and, for what .'—a few trout.
We mo^i'oned to the three men we left on the other
side not to attempt the passage. They signalled "all
right," and we started ahead. Afterwards one of the
69
three made up his mind to try it. He labored along very
cautiously until near the middle, then over he went into
the deep and icy stream. Fortunately for him, he fell on
the inside. He was a strong, athletic young man, and
managed to throw an arm around the inside log before his
body could be sucked under, and by an almost supei-
huuian effort pulled himself on to the boom again. Hav-
ing got back safely he went to the car for a change of
clothes. To-day he is full of thanks to Providence for
his narrow escape, and well he may be, for his chance of
life in that cauldron of ice water was — well, one in a
hundred.
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CASTINQ FOR TROUT IN A FAMOUS POOL.
Shortly after leaving the river we struck a good trail
up a mountain side. It ended at an almost impenetrable
jungle of fire-swept timber, over, under and around which
we panted, perspired and labored for an hour; then sud-
70
denly, as if by magic, there flashed upon our sight the
loveliest little gem of a lake imaginable, circled around
by great mountains, with snow reaching nearly down to
the water. We at once jointed our rods, and tried "first
and last" li\e grasshoppers, of which we had plenty.
Hardly had J. struck my line into the water when a
speckled beauty took the hook, and then another and
another, and for a couple of hours it was nothing but a
swi.sh of the line and a battle with the trout.
Soon we had as many as we could carry. Mean-
while, the other three who were left, had, with the assist-
ance of the guide, who had returned to help them, resur-
rected an old scow and crossed. About two o'clock they
appeared with a welcome lunch, The car log book of
game credits the party with a catch of some three hun-
dred and fifty speckled trout, certairily enough to last us
a few days, as we have them carefully packed away in
the refrigerator.
Next morning our car was coupled to the Pacific
express and hauled to that wonderful spot, the great
"Selkirk Glacier." An excursion was promptly made to
the glacier, which is said to be seven miles long, two
miles broad and 2000 feet thick, of solid ice. A fine
object lesson is here obtained of the resistless power of the
ice in crushing, ix>wderiiig and moving enormous masses
of rocks. Avalanches, landslides and terrific storms are
of such frequent occurence during the winter and spring
that the occupants of the railroad hotel and station are in
daily terror of their lives.
Early this morning a couple of our sportsmen, armed
with rifles, started away from the car hoping to get a
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sight of a bear. Six of them — two grizzlies and one black
bear, each with a cub — were reported to be feeding on
berries less than a quarter of a mile away from the station.
In a ver)' few minutes three shots were heard, then five
in rapid succession, then one shot, and we divined that a
bear had .surely fallen. Excitement ran high and all were
on tip-toe of expectation, until two hunters returned —
without the bear.
It took some time for the truth to gleam through the
glamour surrounding that early morning encounter with
bruin, and here it is. A railway employee had located
the bears and at daylight crept down among the berry
bushes where they were expected to feed, and patiently
waited with the determination of bringing one down.
The track here makes a sharply defined horse shoe curve,
and on one arm of this curve is a snow shed a mile long.
One of our hunters had climbed on top of this shed and
walked along for half its length when he saw a bear come
out in an open patch seven hundred yards away. Now,
he couldn't get off the shed without going to the end of
it and by doing this he feared he might lose sight of the
bear. So to lo.se no time he commenced firing.
The other hunter saw with his glass a man down in
the berry patch and thought hunter number one was
shooting at him. The man in the berry patch seemed to
think so too, and after his ears had listened to the clo.se
whisi-i of seven or eight bullets he emerged from the
bushes and walking up to hunter number one opened up
on him a battery of Western words that fairly smoked
with brimstone. I'll omit them here, only saying that
they conveyed the idea that the bullets had nearly hit
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liini. "Besides," he said, " how the devil do you expect
to shoot bears from the top of a snow shed three (luarters
of a mile away?"
It took lots of oily words to smooth out the berry
man's waves of indignation. After warning hunter num-
ber one that if he valued the integrity of his own hide he
had better not try that sort of fun again, but keep his
bullets in their pouch, where they evidently belonged.
he finally agreed to an armistice and a drink of whisky.
Number two had in the meantime followed the bear
away down the river but lost the trail and dejectedly
returned, adding his opinion to that of the berry bush
man : "The idea of a fellow trying to shoot a bear from
the top of a snow shed and across a whole county !"
And now we come to Lake Okanagan to try our
guns on the wild geese and ducks.
% the way, like the immortal Mrs. O'Urien, who,
when she had acquired wealth and position in .society in-
sisted upon calling herself Mrs. O'Brion. with the accent
on the last syllable. Lake Okanagati is not Okanagan at all,
but is pronounced Okanawgan, accent on the third sylla-
ble. It is named after a tribe of Indians fa branch of the
Chinook race). It is about eighty miles long and from
two to twelve miles in breadth, well filled with silver
trout, salmon trout, chub and lake trout. The growing
town of Vernon, with a present population of about four
hundred, is five miles from it. The lake is bordered by
a remarkably fine piece of ranching and agricultural
country, and on account of its manifold attractions— the
depth and coldness of its waters, the beauty of the
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scenery, the wealth of wild fowl and its wonderful
climate— it is destined to become a prominent summer
resort for residents of the Pacific coast near Vancouver
and Victoria.
The lake and the town of Vernon are reached by a
branch of the Canadian Pacific Railroad fifty-one miles
long. This branch, though in operation but a short time
(it was opened on the twenty-fifth of last June) is said to
be already paying handsomely. Previous to the building
of the C. P. R. R. main line all merchandise had to be
transported on pack horses a distance of two hundred and
fifty miles from Fort Hope, on the Frazer River. The
item of freight was then a very serious one, as it amounted
to eleven cents per pound on sugar, nails, hardware,
coffee and all heavy articles, and a proportionately higher
rate on more bulky merchandise. It must be from this
reason then, that, although the railroad has been opened
over three months and the freight charges are very mod-
erate, the merchants have not got used to the changed
condition of affairs.
Everything is absurdly high. You are charged
twenty-five cents for a shave, fifty cents for a pint bottle
of apollinaris or Bass' ale, and corresponding prices for
everything else. But the livery stable men are the real
Shylocks of the town . A physician was dilating upon the
qualities of a very good young mare he had just bought
for ten dollars, and assured me he could buj' anj-^ number
of them at that price. I thought, as horse flesh was so
cheap, I should be able to enjoy many drives and see the
country without injuring my pocket. The thought was
hardly a sound one. At my first trial of it, the stable
74
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man charged me five dollars for a very sorry looking
horse and a dilapidated buggy whose years might have
equaled those of the " Deacon's one horse shay." The
charge for a pair of similar looking animals and a similar
looking wagon I found to be ten dollars. Such modesty
is rare.
We have been here a week, and, while there are
three livery stables, all doing a rushing trade, we have
never been able to
see the proprietor
of one of them to
know whether the
charges exacted
from us are war-
ranted or not, as
'^^^^^^^^^^^^■^^^^^^^^ each of them seems
to be more inter-
ested in shooting
or horse racing than in looking after his business.
This is truly a wonderful belt of country, the most
fertile we have yet seen. The presbyterian minister here
(lately preaching at Rutledge, Pa.) tells us that the soil
in places is fully fifteen feet deep and of the richest black
loam. The wheat averages over thirty bushels to the
acre and weiglis sixty-five to sixty-six pounds to the
bushel. They make no rotation in planting. It is wheat
and wheat year after year. We saw a field just harvested
that produced thirty-two liushels to the acre which had
been sown with wheat for twenty-three consecutive years,
and another field of forty acres that last year had not been
sown, but simply ploughed under, with the previous
PULLING THE CANOE OVER SHALLOW WATER.
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3'ear's stubble on it, that netted its owner (a half-breed
Indian) S700. Fruits, hops and vegetables are equally
prolific.
The climate is dry, with hot days, cold nights and
few sudden changes. Even now the days are as hot as in
July and the nights cold enough for November. The
only doctor in the neighborhood says he never saw nor
did he ever read of such a healthy district. Children
don't get sick. People eat well, sleep well and live long,
and the only business on which a doctor can earn his
liv'ing comes from accidents or from jiractice incidental to
the natural increase in the population.
The Earl of A1)erdeen, Governor-General of Canada,
has a ranch four miles from here, which is managed by his
brother-in-law, the Hon. Major Majoribanks. He also
has another ranch of several thousand acres at Mission, a
.settlement at the other end of Lake Okanagan. His lord-
ship ov*'ns almost countless herds of cattle and sheep and
droves of horses and pigs. A couple of young men, rela-
tives of the Duke of Argyle, nre now here shooting.
So, between the noble liarl's adherents and his Cirace
the Duke's relatives, the little town is full of fuss and
feathers. It's "Me Lud " this and his "Grace the
Duke" that on every side. The Jiarl's lower ranch, at
Mission, is to be irrigated and rented out in plotj of
twent\' acres or more to fruit farmers, for which it is said
to be peculiarly adapted.
Four of us have been having good sport during the
past week, shooting prairie chickens, ruflled grouse and
wild geese. A little lake four miles away is almost cov-
ered during daytime with the geese and ducks. The
76
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geese leave the lake every niorni.ig ruul evei)i„g to feed
on the stubble left standing i„ the wheat fields, and on
their passage to and fro comes the only chance to shoot
them. On arriving here the chief hunter now left with
our car, Mr. A. B. F. Kinney, of Worcester, Mass
selected favorable locations for sinking pits to shoot from,
and we all went to work digging with spades and a rail-
road crowbar. After the ploughed surface was removed
the earth was found to be almost solid black loam, which
reached dowt: as far as we went, nearly fix-e feet, and
awfully hard digging it was, as our blistered hands gave
proof. When the pits were dug a couple of dozen sheet-
iron decoy geese were set out; then we covered the
edges of the pits with wheat .straw, hiding everv Inrnj)
of fresh-turned earth, ^ that nothm^ could U seen
which would excite the suspicion of the geese. We
had scarcely finished our ta.sk when we hear<l their first
"honk! honk!" Down into tl;e pits we tumbled like
gophers, and crouching together with scarcely breathing
room, we .saw flock after flock sail over without giving
much attention to our painted sham gee>e. Then another
flock came which had more curiosity. To and fro they
sailed by us, circling around to find out if things were
"on the .s,i«are. each circle bringing them lovver and
lower until we were satisfied they were within gunshot.
Then up we jumped and blazed away. And the geese
-well, nothing seemed to have happened to them, they
flew oft- apparently untouched, but only apparentlv: we
saw one of them lag behind, then drcp a little, then rise
to the flock, and in a second or two tumble headlong a
quarter of a mile away. Another faltered and fell a halt
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a mile away. We found the first with the aid of a dog,
hidden in a bunch of grass ; the other, for which we
searched in vain, was found by a cowboy two days after.
Thus early in the morning and evening we have been
in the pits enjoying this most exciting sport, and have
bagged enough geese to supply us with all we can use,
and an occasional one to give away. At this season of
the year they are fat and delicious eating.
Six gentleuKMi of our party started on Mondaj' of last
week on a " big game hunt" into the district of the Gold
range of mountains abounding in caribou, grizzly and
black bear, Rocky Mountain goats and mountain sheep.
They took with them three Indian guides, a white cook
and a squaw to cook for the guides. As their camp outfit
had to be carried on pack horses sixl\ -five miles, when
they started off they made a very respectable cavalcade.
The roads, as well as the bunting yround, are said to be
of the roughest description, so whatever game they
bring back tiiey will surely earn, particularly when it is
said that bef(Lre leaving they were compelled to take out
a license to shoot deer, costing $50 each. As far as we
can learn this license or tax is only levied on Americans
(Yankees we are called here) while Knglishmen, French-
men or men of any other nationality are never required to
take out a license. If this be reallj' so, it is only another
proof of Canada's vexatious and nagging policy towards
her big and wealthy neighbor. It also proves how short-
sighted they are, as such a policy will never bring recip-
rocity, which all Canadians sigh for, but retaliation, which
they can ill afford, and which is as unseemly among
nations as it is among men.
