302 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. i8, 1902. 
**Ovct the Long: Divide." 
In response to Shoshone, "Be3'ond the Long Divide,"' 
in Forest and Stream^ Sept. 13, 1902. 
"OA-er the Long Divide" ? with anxious thought 
Man has an answer to this question sought, 
What lies bej'ond? The entire human race, 
Chaldea, Syria, Egypt, Greece and Rome. 
Have crossed the crest to an unfathomed home, 
Nor knew the semblance of that dwelling place 
That waited tliera : with portals dark and wide 
Beyond the summit of the Long Divide. 
Over the Lcng Divide? the endless streams 
Of passing mortals leave us but their dreams, 
The Hindoo of Nirvana, while on fields Elysian 
The Greek and Roman sported, and the souls 
Of Odin's warriors drained their wassail bowls; 
Saint John in his Apocalyptic vision 
Bland choral symphonies, resounding wide 
From golden harps, beyond the Long Divide. 
Beyond the Lcng Divide, the Indian found 
Wide prairies spread, a happy hunting ground; 
No dreams agreed, Hope colored every thought. 
Eternal Hope ! the only gift of Heaven 
Left in the casket by Pandora riven. 
Although no answering message she has brought, 
Illumed by Faith, she's yet the only guide 
To light the traveler o'er the Long Divide ! 
Vox W. 
The Self-Reliance of Piscator. 
BY HENRY WYSHAM LAXIER. 
Piscator had theories concerning guides. 
"It's a radically false idea of sport." he declared at the 
breakfast table. "If there's anything at all in fishing, it's 
a test of a man's intelligence and skill and tackle against 
a fish — an individual contest. But when a guide puts 
my rod together, and chooses the cast, and soaks out a 
leader, and fastens on the flies, and paddle? me in his 
canoe to a spot he selects, and tells me where to cast and 
how to play the salmon, and then to finish up with, nets 
the fish when he is tired out— whose skill does that par- 
tictilar landlock victim represent? I'll be hanged if it's 
mine." 
Piscator had warmed to his subject while the cakes 
and maple syrup grew cold. Glancing around after this 
peroration, he intercepted a look from the Peri, which 
sent his coffee the wrong way and caused him to pass 
her father the pickles instead of the doughnuts, to the 
infinite disgust of that purple-gilled old warrior. It took 
some moments of chaff from the other men to recover 
his equilibrium, for the Peri was exceedingly good to 
look upon, and up to this time she had gazed neither 
to the right nor to the left. Piscator felt his position 
trebly impregnable. 
"Why, look at that steel-rod duffer," said he, "who lets 
Jerry hook half his fish, then simply socks it into 'em 
with his iron pole and a twisted gut leader — and sends 
home box after box of salmon to his admiring relatives 
in "Wareham, Massachusetts.' Put that creature on his 
own resources, and he'd be food for the fish in twenty- 
four hours, instead of boring every living thing he meets 
with his "score' for each day of the week." 
"After all, though, he isn't quite representative, even 
of the sportsmen of this place; is he?" asked the Peri. 
"I'll admit he's the limit, as the boys say," Piscator 
hastened to reply. "But he's merely an exaggeration of 
the same principle which you'll find in nine-tenths of the 
city man's sport. The fellow who goes out to shoot a deer 
or'a moose is led by the guide, provided he doesn't get 
tired, till he gets a si.ght of the poor beast, and then, if 
he isn't too nervous, our mighty nimrod pumps lead into 
him. He might as well, so far as sport goes, drive a cow 
into the woods and fill her full of dum-dum bullets. Soon 
wt'M be as bad as the Briti.sher who sits on his lawn, 
.with brandy and soda bottles handy and an attendant 
holding the guns, lest he get wearied, while his flunkies 
beat up the coverts and make the home-raised pheasants 
- fly over him!" 
"Did you ever try a double on a pair of pheasants com- 
ing down with the wind?" asked Grafton, the English- 
man. 
"No; and I'm not particularly keen to. I'll grant you 
lots of those chaps can shoot all around me; but the3''ve 
lost all idea of true sport and the pleasures of self- 
reliance as completely as the Long Island magnate who 
casts into a stagnant pond swarming with logy, liver- 
fed trout." 
The honors of the morning were clearly, with Piscator, 
but under the rays from the Peri's eyes he inflated like a 
hot-air balloon, until forbearance became a difficult virtue. 
"Excuse me, sir," remarked the Colonel, "but did I 
not observe you during these last few days in the com- 
pany of Peter the Dane ?" 
