326 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Mat 21, 1885. 



W** Spwtmqm fflomigt 



SANTA BARBARA IN SPRING. 



npHE smooth bay spreads in front, its level floor, 

 -"- Walled by the distant islands' rugged chain. 

 No southern storms beat on this guarded shore, 

 But placid rollers break with low refrain. 



Seaward, where wide-winged pelicans flap by, 



Some forager now leaves the laboring line, 

 Drops plummet-like, splashing the spray on high, 



And pulls his wriggling booty from tlie brine. 



Landward, a hawk, sailing in mounting rings, 

 Watches the banded wildfowl cleave the breeze. 



Hark ! to the whirr of his down-rushing wings, 

 And the scared croakings of the scattered geese. 



Along the lowlands spread the fruitful farms ; 



And canyons, whose steep sides are hung with bloom, 

 Stretch to the lofty hills their branching arms. 



Where cool brooks gurgle in the shady gloom. 



The Spanish mason's pondrou9 old-time walls 

 Still on the ridge hold their commanding place, 



The square-built towers and colonnaded halls 

 Crowning the landscape with a massive grace. 



Above, a flock of doves in doubtful flight 

 Wheel till their white wings flash; then, stooping low, 



Fluttering uncertain, daintily they light, 

 Flecking the russet roof with spots of snow. 



Here grow the fig and olive. Here the vine 

 Throws on the sunny slopes its verdant cloak. 



Here tower the plumed shafts of tropic pine, 

 Here spread the dark-leaved groves of sturdy oak. 



The flowering flax gleams blue as mountain lakes, 

 Tall wheat and barley crowd the fertile fields. 



Impartial nature no distinction makes, 

 Fruits of all zones her equal bounty yields. 



Now the in-drifting fog-bank gently trails 



Along the circling hills its fleecy flow. 

 Then, feathering out its foam of creamy veils, 



Wraps in their folds the peaceful plain below. 



Blurred by the gathering mist, the paling light 

 Fades into darkening gray. The evening bell 



Tells that calm day has passed to quiet night, 

 And all is silent save the ocean's swell. 



H. G. DtiLo«. 



LOST IN THE DEAD CREEK COUNTRY. 



TO become lost, or at least bewildered, is something that 

 is almost certain to occur sooner or later to the man 

 •who spends much time in the pursuit of large game in a 

 heavily-timbered country, and to extricate oneself is some 

 limes quite a problem, and one not always attended with She 

 most delightful of memories. 



The summer of 1881 was »u exceedingly %et one in ihe 

 Axlirc pecially timing the raJiSnoi' August, and 



aen skies, or If we caught 

 ! clouds soon obscured i 

 in one to live thunder storms, with wind 

 squalls and disheartening downpours between times. Every 

 thing was soaked, and our spirits would have been sadly 

 dampened too, but that Tom had a fund of jokes, to say 

 nothing of considerable ability on the month organ, which 

 was a source of constant amusement to us, while his guide.. 

 ordinarily quiet, when once started could tell any number 

 of stories* and chose a variety of subjects that was sometimes 

 bewildering. As for my guide and myself, we had spent 

 so many months in the woods together, that we had come to 

 regard rains, storms and hunter's luck as something to be 

 expected in a long campaign. When Willard's tongue 

 tired from story teliing, and ours from laughing, we had a 

 well-thumbed and greasy pack of cards to fall back on, and 

 there were some wonderful hands shown down on the 

 blanket in our tent as we passed the time with casino, old 

 sledge and penny ante, with beans for chips. 



We had camped on a little knoll on the windfall near. 

 Dead Creek, something like a mile or more from where the 

 creek emptied into the Grass Paver, and were about four 

 miles from Cranberry Lake. 



It was but a short distance to a log cabin where a guide 

 and his family lived, from whom we were able to obtain 

 fresh bread, raspberry pies, and the greatest of all luxuries 

 in the woods, fresh milk, while their home was often a re- 

 treat when the driving rain pelted through our tent despite 

 the flv, and drove us soaked and disgusted to seek a warm 

 corner back of their stove to dry out, while songs and music 

 on the organ from Tom, adventures, stories, and hunters' 

 experiences from the rest passed round the circle, and out- 

 discomforts were forgotten as we laughed and joked till dry 

 and warm. 



The constant thunder seemed to have driven the trout to 

 the deepest holes, and it was only by the most persistent 

 fishing that we obtained enough for one meal per day, and 

 all our efforts to obtain venison amounted to ml. Except 

 hounding and trapping, every means had been tried. We 

 had wmtched, still-hunted and floated, and had tried several 

 times to drive by hand, but all without success. Finally, 

 after working faithfully for nearly two weeks, we tried the 

 dogs, and Tom's performance on that occasion is worthy to 

 be chronicled among the Fireside Flickerings. 