78
While in the ticket office at Vancouver, British
Columbia, we were much amused at a party of three
Enghshmen belonging to the nobility of England, who
were trying to engage a compartment on one of the
C. P. R. R.'s first-class cars. They couldn't "you
know" travel in a car with ordinary people; but the
ticket man assured them there was nothing else for them
to do, as there were no compartments, and the company
could not arrange one before the train started, no matter
how important it might be to them.
They agreed to pay an extra fare if the smoking end
of the car could be reserved for them and they authorised
the conductor to tell the passengers that thev were cholera
suspects or small-pox patients or anytliing he liked in
order to keep the "common people" away from them.
But all to no purpose. There was but one alternative-
take their "medicine" or stay behind.
It was somewhat amusing to hear their criticisms on
Uncle Sam's "frightfully vulga' country and beastly
traveling don't you know. ' '
The route from Vancouver, in British Columbia, to
Seattle, Wash., lies through a rough, heavilv timbered
district, where the trees measure anywhere from three
feet to six feet in diameter. These are of the red cedar
variety and are being rapidly sawed down and cut into
lumber and shingles.
Why it is I cannot tell, but it certainly /s neverthe-
less-! mean that the railway is literally lined with a row
of bursted booming towns; each with a bladder-like
name, a big hotel, a public hall, maybe, and lots of
saloons flaring suggestive signs, such as the " Bla/ing
79
f
Stump Saloon," " New Idea Saloon," "Three of a Kind
Saloon," " Let her go Gallagher Saloon." etc., etc.
Convincing evidence of "bustedness" looms up every-
where. Streets deserted, dwellings vacated and closed,
and no visible sign of life, except it be the .shingle mills
and the woodchoppers' shanties that lie on the outskirts
and away from the "avenues" and "boulevards" that
grace these silent towns.
•(,,1'
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A CAMP WITH COOK-MOUSE TO THE LEFT AND DINING TABLE TO THE RIGHT.
A dealer in real estate in Seattle told us that the
growth of that town had been very much curtailed by
heav}' investments in those mushroom growths which
offer little or no chance of any returns. Seattle and
Tacoma are less than forty miles apart, and as both are
ambitious, growing towns, there is necessarily great busi-
ness rivalry and bitter jealousy. Each city claims the
largest population , business and wealth : each claims the
So
1 1
brightest prospects for the future, and each also delights
to decry the boasted advantages of the other. Our
candid and unprejudiced opinion is that Seattle is by all
odds the most enterprising and promising of the two.
Certainly there is much more life there than in Tacoma,
and more public spirit.
Tacoma seems to have been nursed and coddled so
much by the Northern Pacific that, in a measure, she has
lost her independence. On the other hand Seattle has
had to scratch and fight for her railroad favors, and
fought so well that she has fairly compelled the Northern
Pacific to come off its "Tacoma perch" and hustle for
its share of the trade. The Great Northern Railway is
expected to be opened to vSeattle in a few months, and
then the difference will be still more marked.
We have been enjoying the luxury of trolling for
salmon in Puget Sound, both at Seattle and Tacoma,
with fairly good success, as all our part}' save one ( and
he was the professional "lone fisherman" of the party)
caught one or more salmon. While the sport was verj^
exciting, I confess I was disappointed at the tame fight
they make when hooked. There is a good deal more
fight and fun in a four pound bass than you can get out
of a sixtc-en i>ound salmon. But they are beauties ; and
when you have them saR-ly landed and l\ing in the
bottom of the boat, they are certainly a "joy forexx-r."
Our fifteen year-old sportsnuui was not to be outdone
by the older hands, for lie not only hooked and landed
his salmon, but he also landed a trout with the trolling
line and spoon, a feat which none of u.s had ever heard
of before.
Si
f
10'
It is needless to say that the catching and canning of
the salmon is a very large and profitable industry. The
number of people dependent upon his ' ' iridescent high-
ness," the lordly salmon, for a living and the number
too, in all civilized portions of the globe, who find eco-
nomical and delicious nourishment in his red and juicy
steaks, would be beyond the ken of man to tell. Yet it
is safe to .say that no one product of our Western Hemis-
phere serves to advertise and popularize the country more
than the canned salmon. Millions of tins are annually
shipped P:^ast or exported to Europe and .sold at such
prices that "canned salmon" is now rightly considered
the handiest, the cheapest, and the most nutritious
cooked food of the century.
U
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NORTH DAKOTA.
A sportsman's pniadise, in truth, is this
Where nothing mars or meddles with liis bliss ;
Ninircid himself might envy sncli a spot,
Nor find his j-ame unworthy of his shot.
— IVhillon.
r\OUBTLESS, North Dakota is tlie "paradise of
I I the sportsman " but I am not so sure it contains
*/ nothing to " meddle with his bliss." Indeed I
have strong evidence to the contrary which I will spread
before the reader a little further on.
We wound up our excursion in a blaze of magnificent
sport at Dawson, in this state. The proximity of the
place to eaormous wheatfields and innumerable sloughs,
ponds and lakes causes all kinds of aquatic game birds lo
congregate here and in the greatest abundance. All the
duck tribe, including the red head, the mallard, the
widgeon, teal, black, and bald pate; the Canadian gray
goose, the beautiful white goose, sandhill cranes, and the
plump, solid-meated prairie chicken, all these are here
and many others, awaiting the pleasure of the sportsmen.
The latter come from all parts of the country— but par-
ticularly from St. Paul and Chicago— -with their lo-bores
and i2-bores, their retrieving ^p•^niels and their Irish
setters.
Mi
ii
The town hasn't over two hundred inhabitants, but
it boasts of a hirge hotel, which is now reaping its
harvest from the pockets of the lots of men who know
how to shoot as well as the lots that don't.
The migratory wild fowl are now making their way
down from the far North in countless nutltitudes, feeding
on the wheat fields and ponds in the early morning and
late evening, and resting in the centre of some lake large
enough to keep them from out the reach of the deadly
breech-loader during the day.
The flights of geese are something wonderful, and it
is more wonderful still that so very few of them are shot.
There is no more wary or suspicious bird than the Canada
goose. They will not settle anywhere without first care-
fully looking the ground over. From the height at which
they fly and in the rarefied atmosphere of the prairies they
can see for miles, and they carefully avoid any moving
object, particularly if it be that of the human form.
We had spent several days there before we were able
to discover the fields they were feeding on. When we did
find the place it was literally sprinkled with their droppings
and breast feathers. We selected a suitable spot, dug two
luxurious pits, fixed the edges up with wheat stubble as
carefully as po.ssible, set our decoys and jumped in to
await the coming of the "honkers." We had been in
the pits only a few minutes when we saw away off on the
prairie what appeared to be a man with a dog. The man
seemed demented, jumping and running around, and \ymg
down on his back, then jumping up again and repeating
his operations in the most eccentric manner. We held a
whispered consultation from p;*^ to pit as to what was best
84
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to be done. It was folly to think that the geese would
come down from the clouds for the purpose of getting a
closer view his capers. (Jh no, we knew they were
not such geese as that : so it was decided that I should
be the Ambassador Plenipo with full power to coax, drive,
persuade or kick the funny intruder off the prairie.
When I reached him I fcnind, not a man, but a stubby,
little, barefooted German boy, whose feet were sore from
walking over the sharp-pointed wheat stubble. Hence
his teafH. I thought, for he was crying. But I was mis-
taktrii. His grief was not of the sore-footed sort. He
was only a "little Bo-Peep" of the prairie variety, and he
had lost his sheep and didn't know where to find 'em.
With more ingenuity than \eracity, and a ver\' ragged
attempt to handle his mother tongue. I told him when
and where I had seen them and if he would only hurry
away in the direction which I pointed out he would .soon
over^^-^ke their tails.
Watching him until well out of sight and pluming
myself on my diplomacy I returned to the pit. I had
been there but a short time, when the screaming and
" honking " of the first flight was heard, and peeping over
the edges of th pit I saw a great moving cloud coming
straight for us. But. horrible to relate, there was some-
thing else coming, and something that promised to
"meddle with our bliss ' most effectually. An old l)lack
horse witli a girl on his back wabbled towards us and
getting near enough the girl stopped and yelled at the top
of her voice: " Where did ye say ye see my she-e-e-i)? "
"Oh, for Heavens sake," I said, "get out of this!
Move on! Don't you see you're knocking our sport
85
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P
ik
into smithereens ? ' ' But she didn 't or couhln 't or wonldn' t
see, until one of our men threatened to put a charge of
shot into the old horse unless she hurried him out of the
way. The threat seemed to improve her eyesight, for at
once she commenced whipping up old " Rosinante " and
in a little while both had disajipeared in the distance.
And so had the geese. The flock on seeing her liad
swerved by us a quarter of a mile away, and nothing now
could be done but wait for the next and largest flight,
which in fifteen minutes we heard coming toward us,
fully a couple of miles off. We had just time to ask our-
selves whether there was going to be any further meddling
with our bliss when the answer showed up for itself.
This time it was in the shape of a woman, evidently
Bo-peep's mother, accompanied by the rider of the black
horse. The girl had ridden home, told her mother we
had threatened to shoot her, and now the old lady was
here, with the martial fires of her fatherland burning
fiercely within her and her blood up to the boiling point.
When she got within shouting distance she opened her
batteries. She would listen to neither explanation nor
defence, and actually charged us with having frightened
her sheep away by having a retriever with us, and vowed
vengeance. We entreated her, implored her to leave us,
to go away, anywhere, so the geese wouldn't see her;
that after they had passed she might come back again and
we would try to accommodate her with all the ven-
geance she wanted. But no, there she stood, working
her jaws and hurling her brimstone at us, and waving
her arms that flew around her head like the sails ot a
windmill.
86
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The geese passed over and away out of range and
sight. Then lier arms resumed their equilibrium, and
with a few more liot words and a farewell shake of her
fist she turned and slowly disappeared over a knoll.
And we? Well, we got out of our pits and with spade
and shovel silently filled them up again; then, hardly
daring to trust ourselves to speak, we got into the wagon
and drove to the train, for this was our last hunt for the
season of 1892.
87
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IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)
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Sdences
Corporation
33 WEST MAIN STREET
WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580
(716) 872-4503
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BRANT SHOOTING.
Tlii» Mport, well cnrriecl, shall lie cliroiiicleil.
— ifidsummft-Xivht' s Difiim.
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• V
-S<,l
30 let me chrotiicle the story of a week's sport —
"well carried, ' I think — on Monomoy Island,
Cape Cod, Mass. A week of atmospheric somer-
saults; a week of rain, snow, hail, sleet, thunder with
vivid lightning, and extreme cold. And yet in spite of
the exposure — twice a day wading a thousand yards to
our shooting boxes, (guided by stakes a hundred yards
apart, while we couldn't see from one to the other through
the fog or sleeting snow) sitting in the l)ox, at times over
our knees in water, the waves dashing over it and slap-
ping down the back of our neck, with the thermometer
hugging close to the freezing ])oiiit — I say, desi)ite all
this, it was a week that will be fondly fastened in my
memory ; a week full of adventure and iiovelt\- ; any
quantity of o/one : plenty of superbly prej)areil sea food
for sustenance, and a superbly prepared appetite and
digestion to handle it. It was also a week of total blank
so far as any news of the outside world was concerned.
No letters, no newspapers, no telegrams to side-track our
attention or upset our equanimity. For once, business
88
and the shop miRht go to the-wd!. "Hades. • Song, story
and jest hehl high carnival. Dull care was banished and
his woeful face never permitted to enter the i)ortals of the
old club house so long as we held possession. For one
week at least he was a stranger, a melancholy tramp,
jobless and with no abiding place on the sands of
Monomoy Island or the waters thereof
"Hello! there's branters," said a native of Cape
Cod, as we left the little mixed freight and passenger
train at Chatham, Mass., on the morning of April 4th.
"There be nine on em," he said, counting our noses by
mental arithmetic : and he Mas right. There were nine
of us, with guns, woolen clothes, rubber clothes, canvas
clothes, oil clothes, with leather boots, rubber boots,
rubber liats, with crates of onions, boxes of loaded shells,
cases of canned goods, mysterious looking "stun jugs"
and ".sich."
