202 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
I Sept. 12, 1898. 
IN NOVA SCOTIA. 
We recently coasted the south shore of Nova Scptia 
from Yarmouth to Halifax, and discovered on the way a 
sportsman's paradise known only to a favored few. The 
side-wheel steamer City of St. John, leaving Yarmouth 
every Friday momins:, affords the only means of access 
to th|a region, so that if the tourist stops off at any of the 
aevet^ villages at which she touches he must perforce re- 
main ti week before resuming his journey. This is a dis- 
advalitage or not, according to one's tastes and circum- 
Btancee. 
A railroad has been laid out as far as Shelburne and is 
now building. Eventually it is to be carried on to Hali- 
fax; then this secluded corner will be as accessible as any 
Eart of the Province, But it is this inaccessibility which . 
as made it so fine a game preserve. 
With fair weather the voyage is the most delightful 
within reach of the traveler. The shore line of Nova 
Scotia is more irregular than Scotland's, being indented 
by deep bays and broken by bold headlands, while there 
are at least ten islands for every mile of coast — some of 
them mere guU-haunted rocks barely visible at high tide; 
others are many miles in area and covered with forests or 
with farms. Your steamer is never out of sight of land, 
and most of the time is threading a devious channel be- 
tween green islands. The first stop is at Barrington, 
thirty-six miles from Yarmouth. We have run inside of 
Cape Sable, the most southerly point of Nova Scotia on 
the way, the cape lying at the extremity of a long island 
called Cape Sable Island, which begins nearly opposite 
Barrington. 
During the nm we had our first experience of a Cape 
Sable fog. This species of mist lies in strata on the water, 
adhering to its surface "like a face cloth to the dead," so 
that we sailed through alternate layers of mist and sun- 
shine. 
At one moment it would lift, revealing the steamer em- 
bayed in hundreds of bold islands with narrow, tortuous 
channels between; the next moment space was blotted out 
and a gray blankness enveloped us. 
In the midst of one of these transformations we heard 
some one shouting dead ahead. There was a bustle in the 
pilot house, one bell — stop quick — rang in the engine 
room, the paddle wheels ceased to revolve and then 
whirled swiftly in the opposite direction. The next 
moment, under our bows, not a boat's length ahead, rose 
the rocky front of one of the afore-mentioned islands. 
Fortunately it was a bold shore, and the steamer lost 
headway and was backed off before running aground. 
Barrington is a village of several hundred souls, divided 
pretty impartially between Barrington Head, Barrington 
Neck and Barrington Passage. With the exception of a 
few farmers, shopkeepers and offshore fishermen the vil- 
lage is tenanted in summer solely by women and chil- 
dren, the men being at sea or off to the Grand Banks or 
Labrador fishing. It is a pretty village of neat, white- 
painted cottages, betokening thrift and prosperity. 
Walking out into the primeval foreet which surrounds 
it, we found a party of Micmac Indians encamped — that 
is, seated on the ground around a fire, over which a pot 
was boiling. A handcart near by fiJleid with what looked 
like "old clo'es" and bedding was the only suggestion of 
sleeping arrangements apparent. They had come from 
the blueberry barrens, we learned, and were bound to the 
Point for splints for making baskets in which the fruit 
was packed for market. Close by a brook brawled over 
a rooky bed into the sea, and we asked the man if there 
were trout in it, 
"Yes," said he, "in spring; but the Clyde about seven 
miles out on the Shelburne road is best for trout and 
salmon." He said if I would come up in May he would 
show me plenty of both, 
"Plenty o' mooee and bear," he added, in answer to my 
question. "No deer, call a moose any day in season," 
A big lumber box wagon rolled past piled high with 
crates filled with quart baskets of blueberries. The bar- 
rens, he said, began about four miles out and extended 
nearly to Yarmouth. In July and August hundreds of 
men, women and children, Indian, Caucasian and negro, 
flock thither to pick the blueberries, which grow in pro- 
fusion upon them, and are shipped to the Boston market 
by hundreds of thousands of quarts, 
Shelburne is the next stop, fifteen miles east, at the head 
of the finest harbor on the coaster on any coast. A pretty, 
quiet town of some 2,000 Inhabitants, whose only commu- 
nication with the world is by the weekly boat. Her 
people live in the contemplation of her past. No town in 
the world has had such a history. One May morning in 
■1783, after England had finally relinquished her hold on 
the thirteen American colonies, a fleet of twenty craft of 
all descriptions — men-of-war, square rigged ships, schoon- 
ers, snows and sloops — entered Shelbui ne Harbor. It was 
'crowded with American loyalists, men who had remained 
loyal to King George during the struggle, and who were 
now willing exiles from their old homes and intent on 
forming new ones under the old flag. They were people 
^'of wealth and distinction from the highest circles of New 
York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. They had had their 
houses built in New York before sailing and brought them 
with them — houses of oak, with marble mantles and ma- 
hogany stairways; they had brought slaves to put them 
together, and furniture of the most elegant description for 
their furnishing. The king's engineers had laid out the 
city on the most liberal scale, and in September following, 
when a second fleet arrived, there were 14,000 people, the 
elite of America, in its homes. 
