DEO. 28, 1895.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



There is a hill on the east side of the St. John, a few 

 miles above Fredericton, which is usually known as Cur- 

 rie's Mountain by the old Maliseets. It is called "Mo- 

 hawks' Lookout," as it overlooks the islands near the 

 mouth of the Keswich which were once the favorite 

 summer resort of the Maliseets. 



"It was from the top of this hill," said Gabe, one of the 

 ancients of the tribe, "that the Mohawks, when they 

 came down the St. John to attack us, used to spy out our 

 place so that they might come upon us when we were not 

 prepared." 



The Maliseets have a tradition that the last treaty of 

 peace between them and the Mohawks was made at the 

 mouth of the Muniac, about forty miles above Wood- 

 stock, and which river is called by the former Amwe-nek. 

 "Here," said Gabe to me, "we buried the hatchet deep 

 under the bed of the stream." Edward Jack. 



Frbdbbicton, New Brunswick. 



THE TALKING P1NE.-1. 



The street cars passed and repassed with their custom- 

 ary jangle of bells and rattle of wheels. A muffled roar 

 of many feet in motion came to my listening ear as the 

 endless multitude of city people surged along the street 

 like the twisting lines of ants I had sat and wonderingly 

 watched when a boy. 



Other noises added their mite until a dull and ceaseless 

 murmur like surf on the ocean sand filled the air with a 

 monotonous, heavy sound. 



Smoke from a thousand black-throated chimneys drifted 

 across the sky like the black scuds of the southwest storm 

 winds off Cape Flattery. 



It was late at night and the full moon tried to send its 

 rays down to the streets of this big, busy city, where peo- 

 ple live a lifetime and never know what deeds old nature 

 does. 



What does one moon amount to against so much smoke 

 and so many electric lights? These are inventions of these 

 white people, who all Jive in one place and dig up the 

 trets so they can put big houses in their places and fill the 

 air with black smoke. The moon is too far behind the 

 times, it is too old for these new things, yet it is better 

 than they. The moon is always kind and will listen to 

 the troubles of the sea and the troubles of the pines when 

 the wind chills them and they cannot sleep. 



Do you know the language of the pines? O, yes, they 

 can talk and they can tell many, many things, for they 

 are old — very old. They can tell all the secrets of the 

 mountains and the wind is always gossiping with them, 

 so they are very wise. 



Have you not heard the wind and the pines talking? 

 You may have heard them and yet not have known it, 

 for the voice of the pines is very low, and one must sit 

 close to them, and must know their language too, else 

 he will never know what the pines say. Some people 

 have said that the pines moan and shriek like crazy iolks, 

 but those people did not know the language of the pines, 

 and only heard them when the wind was blowing hard 

 and the pines were dancing and singing the wind song, 

 which is wild and mournful and is the song they sing 

 only when they dance. They have other songs too, but 

 some people cannot hear them because they are so soft and 

 faint. 



Then again the pines talk best at night when the moon 

 shines and the south wind is walking by and not many 

 people are in the deep woods, and so not many know the 

 language of the pines. 



When the pines have friends who are away they send 

 messages by the wind, which you know is a great traveler 

 and finds the pines' friends and always gives them the 



So it happened that I had a friend among the pines 

 which stand together on the bank of the lake of the 

 mountains, far, far toward the sundown. Nobody knows 

 how deep the lake is, but it must be very, very deep, for 

 the mountains are in the bottom of it, and the water is 

 very blue. 



The pine stands close to the lake and has lived there for 

 a great many years and knows all the secrets of the lake, 

 and like a great many people who are very old the pine 

 tells tales and gossips. 



The pine is very tall and is so old that its arms are 

 beginning to wither and its top to turn gray, yet it is a 

 good pine, and it can remember the days before the white 

 men came — the days when the red men were the only 

 men in all the woods. 



I like to listen to the pine when it tells of the strange 

 things it has seen the red men do in those days, and the 

 pine always tells me when there is anything to know 

 about them now. 



The red men come sometimes to the pine and dance as 

 they did a long time ago when the pine was young, and 

 the pine always sends me a message to come when the 

 moon rises and sit close to its feet, so it can talk when the 

 ired men dance. 



So to-night as the wind hurried out of the west it called 

 and whispered until I heard it and asked for its talk. 



