ISO 
H% Mp af i Bn l m jurist 
THE KING OF CAMPERS. 
Winter is upon us and the moose have yarded, secure 
from the pursuit of honest men. The pools where the 
salmon splash in summer are smoothly blanketed in white 
and the whole wilderness sleeps, that in a few months it 
may greet us anew, fresh as a blooming girl. The rifle 
withholds its thunderbolts and lies lazily stretched on its 
row of pegs. The big reel that has sung- the death song 
of many a hapless victim is a prisoner in its box. Rifle 
and reel, paddle and rod, these never grow old. If one 
could only live a thousand years to use them! They are 
the cure for business and politics, the refuge from the 
places "where discord rears eternal babel." 
Amid the half -formed plans for next season my mind 
turns often to the stories of the heroes who found for us 
all the grand Canadian wilderness, that summer heaven on 
earth. The story of those men's voyages, as told by Francis 
Parkman, is in my opinion without an equal in the 
literature of outing. First among these explorers, of 
course, stands that ideal woodsman, that king of campers, 
Samuel de Champlain. As one reads the account^, one 
does not know which to admire the more, the indomitable 
spirit and cheerful resourcefulness of the great explorer, 
or the marvelous genius of the historian. Surely Parkman 
is the monarch of wilderness description. Who that has 
read it can ever forget the voyage of Champlain up the 
Ottawa as described in "Pioneers of France in the New 
World?" 
"All day they plied their paddles. Night came and they 
made their camp-fire in the forest. He who now, when 
two centuries and a half are passed, would see the evening 
bivouac of Champlain has but to encamp with Indian 
Sides on the upper waters of this same Ottawa — to this 
y a solitude — or on the borders of some lonely river of 
New Brunswick or of Maine. 
"As, crackling in the forest stillness, the flame cast its 
keen red light around, wild forms stood forth against the 
outer gloom — the strong, the weak, the old, the young; 
all the leafy hosts of the wilderness; moss-bearded ancients 
tottering to their death, saplings slender and smooth, 
trunks hideous with wens and goitres and strange de- 
formity; the oak, a giant in rusty mail; the Atlantean 
column of the pine, bearing on high its murmuring world 
of verdure; the birch, ghastly and wan, a specter in the 
darkness; and aloft the knotted boughs, uncouth, dis- 
torted shapes, struggling amid dim clouds of foliage." 
Then follows the description of the scene as they ate 
their evening meal and then lay down to rest. A shiver 
creeps over you as you realize the night's cold, for he 
says: 
"Perhaps, as the night were on, chilled by the river 
damps, someslumberer awoke, kneeled by the sunken fire, 
spread his numbed hands over the dull embers, and 
stirred them with a half -consumed brand." 
The sunken fire! How those three words bring up the 
whole scene. Not merely burned low, but eaten down 
into the mossy earth, below the level of the surrounding 
ground. Who can fully appreciate it except one who has 
looked in vain for a good camping chance away from 
the peat bogs that line the shores of so many Canadian 
rivers? 
"Then the sparks, streaming upward, roamed like fire- 
flies among the dusky boughs. * * * As he lay once 
more by the replenished fire sounds stole upon his ear, 
faint, mysterious, startling to the awakened fancy, the 
whispering fall of a leaf, the creaking of a bough, the 
stir of some night insect, the soft footfall of some prowl- 
ing beast; from the far-off shore the mournful howl of a 
lonely wolf or the leaping of a fish, where, athwart the 
pines, the weird moon gleamed on the midnight river." 
O, good Mr. Parkman, you were there! You knew 
how it was yourself. And then the morning: 
"Day dawned. The east glowed with tranquil fire, 
that pierced, with eyes of flame, the fir trees, whose 
jagged tops stood drawn in black against the burning 
heaven. Beneath, the glossy river slept in Bhadow or 
spread far and wide in sheets of burnished bronzp; and 
in the western sky the white moon hung like a disk of 
silver. Now a fervid light touched the dead tops of the 
hemlock, and now, creeping downward, it bathed the 
mossy beard of the patriarchal cedar, unstirred in the 
breathless air. Now a fiercer spark beamed from the 
east, and now, half risen on the sight, a dome of crimson 
fire, the sun blazed with floods of radiance across the 
awakened wilderness. 
"The paddles flashed, the voyagers held their course; 
and soon the still surface was flecked with spots of foam; 
islets of froth floated by, tokens of some great convulsion. 
Then on their left the falling curtain of the Eideau shone 
like silver betwixt its bordering woods, and in front, 
white as a snowdrift, the cataracts of the Chaudiere 
barred their way. They saw the dark cliffs, gloomy with 
impending firs, and the darker torrent rolling its mad 
surges along the gulf between. They saw the unbridled 
river careering down its sheeted rocks, foaming in un- 
fathomed chasms, wearying the solitude with the hoarse 
outcry of its agony and rage. * * * Over the rocks, 
through the woods." 
