body, and a few doses -made him well again, and with 
Kenelm the effect was the same, though at first he 
Swore the Indians had poisoned him out of revenge for 
his sliai-e in the Rogers' raid. The Indian told them 
that a party of their people were salmon fishing at the 
i.ower Falls of Suu-gah-nee-toolc, or Lewis Creek. 
Next day the pioneers went over to sue the sport. Many 
Avomen and children were all busy, some with bark nets 
at the weirs, others with curious wooden speai-s; others 
cleaning the fish, and others drying them on racks over 
smoking fires. 
Next day half the Indians returned the visit, and were 
royally entertained, each with a spoonful of the prickly- 
ash berry mixture, and a burned stomachful of moose 
meat and johnny-cake, and so became fast friends of the 
two white men, an alliance which soon proved most 
fortunate. 
One day when the pioneers were hoeing their corn 
under the vigilant eye of Josiah's late friend, the crow, 
descried two boats entering the creek from the bay, and 
the crews being attracted by the new clearing came to 
the landing and accosted the settlers. It was the party 
of a New York sui-veyor, engaged in locating New 
York grants. The official at once set up his Jacobstaff 
and proceeded to allot this pitch to a New York land 
speculator, and warned the present occupants ofif the 
premises, without compensation for their time, labors 
and betterments. 
The party swaggered up from the landing, and made 
as free with the house and its contents as if all be- 
longed to them. One ransacked the loft and brought 
down dried venison to cook for the company. Another 
demanded flour, Indian meal" not being good enough 
for such gentry. Old Kenelm fumed mightily, but 
discreetly withheld his hand from laying a cudgel' about 
their shoulders. 
"You fellows would best get out of this at once," the 
surveyor said, "for, Capt. Williams -will be wanting to 
occupy his claim at once." 
"Maj'be the Green Mountain boys will have a word 
to say about that," said Josiah. 
"To the devil with Allen and his scoundrels!" the 
other scoffed. "We'll have the whole crew hanged in 
a month. There is a reward out for the leaders." 
"Ketchin' on 'em 's another story." said Josiah. and 
asked: "Haow big is your captain's claim?" 
"A thousand acres, running north, j^our stealings being 
nigh the south line." 
"That'll run int' the Gov'jlor's right o' five hundred 
acres." 
"D— your Governor's right! He's got no right in 
this province!" 
"Seein' the Cap'n 's got so much he might leave us 
alone on this leetle patch.' 
"No; ofif you go, and that's all there is about it," 
ciuoth the inexorable official. 
The pioneers were at their wits' end, and drew apart 
for a little consultation while the usurpers were busy 
with their cooking. The result was that Josiah slipped 
away, and was presently making his best speed toward 
the Indian camp. The unbidden guests took leisurely 
time with the meal furnished, in part from their own 
stores and in part from such things as they chose of the 
settlers' provisions, every mouthful of which was be- 
grudged them by. old Kenelm, as he sat apart watching 
them out of the corners of his eyes in sullen silence. 
Suddenly, as if they had stepped out of the gray shells 
of the tree trunks, a score of armed fantastic figures ap- 
peared on every side, and simultaneously announced 
their presence by a horrid discord of yells. 
"What the devil!" exclaimed the surveyor, springing 
to his feet and dropping a choice tidbit of stolen moose 
tongue, while his party cowered in the corners and 
sought shelter behind the great jambs of the fireplace. 
"Who ^ the devil are these Indians, and what do they 
want?" the surveyor asked of Kenelm when he re- 
covered a little from his surprise. 
"Injins!" the old ranger repeated in derision. "Why, 
man alive, they hain't nothin' but Green Mountain boys 
dressed up for business. They've got their faces daubed 
red an' black tu hide their features, bein' the's a baounty 
sot on 'em. If that big feller's ol' Ethan, which I don't 
say he is or haint, it wouldn't be pleasant for him tu 
hev you reco'nize him, and kerry him ofi tu Albany." 
"D — him, we're not hunting outlaws, but only 
peaceably surveying!" said the surveyor. 
"Sart'inly, but a hundred paound would come handy 
tu most anybody," Kenelm answered. "And' what they 
want, an' what we want, is for you an' your peaceable 
crew tu git aout o' these woods — an' that almighty sud- 
den, tew!" he added, with startling emphasis. "Come, 
be makin' tracks, quick! and fur apart!" and he made a 
menacing movement. 
