FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 12, 1901. 
Reminiscences. — II. 
At one time in Jim's fatherless boyhood he was quar- 
tered with a benevolent old uncle and aunt who, though 
as poor as himself and hard pinched to provide for a large 
flock of their own, alwaj^s bad bit and sup and shelter for 
the poor orphan. Sometimes he spent a few days with 
some of his other relatives, of whom he had an uiilimited 
circle, all on the same unvarying level of shiftlessness and 
poverty. He had been staying a week with one of them, 
when, having in some way become possessed of a couple of 
charges of powder and shot, he borrowed a cousin's old 
flintlock musket and set forth early one bright October 
morning on a grand hunt. The larder was low, and the 
hour was before the family's irregular breakfast lime, so 
that he found but a scant lining of remnants for his 
stomach, yet he carried a light heart and there was a 
prospect of many apple orchards in his route. 
There were upland and lowland from which to make 
choice of hunting ground, and the chance of getting shots 
at flocks of duck with his limited stock of ammunition 
made him soon decide in favor of them against the few 
shots he might have at single partridges or gray squir- 
rels, for all the frequent orchards and clear water of the 
hillside springs. 
So he turned his back on the hills and followed one 
stream in all its windings through the half-swampy woods 
to the marshes by the lake, crept stealthily up to every 
known duck hole, as the stagnant, dead creeks are called, 
which are old channels that in some way have become 
choked and abandoned by the stream. Being hidden from 
the main stream when grown up with all manner of 
water plants, they were favorite resorts of wood duck and 
teal. All the way 10 the lake on one side of the stream 
and all the way back on the other, Jim hunted faith- 
fully; but to his sad disappointment he found nothing to 
expend a charge on, until he came to a pair of green- 
winged teal, sitting on a sand spit in the s.ream, and as 
it was near the end of his return trip, he thought two 
teal in hand worth more than a possible chance of a 
flock. Taking careful aim he swept the sand spit bare of 
life, gathered in his game and improved the last oppor- 
tunity of a draught from the tepid stream, though he 
knew it would only increase his thirst, and set forth 
across dry, flat fields for the head waters of the Slang, 
where he thought ihe unaccountable flocks might have 
congregated. 
iHe had not reckoned without his host, for when he 
came in sight of the objective place he saw several dark, 
moving bodies dotting the sheen of the distant water, and 
nearer approach revealed the logs of driftwood all 
crowded with sleeping wood ducks. 
His parched throat and his collapsed stomach were 
forgotten, and he at once began a long roundabout ad- 
vance to the cover of a low-branched oak. iHe reached 
it, his shins sore with bruises and his palms smarting 
with thistles, but he counted such discomforts nothing 
since he had not alarmed the game of which there was 
so much that he suffered an embarrassment of riches. 
Every open patch of water and duckweed among the 
sedges was filled with bunches of wood ducks and teal 
feeding on various water plants and fallen wild rice, while 
here and there a few big black ducks lorded it over their 
smaller brethren, and every log held a rank of full-fed 
dozing wood ducks. One of these logs lying in slightly 
quartering range from Jim's hiding place, seemed to offer 
the surest target, and wi h a heart quaiking with dread 
of a misfire, he took careful aim and pulled the trigger. 
iFlint, steel and priming faithfully performed their ap- 
pointed parts, and Jim's heart was fluttering in a com- 
motion little short of that into which the ducks were 
thrown. Some of them threshed the water in a flurried 
attempt to rise; others jostled each other in the air 
above; some tumbled out of the thick of them, wounded 
to death, and struggled feebly among their dead com- 
panions. 
_He saw at a glance that there were enough to satisfy 
him, and when he gathered them, ten in all, he was puffed 
_ up with pride at the thought of showing them to his 
uncle's family, iHe was glad to remember, too, that they 
ate wild ducks, while his cousin's people d'd not, being 
rather fastidious, eating mud turtles, but drawing the line 
on wild ducks. They would be glad of the feathers, how- 
ever, and so he could con ribute something to the com- 
fort of both. Thinking of his two homes made him re- 
member how hungry he was, and made him crave the 
frugal fare of either. The uncle's little gray house being 
nearer — indeed, its roof was in sight across the broad, flat 
fields — he chose ii, and made his weary way toward it. 
