ee 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oor. 16, 1884. 
The Sportsman Conrist. 
LOG OF THE BUCKTAIL.—IV, 
N Jnne 24 there was a fine rise in the Tiadatton, and 
taking the 8 A. M, train, Twas afloat in a little more 
than two hours for a cruise from Slate Run to Jersey Shore. 
For once I hit the river at the right time. 
The half flood covered rocks and riffles, the recent rain 
had freshened and brightened every leaf and flower, while 
the strong current made the use of the paddle unnecessary, 
except for keeping the canoe on her course. And then thie 
scenery and weather could scarcely be improved, The de- 
lightful run down to Cammal station was all too brief. and I 
noticed several white tents on the wooded islands, and on 
the right bank just where cold mountain rills came tumbling 
down between steep spurs on the mountain, Am glad to 
see that outers from distant points appreciate the advantages 
of a healthy, romantic, and inexpensive mountainous region, 
where trout, browse, timber, game and berries, are free as 
the cold springs that lose themselves every mile in the main 
stream, 
At Cammal I decided to Jay off fora day '‘takin’ notes,” 
For there are three or four noted trout streams in easy reach 
of the little hamlet, which were being eagerly fished by as 
many different parties, all of them from a distance. It was 
easy to see that their object in going a-fishing was to catch 
fish. The recent rains had raised the mountain brooks, and 
by going to the head of the streams early in the morning 
and fishing down patiently it was easy to make a respectable 
creel, so far as count goes. But thesize, alas! To my think- 
ing, there was scarcely any appreciable size about them. 
Many of them were little fellows with the bars still on them 
and less than four incher in length; and not a quarter of 
them came up to the leeal length, 7. ¢., five inches. I took 
the liberty of overhauling one creel while the owner was at 
supper. It contained eighty-six trout, only fifteen of which 
were five or more inches in length. 
Tinterviewed the owner, and when he found I had gone 
surreptitiously through his ‘‘catch” he talked fight, A few 
words whispered in his ear brought him down from fighting 
pitch to argument; and truth to say he argued very well. 
He said in effect: ‘‘Of course you could fine us heavily, 
With what result? Neither of us, nor any of our friends, 
would ever come here to fish again, We only fish in the 
open season; we catch a few small trout, and eyery pound 
of trout we calch costs us more than two dollars. Why 
don’t you prosecute your own poachers and hoodlums who 
blow the trout out of water and scoop them with nets, in sea- 
son and out of season? I saw scores of baby trout lying dead 
aleng the banks to-day that had been killed by dynamite, 
and I met a party with a scoop net who had at least a peck 
of trout of all sizes. If you want to prosecute, agreed; but 
commence with your home poachers.” 
lt was all too true, and I was silent for very shame. On 
the following morning I was on the water betimes, and bar- 
ring the intense heat, had a delightful run to Jersey Shore, 
Heavy rains at the head of the Tiadatton had swelled the 
stream to logging flood, and a big drive of logs that had 
been “hung up” by low water in the spring was now afloat, 
bound for Williamsport. Six teams, an ark or two, several 
batteaus, and a hundred stalwart log drivers were busy fol- 
lowing up the logs, rolling in such as got stranded, and 
keeping the drive in motion. I cruised in company with 
sawlogs for the last haif of the run and found them harmless 
company. A mile or two above Jersey Shore I debouched 
into the West Branch of the Susquehanna, and found it at 
high rafting pitch, with wrecks of out-buildings, fences, etc., 
in the channel, Theriyer had been eleven feet above low 
water mark at Williamsport, but had fallen a good deal, 
though still running a flood, and muddy withal, 
As one object of the cruise was to take notes of the bass 
and pike-perch fishing, and, as a roily flood cut that point 
off effectually, I landed up in front of the Globe Hotel and 
took it out in a yisit to a friend and skillful angler, Frank 
Trump by name. 
