July 28, 1900.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
6S 
adventurous comrade perched on top of a big boulder in 
the middle of the roaring current, holding aloft in one 
hand his dinner pail, in the other his precious bundle of 
furs, while just below lay his capsized boat, jammed fast 
against a rock, and gun, traps and hatchet somewhere at 
the bottom. Joe arrived directly, and on finding that 
our friend was unhurt and no great harm done, we could 
not withhold a hearty laugh at the funny figure he cut 
with his carefully preserved treasures. We helped him 
ashore with them, and soon fished up the gun, traps and 
other cargo, but our united efforts could not budge the 
boat an inch, nor could it be done until the creek had 
fallen considerably. 
As there was no telling when a team would come for 
boats and traps, we insured the safety of the latter by 
caching them with a skill that would do no discredit to a 
Roclcy Alountain trapper. We removed a circular sod and 
excavated the earth to a sufficient depth, carrying away 
the loose dirt and throwing it in the creek, so that when 
the pit was done its precincts were as neat as a chip- 
munk's dooryard. Then the traps were closel}'^ packed 
in it, the sod adjusted in its original place so nicely that 
nothing but the searchlight of a thunderbolt could have 
revealed what was hidden there. 
I. once saw where a lightning stroke unearthed a log 
chain that had lain buried at the foot of a tree for un- 
known years, the electric current furrowing the turf and 
laying bare every contortion of the chain from end to 
end, just as it had been dropped from some careless 
hand. 
Our traps were buried, our trapping ended, to little 
purpose save living very close to nature and primitive 
life, sometimes almost to the verge of discomfort, though 
scarcely counted so by us. We fed on the coarsest fare 
with the zest of healthy appetites, slept soundly on the 
rudest beds, were sun-tanned and smoke-tanned to the 
color and odor of Indian-tanned buckskin, were unkempt 
and begrimed to the wonder and disgust of the good home 
folk who could not understand what we could find that 
was pleasant in such a life. We knew, if we could not 
tell them. 
Good souls, they never thought of their ancestors living 
far harder lives but yesterday in the world's age, only the 
hardiest surviving and preserving the vigor to perpetuate 
their race, nor did the good souls ever think the race 
would be none the worse now for a judicious infusion of 
old leaven of rough living. Some wisely do so; some 
foolishly play at it, because it is the fashion. I never 
could see what good or satisfaction there can be in 
camping out in an elegantly furnished house, where }'ou 
are expected to dress for the luxuriously served dinner of 
several courses, and gossip, lawn tennis and golf the chief 
recreations; or perchance a young lady catches a fish or 
fires a rifle in the direction of a target, she celebrates the 
unique event with a pretty squeal. There is nothing of 
the wholesomeness of true camp life in it all, none of its 
freedom frorn conventionalities, of the invention of make- 
shifts, no living close to the heart of nature. 
Well, there are no more of the happy, care-free days of 
camping out for us three comrades— one sleeping his long 
sleep under the sumacs in the old burying ground; one 
other is a man of affairs, too busy to go camping; and 
the other bed-ridden, shut in from the bright and beauti- 
ful Avorld by a wall of perpetual night. What wonder that 
he loves to babble of the days when the joy of beholding 
the beauty of the world was his. For him is only the in- 
ward sight to read the pages of memory whereon the 
record of things seen long ago is written in the story of 
youth- AWAHSOOSE. 
The Knight Mystery. 
Boston, July 21.— Readers of the Forest and Stream 
will well remember the mysterious disappearance of 
young Richard M. Knight, who went out from Bemis, 
Me., deer hunting on the morning of Oct. 24 last year, 
and since that time has never been heard from. About 
his disappearance a mystery has hung amounting to 
veritable tragedy. Just now a most singular chapter has 
been added to this sad history. 
A week or two ago there came a person to Bemis 
claiming to be a Sioux Indian— one of the Indian boys 
educated by the Government at Hampton. At Bemis 
he apparently first made the acquaintance of Buckskin 
Sam, a guide of rather eccentric habits who lives in a 
cabin there. From Sam Capt. Fred C. Barker soon 
learned that the Indian was "a solver of mysteries" and 
proposed to hunt for the body of young Knight. Last 
Sunday morning the Indian announced to Buckskin Sam 
that he had found the skull of the lost hunter, and to- 
gether they visited the spot and viewed it, so Buckskin 
Sam claims. Without communicating with Capt. Bar- 
ker or any one else, Sam immediately telegraphed young 
Knight's father, J. Edward Knight, of Boothbay Har- 
bor, that the remains of his son had been found. Mr. 
