Terms, Four Dollars a Year. | 

 Ten Cents a Copy. j 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1876. 



( Volume 7, Number 3. 



1 17 Chatham St.(CityHall8qr.) 



For Forest and Stream. 

 LAKE HOPATKONG. 



BY THE KBV. N. TETIT. 



HOPATKONG ! Hopatkong 1 my heart is with thee . 

 Thy waves are so bright, and thy breezes so free, 

 With a boat at the beach, and a tent on the shore, 

 I could live in thy coolness the whole summer o'er. 



From the town, from the noise, from the crowd, from the jam, 

 Prom the book, from the pen, from the swift telegram, 

 In the pure mountain air, with no cares to intrude, 

 With Nature I'd dwell in thy grand solitude. 



At earliest dawn, with stars growing pale, 

 I'd skim o'er thy waters with oar or with sail, 

 I'd woo thy fair tribes with the rod ana the reel, 

 Or the troll as it whirls in the wake of the keel. 



At noon I would slumber the sunny hours through, 

 Or watch the white clouds curling up in the blue, 

 In shapes so fantastic and eager to show 

 Their beautiful forms in the mirror below. 



At evening I'd gaze on the crimson and gold, 

 That burnish thy surface in tints manifold, 

 When the window of heaven is open apace, 

 That the light of the Throne may illumine thy face. 



Sweet lake of the wild wood encircled by hills, 

 Thy beautiful grandeur the horizon fills. 

 In the days of the summer where're I may be, 

 Hopatkong 1 Hopatkong I my heart is with thee. 



- *•*♦« 



For Forest and Straem. 



fyribou l§nnt it{ (^nnn&n. 



« 



OK a bright, cold afternoon in January, in the city of 

 Blank, I was aroused by the arrival of a telegram 

 from my friend Nimrod, urging me to come down to St. 

 George without delay, as the Indians had come in from a 

 reconnoitre up the lakes and reported caribou in great 

 abundance. I set to work immediately to hunt out all the 

 paraphernalia requisite for a ten days' campaign among 

 the caribou— riffes, snowshoes, moccasins, blankets, buffa- 

 lo robes, eatables, and drinkables. The next morning a 

 little after daybreak, I was on the road to St. George, my 

 mare going at a merry pace over the icy road. A few days 

 i previously some rain had fallen, succeeded by a sharp frost, 

 which made the road almost one solid sheet of ice. No 

 I pen could do justice to the beauty of the scenery on the 

 ■I road; it was beautiful beyond description; the rain had 

 ' melted the snow on the beech, birch, and maple trees, and 

 the sudden frost had fastened it in every conceivable way; 

 ,some were coated completely with ice, and resembled huge 

 j grotesque icicles; others were partly covered and festooned 

 I with icicles from every branch and twig; the pine and fir 

 \ trees were like massive silver frostings, and the sun's rays, 

 j striking upon the whole, produced a most gorgeous effect; 

 | every hue of the rainbow was brought out, and one could 

 , fancy it the realization of some fairy tale of the olden time 

 as he glided along the road under canopies of icicles and 

 Ithe brightest of blue winter skies. 



\ After a pleasant drive of forty-five miles through such 

 scenes as these, varied with an occasional pipe and once 

 /baiting on the road, I arrived at my friend Nimrod's in time 

 If or an early dinner. Here 1 found my companion of many 

 fa hard hunt, Sebatis, the Passamaquoddy Indian; and a 

 iljword of . description, in passing, may not be out of place. 

 Jin height, about six feet, wiry and muscular in form, with 

 |a pleasant though serious countenance; black hair, pierc- 

 ing black eyes, and a moustache— a very unusual thing for 

 B'an Indian. If treated as an equal he was obliging 

 /and would do anything for you, and in an emergency you 

 (might with safety trust your life in his hands. On the 

 Contrary if he was employed on a hunt, and any superiority 

 for reserve was maintained towards him, he would prove 

 sullen, and would act up to the letter of his agreement, but 

 "ittothing further. Fear or surprise were words of which he 

 j&new not the meaning. He was in short the embodiment 

 >if Campbell's line: "A stoic of the woods, a man without 

 i tear." 

