Nov. i.i l!)61. 
FOREST ANE) STREAM. 
403 
But he soon recovered command of himself and of us 
enough to parade our starved crew in forlorn ranks and 
make us Hsten to him. 
"Men," he said, in a clear, steady voice, that was in 
Itself a strength to us, "I am going down the river to 
brmg you help. If I do not overtake the relief party, 1 
shall go to Number Four and get help there, and if I 
live I will bring it or send it to you in ten days. Such 
brave men can hold out as long as that. Obey your 
officers' orders, be helpful to each other; I will not fail 
you if God spares my life." 
He instructed one of his officers in the Indian method 
of preparing for food a certain lily root that abounded 
here on the banks, for he was as wise as any Indian in 
every manner of woodcraft. He chose to accompany him 
on his dangerous voyage Captain Ogden and the Indian 
.boy captured- at St. Francis, whose name was Dodosun, 
and me, also, to my surprise and great satisfaction. It 
was a mark of the commander's trust that any might be 
proud of. 
The first thing in the order of going was to provide a 
raft. This was done with all speed by many willing 
hands, in spite of waning strength and gnawing hunger. 
I parted very tenderly with Mercy, and sadly enough, 
too, though I knew she could not be left in better hands, 
for Angehque could find the lily roots when none of our 
company might, and was so fond of her mistress that she 
would spare no pains to provide for her. When we had 
said our farewells, with some constraint, though she did 
show extraordinary concern for my safety, she still de- 
tained me as if burdened with some weighty matter, which 
she would fain impart, yet hesitated through womanly 
modesty. After a little waiting, without further speech, I 
turned and went my way. 
The raft was no sooner built than we set forth on our 
voyage, all the company gathering on the shore to bid us 
Godspeed. It was strange to see the man whom I had 
heard coolly ordering the death of a wounded prisoner so 
tenderly moved at leaving those who stayed at Coos. 
Xn.— The Voyage to Number Four. 
Guiding and. urging our clumsy craft with pole and 
paddle, we sped swiftly with the current, the unchanging 
shores seeming to glide on either hand in an endless, 
grim procession; now in silence, now singing the solemn 
psalm of the wind, beating time thereto with stately 
bowing of lofty heads and gesture of branches. 
After a time the rush of the river from blending with 
this song of the wind arose above it to a sullen roar, 
ever growing louder, so that we knew we were coming 
to a fall, and so made for the right shore that we might 
disembark and in some way contrive to let cur raft down 
easily. This we atteanpte'd to dp with a long lope of 
withes, but to our grief and consternation it broke when 
the raft was in the midst of the cataract, where it was 
dashed to pieces and the fragments scattered beyond re- 
covery. We were almost in despair, and knew nor what 
to do, for we were too weak to chop logs in length for 
a new raft. 
In this strait the ingenuity of the Indian boy came to 
our aid. He explained by signs and his few English 
words that we might burn off the logs at proper length. 
The sun being not yet set. Major Rogers and Dodo- 
sun at once began burning off logs of dry driftwood, 
and I, by the Major's orders, went into the woods to 
hunt squirrels, which were the only game to be found, 
and they very scarce, just because they were wanted, so 
it seemed. When I was guided to one by his snickering, 
or his rasping of a hemlock cone, and discovered him 
sprawled head downward on a tree trunk, jerking out 
his scoffs at me, or with arched back and curved tail, 
chipping out the cone seeds, I was more nervous over 
my aim than ever I was when drawing a bead on a fat 
buck, or on aji enemy where my life depended on the 
chance of a hit or a misfire. I must hit only the head 
to save all the precious meat, but I must hit at' all events. 
So, in great trepidation, I did somehow have the luck 
to kill th ■ee little red squirrels, which made us a good 
supper. My portion nearly choked me for thinking of 
my poor mercy, and somewhat of the others, with noth- 
ing better than root broth to appease their hunger. But 
I was nursing my remaining strength for their sakes, and 
50 picked every slender bone clean, and crunched it for 
its thread of marrow. 
Next morning while the Major, the Captain and I 
bound the logs together with blue beech withes, Dodo- 
iun stole away with bow and blunt arrows. When we 
were ready to embark, as we- were fearing he had de- 
serted us. back he came as quiet as a shadow, with live 
squirrels in his belt — "mequasese," he called them. It 
:ook the conceit out of me — a grown-up Ranger with a 
rifle. It vas our salvation more than once that our 
commander had brought this brown imp with- us. 