Weary enough it was, with the October sun blazing down 
with midsummer fervor, the musket and the precious 
string of ducks, swaying and wobbling in spite of any 
adjustment, growing heavier at every step. iHis lusty 
youthful appetite gnawed savagely at his empty stomach, 
to which noth'ng had gone since early morning save a 
few bunches of sour frost granes and tepid water that 
had only increased his thirst. His chosen route had led 
him away from apples and springs. If he could but have 
the run of Aunt Amy's garden, it seemed as if a raw 
turnip or carrot would satisfy him, or that he could 
almost eat one of the new fashioned tomatoes a few peo- 
ple were learning to like. 
Aunt Amy was the neighborhood nurse and doctor for 
the peonle of her class, and cultivated medicinal herbs to 
supply her materia m^dica' ■with what she could not find 
in fields and woods. The animal kingdom also was called 
on to contribute a small but important share. Having 
assisted many mortals into the world, she felt in duty 
bound to helo them keen a foothold in it, in soite of all 
its sin and sorrow and toil and poverty. In batt'ing with 
that subtlest foe of infancv. the crouo. one of her most 
trusted weapons was skunk's oil. and as she could not 
ra'se skunks like hoarhmind. nor gathpr it in the fields 
likse lobelia, she denended on her son^ Pat, and his little 
dog iRing. to sunnly that wnnt. Pat's method of hunt- 
ing wa^ =;imn'p and sncce=sfi'l. Armed with a club and 
attended by Rmg. a bri^k little prick-eared, bob-tailed, 
brindled and ring-necked dog of no breed, he would go 
r»ngin| thp ppen fields of a moonlight night wptil Ring be- 
gan yelping, when Pat would hasten to him, often guided 
more by smell than hearing, and find Ring baying the 
skunk. The race had been to the swift, but the battle was 
not to the strong, for Pat rushed in, shouting and swearing 
to fit the occasion, and ended the fray with a single blow 
of his club. 
iNow Pat had been out on such an expedition the night 
before with a like successful issue. The quarry was un- 
usually fat, and its passing was attended by far less than 
the usual demonstrations. Aunt Amy tried out the oil 
at once before the open fire. When that was done the 
meat looked and smelled so nice that Judy, the oldest 
daughter, would hear to nothing but keeping it to feed 
Ring, being sure he would not recognize it 'ji its present 
state. So she quartered it neatly and set it on the low 
roof of the hen house to cook 
When Jim came plodding across the field in the rear, the 
tempting pan of meat was the first and most interesting 
object that his hungry eyes dwelt xipon. When he came 
near enough for a close inspection, he could not guess 
what it was. It could scarcely be pig or lamb, for whence 
were such luxuries come to his uncle's frugal board, un- 
less some wholesale accident of broken legs had befallen 
the farmhouse li.ters or flocks? It looked and smelled 
good enough for either, and when he tasted a bit by the 
aid of his jackknife he was cohtent to remain in doubt as 
to kind or source, if he might but get his fill of it. This 
he proceeded to do with such celerity as threatened the 
speedy reduction of the visible contents of the pan to a 
beggarly array of bones. 
Judy came outdoors for an arrnful of wood, and, very 
naturally, casting an eye to the experimental dog meat, 
was astonished to see jim making way with it. After a 
gasp of surprise, she shouted back in a voice that could 
be heard half a mile oft': 
"Oh, good land's sake alive, maw, Jim's eatin' up all 
Ring's skunk meat." 
Jim dropped the thigh bone he was gnawing with great 
relish, his hunger suddenly appeased, as Aunt Amy 
waddled to the door, calling out in her drawling, motherly 
voice, heard above Judy's yells of laughter : "Never he 
mind Jeems, he may eat all the skunks the' be if he's a 
min' tu ! Naow come right in here an' git some cold 
b'iled cabbage and 'tater, poor dear child !" 
Jim was too tired of hearing of it ever to adopt skunk's 
meat as a regular article of food, but he always declared 
that he would not hesitate long between that and starva- 
tion or even sharp hunger. Rowl.\nd E. Robinson". 
"A Winter's Ride." 
Chaklestown, N. H., Dec. 29. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Our visitors to New Hampshire, from the 
cities, are usually summer birds of passage, who enjoy the 
forests and streams in their flush of foliage and fullness 
of flow, and many of them have no idea of the transitory 
beauty which is occasionally pictured by a wintry storm. 
