322 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Afhtl 24, 1H97 
LIFE AMONG THE LUMBERMEN.— 111. 
^Continued from page 846, and from the day when, it- will be re- 
membered, G. W. M. and Ernest had plugged a hollow log and holed 
np in it a mysierious animal.] 
Until this night we liad not heard nor seen wolves in the 
vicinity of our camp. We had seen some tracks, though 
only a few. But now I had scarcely dozed off into my lirst 
light sleep when a long-drawn-out howl sounded almost at 
the camp door, and the cook, Ernest and myself, waking 
simultaneyusly, sat up and. listened to 1 he serenade, ihat 
soon became uproarious and lasted for a half hour, with little 
or no intermission. 
That was the beginning; and from that time until w6 
hroke camp on the 8th of April we heard them almost 
every night. We came to think nothing of it, the only effect 
of their presence being to make the cook careful to store his 
provisions safely, alnd to cause the teamsters to keep their 
harness securely housed. Any scrap of leather, from a hone 
strap to a horse collar, was sure to be chewed up if left out 
over night. Although there must have been many of the 
wolves — and we had reason to believe they followed us out 
to the works in the morning and back to camp at night — 
with the exception of two, which one of the crew succeeded in 
trapping, we only caught sight of any twice, and then a single 
individual each time, during the entire winter. Once, when 
Kronquist, coming in at night, stopped to water his team at 
a swamp water hole, a single wolf came up from the direc- 
tion he had come, sat down on his haunches in the middle of 
the road immediately when he came in sight, and trotted 
back on the road when Kronqtust swung his cap and yelled. 
At another time, late in March, when the Boss and myself 
were tramping a road to a thick bunch of timber, a wolf 
came out to the edge of a little meadow we were crossing 
and stood watching us. The crust was heavy enough to bear 
the weight of a man, and the Boss walked up to within a 
few feet of the wolf, holding his axe ready for a blow. The 
wolf retreated very slowly, showing little fear and keeping a 
wicked eye on the man all the time. This wolf was very large 
and of very dark color. They raided our lunch place every 
day looking for scraps, as we could tell by finding their 
tracks thick about the fire on some one of the crew return- 
ing after resuming work; and tney visited the rear of the 
camp every night, where a spout carried the dish water from 
the cook's sinls. 
Next morning Kronquist waked me. Having his team to 
care for, it was his habit to have them fed, groomed and* 
harnessed before breakfast. He had been to the hovel and 
greeted me with the following: "'Aye tank da Buck ox he 
daie. Aye yust go down hovel ; see hem all fall dou lak he 
daid. Aye com' ba'k queek tell you, maister." 
I wa'S dressed in a jiffy, and following Kronquist to the 
hovel found Old Buck sure enough dead. After looking 
him over by the dim light of the flickering candle which 
Kronquist held over the carcass 1 went back to camp. It 
was bitter cold, and the wind which had risen during the 
night swept the little clearing with a howl and shriek, and 
seemed fairly to snatch the breath out of our nostrils. I 
found Ernest lacing his buckskin moccasins. "Old Buck is 
dead," 1 said. "So! Well, dem Swede feed him too much 
meal. Da ox he no work, just stand still. Da meal get 
hot, swell up, bu'st paunch. We save the hide anyway." 
Griving the crew instructions to manufacture snow shovels 
so that we might clear a road as far as possible in the direc- 
tion from which the tote team was to come, Ernest and my- 
self after breakfasl started out to see what it was we had left 
in the hollow log the night before. The first thump on the 
log brought a response. Cutting into the tree toward the 
root from where we had the beast located, we rammed in 
some sticks to bar his passing in that direction. Then notch- 
ing in above and jamming in more sticks, we set to work to 
split out the section between the two scarfs. All this time 
tue animal had kept up an incessant growling, and when at 
last I had split and chopped a small opening directly above 
where we knew him to be, I felt the perspiration streaming 
down from under my cap rim m spite of the cold. A few 
more strokes of the axe and we could see a bunch of reddish- 
gray fur. Another slab was knocked off, and up came two 
stubby legs with broad feet and wicked claws; which fanned 
the air with strong, swift strokes. Instantly a thick leather 
mitten closed around each leg, and Ernest, throwing his 
whole weight into the task, bent them down over the log. 
