THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID THE CAMPING-OUT SERIES. VOLUME IV. LYNX-HUNTING: FROM NOTES BY THE AUTHOR OF " CAMPING OUT. BY C. A. STEPHENS. ILLUSTRATED. PHILADELPHIA : PORTER AND COATES, 8zz CHESTNUT STREET. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, PV TAMES R. OSGOOD & co In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at \V ashington. from Dave. " ' Catamounts, wildcats ! ' I vociferated. " There was an instant scrabble. Everybody was on his feet in no time. Gusts of hay flew about. " Knowing the creature was on my side, I leaped over toward the other, ran against Brown, was taken for the 88 LYNX-HUNTING. wildcat, and got a knock which sent rne sprawling in the hay again. " ' Here he is ! ' yelled Brown, ( here he is ! Out with your knives ! ' "'Hold on! Don't stab!' I shouted. 'You are wrong ! all wrong ! ' " ' Strike a light, strike a light ! ' cried Sanders, with ' Open the door, open the door ! ' from Uncle Ez. " Everybody ran toward the door to push it open, all together ; and actually ran square on to the cat, which had also started for the door. A tornado of spits and snarls arose : the creature bit and dug away right and left, slitting open pant-legs, snapping its teeth, and trip- ping up nearly the whole party in its struggle among our legs. The hounds rushed in to complete the uproar j while voices not identified cried all at once, "'Git out! 7 "'Ste-boy!' ' Git out! 7 "'Don't strike here!' ' Who you kicking?' " ' Avast that knife ! ' from Sanders. " ' For God's sake, keep that gun off my head ! ' from Brown. " All this, with an instantaneous rush for the other end of the floor: in fact, another blind and unintentional run on the already-maddened animal, which had gone there just ahead of us. This time the creature sprang at Uncle Ezra full tilt, knocking him against somebody else. Another outrageous panic followed. Everybody kicked and struggled at random j and amid shouts, LYNX-HUNTING. 89 barks, growls, and spits, the beast got through the crowd somehow, and escaped up the side of the mow. " ' Order, order ! ' roared Sanders above the outcry. ' Now just stand still, stand still everybody, till we get a light/ " Matches were fumbled out and struck ; but they only seemed to make the darkness denser ; till Sanders found some pine-splinters on the floor, which he lighted. Putting one of these into the muzzle of his rifle, he thrust it upward, disclosing an animal larger than the hounds, crouching on the high beam, " ' There he is ! ' cried Dave. " ' Take your gun, Brown ! ' said Sanders. ' But no : you hold the torch, and let me shoot ! ' " Brown took the torch ; and Sanders, taking up a gun, fired. The cat yawled, and, bounding off sidewise from the beam, came sailing down toward us with its claws spread out. Brown jumped aside to get out of the way. The splint fell out of the gun on the floor, put- ting it out ; and down came the wounded beast, snap- ping and snarling in the midst of us. " Darkness reigned ; and such a scrimmage as followed there on the narrow floor ! I remember jumping fren- ziedly backward upon some one, who pitched me head- long again, with my face flat on the creature's horrible fur! But it didn't move, and, I have no doubt, was already dead. " Meanwhile somebody had struck out at random, and laid Uncle Ezra flat for a moment ; and somebody else had hit a dog, which was lamenting piteously. But order was at last restored, and another splinter lighted ; 00 LYNX-HUNTING. when the creature was found to be stone-dead in the hay. " It was a large specimen of what Sanders called a 1 bob-cat;' which is nothing more nor less than the Canada lynx. " It was probably in the barn when we went in ; having gone in, like ourselves, to get shelter from the storm. Our noisy entrance had doubtless given it quite a surprise ; and, being of an inquisitive mind, it had come down, after all was quiet, to investigate, with the results before mentioned. " The fur was of a beautiful stone-gray color, fading into white upon the under parts of the body. The skin was unanimously voted to Uncle Ez, as he had suffered most, to keep as a memento of our night in the old barn on Bear Eiver." " Mr. Durkee," said the Doctor, " that's the worst cat- story I ever heard up to this date. Let's go round and see how the mercury stands." When they had come back (which they did in about five minutes), Wade called for another story. " Certainly," said our genial friend. " One doesn't live all his life in a wooden country like this without meeting with plenty of cat-adventures; and I assure you, gentlemen, that every one of these tales stands for an actual occurrence." " Certainly, certainly ! " Of course, we never doubted that. " Well, then," continued Durkee, " the following inci- dent happened two years ago this winter. I was then at a logging-camp on the 'Dead Diamond Stream.' LYNX-HUNTING. 91 We had a jolly rough crew of nearly thirty. The camp was a large log-shanty, thirty foot square, with a log- porch in front, which was used, in part, as a store-room for the pork and flour. Through this porch we all had to pass out and in to the camp. It had a rough slab- door, hung with leather hinges ; as was also the camp- door. The porch was supposed to keep the camp warm- er than it would otherwise have been. " One night, three or four of us had been out till eight or nine o'clock, looking to some marten-traps we had set on a neighboring mountain. As we came up to the porch, I noticed the door was ajar. This was nothing unusual, however. We stepped in. The inside camp- door was shut : all was dark in the porch. As we came stamping in to go through, we heard a great scratching and scrambling over the barrels. Thought at first it was the cook out there after something, and sang out to him. At that, somebody opened the inside door ; when a big lucivee sprang down from the barrels, and dived into the camp to get out of our way. You can guess what an uproar that made inside : twenty men shut up in there with a ' bob-cat,' as they called it. They had one tal- low-candle burning : somebody upset that, first thing. 7 Twas dark as poker; everybody shouting and kick- ing and striking ; the cat wauling and jumping about. They had a great stove, red-hot; for it was a sharp night. The creature got on to that, making a horrible stench of burnt hair. There ! I never heard such a noise. Several of the men got scratched ; and more than a dozen got whacks from each other meant for the lucivee. At last the cook gave it a lick with his axe. which knocked it over. 92 LYNX-HUNTING. " We kept the skin hung up in the porch all the rest of the winter, and had many a laugh over it. " I've had a good many scrapes with cats, first and last j hut that was ahout the most outrageous one/'-' SIXTH DAY. Visiting Traps. Re-clogging. Bait gone. A Lynx Hard and Fast. " Blessed are the Merciful." How to kill a Cat with- out hurting it. Prof. Tyndall's Rifle-ball Theory. We re- solve to kill our Cats scientifically. A Lucivee's Foot left in a Trap Down the Lake on an Otter-Hunt. Wash projects a Novel Method of Hunting the Animal, and catches a Ducking. An Anecdote of the Otter. OUR visitor, Durkee, was stirring surprisingly early next morning: he was in haste to go on, I pre- sume. When I waked, he had a blithe fire going. Con- siderably to my astonishment, too, the Doctor was up. Whether they had yet made an observation of the ther- mometer, I really cannot say ; but it looked like it, I thought. We had breakfast off by sunrise ; and Durkee imme- diately departed with a hearty " good-luck " all round. We watched him tramping away across the lake, and saw him disappear among the alders on the opposite shore. "There he goes for a jolly confrere" muttered the Doctor. " Who would have thought of his turning up here in the wilderness?" 93 94 LYNX-HUNTING. "Well, we ougLt to be looking to our traps," Wash reminded. " They got scanty care from us yesterday." Not to be caught on another dilemma like that of the previous day, we packed a travelling-bag with mince- pie ; and, in lieu of the rifle, Wash took the axe, as likely to be a more serviceable utensil. E-aed, moreover, car- ried the coffee-pot slung to his back after the manner of a knapsack, with coffee enough for three "charges" in his pocket. Directly after starting out from camp, we had the good fortune to shoot a hare, which we espied "bud- ding " from a bush. Its small carcass came into immedi- ate requisition ; for, on coming out to the place where lay our first two traps, we found them both robbed of bait. The traps themselves were unmolested. Not a feather with which we had covered them seemed to have been stirred. Shrewd caution had been used. I was inclined to think it might have been a fox. Ee-baiting, we chained to each another clog of about the same weight, and went on to the next, the one we had covered with trailing moss scented with assafoetida. Bait, trap, and all were gone. " Another twelve miles' chase ! " groaned Wade. " Well we took the mince-pie ! " But, as it happened, we had not far to look. Before we had gone a hundred yards along the trail, we heard the chain rattle, and saw the creature leaping and thresh- ing about amid a clump of little basswoods. " The clog has caught ! " shouted Wash. It was a lynx. As we came up, it burst out yawling hideously, and bounded to and fro in the most frantic LYNX-HUNTING. 