AtRn. ti, 1903.1 
or his father had ever seen, and at this very moment was 
hiding and liable to be attacked at daylight. With such 
thoughts I went to sleep, and did not awake until near 
daylight. As soon as it began to get light 1 peeped from 
nnder the cover of snow. Looking across the creek I saw 
a fresh trail of some kind, not more than ten feet from 
the bank on the other side from where we lay. We got 
up, crossed over, and there we saw the unmistakable trail 
of old Lew Hubble, easily recognized by the long strides 
he was famous for making when traveling. Another tale 
was told: Cox was killed, the camp destroyed, horses 
stolen and Hubble escaped on foot — for he never would 
have left his companion alive. There was now no use 
icr us to visit the battle ground. Undoubtedly the In- 
dians were still lurking around, would discover Hubble's 
trail and following it, would find ours. Hubble was 
probably miles away, and the sooner we left the better; 
so, with all haste we saddled up and in less time than it 
takes to tell it we were off down the river, without any 
breakfast. It was still cloudy but not snowing. We 
tiaveled all forenoon without seeing anything except buf- 
falo. 
In the afternoon the snow began to fall again in fine 
feathery flakes. My neck was very tired from turning 
and looking in so many different directions. My mule 
was pulling back, the rope being tied around the horn of 
my saddle under my gun sling, and in reaching back to 
pull her along I looked, back and about half a mile away 
saw about forty or more Indian ponies coming on the 
dead run. I could see no Indians, but I well knew that 
each pony carried one. As my lead rope had got wet from 
the snow, I could not untie it. I jerked out my hunting 
knife, hallooed "Indians!" cut the rope, let the mule go, 
and struck out with all speed to cross the river on the ice 
at the head of a long canyon about one-fourth of a mile 
ahead. We had now left the timber on the side of the 
river we were on, and must cross in a hurry. As soon as 
we commenced our run, the Indians knew they were dis- 
covered, so straightened up on their ponies and began 
their wolf-like yelling, which scared the mule almost to 
death. She ran so fast she got in the lead, and was 
bouncing around like a jack rabbit. We were now almost 
at the crossing, when, to my horror, I saw on the other 
side about the same number of Indians on the run, and 
making for the same crossing, and every one of them 
yelling with all his might. What should we do? There 
Vv'as no time to think. Should we kill our horses and 
fight from behind them? Nothing else to do. The tim- 
ber was behind and Indians between it and us, and In- 
dians in front. We were now at the crossing, the mule 
in the lead, and hearing the Indians in front as well_ as 
behind she started sti-aight down the canyon or the ice, 
and almost before we knew what we were doing, we were 
right behind the mule, sharp shod and going like the wind. 
The ice was as clear as glass and hard as flint. We 
ti:rned in our saddles, saw the Indians all on the ice and 
slipping in every direction. They coiddn't make the 
riffle! 
We gave them a few shots and turned a crook in the 
canyon — which, by the way, was several hundred feet 
high and several miles to go around — and were out of 
sight and out of present danger, and safe. Thanks to the 
mule, I felt as if I could kiss her, bless her! About three- 
fourths of a mile down the canyon, immediately at the 
lower end, was the island just above old Fort Pease. The 
island was about one mile long and perhaps half a mile 
wide at the widest place and well timbered, with plenty 
of grass in beautiful meadow-like spots, surrounded by a 
hea^'y growth of cottonwood. When we reached the 
island we felt, for the time, perfectly safe, knowing full 
well that no Indian was going to approach an island where 
white men were known to be in hiding. However, we 
made a cold camp, and after getting plenty of bark for 
our horses went to sleep. Coon Tail. 
Vessel Island. 
Raleigh, N. C. — ^There are many strange things in 
North Carolina, but surely one of the strangest of them 
£ll is a vessel which in forty years has changed from a 
three-masted schooner to an island of exquisite loveliness, 
its masts being trees and its rigging vines. During the 
Civil War there lived in Tyrrell county S. S. Simmons, 
a rich planter, well known by memory to the present old 
inhabitants of the quaint town of Columbia, the county 
seat. Tyrrell is half land and half water at any time, 
but when the wind is from the northeast and the water is 
blown in upon it from the great sounds which form its 
boundary, but little land is left uncovered. It is threaded 
by streams, most of them currentless. During the mid- 
dle period of the Civil War Federal sailors were con- 
tinually scouting in these waters. Practically the only 
means of travel and transportation was then, and is now, 
by boat. The old planter had numbers of boats and ves- 
sels of various descriptions. A short arm or prong of the 
Scuppernong River was the only place of safety for his 
craft, and up this he drew them. The point is what 
is known as the head of navigation, and beyond it the 
boats, which only drew one and a half to two feet of 
water, were taken to safety and could be gotten off again. 
