Terms, Four Dollars a Year. ) 

 Ten Cents a Copy. J 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY. JANUARY 18, 1877. 



\ 



Volume 7, Number 24. 

 IT Chatham St. (City Ball Sqr,) 



OCTOBER 



For Forest and Strea?n. 

 REVERIES. 



"\7"e peaceful hills! 



JL Ye clinging pastures, in whose stony nakedness 

 The dreaming kine, "mid haunt of fox and whirring grouse , 

 Feel reft of man's controlling hand, 

 And roam the Kiugs of Nature,— envying not 

 Their fellows in the greener glades below! 



Ye fragrant, weird, unfathomable woods, 

 Through whose deep labyrinths I trod 

 A youthful huntsman, eager for the chase! 

 There, seated on some fallen giant of thy race, 

 Whose grizzled garment— rent with storm and death, 

 Eevealed the piteous wounds by tempest given, 

 I paused, with such tense strain of ear and eye 

 As filled mysterious sounds with added mystery; 



The pattering nut, the swinging leaf 

 Which winnowing slowly in its downward flight 



Kissed loving partings to its browney mates; 

 The springing branch, the groaning of some distant tree 

 Which moved by winds undreamed of at its base, 

 Too roughly bore the knotted arms together; 

 All seemed to people so the aisles with sound, 

 That when from out the dreamy fictions 1 had wrought, 

 Some hapless partridge,— crested like a cbief — 

 Stalked unsuspecting on my view,— I scarcely woke 

 Until the fateful gun— by instinct aimed 

 Startled with keen report 

 The niinrod of my soul to life again! 



Thenceforth Apollo ruled, 

 And life's full pulses beat with unison 

 To distant bay of hounds. The sterner, 

 Half-barbaric mood, so lately wedded to its sylvan spouse 

 In cosmic meditation, swept 

 The beauteous cobwebs to forgetfulness. 



And yet not all forgot; 

 Still oft my thoughts in pleasant revery 

 Do conjure back the days by fell and wood; 

 And once again, o'er hill and bog and stream 

 I catch thy russet glow and golden tint, 

 Nature fair! and view thee at thy loveliest, clothed 

 In the rich garb of thy October days! 

 New York, Jan, Wi, 1877. Whdwoeth Wadswokth. 



*«-•<» 



For Forest and Stream. 



PART I. 



IF the sketch which follows, depicting a general out- 

 line of incidents which entered into the experience 

 of a "Greenhorn," on his first deer hunt in the wilds of 

 Michigan, shall have the effect of driving the work-en- 

 cumbered denizens of the city into some reasonable con- 

 sideration for his own well being, by taking for himself 

 such recreation as will yield him the greatest possible 

 benefit, the object of it will have been accomplished. 

 After a fellow has spent say thirty years of his life with 

 his nose at the grindstone, it is not astonishing that it 

 comes to strike him at last as being somewhatfmonotonous, 

 and then when he comes to look at the results and sees 

 little but cavernous eyes, sunken cheeks, attenuated frame, 

 and a general slaughter of the vital energies, it is well that 

 he began to think, "What is to be the end of all this any- 

 how? Does it pay? and, if not, what is the remedy?" 

 When a man has reached this crisis, and asks himself sert- 

 ewsfy these questions, there is hope for him, and happy 

 ™i it prove if he can profit by my experience, so he may 

 enjoy himself to the full limit of his capacity; and his 

 capacity will require no stinted draught, particularly if he 

 has been a constant reader of Forest and Stream, for 

 j^ile yet in the toils his tastes and inclinations will have 



en so shaping and developing as to prepare him to re- 

 ceive the maximum amount of enjoyment and satisfaction 



? mom ent he breaks the monotony and enters upon the 

 Rejuvenating process. In my case I went into early train- 



* §• It commenced with the first issue of Forest and 

 pTEEAM, and it still continues. Thursday nights my watch 

 18 slow, and from the moment I take my seat before my 

 ?! de °P ei1 g^te, with slippers and cigars until bed time, 

 a let the world wag. I am drinking in new life, shaking 

 hands with Thad. Norris, holding high carnival with 



'^ Q l Sa rasota, and courting old Al. Fresco as I would my 

 c W m, aam Dro P-" Wife says we must make that * 'party 

 call to-night. "Not much," say I; "here's mettle more 

 ^tractive !» Well, I read my Forest and Stream through; 



en turn again to your new title page on the outside of 



WeTt StUdy tbat grand ° ld head ' which is the ]Daniel 

 oster of all mooses, then to the camp, the rods, the 



I ns * 0h! t 1 wish I were there; but then— not any of this 



me. Oh! no, the delicious reality is too far beyond 



* J rea . cl1, II is all very nice to know that there is such a 



uatain f perpetual youth, and that the mysteries of the 



Forest and the Stream can be enjoyed by some, so that we 

 can read about them and get the crumbs as it were from 

 the rich man's table, or to borrow a smile, we can look at 

 the blackened frames next morning after the fireworks 

 are over, and so enjoy the fireworks second-hand like. 



