A SWING AROUND VERMONT 



5'7 



directly over the range to Woodstock, in 

 Windsor County. A famous trip in summer 

 it must be, the road winding around the 

 northerly slope of Mount Pico, affording a 

 good view of Killington, and then, following 

 the course of the Ottaquechee River, down 

 the watershed of the Connecticut. 



At West Woodstock I was entertained by 

 Wm. E. Mack, the warden of Windsor 

 County, and on Thursday, in the moun- 

 tains, an hour's climb north of the town, 

 we shot a white weasel, ran a red fox into 

 her burrow and stalked a bunch of six deer 

 for four hours, in fairly open country, with- 

 out either of us once getting sight of them, 

 let alone a photograph. No wonder the 

 crafty rascals survive and multiply where 

 the moose or the elk or the caribou could not 

 last a season; no wonder the seventeen that 

 were released in the Green Mountains, even 

 in the memory of the younger generation, 

 have increased until there are annually killed 

 within the State more than a thousand of 

 them. There may be some fool whitetails, 

 but when not crazed from fear by a con- 

 tinuous fusillade, or from being hunted by 

 dogs, even these, " innocent creatures," can 

 take excellent care of themselves. 



There are two men in Woodstock who are 

 interested in the preservation of fish and 

 game, although there are many who profess 

 to be, some of them members of the State Fish 

 and Game Association, which is the strong- 

 est political organization in the common- 

 wealth. And these two, men who have been 

 out into the world and who do not have to 

 sit down and whittle a notch in a stick before 

 they will admit that black is not white, 

 must go out behind the barn and converse 

 covertly if the subject have any bearing on 

 the game and fish laws. 



From Woodstock, a short ride east by 

 train brings one to White River Junction, 

 and to the Connecticut itself, which is the 

 State line. Ah, the Connecticut! A grand 

 stream it is, and has been; before the day 

 of the railroad the only eastern outlet of the 

 State. Quonehatacut, "the Long River," 

 the fighting Pequods called it, and contested 

 every foot of it with the advancing Esau of 

 the East. Still it sweeps along in almost 

 undiminished glory, its blue-green waters 

 suggestive of the wilderness rather than of 

 mill-wheels turned. 



From this point, turning north and east, 

 going by train one turns into the valley of tin- 

 White River, following it to the height, of 

 land at North field, and then running down 

 the valley of the Winooski to Montpelier, 

 where the Legislature meets. Here I visited 

 the warden of Washington County, Mr. J. 

 Burton Pike, who came down from Plain - 

 field to meet me. Mr. Pike is another good 

 sportsman who knows things that were 

 never learned in the effete East, and some 

 day when I have more time I hope to go 

 hunting with him in "the Devil's Hop- 

 yard." 



I was fortunate in finding Governor Bell 

 in Montpelier, and refreshed, after my 

 experience in Woodstock, to find him a true 

 ^ame and fish protectionist, particularly 

 since I knew him to be by reputation not a 

 sportsman. 



At Stowe, next day, I was busy with 

 Commissioner of Fisheries and Game 

 Henry G. Thomas, who returned from the 

 Far West to his beloved Green Mountains 

 when the barbed wire came and the frontier 

 was not. 



Mount Mansfield is less than an hour's 

 drive from Stowe, and it was under the shad- 

 ow of Mansfield that Mr. Thomas conceived 

 the idea of a beautiful mountain lake, in 

 which to plant trout against the time when 

 the streams might become depleted, and with 

 true Western initiative he promptly inter- 

 ested several friends, and together they 

 formed a stock company, the Lake Mans- 

 field Trout Club, to build a dam at Beaver 

 Meadows on Nebraska Brook, and thus 

 form the desired lake. Enough stock was 

 sold to warrant the beginning of work the 

 following spring, and when completed, in 

 November of 1900, there had been built a 

 dam and spillway 430 feet long, 35 feet high 

 at the highest point, 100 feet wide at its 

 base, resting upon solid rock, and 8 feet wide 

 at its apex. The spillway is three feet lower 

 than the dam, and its capacity is sufficient 

 to discharge the overflow at all times. The 

 dam and spillway had cost, when completed, 

 $7,334.60. The club, wishing to control 

 the brook from the lake to the mill dam 

 three-fourths of a mile below, bought a farm 

 of fifty acres through which it flows, together 

 with the buildings which are now occupied 

 by the club warden. 



