March 1, 1888.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



103 



''He come fm Saint Cesaire?" asked Antoine with in- 

 terest. 



"No. he didn't give that name, but he come fm Can- 

 ady, erles he's strayed away f'm Uncle Lisha's Colchester 

 P'int. He looks of 'nough for that."' 



"From Canady! Oh, bah gosh! you'll s'pose Ah see 

 everybody in Canada? Dat mos' bigger as Danvit prob'ly, 

 an' you'll not know everybody lieve dar, ant it, hein?" 



"Wall, no, not quite all on 'em, an' the' 's some 't I du 

 know 'at I wish't I didn't. But I was a tellin" on him 

 'baout you," Sam continued, indulging in a white lie, 

 "an' he'claimed 'at he knowed a man o' the name o' An- 

 twine Bisette. Like 'nough he lied, I've knowed Canucks 

 "at did git a leetle mite off 'm the act'al facts some- 

 times, but I guess you'd better gwup 'long wi' me an' see 

 him." 



"Frenchmans ant never lie," Antoine protested with a 

 great flourish of gestures, " 'fore he'll be here long 'nough 

 for learn it of Yankee, 'cep once a while mebby he ketch 

 it of Injin. Injin lie lak' a devY' 



"Wal, they're tumble easy tu learn, some on 'em." 



"Bah gosh! He'll gat good school mom fer dat w'en 

 he'll gat Yankee!" 



"Wal, nev' mind 'baout that naow, you'd better gwup 

 an' see him, an' when you git through parly vooin'— you'd 

 orter heard me an' him talkin' French!— you c'n come 

 daown where Peltier did, an' some on us '11 g' over 'n' git 

 ye. Come on." 



"Wal, Ab guess Ah'll goin'," Antoine said, arising 

 after relighting his pipe. "Ah'll wan' talk French wud 

 somebody 'fore Ah'll f regit of it. An' it don't healt'y 

 for Frenchman's talk so good Angleesh Ah do, all de 

 tain." 



_ They were well on their way before the touch of the 

 rising sun began to transmute their broad path of silver 

 into one of gold, and it was just gilding the roots of the 

 old hemlocks and patches of the forest floor where the 

 canoe crushed through the rushes to the old camp land- 

 ing. Antoine had no sentimentality to expend on the 

 place which had given him all he could ever expect 

 from it and was at once ready to follow Sam. 



They had not gone far along the path when the sun- 

 light of a little clearing shone before them, and then they 

 saw a small log house with whitewashed sides and 

 notched shingles along its eaves. Coming nearer, they 

 saw an old woman at the door wearing a white cap and 

 short white gown which Sam wondered ac, whether meant 

 for day or night attire, and then an old man. on all fours, 

 weeding an onion bed close beside the house. When 

 presently he sat upright to fire with flint and steel a bit 

 of punk to light his pipe, his leathern old visage became 

 plainly visible. 



"There, du ye know him, Antoine?" Sam asked in a 

 low tone. 



The younger Canadian's face, which had till now 

 shown 'only amused curiosity, suddenly flashed into an 

 expression of recognition and strong emotion. 



"Ah, Mon Dieu!" he cried huskily, "c'est mon poupa 

 et ma mouman!" and he ran forward to the old people. 



"Huggin' an' kissin' on 'em julluk any little boy," said 

 Sam with a quaver in his voice, and with tender memor- 

 ies of his own mother who had been asleep under the 

 graveyard sumachs since he was a child, he retired before 

 the rejoicing trio came fairly to their speech. As he 

 went his way back to the boat, the three voices broke 

 forth in such a confusion of incessant gabble that he 

 could not help laughing and remarking, "By the gret 

 horn spoon! A flock o' blackbirds, no. nor all the noises 

 in the nia'sh put together, haint a primin." 



He was glad to find Pelatiah waiting at the "John 

 Clark place," his unhappiness somewhat lessened by the 

 prospect of a day's outing. Sam had had the forethought 

 to bring trolling tackle along, and as they fared slowly 

 down stream Pelatiah trailed the lure along the border 

 of lily pads and listened to the story of the discovery of 

 Antoine's parents, and thought it almost as wonderful as 

 a story in a book. 