and Mrs. Knight immediately started for Bemis, taking 
with them Dr. Blake, their family physician. Indeed, 
they came very near to ordering an undertaker to meet 
them at the wharf on their return with the remains of 
their only son. At Rumford Falls, however, Mr. Knight 
was advised not to put too much confidence in the tele- 
gram of Buckskin Sam. Arrived at Bemis he was met 
by Capt. Barker, who also cast doubt upon the authen- 
ticity of the find; but Mr. Knight, with Capt. Barker, 
Dr. Blake, Prof. J. F. Moody, of Auburn. Me., and the 
wri:er. were soon of? for the location of what had been 
found. We went up the mountain, about east from Bemis, 
by way of French's logging road, about a mile and a half. 
Here were the loggjng camps. Capt. Barker knocked on 
the door of the office camp, which was closed. It took 
a tliird rap to bring the Indian to the door. He came 
forth, a little surprised, but still fluent of speech, ex- 
plaining that he was a "solver of mysteries; had been 
directed to that spot to find the body of the lost hunter; 
had an 'investment' which had directed him. He had 
found the skull of the lost man, and the 'investment' 
would direct him to find the rest of the remains." He 
consented to conduct the party to the find. Capt. Bar- 
ker had already been there. On our way the Indian 
claimed to also be engaeed in huntinsr for gensing for 
the Government and said he was obliged to report to 
the Government once a week or month. He also claimed 
to have a knowledge of botany or herb doctoring. But 
questioned by Prof. Moody as to the names of some of 
the more common plants, he made some very bad 
breaks — ^in fact not calling a single plant by its common 
or botanical name. 
Arrived at the very upper end of the logging road, 
about three miles from Bemis, and over the "cant" toward 
Rangeley Lake, the Indian turned out of the track into 
the woods by a trail freshly spotted. The spotting is 
very curious, to say the least, evidently made by some 
one going into the woods, since all the blazes are on the 
side of the treis facing the logging road. Just then a 
most violent thunder storm set in as if to add to the 
dramatic natiire of the scene. The heavens were black, 
except from the vivid lightning. The rain fell in or- 
rents. We were all drenched to the skin. The Indian 
proceeded a few rods into the woods. Suddenly he 
stopped and pointed forward. The writer asked him why 
he did not go on. "I cannot," he replied. "Such things 
have a strange eft'ect on me." The rest of the party went 
a few feet further. There in a little hollow lay a human 
skull. Dr. Blake picked it up and examined it closely. 
It was decidedly old and had clay or mud in the cav- 
ities that was not like the leaf mold into which it had 
been pressed. One side was diseased, part of the bone 
being destroyed. Dr. Blake suggested that doubtless 
the owner of the skull had died of some disease of the 
face that had destroyed the cheek bone. The jaw teeth 
were intact with a single exception and all very sound. 
Young Knight's jaw teeth were bad and filled in many 
places. Three of the front teeth were gone, but the 
bicuspids were there, sound and perfect. Young Knight's 
bicuspids were filled with gold. The front teeth left set 
at a sharp angle and must have protruded almost to a 
deformity in life. Young Knight had even front teeth. 
Mr. Knight at once pronounced it not the skull of his 
son. The teeth left no maner of doubt in his mind. 
The skull was carried to the Bemis camps, where it 
remains in possessioin of Capt. Barker. Mrs. Knight 
saw the skull after it had been washed and immediately 
declared that it could not have belonged to her son. 
The teeth never were his. 
The question is, Whose skull was it.-" How came it 
up in the Bemis woods, not far from where his friend 
Arthur Wilson parted from young Knight the last time 
he was ever seen? No one but the Indian can answer 
and he says that his "investment" has led him to the 
skull and that he will find more of the bones. Mr, 
Knight has told him that if he finds a positive identifica- 
tion of the body of his son he will be handsomely re- 
warded. But to Mr. and Mrs. Knight, who have appar 
ently been cruelly pla3^ed upon, identification means some 
thing more than a few old bones. Some of his clothing 
his gun, his watch and little trinkets sacred to his mothe 
must be producted. They have left the matter in th 
hands of Capt. Barker and will not again hurry to Bemi 
to get the body of their son on a mere telegram fron 
Buckskin Sam. Special. 
With the Southern Sea Lions. 
