4l7 
he was a lunker, and I was bound to git him, if I 
could. 
The general direction of his tracks pinted to a rocky 
hill nearby, and I started for the spot where I thought 
the den was without wantin' to foliar his tracks all the 
way, and sure enough, as soon as I got to the ledge I 
found his foot prints, and they led into a hole in the 
rocks, and there I knew the critter's den was located. 
I got down on my hands and knees and crawled into 
the entrance of the cave, pushing a pole ahead of me 
to use in feelin' around for the hear. It was not long 
before I found the old chap, and he was so sound 
asleep my pokin' did not wake him up. You know that 
when a bear really dens he is so . stupid you'd believe 
him dead. Well, I felt around and located the lay of 
the different parts, and pointing my rifle at what I 
thought was his head, I fired one of my two remainin' 
cartridges at him and slipped the last one into the 
breech of the rifle so as to be prepared for him in case 
he made a dash out. But he didn't come, and after a 
while I crawled into the cave agin and listened; the 
critter was evidently hurt pooty bad, for I could hear 
him sort er kickin', and every now and then he'd give 
a wheezy cough, Pooty soon he grew more quiet, and 
then all was still, and I knew he was done for. To 
make sure, however, I poked him two or three times 
with the pole, but he never moved. 
The next thing tq be done was to get him out, and 
to do this I cut a stronger pole, and trailing it along 
I crawled back into the den, planning to fasten a piece 
of rope around the critter's head, tie that to the pole 
and then back out of the cave, hauling him out. 
The den grew smaller as I crawled further in, and 
there was a bad corner in it and two or three sharp 
points of rocks on the sides; but I managed, after 
pushin' pooty hard, to git in' as far as the bear was 
lyin', and to tie a noose around his head and fasten- it 
to the pole. 
I then started to back out, but soon found I couldn't 
move a foot, fer somethin' was holdin' me there. I 
tried my best to crawl backward, but conld not, and the 
harder I struggled the harder I was held. 
I'm afraid I got a little rattled just then, for if I 
had had all my wits about me I could have got away 
all right. It was a pokerish hole to be in, and p'raps 
it's no wonder I got rattled. The thing that held me 
was a stiff root that had grown down inter the cave 
and somehow got broken od; it was not much thicker 
than my thumb, but it was strong and tough enough 
to stand all my strength. When I passed it in crawlin' 
in it slid along my back without my noticin' it, but 
when I began to back out it passed under my belt and 
held me, and the harder I tried to pull back the pesky 
thing clung more steadily, and before I knew it my belt 
was dragged up almost to my armpits, and then I was 
helpless. 
I tell you I began to git good and skairt. I knew I 
might die there, and probably would, and no one could 
ever find me; I was, as it were, buried alive. 
I have heerd that when a man is drownin' all the 
evil events of his life pass through his mind like 
lightnin', and 'twas the same with me, I don't think 
I've been over bad, but there was two or three things 
I had done in times past that I would er been glad 
ter take back. I had onct or twict sold some mighty 
poor pelts for prime ones, by slippin' 'cm inter a lot 
that had been passed upon by the buyer and takin' full 
pay for 'em. I was mighty sorry then, and prajed ter 
be forgiven. 
Somebody said that, "When the devil was sick, the 
devil a monk would be, but when he got well the devil 
a monk was he." I remembered that very well, and 
promised if I ever got out of that Fd not act like the 
devil, but I'd keep a straight path forever after. 
Agin and agin I tried ter git away, but the root held 
like a vise, and pooty soon my strength gave out and 
I grew sort er faint, and had a kind of nightmare and 
saw all sorts of hateful things; it seemed ter me. too, 
that the bear had come ter life again and was begin- 
nin' to gnaw my bacK and neck. I s'pose I wasn't 
there over a half an hour, but it seemed like etarnity. 
At last I came out er my faintin' spell and began ter 
think, and all at once my wits came ter me, and I 
called myself a thunderin' fool not to think of the belt 
buckle that was drawn up on my chest. I could reach 
that, easy, unclasp it and git free. I almost yelled 
when I unfastened the buckle and backed out of ther 
hole, and when I saw the blue sky and bright sun, and 
breathed the pure air agin, I was a mighty happy 
man. 
After takin' a short rest and smoke to stiddy my 
nerves, I went inter the hole agin, got my belt, pulled 
out the bear and dressed it. savin' the hams and skin, 
and after gittin' my bearins' packed them back to 
camp. 