Next up came more legs and claws, and jumping up on the 
log I could see a pair of ugly-looking eyes. I swung the 
poll of the axe straight between them. The growling 
ceased, the legs quivered, jerktd spashipdically and our 
animal was dead. Enlarging the hole to^fard the root of the 
tree, we drew forth a lynx, the largest 1 have ever seen. He 
was very thin and bony, and had porcupine quills sticking 
in his nose, mouth, hps and forelegs. 
Eor five days more we hunted and worked- and waited. 
We shoveled out the tote road for a distance of more thari 
three miles. We snared rabbits, and Ernest succeeded in 
shooting another deer 
On the fourth day our young Swede was taken sick. Re- 
turning from work he was seized with a chill, then came 
fever and the bunk. He required a good deal of attention, 
the cook looking after him in the daytime, and I myself at 
night. At times he was delirious, but always gentle. He 
could not speak English, but thanked us with his eyes for 
any service rendered. 
On the eighth night he seemed better, and was apparently 
resting, so that I threw myself on my bunk for a few mo- 
ments' sleep. When 1 woke it was to hear the music of the 
old violin played very low, and I found the boy sitting by 
the heater, with his head propped against the bunk footboard, 
playing a march over and over again in a subdued, quiet 
tone, but in perfect time. I sat down on the opposite side 
of the stove and waited, listening and wondering what this 
new turn in his sickness meant. After a few moments I 
thought to replenish the fire, and throwing open the stove 
door stirred up the glowing interior, and going to the dingle 
came back with some stic^ of fat pine, when I noticed the 
light fell full on the lad's face. He looked up with a bright 
smile, and nodded toward the camp door as if there might 
he something outside which interested him. Throwing the 
wood on the fire, I stepped outside, and stood for a moment 
dazed and confused, for it was snowing again. But bark! 
what sound is that which comes from out the woods, floats 
past through the open door, and mingles and harmonizes 
with the strains of the violin within? I listen again. Is it? 
yes, it is. It is bells; and whose bells? Why, Jake's, those 
four strings of which he was always so proud; and now I 
hear them more distinctly, sounding steadily in time with 
the march played upon the violin. 
A moment more and I have Ernest awake and then the 
cook. Fire is started in the cook stove, and Ernest and I 
don our outdoor clothing. Everything is done qnietly, but 
in time— perhaps unconsciously — to that slow, steady tune 
which never stops and never varies. With cap and mittens 
adjusted we again open the camp door. The clamor of the 
bens rushes in and fills and echoes back from every corner 
of the interior. Then we hear Jake's sonorous "Whoa!" 
and the four steaming blacks in the lead with the tote team 
on the pole are at the door, and on either side Ernest and 
myself are pulling the long lead reins from Jake's cold 
fingers. 
By the time the horses are cared for supper, or perhaps 
breakfast, is ready. The Boss tells in a few words of the 
difficulties encountered and the time lost in getting through 
with the load of supplies. On learning that we have 
rustled enough to eat and have kept the crew together he 
shakes hands all around, which is a lot of that kind of thing 
for him to do. 
I go over to the young Swede's hunk, for he had laid aside 
the violin and crept into it when the bells ceased ringing. 
His head is cod, his fever gone, and he is sleeping. Ernest 
THE MUSIC OP THS OLD VIOLIN. 
comes over, lights his pipe and sits beside me on the deacon 
seat, gives a lew puffs and says: "Ba gosh, we have bean 
and doughnut on the tab'e to-morrow." The Boas hands me 
some letters backed in the familiar handwriting of the little 
sister at home. 1 fight the stub of a candle, read them 
through, and full of pleasant thoughts stay awake just long 
enough to hear the cook sing as he gets ready to turn in; 
"Then consider a while ere you leave me; 
Do not hasten to bid mer adieu, 
But remember the dear little valley 
And the girl that has loved you so true." 
G. W. M. 
THE CHESTNUT RIDGE AND ALONG 
ITS FOOT. 
The Chestnut Ridge is the westernmost range of Appala- 
chian hills in Pennsylvania. It rises to the north near the 
center of Indiana county, and extends in a generally southern 
direction through Indiana, Westmoreland and Fayette 
counties in Pennsylvania, and on into West Yirginia. The 
sou hern prolongation of this range is known as' the Laurel 
Ridge. It is of but moderate elevation ; its summit rounded ; 
its eastern side rather abrupt; its western slope a long, 
gradual descent toward the setting sun. This ridge is but a 
remnant of that lofty mountain system which the geologists 
assure us once shot up 2,000ft. higher than does the present 
range, but which has been worn down by the disintegrating 
Influence of the atmosphere to its present dimensions; while 
the detritus has been borne away and deposited in th - river 
valleys and upon the floor of that vast inland sea which once 
covered the region now occupied by the prairies of Indiana, 
Illinois and Iowa. When we consider how little change has 
been wrought upon the natural features of the earth by 
atmospheric agencies within the historic period, the 1 ngth 
of time required to remove thus hundreds and thousands of 
feet of rock and soil would seem to be little short of infinite. 