The spot we selected for running was down the Grass 

 River, encamping at the Deer Lick Rapids, so called from a 

 large spring that boils up near them, making a large pool 

 fully twenty feet across and forming a natural deer lick, as 

 the ground about it was trampled down until it was hard as 

 a floor, yet there was no perceptible taste to the water differ- 

 ent from any other spring. 



The greatest runway on the drive was about three-quarters 

 of a mile below the rapids, where the river was quite wide 

 and deep, with a large rock rising out of the river in the 

 middle and offering a superb watch, and to this station Tom 

 was assigned, he being the novice and of course anxious to 

 kill his first deer, and although he had never shot at one, we 

 had every confidence in his judgment and in his being proof 

 against buck fever, as his nerves bad been well tried at the 

 trap and in the field. Willard took the rapids to watch, 

 while I chose a runway in the woods. George took Tom 

 and the two hounds in the boat and started down the river, 

 and as they started off could hear him cautioning Tom 

 about sitting still and keeping quiet while watching, as a 

 cliff off to the right was a regular echo sounder. 



Willard and I took our stations and listened for the wel- 

 come sound that should tell us the game was afoot. An 

 hour passed, and I could hear one of the hounds in full cry, 

 apparently heading directly for Tom's watch. Straight 

 toward him the game seemed to go, and I expected every 

 moment to hear liim shoot; but suddenly the chase turned 

 and headed up toward me, then took another runway and 

 swung round a hill off a hundred yards to my left, until it 

 died away in the distance toward Cranberry Lake. After 

 waiting another hour and hearing nothing, 1 returned to camp, 

 and a few minutes later saw Tom and George coming up the 

 river. The expression on Tom's face was one of sublime con- 

 tent, but George's face was a study. He had gone down the 

 river about a mile below Tom, and waiting until he had 

 found a big track, had let one of the dogs go, and the deer 

 had apparently gone direct toward Tom, and he too ex- 

 pected to hear his shot, but no shot sounded; and he also 

 heard the chase go out of hearing, after which he let the 

 other dog go on another track, but the deer ran off toward 

 Cbimoux Pond instead of toward the river; so retracing bis 

 steps to his boat he pulled up the river, wondering what 

 could have turned the deer from Tom. Rounding a bend 

 he suddenly pricked up his ears. Could he believe them! 

 Was some wildwood nymph trying to beguile him, or was 

 that the Lurlei, transported from her rock in the Rhine to 

 the Grass, and bringing him to his doom by the witching 

 melody. The illusion was almost complete; the rock was 

 there, "the melody was there, but the fell enchantment re- 

 solved itself into a very red-faced and thoroughly baked 

 young man dressed in gray, lying on his back, with his hat 

 protecting his face from the sun, his heels in the air, and 

 most complacently playing the waltz from Boccaccio with a 

 supreme air of contempt for such worldly matters as deer 

 or dogs. He blandly informed George that he heard the 

 dog bark, and heard something smashing away in the bushes, 

 but he hadn't seen any deer and didn't believe there were 

 any around there; and he further said he had kept very 

 quiet, only amusing himself by playing on his harmonica to 

 pass away the time and save himself from thinking that he 

 was the victim of some modern form of inquisition, in which 

 the rock represented the broiler and he the victim over the 

 coals. When a few days later he learned that the hound 

 George put out first had driven a big four-pronged buck into 

 the lake, and that a fishing party had killed it, he came to 

 the conclusion that while his harmonica had achieved signal 

 success in attracting and charming one kind of dear on the 

 trip, it was a sad failure on the other variety. 



George and I floated on the river that night, but the rain 

 still pursued us, having cleared off beautifully while running 

 the deer, only to return -with persistent force as night ap- 

 proached. As a result not a step was heard, and as soon as 

 it was light we all returned to our Dead Creek Camp the 

 next morning. 



The day following our return it was arranged that Tom 

 and Willard should go to an oat patch belonging to a farmer 

 a mile or so away, and while one should watch that the 

 other should guard a deer lick in the edge of the timber, 

 George would try the Wolf Ridge and Sampson Pond ground 

 and attempt to still-hunt a deer,' while I was given a course, 

 after crossing the windfall that would take me t.o a burning 

 where there " was a fair chance of getting a shot, as there 

 I no hunting done there in about iv yen/r, partly on 

 account of its being a hard place to reach, and partly 

 being near a swafiop it w;^ said ta rivel tne Mud 

 Lake country foi mosquitos and punkies during the warm 

 season. We had an early breakfast, and I ate so heartily 

 that it did not seem to me hunger could be known again 

 that day. so the usual lunch was* neglected, and I prepared 

 myself in light marching order for the tramp and hunt. I 

 knew I was bound to get wet any way, and one might as 

 well carry a tin pan its a rubber coat through the busnes if 

 still-hunting; accordingly a light suit of old clothes was 

 donned that would dry quickly in case the sun should deign 

 to shine. When nearly ready to start a heavy rain storm 

 swept down the windfall, and lasting nearly two hours 

 delayed our start, so that it was nearly 9 o'clock when I 

 headed for Ihe blasted pine across the windfall, from which 

 George had directed me to set. my compass and take my 

 course. The brakes were waist high, and in five minutes 

 my suit w T as soaking wet; but that had been expected. 

