^ FOREST AND STREAM. * 83^ 
Feb. i, 1902.] 
the rainy woods, a big moose stalked again through my 
dreams, but did not disturb my sleep. 
Three days later, after climbing over some eight miles 
of windfalls, now down in a river bed among the stones, 
now up on the bank sinking knee deep in moss that looked 
soft and inviting to my weary body, now in the cracking 
branches of a fallen hemlock, we came out finally on a 
"good road," neglected for four years, and pretty thor- 
oughly neglected, too. 
The woods had been open in spots and alders grew in 
the wet places. There were some big tracks here in the 
mud, and occasionally we came to a bush that had been 
ripped to pieces by the horns of a passing moose. 
Along the road a little piece I saw Karl stop, pointing 
with his axe handle into the thick trees and look around 
with a quivering face. "Big bull moose," said he. "See?" 
*'No; can't see," I replied, following the axe handle. 
"Two spruces and black thing between; don't shoot yet; 
don't talk. There, see his horns yellow?" 
"No.. Karl, I can't see him," I said in despair. 
"Shoot at black spot between two spruces now ; that's 
shoulders." 
I shot; immediately out from the woods burst a great 
black moose. "Bang!" went the repeater, "bang!" and 
down he went on his haunches. Twice more I fired. "An- 
other like that," said Karl, but off he trotted, unhurt, I 
trust, through the forest. We followed a half-mile and 
no blood. Although he seemed to have been a little 
dazed and to have run in circles, yet we found no blood 
at all, and the further we went the stronger he seemed to 
go. Windfalls and broken stubs were his chosen path, 
and the hoof marks, starting outspread became close and 
even and further between. To say one is disappointed is 
vanity. To think that a year's planning, of studying guns 
and ammunition, of shooting at a mark for three months, 
of seeing game on and off for ten years, all goes for 
naught when the psychological moment comes. Yet there 
is an excellent saying of Mr. Prime's, "It is not all of fish- 
ing to fish." And so I lost him, or so I met him, as I 
thought for the second time, at his best, in his home, and 
some good fortune attended him. I felt afterward, while 
much chagrined at the shooting, that I had left a friend 
behind me in the green and golden forest, and to meet him 
I should journey up there to Christmas Pond next year 
and rest on the fragrant grass and listen to the wind in 
the pines. May the dryads guard him well till I come 
back, and the pads on the Clearwater furnish the bases for 
broader paddles and a wider spread than ever. 
Geo. F. Dominick, Jr. 
A Walk Down South ♦—XIV. 
Three or four> miles out of Monterey I stopped at an 
ample-sized house on the right (west) side of the road 
and asked could I get dinner there. A fine, motherly, 
midddle-aged woman, when satisfied that I was not a 
peddler, said, "Yes, indeed," if I would wait. I waited. 
In a few minutes a square-shouldered, blue-eyed, golden- 
mustached young man came in. Pie was a son of th« 
lady, Charles K. Gibson by name. 
"That's quite a trick," he said of the pack and its out' 
fit — an expression I soon became familiar with down 
Jackson's River, which I now was following. His eyes 
had the direct gaze, which is not a stare, with which one 
becomes more familiar the further south he goes. 
Gibson likes to hunt. His dog is a bird and rabbit one, 
but best for driving stock. His gun is a Spencer repeater. 
One day this fall he got into a flock of wild turkeys "back 
on the mountain." He shot four of the birds as quickly 
as one could have counted them. Less than a week pre- 
vious to my coming he had killed one of the bronze fel- 
lows and seven pheasants in a day's hunt. "They're 
pretty thick," he said of birds. 
Dinner was of the sort one finds in a prosperous graz- 
ing country — beef with the blue grass and, mountain range 
flavor, cooked in the pot and browned in the pan — 'nough 
said. It's hours to dinner to-day, and my appetite needs 
no whetting or memories. 
Down the road a couple of miles I sat in a clump of 
woods to grease my shoes with castor oil. They had 
begun to turn tawny where the frozen ground wore them. 
While I was at this a sulky drove up. The woman driver 
gave one look ai me and then wiped the horse along the 
backbone with a long water-beech gad. 
It was quite a cold day — ten degrees below freezing at 
noon, I judged. But the people I met agreed that it was 
"mighty fresh." Many wore ear-flaps, and with hooked 
fingers hovered over the fire — from these indications, and 
though it did not seem so bad to me, I could tell that it 
was unusual weather, and- not the kind to which the 
residents were used. 
