190 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
(March 7, 1896. 
IN WINTER WOODS. 
Forest and Stream turns up at ray breakfast table 
just as regularly and twice as often as the baked beans 
that New England tradition, as well as present liking, 
prompt my good wife to provide for our Sunday break- 
fast, for nowadays the beans come only fortnightly, while 
I welcome Forest and Stream every week. If I find 
anything signed Eowland E. Robinson, that of course I 
read first, otherwise I go through the paper regularly, 
barring some of the things about dogs and some about 
guns. 
Mr. Robinson's sketches of New England characters 
are charming and his facility in expressing New England 
dialect has, I think, rarely been equaled. 
Antoine's broken English is also excellent, although it 
has not been my fortune to come much in contact with 
precisely that form and degree of mixed languages and 
idioms. Here, as a rule, if one of a party hesitates or 
speaks English with difficulty we drop at once into 
French, although our French may sound quite as strange 
to Antoine as his English does to us. 
I am reminded now that some time ago there was a 
discussion in Forest and Stream over the fact that the 
French-Canadian people use their English in a semi-Irish 
and semi-cogkney manner, almost invariably dropping 
their hs. It l recollect correctly, reference was made 
particularly to the French of the "Eastern townships," 
the counties on the borders of New Hampshire and Ver- 
mont. This, I take it, is very largely due to the fact that 
the English-speaking people of that region are largely of 
Irish descent and their vernacular is largely tinged with 
the Irish brogue. It also may come in part from the dif- 
ficulty the French people have in using the English 
initial h. It is not much used in their ordinary speech, 
the words in which it is distinctly sounded being com- 
paratively few and in most cases being followed by the 
vowel a. Before other vowels the aspirate is almost com- 
pletely lost. A very bright Canadian girl found it very 
hard to say "Hire a hall," an expression that a jocose 
American taught her was a desirable one to use occasion- 
ally. She eventually learned it and very properly used 
it on him when his harangues proved uninteresting, but 
it was difficult for her to say otherwise than " 'Ire a 'all," 
although "Paint the town red" she could say quite easily. 
Happily, she was not entirely dependent on such an 
unprincipled instructor. 
When I come to Mr. Hough's account of trapping and 
snowshoeing in Wisconsin a shade of sadness comes over 
me, for I cannot do those things any more. 
Trapping I have never done, although I have been 
among them and come across them hundreds of times. 
But in snowshoes I have been a sort of Prof. Emeritus for 
a score of years or more. I can lead the boys on a fairly 
good tramp yet, but am less anxious to climb steep hillsides 
just to see what is beyond than I used to be, nor do I 
hasten to put on the shoes in the morning when I know 
they are not to come off till nightfall. I go snowshoeing 
no more just for fun— only once in a good while the girls 
coax me out for a bit of a walk that is mere child's play. 
The days when I followed Bill Newberry or the faithful 
Nazaire as far as they wanted me to go are past. I didn't 
begin snowshoeing very early in life, but I made up for it 
afterward. 
I cannot add anything of value to the discussion that has 
been going on about qualities and makes of snowshoes. I 
have always found Messrs. G. R. Renfrew & Co.'s "War- 
ranted" grade very satisfactory. They are made by the 
Indians of Lorette. I never yet found a pair that would 
not "bag" a little under some circumstances. 
Common kerosene lamp wicking makes very good 
strings— in some respects better than leather — though I 
doubt if it is quite as handy about putting on and taking 
off the shoes without untieing. So long as the same foot- 
wear is worn, it should rarely be necessary to untie the 
strings. Any considerable change in footgear, of course, 
involves a readjustment. 
I still remember my first real hard tramp. It was in 
February, after a very heavy rain— a kind of January 
thaw— and Newberry was my guide. The firet water we 
came to was a river so swollen that there were 10 or 12ft. 
of open water all along the bank. We cut down a tree 
and clambered along it onto the ice, then dragged 
it across and made a similar bridge on the other 
side. I remember it was ticklish business climbing along 
that little sapin tree, encumbered as we were with packs 
and snowshoes. Then there was half a mile up an over- 
flowed gully where we lifted pounds of slush and water 
on our snowshoes at every step, and another half mile 
along a sloping hillside that has always been a terror to 
the toughest traveler. By this time, as I remember, I was 
so faint that with one snowshoe off and one on I backed 
up against a tree and tried to nibble at a tough biscuit 
that I dug out of a pocketful of snow. It was hard lines 
for a tenderfoot. But by and by we reached a place 
where we could climb up the hill and at last came to a 
jobber's lumber camp. The men were all absent, but we 
found a chunk of half boiled pork in a kettle and a loaf of 
very black bread on a table. Not wishing to stop long 
enough to unpack and cook of our own provisions we ate 
of these, stuck a piece of silver in the remainder of the 
loaf and went on our way. The Chateau Frontenac Hotel 
has good cooks in these days, but they can never get up a 
dinner so good as that one. 
