04 
FQREST AND STREAM. 
• — 
mountaineers' shooting seem improbable is the Condi- 
tion of their fire arms. Many of them have supposed 
that my Colts was new simply because the barrel was 
clean and greasy. Their revolvers have the nickle rusted 
off the outside and the grooves inside thick with powder, 
unlike the weapon one sees on the hips of western bad 
men. 
Being court week the town was crowded. So were the 
hotels. The three beds in my room had nine men in 
them. One boy slept on the floor. Of the nine, at least 
rive had been shot at. One was Carpenter. Carpenter 
had been shot at from ambush by four or six men. He 
Went down with seven projectiles in or through him, 
four rifle balls. He drew his own revolver then, and by 
moonlight killed two and wounded one of his assailants, 
who had mistaken him for another man. The mistake 
was generally regretted. 
Marion Legere was one of my bedmates. We were all 
abed when the attempt on Marion's life on Saturday and 
Baldwin were mentioned. 
"I'll tell you, boys," Marion said, "things are getting 
so now that nobody knows who'll be shot at next. 
There's got to be something done. If they don't hang 
them for shooting men nobody will be safe." 
His voice had the limp in it that a tired man's has. 
But after the sigh I heard his teeth click. 
Tuesday morning there was an inch and a half of snow 
on the ground, melting. The long mountain to the north 
presented a curious appearance. The top trees were 
white with frost, but two-thirds of the way down the ridge 
the frost was thawed, or had not been. The brown mass 
below and the sharply marked whitest gray layer above 
made a memorable scene. 
After breakfast several were sitting before the fireplace ; 
I was by a window writing, when a man came in and sat 
down by the fireplace, slewed his chin around to half 
face me, then demanded: 
"Who are you?" 
I didn't realize I was being spoken to and went on 
writing. 
"Who are you?" came the demand. I looked up. The 
talking at the fireplace had stopped and all eyes were 
looking more or less at me. The speaker was a dark- 
featured, brown-eyed, black-haired and mustached man; 
short, burly and of active Italian appearance. 
I told him my name. 
"Where ye from?" sharply. 
I closed my note book, turned my chair to face him — 
wanted time to think— then said "New York" as slowly 
as possible. 
"Whatche doin' yere?" 
For the first time on that side trip I didn't answer that 
question instantly. 
"I'm attending to my own business," I replied, as 
clearly as I could, with a grin that didn't please the ques- 
tioner, and stopped his further inquiries. He got up 
and left. I asked later if the shotgun in the corner was 
loaded. Mrs. Nichols said "yes." "Buckshot?" I in- 
quired. "Yes." I fancy that my feelings at that time 
were like those of Ace Jones, of which he said: "I 
knowed that if I got the best main springs put into my 
gun and pistol, those friends I could trust." 
Carpenter followed me up-stairs a few minutes after 
the talk. He said, when we were alone: 
"I didn't like the way that man talked to you." I 
would not have been "friendless" there in case of diffi- 
culty. * 
He didn't know who the man was, but the fellow was 
from Jim Wright's country, and I- had asked a good 
many questions about Jim from Jim's friends and ene- 
mies, from his wife, who was in town, and his sister, 
Mrs. Aaron Templeton. I tried to see Jim, and probably 
would have seen him if his lawyers had been going his 
way. But all were suspicious of me. 
The Lawson boys were brought out to the court room- 
very pale and very fat they were, unpleasant, low-browed 
young fellows, whose eyes moved with jerks. The sheriff 
and two or three deputies accompanied them. They sat 
in the court seeing every move of the lawyers, almost 
sure of escaping conviction, and certain not to hang, no 
matter how guilty they were. A change of venue was 
granted, so I missed the trial. 
That afternoon I got Dick Green's side of the Jones- 
Green feud, told in a whining voice, and having seen 
everybody that I could see I felt able to start for Rogers- 
ville. That night the room was again crowded. While 
we were sitting round the stove before going to bed, my 
questioner came into the room and sat down near me. I 
turned my chair toward his, put my foot where it would 
give me purchase for a jump at him, if need be, and 
watched him without let up. He didn't like the gaze a 
bit— shifted under it— asked who I said I was, and then 
left the room. I went to sleep thinking about the long 
road to Rogersville and its logs and rocks. 
Raymond S. Spears. 
Maple Sugar in Champlain Valley. 
