June 5, 1890.] 

 , 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



387 



of his constituents. He thereby shows me my real op- 

 portunity and work. My business as an intelligent ad- 

 vocate is with bis constituents, with the people. If I can 

 convince them they will attend to him. If I can bring 

 my object or plan to their attention and consideration, 

 and can obtain their judgment upon it, that is all I need 

 desire. Either they will pronounce the verdict which I 

 seek, and their representatives will faithfully register it 

 in their action, or, if they decide against me, I must 

 make a new beginning, plan another campaign of popular 

 discussion, and try the case all over again. 



But few men have the stomach or patience for such 

 work. They are soon tired of discussion and begin to 

 scold. In our country the real appeal is always to the 

 people, and it is best in every way that it should be so. 

 If legislation for the best objects were obtainable without 

 the support of the people's judgment, no great benefits 

 would result from it. Government in a democracy ought 

 to be government by discussion, and what a majority of 

 the people desire and prefer after adequate discussion 

 should be decreed and done. 



I have seen all these ideas illustrated in various ways 

 in the course of effort to secure popular attention to the 

 forest interests of the State of New York, and have ob- 

 served many other things of interest, not to be fully 

 described at present for want of time. I think as much 

 has been accomplished as could reasonably be expected 

 under all the conditions, and considering especially the 

 amount of effort hitherto devoted to the forestry agita- 

 tion and its unorganized method and character. There is 

 an organization now, and the New York State Forestry 

 Association is in favor of decided action by the people of 

 the State for the preservation of the mountain forests, 

 which are necessary to the existence and value of the 



freat waterways of the State of New York. The matter 

 as been committed to the present Forest Commission for 

 a thorough investigation, its findings and recommenda- 

 tions to be reported to the next Legislature. 



This practically puts the business directly into the hands 

 of the people of the State for their decision. The work 

 for this summer and the coming autumn is discussion, and 

 it should be full and effective. I think it would be wise 

 and well for the people to acquire title to the land of an 

 extensive region around the sources of the principal 

 streams of the State, and to provide for the permanent 

 maintenance of forest conditions over the entire area. 

 What do you think about it, and what do you wish to 

 have done in the matter when it comes up for decision a 

 few months hence? What do the people— all the people 

 of the State — think and wish regarding it. the lumber- 

 men, city residents, hunters, fishermen, and owners of 

 timber lands, clubmen and individual woodsmen? How- 

 ever you may like or dislike what has been done in the 

 past, the matter has been referred to you now, and the 

 past is mostly dead and out of reach. 



How can such a plan for permanent forest conservancy 

 be most wisely and economically carried into actual prac- 

 tical effect? The State can undoubtedly buy some of the 

 land of the region in question, at prices not unreasonable, 

 and the rest of it could be taken, I suppose, by right of emi- 

 nent domain, if the people of the State so desire. But I 

 am not a lawyer, and have no materials for an opinion on 

 a legal question. What have the lawyers to say in rela-. 

 tion to this subject of eminent domain, in connection 

 with the effort to establish a great State Park in the Adi- 

 rondack region? J. B. Harrison, 

 Cor. Sec. N. Y. State For. Asso. 

 53 "William Street, N. Y. 



THE BRIDAL TOUR OF THE KENNEDYS. 



[.Concluded from Last Week.'] 



AND now, in the figure of the play actors, the scenes 

 will have to be shifted, for my husband went a 

 hunting, while I remained at the hotel with the B 's, 

 fellow tourists, whose acquaintance we made soon after 

 we came to Wagon Wheel Gap, and with whom we took 

 many delightful excursions. His story follows. 



I come into this story, not necessarily for publication, 

 but as an evidence of good faith. The incredulity of the 

 nineteenth century is nowhere more pronounced than in 

 the presence of the hunting story ; and it is only that the 

 truth of this one may be placed beyond question that I 

 consented to tell it myself. Much, however, is being 

 done by the daily press toward rebuking this spirit of un- 

 belief, bv means of a series of hunting stories appearing 

 in the Saturday editions. These articles are carefully 

 prepared by a newspaper union, whose correspondents, 

 owing to their geographical whereabouts, cannot be dis- 

 puted. Some of us will not soon forget a late and graphic 

 Btory from South Africa of a boa constrictor who enticed 

 a three-year-old steer to a precipice by means of corn 

 scattered along the ground, whereupon it took a turn 

 around the steer's neck with its tail and a ha If -hitch 

 about a tree with its head, and with the aid of a boa con- 

 federate pushed it over the edge and hung it. Aside 

 Erom its having happened in Africa, the innate reason- 

 ableness of this anecdote carried conviction with it. 

 The boa constructor who furnished the account had a 

 Kodak with him, and the paper was thus enabled to 

 Lllust.ra.te it. 



