B02 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec «4, 189a 
Tor €bri $tma$ Reading* 
Here's to Tracks! 
Apparently a whole lot of people are still polyps, and 
I am going to watch and see if they do not multiply by 
fission. The discovery was made like most discoveries, 
rather accidentally. A copy of Mr. Thompson's beautiful 
book on "Wild Animals I Have Known" was left upon 
my office table in a conspicuous place, and this was the 
means for opening a new vista of vision into folks. 
First, a young man convalescing from an appendicitis 
operation came into the office. He picked up the book and 
looked through it rapidly, turning certain pages sidewise 
and mumbling something about tracks. Then he said: 
"Funny, isn't it, that an author likes to illuminate a book 
so much with tracks." Poor fellow ! thought I, a tonic 
will soon bring you out of this. 
Then a clergyman came in and adjusted his glasses 
three or four times before deciding that his view of the 
pages was correct. "This matter of illuminating a book 
with tracks," said he. "Why does not an author who 
draws so weM choose something symbolic, or at least 
significant?" I was not yet aroused, because there was 
the feeling that a man whose gaze had been steadily fixed 
upon the sky for many years might not know what was 
going on here below. In fact, I had seen his signature 
attached to a patent medicine adver- 
tisement. 
A fashionable woman was ushered 
in by my door boy, and while a re- 
ceipt was being made out for her bill 
she looked at the book and remarked 
that it was beautifully gotten up, but 
some of the pages seemed to be mark- 
ed with spots that looked like tracks. 
The bill that she had paid was a large 
one, so it seemed as though she must 
be a superior woman. Yet tracks 
meant nothing to her. If she ever 
saw a wild animal in the woods she 
made a lot of tracks herself. Her pet 
dog never made a track in his life, un- 
less as a pup he fell into the milk pan 
and then lay down upon the silk sofa 1 
cushions. But that would have been 
interesting after all. Yes, indeed ! 
How can any tracks be uninteresting? 
Then there came to mind the re- 
membrance of a tragedy of last year. 
I had spent a good part of the sum- 
mer, and had risked my life on bad 
rivers, and had braved all sorts of 
hardships to get a series of photo- 
graphs of tracks. I had negatives of 
tracks of bears, wolves, foxes, lynxes, 
wolverines, caribou, porcupines, ot- 
ters, martens and arctic hares. We 
went on a two clays 1 trip up a wicked. « 
thundering river, just to see if a polar 
bear that had been seen a week pre- 
viously by the Indians had left any 
tracks on the bank. He had left a 
fair number, and a pretty good nega- 
tive was obtained. Among my films 
there was a negative of a pretty girl 
on the steamer, a long-bearded pilot, 
a house on the point, and a number 
of other truck things that I had 
photographed for lack of something 
better to do cn voyage. 
On my return the films were given 
over to a concern for development, 
and when I called for them later the 
photographs of the pretty girl and of 
the pilot and of the house on the point 
were shown to me with pride by the 
developer. "But where are most of 
the series of films from No. 30 to No. 
120?" I asked. "Oh," said, he, "that 
was a funny lot of failures. The 
films looked as though they just had 
tracks all over them, so I threw them 
away." 
When I prepared the manuscript 
for my little volume of field sketches 
last year it was at first planned to 
have a good many illustrations. I 
wanted particularly to have a drawing 
of a partridge track in the snow, but 
no illustrator would give his mind to that for an instant. 
He would draw a pretty girl awaiting our return, or a 
long-bearded local inhabitant, or a carious house that 
was known to be haunted, but a partridge track in the 
snow — oh, never mind that ! 
Putting all of this testimony together, we have evidence 
that folks generally do not respond to the richness of sug- 
gestion that is found in tracks. Richness of suggestion 
gives charm to the words of the poet, beauty to the master 
stroke of the artist, and it fixes our interest in the data 
of the scientist. Richness of suggestion I see in this 
mink track . under the overhanging sedges by the brook. 
When was he here? Where has he gone? Has he 
caught the big trout that lurked under the drift here 
during the summer? Did he go up into the cleft of the 
rock where his track seems to turn? If he did he very 
likely made a rabbit bounce out in a hurry. What a beau- 
tiful skin he must have if the fur is held in the proper 
light. Wonder if he dove into one of the subaqueous 
doors of the muskrat house here in the rushes, and then 
silently poked his blunt nose and beady eyes and sharp 
teeth into the presence of a happy family of four musk- 
rats who thought themselves safe. Here his track passes 
the track of a skunk. Did they see each other in passing? 