That day we voyaged prosperously, coming again to 
'alls, over which we had the good fortune to ease our 
■aft in safety, and again drifted along on a smooth cur- 
lent. Dodosun discovered some mussels on a sandy 
5each, whereof we laid in good store that served to fill 
5ur stomachs. 
Fortune continued to favor us on our hazardous jour- 
ley, though more than once we came perilously near 
3eing wrecked on hidden rocks. On the third morning 
ive descried a smoke rising among the trees at some dis- 
tance before us on the right bank, and our hearts heat 
ast with hope that we were about to overtake our un- 
'aithful relief party, or at least some sort of help. But 
A'hen we came to it, it was but a dismal, smoldermg 
:arap-fire, theirs of last night, no doubt. We fired our 
suns, which we afterward learned were heard by tbe 
)arty, but only served, as in the first instance, to hasten 
heir speed, for they thought it the enemy in pursuit, 
locking our starvation were the fragments of their full 
ceding, pork-rinds and crusts of bread \Vhich we searched 
or more eagerly than if they had been gold, and de- 
-oured ravenously to the last burned morsel raked from 
he ashes. 
•That day our yaung hunter shot a muskrat, which 
jave us the fullest meal of our journey, and was as sweet 
neat as ever I ate. Dodosun had the best of us. for he 
•idded the entrails, which he roasted and ate with great 
•elish. He was not over-nice in the cleaning, and we did 
lot begrudge him the extra ration. 
We met with no further adventure, and on the after- 
noon of the fifth day arrived' at Number Four. Many 
curious and anxious eyes watched us as our strange craft 
and crew hove in sight of the landing. Gaunt with 
meagre fare, tattered and torn with rough travel, and 
besmirchedl with the smut of our burned logs, we created 
much astonishment and stir among the good people. 
A Walk Down South.— V. 
Waterville lies at the junction of Little Pine Creek 
with Big Pine Creek. It is tucked down in a cradle of 
nigh hills. On the railroad sidings are cars loaded with 
tan bark. Somebody had an idea thereabouts one time 
that a certain stlye of house was the proper kind to dwell 
m. No one else had any ideas on that subject, apparently 
so the buildings look alike in the main. They belong 
neither to the farm country nor to the mountains. ■ No 
where, save in a level village, could such an array of 
"cottages" look' in place. Not once have I ^een a build- 
mg that was beautiful in a beautiful country. With 
enough rocks and stone slabs in a single hillside to re- 
build the castles of the world, they draw their hemlock 
and knotty spruce, cart white lead and yellow ochre, 
stick It on the roadside, put the barn a story higher and 
the pig pen above all, with the well at the bottom of 
the hill, and then look to see if the porch timbers can- 
not be sawed in two and thus save half. 
Some few show appreciation of the bounties of nature, 
ihe jobber in timber left hundreds of miles of second 
growth oak behind him. 
"When I'm done with it," said Marshall Carson, of a 
great virgin hemlock hillside, "there won't be nothing 
left but red sandstone and fire weed." 
When Carson is "done" next year, from Liberty to 
Waterville the valley of the Little Pine will revert to the 
original sandstone and the lovely fireweed. Here and 
there nature is remedying the ravages of steel and fire, 
i breads of silver birch are on many of the steepest in- 
clines, and where destruction was wrought a score of years 
ago hemlock and pine spread dark green cones at inter- 
vals high above the level of the road at the bottom of the 
valley. 
I asked at English Center why land owners did not 
plant hemlock seeds on their property. 
•'Do you know," was the reply, with a quizzical look, 
' I don t believe I ever saw a hemlock seed." 
"I have," said the insurance agent, "it's them things 
red squirrels eat." 
;Oh-h!" 
The effect of a thousand bushels of hemlock seed judi- 
ciously planted in Lycoming and Clinton counties would 
open the eyes of property holders who are now selling 
their land for a state "forest" resers^e at $2.00 an acre 
and are proud of their bargain. Not even the thrifty 
tannery owners have looked so far ahead. They are now 
bidding to see which can get the most of what is left. 
At Waterville I lost my hold on the lay of the land. 
