FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June 25, 1^8. 
Around the Camp-Fire, 
BY FRED MATHKR. 
The snow lay in patches on the north sides of liiouii- 
tains, while in the ravines it was deep and soft with 
rain, so we camped on the north side of the lake, in a 
pouring rain, not an intermittent sort of rain that leads 
one to think that it may clear up in an hour or so, but 
a stead3r drizzle that had already soaked everything for 
two days, and offered no promise of ever letting up, for 
spring in the Adirondacks is an uncertain quantity as 
to Aveather. The ice had gone from most of the lakes, 
and the brook and lake trout were rising to such flies as 
are to be found near spring water even on the snow in 
midwinter, and there were two parties of two each in 
search of early sport and health. In each party there 
was one invalid who was more in need of ozone than of 
trout, while the other was a more robust friend who 
liked to take his trout with ozone "on the side," or as a 
"chaser." 
The two parties were strangers arid had come to the 
lake by diflferent routes, and had camped on different 
sides of the -lake in tents. A northeast storm had 
soaked the ground on the south side of the lake, and the 
party there, seeing the smoke from a well-protected camp 
on the other side, packed up, rowed across and intro- 
duced themselves. There was a stalwart bank presi- 
dent and his invalid friend, who had been run down by 
a siege of grippe, and who should not get wet, and 
who wanted the expected clear cold air instead of the 
"Scotch mist" which he was breathing. He was well 
provided with waterproofs and sweltered in them. He 
had been a paymaster in the navy, but was on the retired 
list. The president was a man of fifty, Avhile the pay- 
master was his senior by many years. 
The other party consisted of a man of about fifty-five, 
who had been a hunter, trapper and army ofificer, who 
was called "Major." His friend was afflicted with a com- 
plication of disorders, and knew that his time was short 
on this earth, but was as jolly as the jolliest, because he 
was a philosopher and realized the fact that it's only a 
question of a very short time with all of us. some a 
trifle shorter than' others, but he never bothered other 
people with his troubles. We called him "Frank," and 
one of his fayorite quotations was from Emma Wheeler 
Wilcox:. 
"Laugii, and thfe ■world laughs with you; - 
Weep, arid you weep alone." 
There you are: Introduced to the whole crowd in an 
Adirondack camp in what promised to be a week's soak- 
ing rain, which would discourage most men, but not a 
grumble was heard. There was the president, the pay- 
master, tue major and Frank. Four quite dissimilar men 
in their tastes and business habits, as well as physical 
conditions, but all with a love of fishing and each 
possessing a fund of humor, without which no man is 
companionable, in the woods or' out ol' it. 
The new camp was arranged on the sheltered north 
shore by the president and the major, and a stock of 
dead wood gathered for a camp-fire. The president 
learned how to ditch his tent in order to keep the 
water from flowing under it, and 'the commissary depart- 
ment ■ was organized so that the stores should be in. 
common, and a menu for each day laid out, one able- 
bodied man should cook while the other should gather 
fire wood and "police" camp. The major injected the 
latter military term into the camp regulations, and it 
means cleaning up company streets, and in armv par- 
lance "police duty" is cleaning camp. In our case, it 
meant washing dishes, burning rubbish and overseeing 
things generally. In an established .;amp there are 
sinks for men and officers, and in Adirondack camps 
such minor regulations must be enforced. If order is 
nature's first law, then neatness is the first law of a camp, 
whether' of four men or four thousand. 
The President's Story. 
The heavens wept, with no indication of a let-up. The 
four men of the new camp had dined as the sun went 
down and had gathered under a fly to smoke. For quite 
a while the only sounds were the steady patter on the 
trees and an occasional rattle of big drops on our can- 
vas when a gust shook the leaves above us. It was 
miserable enough, but there was not a grumbler in the 
party; all were equally miserable, but took it philosophic- 
' ally and made the best of it. 
The president knocked the ashes from his pipe and 
remarked: "If there was thunder and lightning with 
this storm it would be something like a fishing trip I 
had on Rice Lake, over in Canada, some thirty years 
ago, when I was a young bank clerk on a vacation." 
"Well, tell us about it, since it reminds you of some- 
thing," said his friend, the paymaster, "there^s nothing 
else to do. and perhaps it will put us to sleep." 