95 manner. But the clog, which was caught at both ends against the bass-trunks, held fast. Finding escape hopeless, it turned, crouched, and growled menacingly. Its ears lay back ; its eyes flashed and glowed. A very picture of fury it seemed. " Hold on ! " said E-aed. " Let's not get too near. He means business. If he should jump this way, the clog might not hold." It had one hind-foot in the trap. We prudently halted at a distance of twenty yards ; then gradually moved up to within a couple of rods. The creature eyed us scratchingly, and kept up a continuous miawl- ing, something like a house-cat when cornered up in a room and frightened. " I wish we had the rifle ! " said Eaed. " If we fire at it with shot, it will be sure to spring. Besides, the shot will cut up the fur." " Too bad to mangle the poor brute ! " Wade re- marked. Pity, I fear, had come into none of our hearts but his. Our only thought had been to despatch it some- how or anyhow. " Wade," said the Doctor approvingly, " ' blessed are the merciful.' You ought at once to be made a life- member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to our Dumb Animals." Wade blushingly disclaimed any extra soft-hearted- ness on his part. The Doctor's chaff rather demoralized him. "But," said he, rallying a little, " I don't see any good in torturing the poor creatures. It's bad enough to come up here and kill them, for sport, without mangling and excruciating them needlessly." 96 LYNX-HUNTING. " Shows his good, kind heart ! " cried the Doctor, rub- bing his hands. " Of course he does ! " said Wash, who, for some rea- son, is less afraid of the Doctor's raillery than any of the other boys. "It's quite an item to have a kind heart to show, I think." "Something of a problem to kill the beast without hurting him any," laughed Raed. " Why, didn't ever you read that essay by Tyndall, on ' Death by Lightning ' ?" exclaimed Wade. "The professor claims, that, in case of death by lightning- stroke, there is no suffering, no pain; the point as- sumed being, that the rapidity of the shock destroys the power of sensation before the sensory nerves have time to translate the sense of injury." "But we should find it rather difficult to get up a thunder-storm every time we want to kill a cat " objected the Doctor. " Yes ; but the professor claims, also, that a rifle-ball through the brain has much the same effect/-' continued Wade. " The passage of the bullet, he assures us, is much more rapid than nerve motion. In illustration of the position that death by lightning is painless, he cites his own experience on an evening when he accidentally received a shock from a battery. For a moment he knew nothing, sensed nothing ; and he was convinced, that, had the shock been heavy enough to kill him, he would never have felt it." "Then, according to Tyndall's rifle-ball theory, a mil- itary execution might be quite painless," remarked Wash, "provided the firiug-party aimed at the head." LYNX-HUNTING. 97 It seemed so, if we understood the professor's argu- ment. " Then, in the name of God and humanity, why not in that way execute all criminals condemned to death," exclaimed Raed, "instead of our barbarous, revenge- ful, and revolting mode of hanging by the neck, leaving the victim to struggle and writhe twenty min- utes, as is often the case ? Twenty minutes ! which, to a poor wretch thus tortured, must seem twenty hours, ay, twenty ages ! " " Take care, take care ! " cried the Doctor. " Don't amplify so. You'll make the cat jump." "Well, I move, that, hereafter, we kill our cats sct- entificaUy" said I. " Which means humanely," amended Eaed. " But who's philanthropist enough to go back to camp after the rifle ? " Wash demanded. But I had a few bullets with me, and thought we might compromise the matter by drawing the load from one of the barrels of the shot-gun, and substituting a ball. This was done. " Now, who's going to undertake this office of love ? " inquired the Doctor. It rather seemed to devolve upon Wade. I handed him the gun. He took a step forward, and cocked it. " Get good aim now," advised Wash ; " else it will hardly be an act of mercy for him or the rest of us." Wade fired ; and the animal tumbled over with scarcely a kick. 'Twas a beautiful shot, very happily illustrating both young Additon's marksmanship and the professor's theory. 98 LYNX-HUNTING. This was our third cat. We skinned it, reset the trap, and went on to the other two set among the fox- bones. We found them both sprung as before. Curi- ously enough, one of them had a hare in it, caught round the neck, and fairly choked to death. The poor little fellow could hardly have been attracted by the bait. The other trap had been dragged to a little distance, and lay much as we had found it two mornings previously, with a foot in it ; only this time, instead of a black foot, it was a gray foot, a lucivee's foot ! This time it was a lynx that had got into the trap ; and sometJiing had, in turn, eaten it up. Its bones lay scattered about, with wet bits and wads of its fine long fur chewed up and spit out. We stood looking over the scene of the massacre. " What think now ? " demanded Wash meaningly. Nobody knew exactly what to think. " Is it to be supposed that these i bob-cats 7 are canni- bals ? " persisted Wash. " If one of their number gets into a trap, is it likely that the rest will fall to and eat him up?" " Why not ? " said Eaed. " Wolves often do so." "It's not a supposable case ! " exclaimed Wash with some heat. " This is a panther's work ! " Something had, clearly, devoured the lynx ; but I, for one, was hardly prepared to believe it the " work " of a catamount. Not often, within the last five years, has the Felis concolor been met with in Maine. But very few of our oldest hunters have ever seen it. Indeed, I know of but three authentic accounts of adventure with this beast occurring within this State. Of these a brief sketch will presently follow. LYNX-HUNTING. 99 We set the two traps again, using for bait the assa- fbetidaed carcass of the unfortunate little hare. The trap in the trail leading up to the mountain was as we had left it. We took it up, and went back to c&mp and to dinner. In the afternoon we took our two traps (the one we had brought back from our long tramp, and the one we had just taken up), and went down the pond, past the "hole" where we had fished, and came round to the hum- mock and the old pine-stump where we had seen the singular black animal watching us. The sharp cold of the previous evening had closed up nearly the whole of the open stretch along the bog. That it should remain open a day even, at this season, was a curiosity. Going along the shore of the hummock, we saw that the bank shelved off abruptly into tolerably deep water ; and in one place it was worn smooth, and was icy, as if some animal had been sliding from it down into the pond. Otherwise there were no traces. But, seeing this, I at once took the hint. We then climbed up to the stump where we had seen the creature sitting. All about it, the snow was trodden hard. The heart of the stump had rotted away, leaving a dark hole down into the ground. Wade and I were a little ahead ; and, looking into it, we espied a broad black muzzle, and a pair of wicked little eyes gleaming up at us. " Halloo ! " cried Wade : "here he is ! " thrusting in the barrel of the rifle. The head vanished. "What was it? What did it look like, anyway?" exclaimed War h. 100 LYNX-HUNTING. " Had mouse-ears, little sparkling eyes, and a mighty blunt nose," Wade explained. Even the sagacious Doctor looked puzzled. But I thought it was an otter, judging from the ft slide " on the bank, and the momentary glimpse I had got of its head. It was just about such a place, too, as the otter would naturally select for its winter-quarters, a place where there was open water, and plenty of fish.