F'OI^EST ANI!) STREAM. 



lOS 



crack of firearms juat ahead, and running up found the 

 rifle and the revolver getting in their work on another 

 bunch of grouse, and live victims were added to the bag. 

 Half-past 10 brouglit us to the forks, and, to our sorrow, 

 we took the right hand branch. For half an hour we had 

 ■walked, half skated up the bed of a frozen brook, and 

 there our progress was stopped by an ice cascade a hun- 

 dred feet in height. We were in a veritable cnl cfe sac, 

 and it was hard to get out, for the ground was frozen and 

 it was almost impossible to obtain a foothold. But by 

 patient continuance in well doing and by passing up our 

 effects from one to another, we reached the summit of a 

 little ridge, and from that point had easy traveling for a 

 few hundred yards to the edge of the snow line, where we 

 halted for lunch. While we wore resting C. brought a 

 porcupine out of a pine tree, and was as proud of his 

 exploit as though he had killed a silvertip. It was now 

 an easy matter to reach the top of the main divide, where 

 oiu' two uninvited comrades left us and went down Hob- 

 ble Creek in search of deer. 



My game pockets being heavily loaded I lagged behind 

 the rest of the party, and just as T. passed over the crest 

 I hea,rd seven shots fired in rapid succession. He surely 

 has his long-coveted bear. But no, down the hill comes 

 a porcupine as large as a hog. I salute it with both 

 barrels, and it stops just long enough to scratch its smart- 

 ing hindquarters on the rocks and then down hill again, 

 T. after it loading as he ran. Two more shots and then his 

 shout of triumph, at which I sat down to enjoy the mag- 

 nificent prospect while he once more made the weary 

 climb. He reported that there were five bullet holes and 

 numerous shot marks on the breast, that its lower jaw 

 was shot off and that its entraUs were dragging, and yet 

 the cripple kept on until a close shot between the eyes 

 settled the business. 



We were on the divide, but the peak was yet hundreds 

 of feet above us. We had a warm climb up the south 

 side, and I had to stop for breath every fifty paces. Near 

 the top I noticed a side canon with its precipitous sides 

 covered with spruces, and telling C. that it was just the 

 place for pine hens, we went to the brink and were on a 

 level with the tops of the trees. Two birds flew just 

 before us, and soon C, blazed away at an old stayer. He 

 missed it, but the report raised a tremendous tumult. It 

 seemed as though every tree had been alive, and the birds 

 now sought safety on the further side of the cafion. I 

 managed to drop one, and it rolled down hill, leaving me 

 nothing but feathers and the blood stains on the snow. 

 It would have been an hour's work to have got it, so, for 

 aught I know, it is rolling still. But those birds were not 

 spruce grouse, they were the genuine Centrocercns — the 

 sage hen — that, leaving natural diet, had come to the 

 mountain tops for a Thanksgiving dinner. 



It was not comfortable to stand in knee-deep snow and 

 shoot at birds that would be lost as certain as they were 

 hit, so a last effort brought us to the crest. Such a pros- 

 pect I have never beheld in the length and breadth of the 

 land. We were 6,000ft. above the city at om- feet, and 

 11,000ft. above the sea level, Below lay Provo, and as 

 train after train passed by they seemed like toys, and the 

 houses were toys, and the great farms were checker-board 

 squares. And beyond the town, it seemed within rifle 

 shot, Utah Lake stretched up and down the valley for 

 forty mUes. We saw Lehi, American Fork, Provo, 

 Springville, Payson, Benjamin, the smoke of the great 

 Tintic mining camp, and scores of little settlements. 