The president put on a fresh log, kicked the old ones 
into a blaze, stretched his length on the bed of balsam 
boughs and blankets, and began: "I had done a little 
trout fishing on Long Island and in New Jersey, as well 
as pickerel fishing in the lakes near New York city, for 
there were no black bass in our Eastern" waters then, 
and I had read of the pleasures of the wilderness, where 
the roar of the railroad, the shriek of the steamer's whistle 
came not, and the silence of nature brooded over the 
home of the trout, the pike and the deer." 
"I merely intended to show that the poetry of the 
wilderness had been absorbed by reading of it, and the 
locality' of Rice Lake was selected by reason of the 
stories of an older bank clerk, who had gone there in 
the autumn for the duck shooting, which the wild rice 
of the lake made famous as a feeding ground for ducks. 
He told marvelous stories of the fishing, of which he 
knew little, but which fixed my imagination to go there. 
"Rice Lake is in the county of Peterboro', Province 
of Ontario, some twenty miles back from Cobourg. 
It runs N.E. and S.W., and is some thirty by ten miles 
in extent, and fed by trout streams, while the lake itself 
was the home of monstrous fish of many kinds. I 
had established communication with a half-breed French- 
man whose front name was Jean Baptiste something or 
other, for most French-Canadians are christened Jean 
Baptiste or Antoine. In the former case they pronounce 
it Zhaw-Bgtise, all in one word, with hardly an accent 
on the first name. Therefore I soon knew my guide 
as 'Shobatise,' and a stalwart fellow he was. 
"His log house on the western end of the lake, was a 
comfortable one, and had a neat garden and every evi- 
dence of industry and thrift. His wife was also a half- 
breed who had been educated at a Roman Catholic mis- 
sion, and to my surprise she had a library among 
which I saw works of standard English authors. Her 
husband, whose translated name means John the Baptist, 
I will speak of as John. He could not read, although 
he spoke English well,' and it was the custom of his wife 
to read Tennyson, Longfellow and other poets to him at 
night, for he "dearly loved poetry. Three girls, from ten 
to sixteen, graced their home, and they also had some 
education from the missions, and when I add that the 
eldest had a piano and some knowledge of music you 
will reaUze that' the mother of this family was no ordinary 
half-breed, nor was the father, even if he could not 
read. 
"I had not escaped civilization; and as I climbed to 
mv bed in the loft the strains from Balfe's Bohemian 
Girl: 'I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls,' followed 
me into oblivion.. The opera house had moved up to 
Rice Lake, and Caroline Richings was a half-breed girl 
who had somehow invaded that region to sing that song 
for me. and then to hear Devilshoof say: 'Come down 
for brekfus, da sun he be up — a-soon an' we mus' go 
for da feesh.' It was the soprano of Miss Richings sud- 
denly changed to the baritone of Shobatise, whose name 
I had transposed in John without objection on his part. 
A hasty dressing, a wash outside the house in cool 
spring water, which was brought near the door in a V 
trough, and I was ready for breakfast. 
"Mrs. John and the three bright-faced girls greeted me 
and hoped that I had slept well in their little home. I 
assured them that I had sleot so well that between the 
last notes of the song and the morning call I was entire- 
ly ignorant of the fact that I lived. A good breakfast 
of trout, bacon, eggs and coffee followed, and the eld- 
est girl placed a wild flower in my buttonhole and all 
kissed husband and father and we were off. 
"John's boat was a isft. sharpie with just the proper 
breadth of beam to row if the wind failed. There was an 
N.E. wind, and John said: 'Da feesh be better in de 
sout' sho', 'long 'bout a fo'-mile p'int, an' it tak-a time to 
go, but I t'ink a-best; w'at you say?' 
" 'AH right, John, you know best, I only want to have 
a pleasant outing and take a few fish. If you say go to 
the other side of the lake, go there, I am in your hands.' 
"We crossed and trolled for pike and pickerel up and 
down a great bed of weeds on the shallows, and had 
taken many fish when John said: 'Da sun he pass da 
noon mark, s'pose we go asho' an' eat?' Those words 
aAvoke a latent appetite, which now asserted itself, and 
John put on sail for a favorite camping spot. We cleaned 
pike and bass, built fire, and with the bread and coffee 
from home dined to our satisfaction. _ It is a first-class 
dinner that satisfies the man who eats it." 
