Sept. 1, 1887.1 



FOREST ANt> STREAM. 



103 



An eminent authority "over the pond" has formulated 

 a maxim which on such occasions it is well to remember: 

 "When the wessel ain't got no way on her you can't steer 

 her." This I now called to mind, and plied my long rock- 

 maple paddle while the shadowy hemlocks flitted past, 

 and the locks of the howsman streamed backward in the 

 evening breeze as we raced with the cloudy foam. 



"By Jove," quoth Ferrand, "there's the fall," and this 

 was all he said, but in advance the river narrowed to less 

 than half its width, and rushing on past walls of rock, 

 hurled itself downward from our sight, how far we could 

 not tell, but well could see that on either side was a 

 ragged reef, while ahead was a mass of foam. I held her 

 straight for the middle of the channel: a moment more 

 and the bowsman was bathed to his chest in foam, as the 

 boat pitched down the tall. Had old Kuhleborn aforesaid 

 bethought him to plant a rock at the point where we 

 plunged into the basin, Juanita's cruise had ended there 

 and then, but as it was, we rounded to in an eddy and 

 bailed out; not the first time that day. 



In one of the rapids above I had caught my gun from 

 its beckets for the better acquaintance with a flock of 

 ducks which whistled past us on their way up stream; 

 but the caps were wet, and when we landed, not far be- 

 low the fall, we should have to put up with "no meat in 

 camp," only that just at the right time my companion 

 secured a brace of plump grouse with his revolver. 



A rousing supper we ate that night and the next morn- 

 ing took the train at Bristol . 



We learned some years afterward that two young men 

 had been drowned in an attempt to run these rapids. For 

 myself, I may say that I should not care to try their pas- 

 Bage again with the boat we had that day, though Idoubt 

 not that in these days of canoeing the success of our 

 "trial trip" has been repeated. 



And where now is the staunch companion, whose war 

 whoop made the forest ring as the boat glanced down 

 that fall? For since the day in the long ago when from 

 the bluffs 1 watched the far gleam of the sails of the sea- 

 rider, the white gulls hovering in his wake; no word of 

 him has reached my ear — his fa,te is to me unknown. 



Kelpie. 



MOOSEHEAD IN FLY TIME.— III. 



HAVING lost two days by having to lie over at Joe 

 Morris's (who, by the way, formerly kept this place 

 of Duce's), and coming around Seeboomook, we gave up 

 the plan of going as far as Chesuncook on this trip, and 

 sent word by a man going to Kineo for the steamer to 

 come for us the next night. 



We were up bright and early, and after breakfast 

 started for Lobster Lake. In a swampy place near the 

 landing we plucked a number of specimens of the wild 

 calla (Ckdla palustris). The purple iris was very common 

 and in full bloom. 



Fi - om Luce's to the mouth of Lobster Stream is two 

 miles, and it is two miles more up to the lake of the same 

 name. The West Branch along here is deep and slug- 

 gish; dead water all the way, but between Lobster Stream 

 and Chesuncook there are some seven miles of rough 

 water in a total distance of sixteen miles. There is no 

 fishing along here, a few chub being all the reward the 

 angler is likely to get for his pains. 



We paddled silently along, hoping to get a glimpse of 

 some deer, but saw nothing. The people at Luce's had 

 seen two swim the branch a few days before, and we 

 were in a good deer country. As we turned the bend into 

 Lobster Stream, there were two canoes bottom up on the 

 grass, and near them were three or four steel bear traps, 

 but whoever owned them was not v sible, so we did not 

 stop. 



The scenery of Lobster Stream presents the same gen- 

 eral aspect as that along the dead water of the West 

 Branch, except that the forest is not as dense. In sev- 

 eral places we could see that back from the stream the 

 country was open, as if it had been burnt over. Tall 

 elms drooped over the water and the white trunks of 

 birches were reflected in it. Lobster Lake is a lonely but 

 pretty sheet of water, a little tarn nestling among the 

 hills. Directly opposite the mouth of the stream rise the 

 Lobster Mountains, and from the lake the two Spencers 

 are seen to the left of them. Looking eastward we were 

 standing — 



" Where through clouds are glimpses given 

 Of Ktaadn's sides. 



Rock and forest piled to heaven, 

 Torn and ploughed by slides." 



The noble mountain presents the same profile we saw 

 from Moosehead. From the mouth of the stream the 

 Scribe took a picture of the lake with the Lobster and 

 Spencer peaks beyond, and landing on a rocky ledge in 

 the middle of the lake, which barely afforded a foothold 

 for himself and the tripod, he exposed another plate 

 which took in Ktaadn. After landing for a few minutes 

 on a pretty little beach, which would have been a good 

 place for a camp, we paddled back toward the outlet. 



