Nov. 26, 1891,] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



867 



smile, they had a good home, to try then- fortunes in this 

 Eldorada, and her husband had rented this water-logged 



Eiece of ground to try trucking in want of something 

 etter. When the rainy season was past the ground 

 would be drier. It would have to dry by evaporation: I 

 saw no way to drain it. It was a pitiful sight and moat 

 gloomy outlook. The mate to my alder pole leaned against 

 the cabin. I asked if her husband fished, she said no, 

 that some of the boys had left the pole and some worms 

 there the day before on their way home. With her per- 

 mission I took a few wrigglers; and wishing her a hearty 

 godspeed in her return to health, I left, feeling in very- 

 truth there was "no place like (that) home." On the 

 way to town I catight my first black-spotted trout. It 

 was this experience I wanted, and having caught ten of 

 fair size, I wound up my line and fishing and sauntered 

 to the hotel. The stream was quite large, swift, clear as 

 possible and evidently fished considerably. I was told 

 that the fishing in Lake A¥hatcom was very good, though 

 I did not try it. 



Before I finally left Pairhaven I boarded the little 

 steamer Dispatch (which belied her name most ridicu- 

 lously) one lovely morning, and in company with other 

 explorers sailed the seas over to East Sound, a long, nar- 

 row arm that nearly splits in twain the island of Orcas, 

 one of a dozen forming the county of San Juan, and ly- 

 ing in the northern end of Puget Sound. These islands 

 are noted for lovely climate and fruit production, and 

 the scenery en route is as charming as any one could 

 desire, as the boat rounds promontories and islands, 

 threads torttious straits where the tide runs like a river, 

 or skims broad bays, touching here and there to deliver 

 goods or passengers at little hamlets or at ranches, so 

 lonesome that life, it would seem to me, would be a bur- 

 den after a decade or two. The deer are so numerous 

 on Orcas that all gardens and orchards must be fenced 

 with palings for protpction, at least that is the tradition 

 among the elders. The fences are built anyway. There 

 are no bears nor panthers. California quail have been 

 introduced. While I am on the subject of clams, I will 

 say that they grow so large there that one good, robust, 

 full-grown clam will afliord a meal for a family, if they 

 eat him. That's another tradition there, quite prevalent. 

 I was puzzled to know whether to try to swallow the tra- 

 dition or the clam. The stories they tell of the fecundity 

 of fruit trees and small fruits are quite difiicult to digest. 

 One man had a quarter of an acre in blackberries from 

 \5rhich he sold 3,i00lbs. at a net price of 9 cents a pound, 

 and when the price fell to 7 cents he thought it wouldn't 

 pay to pick; so he called in his neighbors and gave them 

 carte Uanche, and after all had a pull there were bushels 

 left to rot. Another picked 550 boxes of apples (three 

 pecks to the box) from one acre of trees, of which 500 

 were prime, that sold for $1.10 a box ac the wharf. Vines 

 and trees right there to prove it. Another one had — but 

 I don't know as such stories have a proper place in a 

 sportsman's journal, unless they were making game of 

 me, in which' case there is a fitness in things. Fruit trees 

 certainly bear at a very tender age and with a prolificacy 

 that is marvelous. I have seen orchards of apple trees 

 whose trunks were not over six inches in diameter, with 

 limbs misshapen and in chronic droop, like willows, from 

 overbearing. Tha,t favored land is the chosen home of 

 the prune, and wondrous are the tales told thereof. The 

 trip to the islands was a sweet boon, a jewel that will 

 scintillate in memory's casket, as the sweet girl graduate 

 says. 