The surveyor, with his attendants, got speedily out of 
doors, and made toward their boats, their huddled rank 
flanked and closely followed by the Indians, yelling 
and threatening, while Kenelm and Josiah could scarcely 
restrain from roughly handling the chopfallen Yorkers. 
The boats were shoved off, and they were hustled into 
them, when Kenelm w^arned them to depart and return 
no more, under pain of chastisement with the twigs 
of the wilderness, all of which was emphasized by 
whoops and screeches of the Indians and discharge of 
guns, the bullets whistling threateningly over the heads 
of the retreating enemy. 
After watching them out of sight behind the first 
headland in the direction of the Forts, the allies returned 
to the cabin. Here they celebrated tfieir bloodless vic- 
tory in libations of fiery ague cure, a great spoonful to 
each exhausting the stock to the red dr<;gs, which were 
eked out to a milder potation by a replenishment of 
water, and the Waubanakees departed, after renewed 
vows of eternal friendship. 
I^*if?*ng: Out Foxes. 
Sherbrooke, p. Q.— B., of Barre, Vt., can come and 
hunt foxes with me whenever he likes. If I can't go my- 
self, he may take my hound, my gun and anything that is 
mine. 
B., of Barre, is the good sportsman who penned a few 
lines a week or so ago in condemnation of the digging 
out of holed foxes. I was surprised to learn that it was 
practiced among clubs anywhere. 
. Jos. G. Walton. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Yukon Notes. 
Travelers on the Ice Trail. 
All through December a long procession of men i>assed 
Fort Selkirk bound for God's country. AH classes of life 
vi'ere represented, from the Jew peddler to the millionaire 
mine owner, and it is only fair to the Jew to say that for 
grit and endurance no one surpassed him. Some trudged 
and tugged at heavy sleds and were their own dogs, as the 
saying went, and others trotted along behind well-broken 
dog teams and had their hired men to attend to the ani- 
mals and do the work of making and breaking camp. 
It was a gayly caparisoned procession and not at all 
suggestive of the desperate race with famine and cold. 
The men who knew to a certainty that their provisions 
would not last them to the coast and who had no idea what 
they would do when the food gave out, wore carnival- 
colored packies of yellow and white, or blue and white, or 
tawny fox skins, and the richer and darker furs. Even the 
face masks and projecting heads when seen at a little dis- 
tance carried out the masquerade idea suggested by the 
domino-like packies, but a closer inspection of the deep 
set faces behind their fringe of ice shoAved hard lines and 
little suggestion of mirth. 
And yet the men Avere not conquered and despondent. 
Once in a while it is true some maimed, frozen creature 
would come along half-crazed with fear and pain, but with 
the majority the hard.ships and care brought uppermost the 
masterful spirit that is (Characteristic of the born pioneer, 
and difficulties and danger were taken banteringly and with 
disdain. 
"You Americans have wonderful ■ constitutions," said 
John Peche, the Canadian Government messenger, who 
late in December, was the first man in from the outside 
world. "Coming down the river I met over 300 men on 
their way out, and most of them were from the States 
and knew nothing of the cold that is cold, or how to take 
care of themselves right, yet they acted as if they were on 
a picnic, and as if the devil were really dead, and thev 
didn't seem to mind little inconveniences like frozen 
cheeks and feet and hands with the nails coming oft' and 
blistered with the frost. They're reckless devils, and a 
more cheeky set I never met. Witli the pants burnt off 
their legs and the faces on them like brown parchment 
they had the gall to give me advice about the country — to 
tell me how many pairs of moccasins I'll need for the 
trip and the like, when I was born on a snowdrift and got 
my growth under the midnight sun. You Americans 
would storm hell if you thought the heat had melted out 
any gold down there, and you'd put up so good a bluft' 
and be so hard to kill, I'll be bound you'd get some of 
the stuff if there was any there." 
The restless energy of the '97 Klondiker was an in- 
soluble enigma to the hardy voyageur. He did not 
recognize it as the outward and visible sign of the virile 
spirit that gained the country its independence and after- 
ward extended its frontiers in the face of opposition by 
native and savage foes. Many of the argonauts of '97 were 
descended from the men who went to California in '49 and 
settled on the Pacific coast. These men will settle in 
Alaska, and their sons will push on further — jperhaps to 
the mountains of the moon. 
The Adventures of Peche. 