* " Otters ! what about them ? " inquired the Doctor. " Will they fight much ? " Fight when cornered ; so I read," Wash explained. " Dogs are no match for them. But their fur is valua- ble." "That so?" demanded Kaed. "We must get this one, then, if we can. What are they worth apiece ? their skins, I mean ? " Wash had heard that a good otter-skin was worth from twelve to fifteen dollars. " Must get him by all means ! " exclaimed the Doctor. "Why, that's equal to a first-class fee/ " I suggested that there might, perhaps, be more than one. Two, three, and even four otters are sometimes found together in these winter burrows. " But I see no track from the stump here down to the water," Wash remarked. " That's strange ! Not a sign of a trail ! Of course they are in connection with the water : else how do they live ? " I suggested that there might possibly be a passage under ground ; but, as the distance from the stump to the water was all of four rods, E-aed thought this hardly * See Field Notes. LYNX-HUNTING. 101 probable. Yet, under these old pine-stumps, curiously roomy cavities will sometimes be found. We went down to reconnoitre the bank. It fell off steeply into six or seven feet of water ; and, a little to one side of the "slide/' there was the appearance of an opening three or four feet under water. Wade was standing up near the stump. " Stamp on the ground," E/aed called out to him, " or beat down with the axe ! " Wade beat on the stump violently. We stood looking over into the water, and, a moment later, saw a long, slim animal glide out from under the bank, and dart off beneath the ice ; then another. " Two of them ! " Wash shouted. "Watch and see where they come up," admonished Eaed. " Have the rifle ready." We continued intently observant for nearly five min- utes ; but they did not come up in the open water. We presumed there might be air-holes in the ice. "Well, shall we set the traps for ? em?" quoth the Doctor. " I suppose so," said Raed ; " but we rather ought to bag at least one of them to-day now." "Might watch here at the stump, and shoot when one shows his head," Wade suggested. "But, even if you hit the animal, he would draw back into the hole, out of reach," objected the more prac- tical Wash. " Well, then, stand on the bank, and shoot when they pass out," said Wade. "Be pretty sure to get off, even then, into deep 102 LYNX-HUNTING. water under the ice," Wash observed; "and then I doubt whether the bullet would take effect through three feet of water. No, fellows : I've g6t the better plan." " Let's hear it ! " cried the Doctor. " Well, then, I propose to cut a crotched pole about a dozen feet long, with prongs some foot or eighteen inches in length, after the fashion of a pitchfork, having the prongs sharpened. With this in hand, I'll stand on the bank here, holding it ready to prod. Then, when one of them scoots out, I'll pin him, and hold him fast." "If you can," supplemented Raed, laughing. " Oh, I can hold him fast enough ! * exclaimed Wash. " Once I get those prongs over his back, I can bear down hard enough to hold him, I'll warrant ye ! " It seemed a rather good idea, a very original one certainly. A yellow-birch sapling of the crotched sort was cut, trimmed up, and the prongs sharpened off to Wash's liking. But the others were still out in the lake. It was not probable, however, that they would relish staying out there in the icy water any longer than they were obliged to. So, in order to give them opportunity to get baek into their burrow, we went off, and around upon the iee again. Raed and the Doctor sought to frighten them back by shouting, and stamping on the snow. Wade even went so far as to clear out the hole where we had fished a few days previous, and splash and shout in it " Guess they've gone in, if they are going," remarked Wash after we had been beating about on the iee foi fifteen or twenty minutes. LYNX-HUNTING. 103 We went ashore, and came cautiously along the bank. Wash took his forked pole, and placed himself in a posi- tion to jab with it. Wade had gone directly up to the gtump. " Ha ! here they are ! " he muttered. " Got another glimpse ! " " Are you all ready, Wash ? " demanded Eaed. " All ready ! " responded the expectant sportsman. We beat on the stump, and stamped the snow with our rackets. A faint rumble sounded from beneath. Wash jailed. He had to lean off on the bank pretty well, and threw his whole weight upon the pole. There was an instant's struggle and spattering, when Wash disappeared over the bank. I caught a glimpse of his racketed heels. Then came a splash and a suppressed shout. We ran down. He was fighting the water with both hands; but his feet didn't seem to be of much service to him. " Catch hold -hands !" exclaimed Raed, planting his feet firmly on the bank. Wade and the Doctor strung out behind him with a firm hand- grip ; and, slipping my feet out of the racket-straps, I swung down the bank, and, reaching out, managed to grab hold of the tail of one of Wash's snow-shoes. He was in this way drawn ashore, and pulled up the bank, puffing and blowing in a lively manner, wet to the skin in ice-water, with the thermometer at seven degrees above only ! No joke for him ; though we could but grin, once he was safely out. "Couldn't ye hold him, Wash?" demanded Wade, with a wink to the rest of us. " Wiggled prodigiously, didn't he ? " suggested Eaed. 104 LYNX-HUNTING. But Wash's teeth had begun to chatter alarmingly. "Must be got to a fire and into dry togs immedi- ately," pronounced the Doctor. " Come, sir, you must run back to camp with me. We'll try a race." Wade pulled off his overcoat, and wrapped it about the shiverer. Baed and I attended to his rackets. But, despite his ducking, Wash's thoughts were still on the game. " 2?el-fe-&-fel-ows," he chattered, " o-o-o-o-nly-one-of e-e-e-em-ca-ca-ca-cameout. The-oth-oth-other-t-t-t-two- 'reinthereyet." "Two more!" said I. "Ye-ye-yes, a-coup-coup-couple mo-more. Setout-to- comeout, b-b-butdartedback. C-c-c-catch'em ! " " Well, well, come along with you ! " cried the Doctor, marching him off authoritatively. " Three of them, then," said Wade. " Is it best for us to try Wash's crotched pole ? " Baed declared that he had seen all of it that he cared to see. But I still had faith in it ; and Wade thought he should like to have a hand in it : so we two agreed to hold the pole while E-aed beat on the stump. But first we took the precaution to take off our rackets. Then, getting the prongs poised astride the hole, Wade gave the signal. E-aed beat and shooed savagely. In a moment, there came a wavy motion of the water deep down ; and an otter came swimming swiftly out beneath the prongs. I jabbed. We both threw our weight on it. We had pinned him right back of the shoulders. The animal struggled violently. I could easily imagine how Wash had been upset. But our united weight proved too much LYNX-HUNTING. 105 for its strength. It couldn't wriggle out; though it squirmed and doubled franticly for fully five minutes, till it fairly drowned : for an otter must breathe, as well as any other quadruped ; though it will remain under water somewhat over a minute ; some hunters say three minutes. Not until it had long ceased to twist did we venture to take up the pole. It then lay still on the bottom. Indeed, the carcass of an otter always sinks. We fished it out. In the struggle the other had escaped past us, and dived off into the deep, dark water under the ice. But, hoping to secure one or both of them, we set the two traps, one in the old stump, chaining it fast ; and the other in the water, at the mouth of the burrow leading out into the lake. The latter we made fast by the ring of the chain over a stake driven with considerable diffi- culty into the loose, frozen soil of the bank. This done, we started for camp, carrying the otter. It gave us a load. When we started, Wade had set its weight at forty-five pounds ; but, before we got in with it, he was confident it wouldn't fall an ounce short of seventy. We found Wash inside of his spare shirt, with his legs wrapped up in blankets. The Doctor was dosing him with hot, strong black tea, in lack of other restora- tives. His coat, pants, &c., were steaming before the fire. When he saw us bringing in the otter, he seemed hardly to know whether to exult in the final success of his project, or feel chagrined at his own failure to exe- cute it. His dubious countenance set us all a-laughing afresh. The affair got hold of my own risibilities all 106 LYNX-HUNTING. the more from the fact that I now never look at ac otter, not even the picture of one, without thinking of the luckless way in which, in company with several other little fellows, I made my first acquaintance with one of these animals one sunny sabhath morning in boyhood. Once well a-laughing, it is not so easy hush- ing up. Wash waxed so indignant under the prolonged cachinnation, that, to appease him, I at length had to explain; and so told the story to the party while we were getting supper. " ? Twas years ago. Three of us little shavers were on our way to church, or ' goin 7 to meeting as we called it. The meeting-house was not within ' a stone's-throw, 7 by any means : it was nearly five miles distant from our little neighborhood. " The parish, or rather ' circuit ' (in Methodist phrase), had a vast territorial area ; something like a hundred square miles, I believe. We considered ourselves com- paratively near the church : still it was quite a walk for boys of nine and ten. But we couldn't all ride ; and, as grandfather made it a point to have the whole family go to meeting, we little fellows were fixed up and sent on ahead, under strict orders not to play, first, because it would be wicked ; second, because we should soil our clothes. Usually this command was pretty well obejred. " On the morning in question we were going along with the very best intentions, no doubt, and had accom- plished nearly three miles, when, just as we were cross- ing the log-bridge over the ' sawmill brook/ little Billy Murch saw some kind of an animal whisk under a pile of boards near the road. LYNX-HUNTING. 