"That's so," interrupted the major, "I've made many a 
good meal off what civilians call 'hardtack,' but we call 
'stovelids,' and salt horse or * * *" 
"Major," said Frank, "you are out of order; the 
woods appetite may be closely allied to the army appe- 
tite, but this is not your story. If you will kindly restrain 
your ardor and not inject your approval or disapproval 
of the menu of an angler's camp it will facilitate the 
story, which our friend, the bank president, is telling 
lis." . , 
"Well," said the president, "we dined luxuriantly, as 
the saying goes, and we were somewhat tired. We lay 
off on the point where the breeze kept the mosquitoes 
off, and dozed for a couple of hours. Then a violent 
thunder shower came up from the west, and we turned 
our boat over to protect us from it. The thunder seemed 
to split the heavens and give us a view of the vivid 
light beyond. The rain came in such torrents that the 
steady downpour of to-night might be compared to a 
drizzle. The storm was like that of the night on which 
Tarn O'Shanter took his terrible ride. 
"But all violent storms in our latitude _ soon blow 
over, and in half an hour the sun was shining, and we 
launched the boat and fished on our way back home. At 
the landing John took the sail and I the oars, he saying 
that he would bring a basket back for the fish, of which 
we had some 2olbs. We leaned the sail and oars against 
the house and John opened the door, while I was busy 
with a fishing rod. The door had been left open and I 
saw him fall to the floor. Rushing into the house, I saw 
the mother lying dead across the stove, and her three 
girls dead around it. A great hole in the floor showed 
where the • lightning shattered it and told the story. 
John had fainted, but I wet his head and face, slapped 
his hands and brought him to. He either could not or 
would not speak, and sat gazing at the hole in the 
floor for so long a time that I feaceU his reason had 
fled. Then, after what seemed to be several hours, he 
drew a long breath, groaned and cried like a child. 
Then I knew he was safe, and I sat with him until 
morning, when happily two neighbors came to see him 
on business. They took charge of affairs, set me on 
my way back to the bank, for I wanted no more vaca- 
tion. 
"What became of John?" asked Frank. 
"He left the country, and a dozen years later I heard 
that he was up on Hudson Bay. trapping for the com- 
pany. Poor fellow! I think of him every time I hear 
thunder or hook a pike." 
Frank^s Story. 
Frank threw a chunk of wood on the fire in a way that 
did more harm than good, and remarked: "Now we'll 
have a cheerful light when that gets started, but there is 
never any lightning with a week's steady drizzle such 
as this, no fear of it," and he filled his pipe, lighted it 
and puffed away as in a reverie for some minutes, and 
then said: "A thunderstorm out on the water when 
one is in an open boat is not the most pleasant condi- 
tion of life," and he again resumed his pipe and his 
reverie. 
"This storm, of which I was about to speak, said 
Frank, "could never have come up suddenly, it must 
have been growing for centuries, only we were not aware 
of it. The storm was sudden to us, just as a tiger is 
sudden co the hunter in India, but neither could have 
been improvised for the moment. So our storm had 
been nursed for months in distant parts of the earth, 
had grown to boyhood among the cyclones of the Phil- 
ippine Islands, and being of a truant disposition, had 
gathered the strength of manhood as it passed around 
the globe and struck us off the East Coast of Florida be- 
fore it wrecked the small craft off the Bahamas. 
"There were two sail in our fleet, ^ne carried Dr. 
Ferber and a friend, both from New York, and a native 
boatman, called Pete; in the other was the noted sports- 
man and ornithologist of western New York, the late 
Greene Smith, myself and a colored boatman named Joe. 
We were out after tarpon, and I was to referee the case 
between Dr. Ferber, who declared it the poorest kind .of 
fishing, and Smith, who praised it highly. They had 
argued it the night before at the' hotel, and as I had 
never taken this fish and only had a reputation on 
striped bass, it was suggested that I divest myself of all 
prejudices and decide if the tarpon was^ a foe worthy 
the angler's steel or not. 
"I accepted the position of referee with diffidence. 
Dr. Ferber was a famous angler for striped bass, and a 
member of one of those great bassing clubs in and 
about Martha's Vineyard. Smith was more of a gunner 
than an angler, the son of the serious minded abolition- 
ist Gerritt Smith, who tried to break the boy's procli- 
vities for the gun by wielding the rod, after the advice of 
Soloman. but Sol's rod differed from that of the angler. 
Gerritt did not succeed, or Greene Smith, then some 
forty years old, would not have been in the boat with me. 