That was the portage. "Over the rocks, through the 
woods!" We who have done it know, do we not? 
"Then they launched their canoes again and with toil 
and struggle made their amphibious way — now pushing, 
now dragging, now lifting, now paddling, now shoving 
with poles." 
As we read we wonder if Champlain really did learn 
to handle a setting pole and to trim the ends as they 
"broomed up." I think he did. Parkman did, anyhow. 
"Day by day brought a renewal of their toils. Hour 
by hour they moved prosperously up the long winding of 
the solitary stream; then, in quick succession, rapid fol- 
lowed rapid, till the bed of the Ottawa seemed a slope of 
foam. * * * Now they glided beneath overhanging 
cliffs, where, seeing but unseen, the crouched wildcat 
eyed them from the thicket. * * * In the weedy cove 
stood the moose, neck-deep in water to escape the flies, 
wading shoreward, with glistening sides, as the canoes 
drew near, shaking his broad antlers and writhing his 
hideous nostril, as with clumsy trot he vanished in the 
woods." 
Parkman understood the charm of the presence of the 
wild animals. He knew what a sense of companionship 
there is in a caribou track along the shore. The next 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
paragraph is, to my mind, one of the finest things in the 
English language: 
"In these ancient wilds, to whose ever verdant antiquity 
the pyramids are young and Nineveh a mushroom of yes- 
terday; where the sage wanderer of the Odyssey, could 
he have urged his pilgrimage so far, would have surveyed 
the same grand and stern monotony, the same dark sweep 
of melancholy woods; and where, as of yore, the bear 
and wolf still lurk in the thicket, and the lynx glares 
from the leafy bough; — here, while New England was a 
solitude, and the settlers of Virginia scarcely dared ven- 
ture inland beyond the sound of cannon shot, Champlain 
was planting on shores and islands the emblems of his 
faith." 
It has been suggested by some one that Parkman was 
too rhetorical for accuracy. The very opposite is true. 
He attains, by his selection of words, at qnce a concise- 
ness and an accuracy impossible to any commonplace 
attempt. "Ever verdant antiquity!" Do you realize the 
tremendous sweep of the description? It is like a light- 
ning flash by night, in whose brief brilliance the wilder- 
ness, eternal, primeval, evergreen, is revealed to the 
vision of one who, in more leisurely daylight, has become 
familiar with the details. 
"The lynx glares from the leafy bough." What other 
word than "glares" can be found which so sums up the 
characteristic conduct of the lucivee? Did you ever see a 
lynxs in a tree? Well, the first time you do, his bulging 
eyes will be all you will remember probably. It seems as 
though Parkman bad hunted the language through for 
just the word that meant all he wished to say. 
Read the account of how the dauntless Champlain, fol- 
lowing a red-headed woodpecker, the first he had ever 
seen, became lost; how he wandered for three days. "He 
had found paths in the wilderness, but they were not 
made by human feet." How he finally followed a little 
brook to the big river, how he figured it all out and found 
himself, is told as only Parkman could tell it. 
Among all the camp makers of Canada — the world's 
greatest camping ground — Champlain is foremost. Honor 
be to his name, and no less to that of Parkman, who, 
with an imagination of transcendent power, has illumined 
a minute familiarity with woodland affairs. The picture 
is so lifelike that we can see through the mists of 280 
years the very flickerings of Champlain's camp-fire, and 
as we do so we thank the good God that we are privileged 
to gaze upon the same majestic scenes of rock and river, 
of mossy, barren and placid lake, unmapped and un- 
named, in large part, as in the olden days. Oh, Canada, 
to thy gray and venerable hills, thy ever green shores, thy 
gentle, bounteous wild' rness — to tnee fond memory turns, 
while the repose of the snowdrift is upon thee, and the 
rifle hangs upon the wall. Brave is "the bright roll of 
thy forest chivalry," and no less brave is he who, with 
pen of light, has written the portrait of thy foremost hero 
and placed it in the gallery of imperishable renown. 
Frederic Irland. 
UNCLE LISHA'S OUTING— XII. 
The East Slang. 
During the night the rain ceased and the morning 
broke through rifted clouds which slowly scattered in 
white-fleeced flocks and drifted away across the azure 
field. Though the storm had partially stripped the trees 
of their ripened leaves, they seemed none the less brilliant 
when the unveiled splendor of the sun fell upon them, 
for each unfallen leaf had gained more intense color, and 
like every branch and twig sparkled with innumerable 
drops of liquid crystal. 