' He struck a large pickerel and had the luck, in spite of 

 his flurried awkwardness, to get it safely into the dugout, 

 and rejoiced exceedingly in its capture and in Sam's 

 praise of his skill, as well as in anticipation of the display 

 of such a trophy on his return to friend Bartlett's. He 

 would like, he thought, to see that little dandy spark of 

 Lowizy's struggling with such a fish, almost as big as he, 

 and as likely to haul him overboard as to be hauled in- 

 board. Was it possible that Lowizy might feel a sympa- 

 thetic pride in his achievement? He had fancied that his 

 heart was steeled against her blandishments, some of 

 which had been vainly expended on him last evening, 

 succeeded by an air of injured innocence that proved as 

 ineffectual. But now he began to feel a forgiving softness 

 and some twinges of remorse. He began to frame excuses 

 for her conduct and accused himself of cruelty in answer- 

 ing her in monosyllables and for not having filled the 

 washboiler for her before he came away. Sam dispelled 

 this silent mood by proposing plans for the spending of 

 the day. "I ben kinder wantin' tu go aout tu Gardin 

 Islan' ever sen we ben here," he said as he sent the canoe 

 on her way with slow strokes of the paddle, never changed 

 from side to side, but steadily delivered on one side with- 

 out a perceptible deviation of the bow from its direct 

 course. 



"The bay's as still as a mill pawnd tu-day, an' s'posin' 

 you 'n' me take a v'yage aout there in the scaow? We c'n 

 git back afore noon an' then fish 'long wi' Sole an' Joe 

 till it's time for you to go hum." 



The prospect of voyaging more than half a mile out 

 into the immensity of the lake was rather appalling to 

 Pelatiah, but his faith in Sam was unbounded, and the 

 prospect of setting foot on a real solid island w r as as allur- 

 ing as an adventure of discovery, and so after a little de- 

 liberation he fell in with the proposal. 



Arriving at camp the plan was broached to Solon and 

 Joseph, who at once declared that they had no inclination 

 for so perilous a voyage. 



"It's still 'nough naow," said Joseph after a careful 

 inspection of the cloudless sky, "but the's time 'nough 

 for it tu up an' blow like all git aout 'fore we c'ld git 

 aout there and back agin, an' the's no knowin' what 

 duni'd caper that plegged ol' she boat 'Id take a notion tu 

 cut up if the win' did blow, I b'lieve I'd druther look 

 at the lake 'f'm one side 'an f'm the middle. You c'n see 

 more on't tu oncte that way, an' I b'fieve that'll sati'fy 

 me tol'able well, though 'f I felt julluk goin' I p'sume to 

 say I'd go." 



Solon advised keeping to the shore or near it, and gave 

 it as his opinion that the contemplated visit to the island 



was "an atteinptin' of improvidence." They were told of 

 the meeting of Antoine and his parents, and Solon de- 

 clared it was like the "return of the prodigy son, only 

 proberbly the' wa'n't no calf infatuated for the o-casion." 



"This was more as't orter ben 'cord in' tu my idee," said 

 Joseph, "a sorter meetin' half way, an' nob'dy a gittin' 

 tuckered a. trav'lin' as that ere Scriptur' young man did." 



While Pelatiah tethered his precious pickerel safely in 

 the shallow water, Sam got a lunch of bread and pork, 

 some poles, lines and bait from camp, and the two set 

 forlh in the scow. Sam took the oars, a rough pair of 

 Antoine's fashioning, which Joseph Hill said "it wouldn't 

 be no sin tu warship, for they wa'n't like nothin' in hea ven 

 or airth, erless the' was somo more somewhere 'at An 

 toine hed made," and Pelatiah took his first lesson in 

 steering with the paddle. 



"Col darn it!" he cried, when in spite of his best 

 endeavors the boat had veered to half the points of com- 

 pass. "I can't make .the dum'd boat p'int nowheres! I 

 don't b'lieve it's half broke!" 