On my way up the Sound (south) from Faii-haven, I 

 stopped 'at Anacortes, another "city ot" something or 

 other, and saw halibut in plenty, which had been caught 

 from the dock. One of 40 odd pounds was being carried 

 off as the boat landed, and one of 85 had been caught in 

 the forenoon. I spent an hour or two at low tide on the 

 rocks east of town, finding sea-iu-chins, anemones, shells, 

 starfish and other interesting marine growth. I saw star- 

 fish in a greater variety of colors than ever before, and 

 one rayfish (for want of a better name) was a gorgeous 

 bouquet. It was of the starfish order, but jelly-like in- 

 stead of hard, and with eighteen rays or arms, two feet 

 from tip to tip, and in color purple, crimson, blue, red, 

 pink, and a combination, it seemed to me, of all when not 

 clearly defined. Anacortes is a city of 1,500, may be, and 

 has an electric railway eleven miles in length from one 

 end of Fidalgo Island to the other. That's the way they 

 do things out there. It has a good location, where one 

 does not have to climb or hold back all the time. 



Traveling to Tacoma on the City of Seattle, I fell in 

 with a traveler who had been to Shelton, a little burg, 

 and county seat of Mason county, northwest of Olympia, 

 and had had some fair trout fishing. He gave me the 

 name of a gentleman there who could put me in the way 

 of sport; so, after looking Tacoma over to my satisfaction 

 (she has selected a big hill to sit on, too), I purchased an 

 all lance wood rod, a cheapish affair, and second, a deck 

 chair on the little steamer Clara Brown for Shelton, and 

 we sailed away down one of the numerous arms of the 

 Sound, due at our destination at about five o'clock. 

 Passed Steilacoom, the oldest town in the State, without 

 stopping, and at three tied up at the Olympian dock just 

 at dead low tide, and gracefvilly sat upon the mud until 

 9 P. M. , when we rose again and paddled away to Shel- 

 ton, which we reached at 11 amid Cimmerian darkness at 

 the end of the long wharf, but the little town of a few 

 hundred people was lighted with electricity. Oh, yes, to 

 be sure. No town so poor as to be without that. With 

 much patient knocking I roused the landlord of the Dip- 

 man House and sank to rest. Next day I made the 

 acquain'iance of Mr. M. F. Knight, to whom I had been 

 directed, who very kindly gave me needed information 

 and dug some worms, which I proceeded at once to put 

 to good use, as there was no opportunity to use a fly in 

 the brushy creek there. Flies were of no use, as I ascer- 

 tained afterward, in the upper creek where I fished, but 

 near the mouth, I was told, a fly was effective. 



I was there a week, five days of which rain fell, either 

 part or all day, but that is not unusual. Frequently it 

 rains eight days in the week in Washington. The 

 normal condition of weather is rain. If it don't rain 

 about so much people feel badly. Ordinarily when a 

 man says he is "under the weather," he means that his 

 health is below the average, but out there when people 

 are under a gi-eat deal of weather they feel the best. 

 However, I managed to have a trip or two up the 

 creek that I enjoyed fully, catching a string or two of 

 spotted trout, getting wet, tearing my clothes, slipping 

 off logs into the nice cold water, watching the Douglas 

 squirrel and jays. (If I have tacked on the wrong nam,e 



to the brassy little rodent, will some one rise and correct.) 

 The little fellows amused me frequently. Once when I 

 had crawled out on a log jam to fish a pool, a lively little 

 fellow ran from the bank'on to a log directly toward me. 

 When within 3ft. or so I moved my hand. He stopped, 

 cocked up and endeavored to study out the situaUon for 

 a minute. Then he resumed his feet and inch by inch 

 slid toward me. I made a motion as if to seize him, but 

 instead of turning tail he darted directly under the log I 

 was leaning on, lying across the one he was on. I re- 

 mained motionless, and presently he popped his head out 

 just below mine and within 3ft. of it, and attempted to 

 'size up things again. There being no motion he cau- 

 tiously crept sideways back on his lo?, keeping his eyes 

 on me, until he had put 6ft. or so between us, and then 

 the way he scattered was funny enough, but he stopped 

 on the bank long enough to stir up a flea. The jays 

 there are larger than at the East and of solid indigo blue, 

 if I was not color blind. I stirred up a grouse occasion- 

 ally, the booming variety, and was satisfied not to do the 

 same by a stray bear or panther, though I did want to 

 stay a little longer and go out with a party after bear, 

 when I could carry a gun instead of a rod. Large game 

 is by no means uncommon in those parts. While I was 

 there a ranchman brought in a "lion" skin of 9ft., the 

 unfortunate wearer of which, together with three bears, 

 had been killed three or four miles from town the day 

 previous, and it was only a moderate bear day. 