Leaving their companions to the pursuit of sport on 
shore Sam and Antoine took their guns and went down 
to the upper landing, where they were surprised to find 
a couple of blanket-coated swarthy men, just landed from 
a bark canoe, bending intently over the dew-beaded bot- 
tom of Sam's upturned canoe and conversing in unintel- 
ligible, low and musical tones. 
"Dar was you Injin, jes' Ah tol' you," said Sam tri- 
umphantly. 
At their approach the Indians turned toward them 
without any manifestation of surprise, and one of them, 
a good-looking man of middle age, greeted Sam with a 
pleasant smile of recognition. 
"How do, Lovet? Know me? Me Joe Tocksoose. Make 
um dat canoe five, six year 'go." 
"Why, yes; so you be," said Sam, giving him a cordial 
hand, "but I never s'posed I'd run ag'in ye here. Trappin' 
be ye?" 
"Yaas, ketch um moosquas, some." 
His companion ignored the presence of the white men 
after the first glance at them, and turned his back upon 
them and pottered lazily over a useless rearrangement of 
the traps and muskrats in the bow of his canoe. His low- 
browed face was sullen, his little eyes as cruel as a snake's, 
and he looked as if he might be a savage brother rather 
than a civilized descendant of his barbarian ancestors. 
"You no trap um musquas?" Tocksoose asked. 
'•'No, hunting ducks. Shot many, hev ye?" 
"No, rather have musquas. Better for eat. Better for 
skin. Shoot um plenty duck?" 
"Wal, some. Hain't hunted a tumble sight. Where 
be you a-campin'?" 
"Up dar," the Indian answered, pointing toward the 
Slang. "Make 'em good canoe. Very good bark. Come 
see Bomeday." 
"Nawah, Tocksoose," the other Indian growled with . 
gruff impatience as he shoved the canoe afloat and stepped 
into it. 
"Onh-onh, me come," Tocksoose answered, and fol- 
lowed his companion. "Goo'-by, Lovet, come see canoe," 
and getting clear of the weeds they paddled away as 
silently as If they were ghosts of their long-departed pro- 
genitors haunting the changed scenes of their earthly life. 
The Indians went across and down stream, examining 
and resetting their traps in houses along the border of 
marsh. 
Sam and Antoine shaped their course up stream, find- 
ing no game on the ground which the trappers had just 
passed over, but after passing the South Slang ducks 
arose, singly and in flocks, frequently enough to give 
them all the shooting they could wish. But they missed 
much oftener than they killed, for Sam had not acquired 
the knack of cutting down his birds in the moment that 
they labored upward from the rushy covert before they 
began to climb the air in a swift ascending slant, or 
scurrying away in swifter level flight, when he continu- 
ally made the mistake of shooting behind his mark, 
[.Feb. 15, 1896. 
Antoine always dwelt long on his aim, and when he 
attempted a shot at a single flying bird poked after it till 
it was out of range and then lowered his wabbling muzzle 
or blazed away into empty space. Now and then a duck 
succumbed to Sam's shot and came down with a head- 
long, surging splash into the marsh, perhaps to be lost in 
the even sameness of the sedgy level, perhaps to be re- 
trieved after a groping search in the maze of wild rice 
stalks or denser tangle of more diversified marsh growth. 
Achieving such indifferent success, they came to the 
East Slang and entered the narrow channel, when a 
dusky duck arose from the weeds on their left with a pro- 
digious flutter and outcry of alarm. Sam caught aim 
and fired in the instant during which she hung almost 
stationary after the upward spring. Confident of the 
correctness of his aim, he was surprised and disgusted 
beyond measure to see the heavy bird continue her flight, 
climbing the air almost perpendicularly and with con- 
tinually increasing speed to a height at which she looked 
no bigger than a swallow. 
"Wal, by thegre't horn spoon!" was all he could say, 
and Antoine offered such soothing condolence as one 
is apt to receive when he has made an unsuccessful shot. 
"Wal, Ah'U was spec' for see it tombly, he was so beeg 
lak geese an' so close Ah can mos' stroke it wid mah pad- 
dle. Prob'ly you'll was hit it, but he was fool dauk an' 
a'n't know de way for fall, so he fall up, prob'ly, 'less 
prob'ly he was gat tire of dis wicked worF an' goin' 
look for de angel. Bah gosh, he mos' gat where dey 
was." 
They were still watching the towering bird when sud- 
denly her wings closed spasmodically and she came down 
like a plummet, striking the water so near them that the 
canoe was sprinkled with the upbursting shower of spray, 
while in the center of the circling wavelets the inert, life- 
less bird rose and sank like a balancing scale. 
