S04 
FOREST AND STiiEAM. 
Such is a sample of the legends that have gathered 
about the dunes, and which lend them a romantic in- 
terest more fascinating perhaps than the splendor of a 
sange of mountains. However this may be, it is sad to 
think that these famous little sand hills, which have so 
long ol¥ei-ed to the voyager his first and last glimpse of 
America, may some day be a thing of the past, for the 
encroachments of the ocean vipon them never cease, and it 
would seem but a question of time when the waves will 
roll over them and picturesque charm, legends and all will 
be forgotten. " F. Moonan. 
Some Boyhood Memories. 
VII.— A First Visit to the Adirondacfcs 
Not long ago I read a very interesting letter from a 
middle-aged sportsman in which he said that his first 
visit to the wilds of Pennsjdvania, made in his youth, left 
such a profound and lasting impression that every in- 
cident and detail was indelibly fixed in his memory. It 
could not have been more indelibly fixed upon his 
memory than is my own first visit to the Adii'ondacks 
fixed in mine, for at the time I had a vague idea that 
one incident of that visit was seared into my vitals. It 
was with me sleeping and with me waking, for nights 
and days after, and for weeks the rustling of the bushes 
in the wind or the snapping of a twig brought it to 
my mind's eye in a flash. My first visit was made to the 
Adirondacks when I had arrived at the mature age of 
twelve years, and I accompanied my father's superm- 
tendent to a lumber camp on the Cedar River, near the 
line which separates Hamilton from Essex county. There 
were no tourists in the woods in those days; no hotek 
worth mentioning; no roads nor bridges that were 
spoken about except with a big D to impress upon the 
hearer the fact that they were poor. Stage coaches and 
the modern buckboards would have been as nnich f.ut 
of place on the roads and bridges as a Waterloo cup 
winner in a dog-churn. At Roots, now North River, 
where we entered the wilderness, a pair of heavy horses 
that were used in lumbering operations and consequently 
familiar with the roads, or the lack of them, were har- 
nessed to a heavy wagon to take us into the camp or 
lumber shanty. I thought the drive from Roots to Indian 
River was the roughest pleasure jaunt of my short life, 
and this opinion held good until we left Indian River on 
a winter log road for the camp. A winter log road is 
not intended for summer travel, except as the gallant 
soldier of the story returned from the war. He went on 
■horseback, and came on foot, back. The nature of my 
relation to the builder of the road from Indian to Cedar 
River made it impossible for me to find fault with it, 
even when both horses went through the first bridge we 
came to. The horses were used to that kind of sleddin' 
evidently, for they made no protest whatever, but re- 
mained as quiet as wooden horses until the harness was 
removed and they were fished out of the dry bed of the 
stream under the rotten bridge. By the way, these 
horses, young, powerful beasts, were broken to pile logs, 
and were used single, without bit or rein, and obeyed 
the command to "haw" or ''gee" more quickly than 
well broken oxen, and they were named Buck and Bright. 
I had often heard of the exploits of these wonderful ani- 
mals that "knew as much as a man" and were always 
kept "up in the wood," and I knew that my father valued 
them for tkeir intelligence and training, and when they 
went down through another bridge I protested for them. 
The men said that my father never had seen his private 
road in summer, and I resolved that if I lived to get 
home he should have such an account of it as to cause 
him to appoint a committee of means to fix his ways. 
My fondness for sport was developed some years be- 
fore the time of which I write, for I was a precocious 
youth in this direction, and it led to my entering into a 
compact with my father that on my part I would not 
monkey with firearms until I arrived at a certain age, and 
that on his part he would buy me a rifle when I arrived 
at that fixed age. This compact was faithfully kept on 
both sides, but as I walked along ahead of the wagon 
during that eventful journey I sincerely wished that the 
time had arrived for me to have a gun, if only for,- per- 
sonal protection. Darkness had fallen when we arrived 
at the camp, and I could see little of the lay _ of the 
land- but the next morning I found that it consisted ot 
two log houses, built side by side, with several log barns 
and sheds for horses, cattle and forage, and storehouses 
for provisions and lumbering implements. The buildings 
were in a small clearing on the river bank, with the 
finest crop of tree stumps that I had seen up to that date. 
