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 *' The man in the woods matches himself against the forces of nature 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 **THE BLAZED TRAIL," " SILENT PLACES," 
 
 ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY THOMAS FOGARTY 
 
 Garden City New York 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1911 
 
4- 
 
 \ 
 
 Copyright, 1904, by 
 
 McCLURE, PHILLIPS 8c CO. 
 
 PubHshed October, 1903 
 
 COPTRIGHT, 1903, BY ThE OUTLOOK CoMPANT 
 
TO BILLY 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. 
 
 The Calling 
 
 rAOK 
 
 L 
 
 II. 
 
 The Science of Going Light 
 
 9 
 
 III. 
 
 The Jumping-off Place 
 
 21 
 
 IV. 
 
 On Making Camp .... 
 
 • 33 
 
 V. 
 
 On Lying Awake at Night . 
 
 • 51 
 
 VI. 
 
 The 'Lunge ..... 
 
 • 59 
 
 VII. 
 
 On Open-water Canoe Traveling 
 
 • 73 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Stranded Strangers . . . , 
 
 85 
 
 IX. 
 
 On Flies 
 
 103 
 
 X. 
 
 Cloche ...... 
 
 119 
 
 XI. 
 
 The Habitants ..... 
 
 135 
 
 XII. 
 
 The River . . . . . 
 
 149 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Hills 
 
 167 
 
 XIV. 
 
 On Walking through the Woods 
 
 183 
 
 XV. 
 
 On Woods Indians . . . . , 
 
 201 
 
 XVI. 
 
 On Woods Indians — continued 
 
 223 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Catching of a Certain Fish . 
 
 241 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Man who walks by Moonlight . 
 
 255 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Apologia ....... 
 
 267 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 <' The man in the woods matches himself against the forces 
 
 of nature " . . . . . . frontispiece 
 
 PAGB 
 
 < It rained twelve of the first fourteen days we were out " . 14 
 « This old soldier had come in from the Long Trail to bear 
 
 again the flag of his country " . . . . 28 
 
 < In fifteen minutes at most your meal is ready ** . .42 
 
 * At such a time you will meet with adventures'* . . 56 
 
 * We . . . had struggled across open spaces where each wave 
 
 was singly a problem, to fail in whose solution meant 
 instant swamping '* . . . . . .62 
 
 * The wind . . . had been succeeded by a heavy pall of 
 
 fog- ........ 76 
 
 'You are a judge of fiction ; take this" . . . .98 
 
 * You are forced to the manipulation of a balsam fan ' * . 112 
 
 * A la Claire Fontaine crooned by a man of impassive bulk 
 
 and countenance, but with glowing eyes " . .130 
 
 ' He was a Patriarch " ...... 142 
 
 < Sometimes I \ost my footing entirely and trailed out benind 
 
 like a streamer '* 158 
 
 * Watched the long North Country twilight steal up like a 
 
 gray cloud from the east " . . . . .178 
 
 ' In this lovable mystery we journeyed all the rest of that 
 
 morning ". . . . . . . .192 
 
 <The Indians would rise to their feet for a single mo- 
 ment'' 216 
 
 * Nor need you hope to pole a canoe upstream as do these 
 
 people" ........ 230 
 
 *Then in the twiHght the battle" . , . .250 
 
 « Tawabinisay has a deJightfiil grin " » • . .262 
 
THE CALLING 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 I 
 
 THE CALLING 
 
 '* The Red Gods make their medicine again.'* 
 
 SOME time in February, when the snow and 
 sleet have shut out from the wearied mind even 
 the memory of spring, the man of the woods gen- 
 erally receives his first inspiration. He may catch 
 it from some companion's chance remark, a glance 
 at the map, a vague recollection of a dim-past con- 
 versation, or it may flash on him from the mere 
 pronouncement of a name. The first faint thrill of 
 discovery leaves him cool, but gradually, with the 
 increasing enthusiasm of cogitation, the idea gains 
 body, until finally it has grown to plan fit for dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 Of these many quickening potencies of inspira- 
 tion, the mere name of a place seems to strike deep- 
 est at the heart of romance. Color, mystery, the 
 vastnesses of unexplored space are there, symbolized 
 compactly for the aliment of imagination. It lures 
 
 3 
 
;^./'f: j .^ ;*;THE FOREST 
 
 the fancy as a fly lures the trout. Mattagami, Peace 
 River, Kananaw, the House of the Touchwood Hills, 
 Rupert's House, the Land of Little Sticks, Flying 
 Post, Conjuror's House — how the syllables roll from 
 the tongue, what pictures rise in instant response to 
 their suggestion I The journey of a thousand miles 
 seems not too great a price to pay for the sight of a 
 place called the Hills of Silence, for acquaintance 
 with the people who dwell there, perhaps for a 
 glimpse of the saga-spirit that so named its environ- 
 ment. On the other hand, one would feel but little 
 desire to visit Muggin's Corners, even though at 
 their crossing one were assured of the deepest flavor 
 of the Far North. 
 
 The first response to the red god's summons is 
 almost invariably the production of a fly-book and 
 the complete rearrangement of all its contents. The 
 next is a resumption of practice with the little pistol. 
 The third, and last, is pencil and paper, and lists of 
 grub and duffel, and estimates of routes and expenses, 
 and correspondence with men who spell queerly, bear 
 down heavily with blunt pencils, and agree to be 
 at Black Beaver Portage on a certain date. Now, 
 though the February snow and sleet still shut him 
 in, the spring has drawn very near. He can feel the 
 warmth of her breath rustling through his reviving 
 memories. 
 
 There are said to be sixty-eight roads to heaven, 
 of which but one is the true way, although here 
 
 4 
 
THE CALLING 
 
 and there a by-path offers experimental variety to 
 the restless and bold. The true way for the man in 
 the woods to attain the elusive best of his wilder- 
 ness experience is to go as light as possible, and the 
 by-paths of departure from that principle lead only 
 to the slightly increased carrying possibilities of 
 open-water canoe trips, and permanent camps. 
 
 But these prove to be not very independent side 
 paths, never diverging so far from the main road 
 that one may dare hope to conceal from a vigilant 
 eye that he is not going light. 
 
 To go light is to play the game fairly. The man 
 in the woods matches himself against the forces of 
 nature. In the towns he is warmed and fed and 
 clothed so spontaneously and easily that after a time 
 he perforce begins to doubt himself, to wonder 
 whether his powers are not atrophied from disuse. 
 And so, with his naked soul, he fronts the wilder- 
 ness. It is a test, a measuring of strength, a prov- 
 ing of his essential pluck and resourcefulness and 
 manhood, an assurance of man's highest potency, the 
 ability to endure and to take care of himself In 
 just so far as he substitutes the ready-made of civil- 
 ization for the wit-made of the forest, the pneumatic 
 bed for the balsam boughs, in just so far is he relying 
 on other men and other men's labor to take care of 
 him. To exactly that extent is the test invalidated. 
 He has not proved a courteous antagonist, for he 
 has not stripped to the contest 
 
 5 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 To go light is to play the game sensibly. For 
 even when it is not so earnest, nor the stake so high, 
 a certain common sense should take the place on a 
 lower plane of the fair-play sense on the higher. A 
 great many people find enjoyment in merely play- 
 ing with nature. Through vacation they relax their 
 minds, exercise mildly their bodies, and freshen the 
 colors of their outlook on life. Such people like to 
 live comfortably, work little, and enjoy existence 
 lazily. Instead of modifying themselves to fit the life 
 of the wilderness, they modify their city methods 
 to fit open-air conditions. They do not need to strip 
 to the contest, for contest there is none, and Indian 
 packers are cheap at a dollar a day. But even so the 
 problem of the greatest comfort — defining comfort 
 as an accurate balance of effort expended to results 
 obtained — can be solved only by the one formula. 
 And that formula is, again, go light, for a superabun- 
 dance of paraphernalia proves always more of a care 
 than a satisfaction. When the woods offer you a 
 thing ready made, it is the merest foolishness to 
 transport that same thing an hundred miles for the 
 sake of the manufacturer's trademark. 
 
 I once met an outfit in the North Woods, plodding 
 diligently across portage, laden like the camels of the 
 desert Three Indians swarmed back and forth a half 
 dozen trips apiece. An Indian can carry over two 
 hundred pounds. That evening a half-breed and I 
 visited their camp and examined their outfit, always 
 
 6 
 
THE CALLING 
 
 with growing wonder. They had tent-poles and 
 about fifty pounds of hardwood tent pegs, — in a 
 wooded country where such things can be had for 
 a cHp of the axe. They had a system of ringed iron 
 bars which could be so fitted together as to form a 
 low open grill on which trout could be broiled, — 
 weight twenty pounds, and split wood necessary for 
 its efficiency. They had air mattresses and camp- 
 chairs and oil lanterns. They had corpulent duffel 
 bags apiece that would stand alone, and enough 
 changes of clothes to last out dry-skinned a week's 
 rain. And the leader of the party wore the wrinkled 
 brow of tribulation. For he had to keep track of 
 everything and see that package number twenty- 
 eight was not left, and that package number six- 
 teen did not get wet ; that the pneumatic bed did 
 not get punctured, and that the canned goods did. 
 Beside which the caravan was moving at the majestic 
 rate of about five miles a day. 
 
 Now tent-pegs can always be cut, and trout broiled 
 beautifully by a dozen other ways, and candle lanterns 
 fold up, and balsam can be laid in such a manner as 
 to be as springy as a pneumatic mattress, and camp- 
 chairs, if desired, can be quickly constructed with 
 an axe, and clothes can al^^^ays be washed or dried 
 as long as fire burns and water runs, and any one of 
 fifty other items of laborious burden could have been 
 ingeniously and quickly substituted by any one of 
 the Indians. It was not that we concealed a bucolic 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 scorn of effete but solid comfort ; only it did seem 
 ridiculous that a man should cumber himself with a 
 fifth wheel on a smoothly macadamized road. 
 
 The next morning Billy and I went cheerfully 
 on our way. We were carrying an axe, a gun, 
 blankets, an extra pair of drawers and socks apiece, 
 a little grub, and an eight-pound shelter tent. We 
 had been out a week, and we were having a good 
 time. 
 
THE SCIENCE OF GOING UGHX , , 
 
II 
 
 THE SCIENCE OF GOING LIGHT 
 
 '* Now the Four- Way lodge is opened — now the smokes of Coun« 
 oil rise — 
 Pleasant smokes ere yet *twixt trail and trail they choose.*' 
 
 YOU can no more be told how to go light than 
 you can be told how to hit a ball with a bat 
 It is something that must be lived through, and 
 all advice on the subject has just about the value 
 of an answer to a bashful young man who begged 
 from one of our woman's periodicals help in over- 
 coming the diffidence felt on entering a crowded 
 room. The reply read : " Cultivate an easy, grace- 
 ful manner." In hke case I might hypothecate, 
 " To go light, discard all but the really necessary 
 articles." 
 
 The sticking point, were you to press me close, 
 would be the definition of the word " necessary," for 
 the terms of such definition would have to be those 
 solely and simply of a man's experience. Comforts, 
 even most desirable comforts, are not necessities. A 
 dozen times a day trifling emergencies will seem 
 precisely to call for some little handy contrivance 
 
 II 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 that would be just the thing, were it in the pack 
 rather than at home. A disgorger does the business 
 better than a pocket-knife ; a pair of oilskin trousers 
 turns the wet better than does kersey ; a camp-stove 
 will bum merrily in a rain lively enough to drown 
 an open fire. Yet neither disgorger, nor oilskins, 
 nor camp-stove can be considered in the light of 
 necessities, for the simple reason that the conditions 
 of their use occur too infrequently to compensate for 
 the pains of their carriage. Or, to put it the other 
 way, a few moments* work with a knife, wet knees 
 occasionally, or an infrequent soggy meal are not too 
 great a price to pay for unburdened shoulders. 
 
 Nor on the other hand must you conclude that 
 because a thing is a mere luxury in town, it is no- 
 thing but that in the woods. Most woodsmen own 
 some little ridiculous item of outfit without which 
 they could not be happy. And when a man can- 
 not be happy lacking a thing, that thing, becomes 
 a necessity. I knew one who never stirred without 
 borated talcum powder ; another who must have his 
 mouth-organ; a third who was miserable without a 
 small bottle of salad dressing ; I confess to a pair of 
 light buckskin gloves. Each man must decide for 
 himself, — remembering always the endurance limit 
 of human shoulders. 
 
 A necessity is that which, hy your own experience^ 
 you have found you cannot do without. As a bit 
 of practical advice, however, the following system 
 
 12 
 
THE SCIENCE OF GOING LIGHT 
 
 of elimination may be recommended. When you 
 return from a trip, turn your duffel bag upside down 
 on the floor. Of the contents make three piles, — 
 three piles conscientiously selected in the light of 
 what has happened rather than what ought to have 
 happened, or what might have happened. It is diffi- 
 cult to do this. Preconceived notions, habits of civ- 
 ilization, theory for future, imagination, all stand in 
 the eye of your honesty. Pile number one should 
 comprise those articles you have used every day; 
 pile number two, those you have used occasionally; 
 pile number three, those you have not used at all. 
 If you are resolute and single-minded, you will at 
 once discard the latter two. 
 
 Throughout the following winter you will be at- 
 tacked by misgivings. To be sure, you wore the 
 mosquito hat but once or twice, and the fourth pair 
 of socks not at all ; but then the mosquitoes might be 
 thicker^ext time, and a series of rainy days and cold 
 nights might make it desirable to have a dry pair of 
 socks to put on at night. The past has been x, but 
 the future might be y. One by one the discarded 
 creep back into the list. And by the opening of 
 next season you have made toward perfection by 
 only the little space of a mackintosh coat and a ten- 
 gauge gun. 
 
 But in the years to come you learn better and 
 better the simple woods lesson of substitution or 
 doing without You find that discomfort is as soon 
 
 13 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 forgotten as pain; that almost anything can be en- 
 dured if it is but for the time being ; that absolute 
 physical comfort is worth but a very small price in 
 avoirdupois. Your pack shrinks. 
 
 In fact, it really never ceases shrinking. Only last 
 summer taught me the uselessness of an extra pair 
 of trousers. It rains in the woods ; streams are to 
 be waded ; the wetness of leaves is greater than the 
 wetness of many rivers. Logically, naturally, inevi- 
 tably, such conditions point to change of garments 
 when camp is made. We always change our clothes 
 when we get wet in the city. So for years I carried 
 those extra nether garments, — and continued in the 
 natural exposure to sun and wind and camp-fire to 
 dry off before change time, or to hang the damp 
 clothes from the ridge-pole for resumption in the 
 morning. And then one day the web of that par- 
 ticular convention broke. We change wet trousers 
 in the town ; we do not in the woods. The extras 
 were relegated to pile number three, and my pack, 
 already apparently down to a minimum, lost a few 
 pounds more. 
 
 You will want a hat, a good hat to turn rain, with 
 a medium brim. If you are wise, you will get it too 
 small for your head, and rip out the lining. The felt 
 will cling tenaciously to your hair, so that you will 
 find the snatches of the brush and the wind generally 
 unavailing. 
 
 By way of undergarments wear woolen. Buy win- 
 
 14 
 
 
It rained twelve ot the first fourteen days we were out ' 
 
THE SCIENCE OF GOING LIGHT 
 
 ter weights even for midsummer. In traveling with 
 a pack a man is going to sweat in streams, no matter 
 what he puts on or takes off, and the thick garment 
 will be found no more oppressive than the thin. 
 And then in the cool of the woods or of the even- 
 ing he avoids a chill. And he can plunge into the 
 coldest water with impunity, sure that ten minutes 
 of the air will dry him fairly well. Until you have 
 shivered in clammy cotton, you cannot realize the 
 importance of this point. Ten minutes of cotton 
 underwear in cold water will chill. On the other 
 hand, suitably clothed in wool, I have waded the ice 
 water of north country streams when the thermome- 
 ter was so low I could see my breath in the air, with- 
 out other discomfort than a cold ring around my 
 legs to mark the surface of the water, and a slight 
 numbness in my feet when I emerged. Therefore, 
 even in hot weather, wear heavy wool. It is the most 
 comfortable. Undoubtedly you will come to believe 
 this only by experience. 
 
 Do not carry a coat. This is another preconcep- 
 tion of civilization, exceedingly difficult to get rid 
 of You will never wear it while packing. In a 
 rain you will find that it wets through so promptly 
 as to be of little use ; or, if waterproof, the inside 
 condensation will more than equal the rain-water. 
 In camp you will discard it because it will impede 
 the swing of your arms. The end of that coat will 
 be a brief half hour after supper, and a makeshift 
 
 15 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 roll to serve as a pillow during the night. And for 
 these a sweater is better in every way. 
 
 In fact, if you feel you must possess another out- 
 side garment, let it be an extra sweater. You can 
 sleep in it, use it when your day garment is soaked, 
 or even tie things in it as in a bag. It is not neces- 
 sary, however. 
 
 One good shirt is enough. When you wash it, 
 substitute the sweater until it dries. In fact, by keep- 
 ing the sweater always in your waterproof bag, you 
 possess a dry garment to change into. Two hand- 
 kerchiefs are enough. One should be of silk, for 
 neck, head, or — in case of cramps or intense cold — 
 the stomach; the other of colored cotton for the 
 pocket. Both can be quickly washed, and dried en 
 route. Three pairs of heavy wool socks will be 
 enough, — one for wear, one for night, and one for 
 extra. A second pair of drawers supplements the 
 sweater when a temporary day change is desirable. 
 Heavy kersey " driver's " trousers are the best. They 
 are cheap, dry very quickly, and are not easily 
 " picked out " by the brush. 
 
 The best blanket is that made by the Hudson 
 Bay Company for its servants, — a "three-point" 
 for summer is heavy enough. The next best is our 
 own gray army blanket. One of rubber should fold 
 about it, and a pair of narrow buckle straps is handy 
 to keep the bundle right and tight and waterproof. 
 As for a tent, buy the smallest shelter you can get 
 
 i6 
 
THE SCIENCE OF GOING LIGHT 
 
 along with, have it made of balloon silk well water- 
 proofed, and supplement it with a duplicate tent of 
 light cheesecloth to suspend inside as a fly-proof 
 defense. A seven-by-seven three-man A-tent, which 
 would weigh between twenty and thirty pounds if 
 made of duck, means only about eight pounds con- 
 structed of this material. And it is waterproof I 
 own one which I have used for three seasons. It 
 has been employed as tarpaulin, fly, even blanket on 
 a pinch ; it has been packed through the roughest 
 country; I have even pressed it into service as a sort 
 of canoe lining; but it is still as good as ever. Such 
 a tent sometimes condenses a little moisture in a cold 
 rain, but it never " sprays " as does a duck shelter ; 
 it never leaks simply because you have accidentally 
 touched its under-surface ; and, best of all, it weighs 
 no more after a rain than before it. This latter item 
 is perhaps its best recommendation. The confront- 
 ing with equanimity of a wet day's journey in the 
 shower-bath brush of our northern forests requires a 
 degree of philosophy which a gratuitous ten pounds 
 of soaked-up water sometimes most effectually breaks 
 down. I know of but one place where such a tent 
 can be bought. The address will be gladly sent to 
 any one practically interested. 
 
 As for the actual implements of the trade, they 
 are not many, although of course the sporting goods 
 stores are full of all sorts of " handy contrivances." 
 A small axe, — one of the pocket size will do, if 
 
 '7 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 you get the right shape and balance, although a light 
 regulation axe is better; a thin-bladed sheath-knife 
 of the best steel ; a pocket-knife ; a compass ; a water- 
 proof match-safe; fishing-tackle; firearms; and cook- 
 ing utensils comprise the list. All others belong 
 to permanent camps, or open-water cruises, — not to 
 " hikes " in the woods. 
 
 The items, with the exception of the last two, 
 seem to explain themselves. During the summer 
 months in the North Woods you will not need a rifle. 
 Partridges, spruce hens, ptarmigan, rabbits, ducks, 
 and geese are usually abundant enough to fill the 
 provision list. For them, of course, a shotgun is the 
 thing; but since such a weapon weighs many pounds, 
 and its ammunition many more, I have come gradu- 
 ally to depend entirely on a pistol. The instrument 
 is single shot, carries a six-inch barrel, is fitted with 
 a special butt, and is built on the graceful lines of a 
 38-calibre Smith & Wesson revolver. Its cartridge 
 is the 22 long-rifle, a target size, that carries as accu- 
 rately as you can hold for upwards of an hundred 
 yards. With it I have often killed a half dozen of 
 partridges from the same tree. The ammunition • is 
 light. Altogether it is a most satisfactory, conven- 
 ient, and accurate weapon, and quite adequate to all 
 small game. In fact an Indian named Tawabinisay, 
 after seeing it perform, once borrowed it to kill a 
 moose. 
 
 " I shootum in eye," said he. 
 
 18 
 
THE SCIENCE OF GOING LIGHT 
 
 By way of cooking utensils, buy aluminum. It is 
 expensive, but so light and so easily cleaned that it 
 is well worth all you may have to pay. If you are 
 alone you will not want to carry much hardware. I 
 made a twenty-day trip once with nothing but a tin 
 cup and a frying-pan. Dishes, pails, wash-basins, and 
 other receptacles can always be made of birch bark 
 and cedar withes — by one who knows how. The 
 ideal outfit for two or three is a cup, fork, and spoon 
 apiece, one tea-pail, two kettle-pails, and a frying-pan. 
 The latter can be used as a bread-oven. 
 
 A few minor items, of practically no weight, sug- 
 gest themselves, — toilet requisites, fly-dope, needle 
 and thread, a cathartic, pain-killer, a roll of surgeon's 
 bandage, pipe and tobacco. But when the pack is 
 made up, and the duffel bag tied, you find that, while 
 fitted for every emergency but that of catastrophe, 
 you are prepared to " go light" 
 
 19 
 
THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE 
 
Ill 
 
 THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE 
 
 SOMETIME, no matter how long your journey, 
 you will reach a spot whose psychological effect 
 is so exactly like a dozen others that you will recog- 
 nize at once its iiinship with former experience. Mere 
 physical likeness does not count at all. It may pos- 
 sess a water front of laths and sawdust, or an outlook 
 over broad, shimmering, heat-baked plains. It may 
 front the impassive fringe of a forest, or it may skirt 
 the calm stretch of a river. But whether of log or 
 mud, stone or unpainted board, its identity becomes 
 at first sight indubitably evident. Were you, by the 
 wave of some beneficent wand, to be transported 
 direct to it from the heart of the city, you could not 
 fail to recognize it. " The jumping-off place ! " you 
 would cry ecstatically, and turn with unerring instinct 
 to the Aromatic Shop. 
 
 For here is where begins the Long Trail. Whether 
 it will lead you through the forests, or up the hills, or 
 over the plains, or by invisible water paths ; whether 
 you will accomplish it on horseback, or in canoe, or 
 by the transportation of your own two legs ; whether 
 
 23 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 your companions shall be white or red, or merely 
 the voices of the wilds — these things matter not a 
 particle. In the symbol of this little town you loose 
 your hold on the world of made things, and shift for 
 yourself among the unchanging conditions of nature. 
 Here the faint forest flavor, the subtle invisible 
 breath of freedom, stirs faintly across men's conven- 
 tions. The ordinary affairs of life savor of this tang — 
 a trace of wildness in the domesticated berry. In the 
 dress of the inhabitants is a dash of color, a careless- 
 ness of port; in the manner of their greeting is the 
 clear, steady-eyed taciturnity of the silent places ; 
 through the web of their gray talk of ways and means 
 and men's simpler beliefs runs a thread of color. One 
 hears strange, suggestive words and phrases — ara- 
 pajo, capote, arroyo, the diamond hitch, cache, butte, 
 coule, muskegs, portage, and a dozen others coined 
 into the tender of daily use. And occasionally, when 
 the expectation is least alert, one encounters sud- 
 denly the very symbol of the wilderness itself — a 
 dust-whitened cowboy, an Indian packer with his 
 straight, fillet-confined hair, a voyage ur gay in red 
 sash and ornamented moccasins, one of the Com- 
 pany's canoemen, hollow-cheeked from the river — 
 no costumed show exhibit, but fitting naturally into 
 the scene, bringing something of the open space with 
 him — so that in your imagination the little town 
 gradually takes on the color of mystery which an 
 older community utterly lacks. 
 
 24 
 
THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE 
 
 But perhaps the strongest of the influences which 
 unite to assure the psychological kinships of thejump- 
 ing-ofF places is that of the Aromatic Shop. It is 
 usually a board affair, with a broad high sidewalk 
 shaded by a wooden awning. You enter through a 
 narrow door, and find yourself facing two dusky aisles 
 separated by a narrow division of goods, and flanked 
 by wooden counters. So far it is exactly like the cor- 
 ner store of our rural districts. But in the dimness of 
 these two aisles lurks the spirit of the wilds. There 
 in a row hang fifty pair of smoke-tanned moccasins ; 
 in another an equal number of oil-tanned ; across the 
 background you can make out snowshoes. The 
 shelves are high with blankets, — three-point, four- 
 point, — thick and warm for the out-of-doors. Should 
 you care to examine, the storekeeper will hook down 
 from aloft capotes of different degrees of fineness. 
 Fathoms of black tobacco-rope lie coiled in tubs. 
 Tump-lines welter in a tangle of dimness. On a 
 series of little shelves is the ammunition, fascinating 
 in the attraction of mere numbers — 44 Winchester, 
 45 Colt, 40-82, 30-40, 44 S. & W. — they all con- 
 note something to the accustomed mind, just as do 
 the numbered street names of New York. 
 
 An exploration is always bringing something new 
 to light among the commonplaces of ginghams and 
 working shirts and canned goods and stationery and 
 the other thousands of civilized drearinesses to be 
 found in every country store. From under the coun- 
 ts 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 ter you drag out a mink skin or so ; from the dark 
 corner an assortment of steel traps. In a loft a birch- 
 bark mokok, fifty pounds heavy with granulated 
 maple sugar, dispenses a faint perfume. 
 
 For this is, above all, the Aromatic Shop. A hun- 
 dred ghosts of odors mingle to produce the spirit of 
 it. The reek of the camp-fires is in its buckskin, 
 of the woods in its birch bark, of the muskegs in 
 its sweet grass, of the open spaces in its peltries, of 
 the evening meal in its coffees and bacons, of the 
 portage trail in the leather of the tump-lines. I am 
 speaking now of the country of which we are to write. 
 The shops of the other jumping-ofF places are equally 
 aromatic — whether with the leather of saddles, the 
 freshness of ash paddles, or the pungency of marline ; 
 and once the smell of them is in your nostrils you 
 cannot but away. 
 
 The Aromatic Shop is always kept by the wisest, 
 the most accommodating, the most charming shop- 
 keeper in the world. He has all leisure to give you, 
 and enters into the innermost spirit of your buying. 
 He is of supernal sagacity in regard to supplies and 
 outfits, and if he does not know all about routes, at 
 least he is acquainted with the very man who can tell 
 you everything you want to know. He leans both 
 elbows on the counter, you swing your feet, and to- 
 gether you go over the list, while the Indian stands 
 smoky and silent in the background. "Now, if 
 I was you," says he, " I 'd take just a little more 
 
 26 
 
THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE 
 
 pork. You won't be eatin' so much yourself, but 
 these Injuns ain't got no bottom when it comes to 
 sow-belly. And I would n't buy all that coffee. You 
 ain't goin' to want much after the first edge is worn 
 off Tea 's the boy." The Indian shoots a few rapid 
 words across the discussion. " He says you '11 want 
 some iron shoes to fit on canoe poles for when you 
 come back upstream," interprets your friend. "I 
 guess that 's right. I ain't got none, but th' black- 
 smith '11 fit you out all right. You '11 find him just 
 below — never mind, don't you bother, I '11 see to all 
 that for you." 
 
 The next morning he saunters into view at the 
 river-bank. " Thought I 'd see you off," he replies 
 to your expression of surprise at his early rising. 
 " Take care of yourself" And so the last hand-clasp 
 of civilization is extended to you from the little 
 Aromatic Shop. 
 
 Occasionally, however, though very rarely, you 
 step to the Long Trail from the streets of a raw 
 modern town. The chance presence of some local 
 industry demanding a large population of workmen, 
 combined with first-class railroad transportation, may 
 plant an electric-lighted, saloon-lined, brick-hoteled 
 city in the middle of the wilderness. Lumber, mines, 
 — especially of the baser metals or commercial min- 
 erals, — fisheries, a terminus of water freightage, may 
 one or all call into existence a community a hundred 
 years in advance of its environment. Then you lose 
 
 27 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 the savor of the jump-off. Nothing can quite take 
 the place of the instant plunge into the wilderness, 
 for you must travel three or four days from such 
 a place before you sense the forest in its vastness, 
 even though deer may eat the cabbages at the edge 
 of town. Occasionally, however, by force of crude 
 contrast to the brick-heated atmosphere, the breath 
 of the woods reaches your cheek, and always you own 
 a very tender feeling for the cause of it. 
 
 Dick and myself were caught in such a place. 
 It was an unfinished little town, with brick-fronted 
 stores, arc-lights swaying over fathomless mud, big 
 superintendent's and mill-owner's houses of bastard 
 architecture in a blatant superiority of hill location, a 
 hotel whose office chairs supported a variety of cheap 
 drummers, and stores screeching in an attempt at 
 metropolitan smartness. We inspected the stand* 
 pipe and the docks, walked a careless mile of board 
 walk, kicked a dozen pugnacious dogs from our 
 setter, Deuce, and found ourselves at the end of our 
 resources. As a crowd seemed to be gathering about 
 the wooden railway station, we joined it in sheer idle- 
 ness. 
 
 It seemed that an election had taken place the 
 day before, that one Smith had been chosen to the 
 Assembly, and that, though this district had gone 
 anti-Smith, the candidate was expected to stop off 
 an hour on his way to a more westerly point. Con- 
 sequently the town was on hand to receive him. 
 
** This old soldier had come in from the Long Trail to bear again 
 the flag of his country " 
 
THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE 
 
 The crowd, we soon discovered, was bourgeois In 
 the extreme. Young men from the mill escorted 
 young women from the shops. The young men 
 wore flaring collars three sizes too large ; the young 
 women, white cotton mitts three sizes too small. 
 The older men spat, and talked through their noses ; 
 the women drawled out a monotonous flow of speech 
 concerning the annoyances of domestic life. A gang 
 of uncouth practical jokers, exploding in horse-laugh- 
 ter, skylarked about, jostling rudely. A village band, 
 uniformed solely with cheap carriage-cloth caps, 
 brayed excruciatingly. The reception committee 
 had decorated, with red and white silesia streamers 
 and rosettes, an ordinary side-bar buggy, to which a 
 long rope had been attached, that the great man 
 might be dragged by his fellow-citizens to the pub- 
 lic square. 
 
 Nobody seemed to be taking the affair too seri- 
 ously. It was evidently more than half a joke. Anti- 
 Smith was more good-humoredly in evidence than 
 the winning party. Just this touch of buffoonery 
 completed our sense of the farce-comedy character 
 of the situation. The town was tawdry in its pre- 
 parations — and knew it ; but half sincere in its 
 enthusiasm — and knew it. If the crowd had been 
 composed of Americans, we should have anticipated 
 an unhappy time for Smith ; but good, loyal Cana- 
 dians, by the limitations of temperament, could get 
 no further than a spirit of manifest irreverence. 
 
 29 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 In the shifting of the groups Dick and I became 
 separated, but shortly I made him out worming his 
 way excitedly toward me, his sketch-book open in 
 his hand. 
 
 " Come here," he whispered. " There 's going to be 
 fun. They 're going to open up on old Smith, after 
 all." 
 
 I followed. The decorated side-bar buggy might 
 be well meant ; tne village band need not have been 
 interpreted as an ironical compliment; the rest of 
 the celebration might indicate paucity of resource 
 rather than facetious intent ; but surely the figure of 
 fiin before us could not be otherwise construed than 
 as a deliberate advertising in the face of success of 
 the town's real attitude toward the celebration. 
 
 The man was short. He wore a felt hat, so big 
 that it rested on his ears. A gray wool shirt hung 
 below his neck. A cutaway coat miles too large 
 depended below his knees and to the first joints 
 of his fingers. By way of official uniform his legs 
 were incased in an ordinary rough pair of miller's 
 white trousers, on which broad stripes of red flannel 
 had been roughly sewn. Everything was wrinkled in 
 the folds of too-bigness. As though to accentuate 
 the note, the man stood very erect, very military, and 
 supported in one hand the staff of an English flag. 
 This figure of fun, this man made from the slop- 
 chest, this caricature of a scarecrow, had been put 
 forth by heavy-handed facetiousness to the post of 
 
 30 
 
THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE 
 
 greatest honor. He was Standard-Bearer to the occa- 
 sionl Surely subtle irony could go no further. 
 
 A sudden movement caused the man to turn. 
 One sleeve of the faded, ridiculous old cutaway was 
 empty. He turned again. From under the ear- 
 flanging hat looked unflinching the clear, steady blue 
 eye of the woodsman. And so we knew. This old 
 soldier had come in from the Long Trail to bear 
 again the flag of his country. If his clothes were 
 old and ill-fitting, at least they were his best, and the 
 largeness of the empty sleeve belittled the too-large- 
 ness of the other. In all this ribald, laughing, irrev- 
 erent, commonplace, semi-vicious crowd he was the 
 one note of sincerity. To him this was a real occa- 
 sion, and the exalted reverence in his eye for the task 
 he was so simply performing was Smith's real tri- 
 umph — if he could have known it. We understood 
 now, we felt the imminence of the Long Trail. For 
 the first time the little brick, tawdry town gripped 
 our hearts with the well-known thrill of the Jumping- 
 Off Place. Suddenly the great, simple, unashamed 
 wilderness drew near us as with the rush of wings. 
 
ON MAKING CAMP 
 
IV 
 
 ON MAKING CAMP 
 
 *« Who hath smelt wood-smoke at twilight ? Who hath heard the 
 
 birch log burning ? 
 Who is quick to read the noises of the night ? 
 Let him follow with the others, for the young men's feet arc turning 
 To the camps of proved desire and known delight." 
 
 IN the Ojibway language wigwam means a good 
 spot for camping, a place cleared for a camp, a 
 camp as an abstract proposition, and a camp in the 
 concrete as represented by a tent, a thatched shelter, 
 or a conical tepee. In like manner, the English 
 word camp lends itself to a variety of concepts. I 
 once slept in a four-poster bed over a polished floor 
 in an elaborate servant-haunted structure which, 
 mainly because it was built of logs and overlooked 
 a lake, the owner always spoke of as his camp. 
 Again, I once slept on a bed of prairie grass, before 
 a fire of dried buffalo chips and mesquite, wrapped 
 in a single light blanket, while a good vigorous rain- 
 storm made new cold places on me and under me 
 all night. In the morning the cowboy with whom 
 I was traveling remarked that this was " sure a lone- 
 some proposition as a camp." 
 
 35 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 Between these two extremes is infinite variety, 
 grading upwards through the divers bivouacs of 
 snow, plains, pines, or hills, to the bark shelter ; past 
 the dog-tent, the A-tent, the wall-tent, to the elaborate 
 permanent canvas cottage of the luxurious camper, 
 the dug-out winter retreat of the range cowboy, the 
 trapper's cabin, the great log-built lumber-jack com- 
 munities, and the last refinements of sybaritic summer 
 homes in the Adirondacks. All these are camps. 
 And when you talk of making camp you must know 
 whether that process is to mean only a search for 
 rattlesnakes and enough acrid-smoked fuel to boil 
 tea, or a winter's consultation with an expert archi- 
 tect ; whether your camp is to be made on the prin- 
 ciple of Omar's one-night Sultan, or whether it is 
 intended to accommodate the full days of an entire 
 summer. 
 
 But to those who tread the Long Trail the mak- 
 ing of camp resolves itself into an algebraical for- 
 mula. After a man has traveled all day through the 
 Northern wilderness he wants to rest, and anything 
 that stands between himself and his repose he must 
 get rid of in as few motions as is consistent with 
 reasonable thoroughness. The end in view is a hot 
 meal and a comfortable dry place to sleep. The 
 straighter he can draw the line to those two points 
 the happier he is. 
 
 Early in his woods experience Dick became pos- 
 sessed with the desire to do everything for himself. 
 
 36 
 
ON MAKING CAMP 
 
 As this was a laudable striving for self-sufficiency, I 
 called a halt at about three o'clock one afternoon in 
 order to give him plenty of time. 
 
 Now Dick is a good, active, able-bodied boy, pos- 
 sessed of average intelligence and rather more than 
 average zeal. He even had theory of a sort, for he 
 had read various "Boy Campers, or the Trapper's 
 Guide," "How to Camp Out," "The Science of 
 Woodcraft," and other able works. He certainly 
 had ideas enough, and confidence enough. I sat 
 down on a log. 
 
