^82 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 12, 1901. 
Paths. 
I DO not speak of paths in any metaphorical way, nor 
do I intend to branch off into a homily after the intro- 
duction is dispatched, for I detest that method; it is so 
underhanded. I mean- to speak of genuine, bona fide 
paths, such as one is sure to meet when out for a stroll. 
Almost without exception, the paths in a town are hard, 
matter-of-fact affairs, and very obviously short cuts; but 
these same short cuts in the country are quite different. 
They branch off from the main road with the idea that 
they are going to show you a shorter way, and at the 
same time take you away from the sordid road that 
every one travels. Man, "by the aid of the power that 
distinguishes him from animals, concludes that this path 
will enable him to gain time. Let him try it and see the 
results. A straight line is not always the shortest dis- 
tance between two points. Once entered upon that path, 
he slackens his speed, and draws a long breath of thank- 
fulness for having escaped tlie highway. Here the birds 
do not make him feel embarrassed by stopping their 
conversation when he draws near, but, instead, they send 
cheerful messages to each other and sing snatches of 
dainty arias in such an informal Avay that he at once feels 
as if he were one of them. A comfortable spot beside the 
path invites him in such an hospitable manner that he 
accepts with pleasure, and then all is lost — that is, all 
hopes of making quick time by this short cut. Now he 
can hear the trees talk in their graceful way, and he 
listens to their low, musical voices, until a bright leaf 
floats down beside him, and a moving- branch betrays the 
flight of the afternoon. 
I met a path of this type the other day, and we imme- 
diately became friends. It was a large path, and gave 
the passer-by the idea that it was a road leading to some 
gravel pit further in; but appearances are the last things 
by which to judge paths. This particular one ran in only 
a few rods, then turned and went parallel to the -main 
road and ended — yes. in the same highway, and not a great 
distance beyond the other entrance. Of course this was 
deceit, but it was necessary, if the path was to succeed 
in its pui-pose. If there is any one who would condemn 
it, I say let that person keep to his crushed stone and 
hard-rolled highways, and leave the pine needle roads 
alone. 
Any one who has studied paths at all knows that well- 
worn paths are strictly business paths, and are not cheer- 
ful ones at all. Stones in this sort of a path are mag- 
nified in one's mind at least five times when one is made 
aware of their presence. Other paths may have large 
.stones, and even branches, in the way, but one never 
thinks of calling them beastl3\ 
Indeed, a good rule to follow is to shun well-worn 
paths, and take those which look unpopular; they will 
repay you. Time was, perhaps, when they were used; 
but their friends being now gone they have barred their 
doors, and in the little clearing, their atrium, they have 
planted snow-drops and other dainty woodland flowers 
for remembrance sake. After yo\x have gently forced an 
entrance and come thus far, you take off your hat, tiptoe 
across the soft, green carpet, and sit down on some rock 
which is, perchance, the exact counterpart of the one 
you wearily turned away from back in the road. Here 
the little flowers nod and smile, and seem to say, "Here 
we are, blooming for just such as you." 
These forgotten paths are the dearest of all; at least, 
they are to me. They are not forgotten because they 
are unworthy, but because people are unworthy of them. 
It was one of these paths that rendered my summer on 
a low mountain one to remember with pleasure. It was a 
mile from the farmhouse to the top, and that meant an 
hour's climb. On this particular day there was a large 
party of us to follow the well-worn trail. In descending, 
a small detachment was a little in advance when we 
reached a point a third of the way down. Suddenly one 
of the party stopped. "There is the old, forked tree that 
was struck bj lightning," she said, "and right here there 
used to be a path that branched off and came out in tlie 
sap orchard, back of Hermit John's." Not a word was 
spoken by the rest of us; it was by tacit agreement that 
we plunged into the long grass, then fought low, sweep- 
ing branches, until there was no fear of the rest of the 
party catching sight of us and following; then we went 
more slowly in the half-light of the path, down steep 
descents, where the brown oak leaves hid the treacherous 
stones beneath; over tablelands of rock, where moss and 
pine-needles made safety a .subject for immediate con- 
sideration; down another steep pitch, where little sap- 
lings proved friends in need; then out into a small, leaf- 
strewn clearing. Our leader turned sharply to the right 
and eagerly brushed aside the bushes, and there, waiting 
for our cups of birch bark, was a little spring. Cool and 
silent it lay there in the shade of the big trees that 
towered far above it, and oh! so different from its brother 
spring on the other path, which lay in the sunshine surely 
half the day and then ran noisily away, chasing a sun- 
beam that had challenged it to a race! Although this 
spring had gathered the leaves of last spring around it, 
and had entreated the low bushes to grow protectingly 
over it, v/hen it was discovered it freely gave us all it 
had and accepted our mute thanks in its sad, sorrowful 
way. The remainder of the path was not difficult, and 
soon we were out into the lighter green of the maple 
orchard, and then home. 