Frank gave me some significant points on the fishing be- 
tween Cammal] and Jersey Shore, and also as to the effect of 
the numerous fish dams, fisb baskets, eel weirs, ete., on ‘the 
bass. Hesaid: ‘‘Come down in late summer, when these 
fellows have their dams, and leads, and traps ready for busi- 
ness and J’il show you how it affects legitimate fishing,” 
and I said I would be there. 
As there is nothing useful or funny in cruising a swollen, 
muddy river, I laid away the Bucktail in Frank’s cellar, to 
pick her up ou brighter waters, and once more took an up 
train forhome, * # ‘ * * “ 
" Oh summer! my beautiful, beautiful summer, 
T look in your face and I Jong so to live} 
But ah! have you room for an idle new-comer, 
With all things to ask and with nothing to give?” 
Thus sang, years ago, a sweet American poetess, and she 
sang well. Not on the face of this earth does summer beam 
more brightly and healthfully than on the wooded mountain 
ranges of our own Jand. Add two more months, say from 
the 20th of May to the 20th of October, and you have five 
months of unequalled weather, But the law of compensa- 
tions is sure as fate, and we have seven months, as an offset, 
of such weather as—to an invalid—makes life a burden. 
I think of all this as—having loafed around home for a 
month—I swing the Bucktail out from Jersey Shore for a 
seventeen mile run down to Williamsport. Had I set in to 
do the river post haste, I could have taken the whole busi- 
ness in on a two weeks’ cruise. I choose to do it leisurely, 
thoughtfully, even. I know that on the left bank, high 
above the viyer, there is the old Pennsylvania canal (little 
used at present) with a fine growth of shady trees on either 
bank, where l might paddle peacefully down to Northum- 
berland, scarcely meeting a canal boat ina days cruise. But, 
I am bound to take in every rod of the river in the canoe. 
And the run is very pleasant, Facilis est descensus avernt. 
Ii is all the way down hill for the first ten miles, Then I 
begin to run in on cribs, piers, booms, and immense timber 
rafts, with a solid pack of logs six miles long, two-thirds the 
width of the river, and jammed firmly together, with the top 
ends slanting down stream and the lower ends resting on the 
bottom, Ihave run into the works of the Williamsport 
Boom Company. Iforget just how many million feet of 
lumber this pack is estimated to contain. But, 1 remember 
vividly the perspiration and exhaustive labor it cost me to get 
clear of the bewildering tangle and reach Williamsport Dam 
on that broiling 22d of July, Andthe dam was no better. 
The chute was jammed full of logs, stumps, dead trees, etc., 
from end to end, and above the dam there wasa wide line of 
impassable debris that reached across the river. I was 
obliged. to cross to the right side, “double trip it” up a 
steep bank, and then creep down a thirty feet bank of rough 
stone rip-raps before I got afloat on the water below. 
AndIwent all wrong through not knowing the course, 
whereby it happened that I was forced to get out barefooted 
and bare-legged and wade ignominiously oyer the gravel for 
a hundred yards, with a fine channel on either side, and in 
plain sight of Market street. Once over the riffle, however, 
it was plain sailing. I allowed the canoe to drift while I 
rolled down trouser legs, pulled on boots, and got my- 
self in presentable shape. 1 had written an old friend and a 
member of the Williamsport Gun Club to meet me at the 
Market street bridge, sharp 1 P, M. I was glad the note did 
not reach him in time. 
It was past 2 P. M. when I landed in the cool shade of the 
bridge, drew up the canoe, and threw myself exhausted on 
the sandy beach. As usual, the little canoe soon collected a 
crowd. The question and badinage might have embarrassed 
a tenderfoot; it was amusing to an old canoeist. So long as 
there is no resort to decayed yegetables or dorricks, and they 
will keep their splay feet out of the canoe when she is rest- 
ing on solid ground, I can stand it. They are not so apt to 
board her when she is afloat in deep water. * * * 
And there came down the river a genuine specimen of 
Young America, sitting on (not in) a light rowboat. Of 
course the canoe took his eye. He drew in his bare feet and 
legs, landed up, and began to ask questions. He was my 
man. I like Young America, as a rule. He is about the 
sharpest gamin you will meet. Taken aright, you can get a 
deal of good ont of him. Hit him amiss, and he is apt to get 
something out of you. 