 At the end of three hours' flusteration, heat, worry, 
 and good hard work, he had accomplished the fol- 
 lowing results : A tent, very saggy, very askew, cov- 
 ered a four-sided area — it was not a rectangle — of 
 very bumpy ground. A hodge-podge bonfire, in the 
 centre of which an inaccessible coffee-pot toppled 
 menacingly, alternately threatened to ignite the entire 
 sunounding forest or to go out altogether through 
 lack of fuel. Personal belongings strewed the ground 
 near the fire, and provisions cumbered the entrance 
 to the tent. Dick was anxiously mixing batter for 
 the cakes, attempting to stir a pot of rice often 
 enough to prevent it from burning, and trying to 
 rustle sufficient dry wood to keep the fire going. 
 This diversity of interests certainly made him sit up 
 and pay attention. At each instant he had to desert 
 his flour-sack to rescue the coffee-pot, or to shift the 
 kettle, or to dab hastily at the rice, or to stamp out 
 
 37 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 the small brush, or to pile on more dry twigs. His 
 movements were not graceful. They raised a scurry 
 of dry bark, ashes, wood dust, twigs, leaves, and pine 
 needles, a certain proportion of which found their 
 way into the coffee, the rice, and the sticky batter, 
 while the smaller articles of personal belonging, has- 
 tily dumped from the duffel-bag, gradually disap- 
 peared from view in the manner of Pompeii and 
 ancient Vesuvius. Dick burned his fingers and stum- 
 bled about and swore, and looked so comically-pa- 
 thetically red-faced through the smoke that I, seated 
 on the log, at the same time laughed and pitied. 
 And in the end, when he needed a continuous steady 
 fire to fry his cakes, he suddenly discovered that dry 
 twigs do not make coals, and that his previous opera- 
 tions had used up all the fuel within easy circle of 
 the camp. 
 
 So he had to drop everything for the purpose of 
 rustling wood, while the coffee chilled, the rice cooled, 
 the bacon congealed, and all the provisions, cooked 
 and uncooked, gathered entomological specimens. 
 At the last, the poor bedeviled theorist made a hasty 
 meal of scorched food, brazenly postponed the wash- 
 ing of dishes until the morrow, and coiled about his 
 hummocky couch to dream the nightmares of com- 
 plete exhaustion. 
 
 Poor Dick ! I knew exactly how he felt, how the 
 low afternoon sun scorched, how the fire darted out 
 at unexpected places, how the smoke followed him 
 
 38 
 
ON MAKING CAMP 
 
 around, no matter on which side of the fire he placed 
 himself, how the flies all took to biting when both 
 hands were occupied, and how they all miraculously 
 disappeared when he had set down the frying-pan and 
 knife to fight them. I could sympathize, too, with 
 the lonely, forlorn, lost-dog feeling that clutched him 
 after it was all over. I could remember how big and 
 forbidding and unfriendly the forest had once looked 
 to me in like circumstances, so that I had felt sud- 
 denly thrust outside into empty spaces. Almost was 
 I tempted to intervene; but I liked Dick, and I 
 wanted to do him good. This experience was har- 
 rowing, but it prepared his mind for the seeds of 
 wisdom. By the following morning he had chastened 
 his spirit, forgotten the assurance breathed from the 
 windy pages of the Boy Trapper Library, and was 
 ready to learn. 
 
 Have you ever watched a competent portraitist at 
 work ? The infinite pains a skilled man spends on 
 the preliminaries before he takes one step towards a 
 likeness nearly always wears down the patience of 
 the sitter. He measures with his eye, he plumbs, 
 he sketches tentatively, he places in here a dab, there 
 a blotch, he puts behind him apparently unproduc- 
 tive hours — and then all at once he is ready to begin 
 something that will not have to be done over again. 
 An amateur, however, is carried away by his desire 
 for results. He dashes in a hit-or-miss early effect, 
 which grows into an approximate likeness almost 
 
 39 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 immediately, but which will require infinite labor, 
 alteration, and anxiety to beat into finished shape. 
 
 The case of the artist in making camps is exactly 
 similar, and the philosophical reasons for his failure 
 are exactly the same. To the superficial mind a camp 
 is a shelter, a bright fire, and a smell of cooking. So 
 when a man is very tired he cuts across lots to those 
 three results. He pitches his tent, lights his fire, 
 puts over his food — and finds himself drowned in 
 detail, like my friend Dick. 
 
 The following is, in brief, what during the next 
 six weeks I told that youth, by precept, by homily, 
 and by making the solution so obvious that he could 
 work it out for himself 
 
 When five or six o'clock draws near, begin to look 
 about you for a good level dry place, elevated some 
 few feet above the surroundings. Drop your pack 
 or beach your canoe. Examine the location care- 
 fully. You will want two trees about ten feet apart, 
 from which to suspend your tent, and a bit of flat 
 ground underneath them. Of course the flat ground 
 need not be particularly unencumbered by brush or 
 saplings, so the combination ought not to be hard 
 to discover. Now return to your canoe. Do not 
 unpack the tent. 
 
 With the little axe clear the ground thoroughly. 
 By bending a sapling over strongly with the left hand, 
 clipping sharply at the strained fibers, and then bend- 
 ing it as strongly the other way to repeat the axe 
 
 40 
 
ON MAKING CAMP 
 
 stroke on the other side, you will find that treelets of 
 even two or three inches diameter can be felled by 
 two blows. In a very few moments you will have 
 accomplished a hole in the forest, and your two sup- 
 porting trees will stand sentinel at either end of a 
 most respectable-looking clearing. Do not unpack 
 the tent. 
 
 Now, although the ground seems free of all but 
 unimportant growths, go over it thoroughly for little 
 shrubs and leaves. They look soft and yielding, but 
 are often possessed of unexpectedly abrasive roots. 
 Besides, they mask the face of the ground. When 
 you have finished pulling them up by the roots, you 
 will find that your supposedly level plot is knobby 
 with hummocks. Stand directly over each little 
 mound; swing the back of your axe vigorously 
 against it, adze-wise, between your legs. Nine times 
 out of ten it will crumble, and the tenth time means 
 merely a root to cut or a stone to pry out. At length 
 you are possessed of a plot of clean, fresh earth, level 
 and soft, free from projections. But do not unpack 
 your tent. 
 
 Lay a young birch or maple an inch or so in 
 diameter across a log. Two clips will produce you 
 a tent-peg. If you are inexperienced, and cherish 
 memories of striped lawnmarkees, you will cut them 
 about six inches long. If you are wise and old and 
 gray in woods experience, you will multiply that 
 lengdi by four. Then your loops will not slip off, 
 
 41 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 and you will have a real grip on mother earth, than 
 which nothing can be more desirable in the event of 
 a heavy rain and wind squall about midnight If 
 your axe is as sharp as it ought to be, you can point 
 them more neatly by holding them suspended in 
 front of you while you snip at their ends with the axe, 
 rather than by resting them against a solid base. Pile 
 them together at the edge of the clearing. Cut a 
 crotched sapling eight or ten feet long. Now unpack 
 your tent. 
 
 In a wooded country you will not take the time 
 to fool with tent-poles. A stout line run through 
 the eyelets and along the apex will string it success- 
 fully between your two trees. Draw the line as tight 
 as possible, but do not be too unhappy if, after your 
 best efforts, it still sags a little. That is what your 
 long crotched stick is for. Stake out your four corners. 
 If you get them in a good rectangle and in such re- 
 lation to the apex as to form two isosceles triangles 
 of the ends, your tent will stand smoothly. There- 
 fore, be an artist and do it right. Once the four 
 corners are well placed, the rest follows naturally. 
 Occasionally in the North Country it will be found 
 that the soil is too thin, over the rocks, to grip the 
 tent-pegs. In that case drive them at a sharp angle 
 as Heep as they will go, and then lay a large flat stone 
 across the slant of them. Thus anchored, you will 
 ride out a gale. Finally, wedge your long sapling 
 crotch under the line — outside the tent, of course — 
 
 42 
 
" In fifteen minutes at most your meal is ready 
 
ON MAKING CAMP 
 
 to tighten it. Your shelter is up. If you are a 
 woodsman, ten or fifteen minutes has sufficed to 
 accomplish all this. 
 
 There remains the question of a bed, and you 'd 
 better attend to it now, while your mind is still oc- 
 cupied with the shelter problem. Fell a good thrifty 
 young balsam and set to work pulling off the fans. 
 Those you cannot strip off easily with your hands 
 are too tough for your purpose. Lay them carelessly 
 crisscross against the blade of your axe and up the 
 handle. They will not drop off, and when you shoul- 
 der that axe you will resemble a walking haystack, 
 and will probably experience a genuine emotion of 
 surprise at the amount of balsam that can be thus 
 transported. In the tent lay smoothly one layer of 
 fans, convex side up, butts toward the foot. Now 
 thatch the rest on top of this, thrusting the butt ends 
 underneath the layer already placed in such a manner 
 as to leave the fan ends curving up and down towards 
 the foot of your bed. Your second emotion of sur- 
 prise will assail you as you realize how much spring 
 inheres in but two or three layers thus arranged. 
 When you have spread your rubber blanket, you will 
 be possessed of a bed as soft and a great deal more 
 aromatic and luxurious than any you would be able 
 to buy in town. 
 
 Your next care is to clear a living space in front of 
 the tent. This will take you about twenty seconds, 
 for you need not be particular as to stumps, hum- 
 
 43 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 mocks, or small brush. All you want is room for 
 cooking, and suitable space for spreading out your 
 provisions. But do not unpack anything yet. 
 
 Your fireplace you will build of two green logs 
 laid side by side. The fire is to be made between 
 them. They should converge slightly, in order that 
 the utensils to be rested across them may be of va- 
 rious sizes. If your vicinity yields flat stones, they 
 build up even better than the logs — unless they hap- 
 pen to be of granite. Granite explodes most discon- 
 certingly. Poles sharpened, driven upright into the 
 ground, and then pressed down to slant over the 
 fireplace, will hold your kettles a suitable height 
 above the blaze. 
 
 Fuel should be your next thought. A roll of birch 
 bark first of all. Then some of the small, dry, resin- 
 ous branches that stick out from the trunks of me- 
 dium-sized pines, living or dead. Finally, the wood 
 itself If you are merely cooking supper, and have 
 no thought for a warmth-fire or a friendship-fire, I 
 should advise you to stick to the dry pine branches, 
 helped out, in the interest of coals for frying, by 
 a little dry maple or birch. If you need more of a 
 blaze, you will have to search out, fell, and split a 
 standing dead tree. This is not at all necessary. I 
 have traveled many weeks in the woods without 
 using a more formidable implement than a one-pound 
 hatchet. Pile your fuel — a complete supply, all 
 you are going to need — by the side of your already 
 
 44 
 
ON MAKING CAMP 
 
 improvised fireplace. But, as you value your peace 
 of mind, do not fool with matches. 
 
 It will be a little difficult to turn your mind from 
 the concept of fire, to which all these preparations 
 have compellingly led it, — especially as a fire is the 
 one cheerful thing your weariness needs the most 
 at this time of day, — but you must do so. Leave 
 everything just as it is, and unpack your provisions. 
 
 First of all, rinse your utensils. Hang your tea- 
 pail, with the proper quantity of water, from one 
 slanting pole, and your kettle from the other. Salt 
 the water in the latter receptacle. Peel your potatoes, 
 if you have any ; open your little provision sacks ; 
 puncture your tin cans, if you have any ; slice your 
 bacon ; clean your fish ; pluck your birds ; mix your 
 dough or batter ; spread your table tinware on your 
 tarpaulin or a sheet of birch bark ; cut a kettle-lifter ; 
 see that everything you are going to need is within 
 direct reach of your hand as you squat on your heels 
 before the fireplace. Now light your fire. 
 
 The civilized method is to build a fire and then to 
 touch a match to the completed structure. If well 
 done and in a grate or stove, this works beautifully. 
 Only in the woods you have no grate. The only sure 
 way is as follows : Hold a piece of birch bark in your 
 hand. Shelter your match all you know how. When 
 the bark has caught, lay it in your fireplace, assist it 
 with more bark, and gradually build up, twig by twig, 
 stick by stick, from the first pin-point of flame, all 
 
 45 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 the fire you are going to need. It will not be much. 
 The little hot blaze rising between the parallel logs 
 directly against the aluminum of your utensils will do 
 the business in very short order. In fifteen minutes 
 at most your meal is ready. And you have been 
 able to attain to hot food thus quickly because you 
 were prepared. 
 
 In case of very wet weather the affair is altered 
 somewhat. If the rain has just commenced, do not 
 stop to clear out very thoroughly, but get your tent 
 up as quickly as possible, in order to preserve an area 
 of comparatively dry ground. But if the earth is 
 already soaked, you had best build a bonfire to dry 
 out by, while you cook over a smaller fire a little dis- 
 tance removed, leaving the tent until later. Or it 
 may be well not to pitch the tent at all, but to lay 
 it across slanting supports at an angle to reflect the 
 heat against the ground. 
 
 It is no joke to light a fire in the rain. An Indian 
 can do it more easily than a white man, but even an 
 Indian has more trouble than the story-books acknow- 
 ledge. You will need a greater quantity of birch 
 bark, a bigger pile of resinous dead limbs from the 
 pine-trees, and perhaps the heart of a dead pine stub 
 or stump. Then, with infinite patience, you may 
 be able to tease the flame. Sometimes a small dead 
 birch contains in the waterproof envelope of its bark 
 a species of powdery, dry touchwood that takes the 
 flame readily. Still, it is easy enough to start a 
 
 46 
 
ON MAKING CAMP 
 
 blaze — a very fine-looking, cheerful, healthy blaze ; 
 the difficulty is to prevent its petering out the mo- 
 ment your back is turned. 
 
 But the depths of woe are sounded and the limit 
 of patience reached when you are forced to get break- 
 fast in the dripping forest. After the chill of early 
 dawn you are always reluctant in the best of cir- 
 cumstances to leave your blankets, to fumble with 
 numbed fingers for matches, to handle cold steel and 
 slippery fish. But when every leaf, twig, sapling, and 
 tree contains a douche of cold water ; when the wet- 
 ness oozes about your moccasins from the soggy earth 
 with every step you take ; when you look about you 
 and realize that somehow, before you can get a mouth- 
 ful to banish that before-breakfast ill-humor, you 
 must brave cold water in an attempt to find enough 
 fuel to cook with, then your philosophy and early 
 religious training avail you little. The first ninety- 
 nine times you are forced to do this you will proba- 
 bly squirm circumspectly through the brush in a vain 
 attempt to avoid shaking water down on yourself; 
 you will resent each failure to do so, and at the end 
 your rage will personify the wilderness for the pur- 
 pose of one sweeping anathema. The hundredth 
 time will bring you wisdom. You will do the anath- 
 ema — rueful rather than enraged — from the tent 
 opening. Then you will plunge boldly in and get 
 wet. It is not pleasant, but it has to be done, and 
 you will save much temper, not to speak of time 
 
 47 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 Dick and I earned our diplomas at this sort of 
 work. It rained twelve of the first fourteen days we 
 were out. Towards the end of that two weeks I 
 doubt if even an Indian could have discovered a 
 dry stick of wood in the entire country. The land 
 was of Laurentian rock formation, running in par- 
 allel ridges of bare stone separated by hollows car- 
 peted with a thin layer of earth. The ridges were 
 naturally ill adapted to camping, and the cup hol- 
 lows speedily filled up with water until they became 
 most creditable little marshes. Often we hunted for 
 an hour or so before we could find any sort of a spot 
 to pitch our tent. As for a fire, it was a matter of 
 chopping down dead trees large enough to have 
 remained dry inside, of armfuls of birch bark, and 
 of the patient drying out, by repeated ignition, of 
 enough fuel to cook very simple meals. Of course 
 we could have kept a big fire going easily enough, 
 but we were traveling steadily and had not the time 
 for that. In these trying circumstances Dick showed 
 that, no matter how much of a tenderfoot he might 
 be, he was game enough under stress. 
 
 But to return to our pleasant afternoon. While 
 you are consuming the supper you will hang over 
 some water to heat for the dish-washing, and the 
 dish-washing you will attend to the moment you 
 have finished eating. Do not commit the fallacy of 
 sitting down for a little rest. Better finish the job 
 completely while you are about it. You will appre- 
 
 48 
 
ON MAKING CAMP 
 
 ciate leisure so much more later. In lack of a wash- 
 rag you will find that a bunch of tall grass bent 
 double makes an ideal swab. 
 
 Now brush the flies from your tent, drop the mos- 
 quito-proof lining, and enjoy yourself The whole 
 task, from first to last, has consumed but a little over 
 an hour. And you are through for the day. In the 
 woods, as nowhere else, you will earn your leisure 
 only by forethought. Make no move until you 
 know it follows the line of greatest economy. To 
 putter is to wallow in endless desolation. If you 
 cannot move directly and swiftly and certainly along 
 the line of least resistance in everything you do, take 
 a guide with you ; you are not of the woods people. 
 You will never enjoy doing for yourself, for your 
 days will be crammed with unending labor. 
 
 It is but a little after seven. The long crimson 
 shadows of the North Country are lifting across the 
 ! isles of the forest. You sit on a log, or lie on your 
 back, and blow contented clouds straight up into 
 the air. Nothing can disturb you now. The wil- 
 derness is yours, for you have taken from it the 
 essentials of primitive civilization, — shelter, warmth, 
 and food. An hour ago a rainstorm would have 
 been a minor catastrophe. Now you do not care. 
 Blow high, blow low, you have made for yourself 
 an abiding-place, so that the signs of the sky are 
 less important to you than to the city dweller who 
 wonders if he should take an umbrella. From your 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 doorstep you can look placidly out on the great un- 
 known. The noises of the forest draw close about 
 you their circle of mystery, but the circle cannot 
 break upon you, for here you have conjured the 
 homely sounds of kettle and crackling flame to keep 
 ward. Thronging down through the twilight steal 
 the jealous woodland shadows, awful in the sublimity 
 of the Silent Places, but at the sentry outposts of 
 your fire-lit trees they pause like wild animals, hesi- 
 tating to advance. The wilderness, untamed, dread- 
 ful at night, is all about ; but this one little spot you 
 have reclaimed. Here is something before unknown 
 to the eerie spirits of the woods. As you sleepily 
 knock the ashes from the pipe, you look about on 
 the familiar scene with accustomed satisfaction. You 
 arc at home. 
 
ON LYING AWAKE AT NIGHT 
 
V XX 
 
 ON LYING AWAKE AT NIGHT 
 
 ** Who hath lain alone to hear the wild goose cry ? *' 
 
 ABOUT once in so often you are due to lie 
 awake at night. Why this is so I have never 
 been able to discover. It apparently comes from no 
 predisposing uneasiness of indigestion, no rashness 
 in the matter of too much tea or tobacco, no excita- 
 tion of unusual incident or stimulating conversation. 
 In fact, you turn in with the expectation of rather 
 a good night's rest. Almost at once the little noises 
 of the forest grow larger, blend in the hollow big- 
 ness of the first drowse; your thoughts drift idly 
 back and forth between reality and dream ; when — 
 snap! — you are broad awake ! 
 
 Perhaps the reservoir of your vital forces is full 
 to the overflow of a little waste ; or perhaps, more 
 subtly, the great Mother insists thus that you enter 
 the temple of her larger mysteries. 
 
 For, unlike mere insomnia, lying awake at night 
 in the woods is pleasant. The eager, nervous strain, 
 ing for sleep gives way to a delicious indifference. 
 You do not care. Your mind is cradled in an exqui 
 
 53 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 site poppy-suspension of judgment and of thought. 
 Impressions slip vaguely into your consciousness and 
 as vaguely out again. Sometimes they stand stark 
 and naked for your inspection ; sometimes they lose 
 themselves in the mist of half-sleep. Always they 
 lay soft velvet fingers on the drowsy imagination, so 
 that in their caressing you feel the vaster spaces from 
 which they have come. Peaceful - brooding your 
 faculties receive. Hearing, sight, smell — all are 
 preternatu rally keen to whatever of sound and sight 
 and woods perfume is abroad through the night; 
 and yet at the same time active appreciation dozes, 
 so these things lie on it sweet and cloying like fallen 
 rose-leaves. 
 
 In such circumstance you will hear what the voy- 
 ageurs call the voices of the rapids. Many people 
 never hear them at all. They speak very soft and 
 low and distinct beneath the steady roar and dash- 
 ing, beneath even the lesser tinklings and gurglings 
 whose quality superimposes them over the louder 
 sounds. They are like the tear-forms swimming 
 across the field of vision, which disappear so quickly 
 when you concentrate your sight to look at them, 
 and which reappear so magically when again your 
 gaze turns vacant. In the stillness of your hazy 
 half-consciousness they speak ; when you bend your 
 attention to listen, they are gone, and only the tumults 
 and the tinklings remain. 
 
 But in the moments of their audibility they are 
 
 54 
 
ON LYING AWAKE AT NIGHT 
 
 very distinct. Just as often an odor will wake all 
 a vanished memory, so these voices, by the force of a 
 large impressionism, suggest whole scenes. Far off 
 are the cling-clang-cling of chimes and the swell-and- 
 fall murmur of a multitude en fete^ so that subtly 
 you feel the gray old town, with its walls, the crowded 
 market-place, the decent peasant crowd, the booths, 
 the mellow church building with its bells, the warm, 
 dust-moted sun. Or, in the pauses between the 
 swish-dash-dashings of the waters, sound faint and 
 clear voices singing intermittently, calls, distant notes 
 of laughter, as though many canoes were working 
 against the current — only the flotilla never gets any 
 nearer, nor the voices louder. The voyageurs call 
 these mist people the Huntsmen; and look fright- 
 ened. To each is his vision, according to his expe- 
 rience. The nations of the earth whisper to their 
 exiled sons through the voices of the rapids. Curi- 
 ously enough, by all reports, they suggest always 
 peaceful scenes — a harvest-field, a street fair, a Sun- 
 day morning in a cathedral town, careless travelers 
 — never the turmoils and struggles. Perhaps this is 
 the great Mother's compensation in a harsh mode of 
 life. 
 
 Nothing is more fantastically unreal to tell about, 
 nothing more concretely real to experience, than this 
 undernote of the quick water. And when you do 
 lie awake at night, it is always making its unobtru- 
 sive appeal. Gradually its hypnotic spell works. 
 
 55 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 The distant chimes ring louder and nearer as you 
 cross the borderland of sleep. And then outside the 
 tent some little woods noise snaps the thread. An 
 owl hoots, a whippoorwill cries, a twig cracks be- 
 neath the cautious prowl of some night creature — 
 at once the yellow sunlit French meadows puff away 
 — you are staring at the blurred image of the moon 
 spraying through the texture of your tent. 
 
 The voices of the rapids have dropped into the 
 background, as have the dashing noises of the stream. 
 Through the forest is a great silence, but no stillness 
 at all. The whippoorwill swings down and up the 
 short curve of his regular song; over and over an 
 owl says his rapid whoo^ whoo^ whoo. These, with 
 the ceaseless dash of the rapids, are the web on which 
 the night traces her more delicate embroideries of the 
 unexpected. Distant crashes, single and impressive ; 
 stealthy footsteps near at hand ; the subdued scratch- 
 ing of claws ; a faint sniff I sniff I sniff I of inquiry ; 
 the sudden clear tin-horn ko-ko-ko-bh of the little 
 owl; the mournful, long-drawn-outcry of the loon, 
 instinct with the spirit of loneliness; the ethereal 
 call-note of the birds of passage high in the air ; a 
 patter^ -patter^ fatter^ among the dead leaves, imme- 
 diately stilled ; and then at the last, from the thicket 
 close at hand, the beautiful silver purity of the white- 
 throated sparrow — the nightingale of the North — 
 trembling with the ecstasy of beauty, as though a 
 shimmering moonbeam had turned to sound; and 
 
 56 
 
At such a time you will meet with adventures 
 
ON LYING AWAKE AT NIGHT 
 
 all the while the blurred figure of the moon mount- 
 ing to the ridge-line of your tent — these things 
 combine subtly, until at last the great Silence of 
 which they are a part overarches the night and 
 draws you forth to contemplation. 
 
 No beverage is more grateful than the cup of 
 spring water you drink at such a time ; no moment 
 more refreshing than that in which you look about 
 you at the darkened forest. You have cast from you 
 with the warm blanket the drowsiness of dreams. A 
 coolness, physical and spiritual, bathes you from head 
 to foot. All your senses are keyed to the last vibra- 
 tions. You hear the littler night prowlers; you 
 glimpse the greater. A faint, searching woods per- 
 fume of dampness greets your nostrils. And some- 
 how, mysteriously, in a manner not to be understood, 
 the forces of the world seem in suspense, as though 
 a touch might crystallize infinite possibilities into 
 infinite power and motion. But the touch lacks. 
 The forces hover on the edge of action, unheeding 
 the little noises. In all humbleness and awe, you 
 are a dweller of the Silent Places. 
 
 At such a time you will meet with adventures. 
 One night we put fourteen inquisitive porcupines 
 out of camp. Near McGregor's Bay I discovered in 
 the large grass park of my camp-site nine deer, 
 cropping the herbage like so many beautiful ghosts. 
 A friend tells me of a fawn that every night used to 
 sleep outside his tent and within a foot of his head, 
 
 57 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 probably by way of protection against wolves. Its 
 mother had in all likelihood been killed. The in- 
 stant my friend moved toward the tent opening the 
 little creature would disappear, and it was always 
 gone by earliest daylight. Nocturnal bears in search 
 of pork are not uncommon. But even though your 
 interest meets nothing but the bats and the woods 
 shadows and the stars, that few moments of the 
 sleeping world forces is a psychical experience to be 
 gained in no other way. You cannot know the night 
 by sitting up; she will sit up with you. Only by 
 coming into her presence from the borders of sleep 
 can you meet her face to face in her intimate mood. 
 
 The night wind from the river, or from the open 
 spaces of the wilds, chills you after a time. You 
 begin to think of your blankets. In a few moments 
 you roll yourself in their soft wool. Instantly it is 
 morning. 
 
 And, strange to say, you have not to pay by going 
 through the day unrefreshed. You may feel like 
 turning in at eight instead of nine, and you may fall 
 asleep with unusual promptitude, but your journey 
 will begin clear-headedly, proceed springily, and end 
 with much in reserve. No languor, no dull head- 
 ache, no exhaustion, follows your experience. For 
 this once your two hours of sleep have been as effect- 
 ive as nine. 
 
 5S 
 
\. 
 
 THE LUNGE 
 
VI 
 
 THE LUNGE 
 
 «* Do you know the chosen water where the ouananiche is waiting ? " 
 
 DICK and I traveled in a fifteen-foot wooden 
 canoe, with grub, duffel, tent, and Deuce, the 
 black-and-white setter dog. As a consequence we 
 were pretty well down toward the water line, for we 
 had not realized that a wooden canoe would carry so 
 little weight for its length in comparison with a birch- 
 bark. A good heavy sea we could ride — with pro- 
 per management and a little bailing; but sloppy 
 waves kept us busy. 
 
 Deuce did not like it at all. He was a dog old in 
 the wisdom of experience. It had taken him just 
 twenty minutes to learn all about canoes. After a 
 single tentative trial he jumped lightly to the very 
 centre of his place, with the lithe caution of a cat. 
 Then if the water happened to be smooth, he would 
 sit gravely on his haunches, or would rest his chin on 
 the gunwale to contemplate the passing landscape. 
 But in rough weather he crouched directly over the 
 keel, his nose between his paws, and tried not to 
 dodge when the cold water dashed in on him. Deuce 
 
 6i 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 was a true woodsman in that respect. Discomfort he 
 always bore with equanimity, and he must often have 
 been very cold and very cramped. 
 
 For just over a week we had been travelin/^ in 
 open water, and the elements had not been kind to 
 us at all. We had crept up under rock-cliff points ; 
 had weathered the rips of white water to shelter on 
 the other side; had struggled across open spaces 
 where each wave was singly a problem to fail in 
 whose solution meant instant swamping ; had bailed, 
 and schemed, and figured, and carried, and sworn, 
 and tried again, and succeeded with about two cup- 
 fuls to spare, until we as well as Deuce had grown a 
 little tired of it. For the lust of travel was on us. 
 
 The lust of travel is a very real disease. It usually 
 takes you when you have made up your mind that 
 there is no hurry. Its predisposing cause is a chart 
 or map, and its main symptom is the feverish delight 
 with which you check off the landmarks of your 
 journey. A fair wind of some force is absolutely 
 fatal. With that at your back you cannot stop. 
 Good fishing, fine scenery, interesting bays, reputed 
 game, even camps where fi-iends might be visited — 
 all pass swiftly astern. Hardly do you pause for 
 lunch at noon. The mad joy of putting country be- 
 hind you eats all other interests. You recover only 
 when you have come to your journey's end a week 
 too early, and must then search out new voyages to 
 fill in the time. 
 
 62 
 
THE LUNGE 
 
 All this morning we had been bucking a strong 
 north wind. Fortunately, the shelter of a string of 
 islands had given us smooth water enough, but the 
 heavy gusts sometimes stopped us as effectively as 
 though we had butted solid land. Now about noon 
 we came to the last island, and looked out on a five- 
 mile stretch of tumbling seas. We landed the canoe 
 and mounted a high rock. 
 
 " Can't make it like this," said I. " 1 11 take the 
 outfit over and land it, and come back for you and 
 the dog. Let 's see that chart." 
 
 We hid behind the rock and spread out the map. 
 
 " Four miles," measured Dick. " It 's going to be 
 a terror." 
 
 We looked at each other vaguely, suddenly tired. 
 
 "We can't camp here — at this time of day," 
 objected Dick, to our unspoken thoughts. 
 
 And then the map gave him an inspiration. 
 " Here 's a little river," ruminated Dick, " that goes 
 to a little lake, and then there 's another little river 
 that flows from the lake, and comes out about ten 
 miles above here." 
 
 " It 's a good thirty miles," I objected. 
 
 "What of it ^ " asked Dick, calmly. 
 
 So the fever-lust of travel broke. We turned to 
 the right behind the last island, searched out the reed- 
 grown opening to the stream, and paddled serenely 
 and philosophically against the current. Deuce sat 
 up and yawned with a mighty satisfaction. 
 
 63 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 We had been bending our heads to the demon of 
 wind ; our ears had been filled with his shoutings, 
 our eyes blinded with tears, our breath caught away 
 from us, our muscles strung to the fiercest endeavor. 
 Suddenly we found ourselves between the ranks of 
 tall forest trees, bathed in a warm sunlight, gliding 
 like a feather from one grassy bend to another of the 
 laziest little stream that ever hesitated as to which 
 way the grasses of its bed should float. As for the 
 wind, it was lost somewhere away up high, where we 
 could hear it muttering to itself about something. 
 
 The woods leaned over the fringe of bushes cool 
 and green and silent. Occasionally through tiny 
 openings we caught instant impressions of straight 
 column-trunks and transparent shadows. Miniature 
 grass marshes jutted out from the bends of the little 
 river. We idled along as with a homely rustic com- 
 panion through the aloofness of patrician multitudes. 
 
 Every bend offered us charming surprises. Some- 
 times a muskrat swam hastily in a pointed furrow of 
 ripple ; vanishing wings, barely sensed in the flash, 
 lefi: us staring; stealthy withdrawals of creatures, 
 whose presence we realized only in the fact of those 
 withdrawals, snared our eager interest; porcupines 
 rattled and rustled importantly and regally from the 
 water's edge to the woods ; herons, ravens, an oc- 
 casional duck, croaked away at our approach ; thrice 
 we surprised eagles, once a tassel-eared Canada lynx. 
 Or, if all else lacked, we still experienced the little 
 
 64 
 
THE LUNGE 
 
 thrill of pleased novelty over the disclosure of a 
 group of silvery birches on a knoll; a magnificent 
 white pine towering over the beech and maple forest; 
 the unexpected aisle of a long, straight stretch of the 
 little river. 
 
 Deuce approved thoroughly. He stretched him- 
 self and yawned and shook off the water, and glanced 
 at me open-mouthed with doggy good-nature, and 
 set himself to acquiring a conscientious olfactory 
 knowledge of both banks of the river. I do not 
 doubt he knew a great deal more about it than we did. 
 Porcupines aroused his especial enthusiasm. Inci- 
 dentally, two days later he returned to camp after an 
 expedition of his own, bristling as to the face with 
 that animal's barbed weapons. Thenceforward his 
 interest waned. 
 
 We ascended the charming little river two or three 
 miles. At a sharp bend to the east a huge sheet of 
 rock sloped from a round grass knoll sparsely planted 
 with birches directly down into a pool. Two or three 
 tree-trunks jammed directly opposite had formed a 
 sort of half dam under which the water lay dark. A 
 tiny grass meadow forty feet in diameter narrowed 
 the stream to half its width. 
 
 We landed. Dick seated himself on the shelving 
 rock. I put my fish-rod together. Deuce disap- 
 peared. 
 
 Deuce always disappeared whenever we landed. 
 With nose down, hind-quarters well tucked under 
 
 6S 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 him, ears flying, he quartered the forest at high speed, 
 investigating every nook and cranny of it for the 
 radius of a quarter of a mile. When he had quite 
 satisfied himself that we were safe for the moment, he 
 would return to the fire, where he would lie, six inches 
 of pink tongue vibrating with breathlessness, beauti- 
 ful in the consciousness of virtue. Dick generally sat 
 on a rock and thought. I generally fished. 
 
 After a time Deuce returned. I gave up flies, 
 spoons, phantom minnows, artificial frogs, and cray- 
 fish. As Dick continued to sit on the rock and think, 
 we both joined him. The sun was very warm and 
 grateful, and I am sure we both acquired an added 
 respect for Dick's judgment. 
 
 Just when it happened neither of us was afterwards 
 able to decide. Perhaps Deuce knew. But sud- 
 denly, as often a figure appears in a cinematograph, 
 the diminutive meadow thirty feet away contained 
 two deer. They stood knee deep in the grass, wag- 
 ging their little tails in impatience of the flies. 
 
 " Look a' there I " stammered Dick aloud. 
 
 Deuce sat up on his haunches. 
 
 I started for my camera. 
 
 The deer did not seem to be in the slightest degree 
 alarmed. They pointed four big ears in our direc- 
 tion, ate a few leisurely mouthfuls of grass, sauntered 
 to the stream for a drink of water, wagged their little 
 tails some more, and quietly faded into the cool 
 shadows of the forest. 
 
 66 
 
THE LUNGE 
 
 An hour later we ran out into reeds, and so to the 
 lake. It was a pretty lake, forest-girt. Across the 
 distance we made out a moving object which shortly 
 resolved itself into a birch canoe. The canoe proved 
 to contain an Indian, an Indian boy of about ten 
 years, a black dog, and a bundle. When within a 
 few rods of each other we ceased paddling and drifted 
 by with the momentum. The Indian was a fine- 
 looking man of about forty, his hair bound with a 
 red fillet, his feet incased in silk-worked moccasins, 
 but otherwise dressed in white men's garments. He 
 smoked a short pipe, and contemplated us gravely. 
 
 " Bo' jou', bo' jou'," we called in the usual double- 
 barreled North Country salutation. 
 
 " Bo' jou', bo' jou'," he replied. 
 
 " Kee-gons ? " we inquired as to the fishing in the 
 lake. 
 
 " Ah-hah," he assented. 
 
 We drifted by each other without further speech. 
 When the decent distance of etiquette separated us, 
 we resumed our paddles. 
 
 I produced a young cable terminated by a tremen- 
 dous spoon and a solid brass snell as thick as a tele- 
 graph wire. We had laid in this formidable imple- 
 ment in hopes of a big muscallunge. It had been 
 trailed for days at a time. We had become used to 
 its vibration, which actually seemed to communicate 
 itself to every fiber of the light canoe. Every once 
 in a while we would stop with a jerk that would 
 
 67 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 nearly snap our heads off. Then we would know 
 we had hooked the American continent. We had 
 become used to that also. It generally happened 
 when we attempted a little burst of speed. So when 
 the canoe brought up so violently that all our tin- 
 ware rolled on Deuce, Dick was merely disgusted. 
 
 " There she goes again," he grumbled. " You 've 
 hooked Canada." 
 
 Canada held quiescent for about three seconds. 
 Then it started due south. 
 
 " Suffering serpents ! " shrieked Dick. 
 
 " Paddle, you sulphurated idiot ! " yelled I. 
 
 It was most interesting. All I had to do was to 
 hang on and try to stay in the boat. Dick paddled 
 and fumed and splashed water and got more excited. 
 Canada dragged us bodily backward. 
 
 Then Canada changed his mind and started in our 
 direction. I was plenty busy taking in slack, so I 
 did not notice Dick. Dick was absolutely demented. 
 His mind automatically reacted in the direction of 
 paddling. He paddled, blindly, frantically. Canada 
 came surging in, his mouth open, his wicked eyes 
 flaming, a tremendous indistinct body lashing foam. 
 Dick glanced once over his shoulder, and let out a 
 frantic howl. 
 
 " You Ve got the sea serpent ! " he shrieked. 
 