 Ail our arrangements being completed, the next day, 



about 11 p. m. we made a fair, or, rather I should say, 

 unfair start, for, having concluded to drive our horses tan- 

 dem, without taking into consideration Ihe fact that they 

 never had been driven together before, we found that we 

 had reckoned without our host. We had heard a good 

 deal of prancing and whoa-whoaing outside, but this being 

 nothing unusual, had not taken any notice of it, and time 

 to move having arrived, we found our horses in. Nim- 

 rod's mare (a runaway devil) was in the shafts, and mine 

 as leader, with a man at the head of each, and Sebatis 

 looking on with anything but an approving eye, and the 

 hounc?3, Mitchiess, Mataguis. and Megahlip, (Anglice, 

 Grouse, Hare, and Caribou,) all impatient for a start. With 

 much ingenuity, having managed to get our man Friday 

 and ourselves seated, and Nimrod taking the reins, the 

 order was given to let them go, and was complied with by 

 the wheeler plunging, and the leader standing upon her 

 hind legs; and then followed, to a looker on, a series of 

 most charming revolutions, wound up by turning the pung 

 upside down in a snowdrift in front of Niinrod's house. 

 After some coaxing Sebatis was induced to take his seat 

 again, and, all being right, the order to let go this time 

 was followed by a rush on the part of the mares, accom- 

 panied by the shouts of the bystanders, and the baying of 

 the hounds. With some close shaving we managed to turn 

 the corners and get clear of the village. The pace being 

 about twenty miles an hour, I suggested to Nimrod that it 

 looked very much like a runaway. He replied, "Oh no; 

 they are only a little playful, and will soon cool down." 

 On turning round I found Sebatis holding on each side of 

 the pung, with a rifle under each arm, and a most puzzled 

 expression of countenauce, as if he had got in with a bad 

 lot and must make the best of it. So long as the road was 

 all clear we were all right; but about four miles out we 

 heard bells approaching, and on making a sharp turn we 

 saw a sleigh with two ladies in it coming towards us. It 

 was a bad place in the road to pass — an icy sideling hill, 

 with two pieces of timber placed on the lower side to pre- 

 vent a sleigh sliding down a ravine. "Now then Nimrod 

 look out! Upset as if you like, but do not so much as 

 graze their sleigh robes." On they come! A nod, a smile, 

 a glimpse of pearly teeth, a merry laugh and they are 

 gone. "Hilloa! Nimrod, what are you up to? The pung 

 will go over the bank." "All right old boy! Hold on the 

 upper side," he replied. All very fine, but I happened to 

 be on the lower side, as I found to my cost on the sleigh 

 bringing up with a crash on the the lowest end of the tim- 

 ber, precipitating Sebatis and myself, accompanied by the 

 whole of our commissariat, over the bank. I clung with a 

 death grip to an old hound, and down we went to the bot- 

 tom of a ravine, happily without doing us any serious 

 damage. Nimrod managed to keep his seat and hold the 

 horses to enable Sebatis and I to repack the pung, and in a 

 few moments we were off again. 