"Why, Peltier," Sam said, amused, though half im- 

 patient with his awkwardness, "you haven't no cause tu 

 say that, for you make it p'int most everywheres." 



"I b'lieve," Pelatiah remarked, " 'at they call it steerin' 

 'cause the gosh dum'd thing acts so much like steers 'at 

 haint broke. It do' know gee f'm haw." 



"Uncle Tyler, the ol' feller 'at fetched Sole an' Joe an' 

 to'ther duds daown in his scaow, says 't a boat don't know 

 gee an' haw, but it does starb'd and larb'd. My! 'F you'd 

 a beard him bollerin' at 'em you'ld a thought t was Cap'n 

 Peck a trainin' his flood wood comp'ny!" 



Pelatiah improved rapidly under Sam's patient in- 

 struction and was soon able to keep the scow quite closely 

 headed for the island, whose rocky shore, green trees and 

 blossomy shrubs steadily loomed larger, near and more 

 distinct." 



While they were on the shallows, frequent touches of 

 the paddle on the sandy bottom, assurances that con- 

 nection with the solid earth was not yet severed, had 

 given Pelatiah a feeling of safety. But now that the 

 paddle could not touch the bottom, the clams and their 

 slowly traced tracks faded out of sight in the deeper 

 water, the ripples of sunshine no longer crinkled the sands 

 with gold, and there was nothing but water to be seen 

 beneath the boat save where some great rock dimly 

 showed in the green depths Hke an ugly monster lying in 

 wait for a victim, he wished himself * on land, and was 

 glad enough when the scow grated on the rocky slant of 

 the island's southern shore. He could hardly tell 

 whether such isolation was quite pleasant, but it' was a 

 new and strange sensation to have this little patch of rock 

 and scant soil all to himself and Sam, but for its few 

 inhabitants, the birds and reptiles, mice and perhaps a 

 family of minks, for they saw one gliding along the shore, 

 as lithe and silent as a snake. 



They made the round of all its border's, the sheer wall 

 of the north shore, where storm-bent cedars and birches 

 clung along the briuk, and the long incline of rock on 

 the south shore, where thickets of flowering shrubs made 

 a breastwork of bloom just behind the line of driftwood 

 and pebbles thrown up by the high water of spring. 

 They explored the interior, where a goodly growth of 

 almost all the deciduous trees of the region was unac- 

 countably nourished in the thin red soil. In one place 

 they noticed that a pit deep enough for a grave had 

 recently been dug, but for what pm-pose they could not 

 imagine. They carved their names and the date of their 

 visit on the largest white birch in characters which some 

 later comer might possibly decipher. Then they fished 

 off the eastern and western points of the island, catching 

 perch whose armor of green and gold was darker and 

 brighter than those of their brethren of the creek. 



Oi'ce when Pelatiah cast his bait into a wide fissure of 

 the submerged rocks, it was seized in a sudden onset 

 that reminded him of the biting of his familiars, the 

 trout. But this was a lustier fellow than any denizen of 

 Danvis' brooks, one that would not be jerked out over- 

 head at the first stroke, but clung to the water tenaciously 

 till , the line's length away, he broke the surface and 

 sprang thrice his length above it, then regained his 

 watery grasp almost as soon as the parted wavelets closed 

 above his bristling dorsal fin. It was no exercise of 

 skill, but only stout tackle and a strong pull that over- 

 came him, yet Pelatiah was none the less exultant when 

 at last he hauled his prize out on to the rocks and 

 pounced sprawling upon him, as Sam said, "Julluck a 

 boy ketchin' a frog." 



"This must be a 'Swago, as they call 'em," he said 

 when its captor ventured to quit hovering the goodly 

 31b. bass and gave him a chance to examine it. "Seems 

 's 'ough that feller speared one julluk this that night las' 

 spring, an' him an' Time called it a 'Swago. They say 

 they're the beaters of all the fish in these waters, on the 

 hook or on the table, an' by the way this one skived an' 

 flurrupped 'raound I jedge they've got the fust on't right. 