 I turned to fumble for the pistol. We were 
 headed directly for a log stranded on shore, and about 
 ten feet from it. 
 
 68 
 
THE LUNGE 
 
 " Dick ! " I yelled in warning. 
 
 He thrust his paddle out forward just in time. 
 The stout maple bent and cracked. The canoe hit 
 with a bump that threw us forward. I returned to 
 the young cable. It came in limp and slack. 
 
 We looked at each other sadly. 
 
 " No use," sighed Dick at last. " They 've never 
 invented the words, and we 'd upset if we kicked 
 the dog." 
 
 I had the end of the line in my hands. 
 
 " Look here ! " I cried. That thick brass wire had 
 been as cleanly bitten through as though it had been 
 cut with clippers. " He must have caught sight of 
 you," said L 
 
 Dick lifted up his voice in lamentation. " You 
 had four feet of him out of water," he wailed, " and 
 there was a lot more." 
 
 " If you had kept cool," said I, severely, "we 
 should n't have lost him. You don't want to get 
 rattled in an emergency. There 's no sense in it." 
 
 " What were you going to do with that ? " asked 
 Dick, pointing to where I had laid the pistol. 
 
 " I was going to shoot him in the head," I replied, 
 with dignity. " It 's the best way to land them." 
 
 Dick laughed disagreeably. I looked down. At 
 my side lay our largest iron spoon. 
 
 We skirted the left hand side of the lake in silence. 
 Far out from shore the water was ruffled where the 
 wind swept down, but with us it was as still and calm 
 
 69 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 as the forest trees that looked over into it. After a 
 time we turned short to the left through a very nar- 
 row passage between two marshy shores, and so, after 
 a sharp bend of but a few hundred feet, came into 
 the other river. 
 
 This was a wide stream, smoothly hurrying, with- 
 out rapids or tumult. The forest had drawn to either 
 side to let us pass. Here were the wilder reaches 
 after the intimacies of the little river. Across stretches 
 of marsh we could see an occasional great blue heron 
 standing mid-leg deep. Long strings of ducks strug- 
 gled quacking from invisible pools. The faint marsh 
 odor saluted our nostrils from the point where the 
 lily-pads flashed broadly, ruffling in the wind. We 
 dropped out the smaller spoon and masterfully landed 
 a five-pound pickerel. Even Deuce brightened. He 
 cared nothing for raw fish, but he knew their pos- 
 sibilities. Towards evening we entered the hilly 
 country, and so at the last turned to the left into a 
 sand cove where grew maples and birches in beauti- 
 ful park order under a hill. There we pitched camp, 
 and, as the flies lacked, built a friendship-fire about 
 which to foregather when the day was done. 
 
 Dick still vocally regretted the muscallunge as the 
 largest fish since Jonah. So I told him of my big 
 bear. 
 
 One day, late in the summer, I was engaged in 
 packing some supplies along an old fur trail north of 
 Lake Superior. I had accomplished one back-load, 
 
 10 
 
THE 'LUNGE 
 
 and with empty straps was returning to the cache for 
 another. The trail at one point emerged into and 
 crossed an open park some hundreds of feet in dia- 
 meter, in which the grass grew to the height of the 
 knee. When I was about halfway across, a black 
 bear arose to his hind legs not ten feet from me and 
 remarked Woof! in a loud tone of voice. Now, if 
 a man were to say woof! to you unexpectedly, even 
 in the formality of an Italian garden or the accus- 
 tomedness of a city street, you would be somewhat 
 startled. So I went to camp. There I told them 
 about the bear. I tried to be conservative in my 
 description, because I did not wish to be accused 
 of exaggeration. My impression of the animal was 
 that he and a spruce-tree that grew near enough for 
 ready comparison were approximately of the same 
 stature. We returned to the grass park. After some 
 difficulty we found a clear footprint. It was a little 
 larger than that made by a good-sized coon. 
 
 "So, you see," I admonished, didactically, "that 
 'lunge probably was not quite so large as you 
 thought." 
 
 " It may have been a Chinese bear," said Dick, 
 dreamily — "a Chinese lady bear, of high degree." 
 
 I gave him up. 
 
ON OPEN-WATER CANOE TRAVELING 
 
VII 
 ON OPEN-WATER CANOE TRAVELING 
 
 <* It is there that I am going, with an extra hand to bail her — 
 Just one single long-shore loafer that I know. 
 He can take his chance of drowning while I sail and sail and sail her. 
 For the Red Gods call me out and I must go.*' 
 
 THE following morning the wind had died, but 
 had been succeeded by a heavy pall of fog. 
 After we had felt our way beyond the mouth of the 
 river we were forced to paddle northwest by north, 
 in blind reliance on our compass. Sounds there were 
 none. Involuntarily we lowered our voices. The 
 inadvertent click of a paddle against the gunwale 
 seemed to desecrate a foreordained stillness. 
 
 Occasionally to the right hand or the left: we made 
 out faint shadow-pictures of wooded islands that en- 
 dured but a moment and then deliberately faded into 
 whiteness. They formed on the view exactly as an 
 image develops on a photographic plate. Some- 
 times a faint lisp-Usp-lisp of tiny waves against a shore 
 nearer than it seemed cautioned us anew not to break 
 the silence. Otherwise we were alone, intruders, 
 suffered in the presence of a brooding nature only as 
 long as we refrained from disturbances. 
 
 75 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 Then at noon the vapors began to eddy, to open 
 momentarily in revelation of vivid green glimpses, 
 to stream down the rising wind. Pale sunlight 
 dashed fitfully across us like a shower. Somewhere 
 in the invisibility a duck quacked. Deuce awoke, 
 looked about him, and yow-yow-yowed in doggish re- 
 lief Animals understand thoroughly these subtleties 
 of nature. 
 
 In half an hour the sun was strong, the air clear 
 and sparkling, and a freshening wind was certifying 
 our prognostications of a lively afternoon. 
 
 A light canoe will stand almost anything in the 
 way of a sea, although you may find it impossible 
 sometimes to force it in the direction you wish to go. 
 A loaded canoe will weather a great deal more than 
 you might think. However, only experience in 
 balance and in the nature of waves will bring you 
 safely across a stretch of whitecaps. 
 
 With the sea dead ahead you must not go too fast ; 
 otherwise you will dip water over the bow. You 
 must trim the craft absolutely on an even keel. 
 Otherwise the comb of the wave, too light to lift you, 
 will slop in over one gunwale or the other. You 
 must be perpetually watching your chance to gain a 
 foot or so between the heavier seas. 
 
 With the sea over one bow you must paddle on 
 the leeward side. When the canoe mounts a wave, 
 you must allow the crest to throw the bow off a trifle, 
 but the moment it starts down the other slope you 
 
 76 
 
■' The wind . . . had been succeeded by a heavy pall of fog " 
 
ON OPEN-WATER CANOE TRAVELING 
 
 must twist your paddle sharply to regain the direction 
 of your course. The careening tendency of this twist 
 you must counteract by a corresponding twist of your 
 body in the other direction. Then the hollow will 
 allow you two or three strokes wherewith to assure a 
 little progress. The double twist at the very crest of 
 the wave must be very delicately performed, or you 
 will ship water the whole length of your craft. 
 
 With the sea abeam you must simply paddle 
 straight ahead. The adjustment is to be accomplished 
 entirely by the poise of the body. You must pre- 
 vent the capsize of your canoe when clinging to the 
 angle of a wave by leaning to one side. The crucial 
 moment, of course, is that during which the peak of 
 the wave slips under you. In case of a breaking 
 comber, thrust the flat of your paddle deep in the 
 water to prevent an upset, and lean well to leeward, 
 thus presenting the side and half the bottom of the 
 canoe to the shock of water. Your recovery must 
 be instant, however. If you lean a second too long, 
 over you go. This sounds more difficult than it is. 
 After a time you do it instinctively, as a skater 
 balances. 
 
 With the sea over the quarter you have merely 
 to take care that the waves do not slew you around 
 sidewise, and that the canoe does not dip water on 
 one side or the other under the stress of your twists 
 with the paddle. Dead astern is perhaps the most 
 difficult of all, for the reason that you must watch 
 
 77 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 both gunwales at once, and must preserve an abso- 
 lutely even keel in spite of the fact that it generally 
 requires your utmost strength to steer. 
 
 In really heavy weather one man only can do any 
 work. The other must be content to remain pas- 
 senger, and he must be trained to absolute immo- 
 bility. No matter how dangerous a careen the canoe 
 may take, no matter how much good cold water may 
 pour in over his legs, he must resist his tendency to 
 shift his weight. The entire issue depends on the 
 delicacy of the steersman's adjustments, so he must 
 be given every chance. 
 
 The main difficulty rests in the fact that such 
 canoeing is a good deal like air-ship travel — there 
 is not much opportunity to learn by experience. In 
 a four-hour run across an open bay you will encounter 
 somewhat over a thousand waves, no two of which 
 are exactly alike, and any one of which can fill you 
 up only too easily if it is not correctly met. Your 
 experience is called on to solve instantly and practi- 
 cally a thousand problems. No breathing-space in 
 which to recover is permitted you between them. 
 At the end of the four hours you awaken to the fact 
 that your eyes are strained from intense concentra- 
 tion, and that you taste copper. 
 
 Probably nothing, however, can more effectively 
 wake you up to the last fiber of your physical, intel- 
 lectual, and nervous being. You are filled with an 
 exhilaration. Every muscle, strung tight, answers 
 
 7S 
 
ON OPEN-WATER CANOE TRAVELING 
 
 immediately and accurately to the slightest hint. You 
 quiver all over with restrained energy. Your mind 
 thrusts behind you the problem of the last wave as 
 soon as solved, and leaps with insistent eagerness to 
 the next. You attain that super-ordinary condition 
 when your faculties react instinctively, like a ma- 
 chine. It is a species of intoxication. After a 
 time you personify each wave ; you grapple with it 
 as with a personal adversary ; you exult as, beaten 
 and broken, it hisses away to leeward. "Go it, 
 you son of a gun ! " you shout. " Ah, you would, 
 would you ! think you can, do you *? " and in the 
 roar and rush of wind and water you crouch like a 
 boxer on the defense, parrying the blows, but ready 
 at the slightest opening to gain a stroke of the 
 paddle. 
 
 In such circumstances you have not the leisure to 
 consider distance. You are too busily engaged in 
 slaughtering waves to consider your rate of progress. 
 The fact that slowly you are pulling up on your 
 objective point does not occur to you until you are 
 within a few hundred yards of it. Then, unless you 
 are careful, you are undone. 
 
 Probably the most difficult thing of all to learn is 
 that the waves to be encountered in the last hundred 
 yards of an open sweep are exactly as dangerous as 
 those you dodged so fearfully four miles from shore. 
 You are so nearly in that you unconsciously relax 
 your efforts. Calmly, almost contemptuously, a big 
 
 79 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 roller rips along your gunwale. You are wrecked 
 — fortunately within easy swimming distance. But 
 that does n't save your duffel. Remember this : be 
 just as careful with the very last wave as you were 
 with the others. Get inside before you draw that 
 deep breath of relief 
 
 Strangely enough, in out-of-door sports, where it 
 would seem that convention would rest practically 
 at the zero point, the bugbear of good form, although 
 mashed and disguised, rises up to confuse the directed 
 practicality. The average man is wedded to his 
 theory. He has seen a thing done in a certain way, 
 and he not only always does it that way himself, but 
 he is positively unhappy at seeing any one else em- 
 ploying a different method. From the swing at 
 golf to the manner of lighting a match in the wind, 
 this truism applies. I remember once hearing a 
 long argument with an Eastern man on the question 
 of the English riding-seat in the Western country. 
 
 "Your method is all very well," said the West- 
 erner, " for where it came from. In England they 
 ride to hunt, so they need a light saddle and very 
 short stirrups set well forward. That helps them in 
 jumping. But it is most awkward. Out here you 
 want your stirrups very long and directly under you, 
 so your legs hang loose, and you depend on your 
 balance and the grip of your thighs — not your 
 knees. It is less tiring, and better sense, and infinitely 
 more graceful, for it more nearly approximates the 
 
 80 
 
ON OPEN-WATER CANOE TRAVELING 
 
 bareback seat. Instead of depending on stirrups, 
 you are part of the horse. You follow his every 
 movement. And as for your rising trot, I 'd like to 
 see you accomplish it safely on our mountain trails 
 where the trot is the only gait practicable, unless you 
 take forever to get anywhere." To all of which the 
 Easterner found no rebuttal except the, to him, en- 
 tirely efficient plea that his own method was good 
 form. 
 
 Now, of course, it is very pleasant to do things 
 always accurately, according to the rules of the game, 
 and if you are out merely for sport, perhaps it is as 
 well to stick to them. But utility is another matter. 
 Personally, I do not care at all to kill trout unless 
 by the fly ; but when we need meat and they do not 
 need flies, I never hesitate to offer them any kind 
 of a doodle-bug they may fancy. I have even, at a 
 pinch, clubbed them to death in a shallow, land- 
 locked pool. Times will come in your open-water 
 canoe experience when you will pull into your shel- 
 ter half full of water, when you will be glad of the 
 fortuity of a chance cross-wave to help you out, when 
 sheer blind luck, or main strength and awkwardness, 
 will be the only reasons you can honestly give for an 
 arrival, and a battered and disheveled arrival at that. 
 Do not, therefore, repine, or bewail your awkward- 
 ness, or indulge in undue self-accusations of " tender- 
 foot." Method is nothing ; the arrival is the impor- 
 tant thing. You are traveling, and if you can make 
 
 Si 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 time by nearly swamping yourself, or by dragging 
 your craft across a point, or by taking any other base 
 advantage of the game's formality, by all means do 
 so. Deuce used to solve the problem of comfort by 
 drinking the little pool of cold water in which he 
 sometimes was forced to lie. In the woods, when a 
 thing is to be done, do not consider how you have 
 done it, or how you have seen it done, or how you 
 think it ought to be done, but how it can be accom- 
 plished. Absolute fluidity of expedient, perfect 
 adaptability, is worth a dozen volumes of theoretical 
 knowledge. " If you can't talk," goes the Western 
 expression, "raise a yell; if you can't yell, make 
 signs; if you can't make signs, wave a bush." 
 
 And do not be too ready to take advice as to what 
 you can or cannot accomplish, even from the woods 
 people. Of course the woods Indians or the voy- 
 ageurs know all about canoes, and you would do 
 well to listen to them. But the mere fact that your 
 interlocutor lives in the forest, while you normally 
 inhabit the towns, does not necessarily give him 
 authority. A community used to horses looks with 
 horror on the instability of all water-craft less solid 
 than canal-boats. Canoemen stand in awe of the 
 bronco. The fishermen of the Georgian Bay, accus- 
 tomed to venture out with their open sailboats in 
 weather that forces the big lake schooners to shelter, 
 know absolutely nothing about canoes. Dick and I 
 made an eight-mile run from the Fox Island to Killar- 
 
 82 
 
ON OPEN-WATER CANOE TRAVELING 
 
 ney in a trifling sea, to be cheered during our stay at 
 the latter place by doleful predictions of an early 
 drowning. And this from a seafaring community. It 
 knew all about boats ; it knew nothing about canoes ; 
 and yet the unthinking might have been influenced 
 by the advicL- of these men simply because they 
 had been broiight up on the water. The point is ob- 
 vious. Do not attempt a thing unless you are sure 
 of yourself; but do not relinquish it merely because 
 some one else is not sure of you. 
 
 The best way to learn is with a bathing-suit. Keep 
 near shore, and try everything. Don't attempt the 
 real thing until your handling in a heavy sea has be- 
 come as instinctive as snap-shooting or the steps of 
 dancing. Remain on the hither side of caution when 
 you start out. Act at first as though every wavelet 
 would surely swamp you. Extend the scope of 
 your operations very gradually, until you know just 
 what you can do. Never get careless. Never take 
 any real chances. That 's all. 
 
 «3 
 
THE STRANDED STRANGERS 
 
VIII 
 THE STRANDED STRANGERS 
 
 AS we progressed, the country grew more and 
 more solemnly aloof. In the Southland is a 
 certain appearance of mobility, lent by the deciduous 
 trees, the warm sun, the intimate nooks in which 
 grow the commoner homely weeds and flowers, the 
 abundance of bees and musical insects, the childhood 
 familiarity of the well-known birds, even the plea- 
 santly fickle aspects of the skies. But the North 
 wraps itself in a mantle of awe. Great hills rest not 
 so much in the stillness of sleep as in the calm of a 
 mighty comprehension. The pines, rank after rank, 
 file after file, are always trooping somewhere, up the 
 slope, to pause at the crest before descending on the 
 other side into the unknown. Bodies of water ex- 
 actly of the size, shape, and general appearance we 
 are accustomed to see dotted with pleasure craft and 
 bordered with wharves, summer cottages, pavilions, 
 and hotels, accentuate by that very fact a solitude 
 that harbors only a pair of weirdly laughing loons. 
 Like the hills, these lakes are lying in a deep, still 
 repose, but a repose that somehow suggests the com- 
 
 87 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 prehcnding calm of those behind the veil. The whole 
 country seems to rest in a suspense of waiting. A 
 shot breaks the stillness for an instant, but its very 
 memory is shadowy a moment after the echoes die. 
 Inevitably the traveler feels thrust in upon himself 
 by a neutrality more deadly than open hostility would 
 be. Hostility at least supposes recognition of his 
 existence, a rousing of forces to oppose him. This 
 ignores. One can no longer wonder at the taciturnity 
 of the men who dwell here ; nor does one fail to grasp 
 the eminent suitability to the country of its Indian 
 name — the Silent Places. 
 
 Even the birds, joyful, lively, commonplace little 
 people that they are, draw some of this aloofness to 
 themselves. The North is full of the homelier singers. 
 A dozen species of warblers lisp music-box phrases, 
 two or three sparrows whistle a cheerful repertoire, 
 the nuthatches and chickadees toot away in blissful 
 bourgeoisie. And yet, somehow, that very circum- 
 stance thrusts the imaginative voyager outside the 
 companionship of their friendliness. In the face of 
 the great gods they move with accustomed famil- 
 iarity. Somehow they possess in their little expe- 
 rience that which explains the mystery, so that they 
 no longer stand in its awe. Their every-day lives are 
 spent under the shadow of the temple whither you 
 dare not bend your footsteps. The intimacy of oc- 
 cult things isolates also these wise little birds. 
 
 The North speaks, however, only in the voices of 
 
 Z2> 
 
THE STRANDED STRANGERS 
 
 three — the two thrushes, and the white-throated spar- 
 row. You must hear these each at his proper time. 
 
 The hermit thrush you will rarely see. But late 
 some afternoon, when the sun is lifting along the 
 trunks of the hardwood forest, if you are very lucky 
 and very quiet, you will hear him far in the depths 
 of the blackest swamps. Musically expressed, his 
 song is very much like that of the wood thrush — 
 three cadenced liquid notes, a quivering pause, then 
 three more notes of another phrase, and so on. But 
 the fineness of its quality makes of it an entirely dif- 
 ferent performance. If you symbolize the hermit 
 thrush by the flute, you must call the wood thrush 
 a chime of little tinkling bells. One is a rendition ; 
 the other the essence of liquid music. An effect of 
 gold-embroidered richness, of depth going down to 
 the very soul of things, a haunting suggestion of 
 having touched very near to the source of tears, a 
 conviction that the just interpretation of the song 
 would be an equally just interpretation of black 
 woods, deep shadows, cloistered sunlight, brooding 
 hills — these are the subtle and elusive impressions 
 you will receive in the middle of the ancient forest. 
 
 The olive-backed thrush you will enjoy after your 
 day's work is quite finished. You will see him 
 through the tobacco haze, perched on a limb against 
 the evening sky. He utters a loud, joyful chirp ; 
 pauses for the attention he thus solicits, and then 
 deliberately runs up five mellow double notes, end- 
 
 89 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 ing with a metallic "-ting chee chee chee" that 
 sounds as though it had been struck on a triangle. 
 Then a silence of exactly nine seconds and repeat. 
 As regularly as clock-work this performance goes on. 
 Time him as often as you will, you can never con- 
 vict him of a second's variation. And he is so op- 
 timistic and willing, and his notes are so golden with 
 the yellow of sunshine ! 
 
 The white-throated sparrow sings nine distinct 
 variations of the same song. He may sing more, 
 but that is all I have counted. He inhabits woods, 
 berry-vines, brules, and clearings. Ordinarily he is 
 cheerful, and occasionally aggravating. One man I 
 knew, he drove nearly crazy. To that man he was 
 always saying, ''And he never heard the man say 
 
 drink and the ." Towards the last my friend used 
 
 wildly to offer him a thousand dollars if he would, 
 if he only would^ finish that sentence. But occasion- 
 ally, in just the proper circumstances, he forgets his 
 stump corners, his vines, his jolly sunlight, and his 
 delightful bugs to become the intimate voice of the 
 wilds. It is night, very still, very dark. The sub- 
 dued murmur of the forest ebbs and flows with the 
 voices of the furtive folk, an undertone fearful to 
 break the night calm. Suddenly across the dusk of 
 silence flashes a single thread of silver, vibrating, 
 trembling with some unguessed ecstasy of emotion : 
 " Ah I poor Canada Canada Canada Canada ! " it 
 mourns passionately, and falls silent. That is all. 
 
 90 
 
THE STRANDED STRANGERS 
 
 You will hear at various times other birds pecu- 
 liarly of the North. Loons alternately calling and 
 uttering their maniac laughter; purple finches or 
 some of the pine sparrows warbling high and clear ; 
 the winter wren, whose rapturous ravings never fail 
 to strike the attention of the dullest passer; all these 
 are exclusively Northern voices, and each expresses 
 some phase or mood of the Silent Places. But none 
 symbolizes as do the three. And when first you hear 
 one of them after an absence, you are satisfied that 
 things are right in the world, for the North Coun- 
 try's spirit is as it was. 
 
 Now ensued a spell of calm weather, with a film 
 of haze over the sky. The water lay like quicksil- 
 ver, heavy and inert. Towards afiiernoon it became 
 opalescent The very substance of the liquid itself 
 seemed impregnated with dyes ranging in shade 
 from wine color to the most delicate lilac. Through 
 a smoke veil the sun hung, a ball of red, while be- 
 neath every island, every rock, every tree, every wild 
 fowl floating idly in a medium apparently too deli- 
 cate for its support, lurked the beautiful crimson 
 shadows of the North. 
 
 Hour after hour, day after day, we slipped on. 
 Point after point, island after island, presented itself 
 silently to our inspection and dropped quietly astern. 
 The beat of paddles fitted monotonously into the 
 almost portentous stillness. It seemed that we might 
 be able to go on thus forever, lapped in the dream 
 
 91 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 of some forgotten magic that had stricken breathless 
 the life of the world. And then, suddenly, three 
 weeks on our journey, we came to a town. 
 
 It was not the typical fur town of the Far North, 
 but it lay at the threshold. A single street, worn 
 smooth by the feet of men and dogs, but innocent of 
 hoofs, fronted the channel. A board walk, elevated 
 against the snows, bordered a row of whitewashed 
 log and frame houses, each with its garden of brilliant 
 flowers. A dozen wharves of various sizes, over 
 whose edges peeped the double masts of Mackinaw 
 boats, spoke of a fishing community. Between the 
 roofs one caught glimpses of a low sparse woods and 
 some thousand-foot hills beyond. We subsequently 
 added the charm of isolation in learning that the 
 nearest telegraph line was fifteen miles distant, while 
 the railroad passed some fifty miles away. 
 
 Dick immediately went wild. It was his first 
 glimpse of the mixed peoples. A dozen loungers^ 
 handsome, careless, graceful with the inimitable ele^ 
 gance of the half-breed's leisure, chatted, rolled cigar- 
 ettes, and surveyed with heavy-eyed indolence such 
 of the town as could be viewed from the shade in 
 which they lay. Three girls, in whose dark cheeks 
 glowed a rich French comeliness, were comparing 
 purchases near the store. A group of rivermen, spike- 
 booted, short-trousered, reckless of air, with their 
 little round hats over one ear, sat chair-tilted outside 
 the " hotel." Across the dividing fences of two of the 
 
 92 
 
THE STRANDED STRANGERS 
 
 blazoned gardens a pair of old crones gossiped under 
 their breaths. Some Indians smoked silently at the 
 edge of one of the docks. In the distance of the 
 street's end a French priest added the quaintness of 
 his cassock to the exotic atmosphere of the scene. 
 At once a pack of the fierce sledge-dogs left their 
 foraging for the offal of the fisheries, to bound chal- 
 lenging in the direction of poor Deuce. That high- 
 bred animal fruitlessly attempted to combine dignity 
 with a discretionary lurking between our legs. We 
 made demonstrations with sticks, and sought out the 
 hotel, for it was about time to eat. 
 
 We had supper at a table with three Forest Ran- 
 gers, two lumber-jacks, and a cat-like handsome 
 " breed " whose business did not appear. Then we 
 lit up and strolled about to see what we could see. 
 
 On the text ot a pair of brass knuckles hanging 
 behind the hotel bar I embroidered many experiences 
 with the lumber-jack. I told of a Wisconsin town 
 where an enforced wait of five hours enabled me to 
 establish the proportion of fourteen saloons out of a 
 total of twenty frame buildings. I descanted craftily 
 on the character of the woodsman out of the woods 
 and in the right frame of mind for deviltry. I related 
 how Jack Boyd, irritated beyond endurance at the 
 annoyances of a stranger, finally with the flat of his 
 hand boxed the man's head so mightily that he 
 whirled around twice and sat down. "Now," said 
 Jack, softly, " be more careful, my friend, or next 
 
 93 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 time I'll hit you." Or of a little Irishman who 
 shouted to his friends about to pull a big man from 
 pounding the life quite out of him, " Let him alone ! 
 let him alone I I may be on top myself in a few 
 minutes ! " And of Dave Walker, who fought to a 
 standstill with his bare fists alone five men who had 
 sworn to kill him. And again of that doughty knight 
 of the peavie, who, when attacked by an axe, waved 
 aside interference with the truly dauntless cry, " Leave 
 him be, boys ; there 's an axe between us ! " 
 
 I tried to sketch, too, the drive, wherein a dozen 
 times in an hour these men face death with a smile 
 or a curse — the raging, untamed river, the fierce 
 rush of the logs, the cool little human beings poising 
 with a certain contemptuous preciosity on the edge 
 of destruction as they herd their brutish multitudes. 
 
 There was Jimmy, the river boss, who could not 
 swim a stroke, and who was incontinently swept over 
 a dam and into the boiling back-set of the eddy be- 
 low. Three times, gasping, strangling, drowning, he 
 was carried in the wide swirl of the circle, sometimes 
 under, sometimes on top. Then his knee touched a 
 sand-bar, and he dragged himself painfully ashore. 
 He coughed up a quantity of water, and gave vent 
 to his feelings over a miraculous escape. " Damn it 
 all ! " he wailed, " I lost my peavie ! " 
 
 " On the Paint River drive one spring," said I, " a 
 jam formed that extended up river some three miles. 
 The men were working at the breast of it, some 
 
 94 
 
THE STRANDED STRANGERS 
 
 underneath, some on top. After a time the jam ap- 
 parently broke, pulled downstream a hundred feet or 
 so, and plugged again. Then it was seen that only 
 a small section had moved, leaving the main body 
 still jammed, so that between the two sections lay a 
 narrow stretch of open water. Into this open water 
 one of the men had fallen. Before he could recover, 
 the second or tail section of the jam started to pull. 
 Apparently nothing could prevent him from being 
 crushed. A man called Sam — I don't know his last 
 name — ran down the tail of the first section, across 
 the loose logs bobbing in the open water, seized the 
 victim of the accident by the collar, desperately scaled 
 the face of the moving jam, and reached the top just 
 as the two sections ground together with the brutish 
 noise of wrecking timbers. It was a magnificent 
 rescue. Any but these men of iron would have ad- 
 journed for thanks and congratulations. Still retaining 
 his hold on the other man's collar, Sam twisted him 
 about and delivered a vigorous kick. ' T!here^ damn 
 you I ' said he. That was all. They fell to work at 
 once to keep the jam moving." 
 
 I instanced, too, some of the feats of river-work 
 these men could perform. Of how Jack Boyd has 
 been known to float twenty miles without shifting his 
 feet, on a log so small that he carried it to the water 
 on his shoulder ; of how a dozen rivermen, one after 
 the other, would often go through the chute of a dam 
 standing upright on single logs ; of O'Donnell, who 
 
 95 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 could turn a somersault on a floating pine log; of 
 the birling matches, wherein two men on a single log 
 try to throw each other into the river by treading, 
 squirrel fashion, in faster and faster rotation; of 
 how a riverman and spiked boots and a saw-log can 
 do more work than an ordinary man with a rowboat. 
 
 I do not suppose Dick believed all this — although 
 it was strictly and literally true — but his imagination 
 was impressed. He gazed with respect on the group 
 at the far end of the street, where fifteen or twenty 
 lumber-jacks were interested in some amusement con- 
 cealed from us. 
 
 " What do you suppose they are doing ? " mur- 
 mured Dick, awestricken. 
 
 " Wrestling, or boxing, or gambling, or jumping," 
 said I. 
 
 We approached. Gravely, silently, intensely in- 
 terested, the cock-hatted, spike-shod, dangerous men 
 were playing — croquet ! 
 
 The sight was too much for our nerves. We went 
 away. 
 
 The permanent inhabitants of the place we dis- 
 covered to be friendly to a degree. The Indian strain 
 was evident in various dilution through all. Dick's 
 enthusiasm grew steadily until his artistic instincts 
 became aggressive, and he flatly announced his in- 
 tention of staying at least four days for the purpose 
 of making sketches. We talked the matter over. 
 Finally it was agreed. Deuce and I were to make a 
 
 96 
 
THE STRANDED STRANGERS 
 
 wide circle to the north and west as far as the Hud- 
 son's Bay post of Cloche, while Dick filled his note- 
 book. That night we slept in beds for the first time. 
 
 That is to say, we slept until about three o'clock. 
 Then we became vaguely conscious, through a haze 
 of drowse — as one becomes conscious in the pause 
 of a sleeping-car — of voices outside our doors. Some 
 one said something about its being hardly much use 
 to go to bed. Another hoped the sheets were not 
 damp. A succession of lights twinkled across the 
 walls of our room and were vaguely explained by 
 the coughing of a steamboat. We sank into oblivion 
 until the calling-bell brought us to our feet. 
 
 I happened to finish my toilet a little before Dick, 
 and so descended to the sunlight until he might be 
 ready. Roosting on a gray old boulder ten feet out- 
 side the door were two figures that made me want to 
 rub my eyes. 
 
 The older was a square, ruddy-faced man of sixty, 
 with neatly trimmed, snow-white whiskers. He had 
 on a soft Alpine hat of pearl gray, a modishly cut 
 gray homespun suit, a tie in which glimmered an 
 opal pin, wore tan gloves, and had slung over one 
 shoulder by a narrow black strap a pair of field- 
 glasses. 
 
 The younger was a tall and angular young fellow, 
 of an eager and sophomoric youth. His hair was very 
 light and very smoothly brushed, his eyes blue and 
 rather near-sighted, his complexion pink, with an 
 
 97 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 obviously recent and superficial sunburn, and his 
 clothes, from the white Panama to the broad-soled 
 low shoes, of the latest cut and material. Instinct- 
 ively I sought his fraternity pin. He looked as 
 though he might say " Rah ! Rah I " something or 
 other. A camera completed his outfit. 
 
 Tourists I How in the world did they get here ^ 
 And then I remembered the twinkle of the lights and 
 the coughing of the steamboat. But what in time 
 could they be doing here *? Picturesque as the place 
 was, it held nothing to appeal to the Baedeker spirit. 
 I surveyed the pair with some interest. 
 
 "I suppose there is pretty good fishing around 
 here," ventured the elder. 
 
 He evidently took me for an inhabitant. Remem- 
 bering my faded blue shirt and my floppy old hat 
 and the red handkerchief about my neck and the 
 moccasins on my feet, I did not blame him. 
 
 " I suppose there are bass among the islands," I 
 replied. 
 
 We fell into conversation. I learned that he and 
 his son were from New York. He learned, by a 
 final direct question which was most significant of his 
 not belonging to the country, who I was. By chance 
 he knew my name. He opened his heart. 
 
 " We came down on the City of Flint," said he. 
 " My son and I are on a vacation. We have been 
 as far as the Yellowstone, and thought we would 
 like to see some of this country. I was assured that 
 
 98 
 
You are a judge of fiction ; take this ' ' 
 
THE STRANDED STRANGERS 
 
 on this date I could make connection with the North 
 Star for the south. I told the purser of the Flint not 
 to wake us up unless the North Star was here at the 
 docks. He bundled us off here at three in the morn- 
 ing. The North Star was not here; it is an out- 
 rage ! " 
 
 He uttered various threats^ 
 
 " I thought the North Star was running away south 
 around the Perry Sound region," I suggested. 
 
 "Yes, but she was to begin to-day, June i6, to 
 make this connection." He produced a railroad 
 folder. " It 's in this," he continued. 
 
 "Did you go by that thing"? " I marveled. 
 
 " Why, of course," said he. 
 
 " I forgot you were an American," said I. " You 're 
 in Canada now." 
 
 He looked his bewilderment, so I hunted up Dick. 
 I detailed the situation. " He does n't know the 
 race," I concluded. " Soon he will be trying to get 
 information out of the agent. Let 's be on hand." 
 
 We were on hand. The tourist, his face very red, 
 his whiskers very white and bristly, marched impor- 
 tantly to the agent's office. The latter comprised also 
 the post-office, the fish depot, and a general store. 
 The agent was for the moment dickering in re two 
 pounds of sugar. This transaction took five minutes 
 to the pound. Mr. Tourist waited. Then he opened 
 up. The agent heard him placidly, as one who listens 
 to a curious tale. 
 
 99 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 " What I want to know is, where 's that boat ? " 
 ended the tourist. 
 
 " Could n't say," replied the agent. 
 
 " Are n't you the agent of this company ? " 
 
 " Sure," replied the agent. 
 
 " Then why don't you know something about its 
 business and plans and intentions*?" 
 
 " Could n't say," replied the agent. 
 
 " Do you think it would do any good to wait for 
 .the North Star *? Do you suppose they can be com- 
 ing? Do you suppose they've altered the sched- 
 ule?" 
 
 " Could n't say," replied the agent. 
 
 " When is the next boat through here ? " 
 
 I listened for the answer in trepidation, for I saw 
 that another "Couldn't say" would cause the red- 
 faced tourist to blow up. To my relief, the agent 
 merely inquired, — - 
 
 " Nordi or south ? " 
 
 " South, of course. I just came from the north. 
 What in the name of everlasting blazes should I 
 want to go north again for ? " 
 
 " Could n't say," replied the agent. " The next 
 boat south gets in next week, Tuesday or Wednes- 
 day." 
 
 " Next week ! " shrieked the tourist. 
 
 " When 's the next boat north ? " interposed the 
 son. 
 
 '* To-morrow morning." 
 
 lOO 
 
THE STRANDED STRANGERS 
 
 ^' What time?" 
 
 *' Could n't say ; you 'd have to watch for her." 
 
 " That 's our boat, dad," said the young man. 
 
 " But we 've just come from there ! " snorted his 
 father ; " it 's three hundred miles back. It '11 put us 
 behind two days. I 've got to be in New York Fri- 
 day. I 've got an engagement." He turned suddenly 
 to the agent. " Here, I 've got to send a telegram." 
 
 The agent blinked placidly. " You '11 not send it 
 from here. This ain't a telegraph station." 
 
 " Where 's the nearest station % " 
 
 " Fifteen mile." 
 
 Without further parley the old man turned and 
 walked, stiff and military, from the place. Near the 
 end of the board walk he met the usual doddering 
 but amiable oldest inhabitant. 
 
 " Fine day," chirped the patriarch in well-meant 
 friendliness. " They jest brought in a bear cub over 
 to Antoine's. If you 'd like to take a look at him, 
 I '11 show you where it is." 
 
 The tourist stopped short and glared fiercely. 
 
 " Sir," said he, "damn your bear ! " Then he strode 
 on, leaving grandpa staring after him. 
 
 In the course of the morning we became quite 
 well acquainted, and he resigned. The son appeared 
 to take somewhat the humorous view all through 
 the affair, which must have irritated the old gentle- 
 man. They discussed it rather thoroughly, and finally 
 decided to retrace their steps for a fresh start over a 
 
 lOX 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 better-known route. This settled, the senior seemed 
 to feel relieved of a weight. He even saw and rel- 
 ished certain funny phases of the incident, though he 
 never ceased to foretell different kinds of trouble for 
 the company, varying in range from mere complaints 
 to the most tremendous of damage suits. 
 
 He was much interested, finally, in our methods 
 of travel, and then, in logical sequence, with what he 
 could see about him. He watched curiously my load- 
 ing of the canoe, for I had a three-mile stretch of open 
 water, and the wind was abroad. Deuce's empirical 
 boat wisdom aroused his admiration. He and his son 
 were both at the shore to see me off. 
 