Such a pic.ure I saw some three weeks ago, and wished 
that 1 had been gifted with the artist's skilly and fur- 
nished with his pencil, to transfer it to canvas. The 
occasion was this : I had received a letter on Saturday 
asking me to come over to Concord on iMonday to make 
some engineering measurements for the Land & Water 
Power Company, and I accordingly started across the 
State iMonday afternoon. A cloudy morning had brought 
rain at noon, and this changed to snow, as I took the 
train at 3 P. i!VI.. By the time I reached the "height of 
land" at ihe foot of Sunapee Lake it was very dark, and 
the lake was undistinguishable in the whirl of 
snowflakes. As we sped rapidly down the long de- 
scent on the other slope toward the i^^erri^'lac Valley 
nothing was to be seen except the occasional lights at a 
small way station, and when we reached Concord we had 
outrun the snow, and it was raining hard. The rain 
continued all the evening, and the pavements of the main 
street glittered in the electric lights from the hotel and 
street lamps as I looked out while smoking my cigar after 
supper. 
In the evening my friend who had sent for me came in 
to say that an accident to the machinery in the after- 
noon had precluded all possibility of making the desired 
experiments, and there was nothing to do but to come 
home in the morning and wait for repairs. 
When I came down to breakfast the next morning the 
snow had crossed the hills and reached Concord and was 
falling fast. 
I went down to the station at the usual hour and found 
that the down train from Claremont, on which I was 
to return, had not got in, and when it did come it was 
fairly plastered with snow. I took my seat in the srnoker 
and. we started back, rather behind time, but with a 
smooth track, which the down train had cleared, and were 
soon making good time. Here my picture began to de- 
velop. When the road was built all the low lands in the 
Contoocook Valley were covered with a heavy growth of 
pine, and one section of them has always been known as 
the Old iMast Yard, the pines on it having been especially 
reserved in the old colonial days for the use of the Royal 
Navy. Here the pine has all been cut, and the ground is 
growing up wi.h a crop of white birch and'scrub oak. 
The long, slender birch saplings, loaded with the damp 
snow, were bending toward the ground in all sorts of 
graceful curves, one actually startling by an unexpected 
swish against the car window as we sped by, and the stiffer 
oaks were all drooping their branches. It was not, how- 
ever, until we reached the foothills of the backbone of the 
State that the full beauty appeared. Here we struck the 
region of spruces, hemlocks and firs, and every tree was a 
picture of itself. Each branch, fairly loaded with the 
damp, clinging snow, drooped like a great plume of white 
ostrich feather, the northerly side of every tree was 
covered with a thick poultice of damp snow, while the 
leeward sides were bare and brown, giving a contrast to 
the picture. 
All the old boulders along the track were coated in the 
same way on the windward side, but bare and black to 
leeward, and as we climbed up steep slopes and curves 
along Sunapee iMountain, we looked down on to a snow- 
white forest of treetops. The summit cut at Newburj' was 
bare of snow on the north side, but loaded with huge 
dripping icicles, which contrasted with the rocks, and 
Sunapee Lake was a smooth white plain. Every tele- 
graph wire was as hie as a broomstick, aod where two 
hung near together, the coats had united into a roll as 
large as a man's arm. The deserted boat landing was 
festooned with drooping snowdrifts from every eave and 
cornice, and not a sign of life was anywhere visible. 
The storm here began to slack, and when we reached the 
Connecticut River, was practically over, but the picture 
of it will long remain in my memory. 
In discussing the subject of accidental shooting by 
mistake for deer, much is said about the color of clothing. 
Why not revert to first principles — to the good old days 
of "iMerrie England" and Robin Hood — and adopt "Lin- 
coln green"? It will certainly not be mistaken for a deer's 
coat, and will be as good a concealment among the ever- 
greens as any shade of brown or tan color. I had a jacket 
made of green cloth some twenty years ago, which has 
now gone the way of all garments, and I shall probably 
never need another, but it seems to me that such a colored 
coat would save many misiakes. 
A Happy New Year to all readers and correspondents 
of Forest and Stream, and long life to the paper itself. 
The Christmas Number was an immense one. Von W. 
In Frontier Days* — !!♦ 
The Escape of Longhair. 
_ The wolfers were unhappy. Several weeks had elapsed 
since they vowed to make old Splayfoot, the grizzly, pay 
for his thieving with his life, but still the sly old' brute 
roamed the valley unharmed. Their hunters' pride had 
received a serious blow, and all three had become quite ill- 
tempered over the situaJon. The Scribbler during the 
early days of the hunt had discovered the bear digging 
into an ant hill, and had emptied the magazine of his 
Henry rifle at him, with no effect except to make the old 
fellow run for the hills at his utmost speed. It will be 
remembered that Ben had missed a standing shot at its 
head and neck, but that did not prevent him" from saying 
cutting things about the youth's markmanship, and Jack, 
returning every evening from a long and fruitless hunt, 
never failed to give his opinion of hunters whose gun 
muzzles wabbled like a quaking asp leaf in the wind. 