Hitherto my route has seemed to shape itself. The map 
showed nothing. There were little round dots with 
meaningless names scattered all over it. It said nothing 
of mountains into whose shadows one walked at mid- 
day as if under a cloud of snow. Of roads that followed 
"runs" or gullies for miles up and up to pikes on ridge 
tops, or down to rivers; of historic names there was no 
indication. I "guessed" that I would go to Caldwell from 
Waterville. It had never been heard of there, so far as I 
could learn, certainly no road led to it from there. 
M. T. Renn and F. F. Stryker, of Williamsport, Pa., 
were at the hotel. They "hefted" my pack, and said I 
was making an old man of myself carrying it. Why didn't 
I go down to Jersey Shore and get a skiff in which to 
float down the Susquehanna River? It was a tempting 
suggestion. It meant a turn aside from my direct route, 
but I cared little for that. A heart-breaking rise was 
before me on the compass route to the southwest. I 
must turn to the left or to the right; and the left meant 
down grade and a boat ride clear to the Chesapeake Bay. 
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when I sat 
down to write some letters in the Waterville hotel olfice. 
Guns stood in two corners, and a bunch of ten or twelve 
pheasants hung from a rail near one of the guns. Renn 
and Stryker had killed them on the steep side hills over 
dogs, then whining behind the stoves, and drawing; in 
their feet as if to get out of the way of the stone bruises 
and briars in the pads. But let any one touch a gun 
and the ears and eyes lifted eagerly. Here were brave 
hearts. 
In the morning I took all the developing material ap- 
paratus from my pack, boxed it up and sent it home. 
This six or eight pounds was enough to turn the tide. 
I got into my harness and went to the right; three- 
quarters of a mile up Pine Creek I crossed the Iron 
Bridge and a quarter of a mile further turned west up a 
run. One may know how steep the road was by the fact 
that I heard the running water nearly all the way. 
Ordinarily a steep grade is the most discomforting 
thing for a walker on a long journey to face, but the 
time comes when it is a pleasure to buck over, and Octo- 
ber 26 was one of the days when it was a pleasure for me 
to sweat 'er out. I stopped twice in four miles to talk, and 
then I came to an old portable steam sawmill, which is 
waiting for logs to grow again somewhere near. The 
mill hands had two shanties there, both of which have 
had some boards torn off to serve some repairing pur- 
pose somewhere else. On one of these a long while ago 
some one nailed the end of a two-inch plank and then 
tacked heavy paper on it. This was inscribed: 
HOME 
of the 
FRIENDLESS. 
I laughed at the way the thing gibed with my feel- 
ings that morning, and while my grin died away a wagon 
came along. Together the driver and I drank some of the 
sweet water that came out of the hillside into a bark 
spout, and then I rode for two miles further up and up 
the hill, till we came to the pike. 
The pike is the old state road from Jersey Shore to 
Coudersport. Seventy or more years ago it was laid 
out through a howling pine wilderness. The pine has 
long since followed the pike to the mills, but the wilder- 
ness remains in part. Where the wagon crossed the 
pike were two women. They were splitting wood with 
double-edged axes, and swung their blows so that- their 
arms looked like those of men. 
I turned up the pike and came to Harveyville— one of 
the villages to be recognized by the church. Otherwise 
i might have passed by unawares of my proximity to a 
name. The store was in a farm-house parlor. Bags of 
shot and an iron keg of powder were on the counter 
I couldn't get a candle there for my dark-room lamp 
which showed that it was not candle- wild in that region 
At the house where the well seemed furthest from con- 
taminating influences I got some water in my five-pint 
graniteware pail, and beside a combination fence of 
stone and up-turned pine roots, built a fire. It was after 
three o'clock. I had worked and traveled for eight hours 
in an effort to get up an appetite, and it was come, at 
last 
With oak leaves, hemlock twigs and chestnut limbs I 
budded a fire. While the flames gathered their strength 
I stirred my pancake batter. Sitting there I was spied by 
one of those saddening unfortunates whose minds are 
less well formed than their crippled bodies. He watched 
me, wide-eyed and silent. He longed to use my rifle 
and almost saw that I would not harm him. Then 
Henry Cryder came down the pike with his hands in his 
pockets. His clear b.oy eyes took in at a glance what 
was in the situation. It was nearly night, and he knew 
of a barn where I could sleep. 
He turned and walked back with me, sizing me up. A 
chipmunk was on a fence rail beside the road, a chance 
to shoot my little rifle. Twice he fired and come "blamed 
dost to it," and then I fired twice, the last time with 
fatal effect. I dressed the chipmunk, and the way my 
knife cut brought forth the information that his dad's 
cut just hke that. 