One day during a let up of the rain, IVIr. Knight and I 

 walked three miles out to Lake Isabel, a pretty sheet of 

 water where trout fishing was usually good. We found 

 boats and tried worms, flies, -pork and spoons, but two or 

 three chubs and a couple of llin. trout caught by Mr. K. 

 were all our catch. There were some ducks on the lake 

 and three large flocks of geese circled afar overhead, in 

 turn honking loudly. The walk out and back through 

 the forest, viewing the magnificent trees, even though we 

 were caught in the rain, was very enjoyable. The gigan- 

 tic trunks of that country have often been written about, 

 and I was prepared to see monsters, but though perhaps 

 I did not get into the thick of the business, I saw enough 

 to enthuse me. The lumbering interest makes Shelton, 

 there being two railways reaching out into the back 

 country and timber camps, bringing down 'several train 

 loads of huge logs a day and dumping them into the boom 

 in the bay. One log was brought down 105ft. long, 100ft. 

 to the first limb, measuring 45x47in. at the small (?) end. 

 While pottering around the edge of town one misty day, 

 I stepped up on to a log (climbed up), walked thirty-five 

 steps, good long steps, for my underpinning is quite 

 lengthy, and where the limbs began to impede navigation 

 the diameter was within a fraction of 3ft. On our trip 

 to Lake Isabel I counted in a space about 30yds. square, 

 13 monsters, from 2 to 5ft. in diameter some distance 

 from the ground, 150 to 200ft. hierh, with a half-dozen 

 smaller trees in the same space, and 99 out of 100 of these 

 trees are straight as an arrow. At Whatcom I saw a man 

 engaged in the hopeless task of grubbing out the remains 

 of a hoary old stump somewhere from 3 to 15ft. across, 

 which a big dose of dynamite had split a little. He had 

 dug two days on it and had got two roots as big as his 

 body partly uncovered and hacked a little bit and was 

 resting that day. There were probably eight or ten more 

 roots aching to be tackled. Another man told me he had 

 spent twenty-five dollars in time and money getting out 

 one stump, I believed him, and my credulity is not 

 abnormally elastic. Timber out there to be good, has to 

 cut at least 25,000,000ft. to the acre. O. O. S. 



IN MAINE WOODS.— I. 



WAERENSBURG, Mo.— July.— For many weeks I 

 have been without sight of Forest and Stream. 

 There is a file of them waiting for me in Boston, and some 

 time — perhaps in camp in the Maine woods next fall— I 

 promise myself the delight of reading them. During the 

 winter and part of the spring copies were forwarded to 

 me while I was journeying down through the Atlantic 

 and Gulf States, and oftsn in Texas I received and read 

 them, but finally in Mexico and New Mexico they failed 

 me, and just at the point when I could least afl'ord to go 

 without them, for I was reading with deepest interest 

 the series of papers by Miss Fanny Hardy on the game 

 laws in Maine. 



Nothing could exceed my delight in her previous papers, 

 "In the Region Round Nicatowis." I could not well 

 overstate my enjoyment of them. The Maine woods have 

 been for many a year my "stamping ground," my vaca- 

 tion refuge, my medicine and my delight, I know them 

 at first hand. I am a "charter member." Much has been 

 written about them. Thoreau and Lowell have put them 

 into abiding literature in their own way, and newspaper 

 and magazine writers of all grades have described trips 

 to them, but all were aliens and strangers, casual visitors 

 and curious strangers at best. But in Miss Hardy the 

 Maine woods for the first time find their voice, their real 

 interpreter, their own familiar friend. 



