Feb. 22, 1902.1 
•» FOREST AND STREAM * 
14S 
A Timely Lesson* 
A Story of Early Days to New England, 
"I wish you'd show me jest how to load a gun. I 'most 
know now watchin' you so many times," said Reliance 
Staples, as sitting on a stool with one knee held between 
her clasped hands, she watched her brother, Asa, care- 
fully load a long-barreled smooth-bore^ 
"Sho!" he answered, with good-humored contempt, 
while he smartly rammed a wad of tow down on. the 
powder. "Loadin' guns is for men; cardin' an spinnin' 
i<5 for gals." 
"Men, say you, and have to 'most lay the gun down 
to load it? But, Asa, it might be well for me to know 
how, if an Indian or a wolf came and me alone." 
"A deal you'd do if they did," he laughed, " 'ceptin'_ to 
run up the" ladder an' hide 'n under the eaves," but being 
proud to be able to instruct his sister, he began at length 
to do so. 
"First you want to pour the charger full o' powder in. 
an' shake it down good by thumpin' the butt on the floor. 
That I've done. Then make a wad o' tow an' ram it 
down till the ramrod bounds, an' that I've done, too. 
Then drop the ball in, so," taking a bullet from the buck- 
skin pouch and rolling it down the long incline of the 
barrel. "An' if you've got buckshot, put three of 'em 
atop 0' the ball, but we hain't got none. My sakes !" he 
exclaimed in concern, as he fingered the attenuated pouch. 
"There hain't but five balls left, an' there hain't an ounce 
o' lead in the house. We couldn't stand much of a siege, 
that's sartain. Mebby there's some pewter 'round the 
cubberd — pieces o' somethin'. We don't need 'em now." 
Then he continued the lesson, as he tore a fragment of 
tow from a great bunch on the table. "Wraps up a great 
wad, so, an', ram it atop o' the ball, tight, but not so hard 
as on the powder." 
Having accomplished this and returned the iron ramrod 
to its pipes in the stock that half-encased the barrel to the 
muzzle, he opened the pan and filled it with powder from 
the great horn. 
"There !" said he,- shutting down the hammer on the 
pan and leaning the gun against the wall, "that one's all 
ready, and now for the other." 
"Now, Asa," Reliance pleaded in her most persuasive 
voice, as he brought a similar weapon from the corner 
near the broad fireplace, "vou let me load that one, all by 
myself." - 
The brother graciously consenting, she set about the 
work under his direction, and soon proved that she was a 
ready pupil. She filled "the horn charger from the big 
powder horn, poured the charge into the barrel, rammed 
the wad upon it till the rod rebounded smartly, and so 
on to the priming of the piece, doing each part a little 
nervously, but all so well that her brother said : . 
"Why, that's good enough 1" 
This boy of fourteen and his sister, two years younger, 
were of firm, tough fiber, like young trees that have grown 
in exposed situations. They were accustomed to most of 
the labors that employed their elders, for they were reared 
among the hardships of the eastern New England frontier 
where every one was compelled to do his utmost to main- 
tain bare existence won from stern nature and defended 
against more relentless human foes. 
The children were the sole tenants of the house that 
day. It stood at one end of the settlement that struggled 
along a rough highway not far from the seashore. Their 
father was gone fishing, and their mother, who was wise 
in the use of medicinal herbs, had been called to a sick 
woman at the other end t)f the village, so Asa had been 
installed as house guard with strict injunctions to let no 
wandering Indian or stranger enter it, and to fire an alarm 
if any number were seen lurking about. Reliance' took 
her place as housewife, a duty which she was well quali- 
fied to perform even to spinning flax on the little wheel. 
The house was built for defense, being of hewn logs 
with a jutting upper story, so that assailants attempting 
to batter down the door or set fire to the walls, might be 
fired on from above. It was the strongest in the settle- 
ment, except a similar one at the other end of the village 
and the blockhouse in the center. This had a stockade 
and flankers or small loop-holed towers at two diagonally 
opposite corners, from which an enfilading fire could be 
directed. A guard was kept in the blockhouse when 
danger was expected, and every one fled to its shelter on 
the first alarm. 
There had been no attack on this settlement for nearly 
three years, so that the old vigilance was relaxed, and 
all the able-bodied men were gone fishing, or were making 
hay on the salt marshes, leaving old Gaffer Gray and 
Jason Gale, who had lost a leg in a sea fight, to garrison 
the blockhouse, and only womenkind and a few boys in 
the other houses. 
