P Jan. 4, 1902.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
8 
— 
different. I tried to explain to him that my shells 
surely must be open to grave suspicion; and that Once 
my gun had caught, failing to reach position; and that 
one was a turning shot, and that my foot really did slip 
as I swung to it, but all this was but talk, and it was 
birds that the arbitrary fellow demanded. 
1 devoutly hoped that the next one would be eftsy, so 
that 1 might, at least, win back my clog's good will, how- 
ever I might continue to regard myself, but it was not. 
It was an old veteran, and he lay right under the dog's 
nose until I had walked around them twice, and then 
flushed behind me and taking the wind swung off on a 
curve like a rocket. 
Being a bit rattled by the run of hard luck, I pulled 
past him, when I turned, but quickly recovering held 
fairly, with a six-inch lead, determined to get him or 
exhaust the battery, and at the crack of the gun had the 
pleasure of seeing him take a header for terra firma, and 
two minutes thereafter Jack and I had again resumed our 
peaceful and friendly relations. 
The cover was heavy, and the birds lay close; and an- 
other dog would not have found many of them, but the 
dog put up four more birds with promptness, which 
were put down with dispatch — all but the last — and he 
lit running, after getting the entire broadside, and was 
trailed a full fifty yards before finally consenting to join 
his companions in the game pocket. 
Going over the ground once more to be sure that 
none had been overlooked, and finding nothing, we 
sought the nearest fence to do a bit of resting. The 
valley in which I was located, like many of those in East 
Tennessee, was not unlike the. bed of some vast river. 
Narrow and bounded on each side by hills — "knobs," 
as they are locally known — sometimes running a straight 
course for miles, and again winding in and out among 
the hills, it was both fertile and beautiful. From my seat, 
the fence being on a slight elevation, I' could see for 
several miles straight down the valley, over cultivated 
fields, with an occasional house, barn and outbuildings, 
all quite substantial and in good repair. 
It was a rural picture of great beauty, and also of 
grandeur, as the hills framed it in on all sides; while 
over their tops towered the great mountain peaks, now 
blue in the morning sunlight. 
This picture, with variation of detail, is seen again and 
again in this section; the valleys always fertile, the moun- 
tains always grand. 
"Smiling valleys" is good poetic description, and ap- 
plies to some lands, but in this picturesque country they 
ilaugh outright. Don't condemn this as a bit of en- 
thusiastic word-painting of a sportsman intoxicated by 
a too deep indulgence in ozone — straight; or the preju- 
diced statement of a native booming his own section; it 
is neither the one nor the other, but is only a just tribute 
to a beautiful country, and falls far short of doing it 
justice. 
The traveler through this section can verify the fact 
and never leave the railroad, or get out of a parlor car. 
The great southern railway system, from Chattanooga 
to Bristol, nearly 250 miles, runs through a valley of 
great fertility and beauty, and affords a fine view of some 
of the grandest mountains east of the Rockies. But 
what has all this to do with bird hunting, says the man 
who always asks first, "How many did you get?" Well, 
very little, to such an one, but 
"To him who in the love of nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms," 
it has its place; and that place is the inner chamber of 
his heart, from the open door of which issues forth his 
truest thoughts and his noblest deeds. The man whose 
sole object in hunting is the game, should never get 
past the huckster's stall. He can never accomplish 
enough to offset his sins of omission. 
When well rested, I dropped off the fence and made 
for a stubble field half mile away. No need to tarry by 
the way, as Jack had hunted out all the intervening ter- 
ritory while I loafed and viewed the beauty of the goodly 
land. 
We found fur en route, and the good old dog almost 
broke his neck trying to keep his eyes on me and the 
rapidly receding rabbit at one and the same time. 
I made no effort to prevent its safe retreat, as there 
was no one near by to bestow it on, and although the 
rabbits in this section are about the size of other rabbits, 
when killed, my experience had led me to think that half 
hour in my game pocket over the hills made them large 
;as sheep. 
We crossed the upper and were working back through 
the lower end of the field when we again found birds. 
It was a small covey, but the birds were large and 
strong flyers, and Jack and I both shook out a reef when 
1 wo of them consented to stop at the call of my right 
and left. The survivors went into a field of corn, yet 
ungathered, and it looked as if the shooting would be a 
bit rough, if we found them at all, but fresh from our 
recent success we bravely sallied forth. 
