S22 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Nov. 17, 1887, 



Address all communicatiom to the Forest and Stream Pub. Co. 



UNDER THE JACKLIGHT. 



CILENCE, silence, silence; save, perhaps, 



^ Some still small night voice in the bog grass near 



Bespeaks a hidden drama's haps and mishaps, 



But with hay-like bark, breaking upon the startled ear, 

 The great owl stirs anon the lonesome echoes, till their lapse 



Gives chance the querulous complainings of the lesser one to hear. 



Silence, soundless silence; save now and then 



A tinkling dripping from the paddle blade. 

 But it ceases, and there's silence absolute again. 



Then, breaking the listening hush of its lonely forest glade, 

 With smothered roar some giant tree of years untold of men 



At last lies down to rest beneath its comrades' shade. 



Darkness, deepest darkness; save that there 



Upon the inklike water lies a single star, 

 But shivered by a bearver crossing to its lair. 



No; the place is soundless, sightless, near and far. 

 Then the vanguard breeze of morning stirs the heavy air; 



Comes the gray edge of day and the moon's last thin bar. 



, YONKHRS. 



MAID OF BEECH. 



I HAVE just come in from sawing my sticks of beech 

 wood, my daily allotment to keep my wood fires in 

 feed. 



A November day, somewhat bleak, though not freez- 

 ing, the Eamapo HiUs— dwindlings of the Blue Bidge— 

 blue and purple under the declining sun, twenty miles 

 away; a few obstinate leaves, still clinging to the cherry 

 tree in my yard, rustling and fluttering; and the robins, 

 a troop of them, making the air lively with their darting 

 flights southward, the cedar twigs bending as they alight 

 and call to their comrades; preparing for winter, as I 

 am preparing for it with my beech sticks. But here is 

 the difference, in power and ease of locomotion between 

 tlietn and me. They fly from the cold and I stay and 

 fight it, using nature — her trees— to fight herself with, I 

 the canny man, the intelligent animal, who employs 

 nature against herself. 



The robins get the best of it though. Few of us can 

 afford to go to the Carolinas or Florida for our winter. 

 Few of us can support two country seats, one at the north, 

 among the Canada woods, for summer and one in the 

 pines and along the sands of the south for the winter. 

 Yet I make and spend enough in a year to keep five 

 thousand robins that time. But I am not more hand- 

 somely clothed, not near so handsomely; though the 

 clothing of the robin costs him nothing. Nay, our female 

 human being, though she may flaunt herself never so 

 gaily in her silks, cannot show so soft or beautiful a 

 plumage as yon robin. 



We pride ourselves a good deal in these days on our 

 quick and cheap means of transportation by railroad. 

 But how many of us use it? How many of us see the 

 country as our robin does? Who finds out its expanse as 

 he, traversing it from one end to the other? Who gets 

 his birdseye view of it all, as he goes, as if he were always 

 on a hilltop catching the view? Or who finds out the 

 dells, enters into the smallnesses of nature's treasure- 

 places as he does? finds the prettiest trees and creeps into 

 them, watches with near eye the moss, studies at short 

 focus the shapely leaf (what a connoisseur of leaves he 

 must be!), inhales the first escaping fragrant breath of 

 the trunk? Fly away, robin, on your pleasure journey of 

 use; leave me here to saw through my stout stick of wood 

 that makes the small of my back ache. Your way of 

 escaping the cold is not half so toilsome, not one-hun- 

 dredth part so tame as mine, the superior human being. 

 I believe you get more out of life than I do. Who feasts 

 on fresher fruits or more choice or on a greater vari- 

 ety of them than you? Free, spirited, well-fed, hand- 

 somely coated, you go, nearer your Maker, I do believe, 

 than I am. 



Yet I do crawl nearer by this very stick of beech that I 

 was just sawing. It is a ponderous fellow, that has made 

 me sweat to get through. I see the end of one of the 

 lengths pointing up to me as 1 saw. The section is as 

 fresh as a baby's skin, almost as smooth; as for color, no 

 baby has ever beaten it. Here toward the heart it is of 

 a darker tinge, yet not really dark, no darker than the 

 shadow that may rest under the baby shoulder, and be- 

 side it there is the genuine flesh color, an animated flesh 

 color, not milky, but of the delicatest mottling of hues 

 of pink; that transparent skin it is like where you see the 

 presence of underlying blood vessels, not distinct in their 

 shape, but casting up a mellowed, graded indication of 

 their presence; the skin that shows of life beneath and 

 coursing blood, the gentlest whisper possible of deep life. 

 So much for the color. 



