Wild Northern Scenes Part 5

"That Hank Martin," said Cullen, one of the boatmen, as the hunters disappeared into the darkness, "is a queer boy in his way. You will notice that when he straightens up, and takes the kinks out of him, he stands six feet and over in his stockings, and his arms hang down to his knees. He's the strongest man in these woods, and tolerably active when there's occasion for it. He is a droll, good-natured, easy tempered chap, and don't get angry at trifles. He is fond of a joke himself, and will stand having a good many sticks poked at him without getting riled; but when he does get his back up, it's well enough to stand out of his way, and not step on his shadow. He never struck a man but once in real earnest, and that was over in Keeseville, and on that occasion the people said the town clock had struck _one_. The fellow he struck went eend over eend, and then went down, and when he went down he laid still--he didn't come to tine.

"But what I was going to tell you is, that Hank and I were down at Plattsburgh last fall, and a big fellow who had taken quite as much red eye as was for his good, undertook to pick a quarrel with Hank and give him a beating. Hank, as I said, being a peaceable man, and much more given to fun than to fighting, kept good-natured, and avoided a scrimmage as long as he could. But his patience and his temper at last caved in, and seizing his opponent by the neck with his left hand, and thrusting him down upon the ground, he began very deliberately to cuff him with his right, in a way that seemed anything but pleasant to the individual upon whom his cuffs were bestowed. 'Enough! enough!' cried his a.s.sailant. 'Let up! enough! enough!' 'Hold your tongue, you scoundrel!' replied Hank, as he kept on pommeling his enemy, 'hold your tongue, I tell you! You ain't a judge of these things! I'll let you know when you've got enough.' When he'd given him what he thought was about right, he lifted him on to his feet, and, holding him up face to face with himself a moment, 'There,' said he, 'look at me well, so that you'll know me when I come this way again; and when you see my trail, you'd better travel some other road.'"

"Speaking of Plattsburgh," said the Doctor, "reminds me of an incident which occurred to a friend and myself, over in the Chataugay woods, between the Chazy and the Upper Chataugay lakes. I was spending a few days at Plattsburgh, and hearing a good deal of the trout and deer in and about those lakes, my friend and myself concluded to pay them a flying visit. On the banks of the Chazy and near the outlet, a half-breed, that is, half French and half Indian, had built him a log cabin, and cleared about an acre of land around it. His live stock consisted of two homely, lean, and half-starved dogs, and as ragged and ill-looking a donkey as could be found in a week's travel. The half-breed was a sort of half fisherman and half hunter, excelling in nothing, unless it be that he was the laziest man this side of the Rocky Mountains. He succeeded, occasionally, in killing a deer in the forest, and when he did so, he would lead his donkey to the place of slaughter, and bring in the carcase on the long-eared animal's back.

"We were pa.s.sing from the Chazy to Bradley's Lake, and had sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree to take a short breathing spell. It was a warm afternoon, and the air was calm; not a breath stirred the leaves on the old trees around us; the forest sounds were hushed, save the tap of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r on his hollow tree, or an occasional drumming of a partridge on his log. It was drawing towards one of those calm, still, autumnal evenings of which poets sing, but which are to be met with in all their glory only among the beautiful lakes that lay sleeping in the wild woods, and surrounded by old primeval things. The path wound round a densely wooded and sombre hollow, the depths of which the eye could not penetrate, but from out of which came the song of a stream that went cascading down the rocks, and rippling among the loose boulders that lay in its course. Beyond us, through an opening in the trees, we could see the lake, sparkling and shining in the evening sunbeams, and we were talking about the beauty of the view, and the calmness and repose that seemed resting upon all things, when, of a sudden, there came up from that shadowy dell a sound, the most unearthly that ever broke upon the astonished ear of mortal man. I have heard the roar of the lion of the desert, the yell of the hyena, the trumpeting of the elephant, the scream of the panther, the howl of the wolf. It was like none of these; but if you could imagine them all combined, and concentrated into a single sound, and ushered together upon the air from a single throat, shaped like the long neck of some gigantic ichthiosaurus of the times of old, you would have some faint idea of the strange sounds that came roaring up from that hollow way.

My friend was a man of courage, and, like myself, had been around the world some; had spent a good deal of time, first and last, in the woods, was familiar with most of the legitimate forest sounds, and had heard all the ten thousand voices that belong in the wilderness, but we had never before listened to a noise like that.

"We looked to our rifles and at one another, and it may well be that our hats sat somewhat loosely upon our heads, from an involuntary rising of the hair. 'What, in the name of all that is mysterious,'

cried my friend, in amazement, 'is that?' 'It is more than I know,' I replied, as I placed a fresh cap on my rifle. After a few minutes, the sounds were repeated, and the hills seemed to groan with affright as they sent them back in wavy and quavering echoes from their rugged sides.

"'We must understand this,' said my friend, as he led the way with a cautious and stealthy movement towards the depths of the hollow, whence the sounds came, and there, by the stream, on a little sand-bar, stood old Sangamo's donkey, by the side of a deer. Old Sangamo himself was stretched at full length on the bank, fast asleep. How he could have slept on, with such an infernal roaring as that donkey made in those old woods, six or eight miles outside of a fence, is more than I can comprehend. But he did sleep through it all, and was wakened only by a punch in the ribs with the b.u.t.t of my rifle, instigated by pity for the poor donkey that was being eaten up by the flies. We helped him to load the carca.s.s of the deer on the back of his donkey, and saw him move off lazily towards home. I have heard a good many strange noises in my day, but never, on any other occasion, have I listened to anything to be at all compared with the noise made by the braying of old Sangamo's donkey in the Chataugay woods."

As the Doctor concluded his story, the sharp crack of Spalding's rifle broke the stillness of the night, and went reverberating among the hills, and dying away over the lake. It was but a short distance from our camp, in a little bay hidden away around a wooded promontory below us. In a few minutes, the light was seen, rounding the point that hid the bay from our view, and, as the boat landed in front of our tents, Spalding and Martin lifted from it a fine two year old deer, shot directly between the eyes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: How he could have slept on, with such an infernal roaring as that donkey made in those old woods, six or eight miles outside of a fence, is more than I can comprehend.--]

"There," said Spalding, "is the biggest, or what _was_ the biggest fool of a deer in these woods. Do you believe that he stood perfectly still, gazing in stupid astonishment at our light, until we were within a dozen feet of him, when I dropped him with that ball between the eyes?"

"No," replied Smith, "I really don't believe any such thing."

"It is true, notwithstanding your lack of faith," said Spalding.

"Do you say that as counsel, or as a gentleman?" inquired Smith.

"Look you, Mr. Smith," said Spalding, "you are drawing a distinction not warranted by the authority of the books--as if a lawyer could not tell the truth like a gentleman. I say it as both."

"Very well," remarked Smith, "then I must believe it, of course. But understand, Hank Martin, it will be my turn to-morrow night." And so the matter was settled that the next night hunting was to be done by Smith.

"H----," said the Doctor, as I was stealing quietly out of the tent, in the twilight of the next morning, so as not to awaken my companions, "where now?"

"I'm going to take some trout for breakfast, with our venison," I replied.

"And where do you propose to take them?" he inquired. "Come with me, and I'll show you. I looked the place out last evening, and if you've done sleeping, we'll have some sport."

"Agreed," said he, and we paddled around the point into a little bay, at the head of which a small, but cold stream entered the lake. The Doctor sat in the bow, and, having adjusted his rod, I steered the boat carefully, close along the sh.o.r.e, to within reach of the mouth of the brook, and directed him to cast across it. The moment his fly touched the water, half a dozen fish rose to it together. It was eagerly seized by one weighing less than a quarter of a pound, which was lifted bodily into the boat. He caught as fast as he could cast his fly. They were the genuine brook trout, none of them exceeding a quarter Of a pound in weight. In half an hour, we had secured as many as we needed for breakfast, and paddled back to take a morning nap while the meal was being prepared.

The sweetest fish that swims is the brook trout, weighing from a quarter of a pound down. Rolled in flour, or meal, and fried brown, they have no equal. The lake and river trout, weighing from two to ten pounds, beautiful as they are, have not that delicacy of flavor which belongs to the genuine brook trout. Boiled, when freshly caught, they are by no means to be spoken lightly of. They have few equals, cooked in that way, but as a pan fish, they are not to be compared with the genuine brook trout.

CHAPTER X.

GRINDSTONE BROOK--FOREST SOUNDS--A FUNNY TREE, COVERED WITH SNOW FLAKES.

We crossed over towards a deep bay on the west sh.o.r.e, to where a stream comes cascading down the rocks, and leaping into the lake, as if rejoicing at finding a resting-place in its quiet bosom. The spot where this stream enters, is in the deep shadow of the old forest trees that reach their leafy arms far out from the ledges on which they grow, forming an arch above, and shutting out the sunlight. Here the trout congregate, to enjoy the cool water that comes down from the hills above. We approached it carefully, and Smith, by way of experiment, cast his fly across the current where the stream enters the lake. It was seized by a beautiful fish weighing, perhaps, two pounds. We did not need him, for the place where we proposed to pitch our tents for the night would afford us all the fish required, and after lifting him into the boat with the landing-net and releasing the hook from his jaw, we returned him to the lake again.

Two miles from the head of the lake, on the east side, is a deep bay at the head of which enters a little brook that comes creeping along for a mile among the tangled roots of ancient hemlocks and spruce, singing gaily among the loose stones, sometimes disappearing entirely beneath bridges of moss, and sometimes sparkling in the sunlight, on its way to the lake. This little stream we found swarming with speckled trout of the size of minnows, and at its mouth the large trout congregated. As we rounded one of the points that shut out the view of this bay from the lake, we saw two deer feeding quietly upon the lily pads along the sh.o.r.e, some quarter of a mile from us. We dropped quietly back behind the point, where Smith and one of the boatmen prepared to take a shot at them. Martin took his seat in the stern with his paddle, and Smith lay stretched at length along the bottom of the boat upon boughs prepared for the occasion, with his rifle resting upon the forward end of the boat. It was broad daylight, and to paddle up within shooting distance of a deer under such circ.u.mstances, in plain view of an animal the most wary, is a delicate job, but it may be done. I have more than once been thus paddled within thirty yards of a deer while feeding in the water. The wind must be blowing from the deer to the hunter, or the scent will alarm the animal, and he will go snorting and bounding away.

Smith and Martin pa.s.sed silently out into the bay, and moved slowly towards where the deer were feeding. The boat in which we sat was permitted to float out to a position from which we could see the sportsmen as they approached the game. Slowly but steadily they moved, the paddle remaining in the water, sculling the little craft along as if it were a log drifting in the water. The deer occasionally raised their heads, looking all around, evidently regarding the boat as a harmless thing floating in from the lake. After gazing thus about them they stooped their heads again, and went on feeding, as if no danger were near them. The hunters drifted within seventy or eighty yards of the game, when a column of white smoke shot suddenly up from the bow of the boat, and the report of Smith's rifle rang out sharp and clear over the lake. We saw where the ball struck the water just beyond the deer, pa.s.sing directly under its belly, possibly high enough to graze its body. At the flash and report of the rifle, the animal leaped high into the air, bounded in affright this way and that for a moment, and then straightened itself for the woods. We heard his snort as he went crashing up the hillside.

Reader, should you ever drift out to this beautiful lake, you will find on the ridge just above where Bog River comes tumbling, and roaring, and foaming over the rocks into the lake, the charred remains of a campfire, built against a great log that was once the trunk of a tall forest tree. If you should visit it within a year or two, you will perhaps notice some forked stakes standing a few feet from the place of the fire, and a bed of withered and dry boughs (now fresh and green). Well, our tents were stretched over those stakes, those boughs were our bed, and those charred chunks are the remains of our campfire, that sent a sepulchral light among the forest trees around.

The sounds that come upon the ear during the night in a far off place like this, are peculiar. The old owl hoots mournfully, the frogs bellow hoa.r.s.ely along the reedy sh.o.r.e, while the tree toads are quavering from among the branches of the scrubby trees that grow along the rocky banks; the whippoorwill pipes shrilly in the forest depths; the breeze murmurs among the foliage of the tall old pines, while the everlasting roar of the waters, as they go tumbling down the rocks, is always heard. However diversified these sounds may be, they all invite to repose. They fall soothingly upon the ear, and though all are distinctly heard, yet strange as it may seem, there is a strong impression upon the mind of the deep silence pervading the forest.

This impression is doubtless occasioned by the utter dissimilarity between the voices one hears in the day, from those which fall upon the ear in the night time. The former are all joyous and happy, full of gladness and merriment, full of life and animation; the latter solemn, deep, profound, lulling to the senses; not sorrowful nor sad, yet still such as form a calm and quiet lullaby, under the influence of which one glides away into slumber, and sleeps quietly until dawn.

Then the voice of gladness breaks so tumultuously on the ear, that he must be a sluggard indeed who can resist their wakening influences.

How beautifully the sun went down behind the hills, lighting up the western sky, and the fleecy clouds floating in the heavens with a blaze of glory, throwing a mantle of silver over the tall ranges and mountain peaks that loomed up in solemn grandeur away in the east; and how stilly, silently the stars came out from the depths above, and how brightly and truthfully they were given back from away down in depths beneath the placid waters. We had taken half a dozen beautiful trout from the foot of the falls where the current shoots out into the lake.

We had eaten them too, and were sitting in front of our tents smoking our evening pipes.

"Spalding," said the Doctor, "How I wish our little boys were out here with us. How they would enjoy themselves among these lakes and rivers.

It is a hard lot that the children of our cities have in life. They struggle up to man and womanhood against fearful odds, and the wonder is, that they do not perish in their infancy; that they are not blasted, as the blossoms are, when the cold east wind sweeps over the earth."

"You are right, my friend," replied Spalding. "I should like to have our little boys, and girls too, for that matter, with us for a few days out here on these lakes. It would be a lifetime to them, measuring time by the enjoyment it would afford them. Still their city habits might make them tire of this freedom in a week. You and I enjoy it longer, because it brings back old memories and relieves us from the toils of business and the restraints of conventional life. You are right too in saying that the lot of our city children is a hard one. To live imprisoned between long rows of brick walls, breathing an atmosphere charged with the exhalations of ten thousand cooking stoves, the dust of forges and the smoke of furnaces, machine shops, gas works, filthy streets, and the thousand other manufactories of villainous smells; where the summer air has no freshness, no forest odors, or sweetness gathered from fields of grain, the meadows, or the pastures. To tramp only on stone sidewalks. To know nothing of the pleasant paths beneath the spreading branches of old primeval trees; no soft gra.s.s for their little feet to press; never to wander along the streams or the little brooks; to be strangers always to the beautiful things spread out everywhere in the country in the summer time. I always feel sad when I see the pale faces of the little children of the great cities, and marvel how so many of them grow up to be men and women. It is a hard lot to be cooped up in the city, vegitating, as it were, in the shade, where there is no gra.s.s for their little feet to press, no fences to climb, or fields to ramble over, or brooks to wade, or running water on which to float chips, and wherein to watch the little chubs and shiners dancing and playing about, or fresh pure air to breathe, or birds to listen to. It is a thousand pities that the cities could not be emptied every summer of their little people into the free and open country, where they could run about, and sport and play, and have free range and plenty of elbow-room. It would make them so much healthier and happier, so much more cheerful; their voices of gladness would ring out so much more joyously in the morning, and their songs be so much more sweet at night."

I remember an anecdote told me of a little child, born in the great metropolis, who had never, until her fifth summer, been outside of the paved streets of New York. Her mother had friends residing in one of the up-river towns, owning a beautiful farm overlooking the Hudson, and in early May she paid them a visit, taking her little daughter with her. Mary, of course, was delighted. Like a bird freed from its cage, she flew about here, there, everywhere, in-doors and out, among the chickens and the pigs, the turkeys and the lambs, enjoying to the full the thousand new things that her eyes rested upon all around her, and her young spirits in wild commotion under the bracing influences of the country air. "Mother! mother!" she exclaimed, as she came dashing into the parlor, her beautiful curls floating wildly over her shoulders, and her bright eyes wide open with wonder; "Mother I mother! come out here, quick! and see this funny tree, all covered over with snow-flakes, and how sweet it smells all around it." It was a plum tree in full blossom. That little child had never seen the beautiful spring blossoms on the fruit trees.

"I have no children of my own," remarked Smith, "and, therefore, may not be regarded as the best authority in regard to the manner of treating, or rearing children; but I have often wondered at the very great mistakes people sometimes make in regard to them. There are parents who mean no wrong, and yet who make no scruple of deceiving them in reply to their simple questionings, forgetting, or regardless of the fact, that a false answer to their innocent inquiries put in good faith, and in the earnest pursuit of truth, may plant an error in their minds, which may take years of experience, and often a painful amount of ridicule to eradicate. I knew a little boy years ago, a thoughtful, philosophic child, who speculated in his simplicity upon what he saw, as great philosophers do, in their wisdom, upon the various phenomena of Nature. His father, had a great barn, above which, as was the fashion long ago, perched upon a staff, a few feet above the ridgepole, was a weather-c.o.c.k, fashioned out of a piece of board in the shape of a rooster. 'Father,' said the little boy, one day, 'what makes that rooster always point his head one way when the cold wind blows, and the other way when it is warm and pleasant?' 'He always looks towards the place where the wind comes from,' replied the father; 'when he gets too warm, and the sun is too hot for him, he turns his tail to the south, and the north wind is sure to come down, cold and chill, to cool him off.' 'Does he call the cold wind, father, and will it come when he looks, that way?' was the next inquiry.

'Certainly,' replied his father, carelessly. That was a wrong and a foolish answer.

"That little boy, relying in his simple faith upon the wisdom and truthfulness of his father, believed for a long time, that the weatherc.o.c.k on the top of the barn, could bring the cold north, or the warm south wind, by turning upon its perch. He was cured of his error only by being laughed at for his simplicity. Parents should never deceive their children by a careless or a wrong answer to the simple questions put to them by these little searchers after knowledge."

"I remember," said the doctor, "and it is one of the earliest incidents which my recollection has treasured, that I was out one evening in autumn, with a boy older than myself, gathering hazel nuts.

The sun had sunk behind the hills, and the shadows of twilight were gathering in the valley. It was a beautiful and calm evening, the solemn stillness of which, was only broken by the 'tza! tza!' of thousands of katydids among the bushes. I asked my companion what it was that made the noise I heard, and he, supposing that I referred to sounds that came up occasionally from the lake, after listening for a moment, answered that it was made by the wild geese. In my simplicity I believed it, and it was not until I caught, the next season, a katydid while it was in the act of singing, that I discovered that the music among the hazel bushes was not made by the wild geese."

"I never respect a man or woman," said Spalding, "whose heart does not warm towards little children, who takes no pleasure nor interest in their society, who has no patience to listen to their simple thoughts expressed in their simple way. 'Mother,' said a little child of four or five years of age, one evening when the summer air was warm, and the skies were bright above, as she sat beside her mother, on a bench beneath the spreading branches of the tall old elms in front of the house; 'mother, what makes the stars come out, only after the dark has come down, and why don't the moon go up into the sky like the sun in the day time?' I listened anxiously for the reply. I knew the kind heart of that mother, how truthful it was, and how earnest and pure in its affection for its gentle and only darling. 'Sit here upon my lap, Mary,' said the mother, 'and I will try and explain it all so that you will understand it.' And she told the little child how G.o.d made the sun to rule the day, and the moon and the stars to rule the night; how that the stars were always in the sky, but how the superior brightness of the sun put them out in the day time; how the stars, that twinkled like little rush-lights in the heavens, were great worlds, a thousand times larger than this earth, made and placed away up in the sky, by the same great and good G.o.d who made the world we live in. Little Mary was silent and attentive to the simple lecture, until it was finished, and then asked, so simply and confidingly, that I could not help smiling to think that the mind of childhood should be running upon a subject, and seeking a solution of the same question which has puzzled the profoundest philosophers through all time: 'Mother,' said the little one, 'are there people in the moon and in the stars, them great worlds that look to us so like candles in the sky?' 'That question, my child,' said the mother, 'I cannot answer.' 'I believe,' said the child, that there _are_ people in the moon, and in all the stars.'

'Why?' asked her mother. 'Because I don't believe G.o.d would make such big and beautiful worlds without making people to live in them.' What more has the profoundest philosopher who ever lived said, to prove that those mighty worlds which are seen in the heavens at night, that are scattered all through the universe of G.o.d, rolling forever on their everlasting rounds, are peopled by living, moving, sentient beings?"

CHAPTER XI.

A CONVENTION BROKEN UP IN A BOW--THE CHAIRMAN EJECTED.