Nine of us from Boston, Worcester, Quincy, Dor-
chester, Florida and Philadelphia, all drawn together by
the Freemasonry of sport, and the shibboleth was
"Brant." The day before I left Philadelphia I told a
prominent Market Street merchant that I was going
shooting for a short time. He asked what I was goiug
to shoot at this time o' year. ' ' Brant," I replied.
"Well," he .said, "when I was a boy 1 used to shoot
S(iuirrels with a rifle, and got so that I could shoot them
back of the head every time." ( How far back he didn't
say.)
"Well. " I answered, "'brant are much harder to
shoot than scjuirrels, for they run faster than ral)bits
and are much bigger." "Well. I declare," he said,
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and then relapsed into silence, perfectly satisfied that
he knew all ahont it.
For the information of this Market Street merchant
I will say that the brant is smaller than a goose, and at this
time of year is on his way Xorthward, merrily helped along
by hundreds of guns belching forth No. 3 to No. i shot
froni all sorts of innocent looking shooting boxes, .sur-
rounded with decoys, both artificial and natural.
The brant is here in countless numbers.
It is a bird of beautiful plumage and graceful form;
plump aiul fat, swift of wing and wary and suspicious of
anything and everything that bears the slightest semblance
of danger. There is also a mystery surrounding it which
has bothered the scienti.sts for ages and is still bothering
them — namely, the wherabouts of its breeding habitat.
The late Professor Spencer Baird worried himself more,
perhaps, than any other savant over this undiscovered
territory. No living man, it is said, has ever seen the
nest or egg of the brant, and no matter how far explorers
ha>e forced their way Northward, the brant has always
been .seen winging on still further North. Therefore the
guides out here (some of whom have grown gray in the
pursuit of ''brantin'") claim that there surely must be
an open Polar Sea where the weather is warm enough to
hatch out their eggs, and where food is plenty and nutri-
tious, for they come down in the fall of the year fat and
.sleek as a pullet. The ycmng birds come South strong of
wing and as cunning as — well, I might say of them, as
Huckingham said of the little Duke of York. " So cun-
ning and .so young is wonderful !"
i
li/i
Moiiomoy Island lies oflF the nminlaiul in the ocean
a few miles from Chatham, Mass. lietween the island
and the mainland the succulent sea grass waves gracefully
to the gentle swell of the tide or the fierce ' ' Northeaster, ' '
which, by the way, h s been blowing a gale since we
arrived.
Sea grass is the natural food of the "brant." The
stre'ch of sheltered water here is large enough to leave
the birds plenty of room to move around in swinging
columns without coming within range of the sink boxes,
and it is only when the tides and winds are favorable that
the birds are brought within the line of danger. The
" Mononioy Hrant-
ing Club" (the only
one, I believe, on the
continent) has a
couple of comfort-
able houses built on
a bluff or sand dune,
with artistically con-
structed sink boxes
placed at the most
favorable points and a large stock of wooden decoys. Live
brant with clii)ped wings help to lure their brethren into
danger, and with asnuich apparent satisfaction and enjoy-
ment as the setter dog takes in flu.shing grouse or (juail.
The club is formed mostly of ICastern gentlemen, all, of
course, enthusiasts in sporting, and whose number is
limited to twenty, each member being entitled to invite
one guest. Four members oidy are permitted to be here
at one time, and, as the shooting lasts five weeks, each set
91
HOMEWARD BOUND; ON CHE8UNCOOK LAKE.
i
m
with their guests have one weeks fun. At dinner in the
little hotel at Chatham we met the party who had pre-
ceded us, returning to the 'Huh" with seventy-four
"brant," hron/ed cheeks and ravenous appetites.
Four guides are engaged by the club. They are men
who thoroughly know the habits of the birds, understand
the tides and currents, and handling of boats, and know
how to shoot besides.
One of them has l)een continuously at the business of
"giiidin' " for thirty-one years, during all that time only
missing two days — one when he had to go to a funeral
and the other when he had to go to court. The care of
family, the tender offices of friends, the seductions of
courtship, the excitement of the play or the circus, none
of these has any allurement for these weather-beaten,
blue-eyed and kindly men when once the branting season
opens. During the rest of the year they earn a comfort-
able but precarious living by fishing and wrecking. They
watch the shifting sands, the gloomy fogs and the blind-
ing snow storms with earnest solicitude, for this is truly
a dangerous place for the unwary mariner. Close by the
island lies the wreck of the Yacht Alva, which all the
wealth of its owner. Mr. \'anderbilt. could not .save.
Right on the beach lie the keel, the ribs and spars of the
good ship Altamah. while her cargo of lumber is strewn
on the shore for a long distance, the drifting sand now
covering it up as with a winding sheet. This vessel
struck the wreck of the Alva, opening a huge rent in
her bow, and the lashing surf did the rest. During the
winter the fine steamer Cottage City, from Portland, Me.,
to New York, struck in about fourteen feet of water,
92
She held fast until thousaiuls of Imxes of merchan-
dise were thrown overboard, when, with the aid of a tug
and a high tide, she was gotten off. and without rudder
or sternitost was towed to Xew York.
Our friends, the guides, lament the fact that most of
the jettisoned cargo floated out to sea, but with the re-
mainder, which was weighty enough to sijik. they have
been engaged for some weeks grappling in fifteen feet
of water, and bringing their find to the surface a .d shore.
Of course, some "odd" lots have been brought up.
Among them was a case of 2500 little boxes of split leaden,
bullets for fish line sinkers and several cases of white, flinty
rock, consigned to a Trenton pottery, which the wreckers
are much out of heart about, because of their weight and
also because no one down here can tell whether they are
worth the freight to Trentt.n or not.
These wreckers, branters and fishermen live a happy
life and are as full of content as an egg is of meal. No
fluctuations in stocks : no frills of fashion : no telepho.ie
reduced rates : no silver craze— in fact nothing under the
sun or above it can knock the bottom out of a " branters "
content, give him but the favoring tide and howling gust
that bring the brant -in plenty" to his decoys. This
It is that warms up his imagination, cheers his heart
and fill his pocket with "the coin of the realm."
41
wmm
THE QUAINT CAPE CODDERS.
i
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Ah, what n life were this I
-Henrv 11.
ON my journey clown here, via the Old Colony Rail-
road, I was much imjiressed by the evidences on
every hand of the bitter struggle the sturdy Cape
Cod people have to wage at all times to provide the
rude shelter and homely fare which their existence in
these barren stretches of sand dunes, pine forests and
cranberry bogs demands. We can, without any trouble,
read in their faces the story of scanty crops, grown on
poor soil ; of continued exposure to wind and weather in
the pursuit of the finny tribe that swim in the numerous
bays and channels as well as in the dangerous regions of
the "Grand Banks" and Block Island, or in the laborious
and patience-trying business of raising cranberries.
The Old Colony Railroad, whose stock is held largely
by the natives of Cape Cod, and who look upon it as the
great railroad of the world, has a time-honored custom of
giving to its stockholders on the Cape a free ticket to
Boston and return, in order that they may attend the
Road's annual meeting in that city. A man owning one
share has this privilege in common with his more wealthy
94
neighbor. Therefore, if a Cape Codder has five shares
you may rest assured they will he entered singly for each
iiienil,er of his family so all of then, may make the annual
tour to the " Huh.' Of course, this was always a great
day, requiring the whole equipment of the Road to ha.idle
the crowd with safety and dispatch.
Now there are grave stories told that, as the control
of the road has changed, this great free excursion is to be
done away with, and there are loud murmurings of dis-
content among the people at the abolition of this old-time
custom .
Spicy tales are told of the Cape Codder and his
church-mouse poverty, and some of these are sharpened
to a poetic point :
Tlicrc was a youiiK ladx- of Truro,
Who sighed for a 'liogaiiy l)iircaii ;
Hut her ]va said " (ircat God !
All the men in Cai>e Cod
Couldn't pay for a 'lu)j4any bureau !"
But, we are here to shoot "brant" not mahogany
bureaus, and therefore I will now describe to you a sight
I saw yesterday, and one that will linger in my memory
as an in.stance of the wonderful instinct and weather-
wisdom of migrating sea fowl
For days strong Nor casters have blown fiercely,
accompanied by snow, sleet, rain, thunder and lightning,
and through these the brant could have made but little
headway had they tried to proceed on their journey
Northwards. But they didnt try. They knew better
than "Old Probs" what the weather was going to be.
Yesterday afternoon there was a lull in the storm, a fog
95
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set ill. ii'ul the brant coiiKfeK'^^^tl '" 1""K t'olunins, flap-
pitij; their witijfs and making the most deafening <»"tcTies.
( )ur ^nides said : "The birds are i)reparinf{ to start. The
weather will settle by niorninj;;" but after the fog came a
furiijus ii,n\v, with vivid Hashes of lightning, loud peals of
thund .r and down-i)ouring of rain. This condition of
jifTairs lasted all night, and for once our c»)nfidence in the
brants wisdom and judgment was shaken. lUit lo and
behold, this morning the sun arose bright and warm, with
a Southwest wind, and up and away the brant were (lying
Northward. I'irst a series of sw»)oping circles, rising
higlier and higher in the air, a pause, then o IT they go by
the thousands, in flocks of fn)m three to five hundred
carefully marshaled and efliciently led by some old gander,
who will allow his followers no rest for the soles of their
feet until the Hay of Inindy or Prince Ivlward's Island is
reached .
This afternoon, no doubt, other flocks ecpially as
large will reach here from the South, stopping to rest
and lo feed ])efore they again resume their journey to
their mysterious and unkiKJwn nesting place. As the
one conversation, tiie one aim of the "nine on us" is
brant, we have become saturated with the theme, and we
think brant, dream brant, talk brant and shoot l)rant.
One of the party has been worked upon .so much by the
excitement that at the card table — for there's a pack
down here — he will throw down his hand and wildly
exclaim: "I want to shoot a brant I" In bed he will
toss wearily from side to side as the others sit and watch
him, and he will moan, " I want to shoot a brant." After
a while a little tiny snore is heard, then a faint murmur,
96
" I want to shoot" — another louder snore and a whisj>er
— "a brant," and then he has reached the land of dreams
banking away at the birds right and left, jumping out of
the sink box to retrieve them from the swift-flowing tide,
wearily carrying them back to the shanty, past ten one
hundred yard stakes — one thousand yards of deep wa Jing
— and then awakening to the crushing truth "'tis but a
dream." Hut we are all getting our share of the shooting
and even our brant enthusiast will soon have enough to
quiet his excited mind and cool his heated imagination.
A BIG DEER KIILEO BV JAWES J. MARTINDAIE, SON OF THE AUTHOR.
The cooking at the club house on Monomoy Island
deserves a warm word of tribute. There are two chefs —
Sam Josephs and Frank Rogers— who revel in producing
dishes peculiar to the Cape and Island that are at once
enticing, nourishing and appetizing. Some of their
productions defy my faint power to depict, but I will long
97
11
cherish the recollections of their huge bowl of delicious
stewed scallops, their (luahog stews, quahog pies, <|uahog
fritters, clam chowders, steamed clams, boiled clams,
fresh boiled cod, fish balls with the accompaniment of
thin slices of raw Bermuda onions, fresh cucumbers, the
finest of butter, Java coffee, and water that made my heart
thump when I tasted it to think how long, oh, how long
it will be l)efore we can hope to see an American city
supplied with such sparkling acjua pura! Now. to this
magnificent bill of fare, please add ravenous appetites for
one and all of us from our open air exercise, and what
wonder then that when we turn into our bunks sweet
sleep, sleep without bromides, sleep without hoj) pillows,
or without any other soporific spur, at once embraces us,
and in spite of the pounding of llie surf at our very
doors, in spite of the storm and its thunder pounding in
the sky above us, we awake not until Alon/.o, the guide,
says: " (lentlcnien, gentlemen, the tide's aflowin' in,"
and everybody gets up.
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98
THE WRECKER.
A l.riivi- ff lion- : Hi- keeps his ti<U-s w«ll.
— TimoH of A Ihfm .