In 1784, when Gov, Parr, of Nova Scotia, visited them 
in royal state, they entertained him royally and changed 
the name of the city from New Jerusalem to Shelburne 
in honor of the English premier. A little later Prince 
Edward, the father of Queen Victoria, came and was 
entertained in the same princely fashion. There were 
fSfces and balls and banquets day after day. No one but 
slaves worked. The Government furnished supplies, and 
they had brought $3,000,000 in money. Work was be- 
neath them, especially fishing and trading in furs, the 
only avocations open to them. Their neighbors, the 
sturdy fishermen of Lockport and Liverpool, looked on in 
amaaement, called them "the dancing beggars," and pre- 
dicted they would soon come "to the end of their rope," 
and 80 they did. The Government supplies were cut off, 
the |3,000j000 were soon spent, famine followed feasting 
and lamentation merriment. Soon they began to desert 
the whilom gay capital. Some returned to the States, 
some removed to neighboring towns, in a few years the 
population dwindled to 400. Palatial houses stood open 
to the weather for birds to nest in. Some were taken 
down and conveyed to Halifax and other places. Others 
still remained to bear witness of the ancient glory of the 
town. One of them, in which Prince Edward was enter- 
tained, was pointed out to us as we stroUed through the 
pretty village. There are, too, the old pumps set in the mid- 
dle of the streets, and the antiquated fire engine presented 
by King George to protect the settlement from fire. Shel- 
burne is very quiet and isolated now, but the railroad is 
on the way, and when it reaches her she expects a new 
era of progress and prosperity. 
At present the village is a paradise for the angler and 
sportsman, if all reports are true. Haunts of mooee and 
caribou are close at hand, and there are three rivers 
within easy reach, all famoTJS for salmon and trout: the 
Shelburne, which empties into the harbor close by the 
town; the Jordan, ten or twelve miles to the west; and the 
Clyde, the same distance on the east. These rivers 
abound in falls and rapids, and are fed by scores of lakes, 
which form chains taking one sixty or seventy miles in- 
land to mountains. There is a local "squire" in Shel- 
burne who has the record of twelve salmon in a single 
dav ranging from 9 to SOlbs, 
Lockport and Liverpool next beyond are pretty towns, 
affording equally good fishing and hunting; then comes 
Limenburg, famed as the Gloucester of Nova Scotia, with 
a hundred sails on the Grand Banks and Labrador. Grer- 
mans settled it in 1753 in answer to some glowing promises 
of King George's ministers, and some of the quaint old 
customs of the fatherland are still retained by their de- 
scendants. For instance, the oxen have no yokes, but 
draw by stout leathern bands wound around their horns. 
The coimtry about is fully cleared and settled by thrifty 
farmers. There is little attraction for the sportsman here 
except the deep-sea fishing for cod, haddock and mack- 
erel in their season, which indeed may be had all along 
the coast. 
It is forty miles from this port to Halifax, the last stage 
of the journey. The St. John passes t^e mouths of 
Mahone and St. Margaret's bays, two beautiful island- 
studded sheets extending far inland; passes the cove in 
which the ill-fated Atlantic met her doom, rounds Sambo 
Head at the entrance to Halifax's beautiful harbor, and 
at 11 o'clock ties to her dock in the American Gibraltar, 
having been a little over twenty -four hours in making 
the distance of 240 miles, C. B. T, 
SAVED BY AN ENEMY. 
John Gabdener was himting and trapping in the Adi- 
rondacks in the fall of 1868, following one pursuit for 
sport and the other for profit — with considerable success 
in both — when he met with a singular adventure. 
He was living alone in an open-fronted log shanty on 
Otter Pond, in what was then one of the wildest parts of 
the region — though a smart hotel now occupies the very 
site of his rude shelter, and swarms of fashionable tourists 
have spoiled the neighborhood for one who loves the sol- 
itude of nature. 