On a chart of South America the Chincha Islands an 
represented by three little dots, opposite Pisco Bay, abou 
half-way between the Equator and the Tropic of Capri- 
corn. Dots they are in reality — ^bare, precipitous rocki 
rising in some places perpendicularly from the sea for i 
hundred feet or more, the only beach being a little patcl 
of sand on the North Island, whereon we were nearlj 
capsized one fine afternoon while engaged in getting 5 
load of sand. But, insignificant though they may be ir 
point of size, these few acres of rock were once wortt 
the price of many a square mile of fair and fertile land, foi 
in days gone by they were covered deep with the best ol 
pay dirt in the shape of the richest and most valuable 
deposit of guano known, and, if not a gold mine in 
fact, they were a veritable mine of wealth for Peru. No 
less than 7,000,000 tons of guano, worth in round num- 
bers something like $420,000,000, were shipped from these 
little islets to various points of the globe, the slow ac- 
cumulation of untold centuries being dispersed in a score 
of years. On the North Island the deposit was about a 
hundred feet in thickness, while in a valley on the Middle 
Island it attained a depth of no less than 200 feet, being 
sufficient!}' extensive to warrant the construction of a 
good-sized wharf to aid in its removal. The guano was 
dug by Chinamen, drawn to the chutes in mule cars ovei 
regular tramways, and there emptied into lighters holding 
eight or ten tons, these in turn being laboriously rowed to 
the ships, sometimes a mile away. The main feature of a 
chute is a huge canvas pipe, like an overgrown hose, reach- 
ing from the summit of the rock almost to the water, and 
there securely held by heavy chains and anchors. It may 
i-eadily be imagined that it was not always an easy matter 
to hook tacl-des into the big ring provided for the pur- 
pose and bring an unwieldy lighter into a proper position 
beneath the pipe for loading, and in fact some of the more 
exposed chutes were only accessible during the forenoon, 
when the water was smooth. 
It was not my fortune to see the Chinchas in the height 
of their glory, when more than a hundred sails were 
crowded in between the islands, when the Cape Horn, 
Hell-fire and other famous chutes with equally euphoni- 
ous names were in full operation, and when, after weeks 
of weary waiting, a ship was loaded in a few days at the 
big chute on the Middle Island. At the time of my visit 
in 1870 all that was past, nearly 7,000,000 tons of guano 
had been removed, and scarce a score of vessels lay at 
their moorings. Since then the islets have been practi- 
cally swept clean, the town on the North Island pulled 
down, and the very graveyard, where the dogs used to 
scratch down to the rough pine boxes, has been denuded 
of its precious soil. 
For two months — ninety days was the allotted time for 
loading — we had been lying at anchor, and my leisure 
moments had been passed in fishing, shooting and making 
into skins specimens of various sea birds, to be, as I 
imagined, eventually admired by friends at home. In this, 
however, I was disappointed. Shipped at London for 
Boston, the vessel that bore_ them was burned at sea, and 
the labor of many days vanished into smoke. 
The height of my ambition, however, was a sea Iron; 
but although sea lions were common enough and might be 
seen any day sporting among the vessels, fishing near the 
islands or basking on the rocks, so far my endeavors, 
aided and abetted by my friends Lowe and Gilbert, had 
come to naught. The truth was that the creatures were 
"educated," knew the range of a gun or the distance to 
which a harpoon could be hurled, and when they basked 
in the sun slept with one eye open. 
The Southern sea lion t^Otaria jubata) is very similar 
to his cousin, Eumetopias, of the North Pacific, though 
with less of a bump of reverence,, owing to his some- 
what flatter head. The males are about four times the 
bulk of the females, a discrepancy that caused me in my 
innocence to look upon the two sexes as two distinct 
species. This blunder ceased to grieve me when in later 
years I found that so good a naturalist as Steller con- 
sidered the fur seal bachelors as a. species apart from the 
breeding seals. 
Now the Chinchas abound in sea worn caves, and in 
their gloomy depths, protected from intrusion by surf and 
sunken rocks, the big old "bulls" were particularly fond 
of dozing away their afternoons, Usually taking the pre- 
caution to select a cave with more than one entrance, that 
in the event of an unwelcome visitor entering by the front 
door they might slip quietly out by a side passage. It was 
into such a cave that we one day backed our heavy, sloop- 
rigged boat and discovered three sea lions calmly slumber- 
ing among the rocks. 
We frequently realize the truth of the saying that it is 
always the unexpected that happens. A deer jumps up 
when one is hunting partridges ; the ducks fly over the 
decoys when we are not looking, and after fishing for an 
hour without a bite a big bass snaps the tip and runs away 
with the leader while we are engaged in investigating 
something at the other end of the boat. And this was one 
of those occasions. Lowe had not brought his gun, and but 
one barrel of my heavy muzzleloader was charged with 
buckshot, the other containing a light "collecting" charge. 