 Cordin' tu their tell, Lewis Creek's chuck full on 'em, an 

 I wanter hev a slap at 'em one day 'fore we g' hum." 



After a while, when both had tired of trying to catch 

 another bass, the pulsing rumble of a steamer's paddles 

 was heard, and they hurried to the next point to see her 

 pass. Compared with the little steamboat he had seen 

 at Vergennes at the time of Uncle Lisha's departure, and 

 the only one he had seen till now, this was a leviathan. 

 Pelatiah thought he could never tire of watching her 

 majestic progress as with flags and pennons flaunting 

 braA^ely in the sunlight, she spurned the vexed waters 

 behind her in a long line of foam. Gayest and most con- 

 spicuous of her bunting shone the stars and stripes, and 

 it made his heart swell with pride to see the flag of his 

 country floating above so grand and beautiful a craft, 

 and he was proudly thankful to be even the humblest of 

 Yankees. 



So intently did he and his companion regard the steamer 

 that it was not till she had passed out of sight and the 

 waves of her wake began to beat the rocks at their feet 

 with sullen surges that they noticed what a change had 

 come upon the sky, how silvery domes of thunder heads 

 had reared themselves above the mountains, shadowing 

 some in a blue-black as sombre as the bases of the great 

 cloud temples had become, till mountain and cloud were 

 an undistinguishable, looming mass of blackness. The 

 south wind which had risen from a scarcely perceptible 

 waft of soft air to a breeze that ruffled the lake and briskly 

 stirred the leaves was now hushed, and no sound was 

 heard but the slow wash of the steamer's wake and some 

 voices of shore fife, faint, occasional and far away. It 

 was as if nature was holding her breath in expectation of 



some outburst of her elements, presently voiced by a 

 threatening growl of distant thunder, rolling along the 

 western horizon. 



"Wal, naow," said Sam after a brief survey of the 

 storm signs, "I guess we'd better be pickin' up an'pullin' 

 foot for camp, I d' know but we'll ketch it as 'tis." 



Gathering their tackle and fish, they hastened to where 

 they had landed, but the boat was not there. She had 

 only been fastened by grounding her bow on a rock, and 

 the wash of the steamer had set her adrift. Standing at 

 the water's edge, with craned necks, they speechlessly 

 watched her drifting away, her oar handles bobbing up 

 and down and creaking and bumping with the swells as 

 if plied by some invisible mischievous water sprite. 



By the gre't horn spoon I if we haint in a boat naow," 

 Sam said, as he exhaled his long-held breath. 



"I wish tu Lord o' massy we was in a boat," Pelatiah 

 said dolefully, "erless we never'd a-ben anigh one. 1 

 won't never git inter one o' the gol blasted things agin, I 

 swum!" 



"You'll hafter 'f you ever git away f'm here, erless you 

 wait till the lake freezes." • 



"I don't s'pose we will git away for a good spell 'f we 

 ever du 'fore we starve tu death! Tew reg'lar Robi'son 

 Crusoes we be an' not a dum'd goat on this pleggid islan'! 

 O, dear me suz!" Pelatiah wailed as a new and greater- 

 anxiety fell upon him. "What be I goin' tu du 'baout 

 my chores? The' won't be nob!dy tu help milk t'morrer 

 niornin', an' Mr. Bartlett an' the hull toot on 'em '11 

 think I'm the meanest lyin' skunk in all creation." 



"Wal." said Sam, "we can't help it naow and hev tu 

 make the best on't. Joe and Sole won't dast tu come arter 

 us, but when Antwine gits through parly vooin' with 

 his ol' folks, 'f he ever does, he will. We c'n eat fish an' 

 play 't we own the islan' till someb'dy comes. Le's go 

 an' see haow it gits 'long stormin'," and he led the way 

 to the west point. Rowland E. Robinson. 



Ferrisbubgh, Vt. 