The valley was narrow, the bottoms fertile, but it is in 
the minerals that the region will find its wealth. Iron 
abounds everywhere. 
I came to an old grist mill. It was kept by an old man, 
who said I would be welcome at his house, three miles 
below. Round the foot of, wooded ridge sides, past large 
rocks, with glimpses of log cabins far up runs, or of corn- 
fields on side hills, I traveled on down. I regretted the 
approach of night. It was a beautiful little valley, where 
one rounded a picturesque turn at every step or two. 
After a while the road ran level along the ridge, while 
the stream fell over its boulder and rocky bed. Woods 
were above and below the road, till suddenly the path 
ran down to^ the creek again, A split-rail fence corner 
showed ahead, and then a log house on the far side of 
the stream. It was E. A. McLaughlin's. He was split- 
ting wood with a 6-pound axe. His head was covered by 
a red Tam o' Shanter hat. I crossed the single-stick 
bridge, gripping the pole handle tight. I was told to set 
my pack inside and come up to the fire and get warm. 
The invitation with which one is welcomed all down the 
mountain range during cold weather. 
Here the old story of decreasing game was heard. 
Markets have done the work. In one fall thirty-two deer 
were killed at a single stand just below the mill. Bears 
still are seen - occasionally. _ McLaughlin told of one big 
one over on the Alleghanies in the Greenbrier country, 
which "rolled out from under a log" on the approach of a 
party of hunters in which he was. The bear reared up 
on its hind legs and trotted away like a fat man. Bullets 
and buckshot brought the beast down. Then it was found 
that both its fore legs had been cut off by traps — one at 
the wrist, the other at the elbow. 
McLaughlin's brother, Letcher, was made blind fifty 
years ago at three years o*f age by a percussion cap ex- 
ploding. He walked freely about the house; but it was 
pathetic to see him go over a rifle novel to him. The 
sight, the breech, the barrel and all were examined care- 
fully. He laughed like a delighted child when the take- 
down apparatus was explained. In the morning he was 
eager to have his picture taken — although he could never 
see it. 
I went on down the road, which had ice on it in places 
— ice that the horseback riders and the wagon drivers 
alike dread in this region, where "rough" shod or "sharp" 
shod horses, as they say in the Adirondacks, are seldom 
needed. "The country gets better after you go down 
a ways," I was informed. I am told often that I ought 
to go in such and such directions, "for they have fine big 
farms thataway." With an opportunity to go up the 
Shenandoah Valley "with its fine big farms," why I had 
chosen the mountain trails is not always to be satisfac- 
torily explained by love of the beautiful or joy in the 
novelties; I don't try to explain, unless I say it is be- 
cause the people in the mountains are easier to get along 
with — a statement that is very true as well as sufficiently 
explanatory. 
I came down into the "fine country" soon, and dinner 
time coming on, I stopped at the best-looking dwelling in 
sight. It was well painted, doors of natural wood var- 
nished, a comfortable woodpile and two hundred acres of 
cultivated land, and a herd of stock in sight. Eve^'thing 
was well picked up, and prosperous. 
"We don't-often keep strangers here," the woman said, 
and I was not one of the exceptions. At the next house, a 
rough board one, with missing window panes replaced by 
rag balls, the woman said: 
"Come right in and sit down by the fire. We ain't got 
much, but such as we have you're welcome to." 
Sausage, corn bread, wheat biscuit, peach and apple 
butter, "fruit" (apple sauce), home-made coffee, cabbage, 
stewed dry corn, sweet milk, berries, crabapple jelly, was 
all they had for dinner. 
The walls were papered partly with weekly papers — 
the "Oh, Lord I loved Thee!" sort. A single-barreled 
shotgun, .12-gauge breechloader, a .38-40 repeater and an 
old Kentucky rifle, hung from the ceiling rafters; shotgun 
shells and eggs were on the bureau; a sheet-iron stove 
roared in the middle of the sitting room floor, and a lean, 
brown hound toasted first one side and then the other 
before the kitchen fireplace. A sixteen-year-old girl, very 
pretty, and known for thirty miles up and down the valley 
for her good looks, took the biscuits out of the oven four 
at a time, so that each eater would have "hot bread" all 
the while. Like all the women, she wore a sunbonnet 
when she stepped outdoors. 
The afternoon wore slowly away. The white sun was 
chilly, reminding one of the song: 
Rained all day the night Jt left'; 
It rained the river dry. r 
Sun shined so hot I froze to death— 
Susanna don't you cry. 
