306 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[May 8, 1890. 



•f human life; and yet did not, as others have done, lose 

 sympathy with those who in the heat and dust and per- 

 plexity of the day were cheered and encouraged by the 

 wordB he wrote and sent forth from his woodland camps. 



The salient points of "Nessmuk's" life are best told in 

 these modest notes which he himself prepared as a 

 preface to the "Runes," published in 1887: 



It is a sad necessity that compels a man to speak often 

 or much of himself. Most writers come to loathe the 

 first person singular, and to look upon the capital I as a 

 pronominal calamity. And yet, how can a man tell 

 aught of himself without the ''eternal ego?" 



I am led to these remarks by a request of my publishers 

 that I furnish some account of myself in issuing this little 

 volume of verse. Readers who take an interest in the 

 book will, as a rule, wish to know something of the 

 author's antecedents, they think. It might also be 

 thought that the man who has spent a large share of the 

 summer and autumn months in the deep forests, and 

 mostly alone, for fifty years, ought to have a large stock 

 of anecdote and adventure to draw on. 



It is not so certain, this view of it. The average per- 

 son is slow to understand how utterly monotonous and 

 lonely is a life in the depth of a primal forest, even to the 

 most incorrigible hunter. Few city sportsmen will be- 

 lieve, without practical observation, that a man may 

 hunt faithfully in an unbroken forest for an entire week 

 without getting a single shot, and one wet week, espe- 

 cially if it be cold and stormy, is usually enough to dis- 

 gust Mm who has traveled hundreds of miles for an out- 

 ing at much outlay of time and money. 



And yet this is a common experience of the most 

 rdent still-hunter. 



In the gloomy depths of an unbroken forest there is 

 seldom a song bird to be heard. The absence of small 

 game is remarkable; and the larger animals, deer, bears 

 and panthers, are 6carce and shy. In such a forest I have 

 myself hunted faithfully from Monday morning till Sat- 

 urday night, from daylight till dark each day, and at 

 the end of the first day brought the old double-barreled 

 muzzleloader into camp with the same bullets in the gun 

 that I drove home on the first morning. And I crept 

 stealthily through the thickets in still-hunting moccasins 

 on the evening of the last day with as much courage and 

 enjoyment as on the first morning. For I knew that, 

 sooner or later, the supreme moment would come, when 

 the black, satiny coat of a bear, or the game-looking 

 "short-blue" coat of a buck would, for an instant, offer 

 fair for the deadly bead. 



And once, in a dry, noisy, Indian summer time, I am 

 ashamed to say, I still-hunted 17 days without getting 

 one shot at a deer. It was the worst luck I ever bad, but 

 I enjoyed the weather and the solitary camp-life. At 

 last there came a soft November rain, the rustling leaves 

 became bike a wet rug, and the nights were pitch dark. 

 Then the deer came forth from swamps and laurel brakes, 

 the walking was almost noiseless, and I could kill all i 

 could take care of. 



It is only the born woods crank who can enjoy going 

 to the depths of a lonely forest with a heavy rifle and 

 stinted rations, season after season, to camp alone for 

 weeks at a stretch, in a region as dreary and desolate as- 

 Broad way on a summer afternoon in May. 



It is only the descendants of Ananias who are always 

 meeting with hair-breadth escapes and startling adven- 

 tures on their hunting trips. To the practical skilled 

 woodsman their wonderful stories bear the plain imprint 

 of lies. He knows that the deep forest is more safe than 

 the most orderly town; and that there is more danger of 

 meeting one "bridge gang" than there would be in 

 meeting all the wild animals in New York and Penn- 

 sylvania. 



These facts will explain why I have so little to relate 

 in the way of adventure, though my aggregate of camp 

 life, most of it alone, will foot up at least twelve years 



I can scarcely recall a dozen adventures in as many 

 years outings, culled from the cream of fifty seasons. 