107 " ( Oh, see that woodchuck ! ' "< Where? where?' " ' Gone under them boards ! ' " ' We can git 'im ! we can git 'im ! ' cried Tom Ed- wards. "You see how it was. The excitement of seeing the animal had taken us off our guard. The temptation was too sudden for us. We ran to the board-pile ; and that was the last thought of Sunday we had for the time. " < Git a pole ! ' cried Tom. " I ran to bring a dead alder-stick lying in the ditch. " ' That's it ! There, you stand on this side ! ' ex- claimed Tom. ( Take stones ! I'll punch 'im out : you knock 'im ! ' " Woodchucks are always deemed fair game in farming neighborhoods. Boys and dogs assail them at sight. True to our traditions, we intended to give no quarter. " Tom prodded with the pole. Billy and I stood ready to strike the poor little creature's head as soon as he should show it. But we had more than we bargained for this time. Tom couldn't seem to drive him out. " ' Keeps bitin' at the pole ; 'most pulls it out o' my hands/ said he. ' It's an awful big one ! See'f ye can see 'im.' " Billy and I peeped under on our side. It was rather dark beneath the pile, on account of the grass and weeds growing on both sides ; but I could see a yellowish, hairy back, not far under. So, dropping into a sitting position on one leg, I began to kick at it. " For the first kick or two, my foot struck, unresisted, 108 LYNX-HUNTING. into soft-feeling fur : but, at the third kick, there was a sudden movement, a growling sound; and, with a smart snap, my toe was pinned. "I tried to jump back, and struggled to pull out my leg. The creature held me fast. I could hear and feel its teeth gritting through the toe of my shoe. Scared at this, I roared out lustily, " ' Oh, oh, oh ! he's got me ! Pull me out ! pull me out ! ' " Tom rushed at me. Billy and he lay hold of my arms, and tugged to drag me away. The animal held on. How I should have fared I really don't know, had not my shoe-string given way. My foot came out ; and we all three sprawled backwards, leaving the shoe in the creature's mouth, under the boards. " My Sunday shoe ! " ( Oh, dear ! ' I cried, frightened at the sight of my bare stocking : ' it's Sunday ! ? "Tom and Billy looked on in sympathetic distress; and just then, to add to our discomfiture, the wagons came rattling down the hill above the brook. " < Oh ! ' exclaimed Billy. ' What'll they say ? ' " ' Yes ! ' cried Tom : ' what will they say ? ' " In a sudden panic, not an unaccountable one, either, we slunk down behind the board-pile ; and in a moment the wagons went tearing by, and rumbled over the log-bridge. We lay still till they were out of sight among the alders. " ' We must git it away from 'im, ? said Tom. ' Git stakes out o' the fence there. We'll podge 'im. 7 " We got stakes, and began to poke the supposed wood- LYNX-HUNTING. 109 chuck 011 both sides with great energy. He retaliated in kind by snapping and champing the ends of our sticks, making a harsh, snuffling, and growling sound. " Twenty-five or thirty minutes of this sort of work put us into rather bad plight for church. We kept at it, however. There was no other way but to worry him to death, and so get the shoe. " Suddenly a voice exclaimed, " ' There they are now ! ' " We looked hastily up. " < There were Mr. Edwards and grandfather crossing the bridge. Not finding us at the church, they had come back to search for us. "In a country still, for the most part, covered with forest, and infested with bears and lynxes, our non- appearance demanded immediate search. " ' Thomas/ said Mr. Edwards, ' what are you doing there ? ' " ' There's a woodchuck under here/ explained the recusant Thomas ; ' an' he's got Kit's shoe.' "At the word l woodchuck,' grandfather began to break an alder-stick. I stood and watched him break off the twigs, knowing very well what was coming. And it came ! " The old gentleman took me by the shoulder, and gave me three cuts. They didn't hurt my skin much ; but they hurt my feelings dreadfully. "Tom, meanwhile, was getting his dose of correction in the form of an old-fashioned spanking. Billy, being of a different brood, escaped. "'Now step yourselves to meeting/ said Mr. Ed- wards. 110 LYNX-HUNTING. "Grandfather essayed to walk me along by the shoul- der ; but, with only one shoe, my limp was at once ap- parent. " ' Where's your other shoe, sir ? ' " l It's it's it's under the boards. The wood - woodchuck's got it.' " Grandfather went back, and looked under. " ' See here, Edwards ! ' he called. "Mr. Edwards went back, and looked. Then they laughed. " ' I should say woodcJtuck ! 9 exclaimed Edwards, picking up one of our stakes. Grandfather lifted up the boards. Instantly a large, yellow-brown animal bobbed out, but was struck down by the stake. " They examined it a moment ; then threw the carcass upon the pile of boards. Grandfather now drew out my shoe. But, alas! it was so slit and chewed up, it wouldn't stay on my foot. " e Carry it in your hand,' said grandfather. ' Take off your stocking too. There, come along now. Next time, you let such woodchucks alone.' " We were marched on to church. Services had com- menced before we got there. Nobody knows what I suffered going in with one shoe, and my hair so tum- bled up. Everybody would look. Oh, what a disgraced little chap I felt myself! " That was a day long to be winced at. " All the little girls made it a point to come along at noon, and peep over the pew-door at my bare foot. The Btory had somehow got out. " ' That's the little woodchuck-boy/ they kept saying. LYNX-HUNTING. Ill " ' Did lie bite yer toe, bubby ? ' "Ah, well ! it came to an end at last. In view of my shoeless condition, I was allowed to ride home, sitting in the back of the wagon, where my bare foot still further contrasted with my shod one. " At the board-pile grandfather stopped, and put the otter into the wagon with me behind : so I rode home with my late enemy." SEVENTH DAY (SUNDAY). M No Cat-Hunting on the Lord's Day." A Bible wanted. Some Appropriate Advice from the Doctor ; also his Opinion of Dick- ens and Charles Reade. " Foul Play." A Fisher and Hare. Anecdote of a Fisher and Heron. Another Otter. The Otter and the Woodchucks. Some Strange Noises from the Lake. DURING the night, the weather moderated. In the morning, the woods across the lake had that dull, wet look peculiar to March or the latter part of Feb- ruary. Said Wash, " We're going to have a ' Giner- wery thaw, 7 I guess." We were late up. It was Sunday, according to a rather dreamy calculation I made while but yet half awake. Presently the Doctor crawled out, yawned, and confirmed my suspicion. "Boys," said he, " to-day's Sunday. No cat-hunting on the Lord's Day. Has anybody got a Bible ? Got a Bible, Mr. Eaedway ? " " By golly, Doctor, you've got me this time ! " " Humph ! " with severity written in every wrinkle of his visage. " Got a Bible, Mr. Burleigh ? " " I'm sorry, Doctor " " The deuse you are ! You're but a sorry dog, to 112 LYNX-HUNTING. 