FOREST AND STREAM; 
[Feb. 27, 1904. 
experience, since our quite considerable supply of this 
useful commodity had been gained exclusively on swift 
rivers, abounding in rapids and rocks; but the - first 
5 miles of this swift, brawling mountain stream con- 
vinced us that we had to develop an entirely new line 
of the article, and of a quite different brand. We found 
at once that our estimate of the fall of the stream was 
correct, or at least, that we had underestimated it, 
for it was simply a rattling down-hill plunge all the 
way, with no pools or eddies, or at most but of the 
shortest; while the rocks were simply interminable, 
and of assorted shapes and sizes — mostly large. It 
was amazing how any one small river could hustle 
around and unearth so many rocks and scatter them 
around so carelessly and so promiscuously. The cruis- 
ing was fatiguing to the last degree and wearing on 
our nerves until they were fairly strained to the break- 
ing point. With good water no sooner were we seated 
in our canoes, with a promising reach ahead, than we 
would hang hopelessly on the rocks, and all there was 
to do was to step overboard in water never less than 
knee deep — and more often deeper — lift of? and step 
in again with dripping feet, only to repeat the pro- 
ceedings as soon as seated. The rapids were, for the 
most part rather broad and correspondingly shallow, 
although there was generally a sufficiency of water, 
barring the interminable and infernal rocks. We were 
not long in finding out that we had to develop an entirely 
4iew line of tactics in running these rifts. The tactics 
were very simple. It was not worth while to try and 
pick out the best water as we went down. All that was 
practicable was to size up a rapid as accurately as 
possible from the crest, and select a course straight 
down; and then hold the canoe in a straight line frpni 
top to bottom and drive her down, without making 
any attempt to veer right or left in search of better 
water, or to avoid the rocks. By following this simple 
plan we would occasionally succeed in forcing a canoe 
down over the intervening rocks to the bottom of a 
rapid, without a dismount, while any attempt at a veer 
to one side or the other invariably resulted in a hope- 
less entanglement with the rocks. The railroad fol- 
lowed the right bank of the river more or less closely 
all the way down, and we not infrequently came upon 
rattling little plunges close up under the railroad em- 
bankment, where the stream was considerably nar- 
rowed by the rocks and debris tumbled down into the 
On the Upper River (Cass). 
river bed in blasting out the right of way. When we 
sighted one of these brawling shoots we speedily found 
that there is trouble in store for us, and we ran each 
one at the more or less imminent risk of a capsize 
or swamped canoes. The water was so strong that 
anything started in at the top was sure to go through 
to the bottom in some shape or other, and if a hang-up 
occurred an instant spring out into the swift water — 
of unknown depth — was the only means of preventing 
disaster. Any skill in dodging rocks was of little avail; 
they were too thick to dodge. All we could do was to 
select the clearest looking course from the top, put our 
canoes into it, bow on (if we could succeed in getting 
over the crest and into the chute without prelimmary 
disaster), and drive straight down. The getting through 
the inevitable fringe of loose rocks at the bottom of 
each plunge was purely a matter of chance; and when 
we finally finished this day's cruise, right side up and 
with whole canoes, it was a matter of congratulation 
to both of us. Our progress was necessarily ■ slow 
under these conditions, and noon found us with but 
half of the 15 miles to Cass behind us. A clean little 
rocky beach at the foot of the mountain, well shaded 
and with a little stream of cold water rippling ^ out of 
the dense undergrowth from some hidden spring of- 
fered an inviting place for our midday lunch, and we 
were soon ashore, with our canoes drawn up on the 
beach at our feet. With one accord both suggested 
that the cruise was so arduous that the half days' run 
was quite enough for the day, and we finished the job 
by drawing the canoes ashore and making camp, after 
which an ample lunch was in order. It is our regular 
custom in cruising to get up hot meals for breakfast 
anl supper, but to have a cold lunch a la picmc at 
noon, usually consisting of deviled ham or sausage or 
some of the numerous potted goods put up for this 
purpose; but on this cruise half-day runs proved to be 
the rule, and whenever we finished a day's cruise at 
lunch time, and the camping outfit had to be unpacked 
anyhow, a hot cup of cofifee was always in evidence, 
generally flanked by a hot can of pork and beans, or 
sausage, or a steaming pan of soup and succotash. The 
plan was a good one, and added much to the comfort 
as well as the pleasure of the cruise. 