Well, the story's about done. I put in a big sleep 
that night, and after eatin' a hearty breakfast I shut 
up the camp for the winter, loaded all my dunnage on 
the raft and in ther boat, and hitchin' it to ther raft 
I took my oars and began my tow down Long Lake. 
I had a pooty precious freight, as you can see, when 
I tell yer I got $25 for the big moose head, and for the 
meat and hides I got $20 more; the bear skin and 
bounty netted me another $20, and fer my furs I re- 
ceived about $150, which I allow was pooty good pay 
for four weeks' work. 
Well, fortunitely, I had a fair wind down the lake, 
and my pull was not an extra hard one, ..nd 1 reached 
the landin' at the lower end about noon. 
I had planned to have my boy meet me there with 
ther team, and sure enough, just as I stepped on shore 
he came in sight. 
The next day was Thanksgivin', and my wife jiist 
laid herself out to get up a big dinner, for we had the 
preacher to dine with us. We had a nice pair of 
chickens, a rousin' big stew of moose meat muffle, 
some moose steak, a plum puddin' and mince and 
punkin pies, and when the parson said grace and asked 
a blessin' on us and prayed that we might be grateful 
and thankful for all the good things that came to us, 
and fer our he.-ihh and preservation from' sickness and 
death, I can toll yer, I said way down, in -my heart 
when he had fuiished, Amen! Amen! Araeijl 
The Red Gods, A.dku. 
It may here be worth our while to examine how it 
comes to pass that several readers who are all acquainted 
with the same language, and know the meaning of the 
words they read, should nevertheless have a different 
relish of the same descriptions. We find one transported 
with a passage which another runs over with coldness 
and indifference; or finding the representation extremely 
natural, where another can perceive nothing of likeness or 
conformity.— Joseph Addison in the Spectator for June 
27, 1712. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Not as an ancient doer of deeds of woodland derring- 
do, and not as a blind worshipper of Kipling, but in sim- 
ple justice to what seems to me straightforward enough 
poetry, I want to take a shot at the latest "Amusings 
from Sand Lake" before you, very properly, forbid 
further reference to the Red Gods. 
Mr. Brown is evidently not in sjmipathy with poetry, 
however much he uould have us think so from h'is 
references to nature poets, which references carry him as 
far afield as Mr. Ashcroft wanted to go in search of men 
who have never seen a shod canoe-poTe, until Mr. Brown 
wisely called him off. I say this because he approaches 
Kipling's poem with carpenter's rule and square, and 
accuses the poem because those implements do not ht. 
Ihus, because the verse asks, "Do you know the black- 
ened timber.?" he asserts that "blackened timber" is chosen 
as the ideal camping site! Why? Who was talking 
about camping sites? The racing stream is mentioned m 
the same line: why not with equal propriety say that that 
was chosen as the camping site and that Kipling intended 
to place the couch of new pulled hemlock in the middle cf 
a brook? The lines mention two or three things which 
one may see in an hour's canoeing in the woods— a bit oi 
burnt land, a racing stream, a shingle bar, a log-jam— 
and add "it is there that we are going," namely, to the 
place where all these things may be seen — to the woods. 
Again, the words "Do you know the blackened limber?" 
are simple enough. Mr. Brown finds in them "cheap mvs- 
tery," "mention of something he (Kipling) knows the 
reader cannot be supposed to know because it is not lo- 
cated," etc. This is the very lunacy of criticism. May 
I not recognize the reference without knowing exactly 
what township the blackened limber is in, or what stream 
it is on? 
Again, he says that no log-jam is ever at the end of a 
racing stream. All right, if we must put our rule on that 
stream and find out just where the jam is, why not say 
if is at the end of the race in the stream— i. e., at the foot 
of the rapids? Nobody need be wrenched by that con- 
struction — no poetry is offended at such license. 
Again, miist a _"right-angled" log-jam be one whose 
"upper line lies staight and squarely across the stream and 
forms a right angle sharply with each shore?" Why not 
say that a jam which sticks out into a stream, or sticks 
up from it, or whose logs lie crossed in all directions, is 
a right-angled jam? This is poetry we are dealing with, 
not geometry or carpentry. 
