Camps and Trails Part 1

Camps and Trails.

by Henry Abbott.

My rifle was standing against a birch tree within easy reach of my right hand, while I, sitting on a log, was eating my lunch. A hunter's lunch is carried in a small cotton bag and a string tied around the mouth of the bag also secures it to one's belt. On one side of this bag, faded to a pale blue from many washings, appears printed matter containing a trade mark, a name of manufacturer or dealer and indications that the bag once contained sugar. The contents of the bag on this occasion just fitted my appet.i.te.

While I was busily munching a sandwich I became aware of a curious bird sitting on the lower limb of a tree at my left and about ten yards away. I do not mean that he was an unusual bird; he wore a plain slaty-gray coat and was a little larger than a full grown robin. He was quite a commonplace bird and one often seen in our northern forests. His name is Canada jay. I do not know why, but he is also sometimes called whiskey jack. He was curiously and intently watching me with his right eye. Presently he turned his head and studied my operations with his left eye. Most birds and many animals who live in the woods have a distinct advantage over man in the fact that their eyes are so placed that they are able to look in opposite directions at the same time. They can thus look for their prey with one eye, while watching out for an enemy with the other.

This fellow was apparently not entirely satisfied with what his right eye saw, so for purposes of confirmation he turned on me the left eye. I had not noticed his arrival. He had silently come after I sat down on the log. He now spread his wings and without a single flap silently skated across the air to another tree on my right but a little nearer, where he could "view the subject from another standpoint." It now occurred to me, that, possibly the jay bird might also be needing some lunch so I tossed a small piece of bread out on the other end of the log when he slid down and ate it. Then I invited him to come nearer; and presently, when I gave him a piece of meat he was eating it out of my hand. While I was closely watching my guest, there suddenly and as silently appeared a second bird walking down the log, and then in a moment a third arrived to join the lunch party. The strangest thing about the incident was the silence and suddenness with which, like ghosts, the birds appeared before me, and when the last crumb had been devoured, they as silently slipped away.

The place where the jays and I met was in a dense forest about fifteen miles from any human habitation and it is probable that they had met the human animal so seldom that the native curiosity of the forest dweller had not yet given place to fear.

Bige and I were hunting. We were living at "The Dan'l Boone Camp" on the northwestern slope of Crescent Mountain. We left camp that morning about seven o'clock and together traveled down the valley, following one of our own trails about three miles until we crossed Pigeon Brook, where we separated. When Bige and I hunt, we always get far enough apart so there will be no possibility of shooting each other. Also, we hunt separately to avoid conversation. Gossip on a "still hunt" is about the worst practice in which one can indulge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Dan'l Boone Cabin]

On this occasion, it was agreed that Bige should climb the eastern end of Wild Cat Mountain and proceed along the top of the ridge which extends several miles toward the west, while I hunted through the valley and over the foot hills, meeting him on the western end of the ridge for lunch at twelve o'clock. It was now nearly one o'clock and as I had been unable to find Bige, I ate lunch with the jay birds as above described.

Since leaving Bige that morning I had seen no big game, but had shot a goshawk. Every guide and hunter of my acquaintance in the North Woods, is the sworn enemy of this bird of prey. No man is thought to have performed his duty if he allows one of these hawks to escape.

The goshawk destroys many song birds, but his particular object in life is to kill partridges. The partridge is one of our most desirable game birds. He has many enemies among the four footed residents of the forest. The owl also, will kill a partridge at night, while he is roosting in a tree; but the goshawk (sometimes called partridge hawk) pursues a policy of frightfulness amounting almost to extermination of the partridge. He will sit all day, and day after day in a tree in that part of the woods where a flock of young partridges live, watching his opportunity to pounce upon and kill them one after another, until the last one is disposed of; when he will go on a hunt for another flock.

The "Boche" which I shot was sitting on the limb of a tree eating something which he was holding down on the limb with one foot. On going up to the tree to pick up my hawk I found on the ground, feathers, that I knew did not belong to him, and a few feet away, discovered a full grown partridge, recently killed, from the breast of which a piece of flesh had been torn out.

I suspect that our feeling of enmity toward the goshawk is not entirely due to sympathy for the defenseless partridge. Mixed motives may inspire us to acts of revenge. We, ourselves sometimes eat breast of partridge.