 Deuce settled himself in the bottom. I lifted the 
 stern from the shore and gently set it afloat In a 
 moment I was ready to start. 
 
 " Wait a minute ! Wait a minute ! " suddenly cried 
 the father. 
 
 I swirled my paddle back. The old gentleman was 
 hastily fumbling in his pockets. After an instant he 
 descended to the water's edge. 
 
 "Here," said he, "you are a judge of fiction; take 
 this." 
 
 It was his steamboat and railway folder. 
 
 sot 
 
ON FLIES 
 
IX 
 
 ON FLIES 
 
 ALL the rest of the day I paddled under the 
 frowning cliffs of the hill ranges. Bold, bare, 
 scarred, seamed with fissures, their precipice rocks 
 gave the impression of ten thousand feet rather than 
 only so many hundreds. Late in the afternoon we 
 landed against a formation of basaltic blocks cut as 
 squarely up and down as a dock, and dropping off 
 into as deep water. The waves chug-chug-chugged 
 sullenly against them, and the fringe of a dark pine 
 forest, drawn back from a breadth of natural grass, 
 lowered across the horizon like a thunder-cloud. 
 
 Deuce and I made camp with the uneasy feeling 
 of being under inimical inspection. A cold wind 
 ruffled lead-like waters. No comfort was in the pros- 
 pect, so we retired early. Then it appeared that the 
 coarse grass of the park had bred innumerable black 
 flies, and that we had our work cut out for us. 
 
 The question of flies — using that, to a woodsman, 
 eminently connotive word in its wide embracement 
 of mosquitoes, sand-fiies, deer-flies, black flies, and 
 midges — is one much mooted in the craft. On no 
 
 los 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 subject are more widely divergent ideas expressed. 
 One writer claims that black flies' bites are but the 
 temporary inconvenience of a pin-prick; another tells 
 of boils lasting a week as the invariable result of their 
 attentions ; a third sweeps aside the whole question 
 as unimportant to concentrate his anathemas on the 
 musical mosquito ; still a fourth descants on the mad- 
 dening midge, and is prepared to defend his claims 
 against the world. A like dogmatic partisanship ob- 
 tains in the question of defenses. Each and every 
 man possessed of a tongue wherewith to speak or a 
 pen wherewith to write, heralds the particular merits 
 of his own fly-dope, head-net, or mosquito-proof tent- 
 lining. Eager advocates of the advantages of pork 
 fat, kerosene, pine tar, pennyroyal, oil of cloves, castor 
 oil, loUacapop, or a half hundred other concoctions 
 will assure you, tears in eyes, that his is the only 
 true faith. So many men, so many minds, until the 
 theorist is confused into doing the most uncomfort- 
 able thing possible — that is, to learn by experience. 
 As for the truth- 1*- is at once in ^l-l of them and in 
 none of them. The annoyance of after-effects from a 
 sting depends entirely on the individual's physical 
 make-up. Some people are so poisoned by mosquito 
 bites that three or four on the forehead suffice to close 
 entirely the victim's eyes. On others they leave but 
 a small red mark without swelling. Black flies caused 
 festering sores on one man I accompanied to the 
 woods. In my own case they leave only a tiny 
 
 io6 
 
ON FLIES 
 
 blood-spot the size of a pin-head, which bothers mc 
 not a bit. Midges nearly drove crazy the same com- 
 panion of mine, so that finally he jumped into the 
 river, clothes and all, to get rid of them. Again, 
 merely my own experience would lead me to regard 
 them as a tremendous nuisance, but one quite bear- 
 able. Indians are less susceptible than whites ; never- 
 theless I have seen them badly swelled behind the 
 ears from the bites of the big hardwood mosquito. 
 
 You can make up your mind to one thing — from 
 the first warm weather until August you must expect 
 to cope with insect pests. The black fly will keep you 
 busy until late afternoon; the midges will swarm 
 you about sunset ; and the mosquito will preserve 
 the tradition after you have turned in. As for the 
 deer-fly, and others of his piratical breed, he will bite 
 like a dog at any time. 
 
 To me the most annoying species is the mosquito. 
 The black fly is sometimes most industrious — I have 
 seen trout fishermen come into camp with the blood 
 literally streaming from their faces — but his great 
 recommendation is that he holds still to be killed. 
 No frantic slaps, no waving of arms, no muffled 
 curses. You just place your finger calmly and 
 firmly on the spot. You get him every time. In 
 this is great, heart-lifting joy. It may be unholy joy, 
 perhaps even vengeful, but it leaves the spirit ecstatic. 
 The satisfaction of murdering the beast that has had 
 the nerve to light on you just as you are reeling in 
 
 107 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 almost counterbalances the pain of a sting. The 
 midge, again — or punkie, or " no-see-'um," just as 
 you please — swarms down upon you suddenly and 
 with commendable vigor, so that you feel as though 
 redhot pepper were being sprinkled on your bare skin; 
 and his invisibiHty and intangibility are such that you 
 can never tell whether you have killed him or not; 
 but he does n't last long, and dope routs him to- 
 tally. Your mosquito, however, is such a deliberate 
 brute. He has in him some of that divine fire which 
 causes a dog to turn around nine times before lying 
 down. 
 
 Whether he is selecting or gloating I do not know, 
 but I do maintain that the price of your life's blood 
 is often not too great to pay for the cessation of that 
 hum. 
 
 " Eet is not hees bite," said Billy, the half-breed, to 
 me once, " eet is hees sing." 
 
 I agree with Billy. One mosquito in a tent can 
 keep you awake for hours. 
 
 As to protection, it is varied enough in all con- 
 science, and always theoretically perfect. A head-net 
 falling well down over your chest, or even tied under 
 your arm-pits, is at once the simplest and most 
 fallacious of these theories. It will keep vast numbers 
 of flies out, to be sure. It will also keep the few ad- 
 venturous discoverers in, where you can neither kill 
 nor eject. Likewise you are deprived of your pipe ; 
 and the common homely comfort of spitting on your 
 
 io8 
 
ON FLIES 
 
 bait is totally denied you. The landscape takes on 
 the prismatic colors of refraction, so that, while you 
 can easily make out red, white, and blue Chinese 
 dragons and mythological monsters, you are unable 
 to discover the more welcome succulence, say, of a 
 partridge on a limb. And the end of that head-net is 
 to be picked to holes by the brush, and finally to be 
 snatched from you to sapling height, whence your 
 pains will rescue it only in a useless condition. Prob- 
 ably then you will dance the war-dance of exasper- 
 ation on its dismembered remains. Still, there are 
 times — in case of straight-away river paddling, or 
 open walking, or lengthened waiting — when the net 
 is a great comfort. And it is easily included in the 
 pack. 
 
 Next in order come the various " dopes." And they 
 are various. From the stickiest, blackest pastes to 
 the silkiest, suavest oils they range, through the 
 grades of essence, salve, and cream. Every man has 
 his own recipe — the infallible. As a general rule, it 
 may be stated that the thicker kinds last longer and 
 are generally more thoroughly effective, but the 
 lighter are pleasanter to wear, though requiring more 
 frequent application. At a pinch, ordinary pork fat 
 is good. The Indians often make temporary use of 
 the broad caribou leaf, crushing it between their 
 palms and rubbing the juices on the skin. I know by 
 experience that this is effective, but very transitory. 
 It is, however, a good thing to use when resting on 
 
 109 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 the trail, for, by the grace of Providence, flies arc 
 rarely bothersome as long as you are moving at a fair 
 gait. 
 
 This does not always hold good, however, any 
 more than the best fly-dope is always effective. I re- 
 member most vividly the first day of a return journey 
 from the shores of the Hudson Bay. The weather 
 was rather oppressively close and overcast Wc had 
 paddled a few miles up river from the fur trading- 
 post, and then had landed in order to lighten the 
 canoe for the ascent against the current. At that 
 point the forest has already begun to dwindle toward 
 the Land of Little Sticks, so that often miles and 
 miles of open muskegs will intervene between groups 
 of the stunted trees. Jim and I found ourselves a 
 little over waist deep in luxuriant and tangled grasses 
 that impeded and clogged our every footstep. Never 
 shall I forget that country — its sad and lonely iso- 
 lation, its dull lead sky, its silence, and the closeness 
 of its stifling atmosphere — and never shall I see it 
 otherwise than as in a dense brown haze, a haze com- 
 posed of swarming millions of mosquitoes. There 
 is not the slightest exaggeration in the statement. 
 At every step new multitudes rushed into our faces 
 to join the old. At times Jim's back was so cov- 
 ered with them that they almost overlaid the color 
 of the cloth. And as near as we could see, every 
 square foot of the thousands of acres quartered its 
 hordes. 
 
 no 
 
ON FLIES 
 
 We doped liberally, but without the slightest 
 apparent effect. Probably two million squeamish 
 mosquitoes were driven away by the disgust of our 
 medicaments, but what good did that do us when 
 eight million others were not so particular? At the 
 last we hung bandanas under our hats, cut fans of 
 leaves, and stumbled on through a most miserable 
 day until we could build a smudge at evening. 
 
 For smoke is usually a specific. Not always, how- 
 ever — some midges seem to delight in it. The In- 
 dians make a tiny blaze of birch bark and pine twigs 
 deep in a nest of grass and caribou leaves. When 
 the flame is well started, they twist the growing vege- 
 tation canopy-wise above it. In that manner they 
 gain a few minutes of dense, acrid smoke, which is 
 enough for an Indian. A white man, however, needs 
 something more elaborate. 
 
 The chief reason for your initial failure in making 
 an effective smudge will be that you will not get 
 your fire well started before piling on the damp 
 smoke-material. It need not be a conflagration, but it 
 should be bright and glowing, so that the punk birch 
 or maple wood you add will not smother it entirely. 
 After it is completed, you will not have to sit 
 coughing in the thick of fumigation, as do many, 
 but only to leeward and underneath. Your hat used 
 as a fan will eddy the smoke temporarily into de- 
 sirable nooks and crevices. I have slept without an- 
 noyance on the Great Plains, where the mosquitoes 
 
 III 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 seem to go in organized and predatory bands, merely 
 by lying beneath a smudge that passed at least five 
 feet above me. You will find the fi-ying-pan a handy 
 brazier for the accommodation of a movable smoke 
 to be transported to the interior of the tent. And it 
 does not in the least hurt the frying-pan. These be 
 hints, briefly spoken, out of which at times you may 
 have to construct elaborate campaigns. 
 
 But you come to grapples in the defense of com- 
 fort when night approaches. If you can eat and sleep 
 well, you can stand almost any hardship. The night's 
 rest is as carefully to be fore-assured as the food that 
 sustains you. No precaution is too elaborate to cer- 
 tify unbroken repose. 
 
 By dark you will discover the peak of your tent 
 to be liberally speckled with insects of all sorts. Es- 
 pecially is this true of an evening that threatens rain. 
 Your smudge-pan may drive away the mosquitoes, 
 but merely stupefies the other varieties. You are 
 forced to the manipulation of a balsam fan. 
 
 In your use of this simple implement you will be- 
 tray the extent of your experience. Dick used at 
 first to begin at the rear peak and brush as rapidly as 
 possible toward the opening. The flies, thoroughly 
 aroused, eddied about a few frantic moments, like 
 leaves in an autumn wind, finally to settle close to 
 the sod in the crannies between the tent-wall and the 
 ground. Then Dick would lie flat on his belly in 
 order to brush with equal vigor at these new lurking- 
 
 112 
 
You are forced to the manipulation of a balsam fan 
 
ON FLIES 
 
 places. The flies repeated the autumn-leaf effect, and 
 returned to the rear peak. This was amusing to me 
 and furnished the flies with healthful, appetizing 
 exercise, but was bad for Dick's soul. After a time 
 he discovered the only successful method is the gentle 
 one. Then he began at the peak and brushed for- 
 ward slowly, very, very slowly, so that the limited 
 intellect of his visitors did not become confused. 
 Thus when they arrived at the opening they saw it 
 and used it, instead of searching frantically for corners 
 in which to hide from apparently vengeful destruc- 
 tion. Then he would close his tent-flap securely, and 
 turn in at once. So he was able to sleep until earliest 
 daylight. At that time the mosquitoes again found 
 him out. 
 
 Nine out of ten, perhaps ninety-nine out of a hun- 
 dred, sleep in open tents. For absolute and perfect 
 comfort proceed as follows : Have your tent-maker 
 sew you a tent of cheese-cloth ' with the same dimen- 
 sions as your shelter, except that the walls should be 
 loose and voluminous at the bottom. It should have 
 no openings. Suspend this affair inside your tent by 
 means of cords or tapes. Drop it about you. Spread 
 it out. Lay rod-cases, duffel-bags, or rocks along its 
 lower edges to keep it spread. You will sleep be- 
 neath it like a child in winter. No driving out of 
 
 * Do not allow yourself to be talked into substituting mosquito-bar 
 or bobinet. Any mesh coarser than cheese-cloth will prove pregnable 
 to the most enterprising of the smaller species. 
 
 113 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 reluctant flies; no enforced early rising; no danger 
 of a single overlooked insect to make the midnight 
 miserable. The cheese-cloth weighs almost nothing, 
 can be looped up out of the way in the daytime, ad- 
 mits the air readily. Nothing could fill the soul with 
 more ecstatic satisfaction than to lie for a moment 
 before going to sleep listening to a noise outside like 
 an able-bodied sawmill that indicates the ping-gosh 
 are abroad. 
 
 It would be unfair to leave the subject without a 
 passing reference to its effect on the imagination. 
 We are all familiar with comic paper mosquito sto- 
 ries, and some of them are very good. But until 
 actual experience takes you by the hand and leads you 
 into the realm of pure fancy, you will never know of 
 what improvisation the human mind is capable. 
 
 The picture rises before my mind of the cabin of 
 a twenty-eight-foot cutter-sloop just before the dawn 
 of a midsummer day. The sloop was made for busi- 
 ness, and the cabin harmonized exactly with the 
 sloop — painted pine, wooden bunks without mat- 
 tresses, camp-blankets, duffel-bags slung up because 
 all the floor place had been requisitioned for sleeping 
 purposes. We were anchored a hundred feet off land 
 from Pilot Cove, on the uninhabited north shore. 
 The mosquitoes had adventured on the deep. We 
 lay half asleep. 
 
 "On the middle rafter," murmured the Football 
 Man, " is one old fellow giving signals." 
 
 114 
 
ON FLIES 
 
 "A quartette is singing drinking-songs on my 
 nose," muttered the Glee Club Man. 
 
 "We won't need to cook," I suggested somno- 
 lently. " We can run up and down on deck with 
 our mouths open and get enough for breakfast." 
 
 The fourth member opened one eye. " Boys," he 
 breathed, " we won't be able to go on to-morrow un- 
 less we give up having any more biscuits." 
 
 After a time some one murmured, " Why? " 
 
 " We 'II have to use all the lard on the mast. 
 They 're so mad because they can't get at us that 
 they 're biting the mast. It 's already swelled up as 
 big as a barrel. We 'II never be able to get the main- 
 sail up. Any of you boys got any vaseline ? Per- 
 haps a little fly-dope " — 
 
 But we snored vigorously in unison. 
 
 The Indians say that when Kitch' Manitou had 
 created men he was dissatisfied, and so brought 
 women into being. At once love-making began, 
 and then, as now, the couples sought solitude for 
 their exchanges of vows, their sighings to the moon, 
 their claspings of hands. Marriages ensued. The 
 situation remained unchanged. Life was one per- 
 petual honeymoon. I suppose the novelty was fresh 
 and the sexes had not yet realized they would not 
 part as abruptly as they had been brought together. 
 The villages were deserted, while the woods and 
 bushes were populous with wedded and unwedded 
 lovers. Kitch' Manitou looked on the proceedings 
 
 "5 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 with disapproval. All this was most romantic and 
 beautiful, no doubt, but in the mean time mi-daw- 
 min, the corn, mi-no-men, the rice, grew rank and 
 uncultivated; while bis-iw, the lynx, and swingwaage, 
 the wolverine, and me-en-gan, the wolf, committed 
 unchecked depredations among the weaker forest 
 creatures. The business of life was being sadly neg- 
 lected. So Kitch' Manitou took counsel with him- 
 self, and created saw-gi-may, the mosquito, to whom 
 he gave as dwelling the woods and bushes. That 
 took the romance out of the situation. As my nar- 
 rator grimly expressed it, " Him come back, go to 
 work." 
 
 Certainly it should be most effective. Even the 
 thick-skinned moose is not exempt from discomfort. 
 At certain seasons the canoe voyager in the Far North 
 will run up on a dozen in the course of a day's travel, 
 standing nose-deep in the river merely to escape the 
 insect pests. 
 
 However, this is to be remembered : after the first 
 of August they bother very little ; before that time 
 the campaign I have outlined is effective ; even in 
 fly season the worst days are infrequent; in the 
 woods you must expect to pay a certain price in 
 discomfort for a very real and very deep pleasure. 
 Wet, heat, cold, hunger, thirst, difficult travel, insects, 
 hard beds, aching muscles — all these at one time 
 or another will be your portion. If you are of the 
 class that carmot have a good time unless everything 
 
 ii6 
 
ON FLIES 
 
 is right with it, stay out of the woods. One thing at 
 least will always be wrong. When you have gained 
 the faculty of ignoring the one disagreeable thing 
 and concentrating your powers on the compensations, 
 then you will have become a true woodsman, and to 
 your desires the forest will always be calling. 
 
 iir 
 
CLOCHE 
 
 r 's "^ 
 
 ( . I 
 
X 
 
 CLOCHE 
 
 IMAGINE a many-armed lake, like a starfish., 
 nested among rugged Laurentian hills, whose 
 brows are bare and forbidding, but whose concealed 
 ravines harbor each its cool screen of forest growth. 
 Imagine a brawling stream escaping at one of the 
 arms, to tumble, intermittently visible among the trees, 
 down a series of cascades and rapids, to the broad, 
 island-dotted calm of the big lake. Imagine a meadow 
 at the mouth of this stream, and on the meadow a 
 single white dot. Thus you will see Cloche, a trading- 
 post of the Honorable the Hudson's Bay Company, 
 as Deuce and I saw it from the summit of the hills. 
 We had accomplished a very hard scramble, which 
 started well enough in a ravine so leafy and green 
 and impenetrable that we might well have imagined 
 ourselves in a boundless forest. Deuce had scented 
 sundry partridges, which he had pointed with entire 
 deference to the good form of a sporting dog's con- 
 ventions. As usual, to Deuce's never-failing surprise 
 and disgust, the birds had proved themselves most 
 uncultivated and rude persons by hopping promptly 
 
 121 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 into trees instead of lying to point and then flush- 
 ing as a well-taught partridge should. I had refused 
 to pull pistol on them. Deuce's heart was broken. 
 Then, finally, we came to cliffs up which we had to 
 scale, and boulders which we had to climb, and fissures 
 which we had to jump or cross on fallen trees, and 
 wide, bare sweeps of rock and blueberry-bushes which 
 we had to cover, until at last we stood where we 
 could look all ways at once. 
 
 The starfish thrust his insinuating arms in among 
 the distant hills to the north. League after league, 
 rising and falling and rising again into ever bluer 
 distance, forest-covered, mysterious, other ranges and 
 systems lifted, until at last, far out, nearly at the 
 horizon-height of my eye, flashed again the gleam of 
 water. And so the starfish arms of the little lake at 
 my feet seemed to have plunged into this wilderness 
 tangle only to reappear at greater distance. Like 
 swamp-fire, it lured the imagination always on and on 
 and on through the secret waterways of the uninhab- 
 ited North. It was as though I stood on the divid- 
 ing ridge between the old and the new. Through 
 the southern haze, hull down, I thought to make out 
 the smoke of a Great Lake freighter; from the shelter 
 of a distant cove I was not surprised a moment later 
 to see emerge a tiny speck whose movements betrayed 
 it as a birch canoe. The great North was at this, 
 the most southern of the Hudson's Bay posts, striking 
 a pin-point of contact with the world of men. 
 
 122 
 
CLOCHE 
 
 Deuce and I angled down the mountain toward 
 the stream. Our arrival coincided with that of the 
 canoe. It was of the Ojibway three-fathom pattern, 
 and contained a half-dozen packs, a sledge-dog, with 
 whom Deuce at once opened guarded negotiations, 
 an old Indian, a squaw, and a child of six or eight. 
 We exchanged brief greetings. Then I sat on a 
 stump and watched the portage. 
 
 These were evidently " Woods Indians," an entirely 
 different article from the " Post Indians." They wore 
 their hair long, and bound by a narrow strip or fillet ; 
 their faces were hard and deeply lined, with a fine, 
 bold, far-seeing look to the eyes which comes only 
 from long woods dwelling. They walked, even under 
 heavy loads, with a sagging, springy gait, at once 
 sure-footed and swift. Instead of tump-lines the man 
 used his sash, and the woman a blanket knotted 
 loosely together at the ends. The details of their 
 costumes were interesting in combination of jeans 
 and buckskin, broadcloth and blanket, stroud and a 
 material evidently made from the strong white sack- 
 ing in which flour intended for frontier consumption 
 is always packed. After the first double-barreled 
 " bo' jou', bo' jou'," they paid no further attention to 
 me. In a few moments the portage was completed. 
 The woman thrust her paddle against the stream's 
 bottom and the canoe, and so embarked. The man 
 stepped smoothly to his place like a cat leaping from 
 a chair. They shot away with the current, leaving 
 
 123 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 behind them a strange and mysterious impression of 
 silence. 
 
 I followed down a narrow but well-beaten trail, 
 and so at the end of a half-mile came to the meadow 
 and the post of Cloche. 
 
 The building itself was accurately of the Hudson 
 Bay type — a steep, sloping roof greater in front 
 than behind, a deep recessed veranda, squared logs 
 sheathed with whitewashed boards. About it was a 
 little garden, which, besides the usual flowers and 
 vegetables, contained such exotics as a deer confined 
 to a pen and a bear chained to a stake. As I ap- 
 proached, the door opened and the Trader came out. 
 
 Now, often along the southern fringe your Hud- 
 son's Bay Trader will prove to be a distinct dis- 
 appointment. In fact, one of the historic old posts 
 is now kept by a pert little cockney Englishman, 
 cringing or impudent as the main chance seems to 
 advise. When you have penetrated farther into the 
 wilderness, however, where the hardships of winter 
 and summer travel, the loneliness of winter posts, 
 the necessity of dealing directly with savage men 
 and savage nature, develops the quality of a man or 
 wrecks him early in the game, you will be certain 
 of meeting your type. But here, within fifty miles 
 of the railroad I 
 
 The man who now stepped into view, however, 
 preserved in his appearance all the old traditions. 
 He was, briefly, a short black-and-white man built 
 
 124 
 
CLOCHE 
 
 very square. Immense power lurked m the broad, 
 heavy shoulders, the massive chest, the thick arms, 
 the sturdy, column-like legs. As for his face, it was 
 almost entirely concealed behind a curly square 
 black beard that grew above his cheek-bones nearly 
 to his eyes. Only a thick hawk nose, an inscrutable 
 pair of black eyes under phenomenally hairy eye- 
 brows, and a short black pipe showed plainly from 
 the hirsute tangle. He was lock, stock, and barrel of 
 the Far North, one of the old regime. I was rejoiced 
 to see him there, but did not betray a glimmer of 
 interest. I knew my type too well for that. 
 
 " How are you," he said, grudgingly. 
 
 " Good-day," said I. 
 
 We leaned against the fence and smoked, each 
 contemplating carefully the end of his pipe. I knew 
 better than to say anything. The Trader was looking 
 me over, making up his mind about me. Speech on 
 my part would argue lightness of disposition, for it 
 would seem to indicate that I was not also making 
 up my mind about him. In this pause there was not 
 the least unfriendliness. Only, in the woods you pre- 
 fer to know first the business and character of a chance 
 acquaintance. Afterwards you may ingratiate to his 
 good will. All of which possesses a beautiful sim- 
 plicity, for it proves that good or bad opinion need 
 not depend on how gracefully you can chatter assur- 
 ances. At the end of a long period the Trader in- 
 quired, " Which way you headed ? " 
 
 125 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 " Out in a canoe for pleasure. Headed almost any- 
 where." 
 
 Again we smoked. 
 
 " Dog any good ? " asked the Trader, removing 
 his pipe and pointing to the observant Deuce. 
 
 " He '11 hunt shade on a hot day," said I, tenta- 
 tively. " How 's the fur in this district ? " 
 
 We were off. He invited me in and showed me 
 his bear. In ten minutes we were seated chair-tilted 
 on the veranda, and slowly, very cautiously, in ab- 
 breviated syncopation, were feeling our way toward 
 an intimacy. 
 
 Now came the Indians I had seen at the lake to 
 barter for some flour and pork. I was glad of the 
 chance to follow them all into the trading-room. A 
 low wooden counter backed by a grill divided the 
 main body of the room from the entrance. It was 
 deliciously dim. All the charm of the Aromatic Shop 
 was in the place, and an additional flavor of the wilds. 
 Everything here was meant for the Indian trade. 
 Bolts of bright-patterned ginghams, blankets of red 
 or blue, articles of clothing, boxes of beads for deco- 
 ration, skeins of brilliant silk, lead bars for bullet- 
 making, stacks of long brass-bound " trade guns " in 
 the corner, small mirrors, red and parti-colored worsted 
 sashes with tassels on the ends, steel traps of various 
 sizes, and a dozen other articles to be desired by the 
 forest people. And here, unlike the Aromatic Shop, 
 were none of the products of the Far North. All 
 
 126 
 
CLOCHE 
 
 that, I knew, was to be found elsewhere, in another 
 apartment, equally dim, but delightful in the orderly- 
 disorder of a storeroom. 
 
 Afterwards I made the excuse of a pair of mocca- 
 sins to see this other room. We climbed a steep, 
 rough flight of stairs to emerge through a sort of 
 trap-door into a space directly under the roof It was 
 lit only by a single little square at one end. Deep 
 under the eaves I could make out row after row of 
 boxes and chests. From the rafters hung a dozen 
 pair of snow-shoes. In the center of the floor, half 
 overturned, lay an open box from which tumbled 
 dozens of pairs of moose-hide snow-shoe mocca- 
 sins. 
 
 Shades of childhood, what a place ! No one of us 
 can fail to recall with a thrill the delights of a rum- 
 mage in the attic ; the joy of pulling from some half- 
 forgotten trunk a wholly forgotten shabby garment 
 which nevertheless has taken to itself from the still- 
 ness of undisturbed years the faint aroma of romance ; 
 the rapture of discovering in the dusk of a concealed 
 nook some old spur or broken knife or rusty pistol 
 redolent of the open road. Such essentially common- 
 place affairs they are, after all, in the light of our 
 mature common sense, but such unspeakable ecsta- 
 sies to the romance-breathing years of fancy. Here 
 would no fancy be required. To rummage in these 
 silent chests and boxes would be to rummage, not 
 in the fictions of imagination, but the facts of the 
 
 127 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 most real picturesque. In yonder square box are the 
 smoke-tanned shoes of silence ; that velvet dimness 
 would prove to be the fur of a bear ; this birch-bark 
 package contains maple sugar savored of the wilds. 
 Buckskin, both white and buff, bears' claws in strings, 
 bundles of medicinal herbs, sweet-grass baskets fra- 
 grant as an Eastern tale, birch-bark boxes embroidered 
 with stained quills of the porcupines, bows of hickory 
 and arrows of maple, queer half-boots of stiff sealskin 
 from the very shores of the Hudson Bay, belts of 
 beadwork, yellow and green, for the Corn Dance, 
 even a costume or so of buckskin complete for cere- 
 monial — all these the fortunate child would find 
 were he to take the rainy-day privilege in this, the 
 most wonderful attic in all the world. And then, 
 after he had stroked the soft fur, and smelled the 
 buckskin and sweet-grasses, and tasted the crumbling 
 maple sugar, and dressed himself in the barbaric 
 splendors of the North, he could flatten his little 
 nose against the dim square of light and look out 
 over the glistening yellow backs of a dozen birch- 
 bark canoes to the distant, rain-blurred hills, beyond 
 which lay the country whence all these things had 
 come. Do you wonder that in after years that child 
 hits the Long Trail ? Do you still wonder at finding 
 these strange, taciturn, formidable, tender-hearted 
 men dwelling lonely in the Silent Places ? 
 
 The Trader yanked several of the boxes to the 
 center and prosaically tumbled about their contents. 
 
 128 
 
CLOCHE 
 
 He brought to light heavy moose-hide moccasins with 
 high linen tops for the snow ; lighter buckskin moc- 
 casins, again with the high tops, but this time of 
 white tanned doeskin; slipper-like deerskin mocca- 
 sins with rolled edges for the summer; oil-tanned 
 shoepacs, with and without the flexible leather sole; 
 " cruisers " of varying degree of height — each and 
 every sort of foot-gear in use in the Far North, ex- 
 cepting and saving always the beautiful soft doeskin 
 slippers finished with white fawnskin and ornamented 
 with the Ojibway flower pattern for which I sought. 
 Finally he gave it up. 
 
 " I had a few pair. They must have been sent 
 out," said he. 
 
 We rummaged a little further for luck's sake, 
 then descended to the outer air. I left him to fetch 
 my canoe, but returned in the afternoon. We be- 
 came friends. That evening we sat in the little sit- 
 ting-room and talked far into the night. 
 
 He was a true Hudson's Bay man, steadfastly 
 loyal to the Company. I mentioned the legend of la 
 Longue 'Traverse ; he stoutly asserted he had never 
 heard of it. I tried to buy a minkskin or so to hang 
 on the wall as souvenir of my visit ; he was genu- 
 inely distressed, but had to refuse because the Com- 
 pany had not authorized him to sell, and he had 
 nothing of his own to give. I mentioned the River 
 of the Moose, the Land of Little Sticks ; his deep 
 eyes sparkled with excitement, and he asked eagerly 
 
 129 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 a multitude of details concerning late news from the 
 northern posts. 
 
 And as the evening dwindled, after the manner of 
 Traders everywhere he began to tell me the " ghost 
 stories " of this station of Cloche. Every post has 
 gathered a mass of legendary lore in the slow years, 
 but this had been on the route of the voyageurs from 
 Montreal and Quebec at the time when the lords of 
 the North journeyed to the scenes of their annual 
 revels at Fort Williams. The Trader had much to 
 say of the magnificence and luxury of these men — 
 their cooks, their silken tents, their strange and costly 
 foods, their rare wines, their hordes of French and 
 Indian canoemen and packers. Then Cloche was a 
 halting-place for the night. Its meadows had blos- 
 somed many times with the gay tents and banners of a 
 great company. He told me, as vividly as though 
 he had been an eye-witness, of how the canoes must 
 have loomed up suddenly from between the islands. 
 By and by he seized the lamp and conducted me 
 outside, where hung ponderous ornamental steel- 
 yards, on which in the old days the peltries were 
 weighed. 
 
 " It is not so now," said he ; " we buy by count, 
 and modern scales weigh the provisions. And the 
 beaver are all gone." 
 
 We re-entered the house in silence. After a while 
 he began briefly to sketch his own career. Then, 
 indeed, the flavor of the Far North breathed its crisp 
 
 130 
 
*' A la Claire Fontaine crooned . . . by a man of impassive bulk and 
 countenance, but with glowing eyes" 
 
CLOCHE 
 
 bracing ozone through the atmosphere of the room. 
 He had started life at one of the posts of the Far 
 Northwest. At the age of twelve he enlisted in the 
 Company. Throughout forty years he had served 
 her. He had traveled to all the strange places of the 
 North, and claimed to have stood on the shores of 
 that half-mythical lake of Yamba Tooh. 
 
 " It was snowing at the time," he said, prosaically ; 
 " and I could n't see anything, except that I 'd have 
 to bear to the east to get away from open water. 
 Maybe she was n't the lake. The Injins said she was, 
 but I was too almighty shy of grub to bother with 
 lakes." 
 
 Other names fell from him in the course of talk, 
 some of which I had heard and some not, but all of 
 which rang sweet and clear with no uncertain note 
 of adventure. Especially haunts my memory an 
 impression of desolate burned trees standing stick- 
 like in death on the shores of Lost River. 
 
 He told me he had been four years at Cloche, but 
 expected shortly to be transferred, as the fur was 
 getting scarce, and another post one hundred miles 
 to the west could care for the dwindling trade. He 
 hoped to be sent into the Northwest, but shrugged 
 his shoulders as he said so, as though that were in 
 the hands of the gods. At the last he fished out a 
 concertina and played for me. Have you ever heard, 
 after dark, in the North where the hills grow big 
 at sunset, a la Claire Fontaine crooned to such an 
 
 131 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 accompaniment, and by a man of impassive bulk 
 and countenance, but with glowing eyes ? 
 
 I said good-night, and stumbled, sight-dazed, 
 through the cool dark to my tent near the beach. 
 The weird minor strains breathed after me as I went. 
 
 ** A la claire fontaine 
 M'en allant promener, 
 J^ai trouve V eau si belle 
 ^e je 711* y suis baigne, 
 II y a long temps queje t* aime 
 Jamais je ne t* oublieraiJ*^ 
 
 The next day, with the combers of a howling 
 northwesterly gale clutching at the stern of the canoe, 
 I rode in a glory of spray and copper-tasting excite- 
 ment back to Dick and his half-breed settlement. 
 
 But the incident had its sequel. The following 
 season, as I was sitting writing at my desk, a strange 
 package was brought me. It was wrapped in linen 
 sewn strongly with waxed cord. Its contents lie be- 
 fore me now — a pair of moccasins fashioned of the 
 finest doeskin, tanned so beautifully that the delicious 
 smoke fragrance fills the room, and so effectively that 
 they could be washed with soap and water without 
 destroying their softness. The tongue-shaped piece 
 over the instep is of white fawnskin heavily orna- 
 mented in five colors of silk. Where it joins the 
 foot of the slipper it is worked over and over into a 
 narrow cord of red and blue silk. The edge about 
 the ankle is turned over, deeply scalloped, and bound 
 
 132 
 
CLOCHE. 
 
 at the top with a broad band of blue silk stitched 
 with pink. Two tiny blue bows at either side the 
 ankle ornament the front. Altogether a most mag- 
 nificent foot-gear. No word accompanied them, ap- 
 parently, but after some search I drew a bit of paper 
 from the toe of one of them. It was inscribed simply ; 
 " Fort la Cloche." 
 
THE HABITANTS 
 
XI 
 THE HABITANTS 
 
 DURING my absence Dick had made many- 
 friends. Wherein Hes his secret I do not know, 
 but he has a pecuhar power of ingratiation with 
 people whose lives are quite outside his experience or 
 sympathies. In the short space of four days he had 
 earned joyous greetings from every one in town. The 
 children grinned at him cheerfully ; the old women 
 cackled good-natured little teasing jests to him as he 
 passed; the pretty, dusky half-breed girls dropped 
 their eyelashes fascinatingly across their cheeks, tem- 
 pering their coyness with a smile ; the men painfully 
 demanded information as to artistic achievement 
 which was evidently as well meant as it wa€ foreign 
 to any real thirst for knowledge they might possess ; 
 even the lumber-jacks addressed him as " Bub." And 
 withal Dick's methods of approach were radically 
 wrong, for he blundered upon new acquaintance with 
 a beaming smile, which is ordinarily a sure repellent 
 to the cautious, taciturn men of the woods. Perhaps 
 their keenness penetrated to the fact that he was ab- 
 solutely without guile, and that his kindness was an 
 
 137 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 essential part of himself. I should be curious to know 
 whether Billy Knapp of the Black Hills would sur- 
 render his gun to Dick for inspection. 
 
 " I want you to go out this afternoon to see some 
 friends of mine," said Dick. " They 're on a farm 
 about two miles back in the brush. They 're ancestors." 
 
 "They're what?" I inquired. 
 
 " Ancestors. You can go down to Grosse Point 
 near Detroit and find people living in beautiful coun- 
 try places next the water, and after dinner they '11 
 show you an old silhouette or a daguerreotype or 
 something like that, and will say to you proudly, 
 ' This is old Jules, my ancestor, who was a pioneer 
 in this country. The Place has been in the family 
 ever since his time.' " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, this is a French family, and they are pio- 
 neers, and the family has a place that slopes down to the 
 water through white birch-trees, and it is of the kind 
 very tenacious of its own land. In two hundred years 
 this will be a great resort ; bound to be — beautiful, 
 salubrious, good sport, fine scenery, accessible " — 
 
 " Railroad fifty miles away. Boat every once in a 
 while," said I, sarcastically. 
 
 " Accessible in two hundred years, all right," in- 
 sisted Dick, serenely. " Even Canada can build a 
 quarter of a mile of railway a year. Accessible," he 
 went on, " good shipping-point for country now un- 
 developed." 
 
 13S 
 
THE HABITANTS 
 
 " You ought to be a real estate agent," I advised. 
 
 " Lived two hundred years too soon," disclaimed 
 Dick. " What more obvious ? These are certainly 
 ancestors." 
 