113 make the best of you. No Bible ! " (with derisive em- phasis.) " Got a Bible, Mr. Additon ? " " Really, Doctor, I regret to say that " The Doctor wouldn't hear another word from him, but, turning abruptly, exclaimed, " Well, have you got a Bible, Christopher?" It was something worse than humiliating to own up that I hadn't even a New Testament. " Well, I'll be blowed ! " the Doctor groaned. What the (unmentionable) were you all thinking of! Up here in the very heart of the wilderness, and no Bible ! What if an accident should happen, - a fatal accident ! What if one of these cats should get a grab at some of your reckless young throats ! How would you manage it ? Then, I guess, you'd wish you had a Bible ! Why, I'm astonished ! " " But, Doctor," remonstrated Eaed, " why didn't you bring one yourself ? " " For the very reason you all vaguely hint at when you address me, in a word, my unfortunate profession," explained our grim reprover. " It don't do for a doctor to sport a Bible. Physic and Scripture don't go well together. Somehow or other, the public want the line between medicine and theology clearly drawn. Folks won't have 'em mixed. They hire a doctor to tinker their bodies ; but they won't hear to having their souls tinkered by the same man. If it got out that a doctor had taken to praying and Scripture-reading, he'd lose his practice forthwith. You nor I, nor anybody else, ever relished hearing a doctor pray. The professions have to be kept well separated. What good would it do 8 114 LYNX-HUNTING. for a lawyer to pray in public? Everybody would snicker. That's a misfortune all doctors and lawyers share together. But to you young gentlemen, who are not committed to any profession, allow me to give a word of advice. Always show respect for the Bible wad for the sabbath. Feel as much of it as you can ; the more the better, of course : but be sure to show it. Always pat the Bible on the back when you're out in good society. Pet it ; fondle it. Oh ! you needn't laugh. It'll pay, I assure you. This generation of peo- ple, take 'em together, are still pretty sweet on the good old book of books ; and such of them as have begun to be a little 'shaky* feel sort of conscience-smitten about it, and can't help respecting a fellow who stands up for the Bible. So, if you want the public to think well of you, and trust you, and put you ahead, tend out to church Sundays, dressed plainly, but neatly; and no matter if folks get in the way of seeing you with a well-bound copy of the Scriptures in your hands." All this the Doctor enforced with occasional sagacious nods. " There, boys," he concluded, " I've given you some sound advice. Try it, and see for yourselves. Then, changing the subject : "Rather warmer this morn- ing, isn't it ? Wonder how the glass stands ? " and he slipped out to see. "Oh, what a crocodile the Doctor is!" muttered Raed. After breakfast, we set a good fire going, and sat down to read. Wash had brought up "David Copperfield." "Dombey and Son," and "Oliver Twist." Raed had Darwin's " Descent of Man, '' and TyndalPs " Frag- LYNX-HUNTING. 115 laents of Science." The Doctor was vainly sighing for " The Morning Journal." Wash offered him " Copper- field;" but he shook his head gloomily. " Never much fancied Dickens," said he incidentally. "Don't much affect low English character myself. Dickens may have been good at that; dare say he was: but I can't get interested in it ; not very much. His plots and situations don't stir a man's blood much. His characters perform no grand coups d'etat. They're a homely, grovelling set, and go plodding along, plodding along, always about so-so." After listening to so decided an opinion of the "great novelist," we naturally felt some curiosity to know who were the Doctor's favorite authors. Said Wash, " What think of Charles Eeade ? " The Doctor laughed knowingly. " Ah, well ! Eeade he's a sardonic sort of a fellow ; always trying to give the human race a dig in the ribs. Shouldn't wonder if somebody had dug him in the ribs pretty hard some time, so hard, that he can't seem to forget it readily. But he plots better: I rather like his plots. And as for his characters, they've more grit and vim to 'em than Dickens's, a great deal more. There's more action. On the whole, I rather like Eeade's stories, particularly his court-trial scenes. But I must say he is rather given to epileptic-fits. His ' heroes 7 do drop down in a fit with most alarming frequency. Constitutional with 'em, fairly. But give me Eeade for all of Dickens, barring fits." Wade produced a copy of "Foul Play.' 7 "Here, Doctor," said he: "this'll suit you, I guess. Only one fit in this, I believe." 116 LYNX-HUNTING. " Thank you, thank you ! " replied the Doctor. " Never happened to read ' Foul Play.' Guess I'll try it on. About a six-hours' job, isn't it ? So here goes/' settling his back against one of the upright stakes which answered for a doorpost to our camp. Conversation died out. The forenoon was sacred to Dickens and Reade. Chickadees, with their plaintive little minor notes, flitted about. A couple of red-headed woodpeckers came and tapped noisily on one of the tall stubs ; then departed with fitful wafts of wing. The wild solitude of the wilderness stole upon our silence. Ah, how profoundly alone is he who buries himself in these winter forests ! Alone, and yet not alone ; for the wild tribes come and go about him, and give, in place of the thickly-woven human influences, a strangely re- proachful companionship. Glancing up at length from " Dombey," I saw Baed shading his eyes, and looking off over the lake. Down near one of the islands, a black object, seemingly but a mere speck, was moving along on the snow. In the course of five minutes it had described a complete circle of perhaps fifty rods diameter ; and it still con- tinued going perse veringly on, apparently upon its own trail. We watched it in silence a few moments ; then resumed our reading. But, presently looking again, I saw the animal still pursuing its circuitous path with a sort of tireless patience that showed itself even at this distance. " What can the creature be about there ? " Raed ob- served in a low voice. " Any idea what it is ? " Going into the camp, I took from my overcoat-pocket LYNX-HUNTING. 117 a small dpy-glass which we had brought with us, and, coming out, took a look through it. The distance was rather over half a mile ; but the eye, thus aided, de- tected what would otherwise have passed wholly un- noticed, a hare, about a hundred feet in advance of the black creature, leaping wearily, and stopping at frequent intervals. Its fitful motions indicated that it was neaily exhausted. Not so with its pursuer, which, under the glass, took the form of a rather long-bodied, slim animal, with a large, long tail, but short legs. We could see with what unflagging pace it kept up its pursuit. Gradually they both worked out from the island, beating up the lake. " It's one of those otters, isn't it ? " remarked Kaed after a long look. " Just about the size ; and the tail seems similar in shape. The legs, too, are like." But, before I could have given an opinion, Wash, who had put down " Copperfield " for a look, pro- nounced against this supposition. " Otters never take that pace," said he. " They go at a lope, doubling up their backs with every jump: at least, that's what the books say. That chap plods on like a pacer. And then I never heard of an otter's chasing its prey in that manner. Kit, isn't that a fisher?" It was a fisher unquestionably. I had supposed so on first sighting the hare ; for the fisher preys principally on the hare, which, unless surprised, it can only capture after a long chase.* For more t] an an hour we saw them going on, till * See Field Notes. 118 LYNX-HUNTING. they had come off nearly opposite our camp. The hare was now but a few yards in advance of its grim foe ; and at length the fisher pounced upon it. The struggle was but a momentary one. Very deliberately then the victor proceeded to regale himself. The long chase had doubtless given him a good appetite. After making what seemed a hearty meal, the creature began dragging and carrying off the remainder of the carcass toward the farther shore of the lake. We watched its motions with the glass. " Going off to its burrow," suggested Wash. But that was not its purpose ; for, on coming within a few rods of the alders, it dug a hole in the snow, and carefully buried the body ; then, after sniffing around a while to see that every thing was all right, it went off down the shore. The incident brought to mind a singular combat I once witnessed near the head of Lake Chesuncook, which seems too good an item to be lost from the natural history of the State. I had been spending the day in the neighboring forest, hunting for a black squirrel I had seen there the evening before, having with me a great red-shirted lumberman, named Ben Murch. Not finding our squirrel, we were making our way, towards evening, down through the thick alders which skirted the lake to the shore, in the hope of getting a shot at an otter or a mink ; when, on a sudden, a gruff sound a sort of quocJc, quockj accompanied by a splashing of the water came to our ears. " Hush ! " ejaculated Ben, clapping his hand to his LYNX-HUNTING. 119 ear (as his custom was) to catch the sound. " Hear that ? Some sort of a fracas." And, cautiously pushing through the dense copse, a very singular and comical spectacle met our eyes ; for out some two or three rods from the muddy, grassy shore, stood a tall, a very tall, bird, somewhere from four to five feet, I judged, with long, thin black legs, and an awkward body slovenly clad in dull gray-blue plumage. The neck was as long as the legs, and the head small, and nearly bare, with a long, yellowish bill. Standing knee-deep in the muddied water, it was, on the whole, about the most ungainly-looking fowl that can well be imagined; while on a half-buried tree- trunk, running out towards it into the water, crouched a wiry black creature, of about average dog size, wrig- gling a long, restless tail, and apparently in the very act of springing at the long-legged biped in the water. Just now they were eying each other very intently ; but, from the splashed and bedraggled appearance of both, it was evident there had been recent hostilities, which, judging from the attitude of the combatants, were about to be renewed. " Show ! " exclaimed Ben, peering over my shoulder from behind. " An old kairn, ain't it ? Regular old 2)o7cey. Thought I'd heerd that quock before. And that creetur ? Let's see. Odd-looking chap. Wish he'd turn his head this way. Fisher, ain't it ? Looks like one. Should judge that's a fisher. What in the world got them at loggerheads, I wonder ? " By "hairn" Ben meant heron, the great blue heron of American waters, Anlea Herodias of the natu- ralists. 