Sept. 15, 1893,] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



227 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



[From, a Staff Gmrcspondmt,.'] 

 ON THE BRULE. 



Chicago, 111,, Sept. 1.— There is a man who comes 

 under my window every morning and announces that he 

 has for sale, "R-r-r-ros'o'urrrs, r-r-r-rosb'urrrs, nice 

 fraiahe r-r-r-rosb'urrrs !" This he does with a persistence, 

 harshness and unvarying volume of discordant sound, 

 which alone could easily teach me to hate him in the 

 most cheexful manner. Beyond that he is a perjured 

 villain, and states that which is not. There are no nice 

 fresh raspberries except those which grow along the 

 Brule River, away up in Michigan. It is preposterous 

 that this smart villain should have obtained any of these 

 raspbeiTies, for not one of them ever found a market. 

 Of the truth of this I was convinced before I went up to 

 Brule last week, and now doubt is out of the question. 

 There are not really any raspberries in the world except 

 these of the Brule, and none are nice and fresh but these, 

 jarred into the waiting hand from the full-hanging 

 bush, wet with cold pine-woods dew, and sweet as honey 

 of the ancient isles. This man calls further at my win- 

 dow under imminent peril, I know him for a dissolute 

 and unreliable character, careless of speech and openly 

 abusive of the truth. Equally bitter are my feelings for 

 his companion in crime, who sometimes comes by insist- 

 ing that he has "Fraishe feesh— fraishe teesh." There 

 are no fresh fish worth the word except trout fresh from 

 the Brule. 



Mr. Chas. Norrris and myself had planned all the sea- 

 sou to go up for some big trout on the Brule, at the point 

 where he has had such good fortune, but the summer 

 (slipped by as usual, leaving nearly all such plans unac- 

 complished, until last week Mr. Norris insisted I should 

 go up with hitn and properly bring the season to a close. 

 Whereupon we took a Chicago Northwestern train, clear 

 up into the pine and iron country of the North Peninsula. 

 At Florence we took aboard a boat and a good compan- 

 ion, Ole Peterson, once a cook in the logging camps, and 

 now a resident of Florence. Thence a short run to 

 Kearney's Spur, a mere stopping place on the trail over 

 to the great rolling dam on the Brule, where Mr. Norris 

 has done most of his fishing. Here we took on a live- 

 box, a little covered boat to k~eep our troUt alive. Then 

 we pulled out for Saunders, fifteen or twenty miles 

 further up the road, a point where the Brule comes close 

 up to the road for tlie convenience of foolish persons like 

 ourselves, who seek to run the Brule in a water craft. 

 Had we gone ujd to Basswood, twenty miles fm-ther, and 

 fished in Cook's Pdnd, a mile from the station, we could 

 have caught more fish and larger, but we wanted to run 

 the Brule. So, after an afternoon's pursuit of that same, 

 omnipresent, delusive creek, "just about two miles over 

 in the woods," where 2lb. trout were to be had in plenty 

 —a trip which brought us only a dozen small ones— 

 we got our boat in order for an early start in the 

 morning. Ole Peterson was called home by wire that 

 evening, to our regret, but be helped us portage our boat 

 over the half-mile trail to the riter. The sun was barely 

 up next mornijng when Mr. Noi-ris and I pushed out into 

 the spinning current and began our journey of perhaps 

 twenty miles, down to the camp of the rolling dam near 

 Kearney's Spur, where we expected to take the train for 

 home. How long we were to be in running the twenty 

 miles depended first, on the fishing; second, on the num- 

 ber of times we got upset. The natives cheerfully al- 

 lowed that, as we had no guide, the latter incident 

 would happen with great regularity. For my part, I 

 doja'fc see why one should need a guide on a stream so 

 swift as the Brule. You can't get lost, and you are bound 

 to keep on going if you stay on top of your boat. Be- 

 sides Mr. Norris had often run the stream before, knew 

 the rapids, and was moreover the best amateur river man 

 I ever knew. We thought we could find all the rapids 

 and rough places by ourselves. So we turned her loose. 



Although we paddled only enough to steady the boat, 

 or to dodge the big rocks which seemed hurrying up in 

 procession to meet us, we soon came to "Saunder's dam," 

 not far below town. Here we paused for an hour or so 

 and caught six lusty trout, half a pound or so each, 

 which we put in the live-box. We had no strikes until 

 we got here, and took all our trout in the eddy below the 

 dam. It began to look to us as though all the trout that 

 could get up out of the big water had left the river and 

 taken to the cold streams and. the lakes., as is their habit 

 at this season. 



A RIVER OS' SPIRITS. 



We had a heavy and risky portage over this dam, and 

 then shot down stream, our live-box in tow, now on one 

 Bide and then the other, sometimes ahead of us. After 

 we found the trout were not rising we ceased to trouble 

 about the fish, and took it out of the pleasure of the ride. 