We climbed hill after hill and crossed lake after lake 
until at last I gave out entirely, and finding a spruce tree 
that branched nearly to the ground signified my inten- 
tion of stopping there for the night. Bill protested, say- 
ing that our camp was only a short distance away and 
that we could soon reach it. He also produced from his 
pack a flask of "whisky blanc"— almost pure spirits- 
poured a good dose into a tin cup and made me drink of it. 
It excoriated my mouth and my gullet all the way down, 
but by the power of it I made another spurt and we ar- 
rived, quite after dark, at our little 6X10 camp. It was 
occupied by tbree young chaps out for a fishing trip, but 
as they had no right there, and we had, we bundled them 
out, to nnd shelter in a lumber camp a couple of miles 
away; took possession of their beds of branches, stoked with 
wood they had prepared, and made ourselves as comfort- 
able as we could. Bill spent a good part of the night 
stuffing cedar splints into that tiny sheet iron stove; but I 
know that my underclothing was still wet from my per- 
spiration the next morning, and was not quite dry till the 
day after, for our second day's tramp was nearly as hard 
as the first and a good deal longer. I suspect that the 
finding of those young men in our camp, the cabin partly 
dried out and plenty of wood on hand, was just what 
"saved our lives." If I had been obliged to stand round 
while Newberry hunted up wood in the darkness, slept on 
bare ground with the moisture from the frost dripping 
over me, I should have stood a poor chance. I have done 
that sort of thing scores of times since, but always when 
I was in better condition as well as able to take a hand at 
the work. 
Bill was succeeded by the faithful Nazaire, which was 
a great improvement. Nazaire didn't care for feather 
beds, but did like to be fairly comfortable at night, while if 
Newberry could wrap his head and shoulders in his blanket 
he would sleep like a pig on any cabin floor or wood pile. 
I used to say that Bill's idea of a pillow was a sapin log 
with a nice little knot to fit into either ear. 
I liked the woods even under Bill's guidance, but I don't 
think I really enjoyed them until Nazaire began to look 
after my comfort o' nights. 
What glorious days he and I have spent together 1 We 
did not hunt, and we only fished a little through the ice; 
but while attending to our duties we were alone in dense 
and almost trackless forests. Oh, the beauty of theml 
And now comes Mr. Frederic Irland in last week's 
Forest and Stream, and not only revives in me 10,000 
memories, but also reveres my idol. And all the more 
that here I am, as it were, in Parkman's own country. I 
can almost see the island where Jacques Cartier and his 
men spent that first miserable winter, and on every side 
of me is ground of which he has given the best of his- 
tories. And besides, I know of some things that even he 
has not mentioned. On one of my beats the washing 
away of a lake shore not very many years ago disclosed a 
quantity of French crockery and arms mingled with 
Indian weapons and relics. What the whole signified we 
cannot now say, for the finders took no care to preserve 
their treasures, and the whole were dispersed and lost be- 
fore the present writer had any knowledge of them. Was 
some terrible tragedy enacted there, or did some peaceful 
hunting party meet with disaster? No one will ever 
know. History has given no record, and even tradition 
is silent. The spot is now miles, as 100 years ago it was 
leagues, away from any habitation of civilized man. 
And again, still further away in the deep woods ia a 
simple wooden cross. Time and the elements have 
brought even the long-enduring cedar to decay, but the 
falling emblem doubtless marks the resting place of some 
semi-Christianized Huron or semi-savage Frenchman who 
met his death in that lonely forest. If ever I go there 
again I mind me to erect a shelter over this unsculptured 
monument. 
I do love the woods. G. de Montauban. 
Quebec, February. 
THE LOST KINGFISHER. 
The camp of the Kingfishers, the past summer, on the 
Manistique lakes, in the upper peninsular of Michigan — 
visited by Jupiter Pluvius with exasperating frequency- 
furnished more than one amusing "episode" to jolly the 
boys from Ohio and Kentucky who daily offered up 
prayers that the rain god would give them a surcease for 
at least a day in the continued downpour. Jeems Mack- 
erel, the old Kingfisher, insisted on the disputed fact that 
water could hurt nobody— was good at any and all times 
— but the Kentucky contingent, raised in a land of Bour- 
bon plenty, aided by a flattering Ohio brigade from just 
over the border, contended there were times when even 
water was an unnecessary evil. 