 Northward we looked into the valley of the Great Salt 

 Lake. Westward, over Utah Lake and its further hills 

 we saw the peaks of Nevada. To the far east the moun- 

 tains of Colorado serrated the horizon and, thirty-five 

 miles to the south, Nebo, monarch of Utah, raised its 

 white and lordly head to a height of 13,600ft., while at 

 its western foot nestled the fertile Juab valley. Such a 

 glorious panorama would have repaid days instead of 

 hours of toil. But we had to leave, it was already 2:15 

 and the descent was a difficult matter. It took six hours 

 to get down those four miles, and it was about as trying 

 a trip as it has been my luck to experience. Just before 

 reaching the spruce trees I met with a fall that made me 

 useless save as a bearer of the spoils. So C. took the gun, 

 T. the rifle, and I brought up the rear. Some hunters 

 had fired a clump of dead pines about 200ft. below the 

 summit. There we took a second lunch, and for an hour 

 we had splendid shooting. T. managed to bring down 

 two hens with one shot from the rifle, and while C. was 

 not an expert, he secured q\iite a bag'. One old hen 

 seemed to bear a charmed fife. T. saw her in the top of 

 a dead tree about 50yds. away. A rifle shot failed to 

 disturb her. Then the revolver was used, and while the 

 seven balls cut the limbs all about her she was stni un- 

 touched. C. now came up, and though I advised him to 

 get nearer, knowing that his shells were loaded with No. 

 9 shot, he blazed away at the same distance. The feathers 

 flew and the bird flew, too, and that ended our sport. By 

 the way, all the birds were drawn as soon as shot, and 

 hence when eaten they had neither a sage nor a resinous 

 flavor. 



Dark found us at the head of a little caiion whose bed 

 in spring is a torrent, and for three hours we felt our way 

 down. Below^ we could see the flash of guns at the edge 

 of the lake and long after the report came faintly up 

 between the hills. At length it was over, and we reached 

 a farm house, a well and a road, and at 8:30 we sat down 

 to om- dinner. For a couple of days three cripples limped 

 about the streets of Provo, and when asked what w^as the 

 matter, a point to the summit was a suflicient answer. 



That was ten days ago. The snow that then was high 

 up has come down and the mountains are white to their 

 feet. Winter is here, not the harsh. Eastern winter, but 

 it is winter just the same. I cannot endure it, so to-mor- 

 row I saddle my pony and start southward for the canon 

 of the Southern Colorado, for the valleys of the Virgin 

 and of the Santa Clara, to that land — 



"Where falls not rain, nor hail. 

 Nor any snow; but it lies 

 Deep-meadowed, happy, fair 

 With orchard, lawn and bowery hollow. 

 Crowned by the summer sea." 



pftovo, Utah. Shoshone. 



Mk. Edgak Smth, of Maine, who was hurt on a horse 

 railroad in Boston last December, has been discharged 

 from the hospital after six weeks' confinement there, and 

 has gone home. He is at the present time on crutches 

 and not very lively, but we are glad to know that he will 

 be able to superintend his fishing camps at Round 

 Mountain Lake the coming season.'— M. (Boston, Feb, 23). 



IN THE REGION ROUND NICATOWIS. 



XrV. — THE EETITBN TO NICATOWIS. 



MONDAY again there was thick fog although we were 

 up at sum-ise, hoping to be off before the weatlier 

 could remember what day of the week it was and make 

 up its mind to rain. All our Sundays were pleasant, but 

 on other days we had to take our chances. 



When finally we did lea,ve our island and head up 

 Penobscot Brook it was with no little difficulty that we 

 were able to keep the channel, for the water had risen 

 until it stood within 2 or Sin. of the tips of the moose-ear 

 leaves and was so spread out among side channels and 

 logans that it was almost impossible to follow the wind- 

 ing thoroughfare or to find the carry if we strayed from 

 the stream. 



The carry was exceedingly wet, so that, if the descrip- 

 tion of it had been left till our return, it must have re- 

 ceived even a worse name than has been given it. Father 

 engineered a side track past the wettest place, where, by 

 the aid of the settino;-pole and by stepping just as I wa*B 

 directed, I managed not to overtop my rubber boots: 

 otherwise it might have been called wading, or it might 

 have been called swimming. 