After crossing five beautiful lakes, my favorite haunts in 

 summer for fly-fishing and sketching, we arrived at Steen's 

 Camp on Spark's Lake. Here we found an advanced 

 guard, consisting of two Indians, old Joe and Lola, (a young 

 Mohawk on a visit to Sebatis,) and another hound Illaasin — 

 Anglice Wolf— and met with a right hearty welcome from 

 the lumbermen, which is always the case, no matter who 

 you are or whence you come, and if the fare is rough, the 

 welcome is hearty from the jolly woodsmen, equally at 

 home with the axe or rifle. Seeing our horses well rubbed 

 down, and cared for, and strapping on our snowshoes, we 

 set out, Indian file, for the hunting grounds on the Lepraux 

 Lakes, distant about nine miles. Sebatis was appointed 

 Captain of the hunt, and led the way, followed by Nimrod 

 and myself to make a trail for the tobaugans, drawn by old 

 Joe and Lola. The tobangan is a light Indian sledge with 

 broad ashen runners . A trail made by three pairs of snow- 

 shoes will bear up a tobangan and render dragging compar- 

 atively light work. Just as we came in sight of the 

 Lepraux Lakes (Lake Adelaide) we all dropped in our 

 tracks at a signal from Sebatis, and creeping to the edge 

 of the wood, we saw a herd of five caribou a long way out 

 of shot on the lake. They had evidently heard or winded 



us, for they were trotting rapidly off, their sharp hoofs 

 cutting the ice like a winter shod hotse. Sebatis pointed 

 out this lake as being, about thirty years ago, the scene of 

 a most dreadful tragedy: Two Indian families were living 

 in that neighborhood, distant about four miles from each 

 other. An old squaw one day left one of the camps to 

 visit the other. Some days having elapsed without her re- 

 turning, the Indians became alarmed at her protracted 

 absence and set out in search of her. An appearance of 

 something on the ice attracted their attention, which, to 

 their horror, on a closer inspection proved to be the re- 

 mains of the old squaw. A few bones and bits of rags 

 were all that were left, while the broken tomahawk, and 

 three monstrous wolves lying gaunt and stark testified to a 

 most desperate struggle. 



We arrived at our camping ground, by the side of a 

 small lake, about 3 p. m. and immediately set to work 

 to build a comfortable camp. The modus operandi is as 

 follows: A space the size of the intended camp is marked 

 out upon the snow, and the snow dug away to the frozen 

 ground, using the snowshoes as shovels. The frame of 

 the camp is then set up, consisting of poles of the re- 

 quisite length. The frame is about six feet in height in 

 front, and slopes off to the ground, the whole is then 

 thickly covered with fir boughs, and snow shoveled com- 

 pletely over it, leaving the opening in front, before which 

 the fire is placed. The inside of the camp is then laid with 

 boughs, and two large buffalo robes spread upon them, and 

 the habitation is complete. Having procured wood and 

 water for the night, Sebatis, who was cook as well as cap- 

 tain, proceeded'toget our dinner of trout and ruffed grouse, 

 which, with the assistance of a cold ham, &c, and some 

 excellent brandy, managed to make a tolerable repast; 

 and I would give this piece of advice to all hunters who 

 have Indian cooks — either at once to sacrifice their 

 fastidiousness to their appetites, or turn their backs upon 

 the operator. We partitioned off a part of the camp for 

 the hounds, and each man having selected his position in 

 the camp, and placed his blankets and furs, we called a 

 council of war to decide upon the next morning's opera- 

 tions. It was finally agreed that Nimrod should take old 

 Joe and Lola with all the hounds, and try for caribou on 

 the mountains, and Sebatis and I would try still hunt- 

 ing on the heaths and lakes. And now comes the most 

 enjoyable part of the whole day, as, bolstered up with buf- 

 falo robes we fight our battles o'er again, over our pipes 

 and hot mountain dew, and listen to thrilling Indian stories, 

 of the chase and bear stories in particular. Sebatis could 

 speak tolerably good English, and was a most intelligent 

 Indian, and I often sat up talking with him until the small 

 hours warned us to seek our couch. Old Joe and Lola's 

 vocabulary of English consisted of "yes," "no," and "I 

 suppose so." No matter what the question was, one o! 

 these was invariably the answer. 



The morning was bright and cold. About two inches 

 of snow had fallen during the night, which improved the 

 snowshoeing. Sebatis prepared our breakfast, and we for- 

 tified ourselves for the day with a cup of coffee royal anc) 

 started. After traveling about three miles we made Lake 

 Victoria, a lake about four miles in length and two in 

 breadth. About half way across the lake we struck a cari- 

 bou trail; Sebatis pronounced it to have been made the 

 night before, and we instantly decided upon following it 

 up. The trail led into a hard- wood ridge; and in about 

 one mile and a half from where we first struck it, Sebatis 

 pointed out some impressions in the snow, saying, "Cari- 

 bou, sartin; he sleep there last night; caribou sartin, he no 

 go far this morning, he eat breakfast." The chase was 

 now becoming exciting, as, we might at any moment 

 come up with a herd of caribou. So, taking off the seal- 

 skin covers from our rifles, we capped and set the locks at 

 half-cock, (the safest way of carrying a rifle if capped) tight- 

 ened our belts a hole, and to move with as little noise as 

 possible, took off our snowshoes and walked in the tracks 

 made by the caribou. This was most fatiguing work as in 

 &ome places the holes were three feet in depth, and it re- 

 quired a long stride to reach from one to another, Wa 