The Manistique camp supplied a larger quantity of the 
evil in its sky origin than had occurred in any camp in 
the ten years past. 
The dramatis personce of this camp consisted of George 
L; Payne, single and marriageable; Richard Morris, deer- 
slayer and scout of the woods; Charles C. Furr, sweet 
singer of Israel, and Old Sam, all of Frankfort, Ky. ; Wil- 
lis Cochran, young and hopeful, of Louisville, Ky. ; Jeems 
Mackerel, or Kingfisher, pioneer and daddy of all fish 
liars; Clay Culbertson, the "colonel" and guardian of the 
camp-fire; George Murray, "lost man" and purveyor of 
patents; Henry Mueller, camp artist, and James Mueller, 
his brother, all of Cincinnati, O. ; Dr. A. E. Elliott, the 
good Samaritan, of Lodi, O. ; and Mack Barney, cook and 
dish washer par excellence. 
Payne, whose gallantry found display in sundry walks 
with a pretty grass widow from the "Sou," on a visit to a 
farmhouse near by, was so unnerved by the frequent 
showers that he once avowed, with solemnity, it had 
rained sixteen days out of fifteen. His favorite rambles 
along the woodland paths and through the "potato 
patch," picking the blossoms for his fair companion, were 
interfered with so often he became almost a chornic 
despondent, verging to suicidal mania. 
Despair is only a degree apart from the condition of 
ennui enforced by rainy days in a camp beyond the bor- 
ders of active civilization. The woods dripping with wet, 
the rain drops splashing on the surface of the lake, the 
monotonous patter on the canvas of the tent, the little 
rivulets stealing along the grassy galleys and depressions 
between and aroimd the tents, the heavy atmosphere and 
the shadows of night floating through the day — are pro- 
ductive of chilly sensations that crawl down the backs of 
the campers who strive to kill time by reading novels, 
writing letters to friends at home or swapping "fish lies." 
Surrounded by such conditions, the active thoughts of 
restless Kingfishers more than once budded into the im- 
position of a "task" upon some victim who by accident 
or by plot had concentrated their attention. The incidents 
of such a "task," culminating in the accompanying photo, 
showing the heavy villains "caught in the act," I am about 
to relate. It was, in fact, the reception of the photo 
among others sent to the Kentucky boys by Mueller, the 
camp artist, that revived the memory and provoked this 
recital. 
One day the awful fate had dawned upon the camp 
that the water supply was exhausted. With water all 
around — above, below, beyond, apparent in the atmos- 
phere and obstructive of divers plans — there was "not a 
drop to drink." The knowledge created a raging thirst 
with the occupants of every tent. 
"Oh! wat-er fate," said Payne. "Take me to where the 
crystal waters flow!" exclaimed Culberston. Furr began 
his famous hymn, "I'm climbing up Zion'shill — climbing, 
yiming, yiming," as if earth had ceased to further afford 
attractions for his soul. Morris and the Doctor discussed 
the different ways in which water might be made useful 
and the proportions of the useful that would be adapted 
to the constitutions of the various members of the band. 
With marked unanimity they decided that Kingfisher 
was entitled to all he could hold; that with due modesty, 
they themselves came in for second share; and as for the 
rest they could live without it, provided the supply of 
Kentucky "yarbs" did not wholly vanish. 
Neither the song, nor the horrid pun of (Payne, nor the 
discussions of Morris and the Doctor — Bavagely denounced 
by the remaining members of the "gang" — served to de- 
velop the existence of the fluid called water. So a caucus 
was held, and by common consent it was agreed that 
Brother Murray had consumed more than his share of the 
drinking water for the day, and should at once depart, 
bucket in hand, for two rare springs, located on the edge 
of the larger lake, a half mile away through the woods. 
These springs bubbled up through the white sand on 
the edge of "the forest where it bordered the wide, flat 
beach, and with a temperature of 43° and 46° respectively 
furnished to the campers on hot days or when fatigued 
with fishing most refreshing draughts of cooling bever- 
age. 
Brother Murray responded to the request of his com- 
rades with becoming grace. He even manifested pleasure 
in his mission— -said he loved to wander through the path- 
less woods, where the wild deer roved and the pheasant 
sent his drum-beat echoing through the forest aisles; that 
the bark of the squirrel from the hemlock bough and the 
quack of the big fat duck from the secluded pool under 
the pines were rhythmic music to his inner soul; that 
the solemn Bilence of the forest depths created a sanctity 
in his heart and a solemnity in his being that wafted him 
beyond earthly cares and opened to his vision the vast 
eternity beyond. 