Selecting a day when my morning meal occurred in the 

 forenoon, attired in my Dutch Renaissance suit, slightly 

 sulged out at the Renaissance with sandwiches, I mounted 

 ;hat celebrated calico horse Pinto, and, after some pre- 

 iminary antics, succeeded in passing near enough to 

 roung Mr. Franklyn to enable him to hand up my" rifle. 

 It the base of the mountain fronting the Gap I found a 

 >ridle path, up which Pinto deftly carried me for two 

 lours. And then, for some distance beyond where the 

 path disappeared, he struggled upward,*tacking to and 

 'ro on the steep ascents, of his own volition, stopping oc- 

 Jasionally to breathe and to crop a mouthful of grass or 

 rashes, until the climbing became too steep for even 

 f*into. Here I found a small thicket which stood out 

 veil from the timber higher up; and removing the saddle 

 md bridle I tied him securely. I soon had cause to 

 yrapathize with him, for the climbing in such an alti- 

 ude was very laberious. 



Going out on to a shoulder of the mountain to where I 

 :ould command a good view, I sat down against a big 

 >ine tree and, with my glass, carefully scrutinized the 

 >ppisite slope for game. Now, an object would attract 

 ay attention in that stretch of burnt timber, and long 

 oepection would determine it to be a stump. A bush 

 eould move in a little clump in the ravine below me; 



and I would lie there and focus my attention upon it for 

 what seemed an hour, until a certain rhythm was dis- 

 covered in its motion which told of the wind. Then it 

 would be a brown rock in the black timber again. At 

 last I satisfied myself that there was no* live thing in 

 sight, and went on up my own side of the mountain. 

 And yet, lying down in the glancing sunlight in that 

 burnt timber there was a blacktail deer. A buck, with 

 pronged antlers a foot long, in the velvet. 



Bat all oblivious to this I toiled upward and acrofs a 

 thicket of second growth. But who had been here before 

 me in the early morning? There by that blackened log 

 was a footprint. Who but a hunter can know the thrill- 

 ing ecstacy of the sight! On your own mountain, for no one 

 else is within miles of you; with a fair day and a fair 

 chase before you, for your noble quarry is gifted with 

 senses and instinct far more than a match for your crude 

 cunning, and a speed that will outfly anything but a bul- 

 let, and the strength to carry that away with it unless 

 rightly aimed. There in the path— for the primitive 

 mountainside is full of paths— ten feet ahead is some- 

 thing—a shade of altered color in the earth— a crescent 

 furrow in the hard ground that draws you thither, and as 

 you stealthily obey, your eyes grope through the leaves 

 into the open forest beyond and satisfy you that they are 

 not so near. "They," because this crescent mark you 

 have just trod over is smaller and lighter. It is the 

 mother and her daughter who have breakfasted down 

 this way this morning. Once at the edge of the thicket 

 you can stop and get your glass and get down and crawl 

 out carefully and take a long look into every corner of 

 the visible world. 

 They have passed on. 



You track them the best you can, but it takes an horn- 

 to demonstrate that the two of them have come to this 

 sylvan grove with malice aforethought. There was break- 

 fast here of a kind to their liking, and they have taken it 

 up and down, back and across, like a weaver's shuttle or 

 a brace of pointers. As you laboriously make out the 

 Sanscrit, you speculate upon what running comments 

 the wise mother made upon the hygiene of the forest's 

 growth. Oh, to have taken part in that discussion. 



Beyond the trees there is another bushy growth, atrack- 

 less waste of rocks. The ground might as well have been 

 strewn with sleigh bells and paved with tiles. Your ap- 

 proach is audible to a deer for minutes before you could 

 see it, and to end the matter there are no tracks. Beyond 

 lay another stretch of open timber with friable soil, but 

 they have not passed up this way. 



And here, on Aug. 17, it began to snow, and in a few 

 minutes there was enough of it to drive me to shelter 

 and to partially quench my thirst. In half an hour it 

 was warm again, and, having come to the very top of 

 the mountain, wbere one could look down the other side, 

 I sat down and ate my sandwiches. 



This little plat of ground at the summit is the "home 

 acre" of the wilderness. I suppose that if the animals 

 and birds have any real, primordial place that they con- 

 sider as being where they are "from," as we Western no- 

 mads hold in memory and veneration some New Eng- 

 land village or Reserve town, it is the top of the moun- 

 tain. It certainly has that appearance. All the paths 

 lead to it. The earth is as worn there as the dooryard of 

 a large household. The very trees look as if they had 

 been prematurely ascended by boys. And you can be- 

 lieve It or not as you choose, but there is a rat hole! 



Yes, there is a fresh deer track leading down the iden- 

 tical gully of the opera glass. 



And down I go after it. And he took a drink at a 

 spring, a very tiny, attenuated trickle it is, and so do I. 