I have already mentioned our meeting with John P.eche 
at Fort Selkirk. Peche was originally from Haleyburg, 
Ontario, and was at one time a fish and game constable 
in Ontario. His most recent address was Fort Arthur, 
and his father and mother are both living at a very ad- 
vanced age (they are said to be over 100 years old) on 
the shore of Lake Temiscoming. 
Peche had been in to Hudson Bay fraternizing with 
the Eskimo, and he had followed most of the old voy- 
ageurs' routes from Mistassini to the plains. At the last 
sportsmen's show in New York, Farr, Paulson and La- 
tour all knew Peche, and were interested to hear of him. 
They had a vague idea he was up north somewhere near 
the Arctic Circle, but whether it was in the Yukon or the 
Mackenzie, or in the musk ox country further east, didn't 
matter much to them. Things do not change with longi- 
tude as they do with latitude. Moose Factory and Ches- 
terfield Inlet and Lake Abitibi are more suggestive for 
comparison, taken in connection with game ranges and 
the kind of fish. 
I told these men that Peche had made a trip to Daw- 
son previous to that in December, and that he had come 
out over the Dalton trail to the coast in twenty-two days. 
He poled up the Yukon to Fort Selkirk in a native canoe, 
and after that, with loolbs. of grub and blankets on his 
back, struck out on foot for salt water in company with 
five other men. The first two days they traveled with- 
out a trail, and they had no guide till the last hundred 
miles of the journey, when they secured an Indian to 
pilot them over the coast range, the trail being obliterated 
by the early fall snows. Then I showed them a Van- 
couver press dispatch of recent date which stated that 
Peche, after two years in the far north, had returned to 
civilization with a regular dime novel story of gold and 
adventure. 
He had discovered a mysterious gold land somewhere 
in the Barrow Archipelago, in the Arctic Ocean, where 
the natives use gold for bullets, as being more easily ob- 
tainable than lead, and as proof had a slug of gold taken 
from the shoulder of a wounded Indian, as well as other 
nuggets. He wanted a grub stake to go back into this 
weird land and locate the Indians' "shot mill," and this 
was the reason of his journey out. The Hudson Bay men 
heard the story stolidly and without comment. They said 
it might be a true story, and that they had never known 
Peche to fabricate or to invent imaginary gold finds. 
Further than this no one of the three would commit him- 
self. It is possible that their local pride prevented them 
giving an old associate a reputation for romancing, or 
the Barrow Archipelago is a good long way off from the 
Upper Ottawa, and perhaps it was }jist a case of not wor- 
r3dng about things which didn't coneern them. The gold 
may be there; but one thing is certain: Neither Farr nor 
Latour nor Paulson will go search of it. 
J. B. BURNHAM. 
The Forest akd Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday. 
Correspondence intended for publication should reach us at the 
latest by Monday and as much earlier as practicable. 
s 
Down the Brook. 
"Kij Shields has just been up to Clayton, and says lli;i.t 
the trout are larger and more numerous than ever." 
Thus ran an extract from Will's letter, and it was tlie 
last straw in deciding me to let less important matters 
slide and take a few days off with the trout. 
On a hot day early in June I joined forces with Will 
and we journeyed on the next day to Clayton (which 15 
not its name, but will serve), where we arrived by mid- 
afternoon, and found John and his wife at the old stand. 
John, be it known, is our friend who lives by the brook 
and purveys food and lodging to the casual angler. 
So near the brook does he live that you can cast a fly 
into it from the side yard of the house, and John, who 
is himself an angler, as he needs must be in such a 
situation, has taken many a fine trout from that same 
vantage ground. 
A stroll down the brook before supper was our plan, 
and we had soon donned those delightfully comfortable 
articles of preserved clothing which fit the fisherman's 
ease-loving frame so well, our' rods were jointed, and 
our casts of flies rigged. By 5 o'clock we were casting 
industriously upon the transparent pools of a splendid 
trout stream. For, although so constantly fished that 
there is a well defined path along its banks, it con- 
tains so much perfect water, clear and cold, and so 
many deep and inaccessible holes, that it is always full 
of large trout for him who knows how to lure them 
forth. After fishing the brook for four days and meet- 
ing several brother anglers upon it, we saw more large 
fish the morning of our return than we had seen at any 
previous time— and this in a brook lying in a long- 
settled part of the State, running through well-culti- 
vated farms, and easily reached by two railroads. Of 
course the trout are wary, but therein lies one of the 
charms of the brook. They do not rise at every cast, or 
at any time of day, but the fisherman must call into 
play the finer points of his craft if he would secure a 
good creel. Even the veriest duffer will admit, after 
casting a pool in vain, that the fish are there, for if he 
stealthily approach so that he gains a good view into the 
pool he will discern, with outstarting eyes, a dozen or 
more of large trout fanning lazily in the current. 