 " Family may die out," I suggested. 
 
 " It has a good start," said Dick, sweetly. " There 
 are eighty-seven in it now." 
 
 " What ! " I gasped. 
 
 "One great-grandfather, twelve grandparents, 
 thirty-seven parents, and thirty-seven children," tabu- 
 lated Dick. 
 
 " I should like to see the great-grandfather," said 
 I ; "he must be very old and feeble." 
 
 " He is eighty-five years old," said Dick, " and the 
 last time I saw him he was engaged with an axe in 
 clearing trees off his farm." 
 
 All of these astonishing statements I found to be 
 absolutely true. 
 
 We started out afoot soon after dinner, through a 
 scattering growth of popples that alternately drew the 
 veil of coyness over the blue hills and caught our 
 breath with the delight of a momentary prospect. 
 Deuce, remembering autumn days, concluded par- 
 tridges, and scurried away on the expert diagonal, his 
 hind legs tucked well under his flanks. The road 
 itself was a mere cutting through the miniature 
 woods, winding to right or left for the purpose of 
 avoiding a log-end or a boulder, surmounting little 
 knolls with an idle disregard for the straight line, 
 
 139 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 knobby with big round stones, and interestingly di-= 
 versified by circular mud-holes a foot or so in diame- 
 ter. After a mile and a half we came to the corner of 
 a snake fence. This, Dick informed me, marked the 
 limits of the "farm." 
 
 We burst through the screen of popples definitely 
 into the clear. A two-storied house of squared logs 
 crested a knoll in the middle distance. Ten acres of 
 grass marsh, perhaps twenty of plowed land, and then 
 the ash-white-green of popples. We dodged the grass 
 marsh and gained the house. Dick was at once among 
 friends. 
 
 The mother had no English, so smiled expan- 
 sively, her bony arms folded across her stomach. 
 Her oldest daughter, a frail-looking girl in the twen- 
 ties, but with a sad and spiritual beauty of the Ma- 
 donna in her big eyes and straight black hair, gave 
 us a shy good-day. Three boys, just alike in their 
 slender, stolid Indian good looks, except that they 
 differed in size, nodded with the awkwardness of the 
 male. Two babies stared solemnly. A little girl with 
 a beautiful oval face, large mischievous gray eyes 
 behind long black lashes, a mischievously quirked 
 mouth to match the eyes, and black hair banged 
 straight, both front and behind, in almost medieval 
 fashion, twirked a pair of brown bare legs all about 
 us. Another light-haired, curly little girl, surmounted 
 by an old yachting-cap, spread apart sturdy shoes in 
 an attitude at once critical and expectant. 
 
 140 
 
THE HABITANTS 
 
 Dick rose to the cx:casion by sorting out from some 
 concealed recess of his garments a huge paper parcel 
 of candy. With infinite tact, he presented this bag to 
 Madame, rather than the children. Madame insti- 
 tuted judicious distribution and appropriate reserva- 
 tion for the future. We entered the cabin. 
 
 Never have I seen a place more exquisitely neat. 
 The floor had not only been washed clean, it had 
 been scrubbed white. The walls of logs were freshly 
 whitewashed. The chairs were polished. The few 
 ornaments were new and not at all dusty or dingy or 
 tawdry. Several religious pictures, a portrait of roy- 
 alty, a lithographed advertisement of some buggy, a 
 photograph or so — and then just the fresh, whole^ 
 some cleanliness of scrubbed pine. Madame made us 
 welcome with smiles — a faded, lean woman with a 
 remnant of beauty peeping from her soft eyes, but 
 worn down to the first principles of pioneer bone and 
 gristle by toil, care, and the bearing of children. I 
 spoke to her in French, complimenting her on the 
 appearance of the place. She was genuinely pleased, 
 saying in reply that one did one's possible, but that 
 children I — with an expressive pause. 
 
 Next we called for volunteers to show us to the 
 great-grandfather. Our elfish little girls at once of- 
 fered, and went dancing off down the trail like 
 autumn leaves in a wind. Whether it was the Indian 
 in them, or the effects of environment, or merely our 
 own imaginations, we both had the same thought 
 
 141 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 — that in these strange, taciturn, friendly, smiling, 
 pirouetting little creatures was some eerie wild strain 
 akin to the woods and birds and animals. As they 
 danced on ahead of us, turning to throw us a deli- 
 cious smile or a half- veiled roguish glance of nascent 
 coquetry, we seemed to swing into an orbit of expe- 
 rience foreign to our own. These bright-eyed woods 
 people were in the last analysis as inscrutable to us 
 as the squirrels. 
 
 We followed our swirling, airy guides down 
 through a trail to another clearing planted with po- 
 tatoes. On the further side of this they stopped, hand 
 in hand, at the woods' fringe, and awaited us in a 
 startlingly sudden repose. 
 
 " Via le gran'pere," said they in unison. 
 
 At the words a huge, gaunt man clad in shirt and 
 jeans arose and confronted us. Our first impression 
 was of a vast framework stiffened and shrunken into 
 the peculiar petrifaction of age ; our second of a Jove- 
 like wealth of iron-gray beard and hair ; our third of 
 eyes, wide, clear, and tired with looking out on a 
 century of the world's time. His movements, as he 
 laid one side his axe and passed a great gnarled hand 
 across his forehead, were angular and slow. We knew 
 instinctively the quality of his work — a deliberate 
 pause, a mighty blow, another pause, a painful re- 
 covery — labor compounded of infinite slow patience, 
 but wonderfully effective in the week's result. It 
 would go on without haste, without pause, inevit- 
 
 142 
 
He was a Patriarch " 
 
THE HABITANTS 
 
 able as the years slowly closing about the toiler. His 
 mental processes would be of the same fiber. The ap- 
 parent hesitation might seem to waste the precious 
 hours remaining, but in the end, when the engine 
 started, it would move surely and unswervingly along 
 the appointed grooves. In his wealth of hair; in his 
 wide eyes, like the mysterious blanks of a marble 
 statue ; in his huge frame, gnarled and wasted to the 
 strange, impressive, powerful age-quality of Phidias's 
 old men, he seemed to us to deserve a wreath and a 
 marble seat with strange inscriptions and the graceful 
 half-draperies of another time and a group of old 
 Greeks like himself with whom to exchange slow sen- 
 tences on the body politic. Indeed, the fact that his 
 seat was of fallen pine, and his draperies of butternut 
 brown, and his audience two half-breed children, an 
 artist, and a writer, and his body politic two hundred 
 acres in the wilderness, did not filch from him the im- 
 pressiveness of his estate. He was a Patriarch. It did 
 not need the park of birch-trees, the grass beneath 
 them sloping down to the water, the wooded knoll 
 fairly insisting on a spacious mansion, to substantiate 
 Dick's fancy that he had discovered an ancestor. 
 
 Neat piles of brush, equally neat piles of cord-wood, 
 knee-high stumps as cleanly cut as by a saw, attested 
 the old man's efficiency. We conversed. 
 
 Yes, said he, the soil was good. It is laborious to 
 clear away the forest. Still, one arrives. M'sieu has 
 but to look. In the memory of his oldest grandson, 
 
 143 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 even, all this was a forest. Le bon Dieu had blessed 
 him. His family was large. Yes, it was as M'sieu 
 said, eighty-seven — that is, counting himself The 
 soil was not wonderful. It is indeed a large family, 
 and much labor, but somehow there was always food 
 for all. For his part he had a great pity for those 
 whom God had not blessed. It must be very lone- 
 some without children. 
 
 We spared a private thought that this old man was 
 certainly in no danger of loneliness. 
 
 Yes, he went on, he was old — eighty-five. He 
 was not as quick as he used to be ; he left that for 
 the young ones. Still, he could do a day's work. He 
 was most proud to have made these gentlemen's ac- 
 quaintance. He wished us good-day. 
 
 We left him seated on the pine-log, his axe be- 
 tween his knees, his great gnarled brown hands hang- 
 ing idly. After a time we heard the whack of his 
 implement; then after another long time we heard it 
 whack again. We knew that those two blows had 
 gone straight and true and forceful to the mark. So 
 old a man had no energy to expend in the indirec- 
 tions of haste. 
 
 Our elfish guides led us back along the trail to 
 the farm-house. A girl of thirteen had just arrived 
 from school. In the summer the little ones divided 
 the educational advantages among themselves, turn 
 and turn about. 
 
 The newcomer had been out into the world and 
 144 
 
THE HABITANTS 
 
 was dressed accordingly. A neat dark-blue cloth 
 dress, plainly made, a dull red and blue checked 
 apron ; a broad round hat, shoes and stockings, all in 
 the best and quietest taste — marked contrast to the 
 usual garish Sunday-best of the Anglo-Saxon. She 
 herself exemplified the most striking type of beauty 
 to be found in the mixed bloods. Her hair was thick 
 and glossy and black in the mode that throws deep 
 purple shadows under the rolls and coils. Her face 
 was a regular oval, like the opening in a wishbone 
 Her skin was dark, but rich and dusky with life and 
 red blood that ebbed and flowed with her shyness. 
 Her lips were full, and of a dark cherry red. Her eyes 
 were deep, rather musing, and furnished with the most 
 gloriously tangling of eyelashes. Dick went into ec- 
 stasies, took several photographs which did not turn 
 out well, and made one sketch which did. Perpetu- 
 ally did he bewail the absence of oils. The type is 
 not uncommon, but its beauty rarely remains perfect 
 after the fifteenth year. 
 
 We made our ceremonious adieux to the Madame, 
 and started back to town under the guidance of one 
 of the boys, who promised us a short cut. 
 
 This youth proved to be filled with the old wan- 
 dering spirit that lures so many of his race into the 
 wilderness life. He confided to us as we walked that 
 he liked to tramp extended distances, and that the 
 days were really not made long enough for those who 
 had to return home at night. 
 
 MS 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 " I is been top of dose hills," he said. " Bime by I 
 mak' heem go to dose lak' beyon'. " 
 
 He told us that some day he hoped to go out with 
 the fur traders. In his vocabulary " I wish " occurred 
 with such wistful frequency that finally I inquired 
 curiously what use he would make of the Fairy Gift. 
 
 " If you could have just one wish come true, 
 Pierre," I asked, " what would you desire ? " 
 
 His answer came without a moment's hesitation. 
 
 " I is lak* be one giant," said he. 
 
 " Why ? " I demanded. 
 
 "So I can mak' heem de walk far," he replied, 
 simply. 
 
 I was tempted to point out to him the fact that 
 big men do not outlast the little men, and that vast 
 strength rarely endures, but then a better feeling per- 
 suaded me to leave him his illusions. The power, 
 even in fancy, of striding on seven-league boots across 
 the fascinations spread out below his kindling vision 
 from "dose hills" was too precious a possession 
 lightly to be taken away. 
 
 Strangely enough, though his woodcraft naturally 
 was not inconsiderable, it did not hold his paramount 
 interest. He knew something about animals and 
 their ways and their methods of capture, but the 
 chase did not appeal strongly to him, nor apparently 
 did he possess much skill along that line. He^ liked 
 the actual physical labor, the walking, the paddling, 
 the tump-line, the camp-making, the new country, 
 
 146 
 
THE HABITANTS 
 
 the companionship of the wild h*fe, the wilderness as 
 a whole rather than in any one of its single aspects 
 as Fish Pond, Game Preserve, Picture Gallery. In 
 this he showed the true spirit of the voyageur. I 
 should confidently look to meet him in another ten 
 years — if threats of railroads spare the Far North so 
 long — girdled with the red sash, shod in silent moc- 
 casins, bending beneath the portage load, trolling 
 Isabeau to the silent land somewhere under the 
 Arctic Circle. The French of the North have never 
 been great fighters nor great hunters, in the terms of 
 Anglo-Saxon frontiersmen, but they have laughed in 
 £irther places. 
 
 14; 
 
THE RIVER 
 
XII 
 THE RIVER 
 
 AT a certain spot on the North Shore — I am 
 not going to tell you where — you board one 
 of the two or three fishing-steamers that collect from 
 the different stations the big ice-boxes of Lake Supe- 
 rior whitefish. After a certain number of hours — I 
 am not going to tell you how many — your craft 
 will turn in toward a semicircle of bold, beautiful 
 hills, that seem at first to be many less miles distant 
 than the reality, and at the last to be many more 
 miles remote than is the fact. From the prow you 
 will make out first a uniform velvet green ; then the 
 differentiation of many shades ; then the dull neutrals 
 of rocks and crags ; finally the narrow white of a 
 pebble beach against which the waves utter continu- 
 ally a rattling undertone. The steamer pushes boldly 
 in. The cool green of the water underneath changes 
 to gray. Suddenly you make out the bottom, as 
 through a thick green glass, and the big suckers and 
 catfish idling over its riffled sands, inconceivably far 
 down through the unbelievably clear liquid. So ab- 
 sorbed are you in this marvelous clarity that a slight 
 
 IS I 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 grinding jar alone brings you to yourself. The 
 steamer's nose is actually touching the white strip of 
 pebbles ! 
 
 Now you can do one of a number of things. The 
 forest slants down to your feet in dwindling scrub, 
 which half conceals an abandoned log structure. 
 This latter is the old Hudson's Bay post. Behind it 
 is the Fur Trail, and the Fur Trail will take you 
 three miles to Burned Rock Pool, where are spring 
 water and mighty trout. But again, half a mile to 
 the left, is the mouth of the River. And the River 
 meanders charmingly through the woods of the flat 
 country over numberless riffles and rapids, beneath 
 various steep gravel banks, until it sweeps boldly 
 under the cliff of the first high hill. There a rugged 
 precipice rises sheer and jagged and damp-dark to 
 overhanging trees clinging to the shoulder of the 
 mountain. And precisely at that spot is a bend where 
 the water hits square, to divide right and left in 
 whiteness, to swirl into convolutions of foam, to lurk 
 darkly for a moment on the edge of tumult before 
 racing away. And there you can stand hip-deep, and 
 just reach the eddy foam with a cast tied craftily of 
 Royal Coachman, Parmachenee Belle, and Montreal. 
 
 From that point you are with the hills. They draw 
 back to leave wide forest, but always they return to 
 the River — as you would return season after season 
 were I to tell you how — throwing across your woods- 
 progress a sheer cliff forty or fifty feet high, shouldering 
 
 152 
 
THE RIVER 
 
 you incontinently into the necessity of fording to the 
 other side. More and more jealous they become as 
 you penetrate, until at the Big Falls they close in 
 entirely, warning you that here they take the wilder- 
 ness to themselves. At the Big Falls anglers make 
 their last camp. About the fire they may discuss idly 
 various academic questions — as to whether the great 
 inaccessible pool below the Falls really contains the 
 legendary Biggest Trout ; what direction the River 
 takes above ; whether it really becomes nothing but 
 a series of stagnant pools connected by sluggish water- 
 reaches ; whether there are any trout above the Falls ; 
 and so on. 
 
 These questions, as I have said, are merely aca- 
 demic. Your true angler is a philosopher. Enough 
 is to him worth fifteen courses, and if the finite mind 
 of man could imagine anything to be desired as an 
 addition to his present possessions on the River, he 
 at least knows nothing of it. Already he commands 
 ten miles of water — swift, clear water — running 
 over stone, through a freshet bed so many hundreds 
 of feet wide that he has forgotten what it means to 
 guard his back cast. It is to be waded in the riffles, so 
 that he can cross from one shore to the other as the 
 mood suits him. One bank is apt to be precipitous, the 
 other to stretch away in a mile or so of the coolest, 
 greenest, stillest primeval forest to be imagined. Thus 
 he can cut across the wide bends of the River, should 
 he so desire, and should haste be necessary to make 
 
 «53 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 camp before dark. And, last, but not least by any 
 manner of means, there are trout. 
 
 I mean real trout — big fellows, the kind the fish- 
 ers of little streams dream of but awake to call Mor- 
 pheus a liar, just as they are too polite to call you a 
 liar when you are so indiscreet as to tell them a few 
 plain facts. I have one solemnly attested and witnessed 
 record of twenty-nine inches, caught in running water. 
 I saw a friend land on one cast three whose aggre- 
 gate weight was four and one half pounds. I wit- 
 nessed, and partly shared, an exciting struggle in 
 which three fish on three rods were played in the same 
 pool at the same time. They weighed just fourteen 
 pounds. One pool, a backset, was known as the Idiot's 
 Delight, because any one could catch fish there. I have 
 lain on my stomach at the Burned Rock Pool and 
 seen the great fish lying so close together as nearly to 
 cover the bottom, rank after rank of them, and the 
 smallest not under a half pound. As to the largest — 
 well, every true fisherman knows him ! 
 
 So it came about for many years that the natural bar- 
 rier interposed by the Big Falls successfully turned the 
 idle tide of anglers' exploration. Beyond them lay an 
 unknown country, but you had to climb cruelly to 
 see it, and you could n't gain above what you already 
 had in any case. The nearest settlement was nearly 
 sixty miles away, so even added isolation had not its 
 usual quickening effect on camper's effort. The River 
 is visited by few, anyway. An occasional adventurous 
 
 »S4 
 
THE RIVER 
 
 steam yacht pauses at the mouth, fishes a few little 
 ones from the shallow pools there, or a few big ones 
 from the reefs, and pushes on. It never dreams of 
 sending an expedition to the interior. Our own peo- 
 ple, and two other parties, are all I know of who visit 
 the River regularly. Our camp-sites alone break the 
 forest ; our blazes alone continue the initial short cut 
 of the Fur Trail; our names alone distinguish the 
 various pools. We had always been satisfied to com- 
 promise with the frowning Hills. In return for the 
 delicious necks and points and forest areas through 
 which our clipped trails ran, we had tacitly respected 
 the mystery of the upper reaches. 
 
 This year, however, a number of unusual condi- 
 tions changed our spirit. I have perhaps neglected 
 to state that our trip up to now had been a rather 
 singularly damp one. Of the first fourteen days 
 twelve had been rainy. This was only a slightly ex- 
 aggerated sample for the rest of the time. As a con- 
 sequence we found the River filled even to the limit 
 of its freshet banks. The broad borders of stone 
 beach between the stream's edge and the bushes had 
 quite disappeared ; the riffles had become rapids, and 
 the rapids roaring torrents ; the bends boiled angrily 
 with a smashing eddy that sucked air into pirouetting 
 cavities inches in depth. Plainly, fly-fishing was out 
 of the question. No self-respecting trout would rise 
 to the surface of such a moil, or abandon for sylla- 
 bubs of tinsel the magnificent solidities of ground- 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 bait such a freshet would bring down from the hills. 
 Also the River was unfordablc. 
 
 We made camp at the mouth ani consulted to- 
 gether. Billy, the half-breed who had joined us for 
 the labor of a permanent camp, shook his head. 
 
 "I fink one week, ten day," he vouchsafed. 
 •' P'rhaps she go down den. We mus' wait." 
 
 We did not want to wait ; the idleness of a per- 
 manent camp is the most deadly in the world. 
 
 " Billy," said I, " have you ever been above the 
 Big Falls?" 
 
 The half-breed's eyes flashed. 
 
 " Non," he replied, simply. "Ba, I lak' mak' hecm 
 firs' rate." 
 
 " All right, Billy; we '11 do it." 
 
 The next day it rained, and the River went up two 
 inches. The morning following was fair enough, but 
 so cold you could see your breath. We began to 
 experiment. 
 
 Now, this expedition had become a fishing vaca- 
 tion, so we had all the comforts of home with us. 
 When said comforts of home were laden into the 
 canoe, there remained forward and aft just about one 
 square foot of space for Billy and me, and not over 
 two inches of freeboard for the River. We could 
 not stand up and pole ; tracking with a tow-line was 
 out of the question, because there existed no banks 
 on which to walk ; the current was too swift: for pad- 
 dling. So we knelt and poled. We knew it before, 
 
 156 
 
THE RIVER 
 
 but wc had to be convinced by trial that two inches 
 of freeboard will dip under the most gingerly effort. 
 It did so. We groaned, stepped out into ice-water 
 up to our waists, and so began the day's journey with 
 fleeting reference to Dante's nethermost hell. 
 
 Next the shore the water was most of the time a 
 little above our knees, but the swirl of a rushing cur- 
 rent brought an apron of foam to our hips. Billy took 
 the bow and pulled ; I took the stern and pushed. 
 In places our combined efforts could but just coun- 
 terbalance the strength of the current. Then Billy 
 had to hang on until I could get my shoulder against 
 the stern for a mighty heave, the few inches gain of 
 which he would guard as jealously as possible, until 
 I could get into position for another shove. At other 
 places we were in nearly to our armpits, but close 
 under the banks where we could help ourselves by 
 seizing bushes. 
 
 Sometimes I lost my footing entirely and trailed 
 out behind like a streamer ; sometimes Billy would 
 be swept away, the canoe's bow would swing down- 
 stream, and I would have to dig my heels and hang 
 on until he had floundered upright. Fortunately for 
 our provisions, this never happened to both at the 
 same time. The difflculties were still further com- 
 plicated by the fact that our feet speedily became so 
 numb from the cold that we could not feel the bot- 
 tom, and so were much inclined to aimless stum- 
 blings. By and by we got out and kicked trees to 
 
 157 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 start the circulation. In the mean time the sun had 
 retired behind thick leaden clouds. 
 
 At the First Bend we were forced to carry some 
 fifty feet. There the River rushed down in a smooth 
 apron straight against the cliff, where its force actually 
 raised the mass of water a good three feet higher than 
 the level of the surrounding pool. I tied on a bait- 
 hook, and two cartridges for sinkers, and in fifteen 
 minutes had caught three trout, one of which weighed 
 three pounds, and the others two pounds and a pound 
 and a half respectively. At this point Dick and Deuce, 
 who had been paralleling through the woods, joined 
 us. We broiled the trout, and boiled tea, and shivered 
 as near the fire as we could. That afternoon, by dint 
 of labor and labor, and yet more labor, we made 
 Burned Rock, and there we camped for the night, 
 utterly beaten out by about as hard a day's travel as 
 a man would want to undertake. 
 
 The following day was even worse, for as the nat- 
 ural bed of the River narrowed, we found less and 
 less footing and swifter and swifter water. The jour- 
 ney to Burned Rock had been a matter of dogged 
 hard work ; this was an affair of alertness, of taking 
 advantage of every little eddy, of breathless suspense 
 during long seconds while the question of supremacy 
 between our strength and the stream's was being de- 
 bated. And the thermometer must have registered 
 well towards freezing. Three times we were forced 
 to cross the River in order to get even precarious 
 
 158 
 
•f 
 
 a 
 I 
 
 M 
 « 
 
 I 
 
 CO 
 
THE RIVER 
 
 footing. Those were the really doubtful moments. 
 We had to get in carefully, to sit craftily, and to 
 paddle gingerly and firmly, without attempting to 
 counteract the downward sweep of the current. All 
 our energies and care were given to preventing those 
 miserable curling little waves from overtopping our 
 precious two inches, and that miserable little canoe 
 from departing even by a hair's breadth from the 
 exactly level keel. Where we were going did not 
 matter. After an interminable interval the tail of 
 our eyes would catch the sway of bushes near at 
 hand. 
 
 " Now," Billy would mutter abstractedly. 
 
 With one accord we would arise from six inches 
 of wet and step swiftly into the River. The lightened 
 canoe would strain back ; we would brace our legs. 
 The traverse was accomplished. 
 
 Being thus under the other bank, I would hold the 
 canoe while Billy, astraddle the other end for the pur- 
 pose of depressing the water to within reach of his 
 hand, would bail away the consequences of our cross- 
 ing. Then we would make up the quarter of a mile 
 we had lost. 
 
 We quit at the Organ Pool about three o'clock of 
 the afternoon. Not much was said that evening. 
 
 The day following we tied into it again. This time 
 we put Dick and Deuce on an old Indian trail that 
 promised a short cut, with instructions to wait at the 
 end of it. In the joyous anticipation of another wet 
 
 IS9 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 day we forgot they had never before followed an In- 
 dian trail. Let us now turn aside to the adventures 
 of Dick and Deuce. 
 
 Be it premised here that Dick is a regular Indian 
 of taciturnity when it becomes a question of his 
 own experience, so that for a long time we knew of 
 what follows but the single explanatory monosyl- 
 lable which you shall read in due time. But Dick has 
 a beloved uncle. In moments of expansion to this 
 relative after his return he held forth as to the hap- 
 penings of that morning. 
 
 Dick and the setter managed the Indian trail for 
 about twenty rods. They thought they managed it 
 for perhaps twice that distance. Then it became 
 borne in on them that the bushes bent back, the faint 
 knife-clippings, and the half weather-browned brush- 
 cuttings that alone constitute an Indian trail had taken 
 another direction, and that they had now their own 
 way to make through the forest. Dick knew the 
 direction well enough, so he broke ahead confidently. 
 After a half-hour's walk he crossed a tiny streamlet. 
 After another half-hour's walk he came to another. 
 It was flowing the wrong way. 
 
 Dick did not understand this. He had never known 
 of little streams flowing away from rivers and towards 
 eight-hundred-foot hills. This might be a loop, of 
 course. He resolved to follow it upstream far enough 
 to settle the point. The following brought him in 
 time to a soggy little thicket with three areas of moss- 
 
 x6o 
 
THE RIVER 
 
 covered mud and two round, pellucid pools of water 
 about a foot in diameter. As the little stream had 
 wound and twisted, Dick had by now lost entirely 
 his sense of direction. He fished out his compass and 
 set it on a rock. The River flows nearly northeast to 
 the Big Falls, and Dick knew himself to be some- 
 where east of the River. The compass appeared to 
 be wrong. Dick was a youth of sense, so he did not 
 quarrel with the compass ; he merely became doubt- 
 ful as to which was the north end of the needle — the 
 white or the black. After a few moments' puzzling 
 he was quite at sea, and could no more remember 
 how he had been taught as to this than you can clinch 
 the spelling of a doubtful word after you have tried 
 on paper a dozen variations. But being a youth of 
 sense, he did not desert the streamlet. 
 
 After a short hali^mile of stumbling the apparent 
 wrong direction in the brook's bed, he came to the 
 River. The River was also flowing the wrong way, 
 and uphill. Dick sat down and covered his eyes with 
 his hands, as I had told him to do in like instance, 
 and so managed to swing the country around where 
 it belonged. 
 
 Now here was the River — and Dick resolved to 
 desert it for no more short cuts — but where was the 
 canoe ? 
 
 This point remained unsettled in Dick's mind, or 
 rather it was alternately settled in two ways. Some- 
 times the boy concluded we must be still below him, 
 
 i6i 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 so he would sit on a rock to wait. Then, after a few 
 moments, inactivity would bring him panic. The 
 canoe must have passed this point long since, and 
 every second he wasted stupidly sitting on that stone 
 separated him farther from his friends and from food. 
 Then he would tear madly through the forest. Deuce 
 enjoyed this game, but Dick did not. 
 
 In time Dick found his further progress along the 
 banks cut off by a hill. The hill ended abruptly at 
 the water's edge in a sheer rock cliff thirty feet high. 
 This was in reality the end of the Indian trail short 
 cut — the point where Dick was to meet us — but he 
 did not know it. He happened for the moment to be 
 obsessed by one of his canoe-upstream panics, so he 
 turned inland to a spot where the hill appeared climb- 
 able, and started in to surmount the obstruction. 
 
 This was comparatively easy at first. Then the 
 shoulder of the cliff intervened. Dick mounted still a 
 little higher up the hill, then higher, then still higher. 
 Far down to his left, through the trees, broiled the 
 River. The slope of the hill to it had become steeper 
 than a roof, and at the edge of the eaves came a cliff 
 drop of thirty feet. Dick picked his way gingerly 
 over curving moss-beds, assisting his balance by a 
 number of little cedar-trees. Then something hap- 
 pened. 
 
 Dick says the side of the hill slid out from under 
 him. The fact of the matter is, probably, the skin- 
 moss over loose rounded stones gave way. Dick sat 
 
 162 
 
THE RIVER 
 
 down and began slowly to bump down the slant of 
 the roof. He never really lost his equilibrium, nor 
 until the last ten feet did he abandon the hope of 
 checking his descent. Sometimes he did actually suc- 
 ceed in stopping himself for a moment; but on his 
 attempting to follow up the advantage, the moss 
 always slipped or the sapling let go a tenuous hold 
 and he continued on down. At last the River flashed 
 out below him. He saw the sheer drop. He saw the 
 boiling eddies of the Halfway Pool, capable of suck- 
 ing down a saw-log. Then, with a final rush of loose 
 round stones, he shot the chutes feet first into space. 
 
 In the mean time Billy and I repeated our experi- 
 ence of the two previous days, with a few variations 
 caused by the necessity of passing two exceptionally 
 ugly rapids whose banks left little footing. We did 
 this precariously, with a rope. The cold water was 
 beginning to tell on our vitality, so that twice we 
 went ashore and made hot tea. Just below the Half- 
 way Pool we began to do a little figuring ahead, 
 which is a bad thing. The Halfway Pool meant 
 much inevitable labor, with its two swift rapids and 
 its swirling eddies, as sedulously to be avoided as 
 so many steel bear-traps. Then there were a dozen 
 others, and the three miles of rifl^es, and all the rest 
 of it. At our present rate it would take us a week to 
 make the Falls. 
 
 Below the Halfway Pool we looked for Dick. 
 He was not to be seen. This made us cross. At the 
 
 163 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 Halfway Pool we intended to unload for portage, 
 and also to ferry over Dick and the setter in the light- 
 ened canoe. The tardiness of Dick delayed the game. 
 
 However, we drew ashore to the little clearing of 
 the Halfway Camp, made the year before, and wearily 
 discharged our cargo. Suddenly, upstream, and ap- 
 parently up in the air, we heard distinctly the excited 
 yap of a dog. Billy and I looked at each other. Then 
 we looked upstream. 
 
 Close under the perpendicular wall of rock and 
 fifty feet from the end of it, waist deep in water that 
 swirled angrily about him, stood Dick. 
 
 I knew well enough what he was standing on — a 
 little ledge of shale not over five or six feet in length 
 and two feet wide — for in lower water I had often 
 from its advantage cast a fly down below the big 
 boulder. But I knew it to be surrounded by water 
 fifteen feet deep. It was impossible to wade to the 
 spot ; impossible to swim to it. And why in the name 
 of all the woods gods would a man want to wade or 
 swim to it if he could ? The affair, to our cold-be- 
 numbed intellects, was simply incomprehensible. 
 
 Billy and I spoke no word. We silently, perhaps 
 a little fearfully, launched the empty canoe. Then we 
 went into a space of water whose treading proved us 
 no angels. From the slack water under the cliff we 
 took another look. It was indeed Dick. He carried 
 a rod-case in one hand. His fish-creel lay against his 
 hip. His broad hat sat accurately level on his head. 
 
 164 
 
THE RIVER 
 
 His face was imperturbable. Above, Deuce agon- 
 ized, afraid to leap into the stream, but convinced that 
 his duty required him to do so. 
 
 We steadied the canoe while Dick climbed in. 
 You would have thought he was embarking at the 
 regularly appointed rendezvous. In silence we shot 
 the rapids, and collected Deuce from the end of the 
 trail, whither he followed us. In silence we worked 
 our way across to where our duffel lay scattered. In 
 silence we disembarked. 
 
 " In Heaven's name, Dick," I demanded at last, 
 " how did you get there ? " 
 
 " Fell," said he, succinctly. And that was all. 
 
 i«S 
 
THE HILLS 
 
XIII 
 THE HILLS 
 
 WE explained carefully to Dick that he had lit 
 on the only spot in the Halfway Pool where 
 the water was at once deep enough to break his fall 
 and not too deep to stand in. We also pointed out 
 that he had escaped being telescoped or drowned by 
 the merest hair's breadth. From this we drew moral 
 conclusions. It did us good, but undoubtedly Dick 
 knew it already. 
 
 Now we gave our attention to the wetness of gar- 
 ments, for we were chilled blue. A big fire and a 
 clothes-rack of forked sticks and a sapling, an open- 
 air change, a lunch of hot tea and trout and cold 
 galette and beans, a pipe — and then the inevitable 
 summing up. 
 
 We had in two and a half days made the easier 
 half of the distance to the Falls. At this rate we would 
 consume a week or more in reaching the starting- 
 point of our explorations. It was a question whether 
 we could stand a week of ice-water and the heavy 
 labor combined. Ordinarily we might be able to 
 abandon the canoe and push on afoot, as we were 
 
 169 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 accustomed to do when trout-fishing, but that in- 
 volved fording the river three times — a feat mani- 
 festly impossible in present freshet conditions. 
 
 " I t'ink we quit heem," said Billy. 
 
 But then I was seized with an inspiration. Judg- 
 ing by the configuration of the hills, the River bent 
 sharply above the Falls. Why would it hot be pos- 
 sible to cut loose entirely at this point, to strike across 
 through the forest, and so to come out on the upper 
 reaches ? Remained only the probability of our be- 
 ing able, encumbered by a pack, to scale the moun- 
 tains. 
 
 " Billy," said I, " have you ever been over in those 
 hills ^» 
 
 " No," said he. 
 
 " Do you know anything about the country ? Are 
 there any trails ? " 
 
 " Dat countree is belong Tawabinisay. He know 
 heem. I don' know heem. I t'ink he is have many 
 hills, some lak'." 
 
 "Do you think we can climb those hills with 
 packs?" 
 
 Billy cast a doubtful glance on Dick. Then his 
 eye lit up. 
 
 " Tawabinisay is tell me 'bout dat Lak' Kawagama. 
 P'rhaps we fine heem." 
 
 In so saying Billy decided the attempt. What 
 angler on the River has not discussed — again idly, 
 again academically — that mysterious Lake alive with 
 
 170 
 
THE HILLS 
 
 the burnished copper trout — lying hidden and won- 
 derful in the high hills, clear as crystal, bottomed with 
 gravel like a fountain, shaped like a great crescent 
 whose curves were haunted of forest trees grim and 
 awesome with the solemnity of the primeval ? That 
 its exact location was known to Tawabinisay alone, 
 that the trail to it was purposely blinded and mud- 
 dled with the crossing of many little ponds, that the 
 route was laborious — all those things, along with the 
 minor details so dear to winter fire-chats, were mat- 
 ters of notoriety. Probably more expeditions to Ka- 
 wagama have been planned — in February — than 
 would fill a volume with an account of anticipated 
 adventures. Only, none of them ever came off. We 
 were accustomed to gaze at the forbidden cliff ram- 
 parts of the hills, to think of the Idiot's Delight, and 
 the Halfway Pool, and the Organ Pool, and the 
 Burned Rock Pool, and the Rolling Stone Pool, and 
 all the rest of them even up to the Big Falls — and 
 so we would quietly allow our February plannings to 
 lapse. One man Tawabinisay had honored. But this 
 man, named Clement, a banker from Peoria, had 
 proved unworthy. Tawabinisay told how he caught 
 trout, many, many trout, and piled them on the 
 shores of Kawagama to defile the air. Subsequently 
 this same " sportsman " buried another big catch on 
 the beach of Superior. These and other exploits 
 finally earned him his exclusion from the delectable 
 land. I give his name because I have personally 
 
 171 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 talked with his guides, and heard their circumstantial 
 accounts of his performances. Unless three or four 
 woodsmen are fearful liars, I do Mr. Clement no in- 
 justice. Since then Tawabinisay had hidden himself 
 behind his impenetrable grin. 
 
 So you can easily see that the discovery of Ka- 
 wagama would be a feat worthy even high hills. 
 
 That afternoon we rested and made our cache, A 
 cache in the forest country is simply a heavily con- 
 structed rustic platform on which provisions and 
 clothing are laid and wrapped completely about in 
 sheets of canoe bark tied firmly with strips of cedar 
 bark, or withes made from a bush whose appearance 
 I know well, but whose name I cannot say. In this 
 receptacle we left all our canned goods, our extra 
 clothing, and our Dutch oven. We retained for trans- 
 portation some pork, flour, rice, baking-powder, oat- 
 meal, sugar, and tea; cooking-utensils, blankets, the 
 tent, fishing-tackle, and the little pistol. As we were 
 about to go into the high country where presumably 
 both game and fish might lack, we were forced to 
 take a full supply for four — counting Deuce as one 
 — to last ten days. The packs counted up about one 
 hundred and fifteen pounds of grub, twenty pounds 
 of blankets, ten of tent, say eight or ten of hardware 
 including the axe, about twenty of duffel. This was 
 further increased by the idiosyncrasy of Billy. He, like 
 most woodsmen, was wed Jed to a single utterly foolish 
 article of personal belonging, which he worshiped as 
 
 172 
 
THE HILLS 
 
 a fetish, and without which he was unhappy. In his 
 case it was a huge winter overcoat that must have 
 weighed fifteen pounds. The total amounted to about 
 one hundred and ninety pounds. We gave Dick 
 twenty, I took seventy-six, and Billy shouldered the 
 rest. 
 