And when Mr. Brown, losing that calmness with which 
he started off to tell us all about himself in heart to 
heart fashion, declares that Kipling sets himself up as a 
"Sir Oracle" of the woods, "a high priest of nature at 
whose feet all sportsmen should sit in admiration," and 
reduces the fine lines to "a bar of rough stone to sit on, 
blackened timber for a view, and a Limburger Indian to 
make a couch," etc., one can only say that this is the 
criticism and the rendering of poetry by a Bottom, the 
weaver, or a Snug, the joiner. 
Let us try a little criticism in Mr. Brown's own vein, 
taking at random some lines from a not unknown poet : 
"The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, 
Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold; 
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that 
The winds were love-sick with them ; the oars were silver, 
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made 
The water which they beat to follow faster 
As amorous of their strokes." 
Mr. Brown would ask why, if the barge burned, Cleo- 
patra did not order her slaves to extinguish it. He would 
point out that a golden poop would bring the bow high 
out of water, and that silver oars would weigh so mtich 
that ten men could not handle them, even if inspired by 
the tootling of flutes. He would speculate on how many 
T bottles of cologne it would require to perfume the sails, 
and would show that, while water may follow a boat, it 
would not follow the beat of an oar, but, on the con- 
trary, would flow away from it. On the whole, he would 
conclude that Enobarbus was a plain fakir, who was 
setting himself up as a Sir Oracle to the confiding 
Mecjenas and Agrippa. 
Alas! poor Kipling! "Writer of swashbuckler rhymes," 
the "literary hack" who "planned a 'grand' poem which 
the INlaine folk should accept as coming from a new 
Elijah !" All this lamentable showing of you up would 
have been avoided if you had not neglected to mention 
that the most prominent feature of the woods was once 
the peiwading presence of an ancient coureur des bois, 
since, unfortunately, retired to Sand Lake, Mich. 
E. G. B. 
New York-,' Nov. 22. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I am vastly interested in the Kipling controversy. I. 
think it is the most interesting set of articles I ever read. 
Not only are they highly instructive and entertaining to 
all lovers of nature, but they are valuable as being indica- 
tive of the various and opposite standpoints that ordinary 
intelligent men take in matters of the mcst ordinary and 
everyday concern. I think really that the aiiti-Kiplingites 
have -been unfortunate in their champions and ihfir 
weapons. The last to enter the lists, >iir. E. P. Jaques, 
is a good specimen. He virtually admits that the poem is 
righf enough, or, as he puts it, two of the chief points of 
disciisSirm "seem sane enough." But he gives himself 
away 'When he says: "When any of my frietids get de- 
lirious^ over Kipling, I accuse them of playing the grand 
stand." Now, it is not Kipling we are discussing, but the 
fidelity and accuracy of a certain word painting of which 
Kipling happens to be the artist. I am sure if the singer 
had been named A. W. Ashcroft, or L. F. Brown, or even 
E. P. Ja(|ues, instead of Rudyard Kipling, and his song 
had been so harshly and unjustly criticised, these very 
same gentlemen, Messrs. Manly Hardy, the Old Angler, 
Ames, the Hermit, Von W., Dixmont, R. T. Morris, E. P. 
Biddle, Otio Keim, and others, would have arisen as one 
rnan and done what they have deemed it incumbent on 
them to do in the present instance. It is evident that 
Messrs. Jaques & Co. have a personal prejudice against 
Kipling, and like their forbears they persuade themselves 
that nothing good can come out of Nazareth. Mr. 
Jf.ques, like his confreres, gets in his little sneer at "these 
able defenders of Kipling," and asks three or four ques- 
tions that have been answered over and over again. Then 
he msinuales that there has been "a mutual understand- 
ing" betwtcn those who criticise Mr. Brown's unhappy, 
inaccurate, and distorted criticism of Kipling's poem. 
The contributions of the dear Old Angler, Mr, Hardy, 
and the oilier gentlemen who so ably and strenuously 
championed this masterpiece of Kipling's, show them to 
be kindly, gentle men, true lovers of nature, intelligent 
enough to recognize a good tiling when they see it, and 
brave and courageous enough to meet and defeat oppo- 
nents who suffer from defective vision, disordered liver, 
or, worse than all, vindictive jealousy. 
As to the "mutual understanding" between the de- 
fenders of Kipling's beaulifu! word-picture which Mr. 