The food question was as perplexing as ever. We had 

 with us only part of a meal of broiled pickerel and we 

 knew Gassobeeis would be too high for either trout fish- 

 ing or duck shooting. But on the way across the carry 

 Father came upon a flock of spruce partridges. We do 

 not count these as game, we do not usually even throw 

 stones to scare them; above all would we disapprove of 

 shooting such a foolish bird with anything but a rifle, 

 cutting its neck off in the good old-fashioned way. But 

 in the present instance the rifle was far ahead, the shot- 

 gun handy and it was a question of dinner, Father ran 

 back with the gun and soon, with more of the feeling 

 commonly known as "resignation" than I had previously 

 felt on the trip, I listened to the well-known bang, bang, 

 bang of the old gun, for spruce partridges are commonly 

 accounted as fit only for sable bait, and never before had 

 we been brought so low. 



We were two hours and a half crossing the carry with 

 only two loads apiece, and before we got over the sun, 

 which had been strugghng with mists and clouds, came 

 out. Gassobeeis was at least a foot higher than when we 

 had left it. We followed the right shore closely, hoping 

 to see a birch partridge which we could exchange for one 

 of our spruce grouse, until it became necessai-y to turn, 

 in order to keep a straight course through the narrows 

 toward the outlet. The canoe had just been pointed out 

 when Father and Jot, almost at the same instant, sighted 

 a deer swimming quietly from the right to the left shore 

 of the narrows. 



It was a lovely chase. The deer was on the base of a 

 right triangle; we, with about four times as far to go, on 

 the hypothenuse. If the deer was not alarmed, we could 

 gain ; if frightened at us, we must lose ground which wo 

 could never recover, for the deer wotild get ashore before 

 we were within rifle shot. What little breeze there was 

 drew toward us; on the other hand, we were heavily 

 loaded. The men sprang to their paddles without a 

 wwd— no excitement, no haste, no great exertions; yet 

 the canoe sped forward under the quick, clean strokes. 

 The deer, .too, swam well, but not very rapidly, and did 

 not appear to see us, or seeing, not to notice us, until, 

 when quite near the shore, yet too far off for a shot from 

 a canoe, we saw the head turn toward us on the water 

 and gaze curiously at us. The canoe was turned bows on, 

 the paddling almost ceased. The deer began to swim 

 again more rapidly. It was not far to the shore now. 

 On the moment up sprang the men, off came the coats, 

 and then there was pulling indeed. This rush was the 

 crisis. The water boiled behind the paddles, the canoe 

 leaped with great bounds; loaded as she was, she flew 

 through, the water. The deer, too, was swimmhig fast, 

 with a few strokes would have touched bottom, and then, 

 with two bounds, a shake of a wet hide and a flirt of a 

 white tail, would have cleared the bushes on the shore, 

 safe from pursuit: but the onrush of the canoe was so 

 sudden, the light shirt sleeves of the men and their unex- 

 pected rising so startling, the chase so hot, that the fugi- 

 tive turned and began to swim away from the shore. 

 The canoe shot inshore, lost head%vay, struck hard on a 

 sunken rock. The deer was swimming with great leaps, 

 shoulders out at every stroke— ten rods, eleven, twelve; it 

 was the deer's turn now. The instant we struck Father 

 sprang to his feet with his rifle. There were two sharp 

 echoes from the hills, and our deer chase was over; but 

 we were sorry that we had taken the poor, silly, useless, 

 little lives of the spruce partridges. 



That afternoon as we stayed at Gassobeeis, we could 

 hear the wind howling above the trees, and we knew that 

 there was a zephyr blowing on Nicatowis. It was better 

 to be where we were. We picked some berries, hunted 

 out our hidden stores, and were pleased to find them in 

 very good condition — except our best hats, which, having 

 been left in the dark so long, now appeared in a new 

 light. Father's straw decorated with a multitude of rosy 

 spots, and my black felt adorned with a full coat of green 

 mould. Father left his at Pistol Green later, but I had 

 to wear mine down on the cars — ^it was that, or a faded 

 red felt, or a Tam O'Shanter that had seen so much of the 

 world that the button was all worn ofl' the top. 