One three-masted schooner, the Wylie Burgess, which he 
used in the lumber trade and which was occasionally on 
filibustering expeditions, was chased by a party of Federal 
sailors up the Scuppernong River. Dusk came on, and 
the schooner turned into the arm or prong referred to, 
which is narrow, and the opening to which is almost 
concealed by dense cypress swamps on either side, with a 
tangle of vines of all kinds and other vegetation, this be- 
ing aided by the immense quantity of tillandsia or gray- 
beard moss which draped every tree and made a veritable 
portiere to the entrance to this quiet lagoon. 
The wind was strong astern and the fleeing schooner, 
when some distance up this haven of safety, went hard 
and fast aground, but was also effectually hidden from 
the enemy. But the vessel was immovable and could 
not be dug out, and so was stripped and left there, merely 
the hull, the masts and the rigging being left. Lee's sur- 
render and the end of the war came, and when quiet 
reigned the planter was called upon to remove this ob- 
struction, but he could do nothing. His money, his slaves, 
his food, all were gone, and nothing was left but broad 
acres of land and water. 
The records show io-d^y that legal ^vpceedings were 
FOREST AND ^STREAM. 
instituted against Mr. Simmons to ferce him to remove 
the obstructing vessel, but even an order of court could 
not make him do the impossible. So to this day, forty 
years since she grounded there, the old schooner still 
rests in the quiet lagoon. It is now a true island, retain- 
ing its boat shape, its gunwales broadly outlined by bands 
of greenest moss and grass, its masts trees growing 
vigorously, and laced together by cabled vines of grape 
and bamboo, which make it a mass of greenery summer 
and winter alike. The whole outline is distinct, and 
standing on the bridge which now spans the lagoon or 
prong, quite near the island-vessel, it requires no effort 
of the imagination to see that nature has here wrought a 
miracle indeed. The sketches which accompany this arti- 
cle, and which were made on the spot by Mr. L. T. Yar- 
borough, lately a member of the State survey party en- 
gaged in the survey of the swamp lands, show this strange 
freak very clearly, both from a distance and near at hand. 
Inquiries ^yere made by the engineers which developed 
the facts given in the story above. 
State Senator Spruill, from the district embracing Tyr- 
rell county, verifies the story in all particulars, and says 
he has seen the vessel-island a thousand times. It is 
shown as the county's greatest curiosity. Mr. Yar- 
borough and Senator Spruill have been on the island. 
The cypress-stained water of the lagoon looks nearly as 
black as ink, and this deepens the effect. The hatches 
look like large sunken graves. Fred A. Olds. 
A Tramp throtjgh Primeval Vermont 
Open a map of Vermont and glance at the strip of 
country lying between the Passumpsic and the Connecticut 
rivers and extending northward to the Canadian line. It is 
a district quite flat, according to the map, and checked 
off into townships with here and there, at intervals timidly 
wide, the name of a pond or stream. No network of black 
lines representing roads vexes the eye, while names with 
such a far away sound as "Cow Mountain" and "Moose 
River" add to your conviction that here, extending into 
the midst of civiHzation, is a veritable arm of the wilder- 
ness. It is a land of untamed forest, health-giving air, 
pure water, absolute silence, of every quality, in fine, that 
gives to one the sense of living close to nature. The 
grosser attractions, too, of fish and game will prove suffi- 
cient to satisfy the saner taste which is beginning slowly 
but surely to penetrate our ideals of sport. 
The easiest way to enter this miniature wilderness is to 
go by rail to some point on its eastern margin along the 
upper Connecticut and then follow one of the moun- 
tain streams which pour their cold waters into the river. 
The country becomes more and more elevated as one goes 
westward until it rises at last into a line of high hills 
and mountains whose western slopes fall steeply toward 
the Passumpsic. These heights at once confront you if 
you enter from the west and the trails are far more 
difficult ; but the distance to the heart of the wilderness is 
less and the transition from civilization is more abrupt. 
We chose the western route. 
Half an hour's walk from the little village of East 
Haven took us fairly into the woods. The first few miles 
of the trail had been almost totally obliterated by that 
untidiest of earth's children, the lumberman, who had 
piled upon it all the debris of his misnamed clearings. 
But we struggled on by the aid of the compass, crossed 
the divide separating the A^alleys of the Passumpsic and 
the Connecticut, and toward evening entered a little clear- 
ing, where stood our first hostelry in the wilderness, a 
bark lean-to. 
Everywhere in this_ region we found these forest inns, 
v/ell located with a view to the best hunting and fishing, 
and, in lieu of rent, kept in some sort of repair by the few 
guests that visit them each year. They are built of birch 
and hemlock bark and accommodate comfortably four or 
five sleepers. The one before us fronted on a brook whose 
water seemed as brown as coft'ee. In the rear rose the 
unbroken forest of spruce, fir and hemlock, interspersed 
with deciduous trees, most numerous among which were 
the white and yellow birch and the sugar maples. 