"I thank God," says Washington Irving, "I was born on 
the banks of the Hudson! I think it an invaluable advan- 
tage to be born and brought up in the neighborhood of some 
grand and noble object in nature; a river, a lake or a moun- 
tain. We make a friendship with it, we in a manner ally 
ourselves to it for life. " And so I have always been thank- 
ful that I was born in sight of the Chestnut Ridge. From 
my father's door and from the streets of my native village 
this great upland, blue in the haze of Indian summer, and 
distinct as a pointed picture in the clearer atmosphere, was 
ever before my eyes. To my youthful imagination its shady 
recesses might be the haunts of Pan, the woodland god, 
whose uncouth form was familiar to me upon the page of 
Tooke's "Pantheon," a favorite book in my father's small 
library. Strange how the impressions of childhood remain 
with us, while many of the more important events of later 
years are entirely obliterated from the mind! 
The slopes of the Kidge were covered with chestnut trees, 
and great was the pleasure of turning over the yellow leaves 
after the first frosts of October, in search of the rich brown 
chestnuts. Here, too, were huckleberries in abundance ; the 
satisfaction of gatheriog them, however, was somewhat 
marred by fear of the "rattlers" that were known to lurk 
among the rocks and bushes. A.long the foot of the Ridge 
were fox grapes and wild plums in profusion, and free to the 
first comer. In those days notices to "trespassers" were un- 
known, just as the woods and sti earns were open to all with- 
out restrictions of game laws or of the lights of private 
ownership. 
In my early years the ridge was covered with an almost 
unbroken forest of chestnut, oak, walnut, beech and hickory 
trees. But time briag^ about changes. When 1 saw the 
ridge last summer I noticed that havoc had been wrought 
among the trees. Great bare spols revealed themselves ail 
along the flank and even upon the scalp of this vast upland 
The "woodman" had. not observed the injunction of the 
poet, and had not hy any meao§ "spared thatteee." The 
work of forest denudation that has been going on in Penn- 
sylvania for 300 years had at length attacked the Chestnut 
Ridge, and the haunts of Pan and the Satyrs had been laid 
bare to the light of the sun. I was sorry to see it, The de- 
struction of the forests of our country has been carried on so 
ruthlessly that not only a scarcity of timber is near at hand, 
but certain climatic and fluviatile changes have set in that 
threaten serious consequences in the future. The more in- 
telligent and the more public spirited of our people have 
taken the alarm, and are making an effort to stay the work 
of destruction and to repair the damage done as far as possi- 
ble by systematic tree planting. But, unfortunately, the 
more intelligent and the more public-spirited part of the com- 
munity is here, as everywhere else, sadly in the minority ; 
and so long as timber will fetch a price in the market, so long 
will the work of havoc continue among the trees. A bill, I 
understand, has recently been introduced into our Legisla- 
ture to set apart a forest reservation of 120.000 acres — three 
parks ot 40,000 acres each. It is ardently to be hoped that 
some such bill may become a law before the last forest tree 
has fallen a victim to the portable sawmill and the rapa- 
cious lumberman. 
For many of the years immediately following the middle 
of the last century, the Chestnut Ridge formed a line of de- 
marcation between the savagery of the Western wilds and 
the civilization of the East. After the fall of Fort Diiquesne, 
in 1758, a few attempts at settlement had been made between 
Fort Ligonier and Fort Pitt; but the torch and the toma- 
hawk of the savages were ever present to the mind of the 
pioneer, and only a few brave souls here and there ventured 
to face the perils of the wildf mess. 
Not far from the foot of the ridge was fought the fierce 
battle of Bushy Run, in 1763, the most sanguinary conflict 
ever waged by the unassisted red man ; and not far distant 
stood Miller's Fort, taken with a large number of pioneers 
by the Indians in the summer of 1783, and Hounastown, 
CEptured and burned by the same band of ruthless marau- 
ders, led on by the redoubtable Guyasutha. 