I answered his questions with the urbanity natural to an 
old canoeist, and asked a few in return. For instance; 
Where was the nearest hotel? And would he oblige by just 
catching on the for’ard stem of the canoe and leading the 
way to it? ‘‘Certainly he would. The nearest hotel was 
about thirty rods. The Exchange, corner of Market und the 
canal. Dutch house; but clean and neat. Rutter gives good 
grub for a dollar a day; the rest charge two dollars.” * * * 
it happened that among the references to ‘‘first-class hotels” 
furnished. me by friends, the Exchange was ignored, All 
the same I went there, and was glad that I did, It is nearest 
to Market street bridge, which is the best landing, the fare 
is plain and well cooked, the charge $1 per day. I recom- 
mend George Rutter’s Exchange to any future canoeist. 
A schooner of lager, an hour’s rest and a square meal, put 
me on my feet, and I went up to John Schcuer’s place and 
telephoned {wo members of the gun club to meet me at the 
Exchange at5 P, M. They came, and also brought more 
with them, ‘‘Johnny” Hmery, Capt. Bly, Auguste Koch, 
and a member of the press, with a score of others, came 
around and wanted to see the Bucktail go; so I put her under 
paddle for the amusement of the crowd. She did not dis- 
grace herself nor duck her crew; but rather to my surprise, 
all except “Johnny” declined to board her, And I found 
friends, as Lalways do, Auguste Koch insisted on taking 
me up to his place behind his brisk little roan; he had a 
room that would just suit me, where I could be at home as 
long as I staid in Williamsport. But I declined. 
He called for me at 8 o’clock the next morning, however, 
and as he has the best private collection in natural history 
that I have yet seen, I was only too glad of the invitation, I 
spent a pleasant day with him and his genial brother, and it 
was the first chance I ever had to see and compare every 
species and yariety of American grouse and quail in one col- 
lection. They were more numerous than I had thought, and 
interesting to a degree, The foreign game birds were well 
represented also. Ptarmigan, blackcock, moorcock, quail, 
snipe, woodcock, all were there. As I had not time to go 
through some two thousand specimens of natural history, I 
devoted myself mainly to the game birds, the finest and 
gamiest of which, to my thinking, were the ruffed grouse 
and the wild turkey. The grand old gobbler and the cock 
grouse were both shot by Mr. Koch near Williamsport. * 
* * Had I accepted all the cordial invitations of friends, 1 
should have staid at Williamsport a month in free quarters. 
But I had au object in this river cruising. I wanted to get 
at the inner cussedness of netting, dynamiting, trapping, and 
othcr ways of depleting the water of game Osh by illegal 
means. And the poachers had not yet got their rascally 
devices out. Sol placed the Bucktail in the baggage car 
once more and came home. To go again in the season of eel- 
weirs, nets, and fish baskets. To try if, by any possibility, 
sportsmen’s clubs, game constables, fish wardens, ¢7. 7d., ete., 
can be stirred up to at least attempt the enforcement of the 
law. NissMUK, 
A VOYAGE BETWEEN THE LAKES. 
BY D, D. BANTA. 
IT. 
Surly—Did Adam write, sir, {n High Dutch? 
Mammon—He did. —The Alchemist. 
HE boat and camp stuff had been left by the trainmen at 
the depot nearly two hundred paces from the railroad 
bridge—the place where the Wawa was launched—and Joe 
Marcott, a clever lumber boss, kindly tendered the loan of 
his ‘‘carry” to run boat and stuff down the track to the river. 