At the fence surrounding the field I found a small 
darkey, who seemed to be waiting for me. 
He promptly responded to my look of inquiry: "I is 
Jeff, suh. Unc' Bill say yo' wan' a boy to tote yo' rab- 
bits, an' I cum to see if I will do." 
I told Jeff that he probably would answer when I got 
any rabbits to "tote," and he -fell in line, in the rear, and 
we moved on. 
The first bird was a single, which flew straight away, 
but at tremendous speed. He showed a bit mussed after 
the first, and fell dead to the second barrel at a distance 
that would have been out of bounds in a match. 
Then an easy was missed, with both barrels; two more 
going off before I could reload. Then another single 
was found that was kind enough to fly straight, and not 
too fast, and then we could find no more of them. 
My department of the interior then admonishing me 
that it was near the noon hour, I concluded to refrain 
from further slaughter of game and viewing of scenery 
until after dinner. 
It was spare rib and back bone for dinner, and had 
I not intimated that sausage was the very acme of good 
living, I would gladly try to tell how delicious they 
were. Suffice it to say that the dinner engendered in my 
mind the wish that all of the hog not sausage could be 
back bone and spare rib. 
The boy Jeff joined us at the kitchen, as we started 
out after dinner, and we were soon back in the open 
working out a bit of sedge grass that promised well for 
fur. 
One rabbit was jumped as we worked up a dry branch, 
but he was on the side with the boy and offered no 
chance for a shot. 
The old dog rustled another out of a thicket, a little 
further on. and "Ss he dashed across a bit of open in the 
grass, he gave me a remote possibility which I improved, 
and then Jeff looked like he thought w? were accom- 
plishing something. 
We hunted on then for quite a while without finding 
game. Clouds had begun to gather, and the short day 
bid fair to be made more short by the obscuring of the 
sun, and yet we had not found a bird. A little longer 
we worked with no change of luck, and then, concluding 
to give it up, started back toward the house. 
Passing through a field of very thick, high corn, T 
saw Jack roading some distance ahead, and working up 
to him found he was following two fine birds that had 
become separated from the covey, and were leading him 
a long distance, refusing persistently to lie. Getting 
them in line, I fired, killing them both, on the ground. 
Yes, on the ground. Potted them — nothing less. I 
did it because I feared I would not get a shot, and I 
wanted the birds. 
A few years ago a little woman made me a promise 
which, through good and evil report, through dark and 
bright days, she has kept as the martyrs of old kept the 
faith. 
I had promised to send her some birds the next morn- 
ing and needed those two to fill the quota, hence the 
necessity. To shoot a quail on the ground I deem a dis- 
grace to any sportsman. I blush for the deed but glory 
in the motive, and will do it again under like tircum- 
stances. 
One more rabbit was all we could add to our bag. I 
did not shoot him sitting. 
The Doctor was waiting by the genial log heap to 
welcome me as, tired and hungry, I reached home. 
Lewis Hopkins. 
Sea Rack. 
In Two Parts.— Part Two. 
We pass Cape Despair on our way to the turning point, 
Grande Riviere, and grope inward toward that harbor- 
age in the dark of the evening. Arizona and I occupy 
our favorite seat behind the smokestack; all the other 
passengers are forward, singing. Then something hap- 
pens. We feel the after part of the ship lift slightly; 
there follows a grinding sound, the vessel lurches over 
to the starboard, and the engines stop. A woman 
screams. 
"Now, what does that mean?" Arizona asks quietly. 
"I fancy we are on a reef," I answer. "You're not 
frightened, are you?" 
"Not a bit. I made up my mind when we left Mon- 
treal that we should be drowned." 
"Well, we're not going to be drowned this time, for 
the shore is not half a mile from us, and we have the 
life-boats." 
"I saw you put your finger through the bottom of one 
of them the other day. You know they're no good." 
> "We have a wooden hull under us: we can't sink." 
The steerage passengers come tumbling up, all talking 
at once, and evidently frightened and bewildered. We 
get up and go forward to where the cabin passengers 
stand. One woman is clinging to her husband's arm and 
crying, "No, no, dear; stay by me!" 