WILDERNESS CANOE ROUTES. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



As sportsmen and tourists will presently begin to map 

 out their vacation rambles for the summer campaign, I 

 have taken the pains to outline some backwoods excur- 

 sions for that very large class of the angling fraternity, 

 Avho are making inquiries about canoe routes. Having 

 had early experience in wi'derness river trips, I receive a 

 good many letters asking for information as to desirable 

 routes which afford good salmon and trout fishing, and I 

 am hoping that I shall reach a larger number of such 

 persons through the medium of your widely circulated 

 journal than by private correspondence. I have given 

 the Province of New Brunswick the first place, as I con- 

 sider it superlatively beyond any other district or known 

 region for this kind of manly diversion. Rising like an 

 emerald bar out of the encircling sea, and crowned by 

 umbrageous forests and bald mountain knobs, it includes 

 within its central eminence a multitude of lakes and 

 rain-water reservoirs which supply the delectable streams 

 which radiate therefrom in all directions, expanding 

 finally into the considerable rivers known to commerce 

 and erstwhile filled with salmon. It was my very good 

 privilege to navigate it in every part a quarter of a cen- 

 tury ago, before the rivers were leased, and when salmon 

 fishing was free to rods. Then the forests were virgin, 

 and few logging roads threaded the intricacies of its 

 secluded precincts. To the birch canoe alone was there 

 an "open sesame." Now it is crossed in every part by 

 railroads, and one can obtain guides at stated points and 

 those articles of the outfit which once had to be packed 

 the entire distance, making these forest trips vastly more 

 convenient, but to me less charming than when compar- 

 ative solitude reigned throughout. Steam takes the 

 romance out of the woods. I had rather get sap in my 

 eye, lying face up under the pines, than pamper my in- 

 dulgence in the snuggest club house apartment extant. 

 For those who wish to rough it, with a couple of Indian 

 guides to each canoe, the subjoined itinerary will be val- 

 uable. They are the old-time routes re-traced. Sir 

 Arthur Gordon, Governor of the Province of New 

 Brunswick, went over a number of them in 1S64, and 

 wrote quite an interesting pamphlet, entitled, "Wilder- 

 ness Journeyings," which is still on the shelves of some 

 libraries. If one could follow the Grovernor's earnest 

 advice, he would take not only mosquito bars but the 

 finest woven illusion to keep out the punkies, midges, 

 sand-flies, and "bite-'em-no-see-'ems," all of which are 

 the same bird under different synonyms. 



ITINERARY OF CANOE ROUTES. 



I . From the St. John River and the Grand via Waagan 

 and Waagansis to the river Restigouche. 



3. River Restigouche and Tom Kedgewick to Rimouski 

 and the St. Lawrence. 



3. River Nepissiguit via portage to the Northwest 

 Mirimichi. 



4. From Bay Chaleur via Restigouche and its confluent 

 Upsalquitch to the Nepissiguit. 



5. St. John River via the Tobique and Nictor to the 

 river Nepissiguit. 



6. From St. John River via the Madawaska, Lake 

 Tenniscouta and Trois Pistoles to the St. Lawrence. 



7. Via the Southwest Mmmichi and portage to the 

 Nashwaak and St. John rivers. 



8. From the St. John via the Tobique River and Right 

 Hand Brook to Long Lake, and portage to the Little 

 Southwest Mirimichi and the main river. 



9. From St. Stephen on Bay of Fundy via St. Croix 

 River, Chepetunacook Lake and Monument Brook, to 

 portage and via Meduxnakik to Woodstock on the St. 

 John. 



10. From city of St. John on river St. John to Grand 

 Lake, Salmon River, and portage to Richibucto River 

 and Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



II, From St. John up the Kenebeccasis bay and river, 

 with portage to the Peticodiac and Chignecto Bay. 



12. From St. John River via the Washdemook and 

 New Canaan River to portage and the Cocagne River to 

 Northumberland Strait on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



The nine first named are the most interesting by long- 

 odds. Of course the tourist must know that he is not at 

 liberty to catch salmon anywhere except by favor, but 

 trout fishing can be indulged in ad libitum, and no doubt 

 the privilege of trying for a salmon or two would not be 

 denied on occasion by the lessee or river guardian, I 

 don't think salmon can now be found on the three last 

 named routes, but there are other nice fish, and the 