Brother Scott, at that particular time, was at the hotel tend- 
ing the guns and tackle ana keeping out of the wet; and so 
the Judge engaged the services of a burly lumberman who 
was loafing around, to help push their little load down to 
the bridge. Perhaps the fellow’s services were in demand 
fifteen minutes, certainly no more, and when the work was 
done he charged a dollar. 
“That is unconscionable!” exclaimed the Judge, as he 
handed out the dollar, “If,” continued he, **I had asked 
you what your price would have been beforehand, you 
would never have thought of making it more than a quar- 
ter?” 
‘No, no,” said the fellow gravely, “I get four dollars and 
a half a day.” F 
To this the Judge made no response, but hurried down to 
the river, occasionally looking back over his shoulder as if 
he were expecting the other loafers of the town to come out 
and charge something also; and silently taking his seat in 
the stern of the boat with Brother Scott amidships, they 
began their journey as related in the last chapter. A run of 
two hundred paces browse them back within ten of their 
starting point, so crooked did they find the stream at the out- 
set. The northwest winds were occasionally rustling the 
treetops, the lake fogs were lifting and yanishing' and ihe 
clouds were rolling and tumbling in broken masses. Elm 
branches, black alders,, fern brakes and river grasses were 
still surcharged with moisture, and the outlook from the nar- 
row river over the low, alluvial bottomland was cheerless in 
the extreme, Silently the little boat sped down stream, The 
current Was narrow, averaging no more than thirty yards, if 
80 much, and at every bend there was a dee pool with a 
whirl of water on its inner side. No noise broke the silence 
save the spitefullike dip of the Judge’s paddle, or an occas- 
ional plash from the dripping branches. Brother Scott, after 
making onc or two gloomy observations and eliciting-no re- 
sponse from his companign, heayed a deep sigh and relapsed 
into a solemn silence, 
On, on the boat went, following the thread of the zigzag 
stream. Now like a courser it rushed down fifty paces or 
so of straight river, and then swinging round at a sharp 
bend over deep water, a strong sweep of the paddle 
was required to force it out of the embrace of the whirling 
water and send it cantering down to the next bend, 
“What a darned lie!” fairly bellowed the Judge, and as 
he uttered this exclamation he gaye such a vigorous push 
with his paddle that he sent the Wawa quivering with such 
velocity forward that she left a long trail of swirling water 
unfolding in the rear, Brother Scott was at the moment 
in a deep and solemn reverie. Possibly he was finding 
“Sermons in stones and books in running brooks.”* 
At any rate he-was so startled at the unexpected plunge of 
the boat and the apparently needless emphasis of the lan- 
guage used, not to mention its profane suggestiyeness, that 
he nearly capsized the craft. Had he kicked the beam at 
two hundred and twenty-five pounds instead of one hundred 
and twenty-five, | am quite sure there is no telling what the 
consequences might have been, 
But there was no accident, It was better for our voyagers 
that there was none; still, for the historian, an accident 
would have been a brilliant chapter. The Judge now ex- 
plained. The lumberman’s audacity had rendered him ~ 
speechless all this time. ‘‘Four dollars and a half a day!” 
he screamed, ‘‘and I stood there like a fool, when I knew it 
could not be over a dollar and a half, and did not tell him 
the liar he was!” 
Brother Scott was too much surprised to speak at once, 
but presently regaining his composure he said, ‘‘What! 
What!” in a startled sort of manner. And the Judge still 
further explained, This time he told the whole story, and 
wound up by an expression of regret that he had not cast 
the lie into the fellow’s teeth, 
“He was rather a big fellow, wasn’t he?’ asked Brother 
Scott, in a sepulchral tone. 
“Well, yes,” growled the Judge. 
ane six feet tall, I should say,” ventured Brother Scott. 
te Tes,” ., 
“‘And he was raw-boned and had bristly hair and red eyes 
and big, hard-looking hands?” 
‘<All, yes,” answered the Judge, regaining his wonted 
composure. 