Essex, N. Y., March 26.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
Just now in coming up the village street from the post 
office to my house, I noticed a red squirrel hanging back 
downward on the limb of a maple tree above my head. 
I stopped a moment and saw that he was greedily licking 
up the sweet maple sap which ran alcng the lower side of 
the limb from a wound made by one of the winter's 
storms. As I stood and watched him 1 heard a patter, 
patter on the leaves, and looking around observed that 
the sap was dripping to the ground from a score of 
places in this and other trees, indicating the fact that 
another good sugar run was on. In the near-by pines 
and spruces the blackbirds were discussing summer plans, 
but out in the lake the ice was still groaning and the 
mountains are still white with snow. 
After several very poor seasons, we are at last having 
a. first-class run of maple sap, and maple sugar will be. 
abundant and cheap. The farmer does not profit by these 
big runs, however, and neither does the average consumer 
of maple syrup, which is the important part of the crop 
to the majority of people, the cake sugar output being 
of minor importance, and the soft sugar going mostly to 
manufacturers. The man who profits is the maple syrup 
bottler, who buys the genuine article only for the flavor 
and gets bulk and the rich syrupy appearance by the ad- 
dition of glucose at a cent and three-quarters a pound. 
As a commentary on the practice, it is said that the so- 
called "pine Vermont maple syrup" can be purchased in 
any State in the Union cheaper than it can be bought in 
Vermont, where they have a heavy penalty for adultera- 
tion. The effect of this law is to force the farmers who 
are the producers to sell to the bottlers and canners who 
take good care to get their adulterated product clear of 
the State before marketing. It isn't safe for the farmers 
to doctor their own goods. The manufacturers are safe 
in purchasing stock in farmers' packages, but they will 
not deal among themselves, for even the spoiled cake 
sugar turned out by these men is not what it purports to 
be, and the chances are it contains all the adulterant it 
will stand. 
Glucose is neither sweet nor wholesome, but it has a 
thick syrupy beauty and greatly improves the naturally 
thin appearance of genuine maple syrup. 
Professor Hallock, of Columbia, once told me that he 
has visited a glucose factory in Brooklyn where the com- 
mercial article is manufactured from rags and street 
sweepings. Sulphuric acid is the vehicle of conversion, 
by means of which the cellulose eventually becomes a 
sugar. Theoretically, the acid is all removed, but for 
practical purposes enough remains to render the glucose 
unwholesome. Up here in New York State bee keepers 
know that to feed it is sure death to their bees. When 
the honey gives out they winter bees on sugar, but the 
cheaper glucose kills just about as quickly as any other 
kind of poison.. 
The only safe way to get genuine maple sugar or 
maple syrup, is to purchase directly from the farmer, and 
while one is about it, it is well to find out a man who has 
a reputation as a good sugar maker, and who by his care 
and experience preserves the distinctive, fascinating flavor 
of this, the simplest and purest of nature's sweets. 
J. B. B. 
— ♦ — 
^Wild Traits in Domestic Cats. 
Companion of the home and fireside, the most domes- 
tic of animals peculiarly lends itself to observation and 
analysis, and of such adaptation to introspective inquisi- 
tion is this study the fruit. Though its views may not 
command the convictions, it may induce the interested 
consideration of all who may favor or merely tolerate 
"the harmless, necessary cat." 
While it is difficult, as Darwin shows, to satisfac- 
torily determine the ancestry of the cat, it seems clear 
that it was a former denizen of grassy plains in a not 
inclement clime. It lacks the spotted pelt so characteristic 
of the leopard and other forest cats, a marking that 
harmonizes more with a background of leaves than with 
one of grass or shrub stalks. Our panther, only in some 
localities a forest cat, is not so marked, but then its young 
have spots, and their absence upon the domestic kitten 
implies that the present habit of the species is the heritage 
of ages. So long has that habit been fixed that the cat has 
ceased to be an expert climber; like a bear it descends a 
tree backward, and when lofty heights are inadvertently 
attained, it often- fears to descend, and vocalizes its, dis- 
tress unceasingly. Evidence of apcestral lowly life also 
survives in its disposition, upon the approach of a human 
being that it fears, to squat motionless upon the ground, 
thus indicating a former habit of hiding in grass or other 
cover. Again, when its prey eludes its initial leap, it will 
actively pursue, not abandoning the chase when so 
baulked as do the larger cats ; its speed for short distances 
being certainly equal to that of most animals of its size. 
