Jtjite 26, 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
SO? 
men have given their lives for what mipht he called senti- 
ment, and in fact every move a man makes outside of the 
earning of his livelihood is inspired more or less by senti- 
ment. But sentiment varies with the individual. 
An instance of this fact is apparent in the intellectual 
makeup of Jack Slieppard. He said; "I don't see what 
some men want to kill these fish-hawks for unless to brag of 
their skill with the rifle, if they happen to hit one; there are 
not enough of them to injure the fishing, and most men like 
to see them &ail in the air when no other living thing is in 
sight, or to see them hover and dive for a fish." That was 
a bit of pure sentiment on the part of Jack Sheppard that 
was a credit to him, but compare the following story. 
"Jack," said I, as we sat in the cabin door on Big Moose, 
enjoying the moonlight, "Mr. Oolvin told me about the 
panther, which you killed while hunting partridges with a 
light bird gun. He said that you came suddenly on the an-- 
imal at close quarters, and gave it one dose of No. 8 shot 
and hurt it badly; it jumped for you and bit the muzzle of 
your gun before you pulled the trigger and let in a new light 
into its brain. Is that about the way it happened ?" 
"Yes, that's correct; I blew the top of his head off with 
the muzzle of the gun in his mouth, and it ruined the gun; 
it cost me more that the bounty which the State paid me 
for killing the panther, I sold the gun to a man for $6 and 
he had the muzzle cui off where the panther's teeth had 
bent it in." 
Mr, Colvin had not told me thia part of the story, and I 
turned to get a good look at the man who told it in such a 
matter-of-fact way. He was looking out over the lake, 
watching the moonlight play on the ripples in a most uncon- 
cerned manner. The panther incident was dramatic, and I 
chewed it over several times before I blurted out: "Jack 
Sheppard ! You don't mean to tell me that a panther bit the 
.muzzle of your gun and that you sold that gun, do you?" 
"Yes, why not? The gun was good for nothing unless 
the muzzle was cut off too short for my use." 
Again I looked at the face of my guide, in the moonlight, 
to try to learn if he really meant what he said or if he was 
only' jollying me. Men of the woods are usually serious 
men, and not much given to having fun at the expense of 
the men who maj' be in their care, and I decided that Jack 
had merely told a straightforward story of the panther fight 
and the disposal of the gun. It was the entire absence of 
sentiment in this case which caused the doubt. I could not 
reconcile it with his sentimental ideas of protection of birds 
whose only use to man was that they added to the landscape, 
a case of pure sentiment. 
After turning this over as we smoked in silence for a 
I while, and I began to substitute myself for Jack in the fight, 
I began to get belligerent and said: "Jack Sheppard! If 
such an adventure had happened to me that gun would be 
pensioned and put on the retired list; it would hang on my 
wall and be cleaned each year from a pension fund of my 
own, and no millionaire in America could buy that little gun 
while I was on top of the earth." 
That was a bit of my sentiment, and it serves to show how 
sentiment differs in individuals. But, as a rule, the men 
who live constantly in the woods, nunting, fishing and trap- 
ping, have little of the sort of sentiment which induces the 
men who do these things for occasional recreation to pre- 
serve mementoes of their deeds. The woodsmen look at it in 
the light of every -day business affairs. An instance of this 
is shown in the following conversation: 
' 'Jack, I'd like to kill a bear next fall before they go into 
winter quarters. Can't yop^ manage to get word to me when 
to come up, say when you find a bear feeding and ranging 
about some lake, which you may or may not have bailed? 
I couldn't possibly get off for more than a fortnight, but 
could spare that time." 
He gazed out on the lake and the rippling moonlight 
awhile and then asked: "What do you want to kill a bear 
for?" 
"Because I've never killed one, although I have seen sev- 
eral in the woods ; and once while I was sleeping alone a 
bear came into my camp and ate some trout which had been 
cleaned and salted for breakfast; and then carried off a 2qt. 
tin paU nearly full of butter. 1 have killed KHjch game— 
from the little teetering sandpiper to a buffalo— but I lack a 
bear, a moose, a salmon, an elk and a swan to round out the 
list" of American game that ranges east from Kansas and 
from Minnesota to Louisiana " 
Another contemplation of the beauties of a full moon on 
the lakes, and then: "I don't see what you want to come up 
here to kill a bear for. It would be an unprofitable trip. 
There's your car fare, my pay and expenses for two weeks, 
and maybe you wouldn't get a bear in two weeks. Of 
course, you might get one the first day, but but you know 
that there's nothing sure about any hunting or fishing trip. 