I wasted little time after breakfast, m examining the 
place from a commercial point of view, for I had gone 
there to fish for trout, and the fishing demanded n-jy 
chief attention. When my rod, reel, line, leader and 
flies were joined I asked Antoine Robbius, the camp 
keeper to show me the way to tlie rapids m the river, 
which, during the previous evening and at breaklHst, He 
had assured me were stift with large, delicious 
trout From the camp door he pointed out a path which 
led into the woods on the west of the clearing, only a 
pistol shot away, and told me that a continuance (M" it 
led straight to the rapids, which were about a lurirccr 
of a mill up stream. I walked along that patch and 
entered the woods with my rod oyer my shoulder, big 
with expectations of new and glorious sport that I had 
dreamed of for months previously. The path ^ya3 none 
too conspicuous after 1 left the clearing for in places 
the bushes on either side met in the middle, and I pro- 
ceeded cautiously, that I might make no mistake. Sud- 
denly, in front of me. I saw a huge black moving ob- 
ject and quicker than thought it raised itself up into a 
bear, to the best of my judgment at the time, abon 2.. 
feet high and 15 feet wide, and shut off travel, m tha 
direction. As the bear elongated hiniself up into the 
See tops his appearance and his solitary remark o 
!;'yoof"--at least that is all I heard him say-^paralyzcd 
mv limbs, froze my marrow and stopped my circulaaon. 
S only or the subdivision of a second of time, for be- 
fore he was fairly done rearing up on his hinder egs I 
had tlirned and was sprinting for the clearing with n)y 
rod in my hand and my heart in my throat Not once 
a?d I look back, but every instant I expected ic feel lie 
hir^s claws fall upon my unprotected rear. Once m the 
Sfng I glanced over my shoulder without slacking 
•j^cod, and to my 'intense relief found that I had escaped. 
Sitting down on a log close to the shanty, I waited for 
my heart to stop beating like a pump out of tepair, and 
for my viscera generally to settle back into its norrrial 
P'is'tion. When my mouth got moist enough for me to 
talk intelligibly, and I had repaired some ravages in my 
tackle, I went to the shanty and took from the Av.ill a 
sheath knife I had noticed hanging there, and secreted 
it upon my person', and then sought out Antnine and 
stormed at him for sending me off on a path that lost 
itself in the woods. I told him he must go with me, and 
stay with me, so I could be sure of getting back again. 
If any one thinks that I went into those woods again, 
Antoine ahead of me, without a desperate struggle with 
myself to face the music, even as a reserve, it is a mis- 
take, for I did nothing of the sort. When we got to the 
place where I had met ttic bear Antoine discovered his 
tiacks. I might have discovered them if I had been in 
advance, but I happened to be in the rear, so the glory 
of the discovery of the tracks was not mine. In places 
in the path water from a recent rain had stood, and 
finally soaked into the earth, leaving a glossy black 
deposit of mud. After an examination of the tracks for 
a little distance, Antoine announced to me that the bear 
had been walking .along the path, and probably heard 
me and turned and ran at full speed on his back track, 
and that if T had not made a noise to frighten him I 
might have seen him. Seen him! Great Scott! I can 
see him to this day, and it is over thirty years since 1 
met him. 1 am not entirely sure, but I think i laughed 
at Antoine's suggestion that I frightened the bear. I 
also made a mental note of the fact that it wa.s the noise 
that I made that caused tlie bear to dig his claws so 
deeply into the muddv places as he performed his des- 
perate retreat, and I resolved that in the future, in a 
bear countrj,', I would be accompanied on my fishing 
excursions with a fife and drum, and carry a tin horn in 
my fish ba.sket. As we waUced on to the river I became 
very 'much interested in the natural history of certain 
animals and their relations to man, particularly the bear 
of the Adirondack region. I asked if it was not danger- 
ous for Antoine, for instance, to go roaming around the 
woods unarmed, as I noticed that he was. He smiled 
at the idea, and said that the black bears of that precinct 
would run every time at the approach of man. I wished 
for data from personal experience on the subject, and 1 
got all I asked for. Only once had Antoine met a bear 
that did not turn out promptly and give him all the path, 
and on that solitary occasion the time was evening and 
Antoine was loaded with a saddle of venison on his 
shoiUders. returning to camp, and the bear was hungry 
for venison. I asked if bears were fond of fish— so fond 
that if a man with a full fish basket should meet a bear 
the man would feel called upon to divide the contents 
of the fish basket. Antoine thought not, but^ if such a 
thing should happen one had only to "shoo the bear 
out of the path. While I was storing my mind with in- 
formation about bears I was also fishing and trying to 
think of questions to put to my instructor that would 
keep him sitting on the bank. The fishing was good- the 
trout were plentiful and of good size, and little by little 
I worked away from my guardian, absorbed m my sport. 
Once I looked up and Antoine was gone— gone beyond 
the reach of my voice. I had some fine fish, and there 
were more to be had for the catching, but I was surfeited 
sooner than I had expected, and concluded to return to 
the shanty. To do this there were t\vo ways open to 
me— one through the woods by a fairly good path, the 
other by wading, climbing, floundering down the bank 
throuo-h the water and over rocks and dead timber, and 
after duly considering both avenues 1 chose the latter, 
taking my sheath knife with me. 
