JiDCY SI, 1898.] 



FORESTf AND STREAM. 



47 



little sulphur in it, as it coated the graTel and pebbles 

 over which it flowed into the lake a few feet away with 

 a dirty, blackish copper color. 



Barney dug it out with a shovel and cribbed it up with 

 a bottomless box, and it proved a spring of great comfort 

 to us to the very last day in camp. The temperature was 

 exactly 46 deg., as noted by the camp thermometer after 

 being held in it a matter of five minutes. 



Flowing out of the bank not two feetaway was another 

 spring not so cold, and without any taste or sign of iron 

 or sulphur in the water, each running a stream aboub the 

 size of the grip of a bass rod. 



Afterward we found along under the bank for two or 

 three, hundred yards up the lake a dozen or more other 

 springs of about the same volume or less, several of which 

 were more or less impregnated with iron, but we stuck to 

 Barney's first discovery for our drinking water, as we 

 found that besides its refreshing coldness and agreeable 

 mineral taste, it was possessed of slightly laxative quali- 

 ties, and it must have had in it, too. some mysterious 

 property that worked directly in harmony with tlie diges- 

 tive organs, for before we were in camp a week Kelpie's 

 appetite had developed at such a satisfactory and remarka- 

 ble rate that he could hide a square meal with a celerity 

 that put him in the front rank, a state of affairs that kept 

 the keeper of the fryin' pans a hustlin' to meet the in- 

 creased demands made on him at meal times. 



A day or two after the keeper found another spring 

 under the bank near the flag pole, boiling up clear and 

 very cool near the roots of some young birches; just plain, 

 pure spring water without the faintest taste of mineral in 

 it. This he also cribbed and u>ed as a refrigerator, where 

 he kept his butter almost too hard to cut easily, the milk 

 sweet and cold, and the buttermilk in such a state of 

 seductive freshness that there was no resisting it, and at 



strife with old-time foes; him of the bronze back and 

 valiant heart, the crafty pickerel and the mighty mask- 

 inonge— peer he of all the warriors of the North or South. 



Memories of battles won and lost come trooping through 

 the rifts in the cloud of gray; the trusty old rod doubled 

 to its work, the swishing line taut and tense; the frantic 

 rush, the leap in air, the whirring reel— a tuneful melody 

 —and last of all the^deadly gaff or ready landing-net, or 

 — parted line and blighted hopes. 



Brother of the rod, a look into the past age stirs the 

 blood. 



A very wizard is the old brown pipe to revive the half- 

 forgotten recollections of river, brook and lake; of the 

 forests and the sti-eams; to rekindle the old camp-fires, 

 around which the weather-beaten disciple of the rod has 

 spent many a happy care-free hour, that will never come 

 again. 



But now I know that if the reader is an old camper 

 with silver in his hair he will forgive me this digression 

 and charge it up to the old pipe, for has he not himself 

 had dreamy visions of the camps of bygone days through 

 the smoke of the weed that comf orteth the angler's heart? 



The camp was finished to our pleasement and nothing 

 remained but to go a-fiohing. The Colonel did not care 

 to go out that day, and as I had some arransrements to 

 make with our neighbors about milk, butter, vegetables, 

 etc., we let Sam and Charley and Kelpie open the cam- 

 paign in the two wooden boats off the birch point, wh«re 

 we had found some good bass fishing the year before. 



When I went down to the Gehring farmhouse the same 

 surly cur was there taking a nap on the porch with one 

 eye open, and as soon as he got it trained on me he seemed 

 to be reminded of something, but just as he got his 

 bristles raised to the proper elevation for trouble to set in 

 and sounded the tocsin of war in the shape of some 



Tommy, be it known, was a sturdy youngster of ten 

 years with a sixteen year old head on his shoulders, whom 

 everybody in the camp took a liking to for his manly and 

 upright ways. A bargain was also struck with Tom to 

 pick every day and bring to camp from three to six quarts 

 of the luscious red raspberries growing wild nearly every- 

 where in great abundance, a contract which he faithfully 

 carried out, and we did the rest in the way of keeping 

 them from getting sour. 