 The carrying we did with the universal tump-line. 
 This is usually described as a strap passed about a 
 pack and across the forehead of the bearer. The de- 
 scription is incorrect. It passes across the top of the 
 head. The weight should rest on the small of the 
 back just above the hips, not on the broad of the back 
 as most beginners place it. Then the chin should be 
 dropped, the body slanted sharply forward — and you 
 may be able to stagger forty rods at your first at- 
 tempt. 
 
 Use soon accustoms you to carrying, however. 
 The first time I ever did any packing I had a hard 
 time stumbling a few hundred feet over a hill port- 
 age with just fifty pounds on my back. By the end 
 of that same trip I could carry a hundred pounds and 
 a lot of miscellaneous traps, like canoe-poles and 
 guns, without serious inconvenience and over a long 
 portage. This quickly gained power comes partly 
 from a strengthening of the muscles of the neck, but 
 more from a mastery of balance. A pack can twist 
 you as suddenly and expertly on your back as the 
 best of wrestlers. It has a head lock on you, and you 
 have to go or break your neck. After a time you 
 
 173 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 adjust your movements, just as after a time you can 
 travel on snow-shoes through heavy down timber 
 without taking conscious thought as to the placing 
 of your feet. 
 
 But at first packing is as near infernal punishment 
 as merely mundane conditions can compass. Sixteen 
 brand-new muscles ache, at first dully, then sharply, 
 then intolerably, until it seems you cannot bear it 
 another second. You are unable to keep your feet. 
 A stagger means an effort at recovery, and an effort 
 at recovery means that you trip when you place your 
 feet, and that means, if you are lucky enough not to 
 be thrown, an extra tweak for every one of the six- 
 teen new muscles. At first you rest every time you 
 feel tired. Then you begin to feel very tired every 
 fifty feet. Then you have to do the best you can, 
 and prove the pluck that is in you. 
 
 Mr. Tom Friant, an old woodsman of wide ex- 
 perience, has often told me with relish of his first try 
 at carrying. He had about sixty pounds, and his 
 companion double that amount. Mr. Friant stood 
 it a few centuries and then sat down. He could n't 
 have moved another step if a gun had been at his 
 ear. 
 
 " What 's the matter *? " asked his companion. 
 
 "Del," said Friant, "I'm all in. I can't navigate. 
 Here 's where I quit." 
 
 " Can't you carry her any farther ? " 
 
 " Not an inch." 
 
 174 
 
THE HILLS 
 
 " Well, pile her on. I '11 carry her for you." 
 
 Friant looked at him a moment in silent amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that you are going to carry 
 your pack and mine too ? " 
 
 " That 's what I mean to say. I '11 do it if I have 
 to." 
 
 Friant drew a long breath. 
 
 " Well," said he at last, " if a little sawed-ofF cuss 
 like you can wiggle under a hundred and eighty, I 
 guess I can make it under sixty." 
 
 " That 's right," said Del, imperturbably. " If you 
 think you can^you can'"' 
 
 " And I did," ends Friant with a chuckle. 
 
 Therein lies the whole secret. The work is irk- 
 some, sometimes even painful, but if you think you 
 can do it, you can, for though great is the protest of 
 the human frame against what it considers abuse, 
 greater is the power of a man's grit. 
 
 We carried the canoe above the larger eddies, where 
 we embarked ourselves and our packs for traverse, 
 leaving Deuce under strict command to await a sec- 
 ond trip. Deuce disregarded the strict command. 
 From disobedience came great peril, for when he at- 
 tempted to swim across after us he was carried down- 
 stream, involved in a whirlpool, sucked under, and 
 nearly drowned. We could do nothing but watch. 
 When finally the River spewed out a frightened and 
 bedraggled dog, we drew a breath of very genuine 
 
 175 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 relief, for Deuce was dear to us through much asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 The canoe we turned bottom up and left in the 
 bushes, and so we set off through the forest. 
 
 At the end of fifteen minutes we began to mount 
 a gentle ascent. The gentle ascent speedily became 
 a sharp slope, the sharp slope an abrupt hill, and the 
 latter finally an almost sheer face of rock and thin 
 soil. We laid hold doggedly of little cedars ; we dug 
 our fingers into little crevices, and felt for the same 
 with our toes ; we perspired in streams and breathed 
 in gasps ; we held the strained muscles of our necks 
 rigid, for the twisting of a pack meant here a danger- 
 ous fall; we flattened ourselves against the face of 
 the mountain with always the heavy, ceaseless pull of 
 the tump-line attempting to tear us backward from 
 our holds. And so at last, when the muscles of our 
 thighs refused to strengthen our legs for the ascent 
 of another foot, we would turn our backs to the slant 
 and sink gratefully into the only real luxury in the 
 world. 
 
 For be it known that real luxury cannot be bought; 
 it must be worked for. I refer to luxury as the exqui^ 
 site savor of a pleasant sensation. The keenest sense- 
 impressions are undoubtedly those of contrast. In 
 looking back over a variety of experience, I have no 
 hesitation at all in selecting as the moment in which 
 I have experienced the liveliest physical pleasure one 
 hot afternoon in July. The thermometer might have 
 
 176 
 
THE HILLS 
 
 stood anywhere. We would have placed childlike 
 trust in any of its statements, even three figures great. 
 Our way had led through unbroken forest oppressed 
 by low brush and an underfooting of brakes. There 
 had been hills. Our clothes were wringing wet, to 
 the last stitch ; even the leather of the tump-line was 
 saturated. The hot air we gulped down did not seem 
 to satisfy our craving for oxygen any more than 
 lukewarm water ever seems to cut a real thirst. The 
 woods were literally like an oven in their hot dryness. 
 Finally we skirted a little hill, and at the base of that 
 hill a great tree had fallen, and through the aperture 
 thus made in the forest a tiny current of cool air 
 flowed like a stream. It was not a great current, nor 
 a wide ; if we moved three feet in any direction, we 
 were out of it. But we sat us down directly across 
 its flow. And never have dinners or wines or men or 
 women, or talks of books or scenery or adventure or 
 sport, or the softest, daintiest refinements of man's in- 
 vention given me the half of luxury I drank in from 
 that little breeze. So the commonest things — a dash 
 of cool water on the wrists, a gulp of hot tea, a warm 
 dry blanket, a whifF of tobacco, a ray of sunshine — 
 are more really the luxuries than all the comforts and 
 sybaritisms we buy. Undoubtedly the latter would 
 also rise to the higher category if we were to work 
 for their essence instead of merely signing club checks 
 or paying party calls for them. 
 
 Which means that when we three would rest our 
 177 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 packs against the side of that hill, and drop our head- 
 straps below our chins, we were not at all to be pitied, 
 even though the forest growth denied us the encour- 
 agement of knowing how much farther we had to go. 
 
 Before us the trees dropped away rapidly, so that 
 twenty feet out in a straight line we were looking 
 directly into their tops. There, quite on an equality 
 with their own airy estate, we could watch the fly- 
 catchers and warblers conducting their small affairs of 
 the chase. It lent us the illusion of imponderability ; 
 we felt that we too might be able to rest securely on 
 graceful gossamer twigs. And sometimes, through a 
 chance opening, we could see down over billows of 
 waving leaves to a single little spot of blue, like a 
 turquoise sunk in folds of green velvet, which meant 
 that the River was dropping below us. This, in the 
 mercy of the Red Gods, was meant as encouragement. 
 
 The time came, however, when the ramparts we 
 scaled rose sheer and bare in impregnability. Nothing 
 could be done on the straight line, so we turned sharp 
 to the north. The way was difficult, for it lay over 
 great fragments of rock stricken from the cliff by 
 winter, and further rendered treacherous by the moss 
 and wet by a thousand trickles of water. At the end 
 of one hour we found what might be called a ravine 
 if you happened not to be particular, or a steep cleft 
 in the precipice if you were. Here we deserted the 
 open air for piled-up brushy tangles, many sharp-cor- 
 nered rock fragments, and a choked streamlet. Finally 
 
 178 
 
THE HILLS 
 
 the whole outfit abruptly ceased. We climbed ten 
 feet of crevices and stood on the ridge. 
 
 The forest trees shut us in our own little area, so 
 that we were for the moment unable to look abroad 
 over the country. 
 
 The descent, abrupt where we had mounted, 
 stretched away gently toward the north and west. 
 And on that slope, protected as it was from the se- 
 verer storms that sweep up the open valleys in winter, 
 stood the most magnificent primeval forest it has ever 
 been my fortune to behold. The huge maple, beech, 
 and birch trees lifted column-like straight up to a 
 lucent green canopy, always twinkling and shifting in 
 the wind and the sunlight. Below grew a thin screen 
 of underbrush, through which we had no difficulty at 
 all in pushing, but which threw about us face-high a 
 tender green partition. The eflfect was that of a pew 
 in an old-fashioned church, so that, though we shared 
 the upper stillnesses, a certain delightful privacy of 
 our own seemed assured us. This privacy we knew 
 to be assured also to many creatures besides ourselves. 
 On the other side of the screen of broad leaves we 
 sensed the presence of life. It did not intrude on us, 
 nor were we permitted to intrude on it. But it was 
 there. We heard it rustling, pattering, scrambling, 
 whispering, scurrying with a rush of wings. More 
 subtly we felt it, as one knows of a presence in a dark- 
 ened room. By the exercise of imagination and ex- 
 perience we identified it in its manifestations — the 
 
 179 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 squirrel, the partridge, the weasel, the spruce hens, 
 once or twice the deer. We knew it saw us perfectly, 
 although we could not see it, and that gave us an im- 
 pression of companionship, so the forest was not lonely. 
 
 Next to this double sense of isolation and company 
 was the feeling of transparent shadow. The forest was 
 thick and cool. Only rarely did the sun find an ori- 
 fice in the roof through which to pour a splash of 
 liquid gold. All the rest was in shadow. But the 
 shadow was that of the bottom of the sea — cool, 
 green, and above all transparent. We saw into the 
 depth of it, but dimly, as we would see into the green 
 recesses of a tropic ocean. It possessed the same li- 
 quid quality. Finally the illusion overcame us com- 
 pletely. We bathed in the shadows as though they 
 were palpable, and from that came great refreshment. 
 
 Under foot the soil was springy with the mold of 
 numberless autumns. The axe had never hurried slow 
 old servant decay. Once in a while we came across a 
 prostrate trunk lying in the trough of destruction its 
 fall had occasioned. But the rest of the time we trod 
 a carpet to the making of which centuries of dead 
 forest warriors had wrapped themselves in mold and 
 soft moss and gentle dissolution. Sometimes a faint 
 rounded shell of former fair proportion swelled above 
 the level, to crumble to punkwood at the lightest 
 touch of our feet. Or, again, the simulacrum of a tree- 
 trunk would bravely oppose our path, only to melt 
 away into nothing, like the opposing phantoms of 
 
 i8o 
 
THE HILLS 
 
 JEneas, when we placed a knee against it for the sur- 
 mounting. 
 
 If the pine woods be characterized by cathedral 
 solemnity, and the cedars and tamaracks by certain 
 horrifical gloom, and the popples by a silvery sun- 
 shine, and the berry-clearings by grateful heat and 
 the homely manner of familiar birds, then the great 
 hardwood must be known as the dwelling-place of 
 transparent shadows, of cool green lucence, and the 
 repository of immemorial cheerful forest tradition 
 which the traveler can hear of, but which he is never 
 permitted actually to know. 
 
 In this lovable mystery we journeyed all the rest 
 of that morning. The packs were heavy with the first 
 day's weight, and we were tired from our climb ; but 
 the deep physical joy of going on and ever on into 
 unknown valleys, down a long, gentle slope that must 
 lead somewhere, through things animate and things 
 of an almost animate life, opening silently before us 
 to give us passage, and closing as silently behind us 
 after we had passed — these made us forget our aches 
 and fatigues for the moment. 
 
 At noon we boiled tea near a little spring of clear, 
 cold water. As yet we had no opportunity of seeing 
 farther than the closing in of many trees. We were, 
 as far as external appearances went, no more advanced 
 than our first resting-place after surmounting the ridge. 
 This effect is constant in the great forests. You are 
 in a treadmill — though a pleasant one withal. Your 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 camp of to-day differs only in non-essentials from that 
 of yesterday, and your camp of to-morrow will prob- 
 ably be almost exactly like to-day's. Only when you 
 reach your objective point do you come to a full 
 realization that you have not been the Sisyphus of 
 the Red Gods. 
 
 Deuce returning from exploration brought indubi- 
 table evidence of porcupines. We picked the barbed 
 little weapons from his face and nose and tongue with 
 much difficulty for ourselves and much pain for Deuce. 
 We offered consolation by voicing for his dumbness 
 his undoubted intention to avoid all future porcu- 
 pines. Then we took up the afternoon tramp. 
 
 Now at last through the trees appeared the gleam 
 of water. Tawabinisay had said that Kawagama was 
 the only lake in its district. We therefore became 
 quite excited at this sapphire promise. Our packs 
 were thrown aside, and like school-boys we raced 
 down the declivity to the shore. 
 
 l82 
 
ON WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS 
 
XIV 
 ON WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS 
 
 WE found ourselves peering through the thicket 
 at a little reed and grass-grown body of water 
 a few acres in extent. A short detour to the right 
 led us to an outlet — a brook of a width and dash 
 that convinced us the little pond was only a stopping- 
 place in the stream, and not a head water as we had 
 at first imagined. Then a nearer approach led us past 
 pointed tree -stumps exquisitely chiseled with the 
 marks of teeth, so we knew we looked, not on a nat- 
 ural pond, but on the work of beavers. 
 
 I examined the dam more closely. It was a mar- 
 vel of engineering skill in the accuracy with which the 
 big trees had been felled exactly along the most ef- 
 fective lines, the efficiency of the filling in, and the 
 just estimate of the waste water to be allowed. We 
 named the place obviously Beaver Pond, resumed 
 our packs, and pushed on. 
 
 Now I must be permitted to celebrate by a little 
 the pluck of Dick. He was quite unused to the tump- 
 line ; comparatively inexperienced in woods-walking; 
 and weighed but one hundred and thirty-five pounds. 
 
 185 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 Yet not once in the course of that trip did he bewail 
 his fate. Towards the close of this first afternoon I 
 dropped behind to see how he was making it. The 
 boy had his head down, his Hps shut tight together, 
 his legs well straddled apart. As I watched he stum- 
 bled badly over the merest twig. 
 
 " Dick," said I, " are you tired ? " 
 
 " Yes," he confessed, frankly. 
 
 " Can you make it another half hour ? " 
 
 " I guess so ; 1 11 try." 
 
 At the end of the half hour we dropped our packs. 
 Dick had manifested no impatience — not once had 
 he even asked how nearly time was up — but now 
 he breathed a deep sigh of relief 
 
 " I thought you were never going to stop," said he, 
 simply. 
 
 From Dick those words meant a great deal. For 
 woods-walking differs as widely from ordinary walk- 
 ing as trap-shooting from field-shooting. A good pe- 
 destrian may tire very quickly in the forest. No two 
 successive steps are of the same length ; no two succes- 
 sive steps fall on the same quality of footing; no two 
 successive steps are on the same level. Those three are 
 the major elements of fatigue. Add further the facts 
 that your way is continually obstructed both by real 
 difficulties — such as trees, trunks, and rocks — and 
 lesser annoyances, such as branches, bushes, and even 
 spider-webs. These things all combine against endur- 
 ance. The inexperienced does not know how to meet 
 
 1 86 
 
ON WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS 
 
 them with a minimum of effort. The tenderfoot is 
 in a constant state of muscular and mental rigidity 
 against a fall or a stumble or a cut across the face from 
 some one of the infinitely numerous woods scourges. 
 This rigidity speedily exhausts the vital force. 
 
 So much for the philosophy of it. Its practical side 
 might be infinitely extended. Woodsmen are tough 
 and enduring and in good condition ; but no more so 
 than the average college athlete. Time and again I 
 have seen men of the latter class walked to a stand- 
 still. I mean exactly that. They knew and were justly 
 proud of their physical condition, and they hated to 
 acknowledge, even to themselves, that the rest of us 
 were more enduring. As a consequence, they played 
 on their nerve, beyond their physical powers. When 
 the collapse came, it was complete. I remember very 
 well a crew of men turning out from a lumber-camp 
 on the Sturgeon River to bring in on a litter a young 
 fellow who had given out while attempting to follow 
 Bethel Bristol through a hard day. Bristol said he 
 dropped finally as though he had been struck on the 
 head. The woodsman had thereupon built him a lit- 
 tle fire, made him as comfortable as possible with 
 both coats, and hiked for assistance. I once went 
 into the woods with a prominent college athlete. We 
 walked rather hard over a rough country until noon. 
 Then, the athlete lay on his back for the rest of 
 the day, while I finished alone the business we had 
 come on. 
 
 187 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 Now, these instances do not imply that Bristol, and 
 certainly not myself, were any stronger physically, or 
 possessed more nervous force, than the men we had 
 tired out. Either of them on a road could have trailed 
 us, step for step, and as long as we pleased. But we 
 knew the game. 
 
 It comes at the last to be entirely a matter of ex- 
 perience. Any man can walk in the woods all day at 
 some gait. But his speed will depend on his skill. It 
 is exactly like making your way through heavy, dry 
 sand. As long as you restrain yourself to a certain 
 leisurely plodding, you get along without extraordi- 
 nary effort, while even a slight increase of speed drags 
 fiercely at your feet. So it is with the woods. As 
 long as you walk slowly enough so that you can pick 
 your footing, and lift aside easily the branches that 
 menace your face, you will expend little nervous 
 energy. But the slightest pressing, the slightest incli- 
 nation to go beyond what may be called your physi- 
 cal foresight, lands you immediately in difficulties. 
 You stumble, you break through the brush, you shut 
 your eyes to avoid sharp switchings. The reservoir 
 of your energy is open full cock. In about an hour 
 you feel very, very tired. 
 
 This principle holds rigidly true of every one, from 
 the softest tenderfoot to the expertest forest-runner. 
 For each there exists a normal rate of travel, beyond 
 which are penalties. Only, the forest-runner, by long 
 use, has raised the exponent of his powers. Perhaps 
 
 i88 
 
ON WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS 
 
 as a working hypothesis the following might be 
 recommended : One good step is worth six stumbling 
 steps ; go only fast enough to assure that good one. 
 
 You will learn besides a number of things practi- 
 cally which memory cannot summon to order for 
 instance here. "Brush slanted across your path is 
 easier lifted over your head and dropped behind you 
 than pushed aside," will do as an example. 
 
 A good woods-walker progresses without apparent 
 hurry. I have followed the disappearing back of 
 Tawabinisay when, as my companion elegantly ex- 
 pressed it, " if you stopped to spit you got lost." 
 Tawabinisay wandered through the forest, his hands 
 in his pockets, humming a little Indian hymn. And 
 we were breaking madly along behind him with the 
 crashing of many timbers. 
 
 Of your discoveries probably one of the most im- 
 pressive will be that in the bright lexicon of woods- 
 craft the word " mile " has been entirely left out. To 
 count by miles is a useless and ornamental elegance 
 of civilization. Some of us once worked hard all one 
 day only to camp three miles downstream from our 
 resting-place of the night before. And the following 
 day we ran nearly sixty with the current. The 
 space of measured country known as a mile may 
 hold you five minutes or five hours from your des- 
 tination. The Indian counts by time ; and after a 
 little you will follow his example. "Four miles to 
 Kettle Portage " means nothing. " Two hours to 
 
 189 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 Kettle Portage" does. Only, when an Indian tells 
 you two hours you would do well to count it as 
 four. 
 
 Well, our trip practically amounted to seven days 
 to nowhere; or perhaps seven days to everywhere 
 would be more accurate. It was all in the high hills 
 until the last day and a half, and generally in the 
 hardwood forests. Twice we intersected and followed 
 for short distances Indian trails, neither of which ap- 
 parently had been traveled since the original party 
 that had made them. They led across country for 
 greater or lesser distances in the direction we wished 
 to travel, and then turned aside. Three times we 
 blundered on little meadows of moose-grass. Invari- 
 ably these were tramped muddy like a cattle- yard, 
 where the great animals had stood as lately as the 
 night before. Caribou were not uncommon. There 
 were a few deer, but not many, for the most of the 
 deer country lies to the south of this our district. 
 Partridges, as we had anticipated, lacked in such high 
 country. 
 
 In the course of the five days and a half we were 
 in the hills we discovered six lakes of various sizes. 
 The smallest was a mere pond. The largest would 
 measure some three or four miles in diameter. We 
 came upon that very late one afternoon. A brook of 
 some size crossed our way, so, as was our habit, we 
 promptly turned upstream to discover its source. 
 In the high country the head waters are never more 
 
 190 
 
ON WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS 
 
 than a few miles distant ; and at the same time the 
 magnitude of this indicated a lake rather than a spring 
 as the supply. The lake might be Kawagama. 
 
 Our packs had grown to be very heavy, for they 
 had already the weight of nine hours piled on top. 
 And the stream was exceedingly difficult to follow. 
 It flowed in one of those aggravating little ravines 
 whose banks are too high and steep and uneven for 
 good footing, and whose beds are choked with a too 
 abundant growth. In addition, there had fallen many 
 trees over which one had to climb. We kept at it for 
 perhaps an hour. The brook continued of the same 
 size, and the country of the same character. Dick for 
 the first time suggested that it might be well to camp. 
 
 " We 've got good water here," he argued, quite 
 justly, " and we can push on to-morrow just as well as 
 to-night." 
 
 We balanced our packs against a prostrate tree- 
 trunk. Billy contributed his indirect share to the 
 argument. 
 
 " I lak' to have the job mak' heem this countree all 
 over," he sighed. " I mak' heem more level." 
 
 "All right," I agreed ; " you fellows sit here and rest 
 a minute, and I '11 take a whirl a little ways ahead." 
 
 I slipped my tump-line, and started on light. After 
 carrying a heavy pack so long, I seemed to tread on 
 air. The thicket, before so formidable, amounted to 
 nothing at all. Perhaps the consciousness that the 
 day's work was in reality over lent a little factitious 
 
 191 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 energy to my tired legs. At any rate, the projected 
 two hundred feet of my investigations stretched to a 
 good quarter-mile. At the end of that space I de- 
 bouched on a widening of the ravine. The hardwood 
 ran off into cedars. I pushed through the stiff rods 
 and yielding fans of the latter, and all at once found 
 myself leaning out over the waters of the lake. 
 
 It was almost an exact oval, and lay in a cup of 
 hills. Three wooded islands, swimming like ducks in 
 the placid evening waters, added a touch of diversity. 
 A huge white rock balanced the composition to the 
 left, and a single white sea-gull, like a snowflake 
 against pines, brooded on its top. 
 
 I looked abroad to where the perfect reflection of 
 the hills confused the shore line. I looked down 
 through five feet of crystal water to where pebbles 
 shimmered in refraction. I noted the low rocks jut- 
 ting from the wood's shelter whereon one might stand 
 to cast a fly. Then I turned and yelled and yelled 
 and yelled again at the forest. 
 
 Billy came through the brush, crashing in his 
 haste. He looked long and comprehendingly. With- 
 out further speech, we turned back to where Dick 
 was guarding the packs. 
 
 That youth we found profoundly indifferent. 
 
 " Kawagama," we cried, "a quarter-mile ahead." 
 
 He turned on us a lackluster eye. 
 
 " You going to camp here ^ " he inquired, dully. 
 
 " Course not ! We '11 go on and camp at the lake." 
 192 
 
** In this lovable mystery we journeyed all tlic irsi ul liiai iju-iiung 
 
ON WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS 
 
 "All right," he replied. 
 
 We resumed our packs, a little stiffly and reluc- 
 tantly, for we had tasted of woods-travel without 
 them. At the lake we rested. 
 
 "Going to camp here^ " inquired Dick. 
 
 We looked about, but noted that the ground under 
 the cedars was hummocky, and that the hardwood 
 grew on a slope. Besides, we wanted to camp as near 
 the shore as possible. Probably a trifle farther along 
 there would be a point of high land and delightful 
 little paper-birches. 
 
 " No," we answered, cheerfully, " this is n*t much 
 good. Suppose we push along a ways and find some- 
 thing better." 
 
 " All right," Dick replied. 
 
 We walked perhaps a half-mile more to the west- 
 ward before we discovered what we wanted, stopping 
 from time to time to discuss the merits of this or that 
 place. Billy and I were feeling pretty good. After 
 such a week, Kawagama was a tonic. Finally we 
 agreed. 
 
 " This 11 do," said we. 
 
 "Thank God!" said Dick, unexpectedly; and 
 dropped his pack to the ground with a thud, and sat 
 on it. 
 
 I looked at him closely. Then I undid my own 
 pack. 
 
 " Billy," said I, " start in on grub. Never mind the 
 tent just now." 
 
 193 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 " A' right," grinned Billy. He had been making 
 his own observations. 
 
 " Dick," said I, " let 's go down and sit on the rock 
 over the water. We might fish a little." 
 
 " All right," Dick replied. 
 
 He stumbled dully after me to the shore. 
 
 " Dick," I continued, " you 're a kid, and you have 
 high principles, and your mother would n't like it, 
 but I 'm going to prescribe for you, and I 'm going 
 to insist on your following the prescription. This 
 flask does not contain fly-dope ; that 's in the other 
 flask. It contains whiskey. I have had it in my pack 
 since we started, and it has not been opened. I don't 
 believe in whiskey in the woods ; not because I am 
 temperance, but because a man can't travel on it. 
 But here is where you break your heaven-born prin- 
 ciples. Drink." 
 
 Dick hesitated, then he drank. By the time grub 
 was ready his vitality had come to normal, and so 
 he was able to digest his food and get some good out 
 of it. Otherwise he could not have done so. Thus 
 he furnished an admirable example of the only real 
 use for whiskey in woods-travel. Also it was the 
 nearest Dick ever came to being completely played 
 out. 
 
 That evening was delightful. We sat on the rock 
 and watched the long North Country twilight steal up 
 like a gray cloud from the east. Two loons called to 
 each other, now in the shrill maniac laughter, now 
 
 194 
 
ON WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS 
 
 mth the long, mournful cry. It needed just that one 
 touch to finish the picture. We were looking, had 
 we but known it, on a lake no white man had ever 
 visited before. Clement alone had seen Kawagama, 
 so in our ignorance we attained much the same men- 
 tal attitude. For I may as well let you into the secret ; 
 this was not the fabled lake after all. We found that 
 out later from Tawabinisay. But it was beautiful 
 enough, and wild enough, and strange enough in its 
 splendid wilderness isolation to fill the heart of the 
 explorer with a great content. 
 
 Having thus, as we thought, attained the primary 
 object of our explorations, we determined on trying 
 now for the second — that is, the investigation of 
 the upper reaches of the River. Trout we had not 
 accomplished at this lake, but the existence offish of 
 some sort was attested by the presence of the two 
 loons and the gull, so we laid our nan-success to fish- 
 erman's luck. After two false starts we managed to 
 strike into a good country near enough our direction. 
 The travel was much the same as before. The second 
 day, however, we came to a surveyor's base-line cut 
 through the woods. Then we followed that as a mat- 
 ter of convenience. The base-line, cut the fall before, 
 was the only evidence of man we sav/ in the high 
 country. It meant nothing in itself, but was intended 
 as a starting-point for the township surveys, when- 
 ever the country should become civilized enough to 
 warrant them. That condition of affairs might not 
 
 195 - 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 occur for years to come. Therefore the line was cut 
 out clear for a width of twenty feet. 
 
 We continued along it as along a trail until we dis- 
 covered our last lake — a body of water possessing 
 many radiating arms. This was the nearest we came 
 to the real Kawagama. If we had skirted the lake, 
 mounted the ridge, followed a creek-bed, mounted 
 another ridge, and descended a slope, we should have 
 made our discovery. Later we did just that, under 
 the guidance of Tawabinisay himself Floating in 
 the birch canoe we carried with us we looked back 
 at the very spot on which we stood this morning. 
 
 But we turned sharp to the left, and so missed our 
 chance. However, we were in a happy frame of 
 mind, for we imagined we had really made the de- 
 sired discovery. 
 
 Nothing of moment happened until we reached 
 the valley of the River. Then we found we were 
 treed. We had been traveling all the time among hills 
 and valleys, to be sure, but on a high elevation. Even 
 the bottom-lands, in which lay the lakes, were several 
 hundred feet above Superior. Now we emerged from 
 the forest to find ourselves on bold mountains at least 
 seven or eight hundred feet above the main valley. 
 And in the main valley we could make out the 
 River. 
 
 It was rather dizzy work. Three or four times we 
 ventured over the rounded crest of the hill, only to 
 return after forty or fifty feet because the slope had 
 
 196 
 
ON WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS 
 
 become too abrupt. This grew to be monotonous 
 and aggravating. It looked as though we might have 
 to parallel the River's course, like scouts watching an 
 army, on the top of the hill. Finally a little ravine 
 gave us hope. We scrambled down it ; ended in a 
 very steep slant, and finished at a sheer tangle of 
 cedar-roots. The latter we attempted. Billy went on 
 ahead. I let the packs down to him by means of a 
 tump-line. He balanced them on roots until I had 
 climbed below him. And so on. It was exactly like 
 letting a bucket down a well. If one of the packs 
 had slipped off the cedar-roots, it would have dropped 
 like a plummet to the valley, and landed on Heaven 
 knows what. The same might be said of ourselves. 
 We did this because we were angry all through. 
 
 Then we came to the end of the cedar-roots. 
 Right and left offered nothing ; below was a sheer, 
 bare drop. Absolutely nothing remained but to climb 
 back, heavy packs and all, to the top of the mountain. 
 False hopes had wasted a good half day and innu- 
 merable foot-pounds. Billy and I saw red. We 
 bowed our heads and snaked those packs to the top 
 of the mountain at a gait that ordinarily would have 
 tired us out in fifty feet. Dick did not attempt to 
 keep up. When we reached the top we sat down 
 to wait for him. After a while he appeared, climb- 
 ing leisurely. He gazed on us from behind the mask 
 of his Indian imperturbability. Then he grinned. 
 That did us good, for we all three laughed aloud, 
 
 197 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 and buckled down to business in a better frame of 
 mind. 
 
 That day we discovered a most beautiful waterfall 
 A stream about twenty feet in width, and with a good 
 volume of water, dropped some three hundred feet or 
 more into the River. It was across the valley from 
 us, so we had a good view of its beauties. Our esti- 
 mates of its height were carefully made on the basis 
 of some standing pine that grew near its foot. 
 
 And then we entered a steep little ravine, and de- 
 scended it with misgivings to a canon, and walked 
 easily down the canon to a slope that took us by 
 barely sensible gradations to a wooded plain. At six 
 o'clock we stood on the banks of the River, and the 
 hills were behind us. 
 
 Of our downstream travel there is little really to be 
 said. We established a number of facts — that the 
 River dashes most scenically from rapid to rapid, so 
 that the stagnant pool theory is henceforth untenable ; 
 that the hills get higher and wilder the farther you 
 penetrate to the interior, and their cliffs and rock- 
 precipices bolder and more naked ; that there are trout 
 in the upper reaches, but not so large as in the lower 
 pools; and, above all, that travel is not a joy forever. 
 
 For we could not ford the River above the Falls — 
 it is too deep and swift. As a consequence, we had 
 often to climb, often to break through the narrowest 
 thicket strips, and once to feel our way cautiously 
 along a sunken ledge under a sheer rock cliff. That 
 
 19S 
 
ON WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS 
 
 was Billy's idea. We came to the sheer rock cliff after 
 a pretty hard scramble, and we were most loth to do 
 the necessary climbing. Billy suggested that we might 
 be able to wade. As the pool below the cliff was black 
 water and of indeterminate depth, we scouted the idea. 
 Billy, however, poked around with a stick, and, as I 
 have said, discovered a little ledge about a foot and 
 a half wide and about two feet and a half below the 
 surface. This was spectacular, but we did it A slip 
 meant a swim and the loss of the pack. We did not 
 happen to slip. Shortly after we came to the Big Falls, 
 and so after further painful experiment descended 
 joyfully into known country. 
 
 The freshet had gone down, the weather had 
 warmed, the sun shone, we caught trout for lunch 
 below the Big Falls ; everything was lovely. By three 
 o'clock, after thrice wading the stream, we regained 
 our canoe — now at least forty feet from the water. 
 We paddled across. Deuce followed easily, where a 
 week before he had been sucked down and nearly 
 drowned. We opened the cache and changed our 
 very travel-stained garments. We cooked ourselves 
 a luxurious meal. We built a friendship-fire. And at 
 last we stretched our tired bodies full length on bal- 
 sam a foot thick, and gazed drowsily at the canvas- 
 blurred moon before sinking to a dreamless sleep. 
 
 199 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 ■^ 
 
XV 
 ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 FAR in the North dwell a people practically un- 
 known to any but the fur-trader and the explorer. 
 Our information as to Mokis, Sioux, Cheyennes, Nez 
 Perces, and indirectly many others, through the pages 
 of Cooper, Parkman, and allied writers, is varied 
 enough, so that our ideas of Indians are pretty well 
 established. If we are romantic, we hark back to 
 the past and invent fairy-tales with ourselves anent 
 the Noble Red Man who has Passed Away. If we 
 are severely practical, we take notice of filth, vice, 
 plug-hats, tin cans, and laziness. In fact we might 
 divide all Indian concepts into two classes, follow- 
 ing these mental and imaginative bents. Then we 
 should have quite simply and satisfactorily the Cooper 
 Indian and the Comic Paper Indian. It must be 
 confessed that the latter is often approximated by 
 reality — and everybody knows it. That the former 
 is by no means a myth — at least in many qualities 
 — the average reader might be pardoned for doubt- 
 ing. 
 
 Some time ago I desired to increase my knowledge 
 203 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 of the Woods Indians by whatever others had ao 
 complished. Accordingly I wrote to the Ethnolo- 
 gical Department at Washington asking what had 
 been done in regard tc the Ojibways and Wood 
 Crees north of Lake Superior. The answer was 
 " nothing." 
 
 And " nothing " is more nearly a comprehensive 
 answer than at first you might believe. Visitors at 
 Mackinac, Traverse, Sault Ste. Marie, and other north- 
 ern resorts are besought at certain times of the year 
 by silent calico-dressed squaws to purchase basket 
 and bark work. If the tourist happens to follow 
 these women for more wholesale examination of their 
 wares, he will be led to a double-ended Mackinaw- 
 built sailing-craft with red-dyed sails, half-pulled out 
 on the beach. In the stern sit two or three bucks 
 wearing shirts, jean trousers, and broad black hats. 
 Some of the oldest men may sport a patched pair of 
 moccasins or so, but most are conventional enough 
 in clumsy shoes. After a longer or shorter stay they 
 hoist their red sails and drift away toward some mys- 
 terious destination on the north shore. If the buyer 
 is curious enough and persistent enough, he may 
 elicit the fact that they are Ojibways. 
 
 Now if this same tourist happens to possess a 
 mildly venturesome disposition, a sailing-craft, and a 
 chart of the region, he will sooner or later blunder 
 across the dwelling-place of his silent vendors. At 
 the foot of some rarely frequented bay he will come 
 
 204 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 on a diminutive village of small whitewashed log 
 houses. It will differ from other villages in that the 
 houses are arranged with no reference whatever to 
 one another, but in the haphazard fashion of an en- 
 campment. Its inhabitants are his summer friends. 
 If he is of an insinuating address, he may get a 
 glimpse of their daily life. Then he will go away 
 firmly convinced that he knows quite a lot about 
 the North Woods Indian. 
 
 And so he does. But this North Woods Indian is 
 the Reservation Indian. And in the North a Reserva- 
 tion Indian is as different from a Woods Indian as 
 a negro is from a Chinese. 
 
 Suppose on the other hand your tourist is unfor- 
 tunate enough to get left at some North Woods 
 railway station where he has descended from the 
 transcontinental to stretch his legs, and suppose him 
 to have happened on a fur-town like Missinaibie at 
 the precise time when the trappers are in from the 
 wilds. Near the borders of the village he will come 
 upon a little encampment of conical tepees. At his 
 approach the women and children will disappear into 
 inner darkness. A dozen wolf-like dogs will rush out 
 barking. Grave-faced men will respond silently to 
 his salutation. 
 
 These men, he will be interested to observe, wear 
 still the deer or moose skin moccasin — the lightest 
 and easiest footgear for the woods ; bind their long 
 hair with a narrow fillet, and their waists with a red 
 
 205 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 or striped worsted sash ; keep warm under the 
 blanket thickness of a Hudson Bay capote ; and deck 
 their clothes with a variety of barbaric ornament. 
 He will see about camp weapons whose acquaintance 
 he has made only in museums, peltries of whose 
 identification he is by no means sure, and as matters 
 of daily use — snow-shoes, bark canoes, bows and ar- 
 rows — what to him have been articles of ornament 
 or curiosity. To-morrow these people will be gone 
 for another year, carrying with them the results of 
 the week's barter. Neither he nor his kind will see 
 them again, unless they too journey far into the 
 Silent Places. But he has caught a glimpse of the 
 stolid mask of the Woods Indian, concerning whom 
 officially " nothing " is known. 
 