120 LYNX-HUNTING The fisher had probably been the assailant ; though both had now that intent, tired- down air which marks & long fray. He had no doubt crept up from behind while old long-shanks was quietly frogging along the shore. But he had found his intended victim a game one. The heron had a character to sustain ; and although he might easily have flown away, or even waded farther out, yet he seemed to scorn to do either. Not an inch would he budge, but stood with his long javelin-like beak poised, ready to strike into the fisher's eye, uttering from moment to moment that menacing, guttural quock which had first attracted our attention. This sound, mingling with the eager snarling and fretting of the fisher, made about the most dismal and incongruous duet I had ever listened to. For some moments they stood thus threatening and defying each other; but at length, lashing itself up to the proper pitch of fury, the fisher jumped at his antagonist, open-mouthed, to seize hold of the long, slender throat. One bite at the heron's slim neck would settle the whole aifair. But this attempt was very adroitly balked by the plucky old wader's taking a long step aside ; when the iisher fell into the water with a great splash, and, while struggling back to the log, received a series of strokes, or rather stabs, from the long, pointed beak, dealt down with wonderful swiftness, and force too; for we dis- tinctly heard them prod into the fisher's tough hide as he scrambled upon the log, and ran spitting up the bank. LYNX-HUNTING. 121 This defeat, however, was but temporary, as any one acquainted with the singular persistence and persever- ance of the whole weasel family will readily guess. The fisher had soon worked his way down the log again, the heron retiring to his former position in the water. Another succession of quocks and growlings, and another spring, with even less success, on the side of the fisher : for, this time, the heron's bill wounded one of his eyes ; and, as he again retreated up the log, we could see the bloody tears trickling down over his shaggy jowl. Thus far, the battle seemed favorable to the heron ; but the fisher again rallied, and now, thoroughly mad- dened, rushed down the log, and leaped blindly upon his foe. Again and again his attacks were parried. The snarling growls now rose to shrieks, and the croaking quocks to loud, dissonant cries. "Faugh!" muttered Ben. "Smell his breath fisher's breath clean here. Always let that out of 7 em, somehow, when they're mad." Even at our distance, that strong fetid odor which marks the weasel family could plainly be discerned. "Old hairn seems to be having the best of it," con- tinued Ben. te I bet on him. How cool he keeps ! Fights like the Devil ! See that bill come down, now ! Look at the marks it makes too ! " for the blood, oozing out through the thick fur of the cat in more than a dozen spots, was attesting the prowess of the heron's powerful beak. But at length, with a sudden bound upward, the 122 I/x NX-HUNTING. fisher fell with his whole weight upon the back of his lathy antagonist. Old long-legs was upset ; and down they hoth went in the water, where a prodigious scuffle ensued. Now one of the heron's hig feet would be thrust up nearly a yard ; then the cat would come to the top, sneezing and strangling ; and anon the heron's long neck would loop up in sight, bending and doubling about in frantic attempts to peck at its foe, its cries now resembling those of a hen when seized in the night, save that they were louder and harsher. Over and over they floundered and rolled. The mud and water flew about ; long legs, shaggy paws, wet, wriggling tail, and squawking beak, fur and feathers, all turning and squirming in inextricable confusion. It was hard telling which was having the best of the melee; when, on a sudden, the struggle stopped as if by magic. " One or t'other has given in," muttered Ben. Looking more closely, we saw that the fisher had succeeded in getting the heron's neck into his mouth. One bite had been sufficient. The fray was over ; and, after holding on a while, the victor, up to his back in water, began moving towards the shore, dragging along with him by the neck the body of the heron, whose great feet came trailing after at an astonishing distance behind. To see him, wet as a drowned rat, tugging up the muddy bank with his ill-omened and unsightly prey, was indeed a singular spectacle. Whatever had brought on this queer contest, the fisher had won, fairh r , too, for aught I could see ; and I hadn't it in my heart to intercept his retreat. LYNX-HUNTING. 123 But Ben, to whom a "black cat" was particularly obnoxious, from its nefarious habit of robbing traps, had no such scruples, and, bringing up his rifle with the careless quickness of an old woodsman, fired before I could interpose a word. The fisher dropped. Leaving him to take off its skin, for the fur is worth a trifle, I was strolling along the shore, when, upon coming under a drooping cedar some six or seven rods from the scene of the fight, another large heron sprang out of a clump of brambles, and stalked off with a croak of distrust. It at once occurred to me that there might be a nest here ; and, opening the brambles, lo ! there it was, a broad, clumsy structure of coarse sticks, some two or three feet from the ground, and lined with moss and water-grasses. In it, or rather on it, were two chicks, heron chicks, uncouth little things, with long, skinny legs and necks, and sparsely clad with tufts of gray down. And, happening to glance under the nest, I perceived an egg lodged down among the bramble-stalks. It had probably rolled out of the nest. It struck me, however, as being a very small egg from so large a bird ; and, having a rule in my pocket, I found it to be but two inches and a half in length by an inch and a half in width. It was of a dull, bluish-white color, without spots, though rather rough and uneven. On the edge of the nest I saw several small perch, a frog, and a meadow-mouse, all recently brought, though the place had a suspicious odor of carrion. All this while the old heron had stood at a little dis- tance away, uttering now and then an ominous croak. I could easily have shot it from where I stood, but thought the family had suffered enough for one day. 124 LYNX-HUNTING. The presence of the nest accounted for the obstinacy with which the old male heron had contested the ground with the fisher. Both old birds are said to sit, by turns, upon the eggs. But the nests are not always placed so near the ground as this one. Last summer, while fishing from what is called the " Pappoose's Pond," I discovered one in the very top of a lofty Norway pine, a huge bunch of sticks and long grass, upon the edge of which one of the old herons was standing on one foot, perfectly motionless, with its neck drawn down, and seemingly asleep. After dinner, Wash proposed going down to look to the traps we had set for the otters. " What, on the Lord's Day ! " cried the Doctor, who had again settled himself for the perusal of "Foul Play." "Ah, Washington, Washington! I see that your heart is set to do wickedly. Remember whose great name ye bear. Why can't you wait till morn- ing?" "It's a clear case of humanity," Wash explained. " Mercy toward the poor animals demands that we should not keep them lying there in the traps, suffering, an hour longer than is absolutely necessary." "Listen not to the self-deceiving sophist," said the Doctor with impressive solemnity to the rest of us. " He differs very little from that sinful man whom the Scriptures describe as laboring all the week to get his his jack-a-bottom into the pit, for the sake of pulling him out Sunday." " Whereabouts in the Scriptures d you find that, Doctor ? " demanded Wash. LYNX-HUNTING. 