 Incidents of woods life, and interesting ones, are of 

 almost daily occurrence; and these, to the ardent lover 

 of nature, form the attraction of forest life in a far 

 greater degree than does the brutal love of slaughter for 

 the mere pleasure of killing something just because it is 

 alive. 



Just here my literary Mentor and Stentor, who has been 

 coolly going through my MSS., remarks sententiously, 

 Better throw this stuff into the stove and start off with 

 your biography. That is what the editor wants." I an- 

 swer vaguely "Story? Lord bless you; I have none to 

 v C 'l" - ! • Alas! , there 18 so llfcfcle in an ordinary humdrum 

 life that is worth the telling. And there is such a wilder- 

 ness of biographies that no one cares to read '* 



r-v^j ^« uo a,^ iuc juuj.wr wanes. which is co 

 mentary and encouraging. 



"I must say it's the toughest job of penwork I ever 

 tackled; I don't know where to begin " 



in'Se°town B o e f g ^» the USUal ^ Say you were born 

 "There's where you're out. I wasn't born in any town 

 whatever, but m what New Englanders call a <gore'-a 

 triangular strip of land that gets left out somehow when 

 wh J^ n8 ^ jn^eyed. They reckon it in. however, 

 » a v, t ° me l t ?- tax ? s: but lt: rather gets left on schools." 

 t H „^Al° + i n b & ev V fc We ^ fi x it up to suit yourself. 

 I suppose the editor keeps a 'balaam box'." 



laking this leave and a handful of my Lone-Jack C 

 saunters off to the village, and I am left to myself? Perl 

 haps his advice is good. Let's see how it will work on a 

 send-off For instance, I was born in a sterile mrt of 

 sterile Massachusetts, on the border of Dougli Woods 

 W fcA alf > a mile ° f T Ne P mu S p °*<i, and witMn three 

 to th^'Sonth am ^ Thiss tartli'ng event happen^ 



mthe bouth Gore about sixty-four years ago I did 



™ aV6 , a faU ' aVera ^ e 8tart in bfe atfi ^- A snuffy old 

 SEfS WaS pre , Sent f, ra ^ birth was fon d of telling 

 me m after years a legend like this: "Ga-a-rge you onV 

 S , ed f0 P 0 ^^ you wuz born' V We put ye 

 inter a quart mug n' turned a sasser over ye." 

 I could have killed her, but I didn't. Though 1 was 



assi8ted at b - ^ « 



the time of which I speak, and a plentiful ftoQk o? pick- 



erel, perch and other fish. It was just the sort of coun- 

 try to delight the Indian mind; and here it was that 

 a remnant of the Nepmug Indians had a reservation, 

 while they also had a camp on the shores of Nepmug 

 Pond, where they spent much time, loafing, fishing, 

 making baskets, and setting snares for rabbits and grouse. 

 They were a disreputable gang of dirtv, copper-colored 

 vagabonds, with little notion of responsibility or decency, 

 and too lazy even to hunt. 



There were a few exceptions, however. Old Ja-ha 

 was past ninety, and the head man of the gang. He 

 really had a deal of the oldtime Indian dignity; but it 

 was all thrown away on that band of shiftless reprobates. 

 There were two or three young squaws, suspiciously 

 light of complexion, but finely formed and of handsome 

 features. "I won't go bail for anything beyond." 



The word Nepmuk, or as it is sometimes spelled, Nep- 

 mug, means woodduck. This, in the obsolete lingo of 

 the once powerful Narragansetts. The best Indian of the 

 band was "Injun Levi," as the whites called him. He 

 was known among his tribe as "Nessmuk;" and I think 

 he exerted a stronger influence on my future than any 

 other man. As a fine physical specimen of the animal 

 man I have seldom seen his equal. As a woodsman and 

 trusty friend he was good as gold, but he could not change 

 the Indian nature that throbbed in every vein and filled 

 his entire being. Just here I cannot do better than re- 

 produce a sketch of him and his tribe which appeared in 

 the columns of Forest and Stream in December, 1881. 