Charmed by the aspect, I left my saw and buried my 

 nose, as far as a nose can be buried in a piece of wood, on 

 the end of the stick of beech, and sniffed this pink sec- 

 tion. A perfume! how subtle, exquisite, unapproach- 

 able. It shoots me into the woods, a suggestion of all 

 woody perfumes. I am no longer in my back yard; a 

 forest is around me. So faint! my nose could not have 

 caught it three inches away; yet here it is wholly distinct, 

 full of character; yet how could you express its difference 

 from the fragrance of any kindred stick of the for- 

 est? Nature does not parade all her scents. I have to go 

 close to her, almost to burrow into this chunk of beech 

 with my nose to catch the modest, retiring sweetness. 

 Ah, my friend robin, I wonder if you get these scents in 

 your close communion with the trees ? Few of us men 

 do. 



Yet that stick was my victim — killed, felled, and 

 quartered by other hands than mine; but slow to rot 

 after death; sweet even yet and yielding fragrance to me. 

 I have sawn it into bits, but still I can not take away its 

 fragrance until I have burned it; and even in the burning 

 it will yield incense; but when it is in ashes then I shaS 

 be complete conqueror. 



One of them is roasting now on the fire below me. I 

 turn the victim when he does not burn well. Ah! a sav- 

 age victor, I! I am Moloch! I, man! to whom many 

 such sacrifices have burned. I warm my hands over my 

 murder of the forest. These brothers and sisters, mute, I 

 muter than the animals— yet they struggled animatedly ' 



to the sun, acted a wish— dumb life, I, your brother; I, 

 into whom life was breathed as it was into you; of no 

 higher lineage than you; of no fairer form, nor firmer 

 texture; nor half so sweet as you! — I have usurped power 

 over you; and exercise it. We were created even, now-I 

 am lord. 



There was a time when man was not so; when he 

 picked up only the dead and dry twigs on the ground or 

 wrenched off the withered, half -broken boughs. He had 

 no steel axes then. But that was a type of man we de- 

 spise, a man who could not master the woods: without the 

 desire to; content to live in them; live and let live: not as 

 enemies. 



But we are numerous. This land was inhabited once, 

 for hundreds of years, before we white men came, and 

 yet the woods were not cut down. How did they live? 

 They did not multiply so fast as we, though six or seven 

 hundred thousand extra, 1860-1865, was not a bad contri- 

 bution to death. But they killed each other more regu- 

 larly, perhaps. Well, they subsisted on the animal life 

 which the woods and streams contained and on their own 

 little cornfields; and the woods stood, and helped feed 

 them. We white men crowd in and kill all that the woods 

 contain; and fish many streams dry of fish. We took 

 away the feeding-ground from the wild life that ran in the 

 woods. What care we for the forest? We want to get 

 rich. We change everything. Behold, now, a continent 

 half denuded, with plains of grain, and a rushing, trading 

 population. Comp? re it with the continent of two hun- 

 dred years ago. Come, brother Molochs, warm your hands 

 by the flames of this maid of beech, and let us consider 

 whether the continent is better. 



John Elliott Ctjrran. 



IN THE LAND OF THE MICMACS.— II. 



(Continued from page 249). 



TO our delight the red men's appetite took a more 

 civilized turn next morning, and James observing 

 this, remarked in his peculiar cool way that they must 

 have been lying in wait a long time for the chance of 

 last night. 



"Air ye goin' t' Bind the boat down this morn, Misther 

 Miller, fur more grub?" after setting down the coffee and 

 stepping back with his hands on his hips. 



"What do you think about it?" queried Walter; "how 

 are they feeding now, Davey?" 



"Faith, sur," replied Cookey, with head cocked on side 

 and eyes upon our canoemen, "they don't hould out 

 wurth a cint, an' that's a fack, but" — and here he paused 

 as if afraid or ashamed to speak his mind. After a 

 moment's hesitation, however, he added, "There's no 

 dipindince to be put in the brutes, they're born desavers." 



"Perhaps, Davey, they would rather go up to North 

 Branch short of provisions, so that they could use their 

 tomahawk on you when hard up," interposed James in a 

 good-humored manner, which Cookey at once detected. 



"I dunno know 'bout that, faith," retorted Davey, "but 

 an Injun, they say, has a swate mouth for fat mate, an' 

 ef that's the truth, the tommyhawk '11 find a softer pate 

 and fatter jintes than Davey's," and tipping Phil a cun- 

 ning wink, he made his way to the fire. James coughed. 

 The reference was to his plump, portly figure. 



In an hour we were stemming again the strong current 

 of this rough, boisterous stream. We had outflanked 

 civilization yesterday. No houses, no cultivated fields, 

 no sign of human life save our own met our gaze that 

 morning. The forest reached down to the river on both 

 sides, and huge maples, poplars and balm of Gileads 

 fringed the shores and cast their morning shadows across 

 the noisy, turbulent waters. The hills became mountains, 

 and the latter crowded more closely upon the little river, 

 squeezing it narrower and narrower; the stream, as if 

 resenting such treatment, became more angry and tore 

 downward through great granite boulders, sputtering, 

 leaping, rushing, roaring. 