Again Sam ejaculated, "Wal, by the gre't horn spoon!" 
and Antoine was surprised into an expression of astonish- 
ment. A close examination proved that the bird had been 
hit by a single shot, which had bored the brain. 
' 'Jes' Ah tol' you," said Antoine complacently; "you'll was 
mek him crazy in hees head of it, so he'll a'n't know de 
way for fall.' Ah'll know what hail it jes' soon Ah'll see 
him fall up dat way, me." 
Sam's gun was reloaded, and they were again moving 
forward when a small, dusky-hued waterfowl swam 
boldly into the channel before them within short range. 
"Hoi' on. Don' shot." Antoine said in a low but in- 
tensely earnest tone as Sam leveled his gun on the easy 
mark, but as the words were spoken the trigger was 
pulled, and out of the cloud of smoke the shot rained 
upon the spot from which the daring fowl had instan- 
taneously vanished. 
"Dar," cried Antoine in supreme disgust, as the re- 
bounding echoes came rolling back from hill and wood- 
land, "A'h't Ah'll tol' you? What for you shot at dat' 
mis'bly leetly hell-davver? You can' keel it more as hit 
litlin, an' if you'll was gat it, he a'n't wors more as 
not'ing 't all. Naow he gone daown for see his fader,: 
de dev', an' in minute he come back for laft at you. 
Dar." And there indeed the uncanny, keen-eyed, sharp- 
billed head popped just above the surface two gunshots 
away, swimming for the marsh, where it presently dis-i 
appeared. 
Then they were startled by a rush of multitudinous! 
swift wings, and a great flock of teal swept past, follow- i 
ing every turn of the channel in their arrowy flight till 
they alighted with a long, resounding splash fifty rods| 
further up stream. Standing up and peering cautiously I 
over the marsh, Sam saw the flock swimming in the chan- 
nel opposite to a clump of low-branched trees on the east- , 
em bank. 
"They hain't six rod from a good place to crawl up tu, 
'em," he whispered, as he settled back on to his knees! 
and took up a paddle. "Le's run int' the brook here an' 
land an' tackle 'em from the bank. If we git a good lick 
at 'em we won't want tu hunt no more to-day." 
They landed on the bank of the brook and held across: 
the field till the clump of trees were in range with thei 
place where the teal had alighted, Turning at a right: 
angle, they advanced cautiously in this direction and 
were soon close behind a screen of low-hanging oak) 
branches, looking between which they saw at least a 
hundred unsuspecting teal swimming and feeding within, 
easy range, the blue wings gleaming in the sunlight in 
brilliant contrast to the dull color of the general 
plumage. 
"You pour it int' the thick on 'em a-settin'," Sam 
whispered, as they silently cocked their guns, "an' I'll 
let 'em hev when they rise." 
Antoine nodded and poked his gun through an opening 
to what he imagined to be a perfect aim on the thickest ; 
huddle of the flock. Sam felt a pang of contrition for 
the impending slaughter of the innocents, but held his 
gun ready to do his part in it. The roar of Antoine's gun 
was prolonged by the roar of a hundred pairs of wings 
starting to simultaneous flight, and quickly echoed by 
Sam's discharge. Rushing forward to the verge of the 
marsh, the shooters peered eagerly under the lifting cloud 
of smoke and saw one solitary wing-tipped teal struggling 
toward the cover of the marsh through the frost-black- 
ened lilypads. Antoine had quite over-shot the sitting 
birds, and Sam, aiming at the whole flock, had missed 
all but the chance-struck victim. 
As far up stream as there was water enough to float one, 
it must have been alive with ducks, for now the air was 
swarming with them, a disturbed congregation, uttering 
cries of alarm, some circling about in confused flight, 
some making straight away over the woods to the two 
creeks, and some following the course of the stream, 
passing overhead and before the chop-fallen gunners. 
"Sam, bah-a-gosh!" Antoine ejaculated in most abject < 
self-disgust. "Le's we load off aour gaun an' shot one 
'nudder. We gat too fool for leeve some more." 
"By the gre't horn spoon, Antwine," Sam replied in 
utter contempt of their performance, "we couldn't hit 
one 'nuther erless we helt the muzzles o' aour guns in aour 
maouths. We might 's well go an' git the canew an' see 
if we c'n find that 'ere waounded duck," and he began 
carefully reloading his gun. 
"Dat dauk? You maght jes' well hunt for haystack , 
wid needle as hunt dat dauk. Nobody fan' him but mink 
or prob'ly de hawk. What for you load off you gaun? 
Bah gosh! Ah'll a'n't load off mah gaun some more. He . 
a'n't so good as stick hwood. Ah, Sacre hoi' damashin' 
gaun!" Antoine growled at his musket and handled it as 
if with an intention of smashing it on the nearest tree, J 