How did these two weasels make a sign of kinship? Did 
each hope that his relative would die on the spot and leave 
his possessions to the other? Did they attempt to force 
any such entailment by resort to tactics? When Betsey 
Bobbett remarked that "one-half of this world doesn't know 
what the other half is about," the good housewife replied: 
"Don't worry about that, Betsey, it's no fault of yours." 
I. csmsot get comfort out of the feeling that it is no fault 
of mine for not knowing what the mink did last night, or 
what he is going to do to-night. I want to know. There 
is so much of interest about his track that I sneeze. I 
sneeze because I have stood still so long in the cold 
wind pondering over the suggestions made by the little 
track in the soft sand by the spring brook. 
J£ ^ ^ 
Lonesome and homesick in a foreign land, far from the 
English language, I stroll dejectedly into the forest. I 
have no heart to become interested in the scenery or to 
give a second look at the castle in the distance. The 
world is cold and barren and inhospitable, and a man's 
life doesn't amount to much anyway. Here is a partridge 
track in the snow. How much it looks like the track of a 
partridge at home. Just like the one among the sumacs 
behind grandfather's barn on that bright Christmas morn- 
ing three years ago. How warm the big, open fireplace 
was that day. And grandmother's pumpkin pie. How 
good that was — made out of old-fashioned pumpkins. 
The crust brown and sticky where the juice of the pie ran 
over and glazed it richly. Pumpkin pie iin. thick. 
And dear sister Nellie, how good and kind she is, and 
how pretty she looked that day. Uncle Joe is a wit 
though. Didn't he keep us shouting all day long, and 
how glad they were that the mortgage was all off from 
the pr®perty. Well! well! Here I have been right at 
home for half an hour. The world is all right. The 
partridge track did it. I'll accomplish great things over 
ROWLAND E. ROBINSON. 
"Awahsoose." 
here, and then go back proud of my laurels to the good 
part of the earth that is still as bright as when I left it. 
*S H 
Great men have made fame with their toasts. Per- 
sonally I do not care for fame, because it is said to take 
up a good deal of one's time. A few odd passes were 
made for it in earlier days, before I realized what it might 
do to a man, and now I don't want it at all on my own 
account, but on my wife's account I will bear anything, so 
here is another attempt at gaining -fame — a Christmas 
toast — Here's to Tracks ! Robert T. Morris. 
New York. 
Books for Holiday Presents 
Should be ordered in good season, to avoid delays. Every 
year, experience has shown, some books have been ordered 
from the Forest and Stream Publishing Co. at dates too 
late for sending them in season to reach recipients by 
Christmas. 
African Explorer (spinning a yarn) — "Not very long 
ago I went out one day unarmed, when I suddenly 
found myself face to face with three lions." 
Friend— "Well?" 
Explorer. — "I fixed my gaze on the brutes, then stuck 
my hands in my pockets, and walked away, whistling an 
air from an opera." 
Friend — "And didn't the lions immediately rush at 
you 
Explorer — "They couldn't. 
Temps. 
It was at the zoo." — 
Landlord Dayton's Shooting Match. 
As Phineas Dayton sat in his neat bar room the morn- 
ing before Christmas, sixty years ago, he was an ideal 
landlord to look at; portly of form, genial eyed, firm 
mouthed. Just now the bulky figure and firm-set lips 
seemed to the young fellow who sat on the settle opposite 
the landlord's arm chair to quite overbalance all the 
good humor that the eye« expressed, as the younger man, 
evidently awaiting some momentous answer, lifted fre- 
quent furtive glances from the hands that nervously 
fingered the rifle resting between his knees. 
A step outside attracted the landlord's attention, and 
looking through the window he saw, passing it, another 
young man, also bearing a rifle. 
"Tom! Tom! come in here," Phineas called peremp- 
torily, and the other entered with a puff of wintry air that 
set the advertisements of steamboats, stage coaches and 
stallions on the wall to rustling and flapping. 
The newcomer, tall, blue-eyed and yellow-haired, bade 
the landlord good morning, nodded to the other and 
looked at both in puzzled inquiry. The occupant of the 
settle, the opposite of the other in stature and complexion, 
returned the nod and glance half-defiantly and again tried 
to read the landlord's face. 