If there is anything more satisfying to the inner man 

 than a tin cup full of ripe red "rozberries" with powdered 

 sugar and cold rich milk over 'era, it must be two cups, 

 which line of figuring Br'er Kelpie was ready to up- 

 hold three times a day. Twice a week a butcher's waoon 

 from Traverse City made the rounds of the neighbor- 

 hood, from which we could get a cut of beef, a roast of 

 pork or a quarter of mutton, selected by the "keeper," 

 with the critical eye of an old meat inspector, and then 

 we had bass and "rookies" (we were above eating the 

 "snakes" we caught), and bluegills and trout till had 

 there been anything in the popular delusion that a fish 

 diet makes brains the camp might have been appropri- 

 ately named "Camp Smarty," 



"Great airth an' se9,s!" such living as the Joneses had 

 in that camp was a caution to dyspeptics. M'ith all the 

 good things with which the table was supplied and the 

 awful examples set him in the way of hiding them from 

 sight, Kelpie began to pick up rapidly and come back to 

 his original shape. Every few days he would furtively 

 let out another tuck in the waistband of his breeches, so 

 to speak, or, to put it nautically, shake out another reef 

 to make room for the "rozberries" and trout called for 

 by his steadily increasing appetite. 



The color was coming back in his face, and the marked 

 improvement in his health was a revelation to us, and a 



CAMP OF THE KINGFISHERS. 

 Robin's Kest Camp, Cabp Lake, Michigan, 1891. 

 1. IGngflshei- (Old Hickory). 2. Snakeroot. :). Kelpie. 4, Old Bliiegill. 5, S. The Two .Tohns. «. The Keeper of the Frying Paris. 



r.Old Frigitl. 



well-regulated intervals a "vial o' wrath" found its way 

 into the spring to be cool for the boys when they returned 

 in the evening after a hard day at the oars and felt the 

 need of a "liver invigorator." 



For a camp of pure, solid comfort, free, too, of black 

 flies, skeeters and "croppies" (Dick Macauley's no see 

 'ems) we had never found its equal, and never expect to 

 find a better one, and many a night when sitting before 

 the camp-fire weaving fancies in the embers and looking 

 back to the old camps of the past through the flickering 

 flame and smoke I longed for my old dead comrade and 

 chum Uncle Dick Sloan to be with us again in the flesh 

 to help enjoy it all. And sometimes my faocy outlined 

 his fragile old form holding his well-worn old camp 

 stool do 4vn on the further side of the fire with the half 

 paralyzjd old leg hung limply over the good one, suck- 

 ing comfort from his welt-seasoned old briar root pipe, 

 and fighting with his only good arm and hand the stifi- 

 ing puffs of pmoke from the camp-fire as in the by-gone 

 days. Ah, me! The loss of a cherished old comrade and 

 bosom friend who has shared your camp in brotherly 

 harmony in all weathers for twenty odd years is a calam- 

 ity that never rights itself; a wound that takes the rest of 

 a lifetime to heal. 



Thinking of him as I write, I have wandered from the 

 trail into a wilderness of old memories, conjured up by 

 the dissolving rings of misty gray from a reminiscence- 

 breeding pipe of "Old Judge," through which, from out 

 the shadowy past, appear in turn the old camps on the 

 Tippecanoe, on Central Lake, on Sisson's, Six Mile, Carp 

 and Black, Echo, D mglass, Brown'fi and Platte; and 

 around the wavering flame of the waning fire, disputing 

 with feeble flicker the sombre shadows of encroaching 

 night, sit "Diddv Foulds" and "Judge" Snider, Billy 

 Wetzel and Ben Renshaw, rare old Ben. loyal old com- 

 rades they and well beloved, who with Uncle Dan have 

 crossed over the divide into the unknown land beyond. 