Jaques i^efers to, 1 think this is the highest tribute yet 
paid to it. That so many different men, of various ages, 
nationalities and temprrainents, from so many diverse 
parts of the United Si.ifes, Canada and Newfoundland, 
should be so unanimous in their expressions of approval 
of the fidelity of Kipling's lines as to make Mr. Jaques 
think that there is collusion among them, is the very best 
proof that could be adduced that those lines are all right, 
and that they strike lovers of nature the world over as 
being a beautiful and truthful description of everyday 
scenes, visible to the eyes of all men, but given only to 
the very, very few to be able to describe them so truth- 
fully and graphically as they are described by Mr. Rud- 
yard Kipling in the lines under discussion. 
St. Johns, Newfoundland. NEWFOUNDLANDER. 
New York, Nov, iB.—Editor Forest and Stream: 
Last night a party of us, old ?almon fishermen, having 
gotten together, the subject of the article— "Kipling's Red 
Gods" published in Forest and Stream, October 17 — was 
canvassed pretiy thoroughly, and brought forth so many 
peals of derision and laughter, that I was asked to try 
and answer it; winch 1 will endeavor to do herewith. 
Mr. Ashcroft commences by a criticism of Mr. Hard/s 
defense, and reproduces some lines by Kipling: 
"Do you know the blackened timber? Do you know that racing 
stream, 
With the raw, right-aiigled log-jam at the end?" 
Now, as I am a lumberman with about thirty-five years' 
experience, it can fairly be said Uiat I ought to know 
something about "blackened timber, racing streams, and 
log-jams." It is only necessary to go into almost any of 
the timber districts to see "blackened timber" caused by 
forest fires. 
The "racing streams" are those down which the logs 
are brought, and they are not "tree trunks," either, for 
saw logs are cut to 12, 14 and 16 feet lengths, and sawed 
ofi square at each end. 
As to the "log-jam'" part of the affair, it is almost ridicu- 
lous to have to exphmi that a "log-jam" almost invariably 
occurs either at the head of a sand bar or shallow place, 
or in a gorge in thi; stream through which the current 
pa.sses with force. As soon as the jam commences the 
great strength of Ih' current forces the logs in all sorts 
of positions) and they pile up and entangle themselves 
in every direction, invariably they there form an almost 
solid barrier across the surface of the stream. Then the 
other logs, as the current lessens and the water deepens 
up stream, begin to accumulate, and do so for long dis- 
tances, but, unless the current is very heavy, the logs lie 
quietly and do not up end" or become entangled in the 
manner that they do at the down river end of the jam. 
1 have ridden f< i miles and miles along the "log-jams" 
of the streams in Michigan and elsewhere filled with logs 
from bank to bank, so that no water whatever coLild be 
seen. Therefore Mr. Kipling is correct as to "the black- 
ened timber and the right-angled log-jam." As to the 
"liar of sun-warnieM shingle, where a man can bask and dream," 
everybody knows that there are bars .and sand 
banks in almo.Kt every river, and when the sun shines on 
the sand it becomes warm, and if anybody wants to go 
and lie down there with the sun shining on him, he will 
find it a pretty good basking place, very often too hot for 
comfort. As to the 
"Click of shod canoe-poles 'round the bend," 
as Mr. Ashcroft gives a considerable discussion to 
this matter, 1 will do the same, .and it is qriite evi- 
dent that the man that he speaks of "who has camped 
and slept under canoes for weeks during half the sum- 
mers for the last forty years," has been "jollying" him up 
not a little. I fished that great salmon river, the Grand 
Cascapedia River, in Quebec, for twelve years, and many 
other rivers in subsf(|uent years, and every day of my 
life both my companions and myself were poled up the 
river, some limes for many miles, in separate canoes, of 
course, and the "click of the shod poles" certainly was 
very much ni evi>Itr:ce, and many's the time ih^t when 
standing quietly in the canoe casting for salmon and the 
wind blowing np ihe river, yes! many a time, have I 
heard the "click of the shod poles coming around the 
bend," even though thai bend be one-eighth of a mile or 
more distant. 
As to the matter of "ca roe -poles" used for shoving 
canoes op quick wafers, Mr, Ashcroft's, or his friend's, 
a5-sprtiori th'nl they "are made of ash or maple and usually 
twelve or iourleen feet lung, and about one inch in 
diameter at each end, and a little larger in the middle,*^ 
is almost too ndiciilous for criticism; It does not make 
any difference as 10 w htther the poles are made of maple. 