Looking abroad from the door to the next house, forty 
rods up the rough highway, known as King's road, which 
his Majesty would not have been proud of had he seen 
it, Asa and Reliance caught occasional glimpses of Dame 
Jarvis and her brood of small children. Across the road, 
out on the broad meadows, they saw the haymakers, slow- 
ly moving specks against the blue summer sea, where 
the white sails of the fishing vessels shone in the sun. The 
children felt no loneliness except when they looked over 
the rugged clearing to the somber verge of the forest, 
where danger always brooded. That outlook recalled Re- 
liance's thoughts to their meager store of bullets. 
"Say. Asa, I couldn't find any lead on the top shelf. 
Can't folks make balls out o' pewter?" Asa nodding 
assent, she continued, "Then, if it comes to a stress, 
there's a mess o' buttons on father's Sunday coat, and 
there's the four spoons." 
"My! I shouldn't know which to dast to take first." 
"The buttons is the least use," she suggested, her gaze 
still wandering over the clearing, then with an alarmed 
start she asked : 
"See, what ails the cattle?" 
Some scattered members of the little common herd were 
running in wild fright toward the houses from the direc- 
tion of the forest. 
"Is it wolves? Is it a bear?" she asked, watching Asa's 
intent face growing pale before his answer came in a 
gasp, "Indians !" 
As he spoke a heifer_ halted in her headlong flight to 
stare back at the half-discerned cause of terror. A puff 
of smoke burst from a log heap, the stricken beast stum- 
bled and sank out of sight in the brakes and briars with a 
bellow of agony which came to the children's ears almost 
with the report of the guny followed by a chorus of terrific 
yells as a dozen dusky figures broke from the cover of the 
woods. 
"Into the house! Quick!" cried Asa, making for the 
door. 
"Let's run for the fort," Reliance urged, hesitating at 
the threshold. 
"Come inside, girl," he cried imperatively, pulling her 
after him and hastily barring the door. "They'd have our 
scalps afore we could get half-way. If there hain't more 
on 'em than we seen, I'd risk 'em if we had balls enough. 
Stir up the fire an' have the kittle b'ilin' ag'in the balls 
is spent, an' they try to burn us out or beat in the door. 
I'll peek out an' see what they be at. I wonder they don't 
fire a' 'larm to the fort. If I can only fire one, that'll do 
some good." 
Looking cauti&usly through the loop hole, he could not 
suppress an exultant exclamation when he saw the In- 
dians swarming around the dead heifer. Evidently aware 
that the men of the village were all away, they made no 
attempt at concealment, and ravenous from long fasting, 
they at once fell to butchering the carcass, tearing at the 
reeking flesh like hungry wolves. - 
"All in a bunch, they be," Asa whispered in excite- 
ment, as he drew back and took up one of the guns. "A 
long shot off, nigh forty rod, but I'll try it in the thick 
on 'em." 
He was not strong enough to shoot the long, heavy gun 
off-hand, but from a rest he was so good a marksman 
that he could cut off the head of a partridge at thirty 
yards. He poked the muzzle through the loophole and 
taking a carefully calculated high aim, pulled trigger. 
"Massy ! They be firm' at us, close to," cried Reliance, 
since all the noise save the quick spitting hiss of the 
priming seemed outside the house. 
"It was me fired," her brother said, as quickly as he 
could, while he peered under the lifting smoke. No less 
to his surprise than his joy, he saw one Indian stagger 
and fall, and another skulk away nursing a wounded arm, 
while the rest vanished like a brood of partridge chicks. 
"Oh, glory !" he cried joyfully. "I've downed one an' 
winged another. Now try if you can load whilst I look 
sharp for another chance." 
As he put down the empty gun, he turned to see what 
kept his sister busy at the hearth. Their father's fine 
green coat lay across the chest, stripped of a number of 
its shining buttons. These were in the smelting ladle on 
the coals. Reliance watching their melting with the bullet 
mold in her hand. 
"Well, you be a good one," he said in admiration. 
"Never mind the loadin', I'll 'tend to that. You run 
some balls. Douse 'em in a bucket o' water to cool an' 
trim the' necks off wi' mammy's shears." 
Puffs of smoke burst out along the woodside and bul- 
lets struck the log wall with spiteful thuds or ripped the 
shingles off the roof with a sharper crash. Asa peeped 
out over the barrel of the loaded gun, but nowhere could 
he discover a living mark. Looking up the road through 
another loop hole, he saw the portly form of Dame Jarvis 
driving her scared flock before her toward the block- 
house, from which now came regular reports of alarm 
guns, and the sullen boom of the great patterero hurtling 
its screeching but harmless charge of pebbles at the hid- 
den enemy. 
