78 With Rod and Gun in New England 



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with a true sportsman's relish. A fire was soon started by the guides, and 

 it did not take long to prepare and dispose of a generous repast. I hope 

 the reader will not be too critical of my frequent mention of meals and the 

 robust appetites with which they were discussed. There is nothing like 

 such a life as the sportsman's to make a man absolutely hungry. Eating 

 is, therefore, one of the chief functions in the woods, and I have known 

 men who at home were abstemious to a degree, having appetites in a rough 

 outing that would astonish their city friends, and it takes a good many 

 pounds of fish and other comestibles to supply the daily wants of even a 

 small party. 



" That 's what we came up here for," as my good friends, George 

 Clarke and Henry A. Purdie, used to exclaim when we arose from dinner, 

 having eaten a landlocked salmon, weighing two pounds, at our camp on 

 Grand Lake stream, and they were right ; one goes into the woods for 

 health and strength and good digestion quite as much as for sport, and 

 they usually are accompanied by good appetites. 



After supper we smudged out our tent and affixed to the flap a strip 

 of mosquito netting which the Judge had brought with him, and with pipes 

 alight we stretched ourselves on our beds of boughs, which had been 

 replenished during the day, and indulged in the ineffable pleasure which is 

 always experienced in the after-supper smoke. 



" We are to remain here a few days longer," said the Doctor, after we 

 had got quietly settled ; " a few salmon will, no doubt, work up, and I pro- 

 pose that we smoke some of the best ones to take out with us." 



" That 's a good idea," said the Judge ; " the men had better make a 

 ' smoker ' to-morrow and start in with Samuels' fish." 



"All right," I responded, " we 've all the trout we can dispose of for 

 a day or two, and the Doctor's big sea trout had better go in, too." 



A " smoker " in the woods is constructed easily, if barrels are obtainable, 

 by knocking out the heads of two, standing one on the other, building a 

 small fire in the inside at the bottom, and keeping a current of smoke as 

 dense as possible passing up through them and completely enveloping the 

 fish, which are hung in them from the top. 



If barrels are not to be had, a good substitute is made by cutting some 

 green logs into three-foot lengths, notching them near the ends so that 

 when laid on each other, in a square frame, they will bind together like the 

 logs which form the walls of a log cabin, and by chinking the interstices 

 with damp moss, an air-tight chimney, six or eight feet in height, is made. 

 At the bottom of this a fire is built and maintained, over which damp 

 turf or moss is occasionally laid so as to produce an intense smoke, the 

 point being to have as little heat as possible, but the greatest amount of 

 smoke. The fish, which have been split and salted, are hung down in this 



