FISHING ON CAGK LAKIC 



3°5 



railroad junction and getting-off place for 

 Sternberg's. 



The inevitable buckboard awaits us at 

 the station. There are various buckboards, 

 but the vehicle which" 1 met us'iis of a style 

 peculiar to the Adirondack Mountains and 

 beyond description. A cross between a flat 

 car and a load of soap boxes might produce 

 such offspring. But for getting over the 

 boulder-strewn, corduroyed "roads" of the 

 North Woods nothing could beat it, except 

 perhaps a flying machine. Only, if you 

 have been delicately nurtured, you will 

 prefer to walk. 



J By buckboard and shanksmares then to 

 Sternberg's, a half-way house between civili- 

 zation and the abso- 

 lute wilds. It is situ- 

 ated at the crossing 

 of the Inlet by the 

 Albany road, that 

 old military high- 

 way thrown across 

 the northern wilder- 

 ness, from Albany 

 to Sacketts Harbor 

 on Lake Ontario, 

 during the War of 

 1812, when Perry 

 was successfully dis- 

 puting with Great 

 Britain for the mas- 

 tery of the lakes. 



Deer signs are 

 seen near the highway and a fat hedge- 

 hog scuttles across the road with his 

 quills lifted and scrambles up a tall bal- 

 sam as we pass. The hedgehog is a pest, 

 denuding the evergreens of foliage in the 

 localities where he feeds. A curious thing 

 the guides tell of him is that he also devours 

 the dropped antlers of the deer, which is said 

 to account for the fact that the latter are so 

 rarely found, though hundreds of bucks 

 roam the woods, shedding their horns 

 annually. The "hog" is a nuisance around 

 camp, too. More than that, his head at 

 fifty yards presented an excellent target for 

 Sureshot's "long and deadly hunting rifle," 

 which proved the final argument. 



After dinner at Sternberg's with Mine 

 Host Redway, whom, with his white apron 

 and noiseless slippers serving the meal, we 

 could hardly imagine to be the same indi- 



STERNBERG'S, ON THE ALBANY ROAD 



vidual that we saw and heard dispensing 

 mule talk from the high scat of the buck- 

 board half an hour earlier, the guides 

 stowed our duffle into their cockleshell 

 river boats. Holding the bow against the 

 bank with the paddle they waited for us to 

 step in. 



The river was in flood. Imagine a 

 mountain-fed stream in places so narrow 

 that the overhanging alders would make 

 rowing impossible with the water normal, 

 widening in level places to form miniature 

 lakes, more tortuous than a corkscrew and 

 broken by frequent rapids, and you have 

 some idea of the Inlet, which is navigable 

 by canoe for twenty-five miles or more. 



Now, with a rise 

 of three feet, it gave 

 two men plenty to 

 do to work the boat 

 up-stream, laden 

 only with them- 

 selves and neces- 

 sary duffle. 



Of course, the 

 heaviest part of the 

 work fell on the 

 guide in the stern, 

 for he had to swing 

 the curves and navi- 

 gate the rapids. The 

 greenhorn in the 

 bow simply dug his 

 paddle into the 

 water with all the energy that was in him 

 for eight straight miles of uphill climb- 

 ing. Did I say straight miles? Then 

 mark me down a liar. They were the 

 crookedest miles man ever traveled. One 

 landmark, "the Seven Pines" (all grow- 

 ing from one stump) we came abreast of 

 four times in a half-hour's paddling, each 

 time coming so near that it would not have 

 been difficult to fling a pebble into their 

 branches. Once a carry of five rods across 

 a narrow neck of land admitted us into the 

 river again and saved a mile and a half of 

 the distance. 



So, past the "battle ground," High Rock, 

 the Seven Pines, past numerous coves and 

 rapids, we made our way eight miles into 

 the heart of the woods. We passed through 

 timberlands owned by various lumber com- 

 panies, soon to be denuded, to the everlast- 