"Yes, sir." Piscator flushed. 'Tt's true that my theory 
won't hold absolutely, for the average man doesn't have 
time to learn even the rudiments in his few weeks of 
fishing or hunting at any given place. Consequently he's 
obliged to submit to this degrading tutelage until he 
knows the ropes. But I'm not going to keep it up." 
This happened upon a Wednesday. The next night, 
true to his determination, Piscator dismissed the be- 
v,?i]dered Peter, finding it necessary to soothe that worthy's 
smarting and pitzzled professional dignity by a substantial 
addition to his bill and repeated assurances that one of 
the two best guides he had ever struck in all his experi- 
ence was named Peter the Dane — ^l^ut that he thought he 
would just knock about by himself for a few days. 
Now it chanced that at dinner the Peri had turned, up 
her already fascinating retrousse no.se at, the broiled sal- 
mon. "They are beautiful," said she to her father Avith 
finality; "and they skip like young" lambs when they're 
hooked; and I'll admit ever}' quality of gameness you 
choose. But the}^ are not very good eating to begin with, 
and I'm tired to death of them." 
Piscator decided to go a-trouting next day in Bonny 
Brook. He knew nothing about it except what he had 
gleaned from rough maps and from Peter — and a re- 
membrance of having crossed the stream on the thirteen- 
mile drive from the railroad. But no matter; it would 
be a welcome change, it would signalize his emancipation 
— and what more felicitous votive offering for the shrine 
at the nor'west corner of the table than an unexpected 
dish of delicately browned pink-fleshed trout, secured by 
his OAvn unaided craft? Clearly a direct and manifest 
inspiration. 
flight o'clock next morning fotmd him with an after- 
breakfast pipe swinging along the high road at a five-mile 
gait, rod and landing net in cases under his arm. He 
had decided not to be conspicuous and spoil his surprise 
by either an early start or an announcement of his inten- 
tions. The robin and song sparrows and martens were 
filling the air with a conversational medley in spite of the 
lowering clouds and fog. A few moments of rigid self- 
analysis, following a comparison of his case with theirs, 
ltd Piscator to the conclusion that his own exhilaration 
in the face of the muggy atmosphere was due to two 
causes — the entire freedom and solitarj' dependence on his 
own resources, and, perhaps quite equally, the remem- 
brance of an appointment at half-past one to teach the 
Peri how to catch a salmon off the old dock by the 
canal. While apparently contradictory, these two causes 
were really harmonious, for he felt sure it was his pro- 
nouncement of the true principles of sport which had 
brought the prize to him rather than that red-faced and 
insuiferably familiar Grafton. Pie could remenilier her 
very words, "We women," she had said, with the most 
enticing humility, "aren't like men and can't be self- 
reliant. The world seems to have settled it for us that 
we shall be dependent and have at every step instructors 
and protectors." (Piscator had blinked rapidly several 
times at this.) "But if we must be taught, let it be by a 
thorough sportsman and a gentleman, not by a day 
laborer who happens to make a profession of guiding." 
Piscator broke into a vigorous whistling of a randy- 
dandy march tune, setting his pace to keep time. 
After what seemed like a very long two miles, he met 
an old man walking into town who directed him to the 
trail through the woods which he had been told met the 
brook a mile or two above where it crossed the road. 
With this timely help he struck the correct path a little 
further on, and after fifteen minutes' brisk walk'ng be- 
tween the almost impenetrable young growth of spruce 
and birch and hemlock, he descended the slope of a beau- 
tiful little valley at the foot of which beneath a line of 
tall grass and alders purled a hidden streamlet. 
He jointed his rod with trembling fingers — for he 
wanted trout badly, and did not feel entire certainty of his 
ability — ^another humiliating proof, he told himself, of the 
truth of his theory. It took .some time to do this, and to 
rig a cast of a Parmacheene-belle and a green-drake, for 
the day was one of those close, heavy-aired, smothery 
ones in which the infernal legions of black flies and mos- 
quitoes rage nnghtily; so that, bearing the full brunt of 
the attack in the myriad-swarming enemy's own strong- 
hold, Piscator had to pause for a thorough coating of tar 
and pennyroyal "dope" on face and hands. With every 
exposed surface glistening oilily, a pipe going, collar 
turned up and hat brim pulled down all around, it became 
possible to look about and consider the question of trout 
once more. 