We sometimes wonder how primeval Man, the Hunter, 

 with his primitive weapons, ever kept the wolf from the 

 door (though I suspect that when the wolf did come to the 

 door he was killed and eaten). But Man the Hunter had 

 the premonitions and instincts of his environment just as 

 Man the Dodger of Tax Collectors has of his. From an 

 early Cave Dweller by the name of Kennedy I must have 

 inherited a trace of this psychic knowledge of a vanished 

 race. I felt so entirely different going down the moun- 

 tain on this track from going up on the other. Over- 

 trained thinkers may attribute it to the fact that I had had 

 my dinner, or that it is more inspiring to walk down hill 

 than up, but that had nothing to do with it. This time I 

 knew I was going to see a deer, and I did. The other 

 time, I don't know to this day, scientifically speaking, 

 whether there was any deer there or not. Those tracks 

 might have been put there with a stencil for all I know. 

 They were old tracks anyway. 



Going up from the spring, he had trudged straight 

 ahead around the brow of the mountain and into the 

 blackened timber, and I followed with as little delay as 

 was consistent with caution and absolute silence. I 

 wore rubber tennis shoes that made no noise, the wind 

 was in my favor, and there was nothing against me but 

 my looks. And then, where the way was steep, some 

 treacherous damp root or stone threw my feet from under 

 me and down I came among the rocks with a crash. My 

 gun, which was in my left hand, threw it against a rock, 

 the whole weight of the gun coming down on top of one 

 finger. Despite the pain, I was up in instant, and so, 

 200yds away, was the deer from his bed among the trees. 

 Of course I began shooting at him in an instant, but he 

 had disappeared before I had three shots, and what with 

 the trees, the distance, my poor shooting and my cracked 

 finger, he trotted off unharmed (the blacktails do trot). 



It was a fair chance and I had lost. I am sorry for the 

 reader's sake that I fell, and that I missed him and that 

 I cannot tell how I proudly carried home the trophy; 

 but I fear that, between the trophy and the descendant 

 of Kennedy the Cave Dweller, Pinto would have had a 

 hard time of it getting back to the Gap. 



As it wa*, when I got back to the ravine and up on the 

 other part of the mountain, I had a hard time even to 

 find him. Down there on the bare strptchfs there were 

 at least twenty thickets that looked like Pinto's. So I 

 sat down and watched a drove of horses meandering 

 across the hills in and out of succesive thickets until one 

 of their pioneers quickly emerged from one of them in 

 the direction he came from. I thousht I recognized 

 Pinto's heels, and so it proved, and, with a cigar in my 

 mouth and an occasional mouthful of grass in his, we 

 were soon wending our eater-cornered way homeward. 



Our camp life was drawing to a close, and Henry had 

 caught no very large fish. The station agent. Mr." Rey- 

 nolds, had caught a four-pounder the day we arrived 

 there. The local fisherman had made one catch of thirty 



fish that averaged over a pound in weight, and several of 

 Mr. Franklyn's guests had caught two and tbree-pcund- 

 ers. The trouble with us was that when we caught 

 enough for our wants we had to stop. There was no one 

 to give the fish to and they could not be wasted. One 

 day some "valley people" drove into our little meadow 

 and camped near us. They had nothing to fish with but 

 a bare hook. Henry gave them some flies, and seeing 

 that they were likely fish-consumers, we started down 

 the river, he with his rod and I with my waterproof, 

 umbrella and tin bucket, and while I picked some rasp- 

 berries he caught an even dozen beauties. All the time 

 he was doing it a tourist from the hotel whipped the 

 water in vain. Going home we saw an elderly gentle- 

 man, a new arrival, fishing at the foot of a meadow. 

 Henry stopped to look at him. He looked as if he had 

 come two thousand miles to fish that stream. He was so 

 eager. It did one good to see him. Henry t aid, "There 

 is the best fisherman I ever saw, barring Northrup. See 

 how he covers his ground and how surely he puts his 

 cast over ever pool in the stream." 



It was cloudy, and the current was mild where he was, 

 and we called to him to put on a red-ibis and go further 

 down: but we were dressed so poorly that I fear he un- 

 dervalued our advice, for he kept on catching "saxdines." 



A few days after that we caught seven fish that weighed 

 just 71bs. One weighed 21lbs., one 2, one 1, and four 

 smaller ones. We ate the smaller and better flavored 

 ones and sent the larger to the hotel. 