OX the barren and inhospitable sand dune of four
miles long by one-ciuarter of a mile broad, which
formerly svas laid down on the old charts as
"Malabar" Island, but now, for some reaso.i. I know
not what, is called Monomoy Island, a number of profes-
sional wreckers ply their risky, exciting and speculative
calling. I have always associated, in njy mind, wreckers
with pirates, thinking that the terms were synonymous.
On the contrary. I have found that the wrecker is a man
who risks his very existence to save property, both of
vessel and cargo, as well as human life: that in the pur-
suit of his calling he shows rare bravery, great ner\c,
hardihood of no connnon character, shrewd wi.sdom and
cunning in disposing of his "llotsani and jetsam" and a
knowledge of law relating to maritime affairs that often
outwits the keenest Cape Cod barrister.
For a week I have been with four of these rugged
sea dogs, all of them seasoned wilii more than half a
century (one of them 70 years of age ». and yet when the
winds are fierce, the fogs dense, the snows blinding, they
are one and all on the qui vhr for the signals of
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distress from some unfortunate coaster, or steamer, or full
rigged ship, as the case may be. To-day I have walked
for miles along the beach, threading my way over and
among a cargo of Southern hard pine lumber of over two
hundred thousand feet, which is piled high and dry on
the sand from the wreck of the Altamaha, a Scotch
vessel, built forty five years ago. This lumber was sold
a few days since for $2.75 and $2.25 per thousand feet, as
it lies, and men are now at work removing the coverlet
of sand from it, and measuring and marking it. Then
the purchaser will have his hands full in getting it to the
Boston market and to solve the (luestion, not how nuich
profit he will reap, but, how much will he lose on the
purchase.
Close by the island lies the wreck of Mr. Vanderl)ilt's
famous yacht, Alva, whose walnut fixtures and trimmings
are even yet coming daily to shore. A contractor is now,
and has been for some time, at work endeavoring to blow
her to pieces and removing the obstruction, the Govern-
ment having awarded him the contract for about $9000,
(only half the amount the next lowest bidder asked for
doing the same work.) The contractor brought a little
steamer down from Brooklyn, (she is .so slow, even under
full steam as I saw her this morning, that I mistook her
for a stationary light ship), and when the tide is at its
lowest ebb he is able to get about half an hour's work on
the wreck each day, as it then lies in fourteen feet of
water. It is thought he will not make a fortune out of
the job.
The owners of the valuable steamer Cottage City,
which came ashore here, the vessel and cargo valued at
$130,000, sent the captain of the life-saving crew, who
had given vital assistance to the vessel in getting her off
the shoals after she had jettisoned a large portion of her
cargo, the munificent sum of S5 for each man of his crew.
The captain promptly returned the donation, with the
assertion that he himself could easily afford to give his
crew that much without seriously hurting his hank
account. The owners of a small coaler that was helped
off by the same crew promptly sent the men $25 each,
which was a distinction with a difference.
Since I arrived here a vessel of 500 tons burden has
gone to the bad on the Handkerchief Shoals, which are
a few miles from the Island. A fleet of small craft is
daily making visits to the wreck, buying and laying in a
generous supply of coal for the winters fires of the resi-
dents of Harwich, Dennis and Chatham at varying prices
of from $1 per ton to a lump price for what the dory,
sloop, cat boat or yacht can hold.
Some time since a vessel showed signals of distress
off the island in a moderate storm. The daring wreckers
were soon aboard of her, and found the captain, with his
wife and children, anxious to be taken off. The vessel
had five and a half feet of water in the hold. The captain
was half owner. She was well insured, and he did not
care what became of her so that she was beached and
the crew, himself and fiunily taken off in .safety. The
wreckers, together with the life-saving service, manned
the three pumps, got her under way and into the calm
waters of the bay, where she was sold by the underwriters,
the wreckers' share of the "treasure trove" being about
$40 per man.
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Another vessel was abandoned here some years ago
which, when the wreck was broken up, was found to
have two huge plugs in her side below the water line,
showing conclusivelj' that the captain, in order to reap
the insurance, had deliberately filled her with water.
Then, finding she was sinking too fast, he had driven the
plugs home so as to enable the crew to get ashore without
danger.
One of the narrators of these "tales of shipwreck"
waddles along with one leg bent out from him like a
drawn bow. He has had it broken three times, and now,
while it will bear his "heft," as he calls it, he can carry
but little addition to it without severe physical distress.
The first time it was broken was aboard a shipwrecked
vessel that he had agreed to stay by — all alone — while a
tug towed her into a haven of rest. The wind was blow-
ing a gale. The haw.ser being drawn so tight as to have
little or no ' ' bight, ' ' he had become fearful that the strain
causing it to fray by rubbing on the sides of the "eye"
through which it passed, might part it. While he was ex-
amining it the the iron plating of the "eye" snapped and
crumbling like an egg shell under the strain, one of the
pieces struck him on his leg below the knee, breaking it
in three places. He was just able to signal the tug,
which was soon along side. A consultation between the
injured man and the captain resulted in the latter taking
him into Hyannis, Mass., where he was driven to the
station in time to take a train for New Bedford, the
nearest place, in those days, to obtain efficient surgical aid.
The railroad service at that time was primitive, the
time slow, and the track rough as a corduroy road to the
til,
crippled wrecker. The journey in the cars alone lasted
just eight hours, and during the whole of this excruciat-
ing journey he had to hold his knee tightly with his
hands. The doctor who set it complimented him ou his
wonderful exhibition of pluck and grit, kept him in bed
eight weeks and sent him home with, as he described it,
the "best bad leg" he had ever s,een. In these days of
anaesthetics and improved railroad facilities such a trip
would be of rare occurrence.
Among the Cape's quaint customs I find the old
Scottish one known as "bundling " But this, like other
of her quaint customs, is slowly yielding to the march of
the newspaper, the telegraph, the telephone, and the rail-
road. I scarcely believed that this custom still existed
or, indeed, ever had a foothold on this continent, but I
soon found indubitable proof of it. "Bundling," you
must know, is a method of courtship based on motives
of economy, (the saving of light and fire). It is still
practiced in Scotland though gradually dying out there,
as increasing prosperity affords broader scope for comfort
and less necessity for economy.
>;S^
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A WARY BIRD.
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We'll make a soleinn waRer on your cunnings.
—Mam/et.
•If MAN, to be successful in brant shooting must be a
LY sportsman of the most enthusiastic type and a fair
* \^^shot. Moreover, he most possess a good constitu-
tion, plenty of patience, and plenty of ability to defy cold,
wet and exposure. He must expect many disappoint-
ments and a great deal of waiting, for the birds are so
wary and so seldom deceived it is rarely he will find
them within the range of his heaviest charges of powder
and shot. When the chance of a shot is obtained and he
downs his bird, the excitement is over quick as a flash
and he wonders how it all happened. Let me describe
how it is done.
During the early spring the guides have sunk boxes
large enough to hold three men. The Ijoxes are placed
either out on the bay in shallow water, piling up around
them hundreds of wheelbarrowfuls of sand at low tide
(covering the same and neatly fastening it down with a
sail cloth, so that the rushing tides cannot carry it away)
to represent a sand bar; or they are fixed on some jutting
point of land in the bay, always using plenty of sand,
behind which the gunners are to sit with bowed heads,
104
but with watchful eyes and ears. 0«t i„ frout of these
boxes wooden decoys are fixed on a framework like the
letter \\ five on each frame, all strung together, so that
they turn with the tide and wind, and look natural
enough to deceive the oldest gander in the flock.
Then two gutmers with the guide wend their way to
the boxes when the tide is flowing in. the gunners encased
in hip rubber boots, two or three pairs of stockings a
heavy suit (flannel shirts, sweaters, overcoats), and laslly
an oilskin suit, if the weather be rough. The gunners
get in the boxes, arrange their pipes and shells and bail
the water out, while the guide takes from a basket a pair
of brant with clipped wings which he deftly harnesses
together like a span of horses. The yokes, nmde with
leather thongs, are put on their feet not their necks. They
are allowed to swim or wade out quite a distance, being
secured by a cord, which is kept on a reel in the sink box.
The particular offices these birds are to perform are
fwhen the brant are flying or swimming anywhere near)
to flap their wings and "honk" their wild relatiyes into
danger among the decoys : and it is amazing how intel-
bgent they are in their work ; how they get away out of
range when the wild birds are being coyered by the deadly
breech-loader, and how they chatter to themselves with
seeming satisfoction when the lottery has been unmasked
and the fallen birds retrieved. When all is ready the
guide gets into the box. and then the trials of endurance
patience and expectancy begin. There is no lack of
birds in sight-thousands of them-and their cries at
tmies are deafening, but they keep provokingly far
enough off- to make you feel as if your head mast never
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again be raised. You soon get cramped, numbed with
the cold wind or, maybe rain, or snow or sleet blowing
and pelting in your face. But you must not get up.
6H0T BV MOONLIGHT, AND A8 WE FOUND HIM NEXT DAY.
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Once I sat for over five hours in a box, with r .n,
snow and sleet driving in my teeth, and occasionally
the water from the high tide washing over my back and
down my neck, patiently waiting for my reward. It
came at last. Up like a flash and within range came five
l)irds, flying down the wind with the speed of a carrier
pigeon. We got a shot apiece; three were left behind,
while the other two were soon miles away, and our long
wait and exposure forgotten. We say: " How did those
two birds get away? " "I'll bet they re crippled! " ' ' Watch
them!" "Thev're going down!"' "No, they're not!"
"Yes, they are!" and so on, but the birds are not ours,
that is a sure thing. So you never know when out of the
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haze, or the clear sky. like a meteor from behind you or
straight on, a bunch of birds may come, deceived bv vour
pa,r of live " honkers ' ' and your bunch of wooden shams
Or again, a flock may be feeding and unconsciously drift-
ing with the inflowing tide towards your box, occasionally
giving a quick, suspicious look, swimming back a little
then onward again, and, of course, to raise the tip of your
hat above the brim of the sand bank or to get up to stretch
yourself is tantamount to a speedy departure of the
"mysterious bird of the North." Therefore it is the
man who can stand this sort of work the best who is
likely to make the biggest bag. But a great deal depends
upon the wind as well, for if the currents of air should
be blowing off-shore there is not much chance of success-
ful shooting, as the wind constantly drifts them away
from the decoys, while they are feeding, and if anv should
get shot and drop down at long range, they are apt to get
out of reach before they can be retrieved.
We were seven days on Monomoy Island, and we
had a fierce xNoreaster blowing nearly the whole time, so
that what success we had (thirty-six brant.) was solely
attributable to lots of patience and perseverance against
hard conditions.
• But the sport compels you to be out in the open air,
to inhale the ozone and the ocean breezes, those twin bene-
factors that bring to the hunter his proverbial appetite
And, Oh that appetite! Vou have it and a digestion to
wait on it that might tackle a brick pile without getting
out of order. There is another thing yon have, which is
not to be sneezed at-the gratification of knowing that
with your trusty gun, your hidden retreats, your enticing
107
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decoys and your unwearied patience you are more than a
match for this the grandest and most wary of all game
birds.
" Nor on the surges of the boundless air,
Though borne triumphant, are they safe ; the gun,
Olanc'd just, and sudden, from the gunner's eye,
O'ertakcs their sounding pinions ; and again,
Immediate brings them from the towering wing.
Dead to the ground ; or drives them wide dispersed,
Woundeii and wheeling various, down the wind."
This season the brant arrived in great numbers at
Monomm' as early as February, but finding their natural
food — the eel grass — sealed in ice, they were forced to
wing their way backward, after many attempts to get at
their feeding grounds ; the cold weather thus compelling
them to make trips ot hundreds of miles to the Southward
before they could obtain their sustenance. But they are
grand "flj'ers" and a few hundred miles of flight is only
like a morning walk for them, and they don't seem to worry
the least bit about it ; but as soon as the ice melted and the
succulent eel grass was exposed to view, then they arrived
in countless numbers. Some say that between the fifth
and tenth of April more birds were at the Island than ever
were seen before at one time. But the wrecks and wreck-
age there, drew all manner of sail boats to the scene to get
coal and lumber, and thus the birds were continually dis-
turbed in their feeding. Thej- were occasionally fired on
at long range from these sail boats, which harassed and
frightened them, keeping them for hours on the move.