After dinner the canoes were lined up in position 
for the night, and the camp put in shape, after which 
a bath in the cold stream and a siesta were in order, 
for we were fatigued to the last degree. 
Aside from the difficulty of cruismg it, the river is 
a charmingly beautiful and interesting stream. Small, 
swift and narrow, it is picturesque and interesting, while 
the scenery is wild and, when out of sight of the rail- 
road completely primeval, looking as though the foot 
of man had never invaded the region. Flowing as it 
does, at the bottom of a deep, narrow gorge between 
parallel mountain ranges,, the mountains rise steeply 
on each side almost to the clouds with but little if any 
low land. Always on the one side or the other — fre- 
quently on both — a mountain wall towers aloft into 
the skies, densely wooded to the water's edge, and the 
scenery is picturesque and primitive. 
Night fell early at the bottom of the deep gorge in 
which we were encamped, and long after we were 
shrouded in the thickening gloom of twilight the nar- 
row strip of sky overhead shone brightly, and showed 
that day was still lingering in the world above. The 
bright beams of a new moon penetrated to the bottom 
of the gorge, as the thick" crescent sailed across the 
streak of sky above; in whose rays the swift water 
flowing with a musical murmur at our feet glittered 
Vfith a silvery radiance, while the flickering light of our 
little camp-fire dispelled the depressing gloom of the 
The Confluence of the Two "Prongs" of the Greenbrier. 
/ - 
encompassing rri'ountain walls. After our evening pipes 
around our cheerful camp-fire we soon turned in for 
a good night's sleep. 
Thursday, June 25. 
I rang the rising bell at 5 o'clock this morning, but 
George did not turn out with the alacrity to be ex- 
pected of a man who desired an early morning start. 
I did not feel at all well, and was not particularly en- 
thusiastic about an early rise myself, and when George 
finally appeared it developed that he did not feel well 
either, so instead of packing up and starting after 
breakfast as usual, by mutual consent we let things 
remain as they were, and laid around camp all that fore- 
noon. We loafed, read, wrote letters, and I wrote 
the log up to date, fished a little and otherwise put 
in the time. As the result of watching Jim, while in 
camp with the Greenbrier Club, I had tried my hand 
at some corn cakes for supper last night as well as 
for breakfast this morning, with fair success. They 
,fliu net taste just right, somehow, and on examination 
this morning the meal was found to be of an inferior 
quality — having been bought at a country store of 
minute proportions in Durbin — and musty besides, 
which, taken with our extreme fatigue of the evening 
before, seemed to account for our feeling so badly 
this morning. The meal was promptly fed to the fishes, 
and further experiments in the hoecake line were de- 
ferred until a fresh supply of meal could be obtained. 
A pot of hot cofifee at lunch time had its effect in, 
bringing us around again, and after lunch we packed 
up and launched the canoes and made a short after- 
noon cruise to the head of the Cass mill pool, which 
was but a repetition of yesterday's cruise, extremely 
difficult and fatiguing; good water and swift^ and full 
of rapids, with beautiful mountain scenery; but a 
river so thickly strewn with big rocks that it was 
Looking up the "Near Prong" from Durbin. 
all but impossible to avoid them, and we have never 
made a cruise on any stream before, even in the ex- 
treme of low water, where we were out of the canoes 
and into the water anything like so much. It was not 
much after 4 o'clock when we reached the head of the 
backset from the Cass dam, which was but little over 
a mile below; but we were both too tired to think of 
attempting the portage of the big isft. dam this even- 
ing, so, finding a fairly good place for a camp, on the 
lelt bank directly across from the railroad, we landed 
and hauled the canoes up out of the river on to the bank, 
and went into the camp for the night. We had a 
royal supper, consisting of a can of mock turtle soup, 
into which I poured a can of succotash, and after our 
evening pipes around our usual camp-fire we turned 
in early. 
Friday, June 26. 
