POn£:sT AND STnEAM. 
IMarch s, 1964. 
In the Forest* 
Alone in the forest ! What a wide diversity of feeling 
may be experienced as a result of the realization of the 
above condition. 
It may, and generally does, create a sensation of one 
extreme or the other; either that of infinite pleasure and 
satisfaction, or that of indescribable terror and a feeling 
of helplessness. To one familiar with woodcraft and 
the woods life, the forest contains many of the con- 
veniences and all the essentials of man's existence; hence 
it can have only a friendly and inviting aspect to him who 
knows how to utilize them for his own needs, and he 
need have no feeling of fear and unrest, even though he 
may not know just where he is — may be lost; but the in- 
experienced who is alone in the forest and lost, is just 
about as helpless and hopeless as the victim of a wreck 
at sea, floating on a bit of drift with nothing in sight but 
the waves of the sea. To many who go inio the forests 
each year, the pleasure of their outing would- all depart 
if they were to go it alone; while to the real lover of the 
woods, and to the one familiar with woods life, there 
comes a feeling oi rapture in being far in the virgin 
forest, alone, which is far beyond the power of pen to 
describe, which must be experienced to be understood, 
and" which cannot be experienced to the full when ham- 
pered by companions. 
Many there are who go into the woods who do not 
fully experience this pleasure, because they are not en- 
dowed by nature with the capacity for such enjoyment — 
it is not their nature; and to such, the prime motive in 
making a trip to the forest is that of getting a trophy, 
or rest, recreation and the companionship of their fellow 
campers. Companions are all right while around the 
camp-fire ; in fact, are essential to the outing taken for 
pleasure; but this is a case where two pairs of eyes and 
two pairs of ears cannot see and hear twice as much as 
brte pair. The fact is, one lone person can see, hear, and 
observe more than two persons can to travel the same 
route together. Where two or more are in company, their 
attention is diverted more or less from their surround- 
ings to and by each other; what one sees or hears he 
very naturally calls the attention of the other to it. If, 
for illustration, it be a distant sound made by some in- 
habitant of the forest, while the discoverer of, the sound 
is telling his companion of it, it may be repeated to such 
a degree that, had he been alone, and consequently listen- 
ing intently, he could have determined what it was, and 
where it was, thereby giving him a decided advantage in 
approaching, either for the purpose of shooting or observ- 
ing; but owing to conversation, even though ever so 
quiet, the repeating sound has passed unnoticed, and we 
will suppose, for illustration, is not repeated, thereby leav- 
ing them without any clue, and consequently without any 
further knowledge of that which may otherwise have 
meant a big success. The successful naturalist who 
studies wild life and nature knows this, and is found 
alone. Ray Stannard Baker, in his splendid notes on the 
life of John Muir — that great student of nature — says, 
"He did not avoid human habitation, nor did he seek it, 
finding his deepest pleasure in winning the secrets of 
the woods." 
Let two or more persons walk through a stretch of 
forest in company, talking as they go, and they will con- 
clude that it is destitute of life. Let one person go over 
the same ground, silently and watchfully, stopping often 
and sitting or standing perfectly still for several minutes, 
and a busy life among the woods dwellers will show that 
it is a place of activity — will show a constant and well 
conducted warfare and struggle for existence and 
supremacy among the hunters and the hunted. 
While the grouse is industriously scratching and hunt- 
ing for the smaller insect life to feed her dependent brood, 
all the while dividing her attention between that and 
keeping a sharp lookout for danger, the sly fox or 
stealthy wildcat may be shadowing her and her brood, 
only waiting an opportunity to secure a morsel to take 
home to their families, for they, too, must be fed;_ and 
nature seems to have endowed all wild creatures with a 
feeling of responsibility, and an impulse to act accord- 
ingly, which should put the blush of shame on some of 
the higher order of animals, if they would but study the 
lives of the lower creatures, and absorb the lesson to their 
own well doing. 