A bleak landscape the level bottom and steep, brownish 
blue hillsides made; it was bleakest where the bottoms 
were broadest. Long after I was tired enough to stop I 
was still traveling onward. Doubtless I passed houses 
where I could have spent the night, but I was in no frame, 
of mind to face a rebuff. I wanted to be sure of a 
hearty welcome, and I saw no house that suggested one 
till at last a couple of hundred yards up a hollow I saw 
what I bad hoped for. It was a "poor man's home," un- 
planed, a small woodpile, a round-cheeked little boy, a 
smoking chimney and a black dog. With a confidence 
born of experience, I approached the tall, lean, black- 
whiskered man, gripping a great axe handle with one 
hand and asked: 
"Do you all know any place hereaway where a stranger 
could get to stay to-night ?" I asked. 
"Yes, sir; you can stay right heah if you all can put 
up with our feeding. I ain't what you'd call a wealthy 
man. Poke up the fire a bit," he called to his wife, and in 
the fireplace white fire was snapping under vigorous pok- 
ings and additions of fat pine -knots, when I reached the 
hearthstone. 
Fresh pork, corn bread, apple butter, jewberry sauce, 
coffee, jelly, apple sauce, was the supper already pre- 
pared. I ate because I was hungry, and then I ate be- 
cause it was good. At last I could eat no more. 
A boy of thirteen or fourteen years there was a cripple. 
Everything that is done in the house seemed to conic 
from him. Even the fire was poked up nearly every time 
at his suggestion. He told how far it was to this and that 
place. I learned miles from there that the boy managed 
everything, even to the buying of clothes and groceries. 
A fund was once raised to send him to "the hospital," but 
he refused to go. Plis father had a bacon rind and long 
splints of "fat pine" tied above a broken spider before 
the fireplace. The drippings were used to grease the leg. 
None of the family can read or write. The father, how- 
ever, makes a rheumatism cure and other medicines, the 
secret of whose curative properties he will not divulge. 
From selling these, and skunk, 'possum and other furs, 
he makes a part of his living. The rest of his living is 
picked up at odd jobs. He did not want me to start on in 
the morning. "Stay oveh Sunday with us," he said, but 
the sight of the poor boy was more than I could stand. 
The wife had been away for a couple of weeks, When 
she came back she brought with her some presents for 
the four children — two boys and two girls. There were 
ear muffs for all of them ; a cap for one boy and blue and 
green glass cups with a pink or a green piece of silk rib- 
bon in each for the two older children, the cripple and his 
sister. Each one had the gifts in hand as much as pos- 
sible, looking at the fire through the colored glass, or 
putting on the muffs to try them with the cold air at' the 
door. 
A mountaineer clean through is John Tidd. "Some 
kind-hearted gen'elman tried to poison my two dogs a 
couple of weeks ago," he said. "I don't know who did it, 
But if I could find out who"— the man's eyes opened a 
little wider and closed down again, then : "I don't want to 
go to hell for killing a man, but if he's got any property 
that'll burn, or die, he'll find that I can poison jest as 
well as he can." t 
On the mantelpiece was a dusty Bible, among medicine 
bottles and baking powder prizes. After the sentiments 
just expressed, I was curious to know the man's feelings 
in regard to religion, recalling that I had not heard an 
oath in the hours I had been there. He proved to be 
a revival-meeting convert He was doing the best he 
knew how- He had stopped swearing. When he had a 
new suit of clothes he went to church. His children — 
save the cripple — go to school. Instead of killing the 
man who poisoned his dogs, he would now merely re- 
taliate on cattle and buildings. 
In the morning as I started, Tidd said with a look at 
the pack: 
"On my honah, gen'elman, I'd get me a mewl to carry 
that basket." 
In a, mile or two the broad bottom of the river nar- 
rowed, and the sides became more rugged. The road ran 
into the river on the west side, and came out on the 
east. I was obliged to go down 1 stream half a mile to 
the foot bridge, climbing some split-rail fences on the 
way. A boy and a girl met in the road, hid like young 
partridges up a tiny run, and came out behind me. 
I crossed the foot log readily — it had a side stick to 
steady oneself by. I was bothered by a darned place in 
my stocking — it was roughly done. I stopped to fix it 
lest a blister result. 