125 " Hum ! I think I think it's somewhere along near the last of Revelation, said the Doctor, resuming his reading very demurely. " Come on ! " said Wash, much disgusted. " The walk will do us good. And, if there's an otter in the trap, I'll take it upon my soul to put him out of his misery without anybody else participating in the crime." So we got on our rackets, and went leisurely down the lake. The Doctor did not choose to go with us. He was deeply interested in " Foul Play." There was nothing stirring about the stump. The trap we had set inside the hole in it was not sprung. We went on down to the bank, and looked over. The one we had set there under water, in the mouth of the burrow, was gone, drawn up out of sight into the hole, with the chain tight. "Got him, I guess," said Wash ; and, pulling it out by the chain, sure enough, there was a long, sleek black fel- low, fast by one of his chubby legs. But he was quite dead, drowned. The hole opening into the lake was probably full of water for some distance up the burrow. When caught, the otter seemed to have darted into the hole ; and, the chain preventing it from going up out of the water, it had struggled there till it had drowned. The fur was of a creamy-brown color, thickly inter- spersed with longer black hairs, which gives the animal, at a little distance, the appearance of being wholly black. The ears were small, and far apart ; the feet short, and webbed like those of a goose ; and the tail rather large and thick. The entire length of the ani- mal, including the tail, was four feet seven inches. 126 LYNX-HUNTING. " How do you suppose these fellows live ? wholly upon fish that they eaten, out iu the lake, under the ice ? " Raed questioned. From the absence of tracks leading off from the stamp, we could not conjecture any other mode of sus- tenance. Wash remarked, that it was the opinion of naturalists that the otter feeds principally on fish. But to fish must be added frogs, eels, and even water- snakes, which the otter frequently seizes upon in warm weather. An old trapper informs me that he once came upon an otter devouring a hare it had but just captured ; and an old citizen of Somerset County tells the rather tough story of an otter that regularly watched for and caught woodchucJcs. That the otter sometimes preys upon the young of water-fowl, I can confirm from my own observation of its habits. A few yeais since, while acting as assistant engineer during the survey of one of our back townships, I had occasion to pass and repass for a whole week along the bank of a certain flowed "thoroughfare" connecting two small lakes. It was a crooked stream ; one sharp bend in par- ticular enclosing a low, narrow "point " of six or eight rods extent. Out at the very extremity of this point, and standing partly in the water now that the stream was flowed, was a low, scrubby cedar. Its wide, drooping lower limbs were partly submerged in the water. I had noticed it from the other shore at some distance below. Among the houghs of this cedar, up eight or ten feet, was a wood-duck's nest, the prettiest and most inter- esting of all the wild ducks in our northern waters. LYNX-HUNTING. 127 The young ones were hatched. There were nine of the little yellow downy chicks. I could have easily shot the old. ones, but forbore, and very soon became much interested in watching their movements in their reedy, sylvan home. On the fifth day they began to leave the nest. I do not know whether this was caused by the mother-bird, or was prompted by instinct on the part of the young ones. They were far from being large enough to fly ; but one by one, during the day, they scrambled over the edge of the nest, and fluttered down into the water. Some of them seemed to merely fall without using their wings at all. Once in the water, they were at home, and floated off among the rushes like egg-shells. There was something amusing in their familiarity with the water. Buoyant as corks, there was no danger of their drowning. They had only to draw back their tiny necks and sit quiet, or paddle on at pleasure. The mother-duck swam back and forth, piloting out each chick as it fluttered down. When, at length, they had all left the nest, she swam away into the open water, with the whole flock tossing and rippling about her. It was a very pretty sight. Late in the afternoon she came back under the nest with her brood ; and they sat all night, clustered together beneath the cedar-boughs. After sunrise the next morning, they started again for the open water. As I came past, I saw them sail out through the reeds toward the channel. The old one seemed to be feeding them on some sort of water-bugs. The current bore some of them occasionally away 128 LYNX-HTJNTING. from the mother ; though, as soon as they were ten o/ a dozen feet from her, they would exert themselves to get back. One of them, however, was hardly strong enough to breast the current. Notwithstanding his ef- forts to reach the mother, he was carried farther and farther down the stream. The old duck didn't seem to notice his trouble : she was absorbed with the other eight. It quite excited my sympathies to see him borne so relentlessly away. When he had been carried forty or fifty feet from the rest of the brood, there was a great splash, and the chick suddenly disappeared under the water. The old duck heard the splash. She glanced suspi- ciously around, seemed to miss one of her brood, and at once swam along to where a bubble or two struggled up to the surface of the stream. Turning her head down, she looked into the water, eagerly scanning the depths below; then, going back, gathered the chicks together, and hurried towards the shore, as if apprehending fur- ther danger. But what sort of a creature had pulled down the poor little duckling so remorselessly ? I concluded that it was a muskrat which had his mud- house over on the other bank of thte thoroughfare, and, watching my chance, sent a ball through the creature just as he was getting up on the roof of his house to enjoy the afternoon sun. Without a single sound or complaint, the poor little victim rolled off into the water, and floated down with the current. By the next morning, the old duck had forgotten her loss. She again took her brood out into the stream. I LYNX-HUNTING. 129 watched them for a time floating about so prettily. There were eight of them. Something drew my atten- tion from them for a few minutes. When I again looked, there were but seven. I began to regret the summary justice I had dealt to the muskrat. Poor fellow ! killed on mere suspicion. Then I surmised it to have been a snake, and, feeling interested, launched my skiff, and, getting in, paddled to the spot. The old duck instantly sailed back among the rushes, with all the little ones bobbing after her. The water was ten or fifteen feet deep, and the bottom muddy. I could just discern the old sunken logs lying bedded in the mud. Then I searched along both banks, for twenty rods or more, for water-snakes, and saw sever- al sunning themselves on old tree-trunks that projected into the stream ; but neither of them seemed the crimi- nal for which I was in search. The duck did not desert her home under the cedar. Next morning saw her leading out her brood once more. My curiosity was roused ; and I determined to watch sharply to see if another chick was taken. The young ones could now swim much better than on the first day. They paddled from the mother in all directions, some to a distance of several rods. They had not been feeding more than fifteen minutes, when another disappeared under the water with a quick splash. Something black glanced up from the surface of the stream the same instant. It was so smartly done, that I believed it to be a fish ; and, if a fish, why not fish for it ? An idea occurred to me. The day before, I had stum- bled upon a partridge-nest containing a dozen or more 9 180 LYNX-HUNTING. chicks but just hatched. It was a rather cruel tiling; but I determined to use one of them for hait. I went out to the nest, brought one, and put it in the bottom of the skiff to keep it from running away ; then tied two strong pickerel-lines together, at the end of which was a stout hook attached to gimp. Not to kill the partridge-chick, and thus lose the ad- vantage of Iwe bait, I tied it to the hook quite closely, yet not so as to prevent the use of its legs or wings; and, to make it all float, attached a cork I happened to have in my pocket. This done, I raised the other end of the line upon a high pole so that it would clear the rushes, and then threw the hook and bait out into the middle of the stream, considerably above the spot where the duck had been caught, so that they might float down past the cedar. The little partridge fluttered and splashed as the current bore it away ; but the cork kept it from sinking. It floated on : there were no bites. I drew in the line, and threw it again; and again it floated past on the sluggish stream. But, at the third throw, there came the same quick splash as when the duckling was seized ; and down went the chick. Instantly the line tightened with a jerk, but held. There was a great pull- ing to and fro, accompanied by a waving motion of the water. I pulled on the line, but did not attempt to draw it in, lest the heavy strain should break it. Whip- ping it round a sapling, and jumping into the skiff, I paddled out into the stream ; but, before I had come over the spot where the line was fast, a large brown-black creature floated up to the surface, half drowned. It was a good-sized female otter. LYNX-HUNTING. 