You couldn't do it much less than $100. The skin would 
be worth $10 to $15, and the meat, if you could get it out of 
the woods and lake it to New York city, might bring as 
much more, sold by the carcass in the markets. Again, the 
bear might be killed where the meat could not be got out of 
the woods by two men. I don't see how there's anything in 
it for you, if you did come here and kill the biggest bear 
that ever ranged these woods; do you?" 
It was my time to contemplate the mellow scintillations of 
the moon on a lake, which had tiny ripples on its bosom, 
made by a breeze so delicate that we scarcely felt it. Jack 
was undoubtedly right from his point of view, which was a 
purely business one. Business has hard and fast rules, gov- 
erned by arithmetic, algebra, geometry and other abomina- 
tions. It is the antithesis of sentiment, and my desire to kill 
a bear was entirely sentimental. I had no grudge against 
any individual bear, and I was cogitating on my desire to 
kill one of the tribe. If a man had stolen three trout and a 
couple of pounds of butter from me, I certainly would have 
no desire to kill the first man I met, even if he were the cul- 
prit. Lawyers are said to have a rule that if their case is 
bad they should "abuse the plaintiff's attorney"; this may 
not be quoted correctly, for 1 am not a lawyer, but it leads 
up to what I said. After gazing at the moonlit ripples, and 
wondering if a bat had crossed them, or if a brighter flash 
had caused me to wink the other eye, I formed my column 
for attack in this way: 
"Jack Sheppard, you sold a gun for a few dollars that, if 
it had been mme, disabled in honorable fight with a panther, 
no money could buy. In my early life 1 cared as fittle for 
trophies as you do, and a pair of buffalo horns, saved some- 
how by accident, and a pair of crust snowshoes are aU that 
1 have as mementoes of my hunts. If 1 could come up here 
and kill a bear and have its skin for a rug on the floor of my 
den 1 would feel very tall, and would expect some fellows 
whom I know to take their hats off to me. The cost of this 
has not been considered; I go into a friend's den; there is 
the skin of a tiger he kided in India, a tobacco pouch made 
from the foot of a swan killed on Currituck Sound, with 
date written on it. Dining with another friend, I am shown 
a dilapidated fly with which he took a 351b. salmon on the 
Restigouche; it is in a frame that cost more than the salmon 
was worth; and he points to the scalp of an Indian which 
he took when his party were hunting buffalo and were at- 
tacked by the Sioux. These things make me feel small. 
Do you understand that? The bear that I want to kill is 
merely for brag, if you see fit to put it down that way: and 
I would not mind spending $100 to have a bear-skin rug on 
my floor, if I had killed the bear." 
Jack listened to this, and then made the following propo- 
sition: "1 might trap a bear, and hold him until you came 
up to shoot him," when I interrupted with: "1 will not lis- 
ten to any such proposition; let's talk about something else. 
I believe that we have two new species of suckers that are 
unknown to science, and I'll get some more of them in the 
morning while they are spawning in that stream by Pancake 
Hall, and then we'll go over to Long Lake and see what fish 
it is that they call a muscalonge there." 
Morning came and 1 got the suckers, and later described 
and figured them in my monograph on Adirondack fishes, 
which was printed as an extract from Supt. Colvin's twelfth 
report of his survey, The osprey, from her nest across the 
lake, screamed at us, and I told Jadk that I had learned 
enough of her language during our week's stay to know that 
she was giving her opinion of a man who would propose to ' 
trap a bear for another to shoot, and no doubt that was what 
worried her. 
We went down into the Fulton chain and dined at Ben- 
nett's, on Raquette, went down that lake and river, carried 
into Forked Lake, and again down the river to Buttermilk 
Falls, where a short carry took us around them. Murray 
always shoots these falls in his canoe, but no one else does, 
and we thought it best to carry around. After this a half 
mile carry brought us into Long Lake, and to Kellog'a in the 
evening. 
It so happened that when we reached the hotel the masca- 
longe question was being discussed by several sportsmen and 
SEBGT. K. L. (jack) SHEPPAKD. 
guides. All with one exception held that the large fish in 
Long Lake were mascalonge. One of the sportsmen said: 
"'The fish certainly grow bigger than pickerel, but I've seen 
mascalonge, and they're different." That was his sole argu- 
ment. 
"I tell you," said another, "the lo-pounder that I caught 
to day is a mascalonge; no pickerel grows as big as that." 