Riding over the flowery acres of middle Texas or sitting 

 on the beach at Galveston I read those chapters, and in 

 very truth seemed transported to the heart of the dark 

 spruce forests, the caribou bogs, and to the shores of the 

 crystal lakes of Maine. I could see the shadows come 

 and go on Katahdin. I could hear the loon's lone cry on 

 Seboois Lake, or, paddle in hand, feel the spring of the 

 canoe beneath me as we shot down "quick water" on Jo 

 Max J stream. To be sure she wrote of "Gasobeis," and I 

 thought of "West Branch waters," but it was the Maine 

 woods in their very essence and inner spirit and I re- 

 joiced. How I chuckled when she told about trying to 

 go around a certain place, "getting loganed" and having 

 to turn back. Getting loganed! I was sure there was 

 no man in Texas but myself who knew what that meant. 

 If there were such a man, and an exile for any length of 

 time from the North, and his eyes caught those chapters 

 of Miss Hardy's, I will answer for it his eyes grew moist 

 now and then with exquisite memories as he read. Who 

 but a Maine woodsman knows anything of a "tote road," 

 or a "wonganbox," or a "spunkhimgan?" Time and again 

 I exclaimed, "The Maine woods have found their poet 

 at last!" Miss Hardy writes with complete and adequate 

 knowledge of her subject, with entirely adequate power 

 of: expression. It is a rare enough combination as we all 

 know, and I found my delight in her work increased by 

 the thought that it was a woman who had done this. 

 Year after year, with mind and heart attuned to them, 

 she has, with her father— a lovely companionship — 

 camped in th.e yrooda and traversed the Jakee and 



thoroughfares of Maine, not as an outsider, but as one 

 there by a birthright as good jas they own, and the best 

 culture of school and college has but given her that 

 power of expression which has enabled so many others 

 to share her enjoyment. For my share in it I want now 

 and emphatically to thank her and Fokest and Siream. 



Then came the papers on the game laws in Maine, with 

 their astonishing revelations of the strange interpreta- 

 tions of those laws at Bangor and elsewhere, and their 

 truthful setting forth of the whole matter. And here 

 again there can be no doubt of the adequacy of Miss 

 Hardy's preparation for her work. I know too much of 

 the field and the subject not to perceive that. But my 

 papers ceased to reach me just after I read the one on 

 Piscataquis county. That paper did me a great deal of 

 good, for it told a truth which needed to be told, and 

 which, till that paper appeared, I felt ought to be said, 

 and I feared Miss Hardy might not altogether know. My 

 fear was groundless, and she freely adniits that in Pis- 

 cataquis county better things should be said in behalf of 

 the people who have come from outside the State to hunt 

 and fish. What papers have followed and what rejoin- 

 ders have been made or discussions held I do not know, 

 but Piscataquis county having been a particular haunt of 

 mine — I think I have made some sixteen trips to it — and 

 knowing much that would corroborate Miss" Hardy's tes- 

 timony in tliat respect, I have wanted to add my word 

 before the whole matter passed out of the minds of those 

 now most interested in the subject. 



I have before now said something in Forest and 

 Stream of the change in me from boyhood's zest and 

 fierce passion for killing, to the desire to preserve alive 

 every living thing not harmful and not needed for legiti- 

 mate use. This change began long ago, and I can truly 

 say that not since one of my very first trips to Maine have 

 I passed the bounda of my present conscience in this 

 matter. 



Once, thoughtlessly, and for no purpose but the desire 

 to try a new small-caliber rifle on a living target, I aimed 

 at a red squirrel which innocently and confidingly perched 

 on a limb within 20ft. of me. My bullet tore away his 

 fore shoulder, and as his quivering body clung for a 

 moment suspended from the limb, the trembling flesh, 

 the dripping blood, and above all, the reproachful, piti- 

 ful eye of the little creature in its death agony, thrilled 

 me with a misery which to this day makes me wretched 

 when I think of it. It was in the depth of the forest, his 

 home, into which I had come, and without necessity or 

 excuse had wantonly destroyed the life which I could not 

 restore. Not since that time have I done such a thing, 

 nor have I seen it done without shame and pain, and 

 amazing enough it now seems that I could ever have done 

 it. Yet I have hunted many a day since then and killed 

 my share of game. M.y ghai-e is smaller than I used to 

 think it need be. It' is just what I can make real and 

 legitimate use of and no more. 