We fired a number of shots at a loon, but the wary bird 

 was too quick for the bullets and before they struck the 

 water we would see the splash made by his webbed feet 

 as he dove. 



When we got back to the junction of the stream with 

 the branch we saw two men standing near the canoes 

 we had noticed there, and when near enough to hail them 

 we recognized the taller as John Quilty, [a guide and 

 hunter. It was " Hello, John," and " Hello, boys." We 

 landed and John explained that he and his partner had a 

 camp back in the woods about a quarter of a mile, which 

 he invited us to visit. He and his companion were bear 

 hunting and had a number of traps set within a radius 

 of a few miles. He was a picturesque looking fellow as 

 he stood there leaning on his rifle. He had on a blue 

 flannel shirt, over which his suspenders were crossed in 

 front, so as to prevent the black flies from getting down 

 his neck. His overalls were rolled above his knees and 

 between them and his stockings was about a foot of 

 scarlet underwear. A slouch hat and stout shoes com- 

 pleted his costume. The camp was situated in the pine 

 woods and consisted of a tent and a small shanty before 

 which the fire was binning. John, who is something of 

 a wag, had tacked a sign to a tree which bore the legend : 

 " Camp Bruin. John Quilty and Joseph Lebree. We 

 are after the bears and the flies are after us." 



Inside the tent two bear skins were rolled up and a lot 

 of musquash pelts were strung on a pole. We took a 

 photograph of Camp Bruin and its owners and then bade 

 them good-bye. They said they had seen a buck come 



down to the water on the opposite shore while we wore 

 gone up Lobster Stream ; so we paddled silently along, 

 keeping just outside the lily pads, and eagerly scanned 

 the banks. We may have gone a half a mile, when, as 

 we turned a bend, a warning "Shh!'" from William caused 

 us to stop paddling, after running the canoes under some 

 overhanging bushes. There, a few rods ahead, stood a 

 noble buck, all unconscious of the proximity of his ene- 

 mies. We were to leeward of him, and he neither saw 

 nor scented us. A grand sight it was to see the beautiful, 

 wild creature stand there, drinking his fill of the liquid 

 element which reflected his shapely form, whose tawny 

 color harmonized so well with its emerald background, 

 and we gazed absorbed till ho turned and leisurely entered 

 the bushes and disappeared. He presented a magnificent 

 mai'k and the guns were within grasp, but the law was on 

 his side and we let him go in peace. He never saw us at 

 all. 



The Scribe made one more landing to take a view of 

 a pretty bend in the stream, and he had scarcely set foot 

 among the alders before he was literally covered with 

 black flies and mosquitoes; but he managed to make the 

 exposure and then got away as quickly as possible. 



Arrived at Luce's, the canoes were loaded on a large 

 wagon and we all climbed in and drove across to Moose- 

 head. The carry is two miles across, and a good road all 

 the way, beside which are the remains of the old log 

 tramway over which Thoreau made the carry thirty 

 years ago. The car was drawn by an ox walking between 

 the timbers, which served as rails. On the way over we 

 passed an individual who must be the prize lazy man of 

 Maine. He was cutting bushes by the roadside, and, 

 being too lazy to use tar oil to protect him from the flies, 

 carried a smudge pot, which he would carefully place 

 near the bush he was cutting, and then, standing in the 

 smoke, he would leisurely hack away. 



We had supper at the hotel at the Moosehead end of the 

 carry and then embarked on the steamer which was wait- 

 ing for us. William asked the waitress to whom he 

 should pay the bill, and she replied, "To the Colonel; he's 

 out there," but failed to see any military appearing perr 

 son among the men assembled in the office. "Can you 

 tell me who is the Colonel?" asked William of a young 

 man. "Why, yes, that's him," and he jerked Ms thumb 

 at a little, red-faced, red-headed young man, who stood 

 sleepily leaning against the wall. "I would like to pay 

 my bill," said William to the sleepy young man. "All 

 (hie) right, how (hie) many?" said the Colonel, who evi- 

 dently did not find Maine to be as much of a prohibition 

 State as it is popularly supposed to be. "Six," answered 

 William, handing him a five-dollar bill. The Colonel 

 took it, and after some fumbling managed to get the 

 money drawer open. He returned one dollar and a half 

 to Wilham, who said, "About half a dollar more will 

 make us square, I think." "Guess not," said the redoubt- 

 able Colonel, "Si (hie) hix of you, fifty cents apiece, three 

 fifty." "Six times fifty cents is three dollars where we 

 came from," said William. The Colonel pondered over 

 this mathematical problem for a time and then handed 

 out another half dollar, and we left him evidently un- 

 decided as to whether we had cheated him or not. As 

 we went out the lazy man came in, carrying his smudge 

 pot. "Wall," he drawled, "I haint got bit much to-day 

 and I haint tarred up nuther." 