In some places the river is thickly strewn with these 

 huge stones, of all sizes and shapes, most of the larger 

 ones rising from two to six feet above the surface of the 

 water, and so blocking the stream as to cause a very 

 strong current wherever an opening occurs. In such 

 places our speed was a snail's pace, and even that full of 

 excitement and danger. Much judgment and experience 

 are necessary to choose the safest and most practicable 

 routes through these rocky mazes, and more coolness, 

 dexterity and strength to safely pass them. The Indian 

 seems well adapted for such work. Theirs is the keen 

 vision of the hunter, whose trained eye takes in every- 

 thing at a glance. They know the limit of their bodily 

 powers, they know also what a frail thing a bark canoe 

 is among wild waters, lTishing and twisting between 

 rocks. They can, therefore, be trusted. So don't grow 

 impatient when your guides pause below some noisy 

 rapids, and, steadying the canoe with their poles, speak 

 to one another in their own beautiful language, whose 

 sounds seem bom of the sweet murmuring of forest and 

 water. Observe, too, those black piercing eyes are 

 away up among the swells and foam where danger lurks. 

 They are measuring their strength with that of the cur- 

 rent at every pass, until a choice is made; then a mutter 

 from one, an as from the other, and up go the poles as if 

 moved by some perfect machine, the rapid is boldly col- 

 lared, and soon you are shot over the lip into the smoother 

 water beyond. 



With the first afternoon's experience, I thought a rapid 

 could have no danger for m e ; but I must confess to nervous- 

 ness when in the midst of the first boulder rapid of the 

 second day. It was so different. Hie mad rocks seemed 

 tearing up the incline like huge monsters in some African 

 river, dasliing the spray and foam into the canoe itself; 

 the noise was so loud! the danger so near! I often felt 

 like grasping a boulder at my side and clinging to it with 

 all my strength. The first thought is "we'll be safe there 

 anyhow," but a moment's reflection shows you how fool- 

 hardy such a timid freak would be. When my excite- 

 ment was at its height, I happened to glance at the face of 

 the stemman. The cool calm, undisturbed expression of 

 that countenance I shall never forget, for it told me in 

 mute but strong words, "You can be a coward sometimes." 

 I realized it in a moment, and as a stream of black saliva 

 shot from the wide opening in that face, I thought of 

 Black Jack, and then of my pipe. Wishing to appear 

 calm, I remarked, "Mebbe me takum smoke, Louis?" 

 "Much better likum smoke bove rocks," returned the In- 

 dian, without even looking at me, but that reply proved 

 that my nervousness had been observed. Ever after I 

 wore my most stolid look in the middle of a rapid. 



About 11 o'clock we reached Blue Stone Pool, an es» 

 cellent salmon hole, which takes its source from a great 

 rocky spur, bluish in color, projecting into the river from i 

 the north side, forming a heavy rapid in front and a fine 

 pool below. The water was slightly discolored — the; re- 

 sult of a rain some days before — and as salmon take the 

 fly in such much better than in clear water we expectffl 1 ; 

 great sport. There was nothing but bustle and con fusion 

 f or a quarter of an hour. Rods were brought out, 

 fished from grip-sacks, fly-books opened and laid on 

 yellow gravel shore, busy fingers were twisting the 

 ends about the joints, others putting landing nets toget 

 etc. And now the trio are ready and step into the 

 to wade a short distance toward the pool before cas 

 The six dusky canoemen line the shore, some holding 

 landing nets ready, others adjusting their tumakums, but 

 keeping a sharp lookout upon the anglers. Davey has ptffl 

 a few yards between liimself and the red men, and, 

 seated on a rock, watches for the opening of the play. 

 He has never seen a salmon taken with the fly, is quite 

 Bure that slender "gad" will never "hould 'im," and su 

 regards the whole thing as ridiculous. 



Walter casts his Durham-ranger with much skill away 

 out into the rapid water at the head of the pool, and as it 

 floats away he draws it in by a succession of short smart 

 pulls. The other two pause and keenly watch the gaudjj 

 hue. Now it begins to sweep in toward the shore a little" 

 and has just reached that spot where the experienced 

 angler expects a rise, when there is a rush, a flash, ?J 

 strike, but lo, the feeling of disappointment, as the lly 

 sails harmlessly through the air. A murmur and excitetjj 

 shake of the head pass through the spectators, while 

 Davey shrugs his shoulders and forces back a derisiva 

 smile. 