The most notable feature of the Chestnut Ridge is the 
gorge known as the Pack Saddle. This is a notch cut 
through at a right angle with the Ridge and down to the 
water level. Through this notch flows the C'onemaugh 
River — a stream which, on May 30, 1889, had scarcely been 
heard of twenty miles from its banks, but which, two days 
later, had been named in every civilized country of the globe; 
through its channel rushed the flood of water that swept 
Johnstown from the face of the earth as with a besom of de- 
struction. 
The earliest mention of the Pack Saddle that I have met 
with is in the journal of Samuel Maclay, the surveyor, in 
1890 Under date of Aug. 25 in that year, he writes: "We 
proceeded up through the narrows where the river cuts the 
Chestnut Ridge; these narrows are five miles in length, and 
the hills come down close to the water's edge, so that we 
were obliged often to wade the river, and had exceedingly 
bad walking, as there was scarcely any beach, and the rocks 
and laurel come close to high-water mark. We had likewise 
several heavy showers, so that between the wading the river 
and the rain we were wet indeed." The history of Maclay'a 
survey of the streams in western Pennsylvania a little over 
100 years ago, as recorded in his journal, reads like an ex- 
ploration of the heart of Africa. His expedition required 
guides through the wilderness, and the victualling depart- 
ment seem to have taxed their energies to the utmost. On 
one occasion they were reduced almost to a state of famish- 
ment. 
The main line of public improvements of Pennsylvania 
begun about the year 1830, passed through the Pack Saddle, 
and for many years the wooded heights and sequestered 
glens echoed to the mellow cotes of the boatman's horn. 
Later, the tracks of the great Pennsylvania Railroad were 
laid through this gorge, and the boatman's horn gave way to 
the shrill whistle of the locomotive, as the gaily-painted but 
slowly-moving canal boat itself ha i to yield to the noisy, 
rushing railroad train. Almost the last vestige of the great 
line of public works has disappeared, and those who can 
recall the palmy days of the old canal belong to a generation 
that is fast passing away. 
In the early period of the settlement of western Pennsyl- 
vania the larger game, such as bears, deer, wolves, foxes 
and wild turkeys, were common upon the Ridge; in my 
youth only the smaller game, squirrels, rabb ts, raccoons, 
opossums, quail, and pheasants were to be found. The 
Conemaugh and its tributaries, the Stony Creek, the Black- 
lick and the Loyalhanna, abounded in fish ot the common 
vaiieties, "suckers," catfish, salmon, perch, snowflsh, etc. 
Pike were reported to have been caught of fab"lous proper 
tions, 4 or 5ft. in length and weighing 60 or 601 bs. 1 never 
heard of a pike that grew any smaller in the hands of its 
captor. But the game and fish of this regi-'U have nearly 
disappeared before the march of civilization ; scarcely more 
than specimens of the various species remain. 
There were shady nooks and sandy beaches all along these 
streams, where the fisherman could dream his peaceful day 
dreams while waiting for the expected nibble below. One 
of the gentle angleis of the olden time comes before me as I 
write— a thoughtful, pious man, an artist, a musician, 
almost a poet; a man who could find "books in the running 
brooks"; who could trace bright pictures in the clouds; who 
could hear music in the low harmonies of nature by the 
river side and beneath the shadows of the greenwood trees. 
Tenderly I write his name here, Alva Riley Chapman, my 
father, sleeping these forty years and more in his humble 
grave beside the river he loved. "Sweets to the sweet- 
farewell 1" 
A peculiar feature of this part of the Chestnut Ridge, as I 
remember, was a low, weird, roanng noise heard in our vil- 
lage when the wind was in a certain quarter. We regarded 
it as a "sign of rain," and supposed it to be caused by the 
wind blowing among the trees A later theory is that it was 
caused by the wind sweeping through the Pack Saddle. The 
peculiar conformation ot this great notch in the mountain 
range, furnishing as it did a draft for the wind from the 
west, brought about this effect. The sound I refer to is still 
sometimes heard, but not so markedly as formerly. The 
partial clearing away of the forests has greatly modified the 
effect. 
Times change, and we change with them. "The romance 
of youth is past, ' says Irving, "that once spread illusions 
over every scene, 1 can no longer picture an Arcadia in 
every green valley, nor a fairy land among the distant moun- 
tains, nor a peerless beauty in every villa gleaming among 
the trees; but though the illusions of youth have faded from 
the landscape, the recollections of departed years and departed 
pleasures shed over it the mellow charm of evening sun- 
shine." T. J- Chapman. 
PiTTSBORG, Pa, 