"Then he saw four Indians running at full speed, belly 
to earth, along a fence to cut off the old woman and 
children. He took a flying shot at the crouching figures 
with the happy effect of bringing them to a sudden halt 
behind the nearest log heap. 
Reloading his gun, he returned to his first position and 
watchc-d intently for some, incautious enemy to disclose 
himself. Presently he saw the flutter of a feather above 
a stump, then a bead-wrought cap slowly rising be- 
neath it. He aimed carefully and fired. A thicket near 
by belched an answering smoke, and Asa's left hand was 
stricken from its hold by a numbing blow. He reeled 
backward, and the gun, unsupported, came down with a 
clang on the puncheons. 
"What is't, Asa?" Reliance asked, and then seeing the 
bleeding hand, "Oh, Lord, deliver us ! You be wounded." 
"It hain't no killin' hurt," said Asa, stoutly, inspecting 
his hand curiously at arm's length, and repressing a 
groan as pain came with returning sensation, "but it 
bleeds pretty smart, an' I guess you'll have to do it up." 
She bound the wound with lint and a bandage that 
nearly stopped the bleeding, but to ease the hurt, the arm 
had to be put into a sling, and he could not use it^ 
"Now you will have to load the guns for me an' poke 
'em into the port hole so I can shoot." 
Taking fresh heart from his coolness, she set to prac- 
tice the recent lesson to good purpose, and was proud 
to use one of the shining new bullets of which she had 
ten perfect ones cast* 
Emboldened by the cessation of firing from the house, 
the Indians began to come out of cover and draw nearer, 
so that when a gun was ready, Asa had a fair shot at a big 
savage within easy range, and brought him to the earth, 
where he lay motionless, save as the wind tossed his long 
hair and gave the dead form a ghastly semblance 
of life. 
His comrades scattered to cover again, and did not 
venture from it to carry him off as was their usual cus- 
tom, for the exposure of a hand's breadth of their per- 
sons brought a shot from the ready guns of the house 
which they were sure was garrisoned by half a dozen 
Pastoniacs, as they called the New Englanders. 
In such manner Asa and Reliance held them at bay in 
that quarter, while the pother made by Gaffer Gray and 
Jason at the blockhouse kept them from attacking in that 
direction till the armed haymakers came hurrying up from 
the meadows. Then the verge of the forest became silent 
and deserted as the savage band slunk back into its path- 
less depths. 
Dame Staples hastened home in great alarm, and was 
full of joy to find the children unharmed but for Asa's 
wound. In the same breath she fell to scolding Reliance 
for despoiling the green Sunday coat of its. buttons, till 
Zachary Staples coming in from the fishing stopped her. 
"Hush, wife, thee should not berate the brave child. 
What signifies a few pewter buttons when Jason Gale has 
a mould and we can make dozens out'n the broken por- 
ringer thee saved in thy chist these ten year." 
Gaffer Gray hobbled up from an informal inquest on the 
body of the fallen Indian, with a bloody scalp loek of 
coarse, black hair dangling in his hand. 
"I make out fro' the mark o' the Bear, on yonder dead 
un, these be some o' old Cap'n Bomaseen's gang, an' as 
tough-headed a beast as ere I tackled. Here, lad, this be 
thine, an' take what belongs to thee." The boy shrank 
back from the ghastly trophy and would have none of it. 
"Then I'll get the bounty, for it's a sin to waste it. 
Thee's a brave lad, anyhow, an' done the most work 
whilst me an' Jason made most noise. An', Zach'ry, thee 
give thv gal the right name when thee called her Re- 
liance."" Rowland E. Robinson. 
Adventures in Tropical America. 
IX —Examining a Mine under Difficulties. 
I once made a boasting engagement that I would re- 
pott fully #1 a mine in eastern Honduras, Central Amer- 
ica, for which it was claimed that fabulous wealth lay 
exposed along a precipice where a stream had cut a deep 
gorge through the mountains. I found the place just as 
described, except that there was very little mineral, yet 
enough to make me anxious to see all the precipice. 
I went to the upper part of the gorge, where a good 
view could be had down the river, but could see no 
signs of any mineral deposits. Then I said to my guide 
that we would go on down the river, but he told me 
it was impossible, that no person had ever been down the 
gorge, nor could they possibly go. However, we went 
on as far as we could, and presently came to a place 
where the river cut its way through solid walls of rock. 