 I will add that Junkamaug is only a corruption of the 

 Indian name, and the other names I give as I had them 

 from the Indians themselves: 



Nessmuk means in the Narragansett tongue, or did mean, as 

 long as there were any Narragansetts to give tongue, Woodduck, 

 or leather Wooddrake. 



Also, it was the name of the athletic young brave who was wont 

 to steal me away from home before I was five, vears old, and carry 

 me around Nepmug and .Tunkamausj lakes, dav after day, untiL I 

 imbibed much of his woodcraft, all his love for forest life, and 

 alas, much of his good-natured sinfulness. 



Even now my blood flows faster as I think of the rides I had on 

 his well-formed shoulders, and a denth-grip on his strong, black 

 mane. Or rode "belly-bumps" on his back across old Junkatnaug, 

 hugging him tightly around the neck, like the selfish little Egotist 

 that I was. Retire? lie drown? I would as soon have thought 

 to tire a wolf or drown a whale. At first these excursions were 

 not fairly concluded without a final settlement at borne— said set- 

 tlement consisting of a bead-raking with a fine-toothed comb, 

 that left my scalp raw, and a subsequent interview, of a private 

 nature, with "Par" behind the barn, at which a yearling apple 

 tree sprout was always a leading factor. (My blood tingles at 

 that recollection too). 



Gradually they came to understand that I was incorrigible, or. 

 as a maiden aunt of the old school put it, "given over;" and, so 

 that I did not run away from school, I was allowed to "run with 

 them dirty Injuns," as the aunt aforesaid expressed it. 



But I did run away from school, and books of the dry sort, to 

 study the great book of nature. Did I lose by it? I cannot tell, 

 even now. 



As the world goes, perhaps yes. 



No man can transcend bis possibilities. 



I am no believer in the supernatural; mesmerism, spiritualism 

 and a dozen other isms are, to me, but as fetish. But, I some- 

 times ask myself, did the strong, healthy, magnetic nalure of that 

 Indian pass into my boyish life as I rodo on bis powerful shoul- 

 ders or slept in his strong arms beneath the soft whisperine- pines 

 of Douelas Woods? 



Poor Nessmuk! Poor Lo! Fifty years ago the remnant of that 

 tribe numbered thirty-six, housed, fed and clothed by the Stat*. 

 The same number of Dutchmen, under the same conditions, would 

 have, overrun the Slate ere this. 



The Indians have passed away forever; and when I tried to lind 

 the resting place of my old friend, with the view of putting a plain 

 stone above, his grave, no one could poiut out the spot. 



And this is how I happen to write over the name bv which he 

 was known among his people, and the reason wbv a favorite doe 

 or canoe is quite likely to be called Nessmuk. 



The foregoing will partly explain how it came that, 

 ignoring the weary, devious roads by which men attain 

 to wealth and position, I became a devotee of nature in 

 her wildest and roughest aspects — a lover of field sports 

 —a hunter, angler, trapper and canoeist— an uneducated 

 man withal, save the education that comes of long and 

 close communion with nature, and a perusal of the best 

 English authors. 



Endowed by nature with an instinctive love of poetry, 

 I early dropped into the habit of rhyming. Not with any 

 thought or ambition to become a poet: but because at 

 times a train of ideas would keep waltzing through my 

 head in rhyme and rhythm like a musical nightmare, 

 until I got rid of measure and metre by transferring them 

 to paper, or, as more than once happened, to white birch 

 bark, when paper was not to be had. 



I never yet sat down with malice prepense to rack and 

 wrench my light mental machinery for the evolution of 

 a poem through a rabid desire for literary laurel. On 

 the contrary, much of the best verse I have ever written 

 has gone to loss through being penciled on damp, whity- 

 brown paper or birch bark, in woodland camps or on 

 canoeing cruises, and then rammed loosely into a wet 

 pocket or knapsack, to turn up illegible or missing when 

 wanted. When 



"I looked in unlikely places 

 Where lost things are sure to be found," 

 and found them not, I said, all the better for my readers, 

 if I ever have any. Let them go with the thistle-down,' 

 far a-lee. (The rhymes, not the readers.) 