The first hours in camp are busy ones. The packs are 
laid aside. The lean-to, which looks a bit pervious to 
rain, is patched by those of the party who rank as "skilled 
1,'bor," while the others hew birch logs enough to last out 
the night and gather hemlock twigs for the bed. These 
and mmierous other tasks must be performed before the 
camp is habitable. And yet there is always time for some- 
one to test the brook, as if to assure us that the trout are 
really there. 
But it is when the first woodland meal has been eaten 
and the primitive dinner service put away that the time 
283 
n I r- rrr - -- ■ -Tn,-iT.. - i ii. ii ir n . i t 
comes which one loves best in camp. With your pipe 
lighted you sit or recline at full length upon the blanket 
above the springy boughs, watch the crackling birch logs 
and the oily blaze of the bark, and feel perfectly content. 
It is a sensation as old as humanity., You get a taste of it 
by your own fireside at home, but to feel its full power 
you must reproduce the conditions of primitive man, 
shape a rude shelter in the lonely forest, hew the wood 
and build the fire with your own hands. Then and then 
only shall you know it to the full. Nor is that after time 
v.'ithout its peculiar pleasure when, having rolled your- 
self in your blanket, feet to the fire in Indian fashion, 
and having slept off your first weariness, you awake to 
find the fire burning low and casting ruddy gleams over 
your sleeping comrades, while outside in the forest all is 
silent save for the purl of the brook and the ghostly cry of 
some night bird. Then suddenly there comes over you the 
overpowering mystery of the woods; the steepling trees, 
the moonlit clouds, the flowing air of night— everything 
about you seems overfull of a meaning you cannot 
fathom. You only know that it is good to live. 
The brown brook, brown only because of its bed,, for 
the water when dipped into a glass was of colorless purity, 
was to be our almost constant companion until we reached 
the Connecticut. It is well to be sure of your traveling 
companions, and so it was decided that two of us who 
were strangers to the brook should spend the first day in 
formmg a more intimate acquaintance, while the other 
two followed the trail to inspect our next camp, 
A day's ramble along an unfamiliar trout stream in the 
vjrgm forest! Can anything appeal more deeply to the 
heart of the forest lover who has been shut away from 
such thmgs for a year? The dewy bushes still breathe 
forth the coolness of the night, the brook flashes past, 
leadmg you on through sunlight and shadow to surprises 
ever new— now a series of foaming cascades, where you 
clamber with care down the face of boulders slippery 
from the spray, now beneath the branches of some ancient 
cedar whose gnaried majesty you must pause for a 
moment to survey. And constantly you are lured onward 
by the angler's instinct that bids you test the contents 
of just one more pool; and that is why fishermen are 
always late home. We were still on the upper waters of 
the stream and the trout did not in any case exceed a 
half pound in weight, but they were numerous and 
hungry, and as we climbed back through 'the ravine to 
camp we were quite satisfied. Some philosopher has re- 
marked that "It is not all of fishing to fish," but if you are 
a true disciple of old Izaak, it is no less true that there 
is no real fishing without some fish. The presence of so 
many trout in that ravine added just the little touch that 
rendered our day perfect. 
Unknown Pond ! How the very name suggests the wil- 
derness undefiled! To this little mountain tarn, one of 
many which he at different points along the stream, 
separated from it by a few miles of forest, we moved on 
the third day. But trials were in store for us first. If 
you have ever experienced a series of violent thunder- 
storms m the woods you will be able to appreciate our 
lot for the next thirty-six hours. About two o'clock 
m the morning we were aroused by the roll of thunder, 
and soon came the heavy downpour of rain. The 
lean-to was tight, however, and we remained dry, but 
It was a cold and cheerless' breakfast that we snatched 
between the showers. The brook became in a few 
hours a raging torrent, sweeping away two of our 
precious cakes of soap, which were two feet above the 
water when we left them on the preceding evening. 
All day and far into the night a succession of storms 
swept over that forest. Some passed around us and 
some did not, but never for more than a few minutes 
at a time was the sound of thunder absent from our 
ears. By good luck the trail to the pond was com- 
paratively free from brush, which in rainy weather iis 
wetter than a shower bath, and the distance was but 
SIX miles, so that by dodging between the showers we 
arrived in fairly dry condition. 
Our activity at Unknown Pond was restricted to 
the interior of the lean-to. Fortunately for us this 
was a marvel of good workmanship and shed the heavy 
ram perfectly, but outside everything was afloat. The 
whole landscape was blurred with rain. But he is no 
true lover of nature who cannot bear with her when 
she frowns, and as I think of that snug lean-tOj the 
•steaming campfire, and the songs with which we en- 
livened the night, I would not have had it otherwise. 
Of all our camps, the last and the best was that at 
"the forks." In a cozy clearing, between the two main 
branches of the stream, stood a little wooden shanty 
about eight feet by ten, containing a small stove. After 