There is one more kind of path that I want to speak of, 
and that is the joyous, hurrying path that has a surprise 
party in store for you somewhere. You probably know 
just what I mean — a hard fight for a few second'^, then a 
smooth, velvety stretch, a drive down at terrific speedj 
only to meet a stony place; now, look out! for here is a 
sharp turn, and off you go in another direction — oh! the 
surprise is going to be a grand one — then a hard climb 
up a cliff of rocks (this is merely to keep you from look- 
ing ahead and trying to guess what is coming), for be- 
fore .you realize it you are out on a flat rock, with a 
l)eautiful view of the lake stretching blue before you, . 
seemingly stopped only by the rough mountains, with 
their blurred outlines away over there in the distance. 
yo\? forget ti9W warm and hard the climb ^cis, a? yoy 
stand there gazing at it all, and only remember to assure 
yourself that you have not paid half as much as you are 
willing to pay. 
Of course, there are many, many kinds of paths that 
.Hre worthy of mention, but all that one needs remember 
is that discovery gives in return a feeling of ownership, 
and a chance acquaintance is always sure to ripen into a 
genuine feeling of affection. S. M. A. 
Bniin and the Beads. 
The Sault Ste. Marie is a very different place to-day 
from what it was in 1824 or thereabouts, when old Fort 
Brady stood, an outpost in the wilderness, amid wild 
beasts and half-tamed Indians. 
No doubt it is improved in the eyes of those who like 
to see the fair face of Nature seamed with railroads, 
highways and canals, and her green locks shorn until her 
poor pate shines bald in the sunlight of civilization; but 
to those who love the silent spaces of the forests, and 
lonely water courses, and the virgin surfaces of placid 
lakes, the contrast between what they see to-day and 
what imagination pictures of the past, is like the effort 
to trace the radiant face of the boy in the \voric-a-day 
features of the man of middle age. 
But there are a lew people still living who do not need 
a stretch of the iinagination to picture the conditions that 
then existed at the Sault, but whose memories recall the 
old fort and the enveloping forests, where wild creatures 
lived in peace and plenty, the sad lesson of man's enmity 
all unlearned, and the red man, his lesson only begun, 
lingered on in^ the haunts where his forefathers had 
trapped and hiinted; who recall the noble river that had 
not yet bent its back, nor put its shoulder to the wheel 
for man's necessities^ and the great, inland sea, -Avhose 
waters were tmruffled. save by Indian canoes and the half- 
yearly trip of the schooner that plied between Mackinaw 
and the Fort, bringing the bare necessaries of life and 
news from home to the lonely sentinels of Uncle Sam. 
They must have been brave and hardy men, these sol- 
diers and oflicers at old Fort Brady; and their wives had 
need of an heroic spark as well, to face the solitude of 
the long winters, the cold and privations, and the muf- 
fled fear of Indians that tugged at their heart strings day 
and night. Even the children may have caught a spark 
of the fortitude of their elders, for, in the only two sur- 
vivors of those far-off days whom I have known, one 
can trace the steady grasp of soul that comes to those 
who have faced Nature in her savage fastnesses. 
They are old ladies now — the elder over eighty years 
of age, but the memory of their early youth is clear and 
distinct in their minds. "Listen," one will say to the 
other; "do you remember the winter when the schooner 
was delayed by the storms, and provisions gave out; how 
the last flitch of bacon was divided up in bits among the 
married men who had families, and the last potatoes in 
the last barrel were doled out as if they had been pearls?" 
"Yes; and when the roof leaked after the snow melted, 
how we found our shoes in the morning floating about 
the floor?" 
"And the Indians, too, suffered from famine that win- 
ter. They came inside the stockade and danced for the 
pennies the officers gave them. How fierce and gaunt 
they looked; and how they lingered near the kitchen 
sniffing the food, and offering birch bark bags full of 
pounded maple sugar in exchange for a loaf of bread! 