"Tom," Landlord Dayton began abruptly, "you an' Dick 
has bin a-hevin' on't nip an' tuck for my Dorothy, goin' 
on a year. Yest'd'y you as't me for her, and to-day Dick 
has. You're tol'able good boys, both on ye, an' one is 
about as well off as t' other, an' I 
hain't a ha'penny's ch'ice betwixt ye. 
I don't believe Dorothy lies, nuther, 
anyways. I hain't seen her show no 
favor, an' mebby she won't hev nary 
one. She's a chip o' the ol' block, an' 
some sot, but mebby my say so 'd 
move her a leetle." 
Trie young men blushed hotly, glar- 
ing on each other, while the landlord 
studied their faces with a twinkle of 
amusement imhis eyes, and then con- 
tinued : 
"It's nip an' tuck wi' ye tew on 
your shootin', both on ye pooty good 
at it, but nary one nothin' tu brag on 
over t' other. Haint that so?" 
Each assented hesitatingly, wonder- 
ing what possible bearing the state- 
ment would have on the decision of 
his fate. 
"Wal, then, I'll tell ye what I'm 
a-goin' tu du, an' give ye a equal 
chance. You both on ye start aout 
wi' your rifles at 10 er-clock, percize- 
ly, an' the one 'at comes in at dark 
wi' the biggest string o' pa'tridges 
he'll hev my consent an' what help I 
, can put in tu git Dorothy. Naow, 
what d' ye say?" 
"What I say is," Tom broke out 
hotly, "what I say is, I -won't du no 
sech a thing! You're just a-jokin, 
Mr. Dayton, a-gamblin' off your dar- 
ter on a feller's luck a-huntin' !" 
"Wal, if you're afeard tu try it, I 
haint," Dick sneered. 
"You'd ought tu know it haint that, 
Dick Barrett," said Tom, calmly, but 
with a suppressed danger signal in 
his voice. "It's the idee 'at goes 
ag'in' my grain. But you haint in 
airnest. Mr. Dayton, I know you 
haint!" 
"A-meanin' every word I'm sayin'," 
the landlord said, shutting his mouth 
like a steel trap. "You can try or let 
it alone, but the one 'at fetches the 
most pa'tridges gits the gal, so far as 
I can help him tu her." 
Tom studied the determined face a 
moment before he answered, "I'll be 
in ag'in afore 10, an' let ye know 
whether I will or no," and with that 
went out. 
"An' if you'll jest set my shootin' 
iron inside your bar, so 't the' won't 
be nobody foolin' with it, I'll go over 
tu the store an' git me some paowder, 
an' I'll be on hand an' tu rights," said 
Dick, handing his rifle to the landlord 
and hurrying out. 
The landlord placed it inside the 
bar, which had a -wooden grating from counter to ceiling, 
and then carefully locking the door, but forgetting to take 
the key from it, went away with a ponderous but brisk 
step, that set bottles and glasses to clinking merrily be- 
hind him. 
No one of the three occupants of the bar room had 
noticed that when Tom Hale became one of them the 
door of the dining room was drawn the least bit ajar, and 
one black eye of the landlord's niece and hired girl, Susan 
Crane, took a position in it to feast on what it and its 
mate loved best — the handsome, devil-may-care face of 
Dick Barrett. Then the conversation grew interesting, 
and she put the best of her little pink ears to gathering 
every word of it, and when it was ended and the bar room 
empty, she entered it on tip toe, hovering about the now 
accessible bar more eagerly than a thirsty toper, with, the 
strong temptation to steal the gun, and quite ready to 
make it useless if she only knew how. Then she was 
given a great start by the sudden entrance of some one, 
who proved to be Billy Cole, the lame ostler, who hope- 
lessly adored her, and would lay down his life for onex>f 
her smiles. 
"Oh, Billy!" she said, rapidly, in a stage whisper, "what 
d' you du tu a gun so it won't shoot good? Quick, tell 
me !" 
"Du tu a gun?" he repeated, staring at her open- 
mouthed. "Why, you can bu'st 'em, er smash the lock, er 
wet the primin', or if it's a flint lock, loose the flint." 
"No ! no ! not to spile it for good an' all, nor so you 
could tell right off what added it, but somethin' kinder 
blind. Oh, tell me, Billy!" 
"Wal, it depends so'thin' on what kind of a gun It is," 