 Crossing the creek on an old log, 1 stopped for a moment to 

 watch the movements of some mergansers, that, all uncon- 

 scious of my presence, were feeding and preening their 

 feathers but a few rods away. Clapping my hands and 

 whistling T sent them all scurrying off, and how they did 

 make the water fly as they tore it up with feet and wings to 

 get away as fast as possible. 



When nearly across the windfall and about three-quarters 

 of a mile from camp, i came to a spot where the brakes 

 were all broken down for a space ten or twelve feet long and 

 five or six feet wide. 



I could not quite understand the manner in which it was 

 trampled down and torn up, until some hornets buzzing 

 angrily over the ruins of their nest explained the cause. 

 "Br'er bar" had been there, and since the rain, too, for 

 where the trail led off the water had been shaken from the 

 ferns, and those broken down had not begun to straighten 



This looked like an unexpected piece of luck, and throw- 

 ing in a cartridge the trail was carefully followed up, and 

 after a little the fresh sign was found, showing that he was 

 but a short distance ahead. The hornet stings must have 

 bothered him, for twice before reaching the line of timber 

 were spots rolled down and brakes torn up, and on almost 

 the first tree were some black hairs, showing he had rubbed 

 his sides to get rid of the stings, The timber began on a 

 hardwood ridge and the trail was rather hard to follow; but 

 a disturbed bed of leaves, a bit of moss knocked from a 

 rock as he scrambled up, and now and then an oozy spot 

 where the rains had formed a pool and where he had taken 

 another roll, all helped, and after following the top of the 

 ridge for about a quarter of a mile he turned down into a 

 swamp and there the trail was perfectly plain, for aside 

 from the broken twigs from the tamaracks, the ground was 

 so soft that he sunk in a couple of inches, while with my 

 shoes I went him two better in following. As soon as the 

 soft ground was reached I was able to form some idea of his 

 size for until then I bad not seen the exact print of the paws, 

 and' I was somewhat disappointed to find that the bear could 

 not be much more than a yearling, judging from the size of 



Crossing the swamp, the bear ascended a high hill, with 

 rocks, fallen timber, high witch hopple and many gullies 

 and ravines, making the pursuit a terribly laborious one; 

 but oushing cautiously ahead, I reached the edge of a nar- 

 row 'gully, some ten feet deep, thickly skirted with bushes, 

 and a tree that had fallen across with the butt broken off 



and lodged on a rock opposite showed plain marks of the 

 passage of the bear. Almost out of breath, I sat down on 

 the log to rest, when to my surprise I heard a great commo- 

 tion on the opposite side of the gully, and could see the old 

 stub left standing after the fall of the tree violently shaken ; 

 and by the sound of the scratching at the rotten wood I 

 knew that my game was very near me and must be tearing 

 the stub to pieces in search of pismires, of which bruin ap- 

 peared to be very fond. Cocking the rifle and taking it in 

 my left hand, I cautiously crept up the log, and was certain 

 I would have a "dead open and shut" on that bear, for 

 being above him I could command a view in every di- 

 rection as soon as the rock on which the butt rested 

 could be reached, and there would be no bushes to cut off 

 my view-, as wouid be the case if I had been on the same 

 level. The bear was entirely unconscious of danger and 

 scratched away, now and then making a sort of sucking 

 noise, as though he were licking something. The log trem" 

 bled under me, but inch by inch I drew near to the rock, 

 and my heart was beginning to thump with expectation, 

 when, with a smash and a crash the log parted under me, 

 and without any warning I found myself amid a mass of 

 rotten wood at the bottom of the ravine. The gun went off 

 with the fall, and when I could collect myself the only 

 sounds of the bear were some rapidly vanishing "whoof- 

 whoofs" and the crashing of sticks as he tore away, evi- 

 dently as much astonished and demoralized as was his pur- 

 suer. 



As soon as possible the trail was taken up, but my trous- 

 ers were torn, the buttons on my vest were ripped off, 

 and my head ached, while a bleeding nose completed the 

 ruin. 



Now and then taking a look at the compass, the pursuit 

 was continued through a tract of country where there was 

 not a sign of man, neither blaze nor trail showing that it 

 had ever been traversed. 