I trust that the sparrow-hawks of criticism, who de- 

 light equally in eulogizing laureates and scalping linnets, 

 will deal gently with an illiterate backwoodsman who 

 ventures to plant his moccasins in the realms of rhyme. 

 Maybe they will pass me by altogether, as 



"A literary tomtit, the chickadee of song." 

 There must be a few graybeards left who remember 

 Nessmuk through the medium of Porter's Spirit of tJie 

 Times, in the long ago fifties; and many more who have 

 come to regard him kindly as a contributor to Forest 

 and Stream. If it happens that a thousand or so of 

 these have a curiosity to see what sort of score an old 

 woodsman can make as an off-hand, short-range poet, it 

 will be a complimentary feather in the cap of the author. 



The Christian Union is to be congratulated for having 

 added to its corps Mr. > William B. Howland as publisher. 

 We know of no one of the religious journals more de- 

 serving of the highest talent in its business office, nor of 

 any one more worthy of the place than is Mr. Howland. 

 As the founder of the Outing magazine, and for several 

 years the editor and publisher of the Cambridge, Mass., 

 Tribune, Mr. Howland has given abundant proof of the 

 possession of unusual enterprise and ability, and in the 

 broader field now opened to him these will surely tell to 

 the advantage of the CJiristum Union and it? widening 

 circle of readers, 



fa Mpwteiil*** %onmt 



CAMP LIFE IN COLORADO. 



MANY times when on hunting trips and in camp I 

 have thought bow fortunate I was in my boyhood 

 in having a kindly old grandfather — a veteran of 1812 — 

 who had been in early days an ardent hunter and trapper. 

 His talks around the fireside in the long winter evenings 

 will always be remembered as among the pleasantest ex- 

 periences of my boyhood life. This was at an age when 

 the deadliest weapon I was allowed to handle was a bow 

 and arrow, and I tell you there was no one who could 

 make an arrow quite equal to grandfather. 



My father was a lumberman, and after a summer on 

 the farm he would pack up what was necessary, and 

 away we would all go to the pine woods of northern 

 Wisconsin. This meant lots of work and worry for 

 father and mother, but a long grand picnic for us boys. 

 There was a large settlement of Winnebago Indians near 

 the scene of father's operations, and we would hardly be 

 settled in our log cabin a day before I would be off to the 

 Indian camps and hunt up my comrades among the 

 Indian boys, and we would then try conclusions at shoot- 

 ing with bow and arrow, running races and such like 

 sports. I think now that my love for such things made 

 them like me, and made me safe in their hands. I could 

 never quite equal their best shots, and small wonder, for 

 I've seen little rascals not over ten to twelve years old 

 knock a penny from a split stick at 20 to 30yds. 



Before my grandfather died he taught me not only 

 how to trap the different animals, but to tan tbeir skins 

 either for leather or fur; he also taught me to load and 

 fire a long old-fashioned single shotgun, and I believe it 

 was a prouder day for me when I killed my first bird, 

 than when, years after, I stood over my first elk or 

 mountain sheep. 



Fifteen years later I was in the Elk Mountains of Colo- 

 rado doing a little mining and a good deal of hunting. I 

 wonder if there will ever come a time when I can enjoy 

 another such a spell of wild, free camp life. What a joy 

 there was in living in that high, dry atmosphere. I was 

 as lean and hard as a trained stag hound. No tramp was 

 too long for my hardened muscles. As I pause from 

 writing and look up at the old sombrero, hob-nailed boots 

 and duck coat on the walls of my den, a flood of recollec- 

 tions comes over me that makes me want to turn my 

 back on civilization once more and again wander among 

 the snow-clad peaks for game worth killing. 