The fish was in the kitchen, and Jack suggested that we 
should see it, and we did. I introduced myself, explained 
my mission and said: "Gentlemen, the fish is neither a pick- 
erel nor a mascalonge. Its proper name is pike, although it 
is miscalled by the name of pickerel in most places. The 
pickerel proper has a black network on its sides, and seldom 
exceeds 61bs. in weight. The pike and the mascalonge both 
attain a weight of 46lbs. or more, and are distinct fishes. I 
am satisfied that there is not a mascalonge in the Adirondack 
waters to day, if they were ever here." And with a brief 
description of the d&erences between the mascalonge and 
the fist before us I closed the lecture on ichthyology to the 
satisfaction of one of the strangers, at least, 
r:. In the morning we trolled with both spoons and shiners 
and took some pike of 4 to 6lbs., but these were too large for 
the alcohol tank and we gave the fish to some people who 
lived on the lake. It's uncommon for an angler to complain 
that his catch is too large, yet anglers have made this com- 
plaint against the brown trout, and they didn't want them 
for small alcohol tanks, as we did. Finally we took a couple 
of small pike and then searched for dace, darters and those 
small deer which the ordinary angler classes as "minnows." 
We went back by way of South Pond, Mud Pond and 
Minnow Pond. (What mean, "ornery" names all original 
settlers give to beautiful lakes, islands and streams. "Hog 
Island" aud "Hog Neck" occurs many times on the coast of 
Long Island, while "Round Pond," etc., is frequent in the 
Adirondacks. They had no poetry in their souls.) Then we 
carried into Blue Mountain Lake, a handsome bit of water; 
but it then had no trout in it, at least not enough to encour- 
age a fellow to cast his flies for a week in the hope of taking 
a rise out of one. 
Later in the year -I found the pickerel (retkulatus) in the 
waters about Meacham. On our return we fished Little 
Moose and Panther lakes. Please note the individuality of 
these names as contrasted with "Long Lake," "Trout Pond," 
etc. On the latter lake Jack called my attention to the trees 
which fringed the lake . There was a distinct line of them 
at a uniform height all around the lake; the line was 5 or 
6ft. above the water, and below it the foliage was dark. "It 
looks queerly," said I. ' 'There are several kinds of trees there, 
and that line is level and almost continuous. I don't remem- 
ber to have seen anything like it." 
^'Can you guess what it is?" Jack asked 
"No, 1 give it up; but put me over to the spring hole you 
spoke of, and while I pick enough trout out of it for our sup- 
per you may give me your theory of how the glaciers marked 
these trees a million years ago while the trees and under- 
brush are not fifty years old," 
It was now Jack's innings, and he played it for its full 
value. He put the boat outside a spring hole, and after 
some experimental casts and changing of flies, I reeled in 
and basketed a fair trout; he said; "For a man who has 
hunted and trapped and been in the w^oods as much as you 
have, I am surprised that you did not at once see that this 
lake was a great winter resort for deer and that Lhey trimmed 
the bushes as high as they could reach from the ice, and so 
left their mark all around the lake, and that mark remains 
for years after." Just then a big trout struck my coachman 
and gave a royal fight. When .Jack landed him he said: 
"Three pounds, if he weighs loz.," and his estimate stands, 
for it is useless to be too awfully exact except in "record" 
catches. The big trout ended our fishing and the argument 
about the height that the deer can browse on Ptinther Lake. 
Jack, he has been called "Jack" since childhood, although 
his initials are E. L., was born in Greene, Chenango county, 
N. Y., in 1837, and being of a roving disposition wandered 
off to Ohio, Tennessee and Missouri, bringing up in Kansas 
in 1856 during the troubles. He then went to Pike's Peak as 
a Government teamster during the gold excitement, but had 
to return to New York on account of his health and went to 
the Adirondacks in 1859. In August, 1862, he enlisted in 
the 117th N. Y. Infantry, was made Corporal and then Ser- 
geant. Was mustered out with the regiment June 8, 1865, 
having been on duty every day of his service. Was at the 
operations in Charleston Harbor and those against Petersburg 
and Richmond in '63 and '64, and at the capture of Fort 
Fisher. The recruiting officer put his name down as "Jack" 
Sheppard, and it so appears in the Adjutant. General's office, 
from which I got the above record. 