The moose, shyest denizen of the forest, had not entirely 
forsaken the place, for his broad footprints were yet occa- 
sionally seen in the deep moss, while the long howl of 
the wolf and the panther's scream were heard often 
enough to account for the scarcity of deer. Yet there 
were enough to afford Gardener the moderate sport which 
he desired, and a frequent over-supply of meat, for which 
he found a convenient outlet on the other side of the 
pond, where a small party of men were building a lum- 
bering camp for the operations of the coming winter. 
These were his only neighbors — two miles distant at that. 
His visits to them were not frequent, but welcome — 
especially when he brought a quarter of venison to break 
the monotony of salt pork and beans. 
The cook of the party was something of a trapper, and 
therefore particularly interested in Gardener's success in 
fur-gathering. On his part, Gardener was glad to do his 
neighbors a good turn and break his isolation by an occa- 
sional touch with humanity, though with the rough side of 
it, and he, having the greater need in this respect and the 
more leisure, did most of the visiting. 
Gardener's shanty was situated midway in his line of 
traps, which for the most part were set for the pine mar- 
ten — misnamed the sable by our hunters and trappers, 
who go still further astray in mispronouncing the name 
"saple," 
At intervals stronger traps were set for that notorious 
trap robber, the i)ennant'8 marten or fisher, and at likely 
places on small streams traps baited with fish were set for 
minkj which by a caprice of fashion had at that time be- 
comet one of the most valuable fur-bearers. 
The line marked by blazed trees extended so far in each 
direction from the shanty that only half of it could be 
gone over in a day, the other half the next day, an arrange- 
ment by which Gardener could attend wholly to his traps 
as he went out and give his attention to hunting as he 
returned to camp, making such detours as occasion re- 
quired. 
During a week of most favorable weather he had extra- 
ordinary luck with his traps, when he went over to the 
lumber camp with the half of a fat deer more than he 
could make use of. 
He received a hearty welcome from his friends and as 
hearty congratulations on his good fortune, which he was 
quite free to tell them of, as none of them could in the 
least be considered as rivals, unless it was Murdock, the 
cook, who did indeed prick up his ears and look out of 
temper when he heard the count of mink and sable. 
But he soon recovered himself and made qualified con- 
gratulations. 
"You've done consid'able well for a green hand at trap- 
pin'," he said, as he began cutting some slices of venison 
to fry with salt pork, after the barbarous fashion of back- 
woods cookery. "If I wa'n't so tormented busy I'd go 
over an' show you a trick or two that's worth knowin'. 
But these fellers' jaws keeps me a-hustlin' so 't I hain't 
time to stir a rod from camp." 
"Just listen to him," cried Williams, the boss of the 
party. "You'd think he had to hump himself the whole 
time to cook for six men. Somehow he's managed to 
ketch half a dozen saple an' two mink since he's been 
here." 
"You wait an' see the animals feed, an' then tell me 
what you think of oookin' for six," retQrted Murdock, 
addressing Gardener. "An' them saple an' mink come right 
here to be ketched." 
"Off tendin' his traps two three hours every day," Wil- 
liams remarked; "but I don't care so long 's he gets the 
grub ready on time." 
Murdock dropped the conversation to attend to his reg- 
ular duties, and soon served up the dinner, to which 
Gardener was of course invited and given an oppor- 
tunity to see how the company bore themselves as trencher 
men. 
He was forced to admit that they did valiant service 
that made Murdock's ofl&ce no sinecure, but when half 
an hour after dinner he left them to return to his own 
camp the cook seemed to have arrived at a period of 
leisure, though he made some show of being busy while 
making casual inquiries concerning Gardener's usual 
hours of being at home. - 
A few days later it so happened that Gardener returned 
from his traps two hours earlier than ordinary, and upon 
quietly approaching the shanty surprised Murdock inside 
rummaging among the mixed confusion of its contents. He 
showed some embarrassment at being detected in making 
himself so free, but gave as an excuse that, having come 
over to call on Gardener and not finding him at home, he 
was searching for tobacco to solace himself with a smoke 
while waiting for his host's return, and Gardener thought 
little of it at the time. 
He supplied his visitor with tobacco, and the two fell 
to talking over their pipes of trapping and of fur and 
the examining of Gardener's stock, which already made 
a pack so large that he declared he must soon go out to 
the settlements or be obliged to make two trips. 