 In many respects the Woods Indian is the legiti- 
 mate descendant of the Cooper Indian. His life is 
 led entirely in the forests ; his subsistence is assured 
 by hunting, fishing, and trapping; his dwelling is 
 the wigwam, and his habitation the wide reaches of 
 the wilderness lying between Lake Superior and the 
 Hudson Bay ; his relation to humanity confined to 
 intercourse with his own people and acquaintance 
 with the men who barter for his peltries. So his de- 
 pendence is not on the world the white man has 
 brought, but on himself and his natural environ- 
 ment. Civilization has merely ornamented his an- 
 cient manner. It has given him the convenience of 
 cloth, of firearms, of steel traps, of iron kettles, of 
 
 206 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 matches ; it has accustomed him to the luxuries of 
 white sugar, — though he had always his own maple 
 product, — tea, flour, and white man's tobacco. That 
 is about all. He knows nothing of whiskey. The 
 towns are never visited by him, and the Hudson's 
 Bay Company will sell him no liquor. His concern 
 with you is not great, for he has little to gain from 
 you. 
 
 This people, then, depending on natural resources 
 for subsistence, has retained to a great extent the 
 qualities of the early aborigines. 
 
 To begin with, it is distinctly nomadic. The great 
 rolls of birch bark to cover the pointed tepees are 
 easily transported in the bottoms of canoes, and the 
 poles are quickly cut and put in place. As a con- 
 sequence the Ojibway family is always on the move. 
 It searches out new trapping-grounds, new fisheries, 
 it pays visits, it seems even to enjoy travel for the 
 sake of exploration. In winter a tepee of double 
 wall is built, whose hollow is stuffed with moss to 
 keep out the cold; but even that approximation of 
 permanence cannot stand against the slightest con- 
 venience. When an Indian kills, often he does not 
 transport his game to camp, but moves his camp to 
 the vicinity of the carcass. There are of these woods 
 dwellers no villages, no permanent clearings. The 
 vicinity of a Hudson's Bay post is sometimes occu- 
 pied for a month or so during the summer, but that 
 is all 
 
 ao7 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 An obvious corollary of this is that tribal life does 
 not consistently obtain. Throughout the summer 
 months when game and fur are at their poorest the 
 bands assemble, probably at the times of barter with 
 the traders. Then for the short period of the idling 
 season they drift together up and down the North 
 Country streams, or camp for big powwows and con- 
 juring near some pleasant conflux of rivers. But 
 when the first frosts nip the leaves, the families sepa- 
 rate to their allotted trapping-districts, there to spend 
 the winter in pursuit of the real business of life. 
 
 The tribe is thus split into many groups, ranging 
 in numbers from the solitary trapper, eager to win 
 enough fur to buy him a wife, to a compact little 
 group of three or four families closely related in blood. 
 The most striking consequence is that, unlike other 
 Indian bodies politic, there are no regularly consti- 
 tuted and acknowledged chiefs. Certain individuals 
 gain a remarkable reputation and an equally remark- 
 able respect for wisdom, or hunting skill, or power 
 of woodcraft, or travel. These men are the so-called 
 " old-men " often mentioned in Indian manifestoes, 
 though age has nothing to do with the deference ac- 
 corded them. Tawabinisay is not more than thirty- 
 five years old; Peter, our Hudson Bay Indian, is 
 hardly more than a boy. Yet both are obeyed im- 
 plicitly by whomever they happen to be with ; both 
 lead the way by river or trail ; and both, where ques- 
 tion arises, are sought in advice by men old enough 
 
 208 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 to be their fathers. Perhaps this is as good a demo- 
 cracy as another. 
 
 The life so briefly hinted at in the foregoing lines, 
 inevitably develops and fosters an expertness of wood- 
 craft almost beyond belief The Ojibway knows his 
 environment. The forest is to him so familiar in 
 each and every one of its numerous and subtle as- 
 pects that the slightest departure from the normal 
 strikes his attention at once. A patch of brown 
 shadow where green shadow should fall, a shimmer- 
 ing of leaves where should be merely a gentle wav- 
 ing, a cross-light where the usual forest growth should 
 adumbrate, a flash of wings at a time of day when 
 feathered creatures ordinarily rest quiet, — these, and 
 hundreds of others which you and I should never 
 even guess at, force themselves as glaringly on an In- 
 dian's notice as a brass band in a city street. A white 
 man looks for game; an Indian sees it because it 
 differs from the forest. 
 
 That is, of course, a matter of long experience 
 and lifetime habit. Were it a question merely of 
 this, the white man might also in time attain the same 
 skill. But the Indian is a better animal. His senses 
 are appreciably sharper than our own. 
 
 In journeying down the Kapuskasing River, our 
 Indians — who had come from the woods to guide us 
 — always saw game long before we did. They would 
 never point it out to us. The bow of the canoe 
 would swing silently in its direction, there to rest 
 
 209 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 motionless until we indicated we had seen some- 
 thing. 
 
 " Where is it, Peter ? " I would whisper. 
 
 But Peter always remained contemptuously si- 
 lent. 
 
 One evening we paddled directly into the eye of 
 the setting sun across a shallow little lake filled with 
 hardly sunken boulders. There was no current, and 
 no breath of wind to stir the water into betraying 
 riffles. But invariably those Indians twisted the canoe 
 into a new course ten feet before we reached one of 
 the obstructions, whose existence our dazzled vision 
 could not attest until they were actually below us. 
 They saw those rocks, through the shimmer of the 
 surface glare. 
 
 Another time I discovered a small black animal 
 lying flat on a point of shale. Its head was concealed 
 behind a boulder, and it was so far away that I was 
 inclined to congratulate myself on having differen- 
 tiated it from the shadow. 
 
 " What is it, Peter ^ " I asked. 
 
 Peter hardly glanced at it. 
 
 " Ninny-moosh " (dog), he replied. 
 
 Now we were a hundred miles south of the Hud- 
 son's Bay post and two weeks north of any other 
 settlement. Saving a horse, a dog would be about the 
 last thing to occur to one in guessing at the identity 
 of any strange animal. This looked like a little 
 black blotch, without form. Yet Peter knew it. It 
 
 2ZO 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 was a dog, lost from some Indian hunting-party, and 
 mightily glad to see us. 
 
 The sense of smell too is developed to an extent 
 positively uncanny to us who have needed it so little. 
 Your Woods Indian is always sniffing, always test- 
 ing the impressions of other senses by his olfactories. 
 Instances numerous and varied might be cited, but 
 probably one will do as well as a dozen. It once 
 became desirable to kill a caribou in country where 
 the animals are not at all abundant. Tawabinisay 
 volunteered to take Jim within shot of one. Jim 
 describes their hunt as the most wonderful bit of 
 stalking he had ever seen. The Indian followed the 
 animaPs tracks as easily as you or I could have fol- 
 lowed them over snow. He did this rapidly and 
 certainly. Every once in a while he would get down 
 on all fours to sniff inquiringly at the crushed herb- 
 age. Always on rising to his feet he would give the 
 result of his investigations. 
 
 "Ah-teek (caribou) one hour." 
 
 And later, " Ah-teck half hour." 
 
 Or again, " Ah-teek quarter hour." 
 
 And finally, "Ah-teek over nex' hill." 
 
 And it was so. 
 
 In like manner, but most remarkable to us be- 
 cause the test of direct comparison with our own 
 sense was permitted us, was their acuteness of hear- 
 ing. Often while "jumping" a roaring rapids in 
 two canoes, my companion and I have heard our 
 
 211 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 men talking to each other in quite an ordinary tone 
 of voice. That is to say, I could hear my Indian, 
 and Jim could hear his ; but personally we were forced 
 to shout loudly to carry across the noise of the 
 stream. The distant approach of animals they an- 
 nounce accurately. 
 
 " Wawashkeshi (deer)," says Peter. 
 
 And sure enough, after an interval, we too could 
 distinguish the footfalls on the dry leaves. 
 
 As both cause and consequence of these physical 
 endowments — which place them nearly on a parity 
 with the game itself — they are most expert hunters. 
 Every sportsman knows the importance — and also 
 the difficulty — of discovering game before it dis- 
 covers him. The Indian has here an immense ad- 
 vantage. And after game is discovered, he is further- 
 more most expert in approaching it with all the 
 refined art of the still hunter. 
 
 Mr. Caspar Whitney describes in exasperation his 
 experience with the Indians of the Far Northwest. 
 He complains that when they blunder on game, they 
 drop everything and enter into almost hopeless chase, 
 two legs against four. Occasionally the quarry be- 
 comes enough bewildered so that the wild shooting 
 will bring it down. He quite justly argues that the 
 merest pretense at caution in approach would result 
 in much greater success. 
 
 The Woods Indian is no such fool. He is a 
 mighty poor shot — and he knows it. Personally I 
 
 212 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 believe he shuts both eyes before pulHng trigger. He 
 is armed with a long flint or percussion lock musket, 
 whose gas-pipe barrel is bound to the wood that 
 runs its entire length by means of brass bands, and 
 whose effective range must be about ten yards. This 
 archaic implement is known as a '' trade gun," and 
 has the single merit of never getting out of order. 
 Furthermore ammunition is precious. In conse- 
 quence the wilderness hunter is not going to be merely 
 pretty sure ; he intends to be absolutely certain. If 
 he cannot approach near enough to blow a hole in 
 his prey, he does not fire. 
 
 I have seen Peter drop into marsh-grass so thin that 
 apparently we could discern the surface of the ground 
 through it, and disappear so completely that our most 
 earnest attention could not distinguish even a rustling 
 of the herbage. After an interval his gun would go 
 off from some distant point, exactly where some ducks 
 had been feeding serenely oblivious to fate. Neither 
 of us white men would have considered for a moment 
 the possibility of getting any of them. Once I felt 
 rather proud of myself for killing six ruffed grouse 
 out of some trees with the pistol, until Peter drifted 
 in carrying three he had bagged with a stick. 
 
 Another interesting phase of this almost perfect 
 correspondence to environment is the readiness with 
 which an Indian will meet an emergency. We are 
 accustomed to rely first of all on the skilled labor of 
 some one we can hire ; second, if we undertake the 
 
 213 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 job ourselves, on the tools made for us by skilled 
 labor ; and third, on the shops to supply us with the 
 materials we may need. Not once in a lifetime are 
 we thrown entirely on our own resources. Then we 
 improvise bunglingly a makeshift. 
 
 The Woods Indian possesses his knife and his 
 light axe. Nails, planes, glue, chisels, vises, cord, 
 rope, and all the rest of it he has to do without. But 
 he never improvises makeshifts. No matter what 
 the exigency or how complicated the demand, his 
 experience answers with accuracy. Utensils and 
 tools he knows exactly where to find. His job is 
 neat and workmanlike, whether it is a bark receptacle, 
 — water-tight or not, — a pair of snow-shoes, the re- 
 pairing of a badly smashed canoe, the construction 
 of a shelter, or the fashioning of a paddle. About 
 noon one day Tawabinisay broke his axe-helve square 
 off. This to us would have been a serious affair. 
 Probably we should, left to ourselves, have stuck in 
 some sort of a rough straight sapling handle which 
 would have answered well enough until we could 
 have bought another. By the time we had cooked 
 dinner that Indian had fashioned another helve. We 
 compared it with the store article. It was as well 
 shaped, as smooth, as nicely balanced. In fact as we 
 laid the new and the old side by side, we could not 
 have selected, from any evidence of the workmanship, 
 which had been made by machine and which by 
 hand. Tawabinisay then burned out the wood from 
 
 214 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 the axe, rctempered the steel, set the new helve, and 
 wedged it neatly with ironwood wedges. The whole 
 affair, including the cutting of the timber, consumed 
 perhaps half an hour. 
 
 To travel with a Woods Indian is a constant source 
 of delight on this account. So many little things 
 that the white man does without because he will not 
 bother with their transportation, the Indian makes 
 for himself And so quickly and easily I I have seen 
 a thoroughly waterproof, commodious, and comfort- 
 able bark shelter made in about the time it would 
 take one to pitch a tent. I have seen a raft built of 
 cedar logs and cedar-bark ropes in an hour. I have 
 seen a badly stove canoe made as good as new in 
 fifteen minutes. The Indian rarely needs to hunt for 
 the materials he requires. He knows exactly where 
 they grow, and he turns as directly to them as a clerk 
 would turn to his shelves. No problem of the living 
 of physical life is too obscure to have escaped his 
 varied experience. You may travel with Indians for 
 years, and learn something new and delightful as to 
 how to take care of yourself every summer. 
 
 The qualities I have mentioned come primarily 
 from the fact that the Woods Indian is a hunter. I 
 have now to instance two whose development can be 
 traced to the other fact, — that he is a nomad. I refer 
 to his skill with the bark canoe and his ability to 
 carry. 
 
 I was once introduced to a man at a little way 
 
 215 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 station of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the follow- 
 ing words : — 
 
 " Shake hands with Munson ; he 's as good a canoe- 
 man as an Indian." 
 
 A little later one of the bystanders remarked to 
 me: — 
 
 " That fellow you was just talking with is as good 
 a canoeman as an Injin." 
 
 Still later, at an entirely different place, a mem- 
 ber of the bar informed me, in the course of discus- 
 sion : — • 
 
 "The only man I know of who can do it is 
 named Munson. He is as good a canoeman as an 
 Indian." 
 
 At the time this unanimity of praise puzzled me 
 a little. I thought I had seen some pretty good canoe 
 work, and even cherished a mild conceit that oc- 
 casionally I could keep right side up myself I knew 
 Munson to be a great woods-traveler, with many 
 striking qualities, and why this of canoemanship 
 should be so insistently chosen above the others was 
 beyond my comprehension. Subsequently a com- 
 panion and I journeyed to Hudson Bay with two 
 birch canoes and two Indians. Since that trip I have 
 had a vast respect for Munson. 
 
 Undoubtedly among the half-breed and white 
 guides of lower Canada, Maine, and the Adiron- 
 dacks are many skillful men. But they know their 
 waters; they follow a beaten track. The Woods 
 
 216 
 
" The Indians would rise to their feet for a single moment" 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 Indian — well, let me tell you something of what he 
 does. 
 
 We went down the Kapuskasing River to the 
 Mattagami, and then down that to the Moose. 
 These rivers are at first but a hundred feet or so 
 wide, but rapidly swell with the influx of number- 
 less smaller streams. Two days' journey brings you 
 to a watercourse nearly half a mile in breadth ; two 
 weeks finds you on a surface approximately a mile 
 and a half across. All this water descends from the 
 Height of Land to the sea level. It does so through 
 a rock country. The result is a series of roaring, 
 dashing boulder rapids and waterfalls that would 
 make your hair stand on end merely to contemplate 
 from the banks. 
 
 The regular route to Moose Factory is by the 
 Missinaibie. Our way was new and strange. No 
 trails ; no knowledge of the country. When we 
 came to a stretch of white water, the Indians would 
 rise to their feet for a single instant's searching ex- 
 amination of the stretch of tumbled water before 
 them. In that moment they picked the passage 
 they were to follow as well as a white man could 
 have done so in half an hour's study. Then with- 
 out hesitation they shot their little craft at the green 
 water. 
 
 From that time we merely tried to sit still, each 
 in his canoe. Each Indian did it all with his sin- 
 gle paddle. He seemed to possess absolute control 
 
 217 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 over his craft. Even in the rush of water which 
 seemed to hurry us on at almost railroad speed, he 
 could stop for an instant, work directly sideways, 
 shoot forward at a slant, swing either his bow or his 
 stern. An error in judgment or in the instantaneous 
 acting upon it meant a hit ; and a hit in these savage 
 North Country rivers meant destruction. How my 
 man kept in his mind the passage he had planned 
 during his momentary inspection was always to me 
 a miracle. How he got so unruly a beast as the 
 birch canoe to follow it in that tearing volume of 
 water was always another. Big boulders he dodged, 
 eddies he took advantage of, slants of current he 
 utilized. A fractional second of hesitation could not 
 be permitted him. But always the clutching of 
 white hands from tae rip at the eddy finally con- 
 veyed to my spray-drenched faculties that the rapid 
 was safely astern. And this, mind you, in strange 
 waters. 
 
 Occasionally we would carry our outfit through 
 the woods, while the Indians would shoot some 
 especially bad water in the light canoe. As a spec- 
 tacle nothing could be finer. The flash of the yel- 
 low bark, the movement of the broken waters, the 
 gleam of the paddle, the tense alertness of the men's 
 figures, their carven, passive faces, with the contrast 
 of the flashing eyes and the distended nostrils, then 
 the leap into space over some half-cataract, the smash 
 of spray, the exultant yells of the canoemen ! For 
 
 218 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 your Indian enjoys the game thoroughly. And it 
 requires very bad water indeed to make him take to 
 the brush. 
 
 This is of course the spectacular. But also in the 
 ordinary gray business of canoe travel the Woods 
 Indian shows his superiority. He is tireless, and 
 composed as to wrist and shoulder of a number of 
 whalebone springs. From early dawn to dewy eve, 
 and then a few gratuitous hours into the night, he 
 will dig energetic holes in the water with his long 
 narrow blade. And every stroke counts. The water 
 boils out in a splotch of white air-bubbles, the little 
 suction holes pirouette like dancing girls, the fabric 
 of the craft itself trembles under the power of the 
 stroke. Jim and I used, in the lake stretches, to 
 amuse ourselves — and probably the Indians — by 
 paddling in furious rivalry one against the other. 
 Then Peter would make up his mind he would like 
 to speak to Jacob. His canoe would shoot up along- 
 side as though the Old Man of the Lake had laid 
 his hand across its stern. Would I could catch that 
 trick of easy, tireless speed. I know it lies some- 
 what in keeping both elbows always straight and 
 stiff, in a lurch forward of the shoulders at the end 
 of the stroke. But that, and more ! Perhaps one 
 needs a copper skin and beady black eyes with sur- 
 fece lights. 
 
 Nor need you hope to pole a canoe upstream as 
 do these people. Tawabinisay uses two short poles, 
 
 319 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 one in either hand, kneels amidships, and snakes 
 that Httle old canoe of his upstream so fast that you 
 would swear the rapids an easy matter — until you 
 tried them yourself We were once trailed up a 
 river by an old Woods Indian and his interesting 
 family. The outfit consisted of canoe Number One 
 — item, one old Injin, one boy of eight years, one 
 dog; canoe Number Two — item, one old Injin 
 squaw, one girl of eighteen or twenty, one dog; 
 canoe Number Three — item, two little girls of ten 
 and twelve, one dog. We tried desperately for 
 three days to get away from this party. It did not 
 seem to work hard at all. We did. Even the two 
 little girls appeared to dip the contemplative paddle 
 from time to time. Water boiled back of our own 
 blades. We started early and quit late, and about 
 as we congratulated ourselves over our evening fire 
 that we had distanced our followers at last, those 
 three canoes would steal silently and calmly about 
 the lower bend to draw ashore below us. In ten 
 minutes the old Indian was delivering an oration to 
 us, squatted in resignation. 
 
 The Red Gods alone know what he talked about. 
 He had no English, and our Ojibway was of the 
 strictly utilitarian. But for an hour he would hold 
 forth. We called him Talk-in-the-Face, the Great 
 Indian Chief Then he would drop a mild hint for 
 saymon, which means tobacco, and depart. By ten 
 o'clock the next morning he and his people would 
 
 220 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 overtake us in spite of our earlier start. Usually we 
 were in the act of dragging our canoe through an 
 especially vicious rapid by means of a tow-line. Their 
 three canoes, even to the children's, would ascend 
 easily by means of poles. Tow-lines appeared to be 
 unsportsmanlike — like angle-worms. Then the en- 
 tire nine — including the dogs — would roost on 
 rocks and watch critically our methods. 
 
 The incident had one value, however ; it showed 
 us just why these people possess the marvelous canoe 
 skill I have attempted to sketch. The little boy in 
 the leading canoe was not over eight or nine years 
 of age, but he had his little paddle and his little canoe- 
 pole, and what is more, he already used them intel- 
 ligently and well. As for the little girls, — well, they 
 did easily feats I never hope to emulate, and that 
 without removing the cowl-like coverings from their 
 heads and shoulders. 
 
 The same early habitude probably accounts for 
 their ability to carry weights long distances. The 
 Woods Indian is not a mighty man physically. 
 Most of them are straight and well built, but of 
 only medium height, and not wonderfully muscled. 
 Peter was most beautiful, but in the fashion of the 
 flying Mercury, with long smooth panther muscles. 
 He looked like Uncas, especially when his keen 
 hawk-face was fixed in distant attention. But I think 
 I could have wrestled Peter down. Yet time and 
 again I have seen that Indian carry two hundred 
 
 221 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 pounds for some miles through a rough country 
 absolutely without trails. And once I was witness 
 of a feat of Tawabinisay when that wily savage por- 
 taged a pack of fifty pounds and a two-man canoe 
 through a hill country for four hours and ten minutes 
 without a rest. Tawabinisay is even smaller than 
 Peter. 
 
 So much for the qualities developed by the woods- 
 life. Let us now examine what may be described as 
 the inherent characteristics of the people. 
 
 MS 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 iCOliTlHJJBJ}\ 
 
 1' ^' 
 
XVI 
 ON WOODS INDIANS (continued) 
 
 IT must be understood, of course, that I offer you 
 only the best of my subject. A people counts 
 for what it does well. Also I instance men of stand- 
 ing in the loose Indian body politic. A traveler can 
 easily discover the reverse of the medal. These have 
 their shirks, their do-nothings, their men of small ac- 
 count, just as do other races. I have no thought of 
 glorifying the noble red man, nor of claiming for him 
 a freedom from human imperfection — even where his 
 natural quality and training count the most — greater 
 than enlightenment has been able to reach. 
 
 In my experience the honesty of the Woods In- 
 dian is of a very high order. The sense of mine and 
 thine is strongly forced by the exigencies of the North 
 Woods life. A man is always on the move, he is al- 
 ways exploring the unknown countries. Manifestly 
 it is impossible for him to transport the entire sum 
 of his worldly effects. The implements of winter are 
 a burden in summer. Also the return journey from 
 distant shores must be provided for by food-stations, 
 to be relied on. The solution of these needs is the 
 cache. 
 
 885 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 And the cache is not a literal term at all. It con- 
 ceals nothing. Rather does it hold aloft in long-legged 
 prominence, for the inspection of all who pass, what 
 the owner has seen fit to leave behind. A heavy- 
 platform high enough from the ground to frustrate 
 the investigations of animals is all that is required. 
 Visual concealment is unnecessary because in the 
 North Country a cache is sacred. On it may depend 
 the life of a man. He who leaves provisions must 
 find them on his return, for he may reach them starv- 
 ing, and the length of his out-journey may depend on 
 his certainty of relief at this point on his in-journey. 
 So men passing touch not his hoard, for some day 
 they may be in the same fix, and a precedent is a 
 bad thing. 
 
 Thus in parts of the wildest countries of northern 
 Canada I have unexpectedly come upon a birch canoe 
 in capsized suspension between two trees ; or a whole 
 bunch of snow-shoes depending fruit-like beneath 
 the fans of a spruce ; or a tangle of steel traps thrust 
 into the crevice of a tree-root ; or a supply of pork 
 and flour, swathed like an Egyptian mummy, occu- 
 pying stately a high bier. These things we have 
 passed by reverently, as symbols of a people's trust 
 in its kind. 
 
 The same sort of honesty holds in regard to smaller 
 things. I have never hesitated to leave in my camp 
 firearms, fishing-rods, utensils valuable from a woods 
 point of view, even a watch or money. Not only 
 
 236 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 have I never lost anything in that manner, but once 
 an Indian lad followed me some miles after the 
 morning's start to restore to me a half dozen trout 
 flies I had accidentally left behind. 
 
 It might be readily inferred that this quality car- 
 ries over into the subtleties, as indeed is the case. 
 Mr. MacDonald of Brunswick House once discussed 
 with me the system of credits carried on by the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company with the trappers. Each family 
 is advanced goods to the value of two hundred dol- 
 lars, with the understanding that the debt is to be 
 paid from the season's catch. 
 
 " I should think you would lose a good deal," I 
 ventured. " Nothing could be easier than for an In- 
 dian to take his two hundred dollars' worth and disap- 
 pear in the woods. You'd never be able to find 
 him." 
 
 .Mr. MacDonald's reply struck me, for the man 
 had twenty years' trading experience. 
 
 "I have never," said he, "in a long woods-life 
 known but one Indian liar." 
 
 This my own limited woods-wandering has proved 
 to be true to a sometimes almost ridiculous extent. 
 The most trivial statement of fact can be relied on, 
 provided it is given outside of trade or enmity or 
 absolute indifference. The Indian loves to fool the 
 tenderfoot. But a sober measured statement you can 
 conclude is accurate. And if an Indian promises a 
 thing, he will accomplish it. He expects you to do 
 
 227 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 the same. Watch your lightest words carefully an 
 you would retain the respect of your red associates. 
 
 On our way to the Hudson Bay we rashly asked 
 Peter, towards the last, when we should reach Moose 
 Factory. He deliberated. 
 
 " Thursday," said he. 
 
 Things went wrong; Thursday supplied a head 
 wind. We had absolutely no interest in reaching 
 Moose Factory next day ; the next week would have 
 done as well. But Peter, deaf to expostulation, en- 
 treaty, and command, kept us traveling from six in 
 the morning until after twelve at night. We could n't 
 get him to stop. Finally he drew the canoes ashore. 
 
 "Moose-amik quarter hour," said he. 
 
 He had kept his word. 
 
 The Ojibway possesses a great pride which the un- 
 thinking can ruffle quite unconsciously in many 
 ways. Consequently the Woods Indian is variously 
 described as a good guide or a bad one. The differ- 
 ence lies in whether you suggest or command. 
 
 " Peter, you 've got to make Chicawgun to-night 
 Get a move on you ! " will bring you sullen service, 
 and probably breed kicks on the grub supply, which 
 is the immediate precursor of mutiny. 
 
 " Peter, it 's a long way to Chicawgun. Do you 
 think we make him to-night ? " on the other hand, 
 will earn you at least a serious consideration of the 
 question. And if Peter says you can, you will. 
 
 For the proper man the Ojibway takes a great 
 228 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 pride in his woodcraft, the neatness of his camps, the 
 savory quality of his cookery, the expedition of his 
 travel, the size of his packs, the patience of his en- 
 durance. On the other hand he can be as sullen, in- 
 efficient, stupid, and vindictive as any man of any 
 race on earth. I suppose the faculty of getting along 
 with men is largely inherent. Certainly it is blended 
 of many subtleties. To be friendly, to retain respect, 
 to praise, to preserve authority, to direct and yet to 
 leave detail, to exact what is due, and yet to deserve 
 it — these be the qualities of a leader and cannot be 
 taught. 
 
 In general the Woods Indian is sober. He cannot 
 get whiskey regularly, to be sure, but I have often 
 seen the better class of Ojibways refuse a drink, say- 
 ing that they did not care for it. He starves well, 
 and keeps going on nothing long after hope is van- 
 ished. He is patient, yea, very patient, under toil, and 
 so accomplishes great journeys, overcomes great diffi- 
 culties, and does great deeds by means of this hand- 
 maiden of genius. According to his own standards 
 is he clean. To be sure his baths are not numer- 
 ous, nor his laundry-days many, but he never cooks 
 antil he has washed his hands and arms to the very 
 shoulders. Other details would but corroborate the 
 impression of this instance, — that his ideas differ 
 from ours, as is his right, but that he lives up to his 
 ideas. Also is he hospitable, expecting nothing in re- 
 turn. After your canoe is afloat and your paddle in 
 
 229 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 the river, two or three of his youngsters will splash 
 in after you to toss silver fish to your necessities. 
 And so always he will wait until this last tnoment of 
 departure in order that you will not feel called on to 
 give him something in return. Which is true tact 
 and kindliness, and worthy of high praise. 
 
 Perhaps I have not strongly enough insisted that 
 the Indian nations differ as widely from one another 
 as do unallied races. We found this to be true even 
 in the comparatively brief journey from Chapleau to 
 Moose. After pushing through a trackless wilder- 
 ness without having laid eyes on a human being, 
 excepting the single instance of three French voy- 
 ageurs going heaven knows where, we were antici- 
 pating pleasurably our encounter with the traders at 
 the Factory, and naturally supposed that Peter and 
 Jacob would be equally pleased at the chance of 
 visiting with their own kind. Not at all. When 
 we reached Moose, our Ojibways wrapped them- 
 selves in a mantle of dignity, and stalked scornful 
 amidst obsequious clans. For the Ojibway is great 
 among Indians, verily much greater than the Moose 
 River Crees. Had it been a question of Rupert's 
 River Crees with their fierce blood-laws, their con- 
 juring-lodges, and their pagan customs, the affair 
 might have been different. 
 
 For, mark you, the Moose River Cree is little 
 among hunters, and he conducts the chase miscel- 
 laneously over his district without thought to the 
 
 230 
 

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 Hi 
 
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 ^~M 
 
 
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 V ^S 
 
 ^^1 
 
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 J 
 
 
 
 '-i'^^^^H 
 
 ^^K&y^ ^^aw ^ \ i 
 
 »»^ dsUHHHHi^^HHI^^^IH 
 
 ■ 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 preservation of the beaver, and he works in the hay 
 marshes during the summer, and is short, squab, 
 and dirty, and generally ka-win-ni-shi-shin. The old 
 sacred tribal laws, which are better than a religion 
 because they are practically adapted to northern 
 life, have among them been allowed to lapse. Trav- 
 elers they are none, nor do their trappers get far 
 from the Company's pork-barrels. So they inbreed 
 ignobly for lack of outside favor, and are dying 
 from the face of the land through dire diseases, just 
 as their reputations have already died from men's 
 respect. 
 
 The great unwritten law of the forest is that, save 
 as provision during legitimate travel, one may not 
 hunt in his neighbor's district. Each trapper has 
 assigned him, or gets by inheritance or purchase, 
 certain territorial power. In his land he alone may 
 trap. He knows the beaver-dams, how many ani- 
 mals each harbors, how large a catch each will stand 
 without diminution of the supply. So the fur is 
 made to last. In the southern district this division 
 is tacitly agreed upon. It is not etiquette to poach. 
 What would happen to a poacher no one knows, 
 simply because the necessity for finding out has not 
 arisen. Tawabinisay controls from Batchawanung 
 to Agawa. There old Waboos takes charge. And 
 so on. But in the Far North the control is more 
 often disputed, and there the blood-law still holds. 
 An illegal trapper baits his snares with his life. If 
 
 231 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 discovered, he is summarily shot. So is the game 
 preserved. 
 
 The Woods Indian never kills wastefully. The 
 mere presence of game does not breed in him a lust 
 to slaughter something. Moderation you learn of 
 him first of all. Later, provided you are with him 
 long enough and your mind is open to mystic in- 
 fluence, you will feel the strong impress of his idea 
 — that the animals of the forest are not lower than 
 man, but only different. Man is an animal living 
 the life of the forest ; the beasts are also a body poli- 
 tic speaking a different language and with different 
 view-points. Amik, the beaver, has certain ideas as 
 to the conduct of life, certain habits of body, and 
 certain bias of thought. His scheme of things is 
 totally at variance with that held by Me-en-gan, the 
 wolf, but even to us whites the two are on a parity. 
 Man has still another system. One is no better than 
 another. They are merely different. And just as 
 Me-en-gan preys on Amik, so does Man kill for his 
 own uses. 
 
 Thence are curious customs. A Rupert River 
 Cree will not kill a bear unless he, the hunter, is in 
 gala attire, and then not until he has made a short 
 speech in which he assures his victim that the affair 
 is not one of personal enmity, but of expedience, 
 and that anyway he, the bear, will be better off in 
 the Hereafter. And then the skull is cleaned and set 
 on a pole near running water, there to remain during 
 
 232 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 twelve moons. Also at the tail-root of a newly de- 
 ceased beaver is tied a thong braided of red wool 
 and deerskin. And many other curious habitudes 
 which would be of slight interest here. Likewise 
 do they conjure up by means of racket and fasting 
 the familiar spirits of distant friends or enemies, and 
 on these spirits fasten a blessing or a curse. 
 
 From this it may be deduced that missionary work 
 has not been as thorough as might be hoped. That is 
 true. The Woods Indian loves to sing, and pos- 
 sesses quaint melodies, or rather intonations, of his 
 own. But especially does he delight in the long- 
 drawn wail of some of our old-fashioned hymns. The 
 church oftenest reaches him through them. I know 
 nothing stranger than the sight of a little half-lit 
 church filled with Indians swaying unctuously to 
 and fro in the rhythm of a cadence old Watts would 
 have recognized with difficulty. The religious feel- 
 ing of the performance is not remarkable, but per- 
 haps it does as a starting-point. 
 
 Exactly how valuable the average missionary work 
 is, I have been puzzled to decide. Perhaps the church 
 needs more intelhgence in the men it sends out. The 
 evangelist is usually filled with narrow preconceived 
 notions as to the proper physical life. He squeezes 
 his savage into log houses, boiled shirts, and boots. 
 When he has succeeded in getting his tuberculosis 
 crop well started, he offers as compensation a doc- 
 trinal religion admirably adapted to us, who have 
 
 233 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 within reach of century-trained perceptions a thou- 
 sand of the subtler associations a savage can know no- 
 thing about. If there is enough ghtter and tin steeple 
 and high-sounding office and gilt good-behavior card 
 to it, the red man's pagan heart is tickled in its 
 vanity, and he dies in the odor of sanctity — and of 
 a filth his out-of-door life has never taught him how 
 to avoid. The Indian is like a raccoon: in his proper 
 surroundings he is clean morally and physically 
 because he knows how to be so ; but in a cage he is 
 filthy because he does not know how to be other- 
 wise. 
 
 I must not be understood as condemning mission- 
 ary work ; only the stupid missionary work one most 
 often sees in the North. Surely Christianity should 
 be adaptable enough in its little things to fit any 
 people with its great. It seems hard for some men 
 to believe that it is not essential for a real Christian to 
 wear a plug-hat. One God, love, kindness, charity, 
 honesty, right living, may thrive as well in the wig- 
 wam as in a four-square house, — provided you let 
 them wear moccasins and a capote wherewith to keep 
 themselves warm and vital. 
 
 Tawabinisay must have had his religious training 
 at the hands of a good man. He had lost none of 
 his aboriginal virtue and skill, as may be gathered 
 from what I have before said of him, and had gained 
 in addition certain of the gentle qualities. I have 
 never been able to gauge exactly the extent of his 
 
 234 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 religious understandings for Tawabinisay is a silent 
 individual and possesses very little English, but I do 
 know that his religious y>(?//«^ was deep and reverent. 
 He never swore in English ; he did not drink ; he 
 never traveled or hunted or fished on Sunday when 
 he could possibly help it. These virtues he wore 
 modestly and unassumingly as an accustomed gar- 
 ment. Yet he was the most gloriously natural man 
 I have ever met. 
 
 The main reliance of his formalism when he was 
 off in the woods seemed to be a little tattered vol- 
 ume, which he perused diligently all Sunday, and 
 wrapped carefully in a strip of oiled paper during 
 the rest of the week. One day I had a chance to 
 look at this book while its owner was away after 
 spring water. Every alternate page was in the pho- 
 netic Indian symbols, of which more hereafter. The 
 rest was in French, and evidently a translation. Al- 
 though the volume was of Roman Catholic origin, 
 creed was conspicuously subordinated to the needs 
 of the class it aimed to reach. A confession of faith, 
 quite simple, in One God, a Saviour, a Mother of 
 Heaven ; a number of Biblical extracts rich in im- 
 agery and applicability to the experience of a woods- 
 dweller; a dozen simple prayers of the kind the 
 natural man would oftenest find occasion to express 
 — a prayer for sickness, for bounty, for fair weather, 
 for ease of travel, for the smiling face of Providence ; 
 and then some hymns. To me the selection seemed 
 
 235 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 most judicious. It answered the needs of Tawabini- 
 say's habitual experiences, and so the red man was a 
 good and consistent convert. Irresistibly I was led 
 to contemplate the idea of any one trying to get 
 Tawabinisay to live in a house, to cut cordwood with 
 an axe, to roost on a hard bench under a tin steeple, 
 to wear stiff shoes, and to quit forest roamings. 
 
 The written language mentioned above, you will 
 see often in the Northland. Whenever an Indian 
 band camps, it blazes a tree and leaves, as record for 
 those who may follow, a message written in the pho- 
 
 netic character. I do not understand exactly the 
 philosophy of it, but I gather that each sound has a 
 symbol of its own, like shorthand, and that therefore 
 even totally different languages, such as Ojibway, the 
 Wood Cree, or the Hudson Bay Esquimaux, may 
 all be written in the same character. It was invented 
 nearly a hundred years ago by a priest. So simple 
 is it, and so needed a method of intercommunication, 
 that its use is now practically universal. Even the 
 youngsters understand it, for they are early instructed 
 
 236 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 in its mysteries during the long winter evenings. 
 On the preceding page is a message I copied from 
 a spruce-tree two hundred miles from anywhere on 
 the Mattagami River. 
 