“Well, | should think you took the better course. You 
have given yent to your opinion with great force and with 
perfect safety. What more would you have? I can conceive: 
but of one wiser course for you to have taken and that was 
to have made your contract beforchand.”’ 
‘Precisely so!” fairly roared the Judge, bristling up again, 
“and that 1s what makes me all the madder. I know so 
well the necessity of making an express contract beforehand 
when on a sporting expedition with every man I accept a 
service from, that I have no patience with myself this time. 
One has to hargain like an Ishmaelite or be skinned at every 
turn. And yet Ido so much dislike to be always dickering 
when in the woods, Sometimes I meet with a downright 
clever fellow who has no thought of not doing the fair thing, 
and when I have once found him out, I hate myself for not 
trusting him from the beginning. But such are like angel’s 
visits. The majority of those who seek to serye the sports- 
man seem to jump to the conclusion that he must be a rich 
man and therefore a proper person to fleece. Here was this 
fellow I found hanging around a saloon door. He leayes it 
long enough to give me fifteen minutes’ light service and 
then charges me a dollar. Think of it! Four dollars an hour 
and forty dollars a day for a brutish fellow who has barely 
intellect enough to swing an axe. It’s an outrage!” And as 
the Judge reached this conclusion he gave a spasmodic push 
with his paddie, and shoved the bow of the Wawa with 
such force into a mud bank that he barely missed the acci- - 
dent that would have given the matter for the brilliant chap- 
ter of this history. © 
After the boat was righted Brother Scott took up the dis- 
cussion, and replied at length to the Judge: ‘‘There is,” said 
he, ‘‘two sides to that question, ‘lhe fault may not be all 
on the side of the wagoners and packers and guides. Some- 
times your sportsmen try to jew them down in their charges, 
and sometimes your sportsmen cut on their bills, There was 
that absconding mayor of a distant city, whom a guide ran 
down and caught at St. Ignace the other day for an unpaid 
bill.” 
“T won't grant your premises,” lustily put in the Judge, 
‘You make the mistake allof themdo. Thekind of fellows 
you describe are not sportsmen. There’s that drunken Chi- 
cago man at the hotel up yonder. He is a coarse-fibred, 
vain, ignorant boor, who, having ‘by hook and by crook’ 
managed to accumulate a fortune, thinks he must do some: 
thing to spend it, and what does he do but assume the 7éle 
of sportsman.” 
‘Precisely so,” answered Brother Scott, ‘He is all you 
picture him, and by his drunken orgies, his reckless extraya- 
gance and stupid ignorance he brings your brotherhood into 
disrepute among a very largeclass of persons, many of whom 
are very reputable persons at that. Right there comes in the 
point of my argument. He passes himself off for a sports- 
man and sows his money with a liberal hand—so liberal, that 
those who serve him expect more than bare wages, and 
would feel themselves wronged if they did not get it.” _ 
‘Yes, but the pee man is the only one of his kind. 
He is an exception to all known rules,” responded the Judge, 
‘True enough, true enough, Still he belongs to a class. 
T hayen’t been in the woods: very long, but I have observed 
three classes of your so-called sportsmen already, There is 
the ‘jewing-down’ sportsman, the ‘live-and-let-live’ sports- 
man and the ‘recklessly-extravagant’ sportsman. While one 
class would deal fairly with their sporting servitors, another 
would cheat them, and a third would demoralize them with 
‘tips.’ You remember the fellow you were talking to about 
going with you on your Indian River trip? Well, he told 
you about the last man he had gone with asa guide, That 
man had, after paying him his wages, given him not only 
all the provisions left over, but all his camp equipage be- 
sides, and he evidently expected that you would not be less 
liberal than the other had been.” ? 
‘No. Andif [had engaged him,and he had surmised 
before his time was up that [was not going to give him 
double what 1 had promised, he would have studied to see 
how little he could do for me.” _ 3 tre 
‘Very well,” answered Brother Scott, ‘And who is to 