Murdock offered to take it out for him, saying that he 
would be going in a few days to get supplies for the lum- 
ber camp. This offer was declined, but a bargain was 
made for the deer skins that should be delivered at the 
camp within a week. 
Then the fur was packed in a neat bundle and deposited 
in a comer of the shanty, supper was cooked and eaten, 
and after a parting pipe the visitor departed, his host ac- 
companying him to the shore and watching him on his 
way tin his boat disappeared in the gathering twilight 
and the splash of the oars could no longer be heard. 
Gardener cut the supply of night wood that he never 
neglected preparing, for he liked the company of a cheer- 
ful fire and its guardianship while he slept. 
Then he stretched a couple of "saple" skins, the result 
of the last tour of the traps, and after a flnal comfortable 
smoke turned into the blankets with his good rifle close 
beside him. 
He had not slept very long, as he judged by the condition 
of the fire, when he awoke with an indefinable sense of 
uneasiness. As he lay quite motionless, compelling his 
drowsy senses to gather acuteness, he became aware of 
footsteps moving stealthily a short distance from the 
shanty, parallel with its sides and moving toward the front. 
The slow footfalls, making frequent stops, were evi- 
dently those of some large quadruped, which he at onc« 
conjectured to be a panther, of whose presence in the 
neighborhood he had seen recent signs, and which was 
now no doubt attracted to the camp by the half of a deer 
hanging on a sapling near by. 
Gardener sat up in bed and got his rifle in hand with- 
out making the slightest noise, and watched intently for 
the animal, which if continuing its course must pres- 
ently come in sight from behind the wall of his shanty. 
He had not much of a mind to risk a shot at a panther 
in the uncertain light, but he had as little to lose the 
meat, on which the main part of the morrow's rations 
depended. 
The night was cloudy, but not dark, for a full moon 
dispersed enough light through the veil of clouds to ren- 
der near objects dimly discernible, and at times the flicker 
of the fire threw some into relief against the dark back- 
ground of the woods. 
IThe burning logs had so disposed themselves that Gar- 
dener sat in deep shadow, while the muzzle and bead sight 
of his rifie were in the light, a circumstance which gave 
him a desirable advantage. 
The night was intensely still. No sound was heard 
louder than the snapping and flaring of the fire, the sud- 
den sinking of a brand, the occasional flitter of a falling 
leaf, the far-off, faint echo of a wolf's howl, and among 
these the more regular punctuations of the yet unseen 
intruder's cautious footfalls. 
At last it came within range of Gardener's vision, a 
bulky, dark object moving clumsily and slowly, and mak- 
ing frequent halts for reconnoissance in the direction of the 
camp and always keeping out of the firelight, 
"Nothing but a bear after all," Gardener thought, and 
was further convinced when the creature arose on its 
haunches and gazed intently toward him. 
He felt no hesitation about shooting now, and carefully 
drawing up one knee for a rest took a quick yet deliberate 
aim at the center of the breast. 
His finger pressed the trigger, it was almost yielding to 
the touch, when there was a sudden upward spring and 
swish of a great hemlock bough, 20ft. from the ground, a 
lithe tawny form was launched from it in a swift de- 
scending curve upon the clumsy figure beneath, and in 
the same instant the silence of the night was rent by a yell 
of terror so human, and yet so unearthly that Gardener 
lost his nerve, and the aimless rifle blazed its ineffectual 
charge into the tree tops. 
The xmexpected and human outcry of its intended vic- 
tim had a no less demoralizing effect upon the panther, 
for it sprang away with a prodigious leap, vanishing as 
suddenly as it had appeared, yet for a moment its rapidly 
retreating bounds could be heard as it struck on all feet at 
once in an exaggeration of the performance of a 
frightened domestic cat. 
The flying figure of a man, sometimes stumbling and 
falling, but never stopping, vanished almost as quickly in 
the opposite direction. 
Hastening down to the shore, Gardener heard the rapid 
strokes of retreating oars. 
Two days later he took his deer skins over to the lumber 
camp, but Murdock was not there, 
"He went a pokin' off one arternoon," said Williams, 
"an' didn't turn up till next mornin', lookin' 's if he'd 
been run through a thrashin' machine. H« wouldn't tell 
what ailed him, an' cleared out, hook an' line, bob an' 
sinker, 'fore noon. It's almighty cur'ous." 
Gardener shuddered to think how near he had come to 
killing the scamp who he could not believe had visited 
him with any worse intention than theft. 
FBRRisBuaeH, Vermont. ROWLAND E. ROBINSON, 