I never shall forget a pleasant little incident that occur- 

 red on one of our jaunts in the Gunnison country. 



There were three of us in the party. We had outfitted 

 at a small town on the Gunnison River, and with ponies, 

 pack mules, camp outfit and a month's supply of provis- 

 ions had started up one of the small streams that empty 

 into the Gunnison. It was in the latter part of summer; 

 beautiful weather, and not a drop of rain need be ex- 

 pected for months. Our objective point was a range of 

 low mountains in the Ute reservation, near the head- 

 waters of the stream we were following, where I confi- 

 dently expected to catch a black-tailed buck or two before 

 he had rubbed the fur off his horns, as I wished to get a 

 fine set of antlers. I have noticed that at this time of the 

 year the bucks climb up into the highest hills and remain, 

 usually in some quaking aspen grove, until their horns 

 are hard. Once or twice in my wanderings I have been 

 fortunate enough to approach within 40 or 50yds., and 

 quietly watch them rubbing their horns on a tree. Oh, 

 for a camera to have photographed the noble fellow 

 before breaking his neck with a rifle ball! 



We had finished our first day's ride, picketed out the 

 animals and were making preparations for supper, when 

 we saw three horsemen approaching from down the 

 valley. They were accompanied by the usual number of 

 pack mules, and on a near approach we recognized two 

 of them as old comrades in the mines years before, who 

 had spent the winter in Mexico and were on their way 

 back to the mines. The third man of their party was a 

 stranger to us, but as the sequel will show proved a wel' 

 come addition to our party. A general invitation to i 

 share our camping ground was accepted, and an hour 

 later, with pipes lit, and our feet to the fire, we settled 

 down for an evening of solid enjoyment. The boys from 

 Mexico entertained us with talk of greasers, bright-eyed 

 Mexican beauties, legends of the Aztecs and cliff dwel- 

 lers, and the hours passed quickly. 



I had noticed when the stranger unpacked his mule 

 his careful handling of a violin-shaped box, but it was 

 nearly midnight before I thought to ask him what he had 

 in the package he handled so carefully. He answered 

 that it was "just an old violin I keep to* amuse the boys 

 with," The hour was late, but nothing would do but we 

 must have some music, and no Ole Bull with a genuine 

 Stradivarius ever charmed an audience more than this 

 fellow did us, and when he played "Home Sweet Home" 

 with the sweetest variations I ever heard, it is needless 

 to say we were all more or less moved, and more than 

 one of us was obliged to change his seat in. the light for 

 one more in the shadow, and grumble at the smoke to ' 

 hide his emotion. We afterward learned that the little ( 

 musician was classically educated and had played in ' 

 some large Eastern concert company. A failure in busi- 

 ness and disappointment in love had driven him an exile 

 to the Western wilds, where he hoped to retrieve his 

 fortune and forget his sorrows. The new arrivals were 

 ready for anything in the way of adventure, and con- 

 cluded to join our party. 



We had passed a mile or so back on the road the shanty 

 and out-building of a ranchman, and remembering that . 

 we saw a garment hung out on the line that could not 

 well belong to a male ranchman, I concluded to go back 

 and see if there was any fresh butter to be had at the 

 house. On approaching the buildings, I was met by the 

 wettest, muddiest, and most prof ane man I ever saw. He 

 was a tvpical Arkansaw bull puncher, and I shall not soon 

 forget his artistic swearing. I could almost imagine I 

 smelled brimstone, and nearly made up my mind to beat 

 a retreat, but thinking I could not be the cause of his 

 wrath, I remained to learn what the trouble was. He 

 finally cooled off enough to explain. The beavers were 

 bothering the life out of him by damming up his irrigate 

 ing ditches, and he had had to tramp to the head of 

 the ditch every morning for some time, and undo, 

 the night's work of the beaver. On explaining what I 

 wanted he said we could have anything on the ranch if 

 we would only stay over a, few days and manage some 