A sound of mighty battle among the larger creatures is 
heard, and a quiet approach reveals the struggles oi two 
buck deer, or other of the larger animals, striving for 
supremacy, as to which is the better qualified to carry the 
honors of being leader of his district; just as men will 
strive for civic or national supremacy and leadership, 
only by a more legitimate and honorable method than 
that employed by some men, in attaining their exalted 
position. 
Who can be much alone with nature without feeling a 
more profound reverence for the Creator and director 
of all the harmonious laws of nature which exist where 
the government of man has not been established, and 
how much greater tendency Such surroundings have to 
ci-eating everything in man which is good than that of 
city life, or thickly populated surroundings, where people 
acquire selfishness by the very nature of their surround- 
ings and occupations? For honesty, unselfishness, and 
real goodness of heart compare the average backwoods- 
man — an old guide, for instance — with the average man 
in society, and see which will naturally, unconsciously, 
put himself to the greatest inconvenience to accommodate 
a fellow man, without any obligation for so doing other 
than an unselfish desire to be neighborly. You are in 
the city or large town among strangers ; you are hungry 
and must eat; there you pay the highest price in the land 
for a meal. ' Start out into the country and stop while 
yet in the thickly populated farming district for a meal, 
and you pay- less than in the city; as you go further out 
where it is more sparsely settled, you pay less, and by the 
time you reach the thinly settled backwoods districts, yoti 
would insult the settler by offering pay for a meal, or any 
other favor which he could show. 
Once while my father and I were wandering around in 
a wild and wooded part of West Virginia, hunting for a 
great cave of which we had heard, we had given up find- 
ing it, and were on our way back to the railroad, when 
we met an old man and his wife, native mountaineers. 
After telling them of our vain search, the old man started 
at once, in the most matter-of-fact manner, to guide us to 
it, saying: "It's not over a half-mile," and, in spite of 
our protest, he went the entire distance with us, led us 
into the cave as far as we cared to go, told us many in- 
teresting things connected with it, among which was that 
of a lot of horses being hidden in it during the Civil 
War ; then, as our time for getting back for our train was 
too limited to allow us to go back by the way we came, 
he guided us a considerable distance to where he could 
show us- a nearer way back; in the meanwhile saying 
what a pity it was that he had not found us sooner, that 
we could have gone home with him and had dinner, only^ 
bidding us good-by when there was absolutely nothing 
else he could do to help us. A typical backwoodsman,;, 
whose great, good soul was undefiled by the evil of the 
world as men make it, who had spent a long life in the 
woods. Success to all the noble efforts made to preserve 
and perpetuate the woods. Emerson Carney. 
MoRGANTOWN, W. Va. 
A Vision in the Night. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Under the caption, "It Just Happened So," Julian the 
Foxhunter gives us an occurrence that is a good deal 
like one that happened to me. 
Just fifty-five years ago this coming spring, when I 
was a boy ten years, old, a favorite aunt, my father's 
youngest sister, died suddenly. I had always thought a 
great deal of this aunt; she had nursed me when I was a 
baby, and whenever I was out at my grandmother's I 
put in most of my time in following her around while she 
was doing her work. , 
She died at her mother's house, four miles from town, 
and I did not get a chance to attend her funeral. My 
father was away on his boat and could not be reached 
in time to attend it; and my mother, taking my two 
jounger brothers, went, leaving me at home by myself. 
1 remember that I raised a row about not being given a 
chance to see my aunt again. 
I slept by myself in a small upstairs room, no one but 
me being in it. The room had only one window, and a 
door that I kept locked every night, as a stairway from 
the outside led up to it. My bed, a low cot-bed, was 
right under the window. One night, a week after my 
aunt's death, I was lying fast asleep, with my face to 
the wall, when I was wakened up by a feeling that there 
was someone else in the room. I have that premonition, 
or whatever it is, even now ; if a stranger should come 
into a room when I am in it alone, I can tell he or she 
is there without hearing or seeing them; if I am asleep, 
their presence wakens me up. I was wide awake now, 
and turning myself over I saw my aunt as plainly as 
I had ever seen anything. She stood within two feet of 
my bed. I could have stretched out my arm and taken 
her by the hand ; but raising myself on my elbow I lay 
there staring at her, while she stood looking at me and 
smiling. Her long hair hung down her back in a loose 
bunch, just as. she always wore it when alive, and she 
had on a white dress with small red spots, one that she 
wore in the summer when attending church on Sunday. 