 The country was picturesque in the extreme, the bluff 

 near the upper dam especially so. The Brule is a wild 

 stream and always will be so. Civilization can never get 

 near it, A hundred years from now it will have no 

 trout iu itj but it will look as if it had, and it will then 

 be telling still its mysterious story about the spirits of 

 these woods, and it will run then as now, through a silence 

 and a solitude which will impress the chance voyager 

 in a way he will feel on few other streams. Rivers have 

 their individuality. Some are lively, cheerful, inviting, 

 companionable. They exj>and you; they throw wide the 

 .gate« of your nature. The Brule is moody, mystic, 

 brooding, not sullen, but haughty, self -intent, busy with 

 vast, age- old problems and indifferent to small things. 

 It does not expand, it contracts your heart. It invites 

 you, but you chill as you feel the fascination. It is the 

 river incurably insane, keeping apart, talking with it- 

 self, knowing things perhaps not dreamed in our philos- 

 ophy. It is to be gazed upon with awe, with wonder, 

 and with fear, and yet the gaze is fore-bound. The 

 BruIA does not ask for you, and it does not challenge, 

 neithi'r does it sneer at you. It simply does not see you. 

 You tuui yourself upon it, angered by its indifference, 

 bound to break way into its confidence. The Brule sees 

 yOu not, and when you depart it is as cold, as careless, 

 S.8 uncompanionable and as fascinating as before. It is a 

 jriver of spirits, and with spirits it finds its sole compan- 

 ionship. It knows the secrets of these woods. It knows 

 what lies beneath these hills. The sph'its tell it. The 

 Indiana know it for a haunted stream. The loggers are 

 afraid of it. It has drowned its hundreds. It drowned 

 ■ jfcwQ wpodsD^es thirty mUea helQw ns on the day ran 



the stream, and I doubt not it would have drowned us, if 

 it could, in a very careless, indifferent way, and then 

 have gone on just the same with its mys+ical murmur- 

 ings over the story of the centuries in the North. There 

 is no comradery with the Brule. But go there, and see 

 if you do not want to go again. No man can escape the 

 charm. 



I am bound to say that the Brule was in a fair way to in ci- 

 dentally add us to' its list, or at least did its best in that 

 way. When the water is high the stream is not so hard 

 to run, but in low water the rocks are uncovered, and it 

 requires constant watchfulness to keep afloat. We ran 

 about six miles of lively water below the first dam with 

 some exhilaration and no damage, and then we phinged 

 into a long rapid and could see the water apparently 

 dropping right out from under us, and pouring down an 

 incline which was white with rough water and black 

 with countless boulders. We couldn't back out and had 

 no time to think. Taking the widest passage where the 

 water was roughest, we shaved close to a big boulder, 

 slid by, and a moment later were hard and fast on a 

 sunken rock beyond. At once the boat swung broadside 

 on, the stern catching on another rock, and then the 

 sinister flood of the Brule swept in a white curl barely an 

 inch below the gunwale, the hardest pushing, angriest 

 water I ever saw. Back of us it was something like 

 looking up a house roof, only one that wouldn't bold 

 still, and below us was forty yards of tumbling water 

 which continued the incline. We pushed our best to 

 swing the stern back, but were babies against the arm of 

 the Brule. We couldn't get over and we couldn't get 

 back. An inch more of water on the upper side, and 

 over we would go, with small chances of getting a breath 

 for forty yards; in which case we would have been 

 almost the wettest people in the world, and would cer- 

 tainly have lost all our stuft", for which a cool hundred 

 would have been no temptation. 



"How deep is she, Charlie':"' I asked Non-is. 



"I don't know," said he, "you can't tell till you try, 

 but you can't stand up knee deep in it, that's sure, Still, 

 I guess we'll have to step out on these rocks here and lift 

 her over," 



Norris had on hip boots, and over the feet rubber shoes 

 with hob-nailed leather soles— a device of his own which 

 is worth notice for rocky wading. Over my wading 

 stockings I wore overalls and heavy socks, and was shod 

 with a pair of woodsmen's shoe-packs, whose bottoms 

 were filled with soft nails — a rig which I found admir- 

 able. There seemed a reasonable certainty that we could 

 hold our footing on the rocks where our boat was 

 stranded, and not being able to escape the Brule in any 

 other way, we stepped gingerly out, one at the bow and 

 one on the sunken rock astern, and gave a united heave. 