Nearly every day during this time one or another of the 
men, and some.imes all three, had found fresh signs of 
Splayfoot, so they knew he had not left the country. 
He seemed to be at home on both sides of the river, 
swimming back and forth as he pleased, and evidently he 
was a great traveler, for as far as they had been up and 
down the stream they had found his tracks along the 
sand bars. Laiterly, despairing of finding him by the 
ordinary methods of still-hunting, the hunters had killed 
and left in likely places a few head of antelope and deer 
and a buffalo or two for bait ; but the result had been only 
a few meals for the wolves and coyotes. Other bears had 
been seen, several had been killed, but as for Splayfoot 
the only tangible thing about him was his tracks. No 
doubt all three of the hunters wished they had not been 
so rash with their vows. Had any one of them proposed 
to call the hunt off, the others would have readily agreed 
to it. But there was the rub; none wished to be the first 
to show the white feather, so the hunt was kept up with 
dogged persistence. 
One evening the Scribbler was watching the sun gild 
the towering dykes and cliffs as it went down in a blaze of 
crimson glory. The game of all kinds had mostly been to 
water, and now singly in little groups and in bands was 
leaving the river and grazing slowly up the slopes of the 
valley. Suddenly a bunch of buffalo on the opposite shore 
of the river stampeded, raced up the steep bank and dis- 
appeared in the cloud of dust their sharp hoofs raised. 
The cause of their fright was soon evident, for a moment 
later a lone man stepped out where they had been and 
looked around- "Indians at last," said the Scribbler to 
himself; but a glance through the telescope proved that 
he was wrong— the stranger was a white man. The 
Scribbler hurried down to the cabin to notify his partners, 
and a moment later they all started out in the boat to 
interview him. As soon as the traveler saw them he 
stopped, and leaning on his rifle, awaited their approach. 
He was about as wild and odd looking a .specimen of 
humanity as the Scribbler ever ran across, and during a 
long life on the frontier he has seen some pretty queer 
ones. The stranger's hair and beard had apparency not 
been cut for a very long time, and hung far down on his 
shoulders and bosom in fluff}', wavy, well-combed masses; 
both were a golden, glistening yellow. He was very tall, 
more than 6 feet, very lean and slender, and his buck- 
skin shirt and trousers fitted him as gracefully as a gunny 
sack would a bean pole; his footwear was a pair of huge 
.shapeless deer shank moccasins. But his clothing, his 
face and hands were absolutely clean, something quite un- 
usual in a country where soap was seldom considered a 
necessity; even his dingy old hat looked as if it had been 
freshly scoured. 
"Hi, stranger," Ben called out. resting on the oars; 
"what's the best word an' where ye bound?" 
"Bound anj'where," the traveler replied: "anywhere to 
git away from the Injuns an' find some terbacker. Got 
anv?" 
"Sure !" 
The stranger bounded into the stream and waded out 
to\yard the approaching boat. "For God's sake," he ex- 
claimed, "give us a chaw quick !" 
Ben handed him his plug, and standing there waist deep 
in the water he bit off a large chunk of it, shut his eyes 
and breathed a deep sigh of ecstatic relief. "Who'd 'a' 
thought it?" he said, presently, waving the plug in the 
air and then returning it to Ben wiJi a courtly bow. 
"Who'd 'a' thought it? A minnit ago sufferin' torments 
an' now transported to the seventh heaven o' earthly bliss, 
as the preacher says. Stranger, I thank ye." 
All hands returned to the cabin, and the wolfers set a 
lot of food before the newcomer. He ate ravenously. 
When he had finished and had been supplied with a plug 
of tobacco. Jack suggested that he should tell something 
of his adventures. "You spoke of getting awav from the 
Injuns." he sa"d. "Have they been botherin' of you?" 
"They have." the stranger replied. "He who boasteth 
his pride shall have a fall, as the preacher says, an' me, 
Longhair, fer twenty years a wanderer over these here 
plains an' mountains of the West, I'm the feller. I 
bragged that the Injuns couldn't git the best o' me,' an* 
they've sot me plumb afoot," 