This the wind told me as the message from the pine: 

 "My friend, the wanderer, listen: The Chinook wind 

 tells me that in three moons from the ripening of the 

 salmon berry there is to be a kloo-kwallie with the red 

 men. It is to be here at my feet, where it has been many 

 times before. The red men will dance and sing strange 

 songs that even I do not know, There will be tortures 

 and feasting, for S'dokes, the wise one, S'dokes, the son 

 of Yelth, the raven, is to be made a new tah-mah-na-wis 

 —a medicine man. I have Been the like before and it is 

 a good sight, though wild, and blood may flow, but not in 

 anger. There will be fire— good red fire to light the 

 scene and to burn the masachee tah-mah-na-wis away. 

 There will be paints of many colors to blind the evil eye. 

 There will be chanting and music of the wild kind they 

 do not know in the land of the white men across the 

 mountains. There will be many canoes and a brave 

 gathering. 



"Come then, my friend the wanderer, and sit by my feet 

 and see this, the kloo-kwallie, that will not be danced 

 maybe again in all time, for the white men say the red 

 men must stop, and the white men are strong while the 

 red men are weaker each time the snow comes. Come 

 when the leaves turn brown, the third moon after the first 

 salmon berry ripens, and you will see it." 



So said the great pine by message of the wind. 



I sat and looked at the moon and thought how I could 

 >.eave the big city of the white people and go to my friend, 

 he talking pine. 



After I thought a long time I called to the wind and 

 gave it this message for the pine: 



"Say to my friend the wise one, the talking pine that 

 lives by the lake of the mountains, say this message from 

 the wanderer: 'At the third moon from the ripening of 

 the first salmon berry I will come to the lake of the 

 mountains and rest by the feet of the wise one, the talk- 

 ing pine, at a time when the moon is only so high as the 

 top of a pine that is one winter old. 



" 'I will come then, and we will watch the kloo-kwallie 

 together and listen to the red men sing the chant that 

 nobody knows but them, and we will see the torture fire 

 that burns for the masachee, and paint with the paint that 

 blinds the evil eye. 



" 'We will see S'dokes become the tah-mah-na-wis man 

 by the dances and the torture. It is well.'" 



So was the message I sent to my friend the talking 

 pine. 



Then I sat and listened to the murmur of the street, 

 which was not now so great, and fell asleep there. 



Many things may happen in the time of three moons, 

 and things did happen, yet at the time I told the pine I 

 would come I was at the place where the pine lives by 

 the lake of the mountain, and there I saw the sight of 

 the kloo-kwallie as it was when the pine was young. 



Of that sight I will tell the story at another time, for it 

 is a good story, and it is well to know of the ways of 

 these different men as they lived a loag, long time ago, 

 when the talking pine was very young. 



Ft. Comancho. 



CAT, KITTENS AND KID. 



Belize, British Honduras, is a pretty town, where for 

 several months we occupied a picturesque cottage sur- 

 rounded by a large garden. A lawyer, with a Btiff leg 

 and a reputation for sending in a bill to anyone who hap- 

 pened to ask him a question on any subject, even in the 

 street, knocked at our door regularly every day to ask how 

 soon we intended returning to the North. He wanted 

 that cottage. 



There was an outhouse which, during our stay, served 

 as an asylum for stray creatures. A good-looking turkey 

 generously insisted again and again on working her way 

 through a hole in the fence for the express purpose of 

 bestowing on us her unhatched progeny. 



One morning on entering the asylum we heard sounds 

 issuing from the depths of a barrel. Behold! Cat and 

 kittens nestling in some straw. Without ceremony, pre- 

 suming that she had more than once been baptized, we 

 named the elder feline Miz. She was large, pale gray, 

 pretty faced and starved; it was not difficult to study her 

 anatomy. The kittens had but just arrived. One was 

 larger than the other and a perfect image of a spotted 

 leopard. We therefore named it Chaacmol, an Indian 

 word for leopard, and we called the smaller one Balam, 

 another name for the same animal. 



We took the strangers under our protection, and Miz 

 expressed gratitude, never eating the food without first 

 rubbing her pretty head against the hand which offered it. 

 Before those kittens opened their eyes they knew our 

 voice, and crawled to us when we uttered their names. 



Miz introduced her husband, for whom she always re- 

 served part of her ration. Tom was young, handsome, 

 loving and respectful to his spouse. 



On the ninth day Chaacmol's eyes had a perceptible slit 

 in them. Balam was more backward. When Chaac- 

 mol was 12 days old he could fairly look around on this 

 gay world, and that very day Miz removed her family to a 

 square box. 



A little before sunset we heard a piteous screaming, 

 and, on investigating, found that Miz's supper had at- 

 tracted that troublesome, spiteful and persistent plague, 

 the red ant. Not content with devouring the food, those 

 aggressive insects had almost covered the wretched little 

 Chaacmol, who, perpetually on the move, had crawled 

 from the box, He was sprawling in the plate in a most 

 deplorable condition. An excellent substitute for the 

 bite of a red ant is a red-hot needle thrust into the skin. 