We were going to Antelope Park and Clear Creek Falls, 

 thirty miles further into the mountains, in company with 

 the B — s, so early one morning we broke camp, left our 

 things in the station, and started; Mr. and Mrs. B. and 

 Miss Emily going on ahead in a two horse carriage with 

 our small satchels and the camera and ride, we following 

 an hour later on Biddy and Pinto. Our first objective 

 point was the So wards, at Antelope Park, eighteen miles 

 distant. It was a lovely ride. We overtook the carriage 

 at Camp Sterry, deserted now, where I dismounted and 

 Miss B. took my place on Biddy. It was a rather ven- 

 turesome trip, as we did not know whether or .not the 

 Sowards could receive us, and there was no other place 

 to stop. But when we arrived at 2 o'clock, tired and 

 hungry, we found a warm welcome, and, a little later, 

 one of the very best dinners we ever tasted; and this 

 tribute to Mrs. Soward can better be appreciated when it 

 is remembered that she was twenty miles away from a 

 railroad and fifty miles from any store. There were 

 young grouse fried, with cream gravy; ham and eggs, 

 potatoes, delicious rolls, fresh butter, milk, tea and coffee, 

 preserves and cake. How hungry we were! And shall 

 I ever forget the funny things Mrs. B. said, or the sur- 

 passing kindliness and geniality— surpassing even for 

 Mr. B. — with which he presided at the feast. 



That evening we made the better acquaintance of the 

 Sowards. There were Mr. and Mrs. Soward and their 

 two sons, the oldest, who is married, living further 

 over in the Park. Henry and the two sons talked guns 

 in the living room, where a rousing wood-fire made the 

 house warm, and where there was a rack full of every 

 description of firearm known to the American sports- 

 man. We women talked and knitted in the cosy parlor 

 with its two bay windows filled with flowers— a strik- 

 ingly beautiful collection— and the windows, too, looked 

 out upon a mountain covered with perpetual snow, and 

 there was frost without nearly every night in the year. 

 Flowers, wherever one finds them, tell their own story. 



Our party started off the next morning with the car- 

 riage and the two saddle horse3 and a basket of provisions 

 for Clear Creek Falls. We had not gone far until the 

 road became so faint and withal, dangerous, that Henry 

 had to ride back to see if we were not off the road. We 

 were. Our second start took us for several miles up a 

 gradual ascent into some timber, where Henry and I 

 riding in advance, came across a drove of untamed 

 horses. They were startled and broke through the woods 

 precipitously at our approach, affording a truly beautiful 

 picture. They were all of them as fat and glossy as tbev 

 could be. One of them, a clay bank — by no means a 

 favored color in the cities — was especially handsome. A 

 sharp descent brought us out into a snug little valley, on 

 one side of which was a lake as unruffled as the sky, and 

 which reflected every seam and fissure of the rocky 

 mountainside above it. Off to the upper end was a ranch 

 with its attendant cattle and scattered horses. On the 

 side away from the lake it stretched away up to the 

 mountain and the timber in a grassy slope. When we 

 had reached its upper extremity we turned and did 

 violence to our better feelings by trying to photograph it. 



When we had once more descended into a valley we 

 began to look for signs of the Falls. We first passed 

 some deserted and fast decaying stage station buildings. 

 Then came a treacherous appearing corduroy bridge over 

 an impetuous stream which came down a chasm high 

 above us to the right by such heroic leaps and lunges 

 that we were fain to believe our journey's end had been 

 reached. But we remembered that we had been told 

 that the Falls were at the top of the hill, and, parentheti- 

 cally that this same hill was the only dangero^ part of 

 the way for the carriage. However, Mr. B. succeeded 

 in piloting it safely to its summit. I had almost forgotten 

 to say that I had exchanged the saddle for Mas B.'s seat 

 therein at the lake. We drove out on to an apparently 

 limitless plateau of buncb grass, having the final peaks 

 of the Continental Divide for its background, seven miles 

 beyond. But there was no water here. Off to the right 

 a sunken line of willows indicated a stream of some kind. 

 Henry came riding back to us with a puzzled look on his 

 face, and Mr. B. sternly demanded of him Clear Creek 

 Falls. And yet, despite the hopelessly level topography 

 of the land spread out in front of us, we began to be con- 

 scious of a vibration, a roar of some kind, somewhere 

 near. And then Miss Emily came riding back with the 

 information that jy&b beyond the little 6 well over there in 

 the prairie she had come upon a fearful and ominous 

 roaring. And so we left the road and ascended the brow 

 of this little slope and, with those myriad and mysterious 

 sounds in our ears, drove slowly down to where the earth 

 suddenly opened out into a rock-walled and awful chasm, 

 plunging into which, with a pent up fury born of all those 

 miles of placid and unusual prairie, was Clear Creek 

 Falls. 



As we stopped at their brink for our rest and refresh- 

 ment, the rage of the waters seemed to increase. One 

 speculated upon what great tragedy there was in these 

 upland solitudes giving birth to such tireless fury. 



Mrs, B. had lost her shawl out of the carriage, and on 



