FISHING ON CAGE LAKE 



307 



the alder beds, silence reigned again. 

 When the morning light was visible at the 

 front of the open camp, it was apparent a 

 raw day was in prospect. But the gloomy 

 outlook was cheered by bacon and flapjacks 

 with real maple syrup, and Johnny Mc- 

 Broom's story about the French " breed" 

 and the muskrat. 



"Dat Maskar-rang de bes' meat. I like 

 'eem. I like 'eem goot! Catch 'eem. Peel 

 'eem. Par&i/e 'eem. Parbile 'eem goot. 

 Push 'eem in hov'. Bake 'eem. Jus' soon 

 have lamb as it!" 



Just as breakfast is over Johnny Marshall 

 comes swinging down the mountainside 

 from his camp at Cage Lake, anywhere 

 from five to eight miles distant by blazed 

 trail, and we reload the pack baskets for the 

 climb. Three hours later the white of Mar- 

 shall's tent, our destination, shows away 

 up on the hillside. We slip the straps of our 

 baskets and for the next ten minutes nearly 

 pitch forward on our hands and knees 

 before our backs can adjust themselves to 

 the changed conditions. 



Cage Lake is one of hundreds of small 

 lakes and ponds existing among the wooded 

 hills of southern St. Lawrence and northern 

 Herkimer and Lewis counties, most of 

 them uncharted on the maps. One guide 

 in that locality has visited three hundred of 

 them. Many of them are mere bowls or 

 basins between the hills, fed by springs and 

 rivulets. At the lowest side of the bowl the 

 water flows over the rocky edge in a small 

 cataract and following down this stream for 

 one hundred feet or so you are below the 

 level of the lake's bottom. Nearly all of 

 them contain more or less trout. I should 

 say that Cage Lake contained more. Cer- 

 tainly it didn't give them up. 



The One Who Knew fished industriously, 

 vigorously and at times profanely. But 

 after two days he refused to accept any 

 responsibility for the success or failure of 

 the expedition and replied with hard looks 

 when his glowing eulogiums of Cage Lake 

 were quoted. What made it worse was that 

 the guides knew and he knew and the rest 

 knew that not fifteen miles away, at Wauna- 



kena, fishermen were hauling out front as 

 long as your arm, all that they could carry 

 away. So he sent two of the guides back to 

 Young's for his folding boat, as a diversion. 



They arrived sweating, and swore they 

 would sooner carry one of their own wooden 

 boats on their heads, which they do with a 

 curious yoke arrangement very comfortably. 



Marshall's tent was eight feet by twelve. 

 It contained a balsam bough bed and a 

 little sheet-iron heating-stove. The bed 

 held seven of us edgewise. Leaning over it 

 was a hundred-year-old hemlock with a 

 crack in the trunk that opened and closed 

 in a high wind and creaked dismally. The 

 Sureshot lay in terror all night during a 

 thunderstorm, with his shoes in his hand, 

 ready to dash out if he heard an unusual 

 crash. 



The dining-table was of split slabs beside 

 a great log outdoors, and one morning 

 everybody stood up to eat breakfast in a 

 storm of rain and sleet. But Johnny Mc- 

 Broom made baking powder biscuits fit for 

 a king, while the snow fell in the kneading 

 pan, and baked them before the camp fire. 

 Just to stand up and eat those biscuits with 

 maple syrup on them, in the out-of-doors, 

 was worth the price of admission, even 

 though the wet snow did trickle down the 

 back of your neck meanwhile. 



So matters might have gone on until this 

 day if it hadn't been for Marshall. When 

 the One Who Knew, who still had to swear 

 by Cage Lake, was out whipping the water 

 for trout, Marshall said: 



"I d'no as I ought to interfere, an' its 

 money in my pocket to have you stay, but 

 you fellows ain't going to get any trout in 

 m Cage Lake. If you was here a day when 

 they bit, you'd maybe get quite a bunch of 

 'em, but you see they ain't a-bitin'." 



We saw, and held a council of war. Then 

 we gave a whoop to call in the lone fisher- 

 man. He was glad of an excuse. So we 

 packed up and hiked back to the Oswegat- 

 chie. Nobody left Cage Lake with regret. 

 And no harm came to the canvas boat, 

 which did not get taken out of the original 

 package. ,. 