This, together with unfavorable winds and storms, reduced
the total bag for the season to one-hundred and ninety-
io8
seven brant. Such was the result of the work of seven
weekly parties, aggregating fifty-seven sportsmen, with an
average of twenty-eight to each party, and, as our partv
bagged thirty-six, we. have no reason to complain . Of the
o.,e-hundred and ninety-seven killed, one-hundred and
three were young birds and ninety-four old birds. This
proportion of young birds ought to have made the shooting
better, as the young birds (in the language of the president
of the club, Mr. W. Hapgood) "are less warv, more social
and more easily decoyed, and will carrv off less lead th-ui
the tough old birds, and then it often happens that the
elders are led by unsuspicious youth into places of danger
where it would be impossil,le to coax them when separated
therefore the presence <.f so n.any jnvenile visitors is
always a joy to the heart of the sportsman. ' '
>dR'<*^
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A GLIMPSE AT THE -WHITE."
I'll (Iroj) 1I1C now the ciiiient of my sport
To UiU awhile in l-'nsliion's Ki(l<lv court.
— Anon,
HAVINCi for years made an annual pilgrimage to the
White Sulphur Springs — the "Saratoga of the
South ' ' — it has gradually dawned upon me that
few portions of the globe furnish so much material for
the pen of the novelist and the pencil of the artist. The
scenery is so varied, so romantically beautiful in its
wealth of valleys teeming with fruitful crops, and luxur-
iant foliage that holds half hid in its bosom the modest
cabin of some former slave, while here and there the
roof of the more pretentious home peeks through the
green as if to greet the sun and sniff the bracing air.
All this and in a frame of rugged mountains enchanting
in their wildness. and the picture is complete.
So much for the artist.
The novelist will find it a great gathering place of
the wealth and beauty of the South, with daily and
nightly scenes of revelry, amusement, flirting, and love
making. He may witness the excitement and seduction
of the "green baize table." in a neighborhood rife with
stories of the war, which raged in and about the " White "
during the whole time the direful strife was in progress.
The hotel at one time was used as a hospital for the
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Northern troops: at another as a stable and resting place
for the Confederates. Heing only five miles from the Vir-
ginia line, this West \'irgi«ia watering place came to be
looked upon as neutral territory. Here Presidents from
the earliest days of the ninetee.ith century have been wont
to .spend their holidays and hold court and dispense oflicial
patronage beneath the old oaks that lift their statelv heads
above the famous lawn. Senators, Kepresentatives,
bankers and C.overnors have discussed measures of Nat
ional and State policy on the porches of the hotel or
under the roofs of its one-hundred cottages.
A Southern colonel who had lost everything during
the war-except his love for whisky-came to sojourn at
the "White." Now he was never known to have any
money, but was mostly always flitting around the bar,
waiting for the refrain "come and takesuthin', Colonel "
which invitation, by the way, he was never known to
refu,se. In conse.pience of these eccentricities he was
looked upon with suspicion by the manager of the house.
who promptly sent him his bill at the end of the week,
with the re(,uest to pay up. The Colonel put the bill in
his jiocket and promised to attend to it. A couple of
days passed and the manager stirred him up again, this
time sending the mes.snge that he nuist either pav the bill
or leave. The Colonel asked "Did the manager send
you to me with such a message?" glaring at the clerk
with a fierce ni-run-you-through look. The clerk tim-
orously said that he had. "Well," said the Colonel
"tell the manager that Til leave at once, for that is onlv
faar, and I believe in bein' faar." And he left the hotel
It need hardly be added that he left the hotel bill too.
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The Cht'sapeuke and ()lii») Railroad, on account, I
prcsunjc, of its being a rather out-of-the-way route to
Chicago, has succeeded in getting the Trunk Line
Association to grant it the privilege of selling through
tickets to Chicago, with the right to stop off at any station
oti the line. This gave tne a practical opportunity of
studying the great value of such a concession. As a
tiuniher of ICuropean tourists have been attracted to this
line by reason of the concessioti, I interviewed several of
them and found that all of them had selected the route
because they could "break the journey as often as they
pleased." So they are jogging along leisurely, stopping
at such points as they think will interest them, and there-
by getting a much better idea of the varied interests and
scenery of the country. All of them had stopped in
I'hiladelphia, some for a few hours, some for a coujjle
of days. They said they were more pleased with I'hila-
delphia than any other city they had seen, and were
astonished at its size, its Public Huildings, its Park and
its stores. Astonished, because they had "never cared
much about Philadelphia, don't j'ou know," as explained
by one ICnglishman, whose complexion .showed the blush
of forty years acquaintance with Hass' ale.
They were pleased apparently with everything but
the condition of the streets; the cobble paving exciting
their ridicule, and our roads their commiseration. I said
that they mxist not expect a city which covered more
ground than London, — with only one fourth of its popula-
tion, — which was constantly growing and expanding,
which furnished comfortable homes first and streets and
street paving after, to be so well paved as a city over two
I If,.
l.ou»„„. years „l.l. o„ „.|,o»e streets K„„,„„ ,.:„„«„„
have walked, a,ul whose roads „ere ,,lan„e<i a,„i l,„ilt by
Ronmn enKh.eers lK:fore the tin.e of the Saviour. The
■."Kh»h,„a„ said: ■• l.less ,„y .yes. I „ever thousht o,
mt : ,, p„,s a „ew lish, „„ thi„ss here. for. e„,„e to
thn.lc of ,1, th,s is a new country, an<l of eourse the cities
must he new, too."
Oh. but wout these luiropean tourists have wo,ulerful
s or,es to tell o„ their return ! Many and „,any will he
the nn.tations of Dickens' " An.erican Notes/ ' and n.anv
ami „.any will he the foolish criticisn.s n.ade upon and
al.out us. But our visitors will he profoundlv in.pressed
vv.th the extent of the country, with the varietv of its
clnnate and scenery, with the restless, irresistible push and
nerve of the people, with their material welfare and their
prosperity, and they will return with broader views of
h"">anity and the world than they ever dreamt of ' I„
tins respect the World s Fair will prove a blessin,. and a
grand advertisement for the nation.
Vea. verily as I have said the novelist might find
here plenty of food for his fancy, full of richness flavored
with facts and seasoned with all the spice of romance
The genial Southern gentlema., who is superinten-
dent of the hotel, and known far and wide as "The
Major." coukl if he would, unwind n.any a varn on the
late "unpleasantness. •• He might, for instance, tell of the
tune when he. with a troop of Confederate cavalrv. was
commanding the bridge over the Green Briar River six
miles below here. When from the opposite hills was seen
an immense force of the ' ' Boys in Blue" defiling down the
longroad. When the Major and his troop were discovered,
"3
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how the "Yanks" put spurs to their horses and how the
"Johnnies" started for safer quarters. How they came
flying past the Grecian cohtmns of the great hotel with
the "Yanks" close after them. How they plunged
through "Dry Creek," "up hill and down dale," right
over the Allegheny Mountains to Old Sweet Springs, a
ride of abou' twenty miles, before the pursuit and flight
was over. But the Major and his conunand were safe ;
not a man was lost.
The Major's tales are always full of powder.
Eleven miles from here is Lewisburg, W. \'a., the
county town of Greenbriar county. To reach it a high
mountain has to be overcome, or overgone, on the higher
points of which is a stretch of utterly worthless land.
The soil, what little there is, is red, stony and incapable
of producing anything better than an occasional thistle or
a stunted, sickly little pine shrub. An old time stage
coach was one hot day toiling slowly and painfully up
the long hill, filled with passengers who were making
merry over the "pore land," one man venturing the
remark "that the man who owned that land must be a
d d fool." Thereupon a long, lanky, West Virginian
rose up and confronted the speaker in an angry and defiant
manner and asserted "that he owned that land, but he
wasn't such a d d fool as they took him for, as he
only owned half on it."
Coming down from a horseback ride on Kate Moun-
tain, one of West Virginia's giant hills, my young son
said to me, "Ain't these West Virginia mountaineers
quaint people?" I readily answered that they were. I
have never seen their quaintness and a few of their other
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peculiarities equaled. Old-fashioned fellows, homely,
frugal, careless of dress and the proprieties of life gener-
a'ly, eternal chewers of tobacco, iron-clad swearers, and
chronically hardup. The current incidents of time have
no claims on their attention unless they relate to the
triumph of Democracy or the success of the "season " at
the "White." The latter more particularly, for on it is
ba.sed their sole hope of seeing some ready cash during
the year. This famous resort furnishes employment to
al)Out five hundred "help" in the .summer and maybe
fifty or more the rest of the year, and thus it becomes the
distributing source of a goodly number of thousands of
dollars annually. It would be hard to compute the
amount the liverymen, florists, photographers, doctors,
musicians and the gentlemen who so seductively preside
over the fortunes of the "green table" rake in from
the army of guests who patronize this "Saratoga of the
South." Speaking of liverymen one of them, an abom-
inable swearer, promised me he would abandon the habit,
which I told liim I abhorred. It seems, however, he
forgot his promise. Here is his letter to me verbatim,
which will tell how.
Pleas find inclosed fifteen dolers to pay youre
bill, the resoii of delay was, hard times, had
weather, sickness and no money, d d if I
believe there's #500 in circulation in the hole
United States.
Yours Trulv
I reproached him for having broken his solenui word
about swearing. "Well," he said, "I tried not to, but
I couldn't help it ; times were so awful pore. " " Why, "
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said he, "I owed a man ten cents who lived eighteen
miles off, and he drove in one day and sat around
for over an hour when he said he wished I would pay
him that ten cents, as he had driven all the way in
after it, which would make the round trip thirty-six miles
for ten cents. ' ' He told this incident to prove the scarcity
of money out here.
ON THE AMBAZUSKIS RIVER.
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Last year a lumberman who had got into financial
difficulties allowed three notes which 1 held against him
to go to protest. I was advised to give them to a firm of
lawyers in a neighboring town to collect. So I drove
over and found that the firm consisted of two brothers,
one of whom was that very day in the height of excite-
ment running as a candidate for a public office of a
responsible and honorable character. After a chase I
finally captured the other brother and gave him the notes
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for collection. He said he guessed there wasn't much
use, but he"d try his best, and putting the notes in his
pocket drove off. Last week I happened to meet the
maker of the notes, who was joyous over the fact that he
was soon going to be able to pay off his creditors, and
asked after the three notes. I told him to whom I had
given them for collection, but he said he had never heard
from them. He advised me to ride to the town and get
them, so next day I started over the mountains to see the
legal lights. On the road I met my friend the lumberman
coming back, and he reported that the lawyers had no
recollection of my claim whatever.
On my arrival I found the pundits in a little upstairs
room seated at a table covered with envelopes, opened
letters, bills of sale, bonds, writs of replevin, leases,
promissory notes and "the Lord knows what."
The elder brother was a genial, kindly-looking man,
with an old straw hat, a shirt much the worse for wear,
and no coat, vest, collar or necktie. He assured me when
I told him who I was that he had promptly presented my
claim to the lumberman, but he found that if he sued he
hadnt any chance, and so had waited. I asked for the
return of the notes. Then a hunt was started and such a
hunt as only the immortal Dickens could, with justice,
have descrilied. Brother number one looked through the
letters, papers and portfolios at his side of the table.
Brother number two ditto at his side. The day was hot,
muggy and oppressive: they got worried, excited and
nervous. Brother number two said he guessed he'd go
home and look through his clothes, which he did, brother
number one in the meantime going through his printed
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blanks in his search. Brother number two finally returned
without the notes and gave it as his opinion that I had
never given him any notes. This was awkward on num-
ber one, because he had related very minutely just how
he had presented the notes to the debtor.
So it was, as an Irishman said, "like bein' in the
cinther of a hobble," and with a look of despair, some-
thing like the pictures we used to see of the "Knight of
the Rueful Countenance," they gave up the hunt and
acknowledged they would have to give the debtor a bond
to keep him harmless *"roni the notes if they ever turned
up, and their only apology for their carelessness was that
notes in West Virginia "ain't much account, no how,
when they'd got to be sued for," and so they didn't "set
much store bj- them."