 Besides this are numberless formal symbols in con- 
 stant use. Forerunners on a trail stick a twig in the 
 ground whose point indicates exactly the position of 
 the sun. Those who follow are able to estimate, by 
 noting how far beyond the spot the twig points to 
 the sun has traveled, how long a period of time has 
 elapsed. A stick pointed in any given direction tells 
 
 jK J^ 
 
 Saff' ■ ' ■* * »» 
 
 A short journey. A medium journey. A long journey 
 
 the route, of course. Another planted upright across 
 the first shows by its position how long a journey is 
 contemplated. A little sack suspended at the end of 
 the pointer conveys information as to the state of the 
 larder, lean or fat according as the little sack contains 
 more or less gravel or sand. A shred of rabbit-skin 
 means starvation. And so on in variety useless in any 
 but an ethnological work. 
 
 The Ojib ways' tongue is soft, and full of decided 
 lisping and sustained hissing sounds. It is spoken 
 with somewhat of a sing-song drawl. We always 
 had a fancy that somehow it was of forest growth, 
 and that its syllables were intended in the scheme of 
 
 237 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 things to blend with the woods-noises, just as the 
 feathers of the mother partridge blend with the 
 woods-colors. In general it is polysyllabic. That 
 applies especially to concepts borrowed of the white 
 men. On the other hand, the Ojibways describe in 
 monosyllables many ideas we could express only in 
 phrase. They have a single word for the notion, 
 Place-where-an-animal-slept-last-night. Our " lair," 
 " form," etc., do not mean exactly that. Its genius, 
 moreover, inclines to a flexible verb-form, by which 
 adjectives and substantives are often absorbed into 
 the verb itself, so that one beautiful singing word will 
 convey a whole paragraph of information. My little 
 knowledge of it is so entirely empirical that it can 
 possess small value. 
 
 In concluding these desultory remarks, I want to 
 tell you of a very curious survival among the Ojib- 
 ways and Ottawas of the Georgian Bay. It seems 
 that some hundreds of years ago these ordinarily 
 peaceful folk descended on the Iroquois in what is 
 now New York and massacred a village or so. Then, 
 like small boys who have thrown only too accurately 
 at the delivery wagon, they scuttled back home again. 
 Since that time they have lived in deadly fear of 
 retribution. The Iroquois have long since disap- 
 peared from the face of the earth, but even to-day 
 the Georgian Bay Indians are subject to periodical 
 spasms of terror. Some wild-eyed and imaginative 
 youth sees at sunset a canoe far down the horizon. 
 
 238 
 
ON WOODS INDIANS 
 
 Immediately the villages are abandoned in haste, 
 and the entire community moves up to the head 
 waters of streams, there to lurk until convinced that 
 all danger is past. It does no good to tell these 
 benighted savages that they are safe from vengeance, 
 at least in this world. The dreaded name of Iroquois 
 is potent, even across the centuries. 
 
 239 
 
THE CATCHING OF A CERTAIN FISH 
 
XVII 
 THE CATCHING OF A CERTAIN FISH 
 
 WE settled down peacefully on the River, and 
 the weather, after so much enmity, was kind 
 to us. Likewise did the flies disappear from the 
 woods utterly. . 
 
 Each morning we arose as the Red Gods willed; 
 generally early, when the sun was just gilding the 
 peaks to the westward ; but not too early, before the 
 white veil had left the River. Billy, with woods- 
 man's contempt for economy, hewed great logs and 
 burned them nobly in the cooking of trout, oatmeal, 
 pancakes, and the like. We had constructed our- 
 selves tables and benches between green trees, and 
 there we ate. And great was the eating beyond the 
 official capacity of the human stomach. There offered 
 little things to do, delicious little things just on the 
 hither side of idleness. A rod wrapping needed more 
 waxed silk ; a favorite fly required attention to pre- 
 vent dissolution; the pistol was to be cleaned; a flag- 
 pole seemed desirable ; a trifle more of balsam could 
 do no harm; clothes might stand drying, blankets 
 airing. We accomplished these things leisurely, paus- 
 ing for the telling of stories, for the puffing of pipes, 
 
 243 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 for the sheer joy of contemplations. Deerskin slipper 
 moccasins and flapping trousers attested our desha- 
 bille. And then somehow it was noon, and Billy 
 again at the Dutch oven and the broiler. 
 
 Trout we ate, and always more trout. Big fellows 
 broiled with strips of bacon craftily sewn in and out 
 of the pink flesh ; medium fellows cut into steaks ; 
 little fellows fried crisp in corn-meal; big, medium, 
 and little fellows mingled in component of the famous 
 North Country bouillon^ whose other ingredients are 
 partridges, and tomatoes, and potatoes, and onions, 
 and salt pork, and flour in combination delicious 
 beyond belief Nor ever did we tire of them, three 
 times a day, printed statement to the contrary not- 
 withstanding. And besides were many crafty dishes 
 over whose construction the major portion of morn- 
 ing idleness was spent. 
 
 Now at two o'clock we groaned temporary little 
 groans ; and crawled shrinking into our river clothes, 
 which we dared not hang too near the fire for fear of 
 the disintegrating scorch, and drew on soggy hob- 
 nailed shoes with holes cut in the bottom, and 
 plunged with howls of disgust into the upper rif- 
 fles. Then the cautious leg-straddled passage of the 
 swift current, during which we forgot forever — which 
 eternity alone circles the bliss of an afternoon on the 
 River — the chill of the water, and so came to the 
 trail. 
 
 Now at the Idiot's Delight Dick and I parted com- 
 344 
 
THE CATCHING OF A CERTAIN FISH 
 
 pany. By three o'clock I came again to the River, 
 far up, halfway to the Big Falls. Deuce watched 
 me gravely. With the first click of the reel he re- 
 tired to the brush away from the back cast, there to 
 remain until the pool was fished and we could con- 
 tinue our journey. 
 
 In the swift leaping water, at the smooth back of 
 the eddy, in the white foam, under the dark cliff 
 shadow, here, there, everywhere the bright flies drop 
 softly like strange snowflakes. The game is as inter- 
 esting as pistol-shooting. To hit the mark, that is 
 enough. And then a swirl of water and a broad lazy 
 tail wakes you to the fact that other matters are yours. 
 Verily the fish of the North Country are mighty 
 beyond all others. 
 
 Over the River rests the sheen of light, over the 
 hills rests the sheen of romance. The land is en- 
 chanted. Birds dip and sway, advance and retreat, 
 leaves toss their hands in greeting, or bend and whis- 
 per one to the other ; splashes of sun fall heavy as 
 metal through the yielding screens of branches ; little 
 breezes wander hesitatingly here and there to sink 
 like spent kites on the nearest bar of sun-warmed 
 shingle; the stream shouts and gurgles, murmurs, 
 hushes, lies still and secret as though to warn you 
 to discretion, breaks away with a shriek of hilarity 
 when your discretion has been assured. There is in 
 you a great leisure, as though the day would never 
 end. There is in you a great keenness. One part of 
 
 245 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 you is vibrantly alive. Your wrist muscles contract 
 almost automatically at the swirl of a rise, and the 
 hum of life along the gossamer of your line gains its 
 communication with every nerve in your body. The 
 question of gear and method you attack clear-minded. 
 What fly ? Montreal, Parmachenee Belle, Royal 
 Coachman, Silver Doctor, Professor, Brown Hackle, 
 Cowdung, — these grand lures for the North Country 
 trout receive each its due test and attention. And 
 on the tail snell what fisherman has not the Gamble 
 - — the unusual, obscure, multinamed fly which may, 
 in the occultism of his taste, attract the Big Fellows? 
 Besides there remains always the handling. Does 
 your trout to-day fancy the skittering of his food, or 
 the withdrawal in three jerks, or the inch-deep sink- 
 ing of the fly ? Does he want it across current or up 
 current, will he rise with a snap, or is he going to 
 come slowly, or is he going to play ? These be prob- 
 lems interesting, insistent to be solved, with the ready 
 test within the reach of your skill. 
 
 But that alertness is only the one side of your mood. 
 No matter how difficult the selection, how strenuous 
 the fight, there is in you a large feeling that might 
 almost be described as Buddhistic. Time has no- 
 thing to do with your problems. The world has 
 quietly run down, and has been embalmed with all its 
 sweetness of light and color and sound in a warm 
 lethe bath of sun. This afternoon is going to last 
 forever. You note and enjoy and savor the little 
 
 246 
 
THE CATCHING OF A CERTAIN FISH 
 
 pleasures unhurried by the thought that anything else, 
 whether of pleasure or duty, is to follow. 
 
 And so for long delicious eons. The River flows 
 on, ever on ; the hills watch, watch always ; the birds 
 sing, the sun shines grateful across your shoulders; 
 the big trout and the little rise in predestined order 
 and make their predestined fight and go their predes- 
 tined way either to liberty or the creel ; the pools and 
 the rapids and the riffles slip by upstream as though 
 they had been withdrawn rather than as though you 
 had advanced. 
 
 Then suddenly the day has dropped its wings. The 
 earth moves forward with a jar. Things are to be 
 accomplished ; things are being accomplished. The 
 River is hurrying down to the Lake ; the birds have 
 business of their own to attend to, an it please you ; 
 the hills are waiting for something that has not yet 
 happened, but they are ready. Startled, you look up. 
 The afternoon has finished. Your last step has taken 
 you over the edge of the shadow cast by the setting 
 sun across the range of hills. 
 
 For the first time you look about you to see where 
 you are. It has not mattered before. Now you know 
 that shortly it will be dark. Still remain below you 
 four pools. A great haste seizes you. 
 
 " If I take my rod apart, and strike through the 
 woods," you argue, " I can make the Narrows, and I 
 am sure there is a big trout there." 
 
 Why the Narrows should be any more likely to 
 247 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 contain a big trout than any of the other three pools 
 you would not be able to explain. In half an hour it 
 will be dark. You hurry. In the forest it is already 
 twilight, but by now you know the forest well. Pre- 
 occupied, feverish with your great idea, you hasten 
 on. The birds, silent all in the brooding of night, 
 rise ghostly to right and left. Shadows steal away 
 like hostile spies among the tree-trunks. The silver 
 of last daylight gleams ahead of you through the 
 brush. You know it for the Narrows, whither the 
 instinct of your eagerness has led you as accurately 
 as a compass through the forest. 
 
 Fervently, as though this were of world's affairs 
 the most important, you congratulate yourself on 
 being in time. Your rod seems to joint itself In a 
 moment the cast drops like a breath on the molten 
 silver. Nothing. Another try a trifle lower down. 
 Nothing. A little wandering breeze spoils your fourth 
 attempt, carrying the leader far to the left. Curses, 
 deep and fervent. The daylight is fading, draining 
 away. A fifth cast falls forty feet out. Slowly you 
 drag the flies across the current, reluctant to recover 
 until the latest possible moment. And so, when your 
 rod is foolishly upright, your line slack, and your 
 flies motionless, there rolls slowly up and over the 
 trout of trouts. You see a broad side, the whirl of a 
 fan-tail that looks to you to be at least* six inches 
 across — and the current slides on, silver-like, smooth, 
 indifferent to the wild leap of your heart 
 
 248 
 
THE CATCHING OF A CERTAIN FISH 
 
 Like a crazy man you shorten your line. Six sec- 
 onds later your flies fall skillfully just upstream from 
 where last you saw that wonderful tail. 
 
 But six seconds may be a long, long period of time. 
 You have feared and hoped and speculated and real- 
 ized ; feared that the leviathan has pricked him- 
 self and so will not rise again ; hoped that his appear- 
 ance merely indicated curiosity which he will desire 
 further to satisfy ; speculated on whether your skill 
 can drop the fly exactly on that spot, as it must be 
 dropped ; and realized that, whatever be the truth as 
 to all those fears and hopes and speculations, this is 
 irrevocably your last chance. 
 
 For an instant you allow the flies to drift down- 
 stream, to be floated here and there by idle little 
 eddies, to be sucked down and spat out of tiny suc- 
 tion-holes. Then cautiously you draw them across 
 the surface of the waters. Thump — thump — thump 
 — your heart slows up with disappointment. Then 
 mysteriously, like the stirring of the waters by some 
 invisible hand, the molten silver is broken in its 
 smoothness. The Royal Coachman quietly disap- 
 pears. With all the brakes shrieking on your desire 
 to shut your eyes and heave a mighty heave, you 
 depress your butt and strike. 
 
 Then in the twilight the battle. No leisure is here, 
 only quivering, intense, agonized anxiety. The affair 
 transcends the moment. Purposes and necessities of 
 untold ages have concentrated, so that somehow back 
 
 249 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 of your consciousness rest hosts of disembodied hopes, 
 tendencies, evolutionary progressions, all breathless 
 lest you prove unequal to the struggle for which they 
 have been so long preparing. Responsibility, vast, 
 vague, formless, is yours. Only tlie fact that you are 
 wholly occupied with the exigence of the moment 
 prevents your understanding of what it is, but it 
 hovers dark and depressing behind your possible 
 failure. You must win. This is no fish : it is oppor- 
 tunity itself; and once gone it will never return. The 
 mysticism of lower dusk in the forest, of upper after- 
 glow on the hills, of the chill of evening waters and 
 winds, of the glint of strange phantoms under the 
 darkness of cliffs, of the whisperings and shoutings 
 of Things you are too busy to identify out in tlie gray 
 of North Country awe — all these menace you with 
 indeterminate dread. Knee-deep, waist-deep, swift 
 water, slack water, downstream, upstream, with red 
 eyes straimng into the dimness, with every muscle 
 taut and every nerve quivering, you follow the rip- 
 ping of your line. You have consecrated yourself 
 to the uttermost. The minutes stalk by you gigantic. 
 You are a stable pin-point in whirling phantasms. 
 And you are very little, very small, very inadequate 
 among these Titans of circumstance. 
 
 Thrice he breaks water, a white and ghostly ap- 
 parition from the deep. Your heart stops with your 
 reel, and only resumes its office when again the line 
 sings safely. The darkness falls, and with it, like the 
 
 250 
 
THE CATCHING OF A CERTAIN FISH 
 
 mysterious strength of Sir Gareth's opponent, falls 
 the power of your adversary. His rushes shorten. 
 The blown world of your uncertainty shrinks to the 
 normal. From the haze of your consciousness, as 
 through a fog, loom the old familiar forest, and 
 the hills, and the River. Slowly you creep from that 
 strange enchanted land. The sullen trout yields. In 
 all gentleness you float him within reach of your 
 net. Quietly, breathlessly you walk ashore, and over 
 the beach, and yet an unnecessary hundred feet 
 from the water lest he retain still a flop. Then you 
 lay him upon the stones and lift up your heart in 
 rejoicing. 
 
 How you get to camp you never clearly know. 
 Exultation lifts your feet. Wings, wings, O ye Red 
 Gods, wings to carry the body whither the spirit hath 
 already soared, and stooped, and circled back in im- 
 patience to see why still the body lingers ! Ordi- 
 narily you can cross the riffles above the Halfway 
 Pool only with caution and prayer and a stout staff 
 craftily employed. This night you can — and do — 
 splash across hand-free, as recklessly as you would 
 wade a little brook. There is no stumble in you, for 
 you have done a great deed, and the Red Gods are 
 smiling. 
 
 Through the trees glows a light, and in the center 
 of that light are leaping flames, and in the circle of 
 that light stand, rough-hewn in orange, the tent and 
 the table and the waiting figures of your companions. 
 
 2Sl 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 You stop Siiort, and swallow hard, and saunter into 
 camp as one indifferent. 
 
 Carelessly you toss aside your creel, — into the 
 darkest corner, as though it were unimportant, — non- 
 chalantly you lean your rod against the slant of your 
 tent, wearily you seat yourself and begin to draw off 
 your drenched garments. Billy bends toward the fire. 
 Dick gets you your dry clothes. Nobody says any- 
 thing, for everybody is hungry. No one asks you any 
 questions, for on the River you get in almost any 
 time of night. 
 
 Finally, as you are hanging your wet things near 
 the fire, you inquire casually over your shoulder, — 
 
 " Dick, have any luck *? " 
 
 Dick tells you. You listen with apparent interest. 
 He has caught a three-pounder. He describes the 
 spot and the method and the struggle. He is very 
 much pleased. You pity him. 
 
 The three of you eat supper, lots of supper. Billy 
 arises first, filling his pipe. He hangs water over the 
 fire for the dish-washing. You and Dick sit hunched 
 on a log, blissfully happy in the moments of diges- 
 tion, ruminative, watching the blaze. The tobacco 
 smoke eddies and sucks upward to join the wood 
 smoke. Billy moves here and there in the fulfillment 
 of his simple tasks, casting his shadow wavering and 
 gigantic against the fire-lit trees. By and by he has 
 finished. He gathers up the straps of Dick's creel, 
 and turns to the shadow for your own. He is going 
 
 252 
 
THE CATCHING OF A CERTAIN FISH 
 
 to clean the fish. It is the moment you have watched 
 for. You shroud yourself in profound indifference. 
 
 " Sacre ! " shrieks Billy. 
 
 You do not even turn your head. 
 
 "Jumping giraffes! why, it 's a whale!" cries Dick. 
 
 You roll a blase eye in their direction, as though 
 such puerile enthusiasm wearies you. 
 
 " Yes, it 's quite a little fish," you concede. 
 
 They swarm down upon you, demanding particu- 
 lars. These you accord laconically, a word at a time, 
 in answer to direct question, between puffs of smoke. 
 
 " At the Narrows. Royal Coachman. Just before 
 I came in. Pretty fair fight. Just at the edge of the 
 eddy." And so on. But your soul glories. 
 
 The tape-line is brought out. Twenty-nine inches 
 it records. Holy smoke, what a fish ! Your air im- 
 plies that you will probably catch three more just like 
 him on the morrow. Dick and Billy make tracings 
 of him on the birch bark. You retain your lofty 
 calm : but inside you are little quivers of rapture. 
 And when you awake, late in the night, you are con- 
 scious, first of all, that you are happy, happy, happy, 
 all through ; and only when the drowse drains away 
 do you remember why. 
 
 253 
 
MAN WHO WALKS BY MOONLIGHT 
 
XVIII 
 MAN WHO WALKS BY MOONLIGHT 
 
 WE had been joined on the River by friends. 
 " Doug," who never fished more than forty 
 rods from camp, and was always inventing water- 
 gauges, patent indicators, and other things, and who 
 wore in his soft slouch hat so many brilliant trout 
 flies that he irresistibly reminded you of flower- 
 decked Ophelia ; '*Dinnis," who was large and good- 
 natured and bubbling and popular ; Johnny, whose 
 wide eyes looked for the first time on the woods-life, 
 and whose awe-struck soul concealed itself behind 
 assumptions; "Jim," six feet tall and three feet 
 broad, with whom the season before I had penetrated 
 to Hudson Bay ; and finally " Doc," tall, granite, ex- 
 perienced, the best fisherman that ever hit the River. 
 With these were Indians. Buckshot, a little Indian 
 with a good knowledge of English ; Johnnie Chal- 
 lan, a half-breed Indian, ugly, furtive, an efficient 
 man about camp ; and Tawabinisay himself This 
 was an honor due to the presence of Doc. Tawa- 
 binisay approved of Doc. That was all there was to 
 say about it. 
 
 After a few days, inevitably the question of 
 257 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 Kawagama came up. Billy, Johnnie Challan, and 
 Buckshot squatted in a semicircle, and drew dia- 
 grams in the soft dirt with a stick. Tawabinisay sat 
 on a log and overlooked the proceedings. Finally he 
 spoke. 
 
 " Tawabinisay " (they always gave him his full 
 title ; we called him Tawab) " tell me lake you find 
 he no Kawagama," translated Buckshot. " He called 
 Black Beaver Lake." 
 
 " Ask him if he '11 take us to Kawagama," I re- 
 quested. 
 
 Tawabinisay looked very doubtful. 
 
 " Come on, Tawab," urged Doc, nodding at him 
 vigorously. " Don't be a clam. We won't take any- 
 body else up there." 
 
 The Indian probably did not comprehend the 
 words, but he liked Doc. 
 
 "A'-right," he pronounced laboriously. 
 
 Buckshot explained to us his plans. 
 
 " Tawabinisay tell me," said he, " he don' been to 
 Kawagama seven year. To-morrow he go blaze trail. 
 Nex' day we go." 
 
 " How would it be if one or two of us went with 
 him to-morrow to see how he does it ? " asked Jim. 
 
 Buckshot looked at us strangely. 
 
 " / don't want to follow him," he replied with a 
 significant simplicity. " He run like a deer." 
 
 "Buckshot," said I, pursuing the inevitable lin- 
 guistics, " what does Kawagama mean ? " 
 
 258 
 
MAN WHO WALKS BY MOONLIGHT 
 
 Buckshot thought for quite two minutes. Then 
 he drew a semicircle. 
 
 " W'at you call dat ^ " he asked. 
 
 "Crescent, like moon? half-circle? horseshoe? 
 bow ? " we proposed. 
 
 Buckshot shook his head at each suggestion. He 
 made a wriggling mark, then a wide sweep, then a 
 loop. 
 
 " All dose," said he, " w'at you call him ? " 
 
 " Curve ! " we cried. 
 ~7"Ah hah," assented Buckshot, satisfied. 
 
 " Buckshot," we went on, " what does Tawabini- 
 say mean ? " 
 
 " Man - who - travels - by - moonlight," he replied, 
 promptly. 
 
 The following morning Tawabinisay departed, 
 carrying a lunch and a hand-axe. At four o'clock he 
 was back, sitting on a log and smoking a pipe. In 
 the mean time we had made up our party. 
 
 Tawabinisay himself had decided that the two 
 half-breeds must stay at home. He wished to share 
 his secret only with his own tribesmen. The fiat 
 grieved Billy, for behold he had already put in much 
 time on this very search, and naturally desired to be 
 in at the finish. Dick, too, wanted to go, but him we 
 decided too young and light for a fast march. Dinnis 
 had to leave the River in a day or so ; Johnnie was 
 a little doubtful as to the tramp, although he con- 
 cealed his doubt — at least to his own satisfaction — 
 
 259 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 under a variety of excuses. Jim and Doc would go, 
 of course. There remained Doug. 
 
 We found diat individual erecting a rack of many- 
 projecting arms — like a Greek warrior's trophy — at 
 the precise spot where the first rays of the morning 
 sun would strike it. On the projecting arms he pur- 
 posed hanging his wet clothes. 
 
 " Doug," said we, " do you want to go to Kawa- 
 gama to-morrow ? " 
 
 Doug turned on us a sardonic eye. He made no 
 direct answer, but told the following story : — 
 
 "Once upon a time Judge Carter was riding 
 through a rural district in Virginia. He stopped at 
 a negro's cabin to get his direction. 
 
 " ' Uncle,* said he, ' can you direct me to Colonel 
 Thompson's ? ' 
 
 "' Yes sah,' replied the negro ; ' yo' goes down this 
 yah road *bout two mile till yo' comes to an oV ailm 
 tree, and then yo' tu'ns sha'p to th' right down a lane 
 fo' 'bout a qua'ter of a mile. Thah you sees a big 
 white house. Yo' wants to go through th' ya'd, to a 
 paf that takes you a spell to a gate. Yo' follows that 
 road to th' lef' till yo' comes to three roads goin' up 
 a hill ; and, jedge, it don matt ah which one of them 
 thah roads yo* take^yo gets lost surer 'n hell anyway I ' " 
 
 Then Doug turned placidly back to the construc- 
 tion of his trophy. 
 
 We interpreted this as an answer, and made up an 
 outfit for five. 
 
 260 
 
Tawabinisay has a delightful grin 
 
MAN WHO WALKS BY MOONLIGHT 
 
 The following morning at six o'clock we were 
 under way. Johnnie Challan ferried us across the river 
 in two installments. We waved our hands and 
 plunged through the brush screen. 
 
 Thenceforth it was walk half an hour, rest five 
 minutes, with almost the regularity of clockwork. 
 We timed the Indians secretly, and found they varied 
 by hardly a minute from absolute fidelity to this 
 schedule. We had at first, of course, to gain the 
 higher level of the hills, but Tawabinisay had the day 
 before picked out a route that mounted as easily as 
 the country would allow, and through a hardwood 
 forest free of underbrush. Briefly indicated, our way 
 led first through the big trees and up the hills, then 
 behind a great cliff knob into a creek valley, through 
 a quarter-mile of bottom-land thicket, then by an 
 open strip to the first little lake. This we ferried by 
 means of the bark canoe carried on the shoulders of 
 Tawabinisay. 
 
 In the course of the morning we thus passed four 
 lakes. Throughout the entire distance to Kawagama 
 were the fresh axe-blazes the Indian had made the 
 day before. These were neither so frequent nor as 
 plainly cut as a white man's trail, but each represented 
 a pause long enough for the clip of an axe. In ad- 
 dition the trail had been made passable for a canoe. 
 That meant the cutting out of overhanging branches 
 wherever they might catch the bow of the craft. In 
 the thicket a little road had been cleared, and the 
 
 261 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 brush had been piled on either side. To an unaccus- 
 tomed eye it seemed the work of two days at least. 
 Yet Tawabinisay had picked out his route, cleared 
 and marked it thus, skirted the shores of the lakes we 
 were able to traverse in the canoe, and had returned 
 to the River in less time than we consumed in merely 
 reaching the Lake itself! Truly, as Buckshot said, 
 he must have " run like a deer." 
 
 Tawabinisay has a delightful grin which he dis- 
 plays when pleased or good-humored or puzzled or 
 interested or comprehending, just as a dog sneezes 
 and wrinkles up his nose in like case. He is essentially 
 kind-hearted. If he likes you and approves of you, 
 he tries to teach you, to help you, to show you things. 
 But he never offers to do any part of your work, and 
 on the march he never looks back to see if you are 
 keeping up. You can shout at him until you are 
 black in the face, but never will he pause until rest 
 time. Then he squats on his heels, lights his pipe, and 
 grins. 
 
 Buckshot adored him. This opportunity of travel- 
 ing with him was an epoch. He drank in eagerly 
 the brief remarks of his " old man," and detailed them 
 to us with solemnity, prefaced always by his " Tawa- 
 binisay tell me." Buckshot is of the better class of 
 Indian himself, but occasionally he is puzzled by the 
 woods-noises. Tawabinisay never. As we cooked 
 lunch, we heard the sound of steady footsteps in the 
 forest — fat ; then a pause ; then pat ; just like a 
 
 262 
 
MAN WHO WALKS BY MOONLIGHT 
 
 deer browsing. To make sure I inquired of Buck- 
 shot. 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 Buckshot listened a moment. 
 
 " Deer," said he, decisively ; then, not because he 
 doubted his own judgment, but from habitual de- 
 ference, he turned to where Tawabinisay was frying 
 things. 
 
 " Qwaw "? " he inquired. 
 
 Tawabinisay never even looked up. 
 
 " Adji-domo " (squirrel), said he. 
 
 We looked at each other incredulously. It sounded 
 like a deer. It did not sound in the least like a squir- 
 rel. An experienced Indian had pronounced it a deer. 
 Nevertheless it was a squirrel. 
 
 We approached Kawagama by way of a gradual 
 slope clothed with a beautiful beech and maple for- 
 est whose trees were the tallest of those species I have 
 ever seen. Ten minutes brought us to the shore. 
 There was no abrupt bursting in on Kawagama 
 through screens of leaves ; we entered leisurely to 
 her presence by way of an antechamber whose spa- 
 ciousness permitted no vulgar surprises. After a time 
 we launched the canoe from a natural dock afforded 
 by a cedar root, and so stood ready to cross to our 
 permanent camp. But first we drew our knives and 
 erased from a giant birch the half-grown-over name 
 of the banker Clement. 
 
 There seems to me little use in telling you that 
 263 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 Kawagama is about four miles long by a mile wide, 
 is shaped like a crescent, and lies in a valley sur- 
 rounded by high hills ; nor that its water is so trans- 
 parent that the bottom is visible until it fades into 
 the sheer blackness of depth ; nor that it is alive with 
 trout ; nor that its silence is the silence of a vast soli- 
 tude, so that always, even at daybreak or at high 
 midday, it seems to be late afternoon. That would 
 convey little to you. I will inform you quite simply 
 that Kawagama is a very beautiful specimen of the 
 wilderness lake ; that it is as the Lord made it ; and 
 that we had a good time. 
 
 Did you ever fish with the fly from a birch-bark 
 canoe on absolutely still water*? You do not seem 
 to move. But far below you, gliding, silent, ghost- 
 like, the bottom slips beneath. Like a weather-vane in 
 an imperceptible current of air your bow turns to right 
 or left in apparent obedience to the mere will of your 
 companion. And the flies drop softly like down. 
 Then the silence becomes sacred. You whisper, — 
 although there is no reason for your whispering ; you 
 move cautiously lest your reel scrape the gunwale. 
 An inadvertent click of the paddle is a profanation. 
 The only creatures in all God's world possessing the 
 right to utter aloud a single syllable are the loon, far 
 away, and the winter wren, near at hand. Even the 
 trout fight grimly, without noise, their white bodies 
 flashing far down in the dimness. 
 
 Hour after hour we stole here and there like con- 
 264 
 
MAN WHO WALKS BY MOONLIGHT 
 
 spirators. Where showed the circles of a fish's rise, 
 thither crept we to drop a fly on their center as in 
 the bulPs-eye of a target. The trout seemed to hnger 
 near their latest capture, so often we would catch 
 one exactly where we had seen him break water 
 some little time before. In this was the charm of the 
 still hunt. Shoal water, deep water, it seemed all the 
 same to our fortunes. The lake was full of fish, and 
 beautiful fish they were, with deep glowing bronze 
 bellies, and all of from a pound to a pound and a 
 half in weight. The lake had not been fished. Prob- 
 ably somewhere in those black depths over one of 
 the bubbling spring-holes that must feed so cold and 
 clear a body of water, are big fellows lying, and prob- 
 ably the crafi:y minnow or spoon might lure them out. 
 But we were satisfied with our game. 
 
 At other times we paddled here and there in ex- 
 ploration of coves, inlets, and a tiny little brook that 
 flowed westward from a reed marsh to join another 
 river running parallel to our own. 
 
 The Indians had erected a huge lean-to of birch 
 bark, from the ribs of which hung clothes and the 
 little bags of food. The cooking-fire was made in 
 front of it between two giant birch-trees. At evening 
 the light and heat reflected strongly beneath the 
 shelter, leaving the forest in impenetrable darkness. 
 To the very edge of mystery crowded the strange 
 woods-noises, the eerie influences of the night, like 
 wolves afraid of the blaze. We felt them hovering, 
 
 36$ 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 vague, huge, dreadful, just outside the circle of safety 
 our fire had traced about us. The cheerful flames 
 were dancing familiars who cherished for us the 
 home feeling in the middle of a wilderness. 
 
 Two days we lingered, then took the back track. 
 A little after noon we arrived at the camp, empty 
 save for Johnnie Challan. Towards dark the fisher- 
 men straggled in. Time had been paid them in 
 familiar coinage. They had demanded only accus- 
 tomed toll of the days, but we had returned laden 
 with strange and glittering memories. 
 
 266 
 
APOLOGIA 
 
XIX 
 APOLOGIA 
 
 THE time at last arrived for departure. Deep 
 laden were the canoes ; heavy laden were we. 
 The Indians shot away down the current. We fol- 
 lowed for the last time the dim blazed trail, forded 
 for the last time the shallows of the River. At the 
 Burned Rock Pool we caught our lunch fish from 
 the ranks of leviathans. Then the trodden way of 
 the Fur Trail, worn into a groove so deep and a sur- 
 face so smooth that vegetation has left at as bare as 
 ever, though the Post has been abandoned these 
 many years. At last the scrub spruce, and the sandy 
 soil, and the blue restless waters of the Great Lake. 
 With the appearance of the fish-tug early the follow- 
 ing day, the summer ended. 
 
 How often have I ruminated in the long marches 
 the problem of the Forest. Subtle she is, and mys- 
 terious, and gifted with a charm that lures. Vast she 
 is, and dreadful, so that man bows before her fiercer 
 moods, a little thing. Gentle she is, and kindly, so 
 that she denies nothing, whether of the material or 
 spiritual, to those of her chosen who will seek. Au- 
 gust she is, and yet of a homely sprightly gentleness. 
 
 269 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 Variable she is in her many moods. Night, day, sun, 
 cloud, rain, snow, wind, lend to her their best of 
 warmth and cold, of comfort and awe, of peace and 
 of many shoutings, and she accepts them, but yet 
 remains greater and more enduring than they. In 
 her is all the sweetness of little things. Murmurs of 
 water and of breeze, faint odors, wandering streams 
 of tepid air, stray bird-songs in fragment as when a 
 door is opened and closed, the softness of moss, the 
 coolness of shade, the glimpse of occult affairs in the 
 woods-life, accompany her as Titania her court. How 
 to express these things ? how to fix on paper in a 
 record, as one would describe the Capitol at Wash- 
 ington, what the Forest is? That is what I have 
 asked myself often, and that is what I have never 
 yet found out. 
 
 This is the wisdom reflection has taught. One 
 cannot imprison the ocean in a vial of sea-water : 
 one cannot imprison the Forest inside the covers of 
 a book. 
 
 There remains the second best. I have thought 
 that perhaps if I were to attempt a series of detached 
 impressions, without relation, without sequence ; if 
 I were to suggest a little here the beauty of a moon- 
 beam, there the humor of a rainstorm, at the last 
 you might, by dint of imagination and sympathy, 
 get some slight feeling of what the great woods are. 
 It is the method of the painter. Perhaps it may 
 suffice. 
 
 270 
 
APOLOGIA 
 
 For this reason let no old camper look upon this 
 volume as a treatise on woodcraft. Woodcraft there 
 is in it, just as there is woodcraft in the Forest itself, 
 but much of the simplest and most obvious does not 
 appear. The painter would not depict every twig, as 
 would the naturalist. 
 
 Equally it cannot be considered a book of travel 
 nor of description. The story is not consecutive ; the 
 adventures not exciting; the landscape not defined. 
 Perhaps it may be permitted to call it a book of 
 suggestion. Often on the street we have had opened 
 to us by the merest sketches of incident limitless 
 vistas of memory. A momentary pose of the head 
 of a passer-by, a chance word, the breath of a faint 
 perfume, — these bring back to us the entirety of 
 forgotten scenes. Some of these essays may perform 
 a like office for you. I cannot hope to give you the 
 Forest. But perhaps a word or a sentence, an incident, 
 an impression, may quicken your imagination, so that 
 through no conscious direction of my own the won- 
 der of the Forest may fill you, as the mere sight of a 
 conch-shell will sometimes fill you with the wonder 
 of the sea. 
 
 THE END 
 
 271 
 
SUGGESTIONS FOR OUTFIT 
 
SUGGESTIONS FOR OUTFIT 
 
 In reply to inquiries as to necessary outfit for camping 
 and woods-traveling, the author furnishes the following 
 lists : — 
 
 I. Provisions per man^ one week, 
 
 7 lbs. flour ; 5 lbs. pork ; 1-5 lb. tea ; 2 lbs. beans ; I 1-2 
 lbs. sugar ; i 1-2 lbs. rice ; i 1-2 lbs. prunes and raisins ; 
 I -10 lb. lard; I lb. oatmeal; baking-powder; matches; 
 soap; pepper; salt; 1-3 lb. tobacco — (weight, a little over 
 20 lbs.). This will last much longer if you get game and 
 fish. 
 
 2. Pack one^ or absolute necessities for hard trip. 
 
 Wear hat ; suit woolen underwear ; shirt ; trousers ; socks 5 
 silk handkerchief; cotton handkerchief; moccasins. 
 
 Carry sweater (3 lbs.); extra drawers (i 1-2 lbs.); 
 2 extra pairs socks ; gloves (buckskin) ; towel ; 2 extra 
 pairs moccasins ; surgeons' plaster ; laxative ; pistol and car- 
 tridges ; fishing-tackle ; blanket (7 1-2 lbs.); rubber blanket 
 (i lb.) ; tent (8 lbs.) ; small axe (2 1-2 lbs.) ; knife ; mos- 
 quito - dope ; compass ; match-box ; tooth-brush ; comb ; 
 small whetstone — (weight, about 25 lbs.); 2 tin or alumi- 
 num pails ; I frying-pan ; i cup ; I knife, fork, and spoon 
 — (weight, 4 lbs. if of aluminum). 
 
 Whole pack under 50 lbs. In case of two or more peo- 
 ple, each pack would be lighter, as tent, tinware, etc., would 
 do for both. 
 
 275 
 
THE FOREST 
 
 3. Pack two — for luxuries and easy trips — extra to pack one. 
 More fishing-tackle ; camera ; i more pair socks ; i more 
 Suit underclothes ; extra sweater j wading-shoes of canvas ; 
 large axe ; mosquito net ; mending materials ; kettle ; 
 candles ; more cooking-utensils ; extra shirt ; whiskey. 
 
 276 
 

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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY