42 Recreations of a Sportsman 



A great change was imminent, and it did not 

 require a conjurer among the anglers, or a great 

 prophetic soul, to say that it was winter. Yet 

 winter was weeks away; these were only the 

 premonitory symptoms, and they drove us to 

 the big log hunting lodge o' nights and to our 

 little camps among the trees, where we piled on 

 the logs of Oregon pine and revelled in its roar. 

 Sometimes we sat and listened to the strange 

 sounds of the forest, the weird note of an owl, 

 the cry of a mountain lion, perhaps, or the fiercer 

 growl and menace of two limbs which smote one 

 another and snarled as only two dead limbs 

 can, on a cold dry night when the sky is clear, 

 and each star is like a steel facet in the sky. 



I have often wondered why some hunter who 

 writes of the woods has never thought to trans- 

 late the voices of the dead limbs, the sounds of 

 the forest as the strong wind pulsates through 

 them. You have seen the soft summer wind 

 rippling purring through a green field; how 

 it changes the color, until marvellous tints and 

 tones come with every breath, yet all in green. 

 Once, a mile high or more in the Sierra Madre, 

 I saw a wild and sportive wind sweeping over 

 the forest seemingly in just this way, rippling 

 through the trees, imitating all the animal 

 sounds ever dreamed of in our philosophy. And 

 so we sat, watching the roaring fire; now going 

 over to the table where B - sat tying flies 



