AMONG IOWA QUAILS. 



427 



1 have a dim recollection of calculating on 

 looping on a new leader when that sea 

 serpent should have fouled one of those 

 snags. Yet all the while I was striving to 

 lead the cause of my trouble, with all the 

 force I dared exert, beyond the end of the 

 pier, into open water. When I had suc- 

 ceeded in doing this, lo! there was a 

 gleaming shape near the surface, but the 

 pliant rod was too quick to allow it to 

 break water. After several ineffectual at- 

 tempts to reach Camp Bemis, during 

 which the trout took out, again and again, 

 25 or 30 yards of the line, the landing net 

 safely gathered a handsome brook trout 

 of 3 pounds. This life is a huge affair 

 after all. 



A week later we made an excursion of 



2 days to West Richardson pond, a beauti- 

 full little sheet of water, so well described 

 as " a pearl in the heart of the wilderness." 

 We had as guide, George P. Thomas, of 

 Andover, Me., than whom there is none 

 better in all the Rangeley region, — gentle- 

 man, hunter, fisherman, cook, — and the trip 

 was one we shall never forget. 



West Richardson pond is some 7 or 8 

 miles in the wilderness, North from the 

 Upper Dam. There are several log cabins 

 on its shores, owned by Boston and New 

 York men. We caught some nice trout 

 there, by trolling, and at 4 o'clock saw our 

 first deer, near the inlet on the North 

 shore. During the next 2 hours we saw 

 7 more. We spent the night at Camp Hol- 

 lokon, a little woodland camp which nes- 

 tles at the foot of Mount Observatory, 

 whose wooded peak rises 15,000 feet above 

 the surface of the lake. Beside our camp 

 a brook, having its source far up the moun- 

 tain side, ran to meet the waters of the 

 lake. 



After a bountiful supper, prepared by 

 the guide, and consisting of baked trout, 

 new potatoes, hot biscuits and coffee, with 

 the small et ceteras, we spent on the lake 

 one of the most beautiful evenings I ever 

 saw. The moon was full and so were we, 



when at 8 o'clock, wrapped in a silence 

 that was broken only by the cry of some 

 night bird or the splash of some deer 

 feeding on the shore of the lake, we 

 floated clown the North shore, propelled 

 by George's noiseless paddle. We drifted 

 till midnight, and during that time saw or 

 heard 12 more deer, making 20, in all, seen 

 that .day in the space of ^4 of a mile on the 

 North shore. We floated to within a 

 canoe's length of one deer who fed a full 

 minute before taking alarm. Then he 

 started, and if he kept up the same speed 

 and direction, he must have made Klon- 

 dyke in about io.days. After 2 days in this 

 most beautiful place, we paddled back to 

 camp again. 



One hot morning, having cast for a solid 

 hour in the big pool, without a rise, as my 

 flies for the hundredth time settled softly 

 on the rapid water near the dam, there was 

 a mighty swirl near my tail fly, a silvery 

 flash near the surface, and — I struck. The 

 fight was on, and I knew at once, from the 

 tension on the line as again and again the 

 fish took out 100 to 150 feet of silk, that I 

 had hooked something worth saving. But 

 why dwell on a scene that every angler has 

 lived over and over again? The maddened 

 rushes at last grew weaker and shorter as 

 the cautious reel slowly devoured the silk- 

 en thread, and after a well fought battle of 

 some 27 minutes my net sank beneath a 

 royal prize, a brook trout of 4 pounds 9 

 ounces; more beautiful than words can 

 tell, as every fisherman will grant. During 

 our vacation we took over 100 trout, 

 most of them weighing over a pound, and 

 three fourths of them were returned to the 

 water. 



There is no more delightful way of 

 spending a vacation than with camp and 

 canoe in the Maine woods, with pleasant 

 companions, particularly in this vast re- 

 gion in which the woodsman's axe has 

 scarce been heard, and where is rarely 

 known a sound foreign to nature's sur- 

 roundings. 



AMONG IOWA QUAILS. 



E. A. JOHNSON. 



It was a dull morning in early Novem- 

 ber. Having nothing in particular to do, 

 and thinking perhaps a few ducks had come 

 in on the cold Northwest wind that was 

 blowing, I concluded to stroll to the creek. 



I had not fully made up my mind, by the 

 time the creek was reached, whether to fol- 

 low the stream to the river, 3 miles away, 

 or to take to the corn fields and hazel 

 patches, where I knew there were quails. 

 While standing on the bank of the little 

 stream, I heard a slight noise in a brush 



heap, on the opposite bank. Hastily look- 

 ing up, I saw a quail climbing up the bank. 

 Judging from the fluttering and scrambling, 

 there were a score of others, trying to get 

 out of the brush heap, all at once. 



Having No. 4 shot in my gun, and plenty 

 of time, as I thought, I opened it to ex- 

 change for 8's: but just as I had the shells 

 out the bevy flushed and was away before 

 I could reload. 



This decided the question for me. The 

 birds settled not over 100 yards away, and 