Beaver in New Jersey. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Very few of the millions of people in and around New 
York city have any idea of the natural romantic beauty 
and varied fauna of many square miles of country vvhich 
begins almost within sight of the tall sky-scrapers ot the 
metropolis. Even among those classes of people vvho 
spend their summer vacation somewhere among the 
highlands of northern New Jersey, or whose love lor 
shooting, fishing or wheeling has brought them within 
the boundaries of this bit of God's country, are very few 
who appreciate the grand and wild character of this 
region, and who have a correct knowledge of its tarma. 
Nor do many of the natives living withm its borders. 
I refer to parts of the counties of Passaic Morris and 
Sussex, especially in New Jersey, as well as Rockland and 
Orange counties in New York State. 
If I should tell my readers that I can take them to 
places within twenty-five miles, in direct line, of Greater 
New York, and show them abundant wild deer signs; or 
that I have personally run across the fresh tracks of a 
full-grown black bear, while grouse shooting withm a 
few vears and this within 30 miles of Greater New York; 
and 'that 'some wildcats are being killed annually within 
the same distance from New York city, I am afraid that 
either my veracity or sanity would be questioned by a 
good manv well meaning persons. 
Of course, red and gray foxes, otters, raccoons, opos- 
sums and many of the otker smaller mammals are more 
or less common and numerous throughout the region I 
But it will be news and of interest to most of even those 
men who intimatelv know this whole wild mountain 
country who have shot over much of it and who, like 
myseli ' have fished in many of the sixty or eighty moun- 
tain lakes, that the beaver {Castor canadensis) i.s thriving 
in a perfectly wild state within less than fifty miles from 
the New York Citv Hall. I, myself, was a doubting 
Thomas when I observed for the first time the strange 
tracks in the snow and heard one of the mountaineers 
describe some work which in his opinion could have been 
done only by big muskrats or otters. , y-, , 
Ever since I was a boy big enough to read Cooper s 
Leatherstockings and similar works of fiction or natural 
history, the beaver appealed to me as one of the most 
interesting animals in our whole fauna. As the great 
Audubon wrote, fifty years ago, the sagacity and instinct 
of the beaver have from time immemorial been the sub- 
ject of admiration and wonder, and be-aver stories have 
been part of every boy's education. 
Judging by the general interest shown in the beaver 
exhibits at our late sportsmen's shows—and I believe no 
single exhibit was watched with keener appreciation — the 
general public, like myself, looked upon these few speci- 
mens as of a race of animals practically extinct within 
the limits of modern civilization, and certainly within 
many hundred miles of the city of New York. Yet I 
was mistaken, and I take pleasure in presenting to the 
readers of Forest and Stream a few photos of 
some of the beaver workings taken by me on the spot. 
While the home of these animals is not_ on a property 
which I acquired last year by purchase, it is within a mile 
TREES CUT BY BEAVER AND DROPPED INTO THE LAKE. 
Photo March 24, 190L 
or two of it, and that some of their more venturesome 
spirits have ascended to my own waters, some 200 feet 
higher up, I have good proofs. 
I had my first experience with my new friends about 
I o'clock one dark night last summer, when I had my 
brother-in-law waiting in a nearby field with a team, while 
I crawled on hands and knees through the underbrush 
along the edge of the pond by the light of an old lantern 
looking for an old boat to take the same to another pond 
where we intended to try the fishing in the morning. I 
was then repeatedly startled by a succession of sharp 
whistling sounds and the plunging into the water of some 
animal which, judging by the noise, sounded to me to be 
as big as a Newfoundland dog. At the time I put down 
the noise as the doings of some scared muskrats. Still, I 
had never heard rats make such a splash and commotion 
before. 
This was right along a part of shore where there are 
now numerous old and fresh workings, where I also by 
TREE CUT BY BEAVER WHICH FELL THE WRONG WAY. 
Photo March 24, 1901. 
chance found a beaver burrow and store house. This had 
a broad entrance under water and ran some dozen feet 
upon the bank. The frost was just leaving the ground 
and one of my companions noticing a small cave-in, put his 
foot through it and discovered the store room, nearly 
three feet in diameter, filled with a great mass of willow 
twigs, roots and pieces of split sticks from about 4 to 8 
inches in length. As this was underground, it was im- 
possible to take any photograph of it, which I regret, for 
it was very interesting. . , , 
I have never seen any of the animals themselves, and 
have no idea of their probable number. However, they 
are there, and I mean to have a look at them some time, in 
either moon or day light. There are hundreds of big sticks 
and trees up to a foot in diameter which have 
been cut. The biggest tree attacked is more_ than 
12 inches in diameter, and was gnawed about 4 inches 
deep. It was marked at upper and lower limits and at 
the center, where it is to break. This was fresh work, and 
the white chips are deposited all around the tree. 
The only house or hut which I found had evidently been 
partly, destroyed by men on the ice last winter, but bad 
t 