About 5 o'clock in the afternoon the trail was very fresh, 

 and in a burning that had become overgrown with red rasp- 

 berry bushes, the waving tops showed the presence of the 

 bear, but it was impossible to get a glimpse of him. Finally 

 I mounted an old log and yelled and whistled, but the bear 

 refused to sit up to investigate, so, tired and mad, I made a 

 rush in the direction he seemed traveling, and with a snort 

 that I could plainly hear, away he went faster than ever, 

 and as he disappeared a perfect deluge of rain began to fall. 

 Tired, hungry, bruised and lame, it occurred to me that 

 camp was a good place to head for. 



Consulting the compass, the direction it told me to go 

 seemed directly away from camp, but comparing it with 

 one on my watch-guard and finding they agreed, 1 knew 

 that they were right, and that my bump of location was 

 muddled. Sitting down under the protecting limbs of a 

 huge pine, I carefully thought out my exact course, and hav- 

 ing been told to follow my compass, for that would never 

 lie, while one's faculties, when a trifle bewildered, were 

 almost certain to, I went by that. After resting 1 began my 

 homeward tramp and soon came to a ridge, on the opposite 

 side of which was a heavy tamarack swamp, and across this 

 rose another ridge which looked to me exactly like the first 

 one I had descended when beginning the pursuit in the morn- 

 ins;. 



I flattered myself that the windfall would be just beyond 

 and that an hour more would bring me to camp, but the 

 swamp crossed and the ridge surmounted, another swamp 

 stretched below me with still another ridge beyond. The 

 lightning fairly hissed through the air, the thunder roared 

 and the torrents drenched rue, while the windfall was still 

 beyond the ridge ahead. Darkness began to fall before the 

 second growth of hardwood was reached, and when still 

 another swamp loomed up below me, my heart sank, but T 

 plunged ahead, sometimes knee deep in mud and mire, and 

 on and on over three more "hogbacks" and three more 

 swamps, lighting matches to get my course from the com- 

 pass, then stumbling, blundering on, my only light the flash- 

 ing gleams from the skies. I determined to reach the wind- 

 fall before stopping to rest, and when after 9 o'clock my 

 trembling limbs bore me to the top of a hill and the windfall 

 was in sight below me I gave, a cheer of delight. The sound 

 of my own voice gave me encouragement and I began to 

 look about for a place to camp. A flash of lightning showed 

 two pines ahead, and a fringe of bushes near them gave 

 hopes of water, and when the spot was reached I found my- 

 self on the banks of Dead Creek and knew that camp could 

 be easily found in the morning, for the creek was the only 

 stream running through the windfall, and by following it 

 down L was bound to get there some time, but whether 1 

 was within a mile of camp or ten milesl had not the faintest 

 idea. 



After quenching my thirst I built up a rousing fire and 

 then gathered several armsful of the ferns, after which I 

 stripped off my outer clothing and hung it to dry before the 

 fire, as the rain had ceased by the time my fire was built, 

 although the thunder still rolled and rumbled. While my 

 clothes were drying I made up a bed of the ferns and as 

 soon as thoroughly warmed, donned my suit, and flanking 

 my bed with lines of fire, lay down, and in a few momenls 

 was sleeping the sleep of the just. The last thing I did was 

 to fire my rifle after wiping it out with a piece of my hunt- 

 ing shirt for a swab, for considerable water had run down 

 the barrel and I did not want my pet to become rusted. I 

 was awakened before my fire had died down, by the snorting 

 of a deer that had evidently come to the creek to drink and 

 had winded me. As I sat up and tried to look into the dark- 

 ness to catch a glimpse of the deer, far away up the wind- 

 fall came the sound of three shots in quick succession; a few 

 moments more and three more; a pause, and then three more, 

 and I knew that the boys were shooting for me, and no time 

 was wasted in replying. The shots continued but each time 

 sounded nearer, as from time to time I answered. In about 

 two hours I could hear the "hello!" of George, and a little 

 later he appeared on the opposite bank with a lantern and 

 overjoyed to find me alive and well, for he had imagined 

 every form of disaster had occurred to me. 



After quite a tramp down the creek I crossed the creek on 

 a loo- and in two hours was safe in camp, receiving the con- 

 gratulations of Tom and Willard, who had become very much 

 alarmed about me. 



While changing my clothes they prepared a tremendous 

 meal for me, during the discussion of which I gave them an 

 outline of my experience, and then just as the first glimmer 

 of the coming day began to appear in the east I sought my 

 bed of boughs, and when I awoke from the long dreamless 

 sleep the stars of night were twinkling above, our season of 

 rain was over and my experience as a "lost hunter" was 

 something of the past, to dream of by fireside and to relate 

 when the story passes from lip to Up in camp. 



Onondaga. 