"A light wind had wafted us out a few miles by noon 
and we had taken a beastlj; lot of skates, dogfish and 
sharks, but no tarpon. Smith was annoyed, mainly on 
my account; the sun Was blistering hot, and as the wind 
was off shore we moved with it without feeling it. 'Joe/ 
said Smith, 'is this kind o' wind likely to keep up all 
day? If it is we won't be able to get back to-night. 
Not that we care, for we have grub enough, but the 
sleeping accommodations of your craft ate not first- 
class.' 
" 'I'll tole you, Mr. Smith, da win' he'll come strong- 
er in de evenin' an' we get good breeze to tack home on 
in a couple o' hours. Yo' see dat leetle cloud way down 
low ovah da coas'? Well, he mean dat we hab a good 
wind.' 
"We fished away and as the breeze increased we saw a 
prospect of getting home before midnight, and were 
happy. Smith- hooked a big shark that towed us aloncr 
for a time until the other boat was nearly out of sight. 
When he landed him and we had killed him and cast 
him adrift, things looked black. Joe called out: ^ 'I 
gotta take a reef, a storm come up quick,' By the tittle 
he had taken a reef it blew so that he had to lower all 
sail and let the boat drift. There was no lightning nor 
rain, only wind; there seemed to be no room for any- 
thing else. We were helpless, and night shut down 
early. We crawled into the little cabin, ate, drank and 
smoked without a fight or a lookout. These would 
have been of no use, because we could not have con- 
trolled the movement of the boat in that hurricane. 
"Joe was scared. His passengers had only themselves 
to lose, while he had his boat in addition to himself 
to figure in the losses. We filled up and slept as well as 
the violent tossing of such a little craft would permit, but 
Joe stood watch all night, occasionally risking his hair 
by peeping out of the cabin to look for lights. 
"Morning came and there was a light breeze, but a vio- 
lent sea, and we were three more nights out before •we 
tied up along the wharf. Dr. Ferber's boat was in 
before us, but his boatman, Pete, had been swept over- 
board and lost; he had been struck by the boom while 
trying to reef and the doctor then tried to take the heltn 
and put the boat about, but the tornado tore the sail 
from the mast and the man was lost. They procured an 
extra sail from a passing fisherman, and so beat us in. 
The Paymaster's Story, 
The president asked his elderly friend, the invalid pay- 
master, about a shark story, of which he had heard a 
portion some years ago, and then lay down on the 
blankets, where Frank had already stretched himself, 
to listen. The old man sat up, coughed and begatll 
"It is not much of a story, but it happened so long 
ago, when I was a youngster, that it made a lasting im- 
pression on me. 
"It was away back in the early forties that I found 
mvself in the Paymaster's Department of the U. S. 
Navy, and detailed to the brig Somers, 266 tons, and the 
fastest craft in the navy. We had on board a lot of 
naval apprentices, cadets they call them noAV, and we 
were to cruise about the West Indies after we had found 
the frigate Vandalia somewhere on the western coast of 
Africa. We missed the frigate after chasing her to the 
Azores, Madeira and Teneriffe, and on reaching Liberia 
found that she had sailed for home. Then Commander 
Alexander Slidell Mackenzie turned our bow toward the 
West Indies and all hands were happy at the thought of 
getting home again. The winter was very near, and 
thoughts of getting home by Christmas were floating in 
our heads when, like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky, 
came the announcement that Midshipman Philip 
Spencer, son of John C. Spencer, then Secretary of 
War: Samuel Cromwell, boatswain's mate, and Elisha 
Small, ordinary seaman, had been arrested for mutiny 
and were in irons. 
"I will pass over the trial of these men and of their 
hanging at the yard arm and burial at sea; Spencer in a 
rude box and the others in their weighted hammocks. 
There was a feeling of depression on the brig, all hands 
having been ordered to witness the execution, and we 
knew that others were suspected and were placed in 
irons, but were released in New York by order of the 
Secretary of the Nayy. The occurrence made me ill for 
several days. * 
"We reached the Leeward Islands and anchored m 
order to get provisions and water. Purser Heiskel and 
I were looking over the rail into the water watching a 
couple of sharks which were swimming about. 'I hate 
a shark,' said the purser, 'let's catch one with a hook, 
since we are not allowed to use firearms on board.' 
"I went below and found the purser's steward, John 
W. Wales, who had informed Commander Mackenzie 
that Spencer had approached him with a proposition to 
seize the brig and turn pirate, and he fitted me out with 
