THE REFERENDUM 



89 



the otter, when the cougar leaps among them, 

 and the lawmakers have said that he who 

 slays ithe yellow cat shall claim money for 

 his head. 



The brush is so thick in the forest that in 

 many places the dog can not force his body 

 through and man can only go by the trails. 



Quick — quick, hunter, when your dogs 

 track the panther — quick, or he will be gone 

 in the tree-top, whose 'branches are so thick 

 they hide the long one, and you can no lon- 

 ger behold him with his eyes of fire ! 



What is that that has left its track, in the 

 night, in the mud about your spring? Out, 

 friend, with the dogs, and on the trail of the 

 black bear grown fat on the acorns, the 

 thimble, the salmon, and the sal-lal berries 

 of autumn ! 



Maybe the hairy one will lead the dogs on 

 a forty-mile run, and the hounds will creep 

 into the master's door after two suns have 

 set — wornout and sore of foot,, while Bruin 

 says, ha ! ha ! in the next county ! 



But better luck next time, brother — a little 

 run in the forest — a crackling of the brush 

 as the big bear plows through a thicket — a 

 growl from the dogs — a snarl from the 

 shaggy one as he turns under the firs, to 

 strike out at the bellowing hounds — a swift 

 shot from your rifle — a mad whirl — the swift 

 blow of an axe — and a bear's pelt is yours ! 



Countless smaller beasts there are in the 

 woods — the swift-leaping wildcat — the clam- 

 eating 'coon — the fearless polecat — the nest- 

 building woodrat — the springing squirrel. 

 The beaver used to build his dams across 

 every river — but now he has fled before the 

 sound of the footsteps of the white man, and 

 is found only in the most hidden places. 



Because of the moist air the dog can trail 

 in the sunlight the tracks the 'coon has made 

 in the moonlight, and great are the number 

 of narrow faces that hide in one hole in the 

 ground ! 



Do you like to hunt the fowls of the for- 

 est, my brother? There are pheasants, there 

 are grouse and quail — there are hawks, there 

 are them of the bald head and the mighty 

 wing — they who soar in the eye of the sun 

 in numbers like the bloom of the laurel in 

 summer. 



Do you like to hunt the sea-bird, white 

 hunter? Geese, as numberless as the sands, 

 ducks, like the maple's bloom in spring, sea- 

 gulls, loons, shags, cranes, float on the bay, 

 ready for the aim of the gunner. 



Stand on the edge of the bay, white hunt- 

 er, and watch the 'big hair-seal come to the 

 surface of the water. He will look at you 

 without fear many minutes before he dives, 

 but do not shoot him, brother — you can not 

 reach his body, for he will sink like a stone 

 and will not rise until his flesh is fit only for 

 the fishes. 



Look, white friend, from the beach where 

 the breakers roll up a hundred feet and roar 

 like the thunder — look out in the sea where 



the rocks rear themselves half a hundred 



feet out of the water arid sec the yellow sea 

 lion and his fellows covering the rocks, to 



bask in the great sun's rays! 



The lighthouse keeper has seen over the 

 bar, that whose pelt is worth in the Greal 

 Father's coin a hundred dollars five timi 

 over. Then out, good hunter, for a perilous 

 day and a night among the breakers, and be 

 hold at daybreak a white dot in the distance 

 —the silver sea-otter, curled up asleep, with 

 its head pillowed on the water, as calmly as 

 the white man reposes on his pillow of goose 

 feathers ! Then be quick, good hunter, shoot 

 with sure aim, and secure the prize before it 

 sinks in the deep ! 



Come, white man, up the side of the moun- 

 tain—a hundred feet three times, above the 

 level of the great waters, and behold the en- 

 tire skeleton of a monster whale ! Four cav- 

 uses it would need to draw the lower jaw- 

 bone of the skeleton even on the flat earth — 

 how, then, came the bones of the great crea- 

 ture entire, on the mountain side? 



Listen and I will tell you. Half a cen- 

 tury gone, when I, through age, leaned on mj 

 stick, an ocean water-spout lifted the mom 

 s<ter and laid him down on the mountain 

 When the water came down it washed a 

 basin so deep that the whale lived in it many 

 days. I saw the whale — I and my red broth- 

 ers ate of his flesh. 



Farewell ! The spirits of my brothers are 

 calling me back. I must go. Heed well the 

 parting words of Io, mighty huntsman of the 

 Umpquas, O hunter ! When the red lust for 

 hunting is upon you, come away to this re- 

 gion where the wild things live — away to the 

 land next the setting sun beside the mighty 

 stretch of restless waters ! 



CANOE GUM 



BY MARTIN HUNTER 



In these days wooden canoes, canvas ca- 

 noes, tin canoes and other contrivances to 

 transport one from place to place have re- 

 placed the once familiar birch-bark canoe 

 of our early days, but they are yet in use 

 in the far-back country. 



As we have no country so far back but 

 what Recreation reaches it, I propose, 

 through its pages, to enlighten the unedu- 

 cated as to the proper way in which a bark 

 canoe should be gummed, i. e., the prepara- 

 tion of the gum from the raw state, suitable 

 for the heat of summer and the cold of late 

 autumn. 



A leaky bark canoe is the most miserable 

 vessel one can be in; I mean a small tour- 

 ing or hunting canoe. As an old officer 

 once said to me : "A small canoe with rea- 

 sonable care and proper gumming should 

 never have a drop of water in her." 



There is some excuse for a large trans- 

 port canoe which is loaded and unloaded, 

 occasionally several times a day to make a 