At the lumbering town of Ronceverte, W. Va., eleven
miles below here, on the Greenbriar river, a great boom
and a gigantic saw mill have for years impeded the pas-
sage of black ba.ss, trout and other fish up the river, which
of olden times was always a noted stream for the bass.
The fish used to be of immense size, and, of course, as
gamey as black bass can be in cold mountain streams.
During the early spring of this year the ice and winter
floods caused a break in the big dam which took consider-
able time in repairing, and lo and behold, the river this
summer is full of the fighting beauties eager to take fly,
minnow or even bait, hungr}- — voraciously hungry — and
now there is "fishing as is fishing," and the Izaak Wal-
tons are wending their way hither from distant parts to
pursue their fa cinating sport.
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It is intimated that the President of the United States
may ,e induced to come for a few days, as four years ago
he plied his rod on the banks of the headwaters of the
turbulent James river, about thirty miles from here, at
Clifton Forge. Verily the old Anglo-Saxon love of sport
is engrafted in us all to a greater or less extent, else why
should it be that the shibboleth of black buss should
be more potent in drawing people from a distance than
the charm of polite and cultured society, the beneficial
properties of the famous waters of the White Sulphur,
or even the cuisine of the great hotel and the considerate
attention of the Chevalier Bayard of hotel men— "The
Major." But so it is, and I for one would not want to
change it. Let American business men devote more time
to outdoor sport, spend more of it in the open air and the
knowledge will soon begin to dawn upon them that dol-
lars are not the only good things in this life, and as it can
be lived only once, it is better during that " once " to hold
on to a share of good health, even though they may drop
a few dollars in doing it.
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A FIGHT TO THE DEATH.
Both sides fiercely fought.
—Henry I'l.
WE are a few "city men " up here in the very heart
of the wilderness of Pike county, Pa., each man
expecting to catch his complement of thirty-five
lusty speckled trout, which is all that the rules of the
"Beaver Run Club," whose guests we are, will allow any
member to kill in any one season (and the fish must be
over eight inches in length, to boot, or back they go into
the stream).
Japan is said to be the home of the rhododendron,
and it is also .said that the whole island kingdom is one
great bed of those gorgeously dre.ssed flowers. Up here
in Pike county is the home of the mountain laurel, which
grows and thrives in wanton profusion everywhere about
us. It seems to grow equally well on the ridges, in
the thick cluster of the woods or down l)y the edges
of the trout pond or its emptying stream; and, behold,
it is here in all its glory, and well worth a trip from
the heated city just to feast the eye upon its ravishing
mass of colors, as the bushes sway to the breeze. The
UiMr-:! is well backed up by great quantities of wild moun-
f.ai:; -Oc s, now in full bloom ; acres upon acres of black-
I.c!.;y tjusues, clothed with their white blossoms, and also
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the appetizing sight of the luscious wild strawberries, red
ripe and bursting with their delicate acid sweetness, if the
term may Ije used ; and why not mention the elderberry
and the wild hop vines, both in the height of their rustic
loveliness, and the hazel bushes that flourish by the road-
side. The man whose sense of beauty remains unstirred
by such miracles of Nature's coloring must be something
of clod whose life is scarce worth the living.
Maybe, however, if the flowers and waving grasses,
and the spear-pointed fields of rye, now nearly ready for
the reaper, do not arouse him to a knowledge that nature
up here is working her miracles every hour, the singing
of the wondrous variety of birds might entrance him, for
here the feathered songsters, as well as our noblest game
birds, thrive and multiply amazingly. As we arrived at
night we heard only the solitary whip-poor-will, and we
heard him from every direction . He seemed to be ubiqui-
tous, but when "Phoebus gan to rise" next morning
(Sunday i then did the bird concert truly begin. For a
while it was hard to tell, from their notes, which was which,
they all sang so lustily and joyously and well ; however,
bye and bye I recognized the war1)Ie of the gay oriole,
then the sweet, loving .song of the linnet, then the robin,
the flicker, the catbird, the blue jay, the song sparrow,'
and from across the trout pond the familiar note of " Bob
White" which rang out clear and sweet, piercing the early
morning air like a piccolo. A Wilson snipe started up
from a bit of wet land, and swept away, saying, " Scape,
scape, scape," ' while a pair of sandsnipe swelled the chorus
with their piping notes. The red-winged blackbird, the
grackle and the mottle-breasted thrush were as busv and
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gleeful lis the rest of the feathered soiij^sters, ;iml I had
nearly forgotten to mention the leader of the choir, the
bobolink. I heard him singing his rollicking, laughing
song with such gusto I thought he would split his mar-
velous little throat.
But while the birds sang, and the bees worked, and
the trout leaped swiftly for the passing fly: while nature
seemed glad and laughing at her own handiwork, yet
sorrow was in the land. As my friends and I sat around
the grateful log fire in the club room, our talk was of the
tragic death of young Walter Clark, son of 'vSquire Clark
(an old and respected magistrate of this county), and of
the boy's funeral, which had just been held during the
afternoon. The cause of his death was a fight to the
finish between the boy and a big and vicious rattlesnake.
The snake won and the boy won, for each killed the
other. " 'Twas a duel to the death. " and the story of the
fight had to be told by conjecture, for there was no eye-
witness. The fight was in the seclusion of the woods,
and one of the combatants was dead and the other uncon-
scious when found. Walter Clark was a boy of eleven
summers, sturdy and strong of his age, but a fever had
left him, as a reminder of its virulence, an impaired mind
and imperfect speech. He had one marked trait, a strong
antipathy to snakes and hornets, and would gladly fight
either when opportunity offered. On Friday last his
father, the 'Squire, was working in the field and Walter
was helping him, barelegged, with but shirt and pants on.
The boy heard the ringing of a cow-bell, and said to his
father, "Cow! cow!" His father said, "Yes, I hear the
bell, ' ' and went on with his work. The boy started down
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the road in the direction from whence tlie sound came,
and that was the hist seen of him until a searcli was made
over three hours after. He was found away from the
road, swollen and unconscious, his tongue out and
swelled to such a size that his mouth could not hv shut.
He was bitten on his hands, his arms, his face and on his
legs, and some twenty feet away from him was a great
rattlesnake with its back broken in three places, its
fangs inserted in its own body, forming a loop. A
brother of Walter s, also a lad. had found him and car-
ried him on his back for over a mile and a quarter, until
his strength gave out and he fell by the wayside. His
father ran out, found the two boys and at once started to
doctor the wounded one. Repeated doses of whisky and
milk brought the boy back to consciousness for a while,
when, with fierce look and gesture, he would shout,
"Dam'd snake! dam'd snake!" but convulsions set in
and he soon died. His body became spotted like the
snake's, with streaks up his chest and sides, and spots
upon his cheeks and brow.
It is surmised that after breaking the rattler's l)ack
vvuh his stick he rushed at it and caught it in his hands,
trying to crush its life out. but that it bit him o\er and over
again wherever it pleased, and finally fastened its fangs
into its own body, and then the boy fell back in a swoon.
A wagon was sent post haste to vStroudsburg for a coffin,
but none could be had in that rustic town, and it was neces-
sary to send to Easton for one. And so the savage, plucky
boy has now been laid beneath the sod, and the neighbors
and visitors to this wild region revel in stories of snakes, of
snake bites and .snake fights, and the men hereabouts look
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carefully where they tread, and jump at the rustling of
every chipmunk that they hear, and the women — God
bless them— they hug the seclusion and safety of the
boarding-house or hotel porch and will not wander
"afield" for love or money. Who can blame them.
There are many more snakes up here just as deadly as the
one that killed Walter Clark, and since the date of our
mother Eve women have always dreaded snakes and ever
will until the end of time when all our fears will be
blotted out, masculine as well as feminine.
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A LOST MAN AND A WOUNDED MOOSE.
I liiivf lost my wny.
—Antony and Clecpalta.
IT is the unexpected that always happens in hunting.
When you most desire and look for your game, then
is the time you don't see it, and when and where
you don't look for it, then and there you're apt to run
against it.
My guides had told me marvelous tales of the
hunting opportunities that flourished around a certain
pond or small lake, a couple of days journey from our
camping ground. To find out whether these tales were
true or not, I thought it worth while to go there,
especially as one of the guides had spent the previous
winter in a lumber camp near by, and was familiar, or
ought to have been, with the country. There was a very
large bog, five miles long and about a mile broad, which
was a favorite haunt of the caribou, moose and deer, who
found in it enough rich food for sustenance without
resorting to any other locality.
Verj' pretty and promising all this, but "there's no
rose without a thorn," and this rose of ours had one in
the shape of a goose — a goose of a sportsman who was
camped on a stream some two miles away from the pond.
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The ''jfoose" delighted in firitij; a rifle that burnt one
hundred j^rains of powder behind a fifty calibre bullet and
enjoyed himself hugely in loading up his miniature can-
non and banging away at red S(|uirrels, partridges atid
rabbits. He would leave his capip in the morning, walk
to the pond and make the welkin ring for miles around
with the noise of his snap shots and sight shots.
The unwritten law of Maine in regard to the shooting
rights on ponds or small lakes is that the sportsman
who first i^uts a canoe upon a i)ond or small lake is
safe from intrusion on the part of any other sportsman.
Acting upon this hint we determined to paddle up a
stream as far as we could, then carry our canoe to the
I)ond and take posse-sion, thus shutting out our noisy
friend. So at four o'clock one morning, our strongest
guide started, and after carrying his canoe on his back
for a distance of two miles, placed it on the pond and
returned to camp for breakfast. Then after our morning
meal I started with another guide and walked to the pond
loaded only with a tin cup, an axe and a rifle. We
reached the pond at about half-past seven, got into the
canoe, but at the very first dip of our paddle we heard
the boom of the 50-100 rifle fired by our "goose" who
was busy banging away at the red squirrels on the other
side of the pond . This was not a cheerful state of affairs
to contemplate. Big game, as a rule, don't like cannon-
ading nor a neighborhood that indulges in it. A few
minutes after the noise of the shot and its echoes were
sobered into silence, we saw a pair of deer two hundred
yards away. My guide suggested that I try a shot at
them, saying it would be a good idea, even if I missed
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the (leer, for it would let the goose — the other fellow- •
know that there was n canoe on the pond, that the pond
was mortgaged and he had hetter skip. The deer, how-
ever, were in an awkward i)lace to he shot at with effect.
However, I did shoot and missed. They wheeled like a
flash and hounded into the woods. The sound of the
shot reached the goose with the 50-100 rifle who ste])ped
out into the open, saw us, and startfd back for his camp.
We now paddled to the other side of the pond and as
the sun was coming out warm we left our coats and vests
in the canoe, tcjok with us a tin cup and four bouillon
capsules and left, feeling sure that the cannonading
already indulged in would hinder us seeing any more
game that day. We left the canoe exactly at eight
o'clock (I know, for I looked at my watch on starting).
Not more than five minutes later my foot stund)led in the
bog. Recovering my foothold and looking up I saw a
sight that startled me almost as much as the ghost of
Handefs father .startled the melancholy Dane. Not a
hundred yards away a great bull-moose, with wide-spread-
ing antlers and dilated nostrils stood looking straight at
me from between two trees. The place where he was
standing was one where a man would least expect to see
him, because, by all rules of prudence and usually safe
moo.se conduct, the noise of the late rifle shots should by
this time have driven him miles away from this locality.
It appears it did not. And what did I do under the
circumstances? Well, precisely what any other man
would have done. Up went my rifle and without sighting
or even an attempt to take careful aim, I blazed away.
And the moose? Ah ! Like a ghost he came and like a
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ghost he disappeared . The guide — a French Canadian —
said : ' ' Vat you shoot at ?" "A bull-moose, ' ' I replied ,
"Didn't you see him?" "No, I no see him !" "Well,"
I said, "we'll take up his trail and see if he's hit."
"You no hit him," he answered disdainfully.