But there was little to give them, and we were all hungry 
that winter till the ship came. 
"But we were not always short of food, for, think of 
the wagons piled high with game that came in to the 
Fort after a big shoot in the season! Partridge a'nd quail 
and woodcock, not to mention wild duck, till we grew 
sick of the very sight of birds, and turned to salt pork 
and bacon for a relish. And then the venison and the 
bear's meat! Why, we lived on the very fat of the land; 
and only vegetables were conspicuous by their absence!" 
And then the elder may tell of how her little sister 
was kidnapped by an Indian. Their father was one of 
the few officers who spoke some of the Indian dialects, 
and this particular savage had taken a great fancy to him, 
and came to pay him visits in his quarters, sitting some- 
times for hours motionless and silent, hnt serene in the 
consciousness that he was doing the polite thing, accord- 
ing to his code of etiquette. He sat so still that he 
might easily be taken for a piece of furniture, and on 
one occasion his host forgot him, and left him alone in 
the room. The little girl above mentioned, a child of 
four, toddled in, and the red man, thinking doubtless that 
politeness need be stretched no further, picked the child 
up in his arms and slipped, unobserved, out of the Fort, 
past the sentinel, and into the woods. There was a great 
to do when the loss of the child was discovered, for the 
relations of the handful of whites with the hordes of red 
men were a trifle strained just at that time, and it was 
feared that any appearance of a lack of confidence might 
precipitate trouble. The child's distracted mother, how- 
ever, would hear of no diplomatic delays, but breaking 
in upon the conference which the officers were holding 
over the ticklish business, she seized her husband by the 
arm and hurried him with her across the stretch of forest 
that lay between the Fort and the wigwams of the In- 
dians. Raising the flap of the friendly Indian's abode, 
they beheld a sight that reassured them. Half the squaws 
of the village were clustered about the child, who, all 
laughter and dimples, and stretching out her little arms 
to one another, was passed on from squaw to squaw 
amid rliuch chattering and grunts of delight. The man 
of the wigwam, meanwhile, sat in a corner smoking his 
pipe in dignified indifference, while the family pappoose 
hung from a peg in his birch bark coat-of-mail, staring 
in beady-eyed wonder at the white intruder. 
The child was handed back to her parents after the 
interchange of many compliments, with a string of gaudy 
beads about her neck, in token of love and amity. 
On the long walk home, through the dark forest, the 
poor little mother hugged her baby close to her heart, 
and thought of many grim possibiHties. ' But her adven- 
turous baby was to give her another fright before she left 
Fort Brady, and the string of Indian beads was at the 
.bottom of it. . Some soldiers had trapped a half-grown 
bear, and had him tethered to a stake in a corner of 
the clearing, out of sight of the quarters. 
Here Brtrin gat upon his haunches, or walked ia a cir- 
cle, the length of his chain, in a very bored frame of mind;, 
He saw no company but an occasional Soldier, who hel(!| 
out chunks of raw meat to him on the end of a stick, ane! 
he missed the cheerful society of his shaggy brother; 
and sisters, and his haunts in the woods, and the wild 
honey and sweet, green twigs that had varied his dailj; 
fare.- J 
No wonder that he stood up and grinned his most en-^ 
gaging grin when a pretty little girl of four toddled up; 
to him one day, and, without a thought of fear, sat down 
beside him on the grass. 
Bruin sidled up closer, and sat down, too. The childi 
laughed up in his face, delighted with her new playfellow, 
and Bruin's smile broadened, and his sy little eye.^i, 
danced with pleasure. , Pretty soon the string of shining; 
beads about her neck attracted his attention, and he 
caught them deftly in his paw and held them up, and: 
dangled them till they glistened in the sunlight. 
The child threw back her head and fairly shouted with 
glee, and her ringing laughter caught the ear of the 
orderly, whom the exigencies of life at Fort Brady had 
promoted to the position of temporary nurse to her little 
ladyship, and who, missing his charge, had been hunting, 
high and low for her. The sight of the child hobnob- 
bing with a savage, half-grown bear nearly paralyzed the 
man, but he summoned up presence of mind enough to 
call out to her that her mother wanted her, and the child 
trotted off obediently, leaving Bruin in possession of the 
beads. 