Now, it so happens, that in one of these reveries, the 

 post carrier brings a letter posted "Wild Cat," Michigan. 

 Of course that's from Elisha ('Lish for short), lumberman, 

 merchant, notary, constable, sportsman and brother-in- 

 law. Let's see what he has to say; some pal ent business 

 probably, as usual. What! do I read aright? Why, the 

 boy says: "Dear Greenhorn, if you want some sport, 

 come here at once; lots of deer, plenty of bear, clouds of 

 turkey, wild cats quantum sufficit, and as for partridges, 

 quail, jack rabbits, and all such small insects, they overrun 

 the country, begging for a front seat in a pot-pie. Come 

 quick. Bring "Bird" (that's my wife) and stay eighteen 

 months. Gentle reader: (Original but not copyrighted) 

 were you ever struck by lightning? If so, you can prob- 

 ably imagine the thrill that shivered my timbers the moment 

 the full force of this thing struck me. Here was the 

 grand opportunity of a life time; but how can I? Oh! the 

 tantalizing cuss! he knows it's impossible. Of course it is. 

 But the vision haunts me; like Banquo's ghost, it will not 

 down. I imagine I see the handwriting on the wall — he 

 "who hesitates is lost." Well, I hesitate! lam lost! I 

 resolve. I will go. Therel it is done. I will telegraph so 

 that I can't back out, and a message goes instantaneous. 

 Are there any skeptics in your large family that don't be- 

 lieve in the virtue of a good resolution? Let them try it 

 and see. My resolution is scarce an hour old, and here is 

 a new man already. Why, the new life bursts out all 

 over; the tension of a long strain is off; the whole frame 

 springs upright; the true manhood step3 forth and asserts 

 the privilege of a hitherto imprisoned birthright, which 

 else might have gone, like Esau of old, for a mere mess of 

 pottage. So it is fixed. I go. Now to business. 



Let's see; I must have a Winchester and a— well, never 

 mind. I will tell you just what I did take, and then let 

 you know in the end how tire items respectively served 

 my purpose, as follows, viz: A Winchester rifle, a heavy 

 blue flannel shirt, a tightly knit cardigan jacket, a pair of 

 rubber boots, a few pairs of extra heavy woolen socks, a 

 Holabird shooting coat, an old soft felt hat, and a sheath 

 knife, all together (except of course the rifle) filling not 

 more than half an ordinary sized hand bag. I did not 

 take a shot gun, as my ambition was for the "heavy 

 weights" — no sparrows and wrens and sich, for my bag, this 

 time. All these things provided, therefore, the most 

 beautiful morning of the whole year (two month's since) 

 saw me on the rear platform of a Pullman parlor, passing 

 quietly out of the Erie depot, bound for sundown. The 

 next morning found me at Port Huron, with a trip of 

 thirty miles up the shore of Lake Huron yet before me, 

 and no practicable way of making it but by boat. A boat 

 of the regular line would not pass up until evening, but 

 I must do better if possible, for I thought of that "Lordly 

 Buck" that was waiting, and afraid lest Bergh might make 

 a case against me if I taxed his patience too long; but it 

 was no use. After hailing all sorts of craft, and trying to 

 drive a bargain with numerous tug captains I gave it up, 

 and it was ten o'clock at night before I set foot on the 

 dock at Lexington, where was a pair of stalwart arms wide 

 open to embrace, and they beiDg clad in the shaggiest of 

 Ulsters, it was no great stretch of the imagination in the 

 hug that followed, to believe that I had found my own 

 Grizzly, and that he had got the best of me. Five miles 

 more inland in the pitchy darkness behind "Old John" (of 

 whom more anon), brought us to our destination, and by 

 midnight I was fast in the arms of Morpheus under a 

 hospitable shelter, with warm hearts and true around me, 

 and the "Lordly Buck" scarce five hundred yards away 

 in "the bush," waiting to bid me good morning. 