"Ah'm to get ma cot (anglice coat), Ah'm tellin' you! 
Ah'm cold!" 
"No, no!" she rejoins; "you'll not be needin' your cot. 
Stay by me!" 
He sits down and hugs himself, his wife clinging to 
him. 
"Sing!" a man says to his wife. 
"1 couldn't!" she gasps. "I'm terribly frightened." 
."Sing!" he says, sternly. 
She lifts a tremulous, uncertain voice, and begins 
bravely, "A Life on the Ocean Wave," everybody joining 
in. At the end of the first stanza she is crying, and can 
sing no more, but. the other voices carry the song along. 
Then a woman's voice, with a trace of tears in it, begins 
"Captain, Captain, Stop the Ship, I Want to Get Out 
and Walk!" That makes everybody laugh. Presently 
the two cabin-boys, who have excellent voices, start up 
a song among the steerage passengers aft. All in all, 
it is a company of men and women to be proud of. The 
panic was only momentary; coolness and cheerfulness 
came quickly on its heels. It is so dark that we can 
see nothing but the lines of the ship itself. When the 
engines start up— we cannot tell whether they are work- 
ing forward or backward — the ship swings slowly round 
and round on her heel. The engines stop again, and 
again the ship lists over to the starboard. The reef still 
holds her fast. It takes perhaps half an hour to work her 
free— and when she is free and the anchor plunges down 
and we know we are to lie where we are for the night, 
oh, what a sensation of relief comes over us! It has 
been an exceedingly bad quarter of an hour for every 
soul on the ship, the captain included, as it seems by 
later talks. We are rolling heavily in the gulf swell as 
we turn in for the night. Everyone goes to bed, all 
save two, it seems, who pace the deck the night through, 
too agitated for sleep. 
Next morning we go into Grande Riviere and lie up 
at the wharf, all the passengers going ashore for a ram- 
ble over the beach. From Mai Baie on, the day follow- 
ing, we have a heavy sea, and the now empty ship rolls 
and pitches so furiously that we cannot even sit fast, 
but have to cling to the benches for Support. We are 
bringing back some oil, but. not enough to steady us. 
Aside from the captain, two mates and two engineers] 
we have only tWo seamen — both the stokers having de- 
serted the ship. It looks like blowing big guns, and un- 
fortunately we are on a lea shore— the wickedest shore 
too, that fancy might conceive. We long ardently for the 
quiet and the shelter of Gaspe Basin — but that is yet a 
Jong way off. We stop for an hour at St. Pierre in the 
shelter of a reef with a lighthouse on it, and then on 
again. St. Pierre and Mai Baie,- it seems, are French 
Protestant settlements. A girl who comes on board at 
St. Pierre gives us some interesting information. The 
fishing all along this coast is done under contract to 
the "merchants." These are mainly Frenchmen from the 
Island of Jersey who own the little warehouses and most 
of the fleets. The fishermen are paid for their catch so 
much the draught — a draught being 214 pounds — and 
they in turn pay the merchants rental for boats and 
tackle. Pay takes the form of orders on the stores — 
which, of course, means robbery. Yet, the people are 
happy and contented, and in some degree prosperous. 
Sun-dried, or salted, fish is sold by the merchants at so 
much the quintal. , 
It is an evidence of how the ship pitches, even in the 
shelter, that a passenger who comes aboard at St. Pierre, 
is taken violently ill within ten minutes. We reach 
Gaspe Basin before midnight, and remain there until 
the dawn. Our cook deserts us here, the grounding of 
the ship on the reef having probably unnerved him; and 
one of the cabin-boys is put into the galley in his place. 
The young man who has been our "chambermaid" so 
far, is pressed into service as a stoker, the two engi- 
neers finding it impossible to carry on the work without 
help. The remaining cabin-boy, consequently, has to 
perform the double duty of waiting on table and caring 
for the staterooms. Beatty, the steward, comes out 
strongly, and the passengers suffer nothing in the matter 
of their material wants. 