Toward night we heard again that mysterious sound, 

 which rose from the earth and vanished — we knew not 

 whence coming nor whither going; and again in the 

 morning it went abroad, More than anything else I ever 

 heard, it possessed me with a sense of indefiniteness and 

 mystery. No animal crying in the night, no melancholy 

 bird could have touched a chord that sympathized so 

 nearly with that primitive feeling which gives rise to 

 superstition; their voices might be unfamiliar or um-ecog- 

 nized, but there is not one among them, bird or beast, 

 with which I am not intimately familiar, which I have 

 not handled in the body or seen in life, and toward them 

 I can bear no deeper feeling than curiosity. None of the 

 noises of the woods could have made the same impression; 

 for I could account for them. It was none of the sounds 

 made by men in then- ordinary woods' vocations. Because 

 it was unaccountable it gave an un-kin feeling, such as 

 one might have toward a creatm-e without a soul, for it 

 seemed to dwell in a region apart by itself, away from the 

 realities of the woods, unless the gnomes are real and 

 make such noises in their burrowings. But what kept me 

 from doubting my own senses was that we heard it with 

 such regularity, morning, noon and at nightfall. 



Our Btay at Gaaaobeeis was entirely uneventful. We 



did not see even a duck. When we went down Gasso- 

 beeis Stream we noticed the change of color that had 

 taken place. The bog- showed more bronze than for- 

 merly; the withe-rod berries ( Viburnu/m dentatum) hung 

 in blue bunches; the wild raisins ( I'ihirnDim. imdvm) were 

 a soft purple; the .black alder berries glowed vermilion, 

 and the scattering swamp maples were deeply dyed "all 

 in a robe of darkest grain." We ran all the dams and the 

 quick water below the last without having to get out and 

 without striking on the recks, which much sm'prised 

 Father, who had never seen so much water on Gassobeeis 

 Stream. The stream is gradually growing up to weeds 

 and bullrushes and needs to have another drive of logs 

 run down it to clear the channel , else in a few years canoe- 

 ing on it will become very diificult. 



When we reached Nicatowis there was a strong wind 

 blowing. We worked along the left shore to Page's camp, 

 took dinner there, and in the afternoon crossed the carry 

 to the Upper Sabao, about thirty minutes' walk on a 

 road that m ordinary years would be excellent and even 

 in this Avas very good. So far as we could see it from the 

 end of the carry, Sabao is a beautiful lake. Had the 

 weather been better for the week or two past, we should 

 have carried across and gone down this and the next two 

 or three lakes. 



When we got to Page's camp where we had left our 

 canoe we thought it was blowing too hard to put out. So, 

 not wishing to camp on the chips about an old lumber 

 camp, we Avaited for the wind to subside; for we had seen 

 in the morning, when we came out of the mouth of Gasso- 

 beeis Stream, an ideal camp-ground — an opening on the 

 left shore, under tall trees, on greensward as we thought, 

 with a white beach in frorit, which our imaginations and 

 the sunlight together made of sand. It was an altogether 

 delightful spot. 



We waited patiently for our opportunity. The wind 

 lulled at last and we pushed off. A little way out and we 

 wished we had not started. Westward everything grew 

 black. Passadumkeag Mountain was shut off from view 

 by an inky cloud, and the same black curtain overhung 

 the sky. The lake was ebony and ivoj-y under the shadow 

 of the approaching squall, every wave-crest gleaming pre- 

 ternaturally white. If that squall struck us the Lady 

 Emma would leave her bones on the rocks; or if we were 

 borne back into Coombs Brook, there would be the rain. 

 We pulled— for the shore and oiu" del ightf ul camp gi'ound . 