 This placed us below the boat and when she started she 

 nearly went over us. We made a flying jump aboard as 

 she went between us, grabbed the paddles and somehow 

 or other the first thing we knew we were below the 

 rapids, and the Brule was going right on, tending to its 

 knitting just the same. At this point I noticed one thing 

 about water. When you stand at one side and look at 

 rapids of this sort, you think it looks jolly, and it seems 

 that way as long as you keep moving when you are 

 shooting them, but if you get hung out in the middle of 

 a bad chute, the water coming down on you, looks sort of 

 uncomfartable-like. These rapids are not as bad as those 

 of the Menominee, but they are bad enough to be stimu- 

 lating. As we knew this was the worst bit on our part 

 of the river, we did not mind the others, which we 

 mostly took flying, with a whoop at the toii and a yell at 

 the bottom, and some incidental slides, swerves and 

 grinds between. In many rough places the water was 

 too shallow to be dangerous, though there were some bad 

 holes and swirls in water where good, quick steering was 

 a mighty useful thing. 



Finding it useless to cast, we made on down, deciding 

 not to camp out, but to run to the Kearney dam. This 

 we made early in the afternoon, and hailed the two dam- 

 tenders, Tom' Winslow and Fred Sanborn, just as they 

 were shutting down the gates for the day. The "drive" 

 was on in the Menominee away below, and the "head" 

 of this dam on the Brule was regularly used, daily advice 

 coming up from the drive as to the hour for opening and 

 closing the gates, 



JUMPING TROUT. 



"Great heavens, look there!" cried Norris, as we pulled 

 up on the breast of the dam. "Look at the trout!" 



Indeed, the great pool below the dam, some oOyds. 

 across in either direction, and grown alniost quiet after 

 the shutting of the gates, was fairly alive with leaping 

 trout. By dozens they were springing from the water 

 and their crimson crests were everywhere, each painted 

 darling of them giving the water the regulation trout 

 spat of the tail as it went down. It was a wild and 

 beautiful picture. 



"Hurry up," cried Tom, "and get to fishing, They 

 only jump for half an hour or so after we close the dam 

 and they won't bite any other time," 



We hurried and soon Norris was trying the eddy be- 

 low the great dam, a pool 15ft. deep, with worm and 

 chub bait, while I went to the tail of the pool and used 

 the fly. It was easy to see that there were big trout in 

 that pool, plenty of them over 2lbs., and probably 3 or 

 4lbs. Equally easy was it to see that the fishing was to 

 be poor. The water swarmed with small minnows, and 

 the trout were feeding on these, springing up again and 

 again through the schools. For a long time they scorned 

 the fly, but at length I found a gray-drake, the top fly on 

 the leader, begin to take them, Parmachene-belle_ took 

 only one trout, and out of the dozen or so I took in all, 

 the gray-d4:ake raised all but this one, I caught some 

 very nice fish, but they did not rise strong or play hard. 

 The trout season had brought itself to a close. Too much 

 feed and the approach of the spawning season put a veto 

 on any very great sport. Norris caught more fish than I, 

 and larger. The catch for the whole trip ran between 

 sixty and seventy, and while the average size was very 

 good, we had nothing over 11 or 2lbs. The Brule is 

 much fished, and has lost its ancient reputation, but 

 there are large trout there, and had we been earlier we 

 would, owing to Norris's familiarity with those waters, 

 have taken some very heavy fish, as he has usually done 

 there. 



One thing we learned much to diecredit of the future 

 on this stream, and that is the Brule is being occupied by 

 other flsh than trout, W© heard of perch being taken 



above the rolling dam, and also heard of two pickerel 

 caught below it. Morris caught a pickerel and I caught 

 a perch. Chubs and large suckers were there by thous- 

 ands. Under such circumstances trout fishing is not apt 

 to stay good very long, and I fear the fate of the Brule is 

 sealed. It is rather hard to think of there being pickerel 

 in that great pool ,%vhere the trout were leaping, but they 

 were doubtless there. 



A NOVEL TRAP. 



We slept that night at the logging camp on the brow of 

 the hill below the dam. The two boys, Windsor and San- 

 born, pass a lonely life here, and seemed glad enough to 

 see us. Norris often goes there, and is quite well known 

 through the country about, even did it take long to get 

 acquainted over a cup of hot tea and aplate of crinkling 

 trout. We sat up late, passing part of the night in tar- 

 get practice with a .22 rifle by candle light. When you 

 live in a log house you don't need a backstop, and you 

 can shoot at about anything you like. 



"We've caught five skunks in the last week, in the old 

 camp," said Tom "and I expect we'll catch another to- 

 night. Come in and see our trap." 



We stepped out, a few yards from the door, into an 

 abandoned log house similar to the one in which we 

 slept, and there we saw a trap which was a new one on 

 me. This was an invention of Fred Sanborn's, and its 

 ingenuity deserves mention. The trap consisted of a box, 

 a log, a board and a coffee sack. It had no trigger, no 

 spindle, no'door. nojslide, and worked only on the simple 

 principle of the law of gravity. The box was about 18in. 

 square and 30in. deep. It was balanced lengthwise over 

 the log, the open end pointing forward. 