Cy and Bill enlivened the journey down the lake with 

 accounts of their hunting adventures, and the former 

 rolled a piece of birch bark into a moose call and imitated 

 the calling of the cow moose, and explained the manner 

 in which the bull moose are enticed within gunshot. 

 Twenty years ago deer were scarce about Moosehead, 

 though there were moose and caribou, but at the present 

 time there are plenty of deer too, and they are increas- 

 ing. The five years continuous close time for moose, 

 which ended in 1880, has made a perceptible increase in 

 their numbers. It is a shame, however, that many are 

 killed every winter for their hides. We talked with an 

 old Indian who said he tanned over one hundred hides 

 last winter for men who had hunted them for their skins. 

 We reached Kineo about 10 o'clock. Our programme for 

 the following day was a trip to Moose River and Brassua 

 Lake. 



We paddled across to the mouth of the river in the 

 morning, but found it full of logs, and the logs were also 

 running thickly all the way down from Brassua; so we 

 left the canoes and went overland. It was a four-mile 

 tramp to Brassua, but the road was in tolerable condition, 

 and most of the way through the woods. 



We climbed a steep hillside on which the wild straw- 

 berries were ripening, and from the top, where the road 

 entered the woods, we got a good picture of the river, 

 with the Blue Ridge beyond. About half way to Brassua 

 is the wing dam, where we stopped to fish, but with poor 

 success. William got a couple of good instantaneous 

 views of the logs in the rapids below and above the dam, 

 and of a jam of logs which the river drivers were trying 

 to break. The drivers appear to be amphibious; they are 

 in the water and out of it, and wet or dry it is all one to 

 them. They run over the floating, turning logs in a 

 manner which proves them to be experts in the art of 

 balancing, and we noticed that when the men up stream 

 came down to the camp to dinner, instead of tramping 

 through the woods each mounted a log and were borne 

 down by the river, which they speak of "di-iving" as one 

 would speak of driving a horse. When the logs reach the 

 mouth of Moose River they are made into rafts and towed 

 around to the East Outlet, where they are sent on their 

 way down the Kennebec, 



The logging camp was just beyond the wing dam, and 

 we found the cook preparing dinner for the crew. He 

 also had a keg of birch beer, but it was not as good as 

 Joe Morris's. At Brassua we got several good views. One 

 looking up the lake along the shore, with Bald Mountain 

 in the distance, and another looking across the lake 

 toward the mouth of Miseree Stream, with the Miseree 

 Mountains beyond, were especially good. William, who 

 is an ardent admirer of the picturesque in any form, took 

 the portrait of a festive lumberman who sported a bright 

 red shirt, which he did not wear in the conventional 

 manner, but had belted it around his waist, while the 

 lower portion of it floated in the breeze outside his trou- 

 sers. Brassua is a pretty sheet of water, some six or seven 

 miles long, and there is usually some fishing to be had 

 near the mouth of Miseree Stream, which is in the south- 

 west corner, opposite the outlet. On our return we 

 stopped at the camp and sampled the cook's biscuits and 

 baked beans. We paddled about the lake and fished till 

 sunset, and then returned to Kineo. 



"Well," said William, as we sat on the piazza after 

 supper, "we have one day more and we must make the 

 most of it. What do you say to climbing the mountain?" 

 We voted unanimously for the mountain, and in the 

 morning we took the cameras and started for Kineo. 



Mount Kineo is a solid mass of hornblende, or Ameri- 

 can flint, an i is the largest mass of this substance in the 

 world. The Indians of all parts of New England used to 

 come here to procure material for their arrowheads and 

 other implements. Until within a year the approach to 

 the mountain was made by rowing around the peninsula 

 and then climbing the path up the long slope on the 

 northern side, but now a flight of steps has been built 

 part way up the cliff, and above them chains have been 

 stretched from the ledges and trees, so that by hard 

 climbing and taking advantage of fissures and projecting 

 points of rock, the precipice can be scaled on the south- 

 ern side. We found it a hard pull, hampered as we were 

 with the cameras and tripods, and one needed a sure foot 

 and a steady head. 



In the woods at the foot of the mountain we noticed 

 the delicate white stars of the Trientalis americana and 

 the pretty little twin flower. Linncea borecdis, and nod- 

 ding from the face of the cliff were the fairy blossoms of 

 the harebell. At the top we went along the path near 

 the brow of the precipice, the outlook unfolding new 

 wonders at every step. The woods axe densa and fra- 

 grant, and the path wound through thickets of mountain 

 lam-el (Kahnia augustifoUa), and Labrador tea (Ledum 

 I" f if a! in m); (he three-toothed cinquefoil (Potentilla. tri- 

 dentatd) bloomed everywhere in the open places and one 

 of the prettiest plants we saw was the pale corydalis 

 (Qorydedis glauca), with its pink and yellow flowers, We 

 stopped to rest at an open spot among the cedars and as 

 we sat on the crisp, dry moss, a wonderful picture was 

 spread before us. We were near the verge, 700ft. above 

 the lake, into which we could have leaped. The moun- 

 tain rises 703ft. above the lake and 1,958 above the sea 

 level. Below us were the hotel buildings looking like toy 

 houses, and far down the lake a steamer slowly towed 

 her raft of logs and scarcely seemed to move. We could 

 see Brassua gleaming in the sun beyond the treetops. 