 We carried the unlucky kitten and his brother back to 

 their native barrel. 



On the following morning Miz failed to come for her 

 breakfast. We went to see what new calamity had be- 

 fallen the family. A startling tragedy was revealed. Miz 

 stared at us with wild eyes while she kept on licking 

 Chaacmol, helping to restore him to animation, what re- 

 mained of him, for his f orepaws and the lower half of his 

 body had disappeared. The unfortunate little wretch, 

 not satisfied with his ant adventure, had started out on a 

 second expedition, and the land crabs which infested the 

 premises having stumbled upon him enjoyed a tender 

 supper. 



Two days later Balam died. Perhaps he missed his 

 brother, for they used to sleep embracing each other. 

 Miz showed violent displeasure when we attempted to 

 remove the kitten, and until the small body was cold she 

 licked and coaxed it. For several days she fasted and 

 mourned, while Tom suffered a good deal of ill-treat- 

 ment because Miz relieved her feelings by exercising her 

 paw on him, and he never retaliated. 



Later on the bereaved mother had another kitten, which 

 she deliberately starved to death. Afterward whenever 

 we asked her what she had done with her offspring she 

 ran to the box where it used to be, looked in, then sat. 

 down and mewed softly, showing that she understood 

 and remembered. 



Our interesting cat was friendly with a white kid that 

 we had trained to perform tricks, but if the kid attempted 

 to enter a door when Miz was stretched across the thres- 

 hold that amiable feline would use her paw so deftly on 

 the nanny's face as to induce a hasty retreat. When we 

 amused ourselves with the kid Miz showed extreme jeal- 

 ousy. She was a very dainty puss, and when the dinner 

 did not please her would turn her back to the dish and 

 whip the floor with her tail. 



As soon as we began to dismantle the cottage prior to 

 deserting it, Miz disappeared, to our annoyance, we hav- 

 ing promised her to a friend. Apparently that cat under- 

 stood that we were going away, for Bhe, though seen in 

 the neighborhood, did not again come near us. 



Ours was a charming garden. . The royal palm towered 

 above every other tree. Next in size was the African 

 flambeau, introduced in British Honduras by the early 

 settlers; its gorgeous flame-like flowers and dark pods 

 nearly a foot long were a gorgeous sight. There was one 

 of the mimosa family, whose sensitive leaves quivered 

 and shrank at the slightest contact, 



beautiful, with its large wax-like, highly perfumed blos- 

 soms that maidens came begging for in the month of 

 May to place on the church altars. Among the fruit trees, 

 mangoes and others, there were two bearing soursops 

 (allied to the custard apple), each fruit weighing 3 or 4lbs. 

 Another tree was loaded with the shining yellow cashew, 

 whose external kidney-shaped nut is for marking linen. 

 Foremost among the flowers was the brilliant tiger lily. 



It was all very nice, the neighbors said, but we must 

 look out for the goats, because in Belize they would go 

 astray and "the plant touched by a goat's tooth dies." 



Effectively, a troublesome white kid, already mentioned) 

 repeatedly entered our grounds. At last we caught the 

 intruder and notifie'd the police, but nobody claimed the 

 prisoner. We named her Bianca and shut her up in a 

 fenced grass-grown plot, letting her out at a certain hour 

 each day for educational purposes. She soon learned to 

 walk on her hindlegs, twenty or thirty steps, and perform 

 a little valse before letting herself down. A banana was 

 her reward. Many ingenious tricks she planned to steal 

 her favorite fruit from kitchen and dining room. Always 

 on being liberated she bounded up to me and performed 

 her dance to obtain the morsel that she liked. Thus the 

 trait first manifested by the goat was diplomacv, instigated 

 by greed. But the biggest bump in Bianca's head was 

 that of inquisitiveness. It occupied about two-thirds of 

 her skull. Perched on a box by the front fence, she re- 

 remained for hours at a time almost motionless, losing 

 sight of nothing. Sunday was a great day for her, when 

 she could watch the people going to church. Day or 

 night, if she heard any unusual noise in the street, she 

 would bound to her favorite box and poke her nose over 

 the fence, craning her neck to see up and down the street, 

 indulging her very vulgar curiosity. What a gossip she 

 would have been could she have chatted! 



Affection was not Bianca's strongest characteristic, but 

 she always answered my call, and generally sought me 

 on being freed, sometimes lying at my feet as a dog might. 

