486 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



|Dec 1, 18»5. 



UNCLE LISHA'S OUTING. 



V.— The East Slang. 

 Sam repeated his mistake with two or three more rising 

 birds, but got two more in a sitting shot at a flock of 

 wood duck discovered in a nook of the marsh, and then 

 to Antoine's great disgust easily knocked over a coot 

 that stupidly permitted them to paddle within short 

 range. 



"Dat feller-a'n't worse you' paowder, Sam. You see 

 he gat mout' mos' lak' hen was, an' hees foots some lak' 

 hen, somd lak' dauk, an' he'll a'n't t'oddur t'ing or one. 

 Ah'll 'spec' prob'ly it was hens try for be dauk, or dauk try 

 for be hens, an' he'll a'n't mek' up very good. He mek' some 

 good fedder for Zhozeff. Hello, Sam, you'll know dis 

 place, a'n't it?" he asked with eager interest as he came 

 to a narrow tributary channel with fishing stakes set on 

 either side. 



"Wal, if it hain't the East Slang, sure as guns," said 

 Sam in joyful recognition of their old trapping ground. 

 "I tell ye what, Antoine, we mus' go an' take a look at 

 aour ol' hum'stead," and Antoine turned the canoe's prow 

 into the narrower waterway and followed its 'lazy mean- 

 dering among the broad level of the marsh to where the 

 sluggish current creeps between narrower margins of 

 wild rice rushes and sedges flanked by open fields on the 

 east and, at that time, by almost unbroken forest on the 

 west. 



At the nearest point of this shore they found an open- 

 ing to their old landing and pushed the canoe to a berth 

 alongside a clumsy dugout which gave evidence of recent 

 use in a fish-pole and line and a basin of earth in which 

 a few angle worms were crawling and reaching vainly 

 for a way of escape over the edges of rusty tin. A well- 

 worn footpath led away through the bushy border and 

 under the hemlocks. 



"Prob'ly some more mah rellashin, Ah gues?," said 

 Antoine. 



"One o' your brother-in-laws. Mebbe we'll go an' look 

 him up bitne by. I b'lieve I've heard you tell o' hevin' 

 one or tew. But le's gwup tu the ol' shanty," and he led 

 the way to the familiar spot. 



It was not hard to find, for the moss-grown slabs were 

 lying in a crushed heap upon the broken ridge-pole, and 

 in front a patch of ashes filmed with moss, nourishing 

 fireweed whose silver-winged seeds were now drifting 

 alee on the light breeze, marked the place of the old 

 camp-fire. Beside it was the log seat, softer than it used 

 to be, with deqay and a cushion of lichens. They seated 

 themselves upon it, looking around upon the desolation 

 with half melancholy interest while they slowly filled 

 their pipes. 



"It looks so as if de folks was all dead gre't many year 

 'go an' it seem so we was de folks," said Antoine ruefully. 

 "It mek' me feel lonesick." 



"Yes, it does make a feller sort er lunsome, a mournin' 

 for the feller that was himself oncte." 



"Dat true as you livin', Sam. Bah gosh, seh, it a'n't 

 seem if Ah was me, w'en Ah'll re'mbler dat leetly boy in 

 Canada wid hees fader an' mudder, young folks dat dance 

 all naght, an' Ah'll gat honly one brudder-law, an' de 

 summer las' mos' all de year an' de winter a'n't never too 

 long 'cause Ah'll happy every day. Oh, Ah'll a'n't dat 

 leetly feller. Den w'en Ah'll growed big mans Ah be 

 naow Ah'll a'n't know much an' can' spik Angleesh more 

 as frawg; dat a'n't de sem' feller Ah was naow, for know 

 much anybody an' spik jus' lak' Yankee. Den Ah'll faght 

 in de Papineau war more hugly as dev', naow Ah'll was 

 peaceably mans, honly w'en Ah'll was get mad, den dey 

 want for look aout, everybody but you, Sam. Oh, Ah'll 

 was been great many feller, me," 



"We're gen'ally tew folks all the time," said Sam, fol- 

 lowing a climbing wreath of tobacco smoke with medita- 

 tive eyes. "One is the feller 'at we know an' t'other's 

 the feller 'at other folks knows, an' most on us is almighty 

 shy o' showin' the one 'at we know tu other folks. By 

 the great horn spoon! I dasn't hardly look at my Sam, 

 myself, he's got so many mean streaks in him. Hello, 

 there's aour ol' squirrel, er one 'at looks jus' like him, a- 

 snickerin' at your Antoine er my Sam this minute." 