All the passengers who came aboard at Gaspe are 
seasick. We of the older order feel consequently a 
proud complacency in our sea-legs and our great appe- 
tites. Tumbling seas, great headlands, balmy air, is the 
order of the day. It is the most leisurely ship and ship's 
company imaginable. The captain will spend fifteen min- 
utes in towing some fisherman to a point where he can 
reach his home against the wind. We stopped for an 
hour to-day while Gordon and Duncan mended the 
winch. The handling of cargo is amusing: there isn't 
the slightest hurry about it; time is of no consequence. 
Nobody in this country seems to be in a hurrv. 
Sunday morning, and how the wind blows! The ship 
labors and plunges, making perhaps five miles an hour. 
Mountains, crags, shaggy spruce and gray rock! — that 
is the coast. Then comes a gorge, probably marking a 
river-course, with shoulders of great hills shutting in 
the vista from the seaward— and at the foot on a little 
flat space a few white cottages with the surf leaping high 
before them. A passenger desires to land. The whistle 
blows, the engines stop, the ship beats round into the 
trough of the sea, and a speck of a boat puts off through 
the surf and struggles outward to us, shoving up the 
spritsad when clear of the white leap of the water. 
When it reaches the ship, the men are wet from head t® 
foot. They lay hold of the rope which runs lengthwise 
of the ship, a line is flung to them, down come the sprits, 
a ladder is lowered, the passenger clambers down, his 
trunk is tumbled after him, unintelligible adieux are 
shouted, and the engines start up again, the ship edging 
gingerly away from a long reef which shows its teeth 
close by. At one place the villagers ask the captain to 
be pleased to wait until after mass before taking their 
shipment; at another, to be good enough to attend until 
the tide shall come in and float the boats off. To neither 
of which polite requests does he accede. He, at least, 
has some remote notion that time is worth something. 
We di scover a notable example of a Frenchman with 
legs full of words. Two boats lie off the shore waiting 
for us, each with two barrels of oil to deliver. The cap- 
tain does not stop beside them, but, probably for suffi- 
cient reason, runs a little beyond. As they come toward 
us, the men laboring at the sweeps, one of them begins 
to scream abuse at- the captain. The more he screams 
and the longer he toils at his sweep, the angrier he be- 
comes; and by the time he reaches us he is beside himself 
with fury. It seems to be a very insanity of rage that 
possesses him. Never for more than a moment does the 
flow of voluble and limitless invective pause. If he should 
fall in a fit, we would not be surprised. He is the 
angriest man I ever beheld. An Anglo-Saxon chokes and 
stutters when he is angry. Language cannot express his 
feelings; they require action. The Gaul is different. The 
captain stands by the wheelhouse quite unmoved. He 
gives a quiet order to his men on the main deck, the 
result of which is that the two barrels in the quiet boat 
are taken on board, while those of the stormy boat are 
refused. When the angry man understands what has 
happened— a boat-hook carrying home the informations- 
then, oh, then we hear invective to marvel at! When he 
pauses for a moment for want of breath, the captain 
shouts "Bow-wow!" and again, "Bow-wow!"— which 
only adds fresh fuel to the Frenchman's wrath. Even 
after his voice will no longer carry across the distance 
which separates us, we can see that he is still screaming. 
Another day's run and Arizona and I decide upon mak- 
ing a venture landward— to wit, to lie at Sous-le-cap 
and be picked up by the Petrel on her next homeward 
trip. As we near this point, the north shore comes into 
view, a faint blue line in the far distance. The sea has 
gone down, the sun is warm, the air still, and we sit on 
the hurricane deck without overcoats or wraps. I tell 
Arizona to listen to what the engines are saying to each 
other in the new quiet. One says, "Shove-her-along, 
shove-her-along;" and the other replies. "Doing-it,' 
doing-it." Arizona says that is nonsense: but she listens] 
nevertheless, and after a time says she can hear the 
words quite plainly. 
"Which shows," I remark, "the utter mendacity of 
such as sail the sea." 
"You mean that I'm not telling the truth?" she asks 
indignantly. 
"By no means: merely that one of the engines isn't 
— and that the other is backing him up." 
It is night when we reach Sous-le-cap. That is not the 
name of the place, but, for reasons which seem sufficient, 
I use it in preference to the. other. There is a letter on 
board addressed to Donald Mclvo'r, Sous-le-cap; and as 
we can get no information on the ship, we decide to go 
straight to this-- individual and ask him where we may 
obtain accommodations. 