 It was not far: we reached the shore, tumbled our load 

 out on the beach — it was gravel instead of sand — tossed 

 it up over the bank, and in less time than it takes to tell 

 it, had all snug and the tent laid over it, weighted down 

 wnth heavy rocks. But think of our disappointment; in- 

 stead of the beautiful grove we had seen under the morn- 

 ing sunlight, was an old hemlock-bark peeling and land- 

 ing, cut up by roads, a side hill at that, bo full of stones 

 that it couldn't be much fuller, while the tall trees, 

 weakened by the removal of so many of their neighbors, 

 often dead themselves, made refuge under them impossi- 

 ble. It began to patter great drops. For lack of any 

 better shelter we all sat down under the side of a bark 

 pile to await the result with fortitude. We waited and 

 it did not come; it even ceased to patter. When we 

 looked out the squall was going round us. Well, we were 

 there, and it was useless to pack up again on uncer- 

 tainties. So we at last found a place where, by consider- 

 able digging, enough stones were removed to bring a 

 little of the origii\al ground to the surface, built a fire 

 near the foot of a dead stump, made a great bed of hem- 

 lock boughs, and we had a camping good enough for our 

 not over-tender consciences to praise considerably. It 

 was snug and cosy among the hemlocks, and we felt so 

 rich with the addition of the rubber bagj proAnsion box, 

 and all the other articles, which we had left at Gassobesis 

 during our st^iy at Machias, that we would not have 

 envied a billionaire his gold shoes and gold umbrella. 

 Where else but in the woods can one so easily rise to, so 

 long maintain, that high, heroic temper of Henrj^ before 

 Agincourt, who in night and weakness and adverse cir- 

 cumstances "would not wish himself anywhere but 

 where he was." Where else can one repeat with fuUer 

 meaning the prayer of Agur: "Eemove me far from 

 vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed 

 me with food convenient for me," 



XV.— A NICATOWIS ZEPUYB. 



A looji cried in the night, not his halloo but his hoarse 

 hinc, hau\ aji.d we knew that we should have wind. We 

 intended to get up early and be off before it rose; but 

 when Ave turned out in the morning the wind had evi- 

 dently been up all night. It calmed later and we hurried 

 off]. We did not stop to make haste slowly, but did the 

 best Ave were able to reach the long point that forms part 

 of the Nicatowis Upper Narrows. Half-way across and 

 it sprang up again. It was not a tempestuous wind, it 

 did not raise a sea, but it "pressed down upon the deep," 

 as Virgil says, and when it Avas heaviest our two good 

 paddlers had all they wanted to do to hold their own. 

 But a wind never is continuous in its force, and in the 

 lulls we gained. 



I notice that poor paddlers pull a. drawing stroke, 

 reaching forward too far and bringing the work entirely 

 on the muscles of the arms, straining the stomach if they 

 Avork hard, which they seldom do. Those Avho sit in 

 chairs do the same. But wa tch a man who is ' strong on 

 the paddle," and you will see that he does not reach very 

 far forward nor exert himself until he has brought the 

 blade back nearly opposite himself; then he throws him- 

 self upon it, pulls witli the hand that is lowermost, and 

 pushes with the other until the strong maple bends be- 

 neath him. He txaes his whole body, and Avhen paddling 

 hard, springs from his knees. To learn to paddle well 

 one must either sit up on the thwart or paddle Indian 

 fashion on one's knees, though few white men learn to 

 do the latter. It costs too many hours of bitter pain of 

 cramp and numbness. For the low canoe chairs so much 

 in vogue I see no use. If the bowman Avishes to paddle, 

 shoot, or fish, he Avants greater freedom of movement 

 than can be had in a chair 6in. high with a tall back to 

 interfere Avith his elbows, and for passenger's place in 

 the second band there is nothing so luxurioiis as a seat 

 made of the blankets folded fiat and square inside the 

 rubber sheets, with a cushioned back made by drawing 

 down in front of the middle bar one end of the tent 

 Avhich is usually spread out over the load to protect it 

 from water. 



That was a day. By bard work we got in under the 

 high sandbank on the upper side of the point, and drew 

 up the canoe, waiting to see what the weather would be. 

 At times it almost blew our hats off: thea we would talk 