Up to the open end the board was inclined, so that an 

 animal could walk up it and into the box. The open end 

 was blocked up, so that it could not tilt down, but beyond 

 the center of gravity, at the other end, the box was left 

 free to fall down, and hung just on a balance on the 

 smooth round top of the log. The front or open end of 

 the box was safe. The back end of the box wasn't safe. 

 A bait was tied in an upper corner of the unsafe end. 

 Mr. Skunk comes along, and like any other fool, allows 

 he must go in and see about that bait. He walks up into 

 the open end of the box, and it is solid as a rock. Then 

 he'goeson back, reaches up for the bait— and being an un- 

 lettered skunk, who never heard of Sir Isaac Newton 

 and the law of gravity, he always wonders what makes 

 that box fall down and stand up on end , its smooth sides 

 giving him no chance to climb out. He doesn't under- 

 stand, either, what makes it so dark, not having seen the 

 coffee sack free itself from the splinter which held it up 

 over the door, fastened to a stick planted for that purpose. 

 All the coffee sack did was just to obey the law of gravity 

 also, and fall over the mouth of the box, because that 

 was the easiest place to go when the box fell over and 

 stood up on end. 



Mr. Skunk is a philosopher, we are to suppose, and 

 finding the box about as good as any place, settles him- 

 self down comfortably, not raising any trouble and not 

 bothering himself very much about what is going to hap- 

 pen. He just waits for somebody to come and take 

 him out. In the night we heard the box fall over and in 

 the morning this is what happened. We pulled the 

 cover close down over the box, slipped a pole through 

 some bits of wire fastened on the box, carried the box 

 down to the well-like pocket of still water in the sluice 

 above the dam, pulled back the cover and dumped the 

 philosophical skunk, a victim of misplaced confidence in 

 the law of gravity, into the water. He swam a stroke or 

 two serenely and philosophically— beats the world what 

 confidence a skunk has in himself — when biff! a rifie ball 

 put an end at once to him and to his unfortunate and 

 reckless personal habits. He was a dead and deodorized 

 skunk, and if anybody knows a slicker way to get away 

 with the skunk bacillus than this, I'd like to hear of it, 



"I just thought this trap up," said Fred. That is what 

 makes it interesting. It shows what the man in the 

 woods will do, out of his limited resources. 



And now we lived on raspberries — actually nice fresh 

 raspberries, and fresh fish — actually fresh fish — and tea 

 and pork and beans, and grew strong. With bitterness 

 of regret we closed our little visit, carried oiu- boat out a 

 half mile or so to the railroad, dropped it off at Florence, 

 and came on "home," as people call the city where they 

 stay. 



I have spoken of the superstitious dread which enwraps 

 the Brule. Proof of this arose when we were up at the 

 great dam. 



"Has the spook been at work on the dam lately ?" asked 

 Norris of the boys, 



"Indeed he has," was Tom's eager reply. "We've 

 heard him knocking on the gate many a night lately. 

 There was a lot of fellows from Florence fishing down on 

 the dam, one night this summer, and when the knocking 

 began, they started out to see what it was. It kept on, 

 ri^ht under them, and all got scared and ran cff. They 

 said they wouldn't go there again for any money. Oscar 

 Craig tended dam above here last summer, and he said 

 he never would go down to the dam alone at night." 



"What's all this?" I asked of Norris. 



"Well," said he, "no one knows just what it is, but 

 often at night there comes a heavy pounding noise down 

 at the dam. It is so loud it can be heard clear up here at 

 the camp, and sounds so much like some one working at 

 the dam that many a watchman has gone done to see 

 about it, and got badly scared for his pains. It is usually 

 just three heavy jarring blows, and sounds just as if 

 some one hit the gate with a heavy sledge hammer. It 

 may be some secret action of the water on the timbers 

 of the dam when the gates are down, but no one has ever 

 found out what it is, and many a man has been scared 

 by it. It does sound kind of awkward, in the night. 

 We always called it the 'spook,' but what it is remains a 

 mystery." 



The sound was heard the night we were in the camp, 

 though I was asleep and did not hear it myself. It is 

 part of the history of the spot. What is it, the spirit of 

 some Titan of the Titanic lumbering days, who lost his life 

 while at some feat of reckless strength about the dam? 

 Some victim of the cold-hearted Brule? Some spirit of 

 the Brule stream itself, raging at the restraint of this vast 

 stern fabric whose compelling hand holds back a flood 

 unused to tarrying? What is it? Who knowt? And who 

 shall say this self-enwrapt, haughty, fearsome and yet 

 fascinating Brule stream is not a river of the spirits? 



E. Hough. 



175 Monroe Street, Chicago. 