 He pointed with his pipe at a red squirrel that was jerk- 

 ing himself into a frenzy of derision on the trunk of a 

 hemlock. 



The sun and the breeze had burned and blown the mist 

 away and the day was bright with the beauty of late 

 September, the clear blue sky, the first autumnal tints of 

 the unthinned foliage bordered with the lesser glory of 

 woodside golden-rod and aster, the marshes in the broad 

 masses of bronze and russet and gold unbroken save 

 where the scarlet flame of an outstanding dwarfed 

 maple blazed among the colder tints, with the verdure of 

 the grass lands, looking as green as in June. 



Such sounds as were heard were distinctive of the 

 season and some were conspicuously absent. The flute 

 of the hermit and the bells of the wood thrushes were 

 silent. The booming of the bittern and the chorus of the 

 frogs no longer sounded over the expanse of marshes. 

 Birds that rejoiced melodiously over the earth's fresh 

 luxuriance in June uttered now only brief notes of fare- 

 well to the kindling glory of her ripeness. Only the 

 bluebird sang, and with a mournful cadence. The crows 

 cawed lazily, jays squalled apart or in united vocifera- 

 tion, chickadees repeated their own name, nuthatches 

 piped their nasal call, woodpeckers hammered with 

 voiceless industry and never a rattling drum-call, these 

 and the squirrels were the only tenants of the woods who 

 gave audible evidence of their presence. 



Across the fieldB from distant farmsteads came the 

 regular thud of flails, and from one barn the clatter and 

 roar of a new-fangled threshing machine; and there was 

 also the rumble and clatter of farm wagons and the 

 bawling of plowmen, shouting as if their oxen were 

 deaf or a mile from their driver. Piercing through these 

 larger sounds there could be heard the shrill voice cf 

 cockerels practicing their yet unlearned challenge, and 

 the yelping of wandering flocks of turkevs harvesting the 

 half torpid grasshoppers and gleaning the grain fields. 



Every sound that came to the ears of Sam and his com- 

 panion, as they unconsciously listened, was as indicative 

 of the season as the visible signs of the year's ripening 

 which met their abstracted eyes. 



"Wal, Antoine," said Sam, arousing himself and knock- 



ing the ashes of his pipe upon the grave of the old camp- 

 fire, "Le's go an' see if you've got a new lot o' relations 

 settled here," and Antoine, nothing loth to undertake 

 such quest, followed with him the path into the shadow of 

 the hemlocks. Rowland E. Robinson. 



HOW FUR IS CAUGHT.-II. 



The Start on the Trapping Trail. 

 As has been stated earlier, the little town of Mercer is on 

 the Turtle chain of waters. It is a journey of about 

 twenty-five miles from the Northwestern Railroad at this 

 point to the head of the water shed, the^voyage being 

 over some pretty rapids in the river, and across some 

 pretty lakes. The Bucks' summer place is on the narrows 

 which practically divide Turtle Lake into two bodies of 

 water, and at this place we were advised that the trappers 

 had their main camp, which consisted of a big wall tent, 

 fitted up with a cook stove and supplies. It was our 

 intention to make this main camp on the first night out, 

 this being easy to do, since the distance by land trail was 

 only about fifteen miles. We took the morning down 

 train from Mercer to Manitowish, a distance of about 

 three miles, and left the latter point a little after noon of 

 a lovely winter day. A good logging road made us easy 

 going for about five miles more, during which time we 

 crossed the trapping line run by "old man" Buck, who 

 had a number of sets for lynx and one for otter, but of 

 course we did not stop to run any of his traps for him. 

 After leaving the logging road we struck out across the 

 lake known as Circle Lily, then a glittering plain of 

 blinding white. Here we made good time, although Fay, 

 Buck and I had to wait for Brandis and Norris. The 

 latter bad invented a new kind of snowshoe strap 

 arranged with loops and buckles which he had figured 

 out to be a good thing, but which like a good many other 

 good things did not turn out the way he expected. The 

 straps, instead of being easy on his feet, proved to be very 

 hard, and it was not until Frank Brandis, with good pine- 

 woods ingenuity, had altered the hang of the strap3, that 

 Norris was able to get along with any kind of comfort. 