Through the delusive film come memoiies, too^ ot fleBce 



ominous growls, Mother Gehring appeared on the scene 

 and by a vigorous kick in his rear and a few words in 

 German— or maybe it was the attack in the rear— pre- 

 vailed on him to slink around the corner of the house, 

 where he turned and stood eyeing me with an expression 

 on his dog(ged) countenance that said plain as print, 

 "Old feller, I'll get even with ye for that kiek if it takes 

 me all summer." 



It was plain, too, that he thought this in German, but 

 I have rendered it into elegant American for the bene- 

 fit of any reader who may not have had to do with cross- 

 grained Teutonic canines. 



He was another good subject for a peeled elm club, 

 which I felt the more need of because, unlike the big 

 savage pup at Green Lake, he was not chained. I had a 

 notion, as the ill-favored cuss glowered at me from around 

 the corner, that he woidd have willingly parted with an- 

 other joint of his already abbreviated caudal for a chance 

 to hustle me out of the lot and take a mou'ful out of the 

 seat of my breeches — if nothinr "^Ise — as I went over the 

 fence; but the presence of his luistress and the remem- 

 brance of the jolt in the rear prevented the carrying out 

 this vengeful scheme, and Mother Gehring and I pro- 

 ceeded with our negotiations— a hard tussle for me with- 

 out an interpreter — touching on the matter of milk, 

 vegetables, and baking bread for the camp, without fur- 

 ther interference from "the ornery cuss around the 

 corner." We furnished the flour and Mother Gehring 

 baked two, three or four loaves of most excellent bread 

 at a time as needed, and every evening we got a half gal- 

 lon or a gallon of fresh, sweet, rich milk, but no butter, 

 as she made barely enough for their own table, and all 

 the vegetables from the garden we wanted. 



From neighbor Laidlaw's, a half mile or more up the 

 lake we got every other day a roll of golden butter right 

 from the churn and a big tin pail full of fresh butter- 

 milk which little Tommy took on himself to tote to the 

 camp. 



flattering testimonial to Barney's out-in-camp cookery. 

 The properties of the mineral spring, or something else, 

 seemed to keep us hungry most of the time, and old Sam 

 was not much out of the way when he remarked one 

 evening as he speared his fourth trout from the pan with 

 his fork, "This gang would bu'st up the best tavern in 

 ole Kaintuck in two innin's," and in the same breath, 

 with a wink at Kelpie across the tabli^, "Jeems mackerel, 

 tech them rozberries a leetle mild; too many of 'em might 

 give ye a pain in yer diafram." 



It was a great camp; full of good fellowship and good 

 cheer, and we enjoyed it all as only they who go to the 

 woods with long intervals between; as only they who love 

 the voices of the forest, and hear music in running 

 brooks. 



The boys came before sundown with a couple of snakes 

 and a fair string of small-mouthed bass, and by the time 

 Barney had supper ready the odor from the frying-pans 

 reminded us of old times again. 



They had not found the fishing quite up to their ex- 

 pectations, but it was so much better than at Green 

 Lake that old Sam's chin — which we got to read like a 

 barometer by the elevation or depression thereof — gave 

 indications of a mind serene and at peace with all the 

 world. When he came up the low bank near Barney's 

 table with chin away down it meant "nary nibble all 

 day;" chin away up "heap good luck," with graduations 

 between the two extremes that told almost unerringly the 

 measure of his success for the day. 



After supper we carried up some logs and limbs from 

 under the bank and built a big camp-fire at the foot of 

 the hill back of the tents (that started the "ornery cuss' 

 at the farmhouse to barking, thought it was a newfangled 

 moon, maybe), and sat around it till well into the night, 

 telling over the stories of old camps— stories that bear 

 oft repeating and never grow old — and laying plans for 

 the morrow's fishing. 



KiNGtFISHEE. 