I then proposed to go around to the other side and come 
up the gorge, but my guide said that was equally im- 
possible, and that at this place there were about two 
miles of rock which no man or animal could pass. I 
quoted the description of the mine, at which the guide 
laughed, and told me that such a report was the ex- 
aggeration of an impossibility. I had no thought of giv- 
ing up, however, and asked the guide if I could not swim 
down the river, at which he looked at me in astonish- 
ment. "Impossible; the place is full of snakes, and there 
must be a big waterfall in there, because the river is 
much lower on the other side of the mountain." 
1 wasn't going home without seeing every inch of that, 
gorge, the precipice had been noted in a former report 
and I proposed to examine it. So I threw off my clothes, 
telling my guide I intended to take a bath. I found the 
water ccol and pleasant, and presently let the current 
carry me slowly down, then swam to one side and came 
back" again, as if I meant nothing, fearing that the guide 
might restrain me by force, for by this time he too had 
entered the water. Then I let the current take me down 
r.gain. This time I went a little further, and when well 
beyond his reach, while he shouted to recall me, I let the 
current carry me into the gorge, then around a bend, and 
I was alone, rocks and water ail about me, and a line of 
blue sky overhead. I was frightened, but having started I 
meant to keep on. 
The river was low. and for a time I floated lazily along, 
watching out for signs of exposed mineral deposits ; but 
there was- nothing, only dark rocks of even texture. Pres- 
ently I noticed that the current was becoming swifter, and 
so I caught hold of a convenient ledge, and held myself 
back to see what was ahead of me. There were some 
rapids, a little cascade, and further on more rapids, and I 
floated carefully down to them, keeping well against the 
rocks. There w : as not much difficulty about getting over 
the cascade, just a. tumble into a deep basin of water, 
where I was washed up to one side and found a con- 
venient seat on a gravel bed under a rock, where I 
stopped to rest and consider. The rapids were a little 
threatening, but I decided to try them, and soon had the 
pleasure of finding that, though the water was rough, it 
was deep and easy to swim in, with plenty of eddies along 
the sides, where I could avoid the heaviest currents. Go- 
ing on down, I came to a place where the rocks of 
the precipice suddenly changed, and above the dark in- 
trusive rocks a contact with sedimentary types could be 
distinctly seen ; but there were no sign's of mineral, and I 
floated on down, and presently came to the end of the 
gorge, about a mile or more from the place where I 
had left my clothes. 
I rested for a time, and then started to swim back, but 
it was fatiguing work, and presently the current became 
too strong for me. Here was a predicament; it was 
some miles around the base of the mountain to where I 
left my clothes; to walk that distance naked in all the 
burning sun could not be even thought of, and to clamber 
along the rocks where, because of the dry season, hun- 
dreds of snakes had- gathered, seemed madness. I was 
well perplexed as to what I should do, and not a little 
frightened. After considering, I determined to climb 
along the rocks, and started out on a really perilous jour- 
ney. I saw snakes from time to time, but these were 
accommodating, and got out of the way, though I was 
constantly in dread of the next step. Scorpions and black 
tarantulas were numerous, and I climbed along the cliffs 
among the black rocks and saw poisonous snakes and 
dreaded insects; with deep shadows about me and here 
and there a radiant beam of sunlight, I was constantly re- 
minded of Dore's illustrations of the Inferno. Weird 
and dangerous as it was, I soon became accustomed to it 
all, and then deeply interested in the strange, wild beauty 
of my surroundings. When I came to the place where I 
had noted the sedimentary rocks, I climbed up to them, 
selected a few small specimens to take back with me, and 
then tying them in a leaf, with a bit of inner bark from 
a convenient trumpet tree, I started on again, carrying 
the little package with my teeth. So I made my way on. 
swimming at times and at others climbing along steep 
rocks. A fall, 'the sting of a poisonous insect or snake 
would probably be fatal, and I was thoroughly tired out 
with excitement as well as from the exertion when I fin- 
ally got over the little cascade, forced my way along the 
side of the swift water above it, and came to the open 
river with an easy swim ahead of me to reach my 
clothes. One can rest beautifully in the water, and by the 
time I reached my guide I was feeling quite rested again. 
A number of people had gathered there, all supposing I 
was dead, and they hardly knew what to say when I 
told ther» where I had been, and I think that none of 
them believed me. Francis C. Nicholas, 