After my luncheon guests had gone, I took a drink of water at a spring near our lunch table and considered what should be my next move. Failing to meet Bige at the appointed place, I reasoned that, possibly he was on the trail of game which led in the opposite direction. In any case, I felt quite sure he would not, in returning, come back over the route I took going out; also that he would not feel safe in crossing my path; so he most likely would go back on the northern slope of the mountain. Accordingly, I turned southward, intending after about a mile on that tack to swing toward the east and work back to the camp; crossing Pigeon Brook below where we had crossed it in the morning. This course would take me half-way up Crescent Mountain and around the outside curve of that ridge. I estimated that I could make this course back to camp, traveling quietly as a hunter should, in about five hours.

So, frequently consulting my compa.s.s, I proceeded down the mountain, over hillocks, across ravines, through swamps, often following the beaten path of a deer's runway; again, forcing a pa.s.sage through a briar patch or tangled witch-hopple. Then, there were long stretches of smooth forest floor carpeted with a Persian rug of Autumn leaves of brilliant and somber hues, woven into the most gorgeous and fantastic patterns. A soft October breeze rustled the tree tops and partially drowned the noise of rasping dry leaves under foot. It was an ideal day for wandering alone in the woods, far from the call of the telephone bell or the rush and jostle of the crowded city street.

Presently, coming over the top of a knoll, I saw a few rods ahead, a deer with gracefully mounted antlers which had recently been polished by rubbing them against bushes and saplings. The deer was making most unusual motions. I have seen deer in the woods doing many queer and unexplained things, but this fellow seemed to be digging a hole in the ground as does a rabbit or a woodchuck. He was pawing the earth with both fore feet; was working hard and giving his entire attention to the job, while the leaves flew from his rapidly flying hoofs. His head was turned away from where I stood and he had not noted by approach, so I crept up behind a clump of bushes and watched the progress of what I believed to be a new game for deer to play.

Presently he pushed his muzzle under a pile of leaves and lifted his head working his jaws vigorously. Then something fell from the tree above, hit him on the head and bounded off in the leaves. He paid not the slightest attention to it, but continued to paw the ground and occasionally root his nose into it like a hog.

Then I gave my attention to the tree under which the deer was digging and saw that it was a beech and that beech nuts were being shaken down by the wind and sifted through the fallen leaves; while the deer was pawing the leaves away to get the nuts.

About this time a shifting breeze carried the human scent to the deer's nostrils and his head came up with a jerk. He blew a bugle blast of warning that could be heard a mile down the valley, and with head and tail erect he bounded away down the hillside as if the Devil was after him.

Just then, it occurred to me that I had a rifle in my right hand and that, for that day at least, it was my business to hunt deer. By this time, however, several trees were between the deer and myself and though I could occasionally see the flash of his white tail in the distance it would have been folly to waste a shot on him. An examination of his tracks showed that he was covering twenty feet at every jump.

After gathering a pocketful of beech nuts for my own consumption, I proceeded on my way eating nuts and musing on the good judgment of the deer in his choice of food.

About an hour later I heard in the distance ahead, a rumbling noise that seemed like the long continued roll of a snare drum or the purr of an eight cylinder gasoline engine. I felt quite certain that no motor car would be found in this roadless wilderness but pressed forward to investigate. Proceeding in the direction from which the sounds came, which were now repeated at intervals, beginning slowly like a locomotive starting; I heard the b.u.mps coming gradually faster and faster until they merged into a continuous rumble lasting for a half minute when the sounds died away as if the steam supply were exhausted.

I now recognized my old friend the ruffed grouse or drummer partridge on his drumming log. With tail feathers spread fanwise, neck feathers ruffed up and the points of wing feathers dragging, he would strut like a turkey gobbler up and down the log until arriving at the particular drumming spot, he stretched his neck, filled his lungs with air, lifted wings and pounded his breast-b.u.mp-b.u.mp-thump-bup-br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.

The drummer partridge--the male of the species is very fussy and particular about his drumming log. It is carefully selected with reference to its sonorous quality. He always drums on the same log and at exactly the same spot on that log throughout the season.

Indeed the same log is likely to be used for drumming purposes several years, but it would be difficult to prove that the same bird did the drumming in successive seasons. One can, however, be quite certain that no two drummers ever occupy the same log in any single season. The fittest would surely whip the weaker one and drive him away.

Several years ago, there was a drumming log about sixty feet back of our "Cedar Lake Camp." Bige and I were wakened early every morning by the old drummer announcing with his tattoo that it was time to get up. He was very regular in his habits and made an excellent alarm clock.

I had by now worked my way up close enough to the log to study the movements of the drummer; indeed I could have knocked him off of that log with a club. He soon discovered my presence, stopped drumming and flew up into a tree about thirty yards away.