Cautiously approaching the bank in this little clearing, 
he deftly cast ten feet around a jutting overleaning clump 
of alders. Hardly had the fly touched the invi-sible water 
Avhen there Avas a thrilling tug, a splash, and Avith a busi- 
ness-like yank Piscator urged a handsome quarter-pound 
trout, all gleaming red and yellow and live brown, into 
the capacious landing net. He passed from doubt to 
triumph in a twinkling; the thing was ridiculously easy 
if a man could but get down to first principles and <lo 
it all for himself ; and such a zestful flavor was not to 
be had of a ten-pounder secured by a personally con- 
ducted expedition. Two more fish came out of this 
corner, but he decided they were too small to keep beside 
the first capture, so he moved on down stream. 
The going became rather difficult after leaving this par- 
tially cleare'd .space. The line caught a dozen times in a 
hundred feet while pushing one's way through the dense 
growth ; often five minutes' patient maneuvering was 
necessary before the flies could be induced to drop on the 
surface of a shallow pool ten feet away; and before long 
he had to take alternately to the stream bed and the shore 
to make any progress. But he fished every yard oi it 
conscientiously, crawling on his hands and knees to likely 
spots and sliding the rod through the branches till the 
flies could be flipped out ; Avorking doAvn and up the riffles 
and SAvift water with minute care; greasing face and 
hands and reloading pipe every noAV and then to miti- 
gate the insect pests; and after two hours of arduous 
labor he found himself, hot and breathless, a^ mile down 
stream, Avith a brace of ten-inch trout in his net. He 
was never able to decide quite finally Avhether or no he 
had Avished to let go all of the three smafler fish Avhich 
had been hooked, bitt not brought to bag; there are dis- 
tinctions almost too fine to draw accurately betAveen care- 
less handling and actual releasing; and an escaped trout 
seems larger in the retrospect Avith only two in hand. 
But he was pretty Avell content. They were his \'ery own ; 
there was still over an hour's fishing of the larger brook 
in which to make up a respectable half-dozen ; and then 
dinner and the Peri. 
Presently the bushes became even thicker, and a still, 
deep pool, so closely overhung as to make fishing impo.s- 
sible, drove him out on the left-hand bank. He had 
thought progress diffictdt before, but this absolutely flat 
land and its intertwining undergrowth tried the temper. 
Upon attempting to Avork his way back to the stream, 
which had seemed to be turning to the left, he met soft 
ooze and marsh grass, shoAving that the brook fifty feet 
beyond must have ceased its floAV. Of course he knew 
enough about trout to realize that this sort of a quagmire 
was no place for them; so he Avent on, stumbling over the 
roots that stuck out of the soft earth, raked fore and aft by 
the greenbriers, and forced to stop continually while he 
Avent back to loose the line from the leaves or unhooked 
trom a twig the net in which he Avas carrying his two trout. 
Half a dozen times, too, he had to drop everything and 
cut the hook of the dangling dropper fly from his coat, in 
which it had buried itself. 
These vexatious small hindrances harrassed him, their 
cumulative effect being to raise both the physical and 
mental temperature to some degrees beyond the com- 
fortable normal ; but he stuck to his task doggedly and 
floundered along, assuring himself that he must come soon, 
to swift water or to the place where the stream crossed 
the road. 
After traversing Avhat seemed, even alloAving for the 
difficulties, Avell over a mile, and finding no change of 
outlook or direction, the swamp began to get softer vm- 
c'erfoot and darker Avith hemlock and tamarack ahead. 
For the hundredth time he reasoned it out, Avondering if 
this could possibh' be a deadwater slough forming an 
offset from the brook. It Avas just conceivable that the 
real stream Avent straight ahead or turned the other Avay 
beyond the point Avhere he had left it; anyhoAV, he decided, 
the road Avas certainly on the other side of all this mud 
and Avater, and if the infernal slough did lead Avay doAvn 
to the big marshes he had observed miles back wheti 
driving over — and the prospect ahead was steadily grow- 
ing Avorse instead of better — he Avould do better on the 
opposite bank. 
So -he turned to retrace his steps. But this plausible 
logic was a serious admission, as he found by his shaking 
hands upon lighting a fresh pipe. "Noav keep cool." he 
adjured himself aloud, "and don't be a cliildish idiot." 