It was nearly dusk when we reached Cryder's home. 
"Bill" Cryder's it was, Henry being the oldest son. I 
sat down on the bench-like seats under the door shelter. 
The house was unpainted and small, but it, the table, and 
the best the place afforded were thrown open to me. 
Bill was there to welcome me, but there was a pheasant 
down back of the house most generally at sunset. He 
took a double-barreled muzzleloader from the wall, a 
powder-horn and leather shot pouch from the shelves, 
and a box of caps from a hold-all. He thought he might 
get a shot if he had good luck. But he did not— then. 
In the morning Henry took the big gun down. We 
must go hunting, he said. So we did. Henry is just a 
developing hunter. He is in the chipmunk, the little 
bird, the-anything-for-a-mark stage. At two rods he 
blowed junco to smithereens, and we couldn't find it in 
the oak leaves on the ground. Another was shot to try 
'tother barrel. The healthy instinct to practice was upon 
him. His father, a hunter, his mother a good shot, 
Henry is. a "likely" woods lad. 
In spite of leaves and brush we spied a pheasant walk- 
ing on a stone fence three rods away. He fired, but it 
was a pretty big bird, and besides there was a rock to 
catch a lot of the shot intended for the bird's body. It 
flew away, who can tell how badly injured? Henry nor 
his father ever waste a load on flying birds. 
Soon I spied a black animal fifteen rods away, running 
and hopping. As much like a marten as anything else to 
me. It was the first black squirrel I ever saw. It treed 
and laid along an oak limb, where the boy's eye spied its 
back. He fired and it came down the trunk with tail 
straight out behind, its eyes looking very large for so 
small a creature, I thought. My bullet went wild. On 
the tree trunk, and on the leaves were blood and hair, 
but the animal escaped. 
Then I saw a "new" bird in a distant tree. At 75 
yards I brought it down— a stepped-oft' 75 yards— and 
in my hands it was still a stranger. We guessed that it- 
was a dove, or something; and our guess was about the 
same as Bill Cryder's. It certainly was a dove or some- 
thing, very pretty and very eatable, which travels in 
flocks. Wild pigeons are seen in this country occasion- 
ally, it is said, but this was not one of them. 
We had no lunch, but hunted on with enthusiasm in 
spite of the chicken dinner to be had at home on the 
usual hour. It was nearly dark when at last we came 
back, munching some apples. We had, killed enough for 
a cat's breakfast, but that was all; yet all had a taste and 
sighed for more. 
On the next day we tried again, playing a waiting 
game, but saw only red squirrels as wild as gray ones 
and a pheasant beside the pike. This bird I plumped 
through the center of the body, in spite of which it flew 
to parts unknown. The pheasants all along the pike 
seemed tame, and would make great sport over a good 
dog I am sure. Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays the 
stage comes up from Lockhaven, and carries the mail 
to Harveyville, up through the Black Forest to the Pump 
Station. The pike, so far as I saw it, seemed to invite 
the wheelman gunner. 
Everyone on the pike seems to know how to use a gun. 
Deer and bears are heard about from every lip. On the 
tracking snow bears are hunted to their dens. On 
Sunday night, returning from meeting, one of the boys 
told of seeing a bear wallow that day in the mud of a 
swamp east of the pike, a "regular hog waller, all clawed 
and dragged." Cr\'der and two neighbors once killed a 
bear whose meat filled a pork barrel full. It was a sheep 
killer, with a record of forty or eighty dead in a night. 
The bear squeezed under a rock, where it was shot, 
then it took hours to dig it out. 
One time a catamount (lynx?) stole ' Cryder's finest 
chicken in broad daylight. It got into a trap and for 
two days eluded pursuers. At last Cryder broke down 
into a brush heap and was surprised to land on the cat 
When he came back after his first jump or two, Cryder 
shot the beast dead. 
Cryder hunts partridges in their feeding grounds by 
standing still at dawn or dusk. The noise of the birds' 
walking draws his gaze aright, and then he kills, usually. 
He get one in this way on Monday evening. 
On Tuesday I started on. For six miles my path 
was along the pike on the broad back of the' ridge, 
one slope of which is in Lycoming county the other in 
Clinton. A house or two, vacant, and two or three in- 
habited, with a school house, the iron pipe line of an oil 