Finally, its habit of patient watchfulness may be accepted 
as evidence that its prey was largely the burrowing 
rodents — creatures not usually the denizens of the forest. 
Although the identity of the ancestral species of 
ground cat remains undetermined, divers attributes of 
its domesticated descendant indicate that it maintained 
an arduous struggle for existence. Among the foes, great 
and small, with which this puny creature contended, prob- 
ably the most deadly was the snake. Both cat and reptile 
foraged for the same provender, patrolled the same 
coverts, and the resulting strife must have been the occa- 
sion of great feline mortality. Prowling in darkness 
through dense vegetation, the cat exercised the keenest 
observation, the most strained attention, watchful, too, it 
had need to be of enemies other than the dreaded snake 
as well as of the prey it sought, and .thus to kill or be 
killed was the ever-haunting question of its existence. To 
such constant tension of the faculties may reasonably be 
attributed the animal's acute nervous sensibility, some- 
times manifested in very marked degree. The writer 
recalls a highly nervous cat that was accustomed, if 
startled by a sibilant noise, to leap vertically upward, 
falling back -into its tracks. Not improbably its involun- 
tary movement was due to an awakened ancestral im- 
pulse; its remote forbears, in wary prowl, having been 
accustomed to associate the direful sound with the pres- 
ence of its mortal enemy, Its upward spring would 
baulk the reptile's forward dart, and flight or combat 
could then have been the animal's choice. 
Protective mimicry, as every reader of Darwin and 
Wallace knows, is of frequent manifestation in animals; it 
is thus plausibly urged that the hissing, spitting and 
associated attitude of the cat is a mimicry of the hostile 
challenge, and posture of its dreaded foe. Thus the 
extended and amplified tail is a suggestion of the up- 
lifted portion of the snake, the huddled body, of the 
coil, which appearances, with the accompanying hiss, 
issuing from the concealment of the grass, would tend, 
especially at night, to impress an enemy with the belief 
that the encounter was reptilian rather than feline. Ani- 
mals yield readily to first impressions, and, not being 
reasoning creatures, act upon them without analysis ; 
thus they are lured to destruction by delusive appearances 
or imitative calls. Even the wary cat is easily imposed 
upon. A mother, for instance, may be driven almost 
frantic by a simulation of the male caterwaul, the alarmed 
animal's solicitude for its progeny being not unlikely an 
awakened ancestral apprehension. It may thus be inferred 
that the Thomas of by-^gone ages was sometimes impelled, 
like the male tiger and other carnivora, to devour his own 
offspring, an indulgence that many would be disposed to 
commend, his one unpardonable sjn, the offense that 
brings obloquy upon his tribe, being his exasperating 
caterwaul. . 
The runways of the cat's urban habitat are narrow, 
necessitating frequent encounters ; the character of the 
resulting vociferation varying with the anger or the 
prowess of the disputants, sometimes the voice of one, 
usually a tenor, is dominant, that of the other being heard | 
as a basso interlude. In this ca?e the leading vocaliaa- 
tion is that of the aggressive animal, the choler incident 
to such primary role causing the falsetto, while its calmer 
opponent, in more passive attitude, responds with'ful- 
minations "not loud but deep." There are _ occasions 
when the wail of the leading peace disturber is a weird 
suggestion of the human voice, 1 such distressful variation 
being, perhaps, as much due to the individual quality of 
the voice as to the degree of anger expressed thereby. It 
is, however, the outcry of two fiercely enraged animals 
that occasions the most horrid discord; then ensue the 
fitful bed-tossings, the smothered imprecation, perhaps an 
upflung window and a discharge of missiles into dark- 
ness, the ferocious human critic not usually being sensible 
that the voice of his own species, in its extreme mani- 
festation of anger, pain or terror, becomes also painfully 
harsh and shrill. A large portion of these vocal contests 
result in a mutually inglorious but gradual retreat, an 
appearance of precipitation inviting attack, and so, with 
gentle diminuendo, the performance ends. 