In Texas I first came into the land of the forked-tailed 

 fly-catcher. Three specimens I shot and skinned for 

 mounting for "my den" at home and to serve as beautiful 

 souvenirs of my Southern stay. Long I hunted for the 

 chapparal cock, the "road runner," for a similar purpose, 

 but, though I was in his region and knew he was all about 

 me, I never saw him but twice, Once he was briefly seen 

 from the window of my car — making good his name as 

 he sped along a country road. Once at Albuquerque, New 

 Mexico, I saw him — but he was in a cage. 



Many and many a time, in the last named Territory, 

 did the beautiful plumed quail run before me— always in 

 pairs, for it was th^ir mating season, and though often 

 urged, I would not shoot. The law of the land and the 

 higher law protected them. 



But to return to Maine, and to Piscataquis cotmty in 

 particular. I am bound to f-ay that in this region I think: 

 the violations of the law have been fully as much the 

 fault of the natives as of those from outside the State. 



I know the i)eople well. I know them in their homes 

 and families— their corn-huskings and merry-makings as • 

 well as their lumber camps and in the forest. Many of 

 them are my personal friends. In many a long and con- 

 fidential talk around the camp-fire or on the trail or in 

 their homes, I have learned the truth of the history of: the 

 game question in Piscataquis county, and how it is re- 

 garded by the people of the county. 



The same wasteful and illegal slaughter which has pre- 

 vailed in other parts of the State has prevailed in Pisca- 

 taquis county, and does so still, but those competent to 

 judge and candid in judgment will .agree with me, that 

 by far the greater part of the illegal killing has been done 

 by natives of the county and State, and not by persons 

 from outside of the State. Offenders from the outside I 

 doubt not there are. It is an actual fact that I have known 

 of very few. The greater part of the destruction is due 

 to crust-hunting, though I have known of many and 

 many a cafe of summer shooting a^id much dogging of 

 deer by the same men. It is all foolish and short-sighted 

 to the last degree, but the truth is that desjiite State laws 

 and preachments of every sort the ethics of this matter 

 are judged on a distinctly different basia from other ques- 

 tions. A man who would not steal from his neighbor 

 will unhesitatingly violate the game law if he thinks he 

 can escape the attentions of the warden. This is, of 

 course, not true of all who hunt, but it is, I verily believe, 

 true of the great majority. It is done in numberless 

 instances, and is going on summer and winter. It is even 

 done by men who are by no means devoid of principle, 

 who are in most respects good citizens and whom one can 

 respect and like. 



While I entirely reprobate it, I can yet understand and 

 in a sense sympathize with the way in which some of these 

 I)eople look at the game question. There is another class 

 of whom I will soon speak — reprobates with whom I have 

 no sympathy whatever, to whom the worst of the killing- 

 is due. But the men of whom I have spoken are in a rude 

 way loyal to a code of their own which is not without 

 merit. They usually waste nothing. They kill for food 

 and use and needed profit. They often dog their deer 

 into the water, but their defense of the method has its 

 undeniably strong points, legal considerations aside, on 

 the score of humanity as well as its (to them) certainty 

 and convenience. 



But of the other class— representatives of which, un- 

 fortunately, are to be found in every township— what 

 shall I say? They are the "poor whites'" of the State — 

 the conscienceless creatures who kill for any reason but a 

 justifiable one, for the love of killing, for spite, for the 

 hides, for a few pounds of flesh where Ihey know hun- 

 dt<3de will wa-ste: fof tao discovs>vabl6 motive savfi that the 