I was awakened betimes by the sound of voices under 

 my window, and looking out, I saw in the faint grey of 

 the early dawn the preparation on foot for the sport of the 

 day; the boys were waiting for us with the hounds 

 (splendid fellows), and a good backwoods team with hay, 

 straw, robes, and other creature comforts filling the box, 

 and into which, after a glorious breakfast of venison, fresh 

 eggs, wafer-like buckwheat cakes, and the rr ost fragrant 

 and delicious of coffee, we all bundled. Then, amid a jolly 

 outburst of orchestral music from some half-dozen fog 

 horns we started, just as the streaks of grey in the east be- 

 gan to broaden and reflect a silver sheen on the frosty 

 landscape. Now, while we are driving along gaily, but 



not rapidly (for the corderoy road forbids that), I will 

 introduce my companions- 



First, there is "'Lish," our brother-in-law, a thorough 

 sportsman, "with all that that implies," a born gentleman 

 in all his walks and conversation, the worthy head of the 

 community, and the authority of an extended local dis- 

 trict in all matters pertaining to the horse, the dog, or the 

 gun— a mechanical genius of the first water— and a most 

 genial and intelligent companion. Next comes Buxton, 

 youDg in years, but old in wood craft; can scent a deer 

 about as well as a hound; can thread the mazes mi the 

 forest without breaking a twig, or losing his locality for 

 an instant; a most willing and unselfish worker for the 

 enjoyment of others. Then comes Berthaur, an educated 

 and intelligent gentleman, whom taste and inclination, and 

 perhaps fortune, has led to a frontier life, an ardent lpver 

 of all manly sports, and a valued teacher and mentor to 

 the youth of the community. Last, but not least, is Joe 

 Butterball, in charge of the team. What Joe don't know 

 about getting a team through a "slashing" isn't worth 

 knowing; but when it comes to guns — well, if Joe has one 

 in his hands give him a wide berth. He "don't know 

 nothing about the dog-goned things — don't like 'em." So 

 we had prepared for Joe an old muzzle loader loaded with 

 blank cartridge, to be used as we should instruct. I was 

 armed with a Winchester, Buxton with a Spencer carbine, 

 Berthaur with a fine Webley breech loader, loading buck- 

 shot. 'Lish had both a Winchester and a Daly gun. 

 Well, here we are. We have come a mile due west of the 

 hamlet, and here is apparently a cross road; at least they 

 call it such but it is really little else than a patli cut for 

 the surveyor's through the forest for the laying out of the 

 section line roads. Here we drop Buxton and the hounds. 

 They go a mile or two further on foot, when they enter the 

 forest to thj north of the road, gradually making their 

 way back towards us, and driving the deer before them. 

 We turn into the forest to the north, and after going in a 

 short distance the horses are hitched, and Joe left in 

 charge. We give him the blunderbuss loaded and pre- 

 pared for his use, and tell him to pull the trigger if he 

 hears the hounds coming too near his station, so as to 

 frighten the deer over towards us. We cock the gun for 

 him, and leave him fully prepared for the emergency. We 

 then take up our several positions about five hundred 

 yards apart, on a line due north from each other. Joe 

 first, Berthaur second, myself third, and 'Lish last. As a 

 Greenhorn, I am told to keep my eye on a certain black 

 stump when I hear the hounds coining, for if the deer 

 comes through on the runway I am watching, he will 

 surely pass within ten feet of that stump. I am told, also, 

 that if the deer gets by me unhurt, not to let the dogs 

 follow, but to stop and tie them fast. I am provided with 

 stout muslin cords for that purpose, for the deer would 

 probably lead them to the lake, seven or eight miles distant, 

 and we might see no more of them for days, our hunt for 

 the next day be spoiled. So, w 7 ith these hints, I wait in 

 the grand solitude of the virgin forest, with ears intent for 

 the voice of the hounds. I cannot tell how long I waited. 

 I only know that in a supreme moment of contemplation, 

 when the soul seemed filled with the greatness, the 

 grandeur, the glory of the illimitable wilderness, I was 

 suddenly aroused to a realizing sense of the situation by 

 a distant cry of the hounds, distant and low at first, gradu- 

 ally coming nearer and more distinct; now evidently 

 running to the north, now to the south. Oh! the music of 

 that full chorus, which now began to break loudly on the 

 still air, was inspiring. All else was still as death, and 

 every particular hair was standing on end with expecta- 

 tion. One loud, deep, and wonderfully clear voice, was 

 evidently nearer than the rest, but running too far north, 

 for my runway. Presently, crack goes a shot, evidently 

 from 'Lish's Winchester; then another, and another in. 

 quick succession. All is still again. The deep, loud- 

 voiced hound, is heard no more; but the others are in full 

 cry, nearly in front of me, but yet at some distance. I 

 cannot resist the inclination to climb that high stump at 

 my right, to see if I can see the result of those three sharp 

 cracks. I am up there in an instant, but can see nothing: 

 I suddenly hear a twig snap almost at my side, and looking 

 down quickly, there is a beauiiful fawn bounding lightly 

 by, scarcely seeming to touch the ground, so graceful, so 

 beautiful. I am spell-bound, and haven't the heart to stop 

 him. No! Go on, my jewel, and take your life with you. 

 The hounds are still crying loud and near. I am now back 

 in an instant to my old position, with my eye on the black 

 stump, though my game has probably passed. I must stop 