"Now, Walter, my turn," said James, sweeping his 

 long 17-footer through the air and dropping his Jock- 

 Scott lightly in the pool. Down it went with the rapid 

 current until about the middle of the pool, when it was 

 drawn as before. As it curves round there is another 

 splash and another miss. Evidently the fish are not on 

 their take to-day or else they have not found their favoc+ 

 ite fly. Phil follows suit with the same result. Upoffl 

 consultation they decide to give the fish a rest. 01m 

 anglers invariably do this, especially upon missing a riflffl 

 or two, as they think the fish, growing accustomed to 

 the regular appearance and disappearance of the lure, 

 will fail to respond or will even become afraid of it. 



After a rest of fifteen minutes Walter's fly was sweep- 

 ing around the curve at the critical point, when he got m 

 splendid rise and hooked his fish firmly. Then the rem 

 hummed out its thrilling music, the rod bent with a 

 graceful curve and all eyes were scanning the surface 

 for the first break. Presently a bright object sprang into 

 the air near the head of the pool, and at the same 

 moment a shout from the Indians echoed far and near as 

 they rushed toward the point indicated. Back fell the 

 fish as Walter reeled him in. Then he darted down the 

 pool and again flung himself high in the air just opposite 

 Davey, who had left his rock and was gazing into the 

 water. 



"A foine fish ye've got, Misthur Miller," shouted 

 Cookey, rashing into the river and wading toward Wal- 

 ter; "gie me a grip o' the shtring, an' my word fur it, he'll 

 ind his jig on the shore." 



"No, no, my good fellow; thanks for your offer, but he'd 

 be sure to break loose." (Walter is very polite, even in 

 the midst of exciting scenes.) 



"Break loose!" returned Davey, "faith he'll break that 

 slinder swutch o' yers in a giffy ef — Aye, there lie goes, 

 again, like a March hare wf a pinch o' snuff in hus ^nose.. 

 Don't be foolish, man, gie us the shtring." 



Again Walter refused the proffered help; and Davey,' 

 turning, waded without another word to the shore, seatecy 

 himself on his rock, and seemed to take no further inter- 

 est in the struggle, confident that it must have but one 

 ending. 



For fifteen minutes or more the fight was continued, 

 when the fish showed signs of letting up, and soon Louis 

 had him nicely netted. He tipped the spring balance at 

 l6lbs. Davey admired him very much, but could see na 

 good in "fooliu " with a fish so long. 



Then it was James's turn, and he, too, on the second 

 cast struck a fine fish, which afforded some excellent 

 sport, and was safely landed. He weighed 14;}lbs. Phil's 

 luck proved a grilse — a young salmon about 8Albs. in> 

 weight. These are very active, and give fine play for five 

 or six minutes, but are soon wearied. Again Walter 

 raised and hooked a fine one, but lost it when the Indian 

 was about to bag it. James landed his second fish saf ely r 

 which scaled 121bs. For half an hour longer the pool was 

 whipped, but without another rise. 



Meanwhile Davey, who is an excellent cook, had dinner 

 under way, and soon we were seated, enjoying a rare 

 dainty dish of fried grilse. It is more delicate in flavor, 

 sweeter and more juicy than the full-grown salmon, and 

 the grain of the flesh is finer. We made a hearty, sub- 

 stantial meal, the, by no means, least enjoyable part of it 

 being Davey's laughable references to our mode of cap- 

 turing salmon. 



And now let us take a look at the group on the sand a 

 few paces away. They sit in a circle with their legs 

 crossed beneath them. A large black tin kettle is in the 

 center, from the top of which projects a salmon tail, 

 while a similar one stands near filled with black tea. 

 Bread and hardtack lie in piles on flat stones around the 

 kettles, while tin cups and a huge bowl of molasses com- 

 plete the outfit. On the knees of each rests a pressed tin 

 plate, while the right hand holds a sheath knife, drawn 

 from its scabbard on the belt. All eyes are upon the 

 steaming kettle, and as the flavor of boiled salmon reaches 

 the nose thep grow more impatient to begin. Presently 

 Sak turns the vessel over, and a whole fish, in two pieces, 

 slides out upon the flat stones. This is the signal of 

 battle. Plates, knives and fingers are soon busy, and in 

 the twinkling of an eye that whole salmon disappears 

 from the center. Piled up on six dishes, it is fast melt- 

 ing away, and soon nothing, save the backbone, jaws and 

 skull, remains. It has all been converted into red man. 

 Davey grows uneasy; the monsters of last night are again 

 on the trail, and early starvation and tomahawks haunt 

 his imagination. 



"It's jist es I tould ye," he observed, turning toward us 

 with a hopeless look, "the' ah at their ould thricks agin, 

 an' divil a hap'urth o' vittels 'ull be fur the morrow 

 night." 



"Don't be alarmed, Davey, we'll feed them on salmon," 

 said James in encouraging tones. 