We usually hunt partridge with a shot gun and are supposed to shoot them while on the wing. But if one meets a partridge while using a rifle the ethics of the woods requires that one must wait until the bird alights and then shoot him only in the head or neck. Now, the neck of a partridge when the feathers are removed, is about the diameter of a lead pencil and the head is the size of a silver dime.

This makes a small target to hit with a rifle at thirty yards, but it has been done, so I fired. The bullet pa.s.sed close to his left ear causing him to sharply dodge toward the right. The second shot cut a feather from his neck, then he suddenly remembered an engagement he had with a lady bird on the other side of the valley.

I arrived at camp before dark and had a fire started, the potatoes put over to boil and other preparations for supper under way when Bige came staggering into camp with the hind quarters of a deer wrapped in the skin on his shoulders. Bige had put in a strenuous day, had carried his meat from the valley west of Wild Cat Mountain, a distance of about seven miles and he had a good appet.i.te for supper, which I had ready by the time he had put the venison in the cooler.

The cooler was an empty pork barrel which a year earlier we had procured at a lumber camp several miles down the valley; and which at great expenditure of effort and time we had rolled, tumbled and carried through the woods all the way back to our camp. We had then scrubbed out the barrel, weighted it with stones and in the shade of a clump of balsam trees had sunk it in a deep hole in the brook flowing from our spring so that the water came near its top. On nails inside of the barrel we hung our fresh meat and game, and the icy water from the spring flowing around the barrel kept the contents as hard and fresh as if in a cold-storage warehouse; while a slab of spruce bark with a stone on top formed a cover to keep night prowling flesh-eating neighbors out of our refrigerator.

At the supper table I told Bige about the deer I had seen digging beech nuts, and he said that in dressing out the deer he shot, he found its stomach filled with beech nuts, and that they more nearly resemble buckwheat, than any other food a buck-deer can find in the woods. Long after the first snowfall in the Autumn one can find places where deer have pawed away the snow to dig beech nuts out from under the leaves.

In the middle of the night I was wakened by some unusual noise outside the cabin. Listening intently I heard footsteps softly padding down the path toward the spring brook. Not a breath of air was moving and the silence of the night was noisy and oppressive.

Straining my ears I again heard the soft foot falls. Then a sniffing, smelling sound. Later, two bright stars close together appeared through the open doorway about a foot above the sill. Twinkling, shining, expanding, the stars grew into a pair of eyes in the darkness. The owner of the eyes sniffed, then spoke, apparently to his partner outside,--"Uh huh!"--They're here!--"Uh huh! Uh huh!"--Been here before!--They're here again!--"Uh huh!" We keep a pile of dry wood inside the cabin for use in kindling fires on rainy days. From my bunk I reached over, grabbed a stick of wood and flung it through the doorway and the thieving c.o.o.n in his striped prison garments scuttled away through the bush into the night.

The following morning we found the c.o.o.n's tracks--they looked as if made by the hand of an infant--in the soft mud near our refrigerator.

After breakfast Bige and I sawed a couple of blocks, each about four feet long, off a spruce log. Then Bige took a pack-basket and went back to Wild Cat Mountain for the forequarters of the deer which he had left hanging in a tree the day before; while I, with an axe and a couple of hard wood wedges (the same tools with which Abe Lincoln, ninety years ago, split rails), proceeded to split the two spruce blocks into thin staves from six to eight inches wide. These I sharpened at one end and drove into the ground on the bank of the stream below the cooler; arranging them as nearly as possible in a circle with the edges touching and making a vertical cylinder about two and a half feet in diameter. I put hoops of osier withes around the tops of the staves and used other slabs of the spruce for a cover. Then I gathered stones and built a fireplace on the gravelly bed near the water. A trench was dug from the fireplace up the sloping bank and under the cylinder of staves. This was covered with flat stones and dirt and it served as a flue to carry smoke from the fireplace by the brook into the smoke-house on the bank. In the smoke-house we hung strips of venison--the venison having first been packed in salt over night. The fire was kept smoldering and smoking by a liberal use of green birch wood. At the end of two days smoking we had on hand a stock of the finest "Jerked Venison" that any hunter ever put into his lunch bag. The smoke of green birch imparts a spicy flavor that is not found in jerked meat cured by the Indian method of drying in the sun.

The Dan'l Boone Cabin was built fifteen years ago, and was located in this particular spot because of a spring of pure cold water which we discovered while on a hunting expedition. It is a long way from any lake but is in the edge of good hunting country. To reach it, from our cottage we went by boat up the lake to the mouth of the river, then proceeded along the river bank past the rapids about two miles to the falls. At the falls the township line crosses the river, and we followed it through the woods up over the top of the mountain and down to one of the foot hills on the opposite slope.