I had a bad night of it last night, with a severe at- 
tack of rheumatism in my left leg and knee, probably 
brought on by too much wading in the icy waters of 
the upper river while trout fishing up there last week, 
and I feared this morning that it was all up with the 
cruise. But after I had bathed the limb copiously with 
some/excellent liniment produced from George's clothes 
bag, and had got out and stirred round a little it 
wore.ofif to some little extent, although I was still in a de- 
cidedly crippled condition, and we decided to drop 
down to our old camp ground at Cass, which was but 
a short distance below the dam, and camp there for 
two or three days and give it a chance to wear off. We 
had breakfast, and packed and launched the canoes, 
and after a short, easy paddle through the deep, slack 
water of the pool, we reached the big Cass dam. Ow- 
ing to its hight and construction, as well as the lay of 
the land at each end of the dam, this structure pre- 
sented unusual difficulties in the way of a portage; 
but while fishing here last week with the Greenbrier 
Club, George and I figured out that the sluiceway 
at the left end of the dam offered the only practicable 
portage, so we paddled over into this and landed on 
the crest of the dam, and succeeded, after an hour's 
delicate and careful work, in sliding the two canoes 
over the crest and down the steeply sloping face of 
the dam on to the wet and slippery apron below, from 
which they were safely and easily pitched head first 
into the deep water under the dam. Getting into the 
boats, once they were afloat below the dam, presented 
an apparently insurmountable difficulty, and as the only 
practicable way out, I finally climbed up the face of 
the bluff and worked my way around the pool and down 
upon the rocks below, with the intention of having 
George shoot the canoes across to me. But when I got 
to my position on the rocks below, George was out in the 
pool, astride the aft deck of his canoe with my boat 
in tow, and soon succeeded in working his way over 
to the rocks on which I stood. We led and shoved 
our canoes down the steep, rocky rapid immediately 
below the dam; and then, alternately wading and paddl- 
ing, we dropped down past the town to our last week's 
camp ground, where we went into camp to wait until 
my rheumatism developed further intentions as to what 
it had in mind to do. I had at first intendedi looking 
up a doctor, but on reaching camp decided to wait 
until to-morrow, and then if I felt no better, put myself 
under the care of one. As we expected to remain here 
for two or three days we put up our camp in good 
shape, with the dining fly erected over the mess table, 
and otherwise made ourselves as permanently com- 
fortable as our really ample resources would allow. 
My rheumatic attack really caused no delay, for the 
day promised to be a rainy one; and after we were 
The "Far Prong," Durbin. 
well established in camp it rained heavily, more or less 
all day. Although we are well provided with rubbers 
it is practically impossible to cruise this upper river 
in the rain, as we are in and out of the canoes so much 
that a thorough wetting of ourselves, and more or less 
of our camp equipment, is inevitable, to say nothing 
of the increased difficulty of running the river with the 
rain beating on the water, and obscuring the surface 
signs. We had lunch and a cup of hot coffee under 
the dining fly, and the afternoon was passed cozily 'in 
our respective tents, reading and dozing, while the 
rain pattered briskly on our canvas roofs with a 
soothing, musical murmur. After a good hot supper 
and a short evening with our pipes under the shelter 
of our fly, with the gloom of the damp, chill evening 
dispelled by a brisk camp-fire, we turned in for the 
night. 
Saturday, June 27. 
We were stormbound here all day, as it rained rnore 
or less hard and steadily, from morning until night. 
My rheumatism gave me but little trouble during the 
day, in spite of the unfavorable weather, and I aban- 
doned my intentions of consulting a doctor, and gave 
it no more attention beyond frequent applications of 
George's liniment. We did not find the little strag- 
gling wooded village of Cass particularly interesting, 
and it certainly is not in the least picturesque, " with 
its white wooden houses all built on the same plan, and 
scattered around among the stumps along the rudi- 
mentary streets laid out on the sloping surface of the 
cleared mountain side. It is essentially a lumber and 
milling town, and the entire village centers around the 
immense mill-plant, and belongs to the West Virginia 
Spruce Lumber Co., together with about 100,000 acres 
of virgin lumber and mountain country, extending up 
on to Cheat Mountain and down Cheat River for about 
20 miles, access being had to this vast region by 
means of a rudimentary railroad for logging purposes, 
of a character which does not take grades into much 
account, so long as they run down toward the mills, 
so that the heavily loaded log trains will have down 
grades to come in on. The locomotives used on these log 
roads are peculiar in construction. The driving wheels 
— and all the whees are drivers — are small, and the 
engines, usually three or four cylinders, are all on 
one side, and geared to the wheels, instead of being 
applied direct. They are not noted for high speed, 
but are immensely powerful, and drag their strings of 
empties up the steep grades with perfect ease. The 
building of the Greenbrier branch of the Chesapeake 
and Ohio road along up the river and through this 
valley has opened up an immense and very valuable 
region of timber lands, otherwise lying completely dor- 
mant for lack of facilities for getting the timber and 