After the trapping experience he returned to the Fulton 
chain in 1870, but some eighteen years later he sold out his 
cabin at Big Moose and built a small steamer on the Fulton 
chain. About four years ago he went to Riddles, Oregon, 
where he now lives. For the excellent picture of this noted 
woodsman I am indebted to Mr. A M Church, the well- 
known taxidermist of Boonville and Old Forge, while facts 
and dates were obtained from the proprietor of Higby Camp, 
on Big Moose. Mr. Church writes: "You cannot say too 
many good things of Jack Sheppard." Feed Mather. 
MY FIRST TROUT. 
The remark is often made to an angler or sportsman that 
there is more in the anticipation of a trip than in the reality. 
And yet what pleasure one derives from the memory of a 
trip! " With the thermometer 20*^ below Zero, the wind 
blowing a gale outside, sucking up the s-oft-coal sparks 
through the chimney of the grate fire, as if coal cost nothing, 
what a pleasure it is to smoke one's pipe, and in the recesses 
of an easy chair recount the moments spent on some bygone 
trip of years ago along the banks of a bubbling brook, in 
the leafy month of June. The singing of the forest birds, 
the swaying limbs of the fragrant spruce and pine as they 
gently nod greetings to the summer breeze, the noisy, tu- 
multuous brook, as it speeds its way onward, murmuring to 
the sea, all return vividly to one's mind 
You think of your first trouting trip. You go to the 
tackle store, and under the tutelage of your friend Will, 
who already has been initiated into the mysteries of the 
Maine woods and lakes and who has bFcome well versed in 
trout lore, you select your rod. Your fishing up to date has 
been circumscribed by a pole, a line, and a bunch of worms 
on a hook. Well, that was all well and ^^ood, but you are 
now to tread in the footsteps of the angler sportsman, You 
must catch trout with a sportsman's tackle and in a sports- 
manlike manner. 
The obliging salesman deftly joints up a rod and hands it 
to you. It is so unlike the alder pole you know so well 
that for a moment you hold the rod in outstretched hand 
and stare at it, as the tip vibrates under the beating of your 
pulse. 
Will quickly comes to your rescue, and reaching for the 
rod steps one side into the cleared space, and deftly swishes 
it backward and forward. I watch him closely, and am a 
little nervous lest the rod should go to pieces in its bended 
travels back and forth. The salesman in the meanlime has 
put together a rod which he explains has a little more 
spring to it knd is a litlle lighter, two requisites seemingly 
altogether unnecessary. However, under Will's advice, I 
take the heavier rod, for we are going to Maine, and may 
strike some large fish. Then comes the matter of lines and 
reel, then the leader and flies. I am jlistrustful of the 
leaders, they look so light and frail ; but vv ill's opinion and 
word go, and the leaders are laid upon my pile of plunder. 
Now for flies. Red Hackle, Parmachene belle, Professor. 
Seth Greene, Moth Miller, Black Gnat and what not, are 
called for by Will. It's a new experience to me, and I 
wonder at the assortment but say nothing, for Will is an 
old hand at trout and he knows what's what. 
A fly-book, a landing net, and a creel, make up the bur- 
den of my tackle purchases. I look at the little heap as the 
salesman deltly arranges them preparatory to tying them 
up, and draw upon my bank account deep down in my 
pocket. 
My list yet calls for a rubber and woolen blanket, a heavy 
pair of hobnailed shoes, and sundry small impedimenta in- 
dispensable for the trip, as we are to camp out and sleep in 
the virgin forests of Maine, and must be proof against rain 
and evening dews. 
The hour of our vacation has arrived, and with a light 
heart we board the boat for Boston. At odd moments Will 
gives me homeopathic do- es of advice and bits of informa- 
tion—pointers, in other words— regarding our trip, to which 
T greedily listen, and safely store up in my memory. 
We reach Boston in due course, and taking the train by 
sundown are at the end of the railroad line, where we take 
stage for Solon, arriving in time for supper. We are up 
early, and again take stage for Moscow, which, as Will puts 
it, is the last we will see of civilization for some days, Here 
we unpack our trunk, a small affair, used jointly, and don 
our corduroys, bundle our blankets, hire our guide, and are 
ready. It is near noon, so we decide to dine at Kearney's 
hotel. I often wonder if Kearney is yet in the land of the 
living. We take his son Frank as a guide and off we trudge 
for the wilderness. We cross the Kennebec on a rope ferry 
and make tracks for Kearney's camp, on the banks of the 
first Carry Pond. It's a smooth trail, and after an hour's 
tramping, in an atmosphere laden with the balsamic exhala- 
tions of the trees, we reach a clearing through which we see 
the lake. In front of us is a cluster'of cabins, and Frank's 