The township line was marked through the woods by four blazes on each tree, placed in the form of a diamond, a chip being cut out at each angles of the diamond. The line was practically straight and was not difficult to follow, except that it led up the steepest part of the mountain and over the highest ridge. In places one had to crawl on hands and knees and hang onto roots and bushes to avoid sliding back.

We had to climb just the same, both going and coming and with a heavy pack on one's back it was rather strenuous, and there were about four miles of the line that we used.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Township Line]

I felt confident that a better route could be found to the camp and Bige and I often discussed the matter but we continued to use the township line through the first season. One day during the second summer of our tenancy, while Bige was busy with some other ch.o.r.e, I took an axe and started out from camp, determined to mark a new and better trail out of the woods.

There was a steep rocky ledge or rather a succession of ledges, leading to the mountain top and I reasoned that if I kept to the left and below these ledges I should pa.s.s over the shoulder of the mountain thus avoiding the high ridge and steep part of our old trail. Then, after pa.s.sing the rocky ledges I knew that if I continued on down hill I should, sooner or later, reach water; either the river or the lake. This was such a simple proposition that I should not need my compa.s.s so left it in camp.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Trail Blaze]

In marking an ordinary trail through the woods a chip is cut out of a tree so as to expose the white wood under the bark, this we call a "blaze" and it is usually placed about five feet above the ground which brings the mark as nearly as possible on the line of vision. It also is high enough to be seen above the deep snows of winter. The distance between blazed trees depends upon the density of the forest, but in pa.s.sing one mark the next one should always be in view. Also the trees should be marked on both sides so that the trail may be followed in both directions. A blaze on a soft wood tree, a pine, spruce, hemlock or balsam will remain white and visible longer than one made on a hardwood tree. The exposed wood of a beech, birch or maple becomes stained and browned in a few months and is not distinctly visible on a dark day; so we always mark the soft woods when possible.

It was my purpose to first go through and mark out the new route, then, later with Bige's help cut the brush and clear fallen wood out of the path.

I made rapid progress, keeping the rocky ledges always in sight in the distance, but working well below and to the left of them. After about two hours work I crossed a line of old markings on the trees that looked strangely like the township line, but I knew it was not possible that it could be, as the township line was more than a half mile to the south of where I stood and moreover, it ran in a different direction. This must be a boundary line of the lumber company's property. So I continued on with my job of marking trees.

After another hour it occurred to me that it took a long time for me to get past the ledges of rock that pointed up to the ridge of the mountain top. I ought surely, by this time, to be going down hill toward the river. So I stopped work to study the forestscape. There were the ledges in the distance on my right and the forest floor sloping gently to the left. There were the undisturbed, primeval forest trees with their tops a hundred or more feet above, branches interlaced and shutting out a view even of the clouds which now obscured the sun. There was very little underbrush and this suggested the thought that the task of clearing the path would be easy.

Everything was as it should be, so I continued cutting chips out of trees on my new route.

A few minutes later I crossed another line of old blazes very like the one I had crossed an hour ago. This I decided was the other side of the lumber lot. In another quarter hour I met a third line of blazed trees. But this time the marks were fresh, there was only one blaze on each side of a tree and there were fresh chips on the ground under them. This was most extraordinary. I could not conceive of any reason for any other person marking a trail in those woods, unless, possibly a surveyor might be at work there, but I had not met a surveyor in the woods since the Government Maps were made several years ago.

I determined to investigate, so struck my axe into a tree, left it there and started down this new trail to find the fellow who was making it. Broken ferns, trampled moss and bent bushes indicated that it had been made very recently and I might overtake the trail maker if I hurried up. So I stumbled along as fast as possible.

In about twenty minutes I saw an axe sticking in a blazed tree. The owner of that axe must be somewhere near and I looked around for him.

Not finding him within range of vision I examined the axe. It was mine! There was a nick in the helve that I had put there myself. But how the d.i.c.kens did it get here? Was it possible that Bige? Yes, we had two axes in camp. No, that was the same axe I had taken out that morning. Its weight and shape suited me better than the other and so I had marked the handle.

Puzzling over the mysterious situation, I continued explorations.

Leaving the axe sticking in the tree trunk, I started to climb over the rocks up the steep mountain side. In due time I reached the top and found the township line which I had many times followed over the ridge. I then proceeded along the ridge toward the south, but it ceased to be a ridge after a few rods and I soon climbed down steep rocky ledges till I met a new blazed trail. Then I went back up the mountain and followed the township line down the steep part and met another new blazed trail. Then I followed this new blazed trail until I crossed the township line again and a few rods further on I came back to the axe sticking in the tree.