Our luck on the first evening was fully up to our 
expectations, for \ye returned to the house about 9 o'clock 
with seventeen nice fish, running from lib. down to 
%lh. in weight. Few smaller fish are taken with the fly 
on this stream. The time of our return may strike 
some as overlate, but experience has taught us that 
the best success, on this brook at least, is to be ex- 
pected during the hour which marks the fall of night. 
This is especially true when the day has been hot. 
Our first evening was no exception to the rule, for some 
of our best fish were taken when it was so . dark that 
we could not see our flies, and had to strike at the sound 
of the fish's splash as he leaped for the fly. How do 
they see it? Perhaps because from their vantage ground 
in the dark depths of the pool they look up against the 
brighter sky, and an object agitating the gossamer sur- 
face is easily visible to them, while the angler, gazing into 
blackness, sees naught except perhaps the flash of the 
leaping fish or the reflection of a star dancing on the 
ripples. 
And there is a charm about this evening fishing un- 
known to him who plies the gentle art entirely by 
daylight. The meadows are alight with fire flies; tlie 
brook purls blackly past with a mysterious murmur 
unnoticed by day; a heron swoops cldfee overhead with' 
silent wings; an owl discovers the angler's figure and 
hovers above it with unearthly chatterings. And after 
the fish have ceased to rise he wends his way through the 
dewy meadow grass toward the beacon light of his hos- 
telry, where dry garments and good cheer await him, 
followed by the ever comforting pipe and then by sleep, 
broken only by a dream of "that big fellow" in the hole 
by the willow stub, who is at last brought to net. And 
this first evening of ours was four times repeated, for 
we enjoj^ed perfect weather and no deluges came to roil 
the brook and interfere with the alhu-ing fly. 
Morning saw us down to breakfast at about 7:30, for 
we were in the country to rest quite as much as to fish, 
and so we did not rise with the sun. 
"You'll have to gag that old rooster of yours, John." 
said Will. "He started in under my W'indow at 4 o'clock 
and crowed once a minute for half an hour.' 
John smiles, for we all know that nothing can Avake 
Will at 4 on the second morning as soon as he becomes 
a trifle accustomed to the unusual sounds of the country. 
Had John been our guest in the city, would he have 
appealed to us to gag the trolley cars? 
A bountiful breakfast, whose chief features were trout 
and buckwheat cakes, with strained honey, gave us 
stored energy for the morning, and we were off once 
more down the brook. The meadows were brilliant with 
the dew, and melodious with the whistle of Bob White 
and the flight-song of countless bobolinks, as we reached 
the first good pool. I paused to watch Will as he skill- 
fully whipped the water, reaching every spot likely to 
aft"oid a lurking place for a speckled beauty. As he 
stands there rod in hand and creel at hip, his old felt 
hat drooping about his head like a mushroom over its 
stem, his slouchy hunting coat with bulging pockets and 
many a stain, telling of victories by flood and field, 
his oozing woolen stockings and pervious shoes, he 
forms a picture dear to the eye of every angler. His 
figure is wholly in harmony, too, with the background 
of trees fringing the winding stream, the waving meadow 
E?frass, the clear water swirling against its gravelly bank. ■ 
Truly an angler is a part of nature. 
But I cannot stop all the morning to watch Will, 
for just below in a deep pool, where the stream makes 
a sudden turn, lies the monarch of the brook. Will had 
hooked his majesty on the previous evening, but a 
friendly snag had saved him just as he was nearing the 
net. To Will's assertion that he was a plump ivvo- 
poimder I had lent a rather incredulous ear. Now he 
urges me to try my hand, albeit so much less skillful 
than his own. Perhaps I may have a duffer's luck. 
Stealthily I approach his lair and cast the coachman 
and the cow-dung as deftly as I can, but there comes no 
responsive rise. The skj' has clouded oyer a little; 
perhaps the flies are too small. I withdraw some pace* 