 Big Squaw confronted us, a great black mass on the 

 northern horizon. We could see beyond wooded points 

 and headlands into distant bays where, from the base 

 there appeared to be a continuous shore; and mountain, 

 lake and forest combined to make a perfect picture. 



High in the blue ether above us a hawk was circling, 

 and we wished that, for the time being, we might have 

 had his piercing eye and broader range of vision. We 

 exposed four plates at this point, and then followed the 

 path to the summit, stopping by the way to drink from 

 the spring. At last we stood on the highest point of 

 Kineo, and if the view was grand before it is almost be- 

 yond description now. We stood on a ledge of moss-cov- 

 ered rock which rose among the stunted cedars. 



All around and far below us was the shimmerhig sur- 

 face of the lake, which glowed in the sunlight like pol- 

 ished metal, with here and there a wooded island like an 

 emerald set in silver. 



"Holy depths of stainless crystal, 

 Sown with islands out of dreamland." 



Beyond the water — stretching away in every direction 

 as far as the eye could see, unbroken except by the few 

 clearings by the shore, covering the mountains and filling 

 the valleys — was the forest. The vast, illimitable wilder- 

 ness, the home of the moose, the caribou and the deer, in 

 whose remote depths the beaver still builds his dam and 

 the bear and panther have their lairs. The distant tree 

 tops presented a surface apparently as smooth as a lawn 

 and of a peculiar mottled appearance, caused by the con- 

 trast of the black growth, as the pines and spruces are 

 called, with the lighter foliage of other trees. As we 

 stood there our thoughts went back to the old , aboriginal 

 days when the Indian pursued his game through these 

 woodlands and paddled his birch canoe over these waters. 

 We thought of the first white man whose eyes beheld 

 these scenes; of the old French regime and the early 

 labors of the Jesuit missionaries: of the tragic death of 

 Pere Rasles, atNorridgewock, and of the Baron de St. Cas- 

 tine who gave his name to the quaint town on the Penob- 

 scot. We spoke of the changing scenes of history since 

 those days, and of the great flood of civilization which, 

 while sweeping over this great land, has hardly casta 

 ripple on these primeval shores. We recalled the legends 

 and traditions with which the red man has invested the 

 mountain with a halo of romance. We pictured to our- 

 selves the grim chief Kinneho, standing alone by his 

 solitary camp-fire and gazing with straining eyes through 

 the darkness of the night, at that other fire whose flicker- 

 ing gleam came to him through twenty miles of gloom. 



The legend of Kinneho and his squaw mother, Maquaso, 

 is this: Kinneho from boyhood had a gloomy disposition, 

 and as he grew to manhood this chai-acteristic developed 

 more and more, and as a man he was possessed of more 

 than usual Indian taeitiunity. Maquaso watched the 

 forming of her son's character with great solicitude, but 

 he neglected and avoided her and held himself aloof from 

 the warriors of his tribe. 



One day Maquaso disappeared, and her undutiful son 

 was suspected of foul play. He was a brave warrior, but 

 from that time he was denied participation in the tribal 

 councils. He too disappeared, and for many moons he 

 was seen no more. In the midst of a great battle, how- 

 ever, in which the enemies of his people were apparently 

 winning the day, he suddenly reappeared and his efforts 

 turned defeat into victory. He again disappeared in the 

 same mysterious way, and again nothing was heard of 

 him for a long time. 



Froni the top of a mountain near his village a light was 

 seen night after night, but no one dared investigate the 

 mysterious beacon. The sides of the mountain were al- 

 most inaccessible, and the red men stood in awe of its 

 frowning face and of the dread inhabitants with which 

 their superstition peopled it. The misanthrope lived on 

 in exile, remorsefully thinking that he was the cause of 

 his mother's disappearance. Night after night he gazed 

 through the darkness and kept his lonely vigil. Why, he 

 knew not, but a power stronger than his own will im- 

 pelled him. At last one night he saw miles away to the 

 south against the side of* another mountain a glimmering 

 light, and the thought possessed him that his mother was 

 there. Then began his wild flight through the forest to- 

 ward it. The next night he again beheld it shining 

 through the trees, and as he approached it he beheld his 

 mother, to whom he had denied all filial affection, seated 

 beside it. He folded her in his strong arms, and as he 