181 Afterwards I found its burrow under Lie opposite bank, with two pretty, pale, pink-gray cubs, seemingly about a fortnight old. On reaching camp, we found the Doctor " wholly un- conscious " in " Foul Play." He didn't so much as no- tice our otter, a compliment for Mr. E/eade ; or else he did not wish to give countenance to our breakage of the sabbath. The weather was dull, dark, and cloudy. A mist had begun to fall, not just like a summer mist ; but the snow " gave " under it. Mingled with the damp murk, there fell an occasional snowflake large as a feather. It dulled even the red ardor of our old pine-fire. " A dismal night," Eaed observed. Out in the woods, the hoots of an owl came dolefully at intervals, one of the most depressing sounds to which the darkening woods echo, and known to the settlers as a sure sign of rain. As we sat listening, the peculiar querulous screech of a lucivee came faintly from the far mountain-side ; answered, a moment later, down in the swamp. Even the wild beasts were complainingly affected ; and anon there began that wild lonely note to which the autumn woods so frequently resound at even- tide. "What's that? that noise?" exclaimed the Doc- tor, looking up from his dusky pages. Just then the plaintive alto call, with its prolonged quavers, was repeated. "By Jove, if that isn't a queer sound!" cr'ed the Doctor. " An Indian devil, ain't it ? " " That's a raccoon, Doctor," I said. 132 LYNX-HUNTING. " A 'coon ! Possible ! No idea that they made such a noise as that." Wade remarked that it reminded him of the nights we had camped out at Katahdin. "But 'coons are usually denned up at this season," observed Wash, " if I read correctly." We supposed that the " warm spell " had invited it out. A thaw often wakes up the raccoons, even at mid- winter. The note was repeated at intervals of about half a minute for some time. But the creature was moving off; and presently the sounds died out in the dis- tance. A more mysterious noise had begun, however, low, at first, as the sigh of the wind, but increasing in loudness as the twilight faded in the damp darkness of the night. It came from far down the lake. "It's a sudden storm coming on," Raed had said at first. "But it can't be," he added a few minutes later. " That's not the wind." An unknown sound is always disquieting. Wash got up uneasily to throw on more wood. Thus far, the noises had seemed to come from the lower end of the lake, seven or eight miles away ; but, as he stood poking the fire, they suddenly drew nearer. A deep groan rose nigh at hand. We all jumped to our feet, with our eyes strained on the great white expanse stretching off under the black heavens. It seemed down by the islands, a smothered moaning; then, on a sudden, it came rushing up, and passed on toward the head of the lake, vast billowy grumblings, accom- panied by a fearful muffled gurgling, a plunging of LYNX-HUNTING. waters under the ice and the deep snow, as of some huge aquatic monster, mad from confinement, and struggling for breath. The Doctor had dropped his novel : for once he looked frightened. Wash and Wade glanced superstitiously at each other. E-aed looked in- quiringly to me. "Ever hear any thing like that before ? " he asked. I had, but never so loud, so terrific. It was the roaring and groaning of the air under the ice, a phe- nomenon not uncommon on our Northern lakes during the frozen season, at the beginning of a thaw. The cause is probably the expansion which the air under the ice and in the water undergoes with the relaxation of the intense cold. The prodigious sheet of ice, with its load of snow, millions of tons, presses down upon the water ; and the surplus of air, from expansion, sets its currents under the ice toward some point of less resistance, the shore, or some tiny air-hole. These subteraqueous currents, rushing along with the speed of race-horses and the force of locomotives, occa- sion the groaning and roaring sounds. Any thing more dismal can hardly be imagined, or more startling, at first, to one ignorant of the cause. The Doctor could hardly receive the explanation as sufficient; and, indeed, I had never heard any thing quite like this in the volume of sound, and absurd effect on the ear. Altogether, it makes one of the most vivid recollections of our hunt. There was a sort of unearth- liness about it. We sat there attempting to read till after nine o'clock : but the sounds claimed our attention in the main, increasing steadily in loudness and hor- 134 LYNX-HUNTING. rid intonation, now a long-drawn moan, merging sud- denly in a hollow gurgling; then a swift, cutting sound, like the rush of the wind through narrow cracks, ending in mournful murmurs. These all, from some conformation of the ice or the shores, seemed to start miles down the lake, and come roaring and gurgling up to its very head. We turned in, and finally went to sleep ; though the sounds continued unabated. Late in the night, Eaed waked me. He was up. " Just come out a moment," he said, " and listen." The lake seemed convulsed with agony. It was really affrighting. Not a breath of air stirred the woods. Every thing was dark and still, save for the restless bellowings from those subterglacial chambers. Coming on the stillness, each groan seemed to thrill the listening forests. " I should think that all the demons in Bale were struggling, charging, fighting their way up from hell, only to souse and drown each other down there under the ice," was Baed's comment, given in sober earnest too. It struck me as involving a very forcible figure; and I determined to remember it at the time. EIGHTH DAY. Going the Round of the Traps. A Lively Scrimmage.- -Not a Loupcervier, but a "Bay Lynx." Story of a Bay Lynx. Our Third Otter. Fishing through the Ice again. A New Excitement. The Doctor's Baby. " Come, Baby, come down : we won't hurt you." A "Bad Sell." Anecdote of a Fisher and a Raccoon. IT was broken weather next morning, with a light west wind. The thermometer had fallen from thirty-nine degrees above to thirty-four degrees above. The noises from the lake had ceased ; but we all retained confused recollections of " terrible carryings-on " in the night. The Doctor was moody. He never heard of a lake so distressingly afflicted with colic before. ; Twas entirely out of his line of practice. We went off to examine our traps directly after breakfast, all but the Doctor : he staid to finish "Foul Play." The one set alone beside the second muck-hole held a small lynx, a last spring kitten ap- parently. The two clogs had been too heavy for it to drag off. We found it not three rods from where the trap had been set. Wash despatched it scientifically. One of the traps at the fox-bones had been sprung, 135 MOT MI s nNG. HIM! dr. i ...... I nun- mi] ; hut the hea.re it was steep. It did not Sooin likely thai it ronld have gone any great distance. We followed immediately. lint hall a d.'/.rn rods up among the spruces, we came upon one of the clogs shaken off. \\.uh- had pndi.-ii ..it \\-liil. pped to look at the clog. A iiMMnont later he called to us, and fired We up. him for just a second!" Wade ex- " SAW his gray back I Hark!" \\ ' i-oulil hear the trap clatter as the animal < limhrd up anionjr the rocks. 1 l'.i on the lookout! He won't run far up hen with- out stopping to rest," panted Wash as we climbed up, i-atrliini; hold of the prickly hrandies. \Ve \\nrkcd our way to the hot tom of a mass of over- hanging rocks; \vlien. hearing a noise as of claws M-rat rliing on bare stones, we looked .-anti the animal in a sort of figure or great crevice. But, the instant I raised the rifle, it growled, and drew back out <>f sijjht ; and, climbing up a little nearer, we could srr that the lissun- led 1-ark into a dark lioli-. >: a den then-." xii<| luved. \VhatV tO 1" done? I low shall we -et at him V" inanded. LYNX-HUNTING. 1:>7 "Ought to IJHVO Grip hen-," replied Kaed. "You utay hen-, ;ind keep f,ho game, in i J'JI go hiirlt to camp for him/' Oil' he went; and tin; rest of us stood guard with COCkad gttOii ' the course ol' lil'leen minuten wo li< :ud voices, and soon saw Ilicin Doming, K:ied an*' (jj'ij), with the \) n:\m- hard behind. 'Die \)<><-\<>r had a ])>le. (irij) r,ajn<{ dasliiu^ on ahe^ul of them, and ran lit up to the mould of the den. "A eat, is it?" .said the J)o.-i.or, cJimhing up, " S-t ! tahe, him, Orip! rang out, with two pale, hright npofs in the, hlaekne^s hehi/id hijj). The, poor dog'n <;:ir.s wen? wo- fullyslit; au out, if wo Jiad hecn i-ea