The caterwaul may be regarded as a challenge as well 
as an expression of rage, such as the males of most ani- 
mals vociferate from greater or less distances. Thus 
Captain Forsyth 2 describes a male tiger, breathing his 
defiance at night with "a long Wail, like the drawn-out 
mew of a huge cat," the response of a far-off rival there- 
upon following, "pitched in a yet deeper tone" ; the 
approaching animals, at intervals, repeating their cries, 
which, after a prolonged silence, were renewed, apparently 
upon their meeting, as "outburts of infernal shrieking and 
moaning," the latter intermittently hushed, gradually dy- 
ing away. The trumpetings of defiance with which most 
rival animals approach each other usually cease upon their 
meeting, and active proceedings thereupon begin; but 
the cat's battle cry is reserved for close quarters, and its 
breath may long fan the faces ©f the raging disputants 
without provoking an actual conflict. This unique pro- 
cedure should find its explanation in the habit of. the 
ancestral animal, which probably restricted itself to the 
neighborhood of an unchanged abode, as may be inferred 
from the strong local attachments of its present-day 
descendants. Over this vicinage it not unlikely assumed, 
with respect to its own species, a suzerainty, and the 
invasion of its domain was an overt act, a casus belli. 
The mighty tiger can make his realm reverberate with 
the volume of his nocturnal challenge, and none, save his 
kind, will seek to bar his path; but the weakness of his 
pigmy relative, its multitude of foes, necessitated the 
utmost guardedness. It was not a far wanderer, it dared 
not load the winds of night with menaces to unseen 
rivals; an unceasingly watchful scout, its advance was 
stealthy and circumspect, giving no tongue tmtil in con- 
tact with an antagonist. Accustomed to rear or to secret 
attack, the determined front and flaming eye of its op- 
ponent was disconcerting, and it wrought itself to the 
requisite pitch by screams that, acting upon its acute 
nervous sensibility, excited the frenzy of battle, in which 
respect it is not without human imitators. 
The cat's hostile vociferation may, moreover, be, in 
part, occasioned by the animal's consciousness that it 
inflicts the suffering it probably endures, for its impressi- 
bility is often excessive; some cats are intolerant of shrill 
noises, of which aversion the writer recalls an instance?. 
One of the family pets was peculiarly sensible of acute 
sounds, of the treble notes of a piano or other instrument; 
but particularly of whistling. Its antipathy was at first 
doubted, inasmuch as it Avould walk about with gently 
arched spine, its tail a heavenly index, and, 'at intervals, 
rubbing itself against the performer. One day, however, 
when a particularly stirring march was being piped for 
the ambulatory cat, it jumped upon the piano and placing 
its paw upon the whistler's pursed-up lips, effectively 
blocked the source of an evident annoyance. 
Other instances could be given of aversion to such 
sounds; but, while of only exceptional manifestation, a 
peculiar sensibility thereto is undoubtedly common to the 
species. Mice have a very shrill squeak, that emitted 
during play being often, apparently, beyond the range of 
the ordinary human ear. Puss' auditory appreciation has, 
however, kept pace with the evolution of this protective 
form of chatter, it being a matter of common observation 
that a seemingly sleeping cat will suddenly and mysteri- 
ously rouse itself, go to a distant portion of the room, and 
squat in watchful scrutiny of the wall. Nevertheless, per- 
sons of unimpaired hearing, sitting much nearer the 
seeming source of the creature's emotion, may remain 
entirely unconscious of any disturbance of the prevailing 
quietude. 
The cat's coaxing demonstrations, such as were em- 
ployed by the animal ajluded to in its endeavor to induce 
the cessation of an objectionable noise, are customary 
incidents of its courtship. Its deportment in this respect 
is suggestive of that of the turkey and the peacock, and 
although the ostentation and display are less evident, there 
is substantially the same measured walk, the same up- 
lifted banner, and the same posturing and parading. 
When the cat seeks to please, placate or persuade a human 
being, it addresses itself just as it does to one of its own 
species; it endeavors to exhibit itself in its most charm- 
ing attitudes, to display its curving form, its graceful walk 
to the utmost advantage, and, finally, like the turkey 
gobbler, to set forth an impressive narrative. The crea- 
ture's peculiar habit of rubbing against persons and 
objects appears to be a smoothing of its fur, a smarten- ■ 
ing of its appearance, and, as an evidence of a desire 
to gain favor, the action is comparable with the fop's 
stroking his mustache, or the coquette's smoothing of 
her hair, cajoleries of not infrequent resort in the con- 
fabulations of the sexes. 
The cat's elaborate and painstaking toilet impelled its 
early Aryan domesticators to give it the name of "mar- 
a This peculiarity seems to have been marked in the catamount 
or panther; its fearful scream, breaking the nocturnal stillness, 
was wont to send a thrill of horror through the lone settlements. 
Thompson's "History of Vermont," Part I,, page 37. 
^"Highlands of Central India," p. 391. 