However, it is difficult to bluff the inner ego — Avho has' as 
an opponent the distinctly unfair advantage of oinniscience 
— and Piscator found himself somewhat in the condition 
described by Heine — brain repeating Kant's "Critique of 
Pure Reason" to substantiate its disbelief in ghosts. Avhile 
flying heart and prickly scalp and chilly .spine did in- 
voluntary homage to the mysterious apparition. The 
A^ery simplicity of the thing made its difficult solution 
unexpected, out of reason, exasperating. 
It took some time to reach the end of the swift water 
where he had left the brook. Splashing across and work- 
ing doAvn on the other side, he found it did turn aliruptly 
to the left where it became still, and he was again forced 
away from the water by -soft mud and tangled bushes. 
So he set his teeth and voAved he'd stay beside it till it 
crossed the road if he had to walk all day, for cross it 
must somewhere. 
This determination was eminently satisfactory until he 
reflected upon the Peri. What in the Avorld Avould she 
think if he Avere late for his engagement? Already it was 
near the dinner hour, and he must reach the highAvay 
speedily to be in time. He advanced Avith fresh energy, 
though making slower progress as the half-obliterated 
trail began to run through and under .spruces, Avhile jagged 
tree trunks across and along it often completely blocked 
the way, and every ten steps the omnipresent alders and 
bn-ches laid hold of tip or fine. 
After going much further apparently than on the other 
side, he came to^ the same sort of- tract that had turned 
him there^ — a Avail of evergreens, and beyond black ooze 
and an ever-thickening tangle of snaky-rooted alders. He 
stopped for a itioment for breath, mopping his forehead, 
which streamed oil and perspiration; then, again en- 
couraging himself aloud, he plunged head first through 
the spruce barrier, the more energetically since he was 
forced to admit that a real panic was making earnest 
efforts to take possession of his— and had almost suc- 
ceeded. 
Before he realized what Avas happening, the pointed 
spruce needles had become entangled Avith the line near 
the tip, jerking the tail fly oft' the reel bar beloAV his left 
hand; and as he pushed through, the pressure pulled the 
lower hook into his left thumb, burying it avcH beyond 
the barb. 
Piscator always laid it to his mental credit that his 
only comment on this Avas to Avhistle loud and long, liis 
usual recoitrse in perplexity or trouble. Then, blessing 
his stars that it Avas the left hand, he painfully got out his 
knife and managed to cut the hook loose, tying his hand- 
kerchief around the thumb to stop the bleeding. Unjoint- 
ing his rod and stowing away the reel in his pocket and 
the leader and flies in a fly-book, he set out again. 
The deep swamp seemed to have no end. but he pressed 
forward. Sonre rising grotmd with huckleberry bu.shes 
gave him fre.sh courage; but this soon dipped back into 
flatness and quagmire. 
At length, really unnerved by the protracted and irri- 
tating labor of stooping and worming his way as well 
as hy the wound in his thumb, and convinced that the road 
must be off to the right, he decided to abandon the stream, 
though he hardly dared to do so. In desperation he struck 
out at right angles into the forest, Avhere the young 
spruces joined prickly arms in a solid row. 
He had not gone tAvo hundred yards Avhen he burst 
through the bushes skirting the edge of the high\yay. 
And there, a hundred yards to the left, was the bridge 
Avhere the deceitful brook, having recovered its flow and 
spirits after its long marshy Avanderings, sang merrily 
across the road. 
Washing off the perspiration and blood in its grateful 
ripples, Piscator looked at his Avatch. It Avas already 
nearly half-past one ; he could not get back to the house 
in time for his appointment— but of course the Peri would 
understand, and some day she Avould sympathize Avhile 
he made light of his adA^enture. Meanwhile he had for 
her supper the tAvo little trout, to Avhich he had clung 
through evervthiixg. 
Putting his hand to his pocket he discoA^ered to his 
dismay that his fly-book Avas gone. It Avas a new book, 
well stocked, and the pride of Piscator's heart. More- 
over, his salmon fishing was practically over without it. 
He Avas already late for the Peri — and, more than all, a 
distinct dislike to return to that miserable swamp made 
it absolutely necessary to do so. Depositing rod and fish 
in the bushes, he tramped wearily back. He expected to 
find the w^allet where his accident had occured, since he 
had taken it out there; but a thorough search in every 
direction failed to bring it to light. Quite dispirited by 
this culminating misadA^enture. he decided to make his 
way home, and he had retraced about half the distance 
to 'the road, Avhen, to his delight, his eye made out the 
black leather book fifty feet ahead. Stowin* it away se- 
curely, he arrived at the highway without further trouble. 
It was 2:25 when Piscator toiled up the steep 