 We gave her a companion of her own species, a gentle, 

 handsome creature, but because we petted him she was so 

 angry that she pierced him with her sharp horns in a way 

 that caused his death. She herself was alive and well 

 when we sailed out of Belize Harbor, leaving her in pos- 

 session of a faithful little maid., whose complexion was of 

 a sufficiently close tint to contrast artistically with the 

 glossy coat of Bianca. Alice dE Le Plokgeon. 



TEAL AND TARPON AT TAMP1CO. 



Frok this alliterative title it might be inferred that the 

 delicious little duck and the king of fishes had been killed 

 by the writer in Mexican waters. This is not true. 

 Neither fell to my rod or gun. 



I had left the Floridian at Vera Cruz for a week's visit 

 to the City of Mexico, intending to rejoin the ship at 

 Tampico, and arrived at that city a day in advance of her 

 coming. Sundav exhausted the sights and resources of 

 the place, the most attractive being the market held by 

 the natives on the slope of the public square or plaza, 

 leading down to the marshes which ended, at the river, a 

 short distance from the upland. This square was well 

 set with some kind of leafy tree, the branches of which 

 were filled with a kind of golden-eyed and very tame 

 black bird, whose incessant and musical calls filled the 

 air On the sloping cobblestones the natives spread out 

 their wares: gaudy handkerchiefs, blankets, sombreros, 

 small fish, tomatoes (very small and seemingly the only 

 vegetable)', bananas, little oranges, and among the other 

 exhibits I observed some teal, which I found to be worth 

 25 cents Mexican, or about 13 cents United States cur- 

 rency. The inference was that teal were abundant around 

 Tampico. ^ wag m6j the same 



inference brought before him, had in the hold of the 

 Floridian two "scatter" guns, and he proposed that we 

 pursue the ducks the next day, to which I assented. We 

 had found a very courteous man in a New Orleans Creole, 

 who was a clerk in the office of the Mexicans who were 

 agents for the English company which ran the Floridian, 

 wko agreed to provide us with a boatman the next morn- 

 ing at daybreak for the purpose of pursuing the teal. We 

 also obtained some (very badly loaded) cartridges from 

 one of the shops. , ., ,, .... 



Our steamship arrived and anchored opposite the city 

 that night, and the next morning, at 6 o'clock, we took 

 our bath and coffee and were ready to slaughter the 13- 

 cents-a-pair teal. We found at the ladder a most 

 villainous looking brigand of a Mexican (who was doubt- 

 less really a most respectable fellow) in a canoe formed o,f 

 the trunk of a ceiba or silk-cotton tree, hollowed out by 

 fire at least 30ft. long and about 3ft. wide. The bottom 

 was filled with a kind of asphaltum or coal tar pavement. 

 There was a single thwart near the bow, upon which Steel 

 and I sat, facing the bow, and the brigand worked a set- 

 ting pole in the stern. The canoe was wonderfully 

 steady, however. . _ 



There was the densest fog over the river I ever saw. 

 We had not left the ship 20yds. when she was invisible. 

 We had not reached tnat distance when there was a 

 whistle of wings and I made a quick shot and dropped a 

 shearwater gull, which seemed to give the brigand some 

 satisfaction. We pushed over to the shore and pushed up 

 the river with the rising tide. There was a strip along 

 the bank 20ft. wide of black mud, very deep and very 

 soft. The next object which loomed up olosa at hand in 

 the dense bog was a blue heron (or silver crane, as they 

 call the bird in Florida) and I was inclined to disregard 

 this animal, but the brigand began to Jump up and down 

 and gesticulate, and I found that it was his ardent wish 

 to have the creature reduced to possession,which.Steel, at 

 at my suggestion, accomplished. The pride and delight 

 of the brigand were gratifying. "Mucho bueno:! Mucho 

 bueno!" he shouted. 



We poled slowly along the shore, looking anxiously for 

 a passage to the lagoons where the teal frequented, as our 

 amiable friend the clerk had assured us, without finding 

 any, and the next animated object I saw was a bird about 

 the 'size of a quail, having a brilliant yellow breast, black 

 wings and head, and black hairs (like a butcher bird 

 growing from the base of the bill. I shot this specimen, 

 and then we had great trouble to get the brigand to go 

 into the mud after him. It was a grewsome job, but he 

 finally retrieved the bird. And so we pursued our way, 

 bagging four more blue herons, three more yellow birds 

 and a white crane— a most contemptible collection, but 

 which were highly acceptable to the brigand. 



Every once in a while I would hear the blow of a tar- 