How long the enraptured Murray would have con- 
tinued in this ecstatic strain cannot be told, for the whis- 
tling of a bootjack (stolen from me at Daddy Nolan's, on 
Carp Lake, by the president of the Cuvier Club, with 
the connivance of Kingfisher) and of sundry camp at- 
tachments^ empty bottles, old boots,|tent pins, etc., about 
his ears, warned him of disaster imminent, and wheeling 
about he made hasty tracks up the road and through the 
gate by the hay loft, and disappeared in the deep woods 
he loved so well. 
With his departure the camp resumed its monotonous 
droning existence, and for a time forgot that water was 
the one thing necessary to bring harmony and content- 
ment. An hour passed on. The cook, ever alive to the 
necessities of life and the damnation attending a failure 
to rattle his pan at the dinner hour, and equally im- 
pressed with the curt conclusion, "no water, no dinner," 
made a round of the tents and enigmatically announced, 
"Mr. Murray — he has not came." 
What Barney, the Cincinnati boiler of meats and 
turner of flapjacks, meant to say was, "there's no water 
in sight." With deft conception of the fitness of things 
he was shifting the responsibility where he deemed it 
belonged. 
Sure enough, the water carrier was missing. Had he 
become lost in the pathless woods? No, they were not 
pathless, for the sandy road lead straight away through 
the gate by the hay shed, along Bill's bean patch, over 
the hill by the birch grove, down by the bars in the brush 
fence, under the forest aisles to the forks of the road, 
thence down the hill through the swamp bogs and out on 
the sandy beach, at the landing where ye writer once 
waded to shore after the sailboat had capsized and de- 
luged himself and plunder. Ten rods to right of this 
terminal were the springs. "Adirondack" Murray, as 
Borne one had jestingly named the missing man, could 
not easily lose the road. 
Had he been destroyed by wolves? A year or two 
before several had been killed in the deeper forest to the 
northward. A few had been caught in traps. Driven 
by hunger they might attack a man. But food was 
plenty and Dr. Elliott said no wolf in his right mind 
would ever assail a man whose life was spent in getting 
patents for windmills and baby cradles — that his teeth 
would get tangled in the tough muscles and, like the 
bucks with locked horns, he would die with his victim. 
Had he been caught in a bear trap? If so, he might die 
from starvation or of thirst if in the excitement he had 
spilled his bucket of water. Or a passing buck, finding 
him a prisoner, might insert his horn under the fifth rib. 
Brother Murray had never been known to refuse a "horn," 
properly administered, and he might accept one in ex- 
tremis as a blessing in disguise. 
In any event it was thought best by the Kingfisher 
campers, ever alive to brotherly sympathy, to organize 
and send out a relief corps. The Herald had sent Stanley 
to search for Livingstone in the jungles of Africa. Why 
not, in modest but heroic spirit, send out and save 
Murray? 
Morris and the writer were selected to search for the 
missing man. We were ordered to equip ourselves thor- 
oughly for the journey and to take three days' rations. I 
suggested we take "a reviver," but was put off with a 
promise of one if successful. Morris took a gun and three 
rounds of ammunition. 
Being interrogated as to his reasons for such deadly 
preparations, he responded that if Murray was found in 
a bear trap and badly wounded, it would be better to kill 
him and end his agony. If found alive and in distress, 
he would fire signal shots at intervals for succor. If 
alive and sound and loitering by the way, he would fire a 
single shot and leave the camp court martial to do the 
rest. 
With this explanation and the blessings of the entire 
camp, including the cook, we departed. Plunging into 
the forest depths we followed the well-worn path leading 
to the larger Manistique lake. I urged Morris to look 
for tracks. 
"Tracks the d— 1," said he, "I'm not looking for tracks; 
I'm looking for a man; or," he added, thoughtfully, 
"what's left of him after the wolves and bears have had 
their share. Did you know," said he, confidentially, "I 
never did think Murray was altogether right in his upper 
story. He has been bunking in the Bame tent with Cul- 
bertson and Old Hickory (Kingfisher) and never has ut- 
tered a word of complaint. Now, any fellow that can be 
contented with that infernal log-saw chorus those two 
fellows set up every night as soon as they get asleep ain't 
level in the thinking shop. Several times I've had half 
a mind to send a load of shot through that tent and stop 
that big bass bullfrog business." 