Snowshoe Ties. 



I was much interested in studying the different snow- 

 shoe ties used in the pine country. There are several dif- 

 ferent ties, each of which has its ardent advocates, but in 



HEAVY MARCHING ORDER. 



The Forest and stream Man. 



actual use you will hardly see any two sets of straps alike. 

 When you buy your snowshoes you will find a nice set of 

 thongs come with them, and you can tie these into very 

 pretty knots so long as you remain on your office floor, 

 but when you get out in the woods on thawing snow you 

 will find things very different. The thongs get wet and 

 stretch out into thin, biting cords which need continual 

 adjustment. When they are wet they stretch and when 

 they are dry they shrink, so that a tie which is good in 

 the evening will be impossible to negotiate in the morn- 

 ing. The Wisconsin trapper uses a toe strap to his web 

 shoes, and this he never alters after adjusting it so that 

 his toe works just right over the rim and into the foot 

 hole. From the bar running back he has two long loops 

 whioh pass back of the heel. The lower one of these 

 loops serves to keep the heel from slipping back. The 

 upper loop crosses over the instep, and then passes back 

 of the heel, where it meets the lower loop, both resting 

 on the Achilles tendon. Some snowshoers tie their straps 

 every time they put on the shoes, but our trappers did not 

 do this. Their straps were never touched or "monkeyed 

 with" in any way. When they Vished to tighten the 

 straps a little bit they simply rolled the upper and lower 

 loops together at the rt sting place behind the ankle. 

 When the straps got too tight they loosened them by un- 

 rolling the loops at the same place. I speak of their 

 "straps," but really they had very few straps to their 

 snowshoes except the permanent toe strap, as their thongs 

 were mostly made of linen rags, which they said were 

 easier on the feet and less subject to stretching and shrink- 

 ing. There is a wide difference between theory and 

 practice in many lines of sportsmen's equipment. The 

 snowshoer can only learn by actual experience in the 

 woods. As I have said before, the art of web shoeing is 

 not hard to acquire, the only difficulty being with the 

 straps. The beginner may punish himself for some time 

 by not knowing how the straps ought to feel, but after a 

 time he will learn how to twist, untwist, tie and retie 

 them until he gets a combination which gives his foot 

 perfect play up and down, keeps it from slipping forward 

 or backward, and yet gives him the minimum of suffer- 

 ing on that tender place back of the ankle, which of 

 course is well protected by heavy socks and his moccasins 

 or overshoes. The step itself is not difficult to acquire. 



It is a long reaching step, and if one is powerful enough 

 to keep it up through all sorts of snow, it is astonishing 

 what a distance he can waddle over in a day. Our trap- 

 pers used shoes with very little rake-up at the toes and of 

 a very broad dval. Their shoes were 4ft. in length. If it 

 is necessary for a heavy man to have a good big pack, it 

 is necessary for him also to have a good big shoe to hold 

 him up. A pair ol shoes last a trapper a little over one 

 season. To-day one of the prized trophies in my collec- 

 tion is the old, worn out pair of shoes which Frank 

 Brandis finished up on our trapping trip in February. 

 They still show the deep sunken mark where the heel 

 was forced into them on wet days when the sinews 

 stretched, and the web is patched with hay wire and 

 raw hide and about everything else a trapper could lay 

 his haiids on. 



Footwear. 



I have already spoken of the footwear proper for win- 

 ter in this latitude, but as usual the visitors had something 

 to learn, Norris and I wore high top overshoes, such as 

 are very good for ski work, but very poor for the webber, 

 where the ankle needs continual freedom in play, and 

 the foot has to be lifted clear every step, in a way quite 

 different from the sliding shuffle of the ski step. Inside 

 of my overshoes I wore Indian moccasins, and I learned 

 something about moccasins that day. I had always 

 thought of them as being soft, innocent, easy-going 

 things, incapable of punishing one's foot if they wanted 

 to, but now I know how wrong that supposition was. 