We sent forward our boatman with the luggage early in the morning, up Bog River towards Mud Lake, the source of the right branch of that river, lying some thirty miles deeper in the wilderness, counting the sinuosities of the stream, and said to be the highest body of water in all this wild region. We were to spend the day on Tupper's Lake, and follow him the next morning. Our boatman built for our accommodation, a brush shanty in the place of our tents. We rowed about this beautiful sheet of water, exploring its secluded bays and romantic islands, trying experiments with the trout wherever a stream came down from the hills, and trolling for lake trout while crossing the lake.

Near the sh.o.r.e, on the west bank, perhaps half a mile from the falls, is one of the coldest, purest and most beautiful springs that I ever met with. It comes up into a little basin some six or eight feet in diameter, by two or three in depth. The bottom is of loose white sand which is all in commotion, by the constant boiling up of the clear cold water. From this basin a little stream goes rippling and laughing to the lake. Towards evening we returned to our shanty with abundance of fish for supper and breakfast, taken, as I said, in simply trying experiments as to where they were to be found in the greatest abundance.

If any sportsman who may drift out this way, is fond of taking the speckled trout--little fellows, weighing from a quarter of a pound down, the same he meets with in the streams of Vermont, in Ma.s.sachusetts, in Northern Pennsylvania, and. Western New York, let him provide himself with angle-worms, and row to the head of the lake.

A short distance east of where Bog River enters, say from a quarter to half a mile, he will find a cold mountain stream. Let him rig for brook-fishing and take to that stream. If he does not fill his basket in a little while, he may set it down to the score of bad luck, or some lack of skill on his part in taking them, for the brook trout are there in abundance. Across the lake from Long Island, to the right as you go up the lake, is a bay that goes away in around a woody point.

At the head of this bay, "Grindstone Brook" enters. It is a smallish stream, and comes dashing down over shelving rocks some thirty feet, and shoots out into the bay among broken rocks, and loose boulders.

The waters of this stream are much colder than those of the lake. Let the sportsman row carefully up towards the mouth of this stream, along towards evening of a hot day, when the shadow of the hill reaches far out over the lake, and cast his fly across the little current, and if he does not take as beautiful a string of river trout as can be found in these parts, let him set it down to the score of accident, for the trout are there in the warm days of August. If he has a curiosity to know what there is above these Little Falls, let him try his angle-worms in the brook just over the ridge, and he will find out. I claim to have discovered these choice fishing places some seasons since, and have kept them for my own private use and amus.e.m.e.nt. n.o.body seemed to know of them. When the trout refused to be taken elsewhere, I have always found them here, abundant, greedy, and ready to be taken by any decently skillful effort. I regard these places as in some sort my private property, and I mention them privately and in confidence to the reader, trusting that my right will be respected.

We finished our evening meal while the sun was yet above the western hills, and sat with our pipes around a smudge, made upon the broad flat rock, which recedes with a gentle acclivity from the sh.o.r.e, where the Bog River enters the lake, looking out over the stirless waters.

It was a beautiful view, so calm, so still and placid, and yet so wild. The islands seemed to stand out clear from the water, to be lifted up, as it were, from the lake, so perfectly moveless and polished was its surface. On a gra.s.sy point to the right, and a hundred rods distant, two deer were quietly feeding, while in a little bay on the left, a brood of young ducks were sporting and skimming along the water in playful gyrations around their staid and watchful mother. On the outstretched arm of a dead tree on the island before us, sat a bald eagle, pluming himself; and high above the lake the osprey soared, turning his piercing eye downward, watching for his prey.

"I've been thinking," said Smith, as he refilled his pipe, "of what the Doctor was saying the other evening about every body having a streak of the vagabond in him, which makes him relish an occasional tramp in the old woods among the natural things; things that have not been marred by the barbarisms, so to speak, of civilization. I'm inclined to believe his theory to be true, but I see a difficulty in its practical working. Now, suppose, Doctor, that you and I being out here together vagabondizing, as you term it, and your streak of the vagabond being twice as large as mine, you would of course desire to play the savage twice as long as I should. There would, in that case, be a marring of the harmonies. I should be anxious to get back to civilization, while you, being rather in your normal element, would insist upon 'laying around loose,' as you say, for Mercy knows how long."