We tramped around trying to find his tracks without
much hope of seeing the tell-tale drops of blood, for the
bog was soft and the feet of the moose left no mark as he
ran, and the red moss that covered the bog prevented the
blood — if there was any — from showing on it. We finally
worked out of the bog on the ground leading up to a'
ridge, and making careful search as we walked, found at
last, a drop of fresh, hot blood on a leaf; then a little
further on a pool of 1)lood that would have filled a bucket.
This blood was mixed with the pink tissue of the lungs,
showing plainly that the bullet had gone through that
organ of his anatomy. I now proposed to spot the trees
so that we could fitid the place again, then go buck to
camp and give the moose a chance to lie down and bleed
to death. My French Canadian, with a whiff of his old
clay pipe, gave it as his opinion that the bull was mortally
wounded, that we'd find him in a few minutes and advised
that we follow him at once. We did so. finding no
difficulty whatever, in tracking him, as his trail wr.s
almo-«t a contiiuious stream of blood, excepting when his
wound would apparently become clogged with a piece of
the pink tissue, and then for a few yards we would lose
his trail, but only for a few yards, for soon the gushing
blood would spurt its passage through, forming another
pool. And thus we followed on, over ridges and through
swamps and bogs, hoping .soon to catch a sight of our
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expected prize. Sometimes we would strike a place
where the hull had stopped to listeu ; aud agaiu where he
had goue around a windfall, showing he was hard hit if
not mortally wounded. How did we reach the.se con-
clusions? Simply enough. The hunter, if he be any-
thing of a detective, which he should be, on seeing, as
we saw, a plainly drawn half circle of blood, would say,
" Here he stopped and turned half round to li.sten." In
the second in.stance, if
he had not been hard
hit he would have
gone over the windfall
and not around it.
Once we saw where
he had leaned agaiu.st
a tree, either to rest
or listen, or both, but
nowhere was there any
evidence that he had Iain down. Twice in our pursuit
we heard him crashing through the brush ahead of us,
but at neither time were we fortunate enough to catch a
glimpse of him.
Our !)raiii befuddled with the chase,
We took r.o note of time or space,
and before we were aware of it the morning hours had
gone and we found ourselves on the borders of another
lake, miles away from our canoe and from our camp.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon, when we built
a little fire, heated some water in our tin cup and boiled a
bouillon capsule for each of us which we drank. The
next consideration was "what shall we do now ?" The
ON A PILE OF SAWDUST.
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guide said we were about four and a half miles from the
canoe, and that in following the twists and turns of the
wounded bull we had covered a distance of about eighteen
miles. His advice was that we start at once for our
canoe, but first to ' ' spot ' ' the trees with the axe to enable
us to take up the bull's trail again and track him to his
death bed. So at half-past three we started back, the
guide assuring me that he knew the waj' perfectly well.
Maybe he did, but coming events cast a sort of a shadow
ovrr niy mind — maybe he didn't. He first led us
through an alder swamp, that only needed a Bengal tiger
or two to rival an Indian jungle. Lathered with perspira-
tion we finally got through this and faced a high ridge
covered with numerous windfalls After scaling this and
getting down on the other side of it we found ourselves
in a dense cedar swamp, wandering here and there, and
perspiring at every pore with the labor of climbing over
and under logs, and jumping windfalls. Then came
the pleasant conviction : ' ' We are lost ! ' '
It was nearly dark, the weather had turned cold, and
no time was to be lost in getting some wood together and
starting a fire. Here we were in what might righteously
be called a constipated predicament; without coat or vest,
or blanket, or tent, with nothing to eat and nothing to
drink. Could we have found water our remaining two
bouillon capsules would have made us a good supper ;
but there was no water and consequently no supper.
The best and only thing to do now, I did. I pulled off
my hip rubber boots, intending to use them for a pillow,
dried my few clothes, wet from perspiration, and kept
close to the fire to avoid catching cold from the bare
I 130
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ground and freezing air. My purpose was not to sleep,
but keep awake. "Tired Nature," however, wouldn't
be denied her "sweet restorer," and soon I was in a
slumber that lasted till eleven o'clock, when I awoke to
find the cold intense. Piling more wood on the fire, I
threw myself again on Mother Earth's bosom and slept
till two, when the frost settling on my face like sharp
needles awoke me. Again I replenished the fire and
again slept till five, when I awoke in time to catch
Aurora at her morning task of decorating the oriental
sky. And, I may safely say, I never watched her with
greater satisfaction, for never before was daylight so
welcome to me.
Our search now was for water, but we succeeded in
finding none. We did find, however, under an upturned
cedar root, a thin sheet of ice. This we broke and melted
in our tin cup over the fire and then cooked our capsules
in it. Such was our breakfast, and I am rather sure
the Roman glutton IvUcullus never experienced greater
satisfaction over one of his ten thousand dollar dinners
than we did over thai- simple meal of bouillon.
After our breakfast we found a lumber road and
followed it for about three miles to a great marsh or
meadow. Here we obtained our bearings, discovering
chat we were about five miles from camp which we reached
at eleven o'clock that forenoon, thankful and happy to
see once more our white tent and the guide we had left
behind whose anxious face told plainly of his alarm at our
absence. He had been firing shots at frequent intervals
during the night, but the distance between us prevented
our hearing them. We had been tramping around an
131
ever-widening circle, until night compelled us to stop.
My French Canadian guide, who was one of the ' ' I-know-
it-all " men, had nothing to say in extenuation but this :
"I don't compre' how it all did happen. I did know ze
way sure, and then I didn't. I feel much sorry, but ze
nex time I go by ze compass not by ze knows how."
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ADVENTURES OF A DEER HUNTER IN
MAINE.
Escajjed with the skin of my teeth.
—Jod X/.V. so.
OF all the things in this world which are not pic-
turesque the breaking of camp after a long season
spent in the woods of Maine conies close to being at
the top. We had spent many long and exciting days in
the wilds of Maine, and camp was broken at six in the
morning. The camp had been on a high ledge, over-
looking a circular sheet of water, known as Moose Pond,
and flanked by bogs on two sides, a cove at one side and
the outlet into it from a small lake above. It was a
dismal day, and the three guides looked glum when we
started to make our way out of the pond through the
cove into the lake beyond. The wind blew directly in
our faces, and the guides seemed to be afraid of every-
thing. Kinst they were afraid they could not get the
canoes around the point, then afraid they would have to
camp on the shore of the cove, —in fact there was nothing
they were not afraid of. Finally, my son and I told them
that if they would only put us on the other side df the
cove we would lighten the canoes by walking the three
miles across the point and through the woods.
133
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Well, we started, and, although it rained buckets of
water, I rather enjoyed the experience. We found many
Iresh tracks of big game, the windfalls were few, and as
the path was deeplj' carpeted with fresh fallen leaves the
walk was anything but tedious.
As I emerged Ihjm the forest the road led through a
piece of burnt land. I heard a cow-bell jingling, and
soon spied some cattle feeding off to the right and straight
in front of me tw ','ig does. But they had scented me,
and as they thr< ....-•• ''eels up and bounded away I
tried a shot at the uearc^-t one, but — ah, there's that
'but" again ! — I missed, and ihe deer were, in a twink-
ling, safely into the i <.,'nei
We reached the lake, and then had a long wait for
the canoes. On their arrival we found one of them had
shipped a good bit of water, and that they all had had a
narrow call from capsizing. As the wind was increasing
every minute, and it was necessary for us to cross the
lake (here about a mile and a half wide), we put the
baggage into one canoe, and with our strongest guide to
handle the stern paddle and I to use the bow paddle,
while my son squatted down in the centre of the canoe,
w-e pushed out into the hissing, boiling water. The wind
was blowing a gale straight down the lake, and so strong
as to pick the water up from the top of the white caps
and blow it around us in the shape of fine spray. Our
course lay diagonally across or up the lake in the teeth
of the gale, and hardly had we gotten a hundred yards
from shore before my son's "souwester" hat nas
knocked off by the guides paddle. But that was no
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place nor time to stop for a hat. The canoe mounted and
rode the waves l)eautifully, and yet at times it seemed as
if tlie wind would hlow us over, or actually out of the
water, particularly when we reached the centre of the
lake and the canoe was turned obliquely down towards
the other shore. Then we had to paddle for our ver>'
lives, and to watch the waves and see that they didn't
break over us. When the light canoe was going down
the sloping sides or in the hollow of a big wave we had
to use every pound of our reserve strength to shove her
along before another n; juntain of water caught us. It was
indeed a ticklish trip, for had we capsized we would have
had no show whatever in the icy water, as our heavy
hip boots would have prevented any chance of swimming
or of a rescue. \Vc fully appreciated the situation.
However, we got over without mishap, other than a
wetting, a lost hat. and a profuse perspiration from hard
paddling. \\'e were safe and for this we devoutedlj-
thanked the Ordainer of all thin<rs
We stopped for dinner at a little frame hotel, the
" Chesuncook House. "' which is the last sign or send)lance
of a hostelry you see before plunging into the great
wilderness beyond. Among tho.se who were making the
hotel their headfjuarters were three "sports" who went
out in the morning to hunt and returned at night to
recuperate. They had killed a nice buck the day before
our arrival and had set it up on the shore of the lake for
mspection. It was hanging from a trident formed of
three poles, and while the rain beat upon it and the wind
swayed it to and fro. the hunters watched it with ad
eyes; and well they might, for it was a beauty.
mirnig
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Now two of the aforesaid sports were from Wood-
bury, N. J. and the other from Boston. The Boston man
and one of the Woodbury men were built on the corpu-
lent model, extremely oily, and with a girth that might
have rivaled KalstafF's. But they were not sensitive on
that point as some oleaginous men I know are ; men to
whom the slightest reference or even glance in a stomach-
ward direction would be at once a rasns belli.
Our conversation at dinner turned upon the treat-
ment they had been experiencing from their guides.
"Do you know," said the Boston man, '' I have had the
most unpleasant experience rubbed into me l)y these
guides and I don't care to have the operation repeated."
"What was the nature of the operation?" I ventured
to ask.
•'Well, you probably have noticed that I have a
good deal of butter in my make-up, and I don't care to
have it all melted at once, which seemed to be what these
guides were after. They told us that the Ambezuskas
meadow was a glorious place to hunt in, and so it may be
for a lean man ; surelj' no fat man could find any glory in
it unless his fat be of a tougher quality than mine.
Imagine three hundred pounds of flesh floundering
through mud and water, tripping over cedar roots, falling
over logs, struggling for a little temporary foothold in
order to pull oneself out of the mud and regain an upright
position while the guide stands at a safe distance away,
beckoning and shouting " come on !" After this part of
the progranmie had been repeated several times, always
winding up with " come on,"' tired Nature gave out and
136
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refused to comply with the guide's mandate. MountiuK
a stump I gathered together what little strength I had
left ami put it all into a shout, " Vou he d d ! I'll not
'come on' any more. 'Come on' yourself, that's what
I'm paying you for."
His story, hy the way, reminds me of another which
is short enough and good enough to fit in here. Two
would-he deer hunters, one thin and wiry, the other
round and oily, had struck a trail, and the thin fellow
lifting his eyes saw a big buck bounding directly towards
them. "There he comes! lie down I" shouted the thin
chap, but seeing no reduction in the obtrusive si/.e of his
companion again he shouted, "Lie down ! Ue down !"
This time an answer came from the direction of the
butter pile.
"I> n it all, I am lying down !"
"The d 1 you are ! Then stand up and perhaps
the buck won't see j-ou !"