Poor Bruin was promptly shot, and in due time eaten, 
but the little girl kept the beads in remembrarice of the 
pleasant Indians, and of the most agreeable wild animal 
she had ever met. • M. M. 
In the Ranger Service. 
BY ROWLAND E. EOBINSON. 
IV. — AdvcnttJfes. 
1 
A LETTER from my sweetheart was waiting to comfort 
me with assurance of her constancy and such well-being 
as she could enjoy while her lover was so far away, and 
never once upbraiding me for my sudden choosing- and 
abrupt departure. > 
It was not long now till we were in the dreariness oi 
winter, but we Rangers had more to sharpen the dull 
edge of the life than our grand comrades, the regulars,' 
for we were out every proper day practicing the trick 
of snowshoe travel, wherein was much sport for the old 
woodsmen to see us learners tripping and iioundering! 
in our first lessons, and helpless as turned turtles when 
we got a headlong tumble that choked our guns with 
snow. When this was learned, we were given our full 
share of scouting all about the neighborhood of the posU 
for this was the season of Indian forays out of Canada, 
But none came, and we saw no sign of worse enemies 
than panthers and wolves, whose tracks we often saw, aS' 
well as bloody records of their havoc among the yarded 
deer. 
Once, with two comrades to share it, I got a great 
fright, and again had an adventure that came near enough 
being my last. In the first case, three of us were scout- 
ing on the flank, and having grown careless through 
continued non-appearance of the encm}'-, drew together, 
and talked neither loud nor low as Ave walked abreast, 
till all at once there came as one sound the crack of a 
rifle and the whistle of a bullet close above our heads. 
The man at my right <lropped so quickly that I thought 
he was killed, till he went briskly enough crouching to 
the cover of a tree, as did we two others with all speed, 
But then our Avits were so scattered we knew not which 
way to look for our assailant till we saw a thin wisp of 
powder smoke drifting upward among the branches. 
The woods were deathly still, and we could hear the 
hollow tap of the ramrod on the bullet the unseen personi 
Avas driving home; so by this and the smoke we got his 
direction. With our pieces cocked. Ave covered ourselves 
against it, Avith barely a corner of an eye out, to catch 
a glimpse of him. Then a raccoon skin cap cautiously 
showed half its bigness from behind a great bassAvood 
twenty rods off, and all three of us blazed away almost 
together at sight of it. The next moment stepi)ed forth 
from the cover of the bassAVOod neither a French courier 
of the Avoods nor a painted Waubanakee, but our own, 
commander, twirling his cap on the point of his ramrod' 
as he advanced toward us with his rifle across his arm. 
We came out of our cover and stood before him, sheep- 
faced enough, expecting the round rating or severe pun- 
ishment we deserved for our lack of vigilance; but he 
only laughed at us for being fooled by so common a trick 
into deliA'cring our fire at once, and so giving one mani 
the advantage of three. 
"And only one bullet hit my cap," he said, smoothing 
the rumpled fur and then covering his head. "That's- 
poor shooting Avhen a man's OA\-n life depends on his 
shot." 
I was quite sure it was my ball that made the hit, and 
so I think was he, by the look he gave me; but he said 
no more, and left us to do our dnty vigilantly. 
Not long after this, Major Rogers discovered something 
that made him suspect some movement of the enemy, and 
I Avas sent back with a message to the fort. I set forth as 
soon as it was light enough to travel, which was not 
very early, the sky being thick, Avith low clouds, threat- 
ening snow. Setting my compass, I Avent on my course 
at a brisk rate, the snowshoeing being fair, and my 
burden only my rifle and one_ day's rations. About the 
middle of the forenoon, a=; I judged, it began snoAving. 
and about the same time I got a fall in crossing an un- 
frozen mountain brook, and had the misfortune to lose 
my compass, Avith my punk, the leathery fungu-^ that 
Avoodsmeu use for tinder. 
For some time I was able to keep my course by the 
lay of the land, but when I came on to level ground and' 
the snowfall to a thick veil dropped straight as a plum- 
met, with no slant from the wind to guide me, though I 
judged from the feeling of the still air that it Avould be 
southerly if it had motion, I began to get into con- 
fusion concerning my r.oute. The snow Avas falling so 
thick that trees five yards' away A\'ere dim as "ghosts, and 
beyond that distance Avas nothing but a griy veil. Ii 
c-ould not see the toprapst tvyig of a hemlock, nor tlie 