 Repeated wetting and drying had shortened my mocca- 

 sins until they were just a little short for my foot. When 

 I stood up on the floor they were apparently all right, but 

 after I had shoved my toes into them for a few hours on 

 the trail, I found they were all wrong. They bent the 

 toes back in a way which was very painful, and in conse- 

 quence I lost the nails from three toes, the result of one 

 afternoon spent with the wrong kind of a footwear in the 

 woods. After that I .did not wear them any more, and 

 the next pair I get is going to be about 14in. longer than 

 my foot. I prized those pretty pink toenails of mine 

 very highly. When I came out of the woods I had 

 thrown away my original footgear, and was wearing the 

 heavy socks and sawed-off rubber shors of the country, 

 and was traveling in perfect comfort. 



I have earlier mentioned that I took in for the trip both 

 skis and web shoes. Whenever possible I used the skis, 

 which offer much better sport and far greater ease of 

 traveling on country suitable to their use. Of course, 

 skating along a trodden logging road is in no sense ski 

 work, and away from the lakes, the roads, and the open 

 woods or clear country, the slcis could not be used to any 

 advantage. I found that no one in that region knew any- 

 thing about the skis or their use, as it is not naturally a 

 ski country, but still I was reluctant to give up the use of 

 the shoes which had previously afforded me eo much sport 

 and comfort, and so (with assistance of Frank Brandis 

 part of the time) I carried both the skis and the webs for 

 about fifteen or twenty miles of the way, as far as the 

 country offered any chance for the skis at all. 



"Enough Norwegians." 



On this first day, as we were going along the logging 

 trail which led out of Manitowish, we came upon a man 

 lying on his back on the snow in the middle of the road. 

 He was motionless, and when I went up to him I thought 

 he was dead, but at length saw he was only paralyzed by 

 pine woods whiskey. He was dressed in the usual Macki- 

 naw clothing, much thanks to which for the fact he was 

 not frozen stiff. After much trouble we got him awake, 

 and found he was only one of the tough "lumber jacks" 

 common to the region. (I think the working population 

 of the pine woods is the lowest, filthiest and most de- 

 graded class of men I have ever seen in any part of the 

 United States.) 



"I jist set down fur wance in a woy," said this speci- 

 men, who proved to be an Irishman. "D' ye moind, I 

 wuz waitin' fer a felly, see?" 



We saw that to leave him alone was to allow him to 

 freeze to death, so we dragged and drove him along with 

 us for a couple of miles, till we came to the logging 

 camp, where we left him. As the keen air and exercise 

 of walking (which latter in his case was violent) began to 

 eliminate some of the effect of the awful liquor he had 

 been drinking, he became first apologetic, then explana- 

 tory, then talkatiye, and finally belligerent. North coun- 

 try whisky has a couple of fights in every drink, and its 

 chief characteristic began to show in our newly discovered 

 friend. 



"An' pfwhat moight be yer name, ye yeller-headed 



?"he said to me, as I walked ahead. "An' 



pfwhat is thim t'ings ye're carryin' over yer shou'ther?" 

 (meaning the skis.) 



"They're my skw, you red-headed ," said I to 



him, cheerfully. 



"Umph — humph," said he, and lapsed into thought for 

 a while, at last resuming: "Skees, it is, is it, eh? Thim is 

 thim skates the Norwaygins uses, eh?" 



I told him he was correct, and for quite a while he was 

 silent, but at length broke out with a snort of rage. 



"Shore, if I had a gun I'd kill ye, ye yeller-headed 



!" said he. "There's Norwaygins enough in 



this yer counthry now!" This he said with an air of 

 the deepest conviction, and I could only admit that he, 

 being a resident of the country, must be better acquainted 

 with its condition and requirements than myself. 



Fur Sign and Trapper Talk. 



We arrived at the further side of Circle Lily Lake 

 about the middle of the afternoon, or rather, Fay and I 

 did, and we could then see Norris and Brandis well out 

 from the shore on their way across. Between this lake 

 and the first one of the Turtle chain there lies a low, 

 swampy bit of ground about three miles or so across, 

 heavily covered with thickets, timber and windfalls, 

 offering hard traveling and good trapping at the same 

 time. 



"We have a number of traps set in this swamp," said 

 Fay, "and I should think we ought to have something. 

 Do you see the marten tracks? They often hop along 

 and follow a trail quite a way, sometimes until they find 

 a trap. A fox will not follow a trail that way so much, 

 but will parallel it. I have seen their tracks where they 

 have been going along that way, and all at once I would 

 see where old Mr. Fox had smelled something wrong, or 

 got a notion in his head it wasn't all right, and had made 

 a big jump and lit out clean away from the trail as tight 