We left Chesuncook Lake at half-past one in the
afternoon, fixed our loads in the canoes for our up-river
trip at a landing stage, near the mouth of the river, and
still in the driving, pitiless rain, we started to paddle up
the river, intending to reach the "Halfway House" (a
resort for lumbermen, freighters and .sportsmen, about
eleven miles up the river,) before dark. On the trip up
the "sport" is expected to leave the canoe and walk
around the obstructions in the stream known as the " Pine
Stream Falls," "Rocky Rips." and the "Foxhole
Rapids, " while the guide with the lightened canoe poles
it up against the swift current which swirls and eddies
around the huge rocks lying in all sorts of ways and
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iinglc's ill the bed of the stream. We walked therefore
through a path in the woods around " Pine Stream
l"*alls " and tlie " Rocky Kips," and al)ove them was a
stretcli of " dead water, " which ended at the foot of "Fox
Hole Rapids." Here we left the canoes aj^ain, and took
to the road, which runs in a pretty straight direction,
while the river makes a great bend off to the right, and
the road for the distance of, say a mile and a half, cuts off
(piite a detour in the ri\er. Just as we entered this road
I told my .son to walk on ahead very carefully until we
came to a piece of burnt land, that I recollected as being
([uite a feeding ground for deer, as he might get a shot.
As he was emerging from the woods on to this burnt land
I saw him stop, and take his rifle from under his arm (for
it was still i)ouring rain) aim, and fire. I saw a deer
bound away and the youth jumping over burnt timber
and scrand)ling through stunted brush. Again I saw him
aim and fire, and I saw the deer drop. Now we were in
a pickle ; night was coming on fast and the canoes were
away off to the right. The rain was s])lashing down in
torrents. There was no time to wait, so we at once
opened the deer and took out the " inwar s," cut a
sapling with our knives, ran it through the " hocks " of
the deer, slung it on our shoulders and started for the
road. This road is called a " tote road" by courte.sy,
and in winter it is much used for hauling supplies on
when there is a good depth of snow.
In summer and fall it is not much used, and there
are rocks upon it, roots upon it, and holes in it, that
would shame the "Slough of De.spond." It was now
du.sk, and soon — oh, so soon — it became pitch dark, and
the rain, how it did pour! Wc stutnhkd and slid aU^ijr
" uher stick and stt-iii, " and also over roots and " stein,"
and water and nntd, swayinj- from side to side with our
unwiehly load, rifle in one hand and the other steadying
the pole on our shoulders, every now and then traniping
on the deer's head, which hung and dragged on the
ground. So for the mile and a half we trudged and
trudged until the canoes were reached.
Here we found the guides angry and alarmed at our
prolonged absence, and, as they were soaking wet, we
couldn't blame them. We got into the canoes again and
paddled as hard as we could until a welcome light shone
ahead at the " Halfway House." This house is away up
on a clay bank, set far enough back from the river so that
the spring and fall floods won't wash it away. Now a steep
clayey bank on a night when the water is pouring down
is not a nice one for a lot of half-fro/en, half-drowned
men to clamber up. We slid and slipped here and there,
now down and now up, until we were well covered with
clay, but we were cheerful withal, and that's a great deal
towards contentment. We at last reached the house, had
our baggage brought in, and, to our disgust, found every-
thing was wet, overcoats, blankets, underclothes, nega-
tives, etc., etc. A big fire was built in a big stove. We
ate supper, hung our wet clothes around the fire, emptied
all of our luggage sacks and hung the contents of them
upon the chairs and benches as well as upon the wall,
and then to bed, where we slept the sweet sleep that
comes to all men who labor out in the open air, and who
whimper not at storm or cold but try to make the best ot
everything that fortune is pleased to shower upon them.
139
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At luilf-past tlirtv the next morning' wc luinl)k'(l out
of bed, !ilr a hasty breakfast of Itn-a'i and butter anil
l)acon and eoflee, repacked all our thin>{s ( which now
were dry ) in their ])roper sacks, carried thetn down and
placed them in the canoes and before the H(>ddess of morn
had time to get her eyes open we pushed off for our last
canoeing; trip of the season.
i ■
I.?'!
THE HOUSE T>:t BEAVER LIVES IN.
The pouring rain of the night before had ceased and
now the weather had turned so cold that the water froze
upon our paddles, and the river was so nearly frozen that
there was little or no spring in the canoes. 'Twas a dead
push all the way up to the "Northeast Carry." Our
leather boots we had not been able to draw on, by reason
of their soaking of the night before, and rubber boots had
to be substituted, which, in that biting cold, made it
uncomfortable paddling. After a run of four miles we
140
were glad to push the raiioi-s ashore, build a lire aud
warm up. At about nine o'clock we landed at the
"Carry," hired a wagon to "tote" our stud" over to
Moosehead Lake and then we walked the two miles of
good road, which constitutes this famous " Carry."
At the little hotel at the lake end of the "Carry "
we had to wait several hours for a steamboat to take us
to (ireenville, forty miles away, where the train is taken
for liangor. Here I noticed a youth who looked feeble
and sick, as if nigh unto death. He was a farmer's boy,
whose home was near Hartford, Comi. On the farm he
had read and reread stories of hunters ; of their happy
lives in the woods, and their ignorance of restraint. The
reading of Cooper's novels had so fired his imagination
he believed that all he had to do to be and live the life
of a hunter was to take into the woods with him a rifle
and a rubber blanket. This was not a theory with him
to dream over, but one to act upon, and in reality that
was exactly what he did. He came alone from his
farm, went alone into the woods and very soon stalked a
deer which he succeeded in killing. Then his youthful
breast beat liigh with rapture as he saw the noble quarry
lying at his feet. But hunger must be appeased, and he
was hungry, no doubt about that. He dressed the deer,
cut a steak, still reeking with animal heat, built a fire,
toa.sted the venison on a stick and greedily ate it. Then
spreading his rubber blanket upon the ground and without
either blanket to cover him or sleeping bag to crawl into,
he laid him down in the frosty air and slept the sleep of
youth and tired-out nature. Next morning he awoke
with .shivering body and chattering teeth and a burning
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pain in the intestines. Hanging his deer up in a tree as
well as he could, he built a fresh fire and tried to warm
his body and dispel the chill which at last gave way to a
fever and a splitting headache. The morning passed,
noon came, and night, and there he \i\y. On the morning
of the .second day, prone upon the ground, with the red
squirrels busy about him gathering their winter stores,
the poor boy lay. Here, sick, far from home, from
kindred, from a mother's tender care, from a doctor's
aid, he was found by a party of lumbermen, who carried
him to their camp and nursed and fed him as well as they
could for six days. Then as the winter was fast closing
in they sent a man out of the woods with him to the
"Carry," and here I saw him. His attendant asked me
if I would look after him as far as I went. I told him
nothing could give me more pleasure than to do so.
When the steamboat arrived I took him aboard, got
a sofa for him to lie upon, and then looked mj' medicine
chest over. Picking out some tablets, which had a very
little morphia in them, I gave him one of tliese every
three hours, and made him drink hot milk with some
cayenne pepper in it.
We reached Greenville very late at night, leaving at
six the next morning and arrived at Bangor about noon,
which place we left sometime in the early afternoon. At
these places and wherever and whenever I could get the
hot milk I made the poor boy drink it. At Portland, I
had a doctor examine him who .said that the boy was
certainly in the early stages of typhoid fever and that he
also had intestinal catarrh, caused by the eating of the
venison before it had parted with its animal heat. The
142
doctor also said that the tablets I had given him were
"right " and that the hot milk was "right. ' ' We reached
Boston at nine o'clock in the evening, and thinking that
the train I was to take was the same which was to carry
the boy to his home, I took him to the Providence
depot, but found I was mistaken, and that he had to go
by the Boston and Albany Railway. Mv time was short
and his too Checking n,y own baggage I engaged my
berth to Philadelphia, and leaving my son with the re-
mainder of the stuff, started for the other depot. It was
raining heavily, and at that time of night I could find
neither carriage nor street car, and so was compelled
partly to support and carry, and partly to drag the sick
boy on the way. We reached the train with five minutes
to .spare. After buying his ticket I helped him into a
car, laid him down and then hunted up the conductor-a
portly, pompous, beggar-on- horse-back sort of a fellow-
and asked him if he wouldn't kindly look after the boy to
the end of his division and then ask the following con-
ductor also to see to his comfort. His reply was perhaps
what I might have expected. " No. sir ! I have no
time to look u.cer sick people. I've got mv train to
attend to. and if the boy gives me any trouble I'll put him
off at Worcester and send him to the hospital." A man
was standing near him (probably a railway official) who
had listened to my story and request and to tl< • con-
ductor's reply. He turned quickly to the man ,rass
buttons and swinging lantern, and spoke witli a frown.
The words were few and their
but. whatever it n:
The conductor came
puri)()rt I did not catch,
have been, tlie change
was magical.
toward me and in the most oolite
143
E
1'.
and cringing manner promised to look after the boy.
Then the semaphore over the gate changed from red to
white, the bell rang, a shout of "All aboard" and with
measured puflf the train was on its way.
My own train was to leave at midnight and I hurried
back to it through the rain which pelted in torrents and
wet me through. However, it took but little time to get
undressed and into my berth. A few moments afterwards
I felt the train moving out of the station, and then all
knowledge and recollection took a back seat. I knew
nothing until I awoke next morning in Philadelphia,
fully aware then that the hunting season of 1896 was over,
that I was back among my friends and loved ones, sound
in mind and limb, revived in brain and ready for any
amount of work. Verily,
" Hunting is an exercise
To make man stiirch-, active, wise ;
To fill his spirits with delight,
To help his hearing, mend his sight,
To teach him arts tliat never slip
His memory ; canoemanship.
And search and sharpness and defense,
And all ill habits chaseth hence."
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THE YOUNG HUNTER.
JAMES J. MAHTINDALE AT 13 VtAHb, WHEN HE KIllEO HIS FIRST GAME.
«45
A PARTING SHOT.
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Have you with liced perused What I have written to you ?
— Coriolanus.
I^LITTARCH says: " Recreation is the sweet sauce
X^ of labor," a fact of which the American business
^ man who usuall}' swallows his labor with no sauce
at all, should make a note.
" What so strong
But wanting rest, will also want the might?
The Hun that measures heaven all day long.
At night doth bait his steeds the ocean waves among.''
The labors of old Sol, to be sure, are a little out of
the line of the business man, but not so much out of it
that he can afford to disregard the example or declare
that rest and recreation are but snares.
Delusions mere, inventions of the devil,
to bani])oo7.1e the thrifty and keep up the world's stock of
drones. If the devil did invent them I have a much
higher opinion of him than usually obtains, and the
proverb is right — the old fellow is "not so black as he's
painted."
What I have recited in the foregoing pages comprises
but a small portion of the very many pleasant and excit-
ing incidents and experiences enjoyed in my tussle with
146
the w.lds of Nature. Though the time was comparativelv
short the trips were not. By hind and water, hv rail
steamboat, wagon, buckboard, yacht, row boat and'birch-
bark canoe, the miles covered were over ten thousand
^otnfl„,g distance; and yet through it all I was never
>11 but once, and the damage done then was not serious
enough to pre\ent my returning home,
" Full of vigor, tough and glad,
Feeling like a win- lad,"
and with a capacity for work that was well worth its cost
of two months time.
And now a parting word to you, you man of business
chamed like a felon in his cell, bereft of sunlight'
harassed with care, tiring your brain over the one nn.d,tv
problem of money-making-or else .some scheme to 4ve
off financial disaster-'twill pay you to ponder on mv
words and my experience and call a halt. Make t,p votir
niuid that money without health is a much greater
calamity than health without money. Leave vour desk
and turn your back on the steaming streets of civilization
and your thoughts where Nature tempts with her trot,t
streams, her mirrored lakes and her gameal,ounding
retreats: to her forests, fragrant with balsamic odors and
watered by living streams, streams wholesome with the
leechings of the Spruce, and Pine, and Cedar- Nature's
own nectar; a draught of it and you'll need no other
stimulant. Then when the days sport is over and the
night comes, what a revelation is in store for vou I Cud-
dled in your warm sleeping bag, with plentv of blankets,
you "lay me down" on your bed of spruce boughs
147
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whose odors play thick about you, filling the air and
soothing you quickly into babe-like slumber. In the
morning, spryer than the sun, you leave your bed before
him, armed with a double-edged apppetite, so keen and
new you wonder where it came from. Trust me for what
I tell you, but even my words but faintly speak the novel
joys which await you. Once more I say, forget "the
shop" and all which that implies, and with the poet
Rovve you may exclaim to some purpose:
" Hej^fonc my cares ! I give you to the winds."
THOMAS MARTINDALE.
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