The one available load was promptly fired at the most ex- 
posed individual, and he with equal promptness sprang 
up, together with his companions. There they stood, mo- 
tionless and silent, glowering at us through the gloom, 
while the empty barrel was being reloaded and the small 
shot replaced by heavier. There they still stood until the 
very caps were in my fingers, and then splashed into the 
water and disappeared through a side entrance. On an- 
other quiet afternoon we took the dinghy into a low- 
mouthed cave, whose somber recesses seemed doubly dark 
by contrast with the bright sunlight without. It was just 
the place for a siesta, and yet it seemed quite empty ; soafter 
a careful look around us and a shout or two that echoed 
dully from the overhanging rock we were about to leave 
Avhen a sound as of grating pebbles attracted our atten- 
tion. Another movement directed us to a rocky niche 
close by, and there, within 15 yards, our eyes, grown ac- 
customed to the dim light, made out the black and bulky 
forms of two huge sea lions, which, but for an unlucky 
slip, would have escaped detection. Bang! bang! Two 
reports rang through the cave, and with a bound the two 
lions were at the water's edge. Another shot right in the 
face and eyes of the nearest and our guns were empty 
and our little boat between the lions and liberty. There 
was a moment of anxious suspense. The wounded beast 
threw up his head with a harsh barking roar, sprang into 
the water, and, much to our relief, dove and swam out, 
followed by his comrade, passing so near that we could 
have touched them with an oar. 
Despite his great size and formidable appearance, the 
sea lion is pre-eminently a lover of peace, and although a 
big male could readily have overturned the 12-foot 
dinghy we sometimes used, not one actually attacked us, 
and only once or twice did one even threaten to do so. 
Not that the chase of the sea lion was at all lacking in 
excitement; aside from the sunken rocks, on which we 
more than once narrowly escaped coming to grief, the 
blind breakers that came at frequent and irregular inter- 
vals called for continual watchfulness, and barred the 
entrance to many a promising cave. A blind breaker is 
simply a wave or swell a little larger than ordinary, and 
this may come alone or more often in company with one 
or two of its fellows. The uproar produced by one of 
these waves dashing into a little cave is prodigious, and 
if, as generally happens, the backward rush and swirl of 
one wave is met by the advancing crest of a second the 
effect produced upon a boat that is in the immediate 
vicinity is prodigious also. It was one of these treacherous 
waves that one afternoon let our big boat down upon a 
rock with a most appalling crack, keeling her over until 
the mast almost touched the water, and sending us sprawl- 
ing in the bottom on the ballast bags. Fortunately the 
next sea lifted us off and set us right side up again, but 
little the worse for the accident. While reflecting upon 
these past mishaps, one fine afternoon, being at the same 
time engaged in melting up the last available lead to make 
buckshot, there came from alongside the sound of a 
familiar voice calling, "Get your swinging bureau ; we're 
off for the Ballistas." The voice was Gilbert's ; the piece 
of furniture alluded to, my pet ammunition box; the 
Ballistas, three at that time unfrequented islands, seven 
miles to the southward, presumably the haunt of number- 
less sea lions. Since then these islets have been ex- 
ploited for guano with great success. 
Ten minutes later we were off, standing in toward the 
mainland on our first tack, dashing merrily along as we 
heeled well over to the breeze. On we sped, the wind in- 
creasing as we went, and when an hour later we came 
about it was thought best to close-reef, for on the outward 
tack we would encounter the full sweep of wind and 
sea. On we went again, the wind freshening, the sea 
rising all the time, until it became an even' question 
whether it would be worse to keep on or run back. Small 
as was our sail, there was still "too much bush for canoe," 
and we staggered along, climbing up one side of a big 
wave and sliding down the other just as its curling crest 
seemed about to break over us. As we all sat to wind- 
ward, drenched with flying spray, Gilbert cheerfully ex- 
plained the proper method of righting a capsized boat, 
while now and then, as a heavier puff than usual sent the 
lee rail under, it seemed as though he would soon have 
an opportunity of putting his theories to a practical test. 
I thought of the sharks that occasionally swam about the 
ships ; of the big skates, whose phosphorescent forms could 
be seen at night gliding uncannily along deep beneath, 
our keel, and the water seemed very black, the boat very 
small and the Ballistas a long way off. Still, remembering 
Cromwell's advice, we kept the ammunition well under 
cover, and as we at at last neared the islands emptied the 
water from our pockets and began to look about for 