At the foot of the mountain I stopped to get dinner 
if possible, but it was not ready, so I walked on Up the 
grade away from Jackson's River"; a very beautiful run 
comes down the gully, followed by the road. The water 
goes over and around moss-grown rocks and chunks, of 
iron ore; the trees are scarcely marred by axes. It was 
such a patch of woods as the first white man in that lo- 
cality must' have seen. It was a dark, gloomy trail for 
the next mile,, along which I recalled as many stories 
of bushwhacking, feud-murders and the like as I could 
remember. Here, as everywhere, the j uncos flittered 
among the bushes, peeping in their friendliest fashion. 
They have relieved the tensest strains of loneliness on 
many a hard stretch of road— they and the sneering blue- 
jays. 
On top of the first mountain step I found a board 
house, where I got dinner. A ways beyond the grade 
went higher and higher again, climbing the ridge side 
diagonally. I met a lumberman from West Virginia. He 
carried a Stevens shotgun with a bundle tied to the 
muzzle. He asked how I'd swap weapons, but I wouldn't 
Learning that I had met a horseman whom he was ex- 
pecting to meet him, he hurried on, and I, too, traveled. 
The trees looked gnarled, as if they had worked too 
hard, and crabbed their dispositions with selfishness and 
desire for all the ground they could cover. Big nubs and 
broken joints marked their growth. It was a forest of 
claws and fists, through which the marks of fire were 
everywhere to be seen. 
On the side hill, a hundred feet above a run; and an 
in-wood farm, I met a red-whiskered man riding a fine 
horse. His wide eyes took me in and then it was, 
"Howdy," and who might I be, "for the land sakes?" I 
told him more or less. Then he would be blest if he 
wasn't John Ryder, a Virginian, and "Virginians are 
quick-tempered, you know" (though I didn't, and "mighty 
good people when you don't insult them" (which I did 
know). 
He had gone clear to Illinois, with nothing to defend 
himself but a jackknife. "Yessir, that's all." He had 
knocked a man so hard with his fist one night that "by 
gracious I was afraid I'd killed him." A peaceable per- 
son, he had been obliged to stand up for his rights all 
his life. Once he had a dispute with a man: 
"I reached into my pocket just so, just like this, very 
slow, and drew out my knife; this veTy knife here in 
my hand, just as if I was going to whittle or some- 
thing like that. And, sir, that man stepped right back 
and up against the side of the house, like to knocked, the 
boards clean off the building; no 'twas a log house— 
Simmonses— you know, and shook the plastering down 
the back of his neck, and, sir, he turned just as white's a 
sheet, just as white's that ear of corn there, that white 
ear, just about such a color as that, and then he went out- 
doors and one time I was " 
Mr. Ryder had been through many remarkable experi- 
ences. In two hours he told me about several. 
"I'd ask you to come to mv house to-night," he said a 
little while before we parted, "but my wife's she's— you 
know, she's sick and I can't do it. I'm sorry"— and he 
really was pretty much all that he claimed to be in every 
respect. • 
"You go down to John Bogan's," he advised at last. 
"John's the cleverest fellow you're likely to meet. He's 
got a place for you to sleep, I know." 
So we parted, and I walked along the hillside three or 
tour hundred yards, and then turned "off at a little 
chopped log where I could see a path" leading down to a 
neat-looking board house beside the little run, surrounded 
by a fence, and on all sides oak, gum and chestnut trees. 
It looked like a standing invitation to "come in." 
Raymond S. Spears. 
Adirondack Guides' Association. 
Saranac Lake, N. Y, Jan. 21.— The annual meeting 
ot the Adirondack Guides' Association was held in this 
village this afternoon. About four hundred persons were 
present, representing Saranac Lake, Paul Smith's, Saranac 
Inn. Bloommgdale, Lake Placid, Newcomb, Elizabeth- 
town, Adirondack, Childwold. Long Lake, Meacham 
Oswegatchie and several other Adirondack resorts. Upon 
the platform were speakers of prominence, representing 
the press, law, church and medicine. Mr. E, E. Sumner! 
President of the Association, has been identified with the 
Guides' Association since its inception, having been its 
Secretary for years before accepting the duties of Presi- 
dent. It was unanimously the desire of the Association 
to be represented at the Sportsmen's Exposition, to be 
held at Madison Square Garden in March, and a com- 
mittee was appointed to prepare an exhibit and to repre- 
sent the Adirondacks in New York on that occasion 
At the election of officers, Dr. Frank E. Kendall was 
re-elected Honorary President; Peter A. Soloman Presi- 