I felt prompted to reach out and take her hand, or at 
least speak to her, but remembered that she was dead, 
and if I spoke it might frighten her and send her off. 
While I was thinking about this, she moved her lips 
as though trying to speak, but I heard no sound. Then 
she smiled at me again, and, moving backward, slowly 
backed into a far corner of the room against a solid wall, 
and slowly faded away. I jumped up and ran over to the 
corner, but saw nothing, of course. , 
I told my mother the next morning about my aunt 
Eliza having visited me. "No," she told me, "you did not 
see her at all; she is dead, and dead people, cannot come 
back. You were only dreaming about her." I knew bet- 
ter, though; it was no dream. 
. I got permission to go out and see my grandmother ; 
I wanted to see what she would say about this. She was 
an old Virginia woman; — an old woman then, but she 
lived to be ninety-six years old. Two of her sons and 
three of her daughters lived as long; and her other four 
sons, my father was one of them, were all of them killed 
by accident ; were it not for that the most of them 
would no doubt have lived as long as she did. She had 
come of a good family, had a better education than most 
Vvomen in her day, and had no superstition of any kind. 
She was an aunt to Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice- 
President of the Southern Confederacy, and afterwards 
the Governor of Georgia; that made Alex (the old lady 
always called him Alex) my first cousin once removed; 
I knew him quite well. 
I told my grandmother of Aunt Eliza's visit to me the 
night before, and what my mother had said about it. 
"How was she dressed?" she asked me, and I told her. 
"Yes," she said, "you saw her; tell your mother that T 
say so. You were not dreaming. We buried her in that 
dress ; she asked to be buried in it." I had not known 
that before. 
"Now," she said, "she may come again; she will come 
to you if she does. When she does, you speak to her, 
you won't scare her away." 
I lay watching for her every night, then ; but she never 
came again, and a month after this my father was 
drowned. He was an engineer on a coal towing boat, 
and a capstan bar striking him when a rope on the capstan 
broke, knocked him overboard. Whether that visit from 
my aunt and his death had any connection or not, of 
course I cannot tell ; but I have always believed it had, 
and that this was what she had been trying to tell me. 
And from the time I got old enough to think of it, I have 
always expected to see her again just before I die or am 
killed myself. This notion has got to be so fixed in my 
m.ind that I have gone into battle (I had a share in some 
of the hardest battles in the Civil War, and have been in 
any number of Indian fights since) without feeling the 
least fear of being shot, for I had not seen my aunt yet. 
Gabia Blanco. 
The Little Big Hofn Battle Field. 
Editor' Forest and Stream: 
I have just read E. P. Jaques' correction of my account 
ef Captain Keogh. He is no doubt correct The ridges 
he speaks of are there as he describes them. I was not 
present when the fight took _ place ; but sevejral years 
afterward I sat . on my horse up where Reno made his 
stand, and looked a, long .time across those bottoms,"but 
did not ride over them. , Cabia .Bla,ngo. 
. : "That reminds me." 
The Old Hiihter^s ^^Grip'' Story. 
The bid man cai-efully filled his pipe: arid lighted it 
with a eoal from the" camp-fire. *'Say,. Kurn'I," said he 
"I reckon I haint'never.tole ye that ar grip story?" 
I assured him that he had not. "Wall, here it are," said 
he. "One day I tole my ole woman thet I'd go and 
get sorne ducks, so I took Ole Bess and loaded her 
with three ban's an' started. I rode 'long 'bout half 
er mile, when L seed er flock comin' and turned Ole 
Bess loose inter 'em an' killed four. I started in sort 
o' lazy like to load Ole Bess, and jes' as I got 'er loaded 
I heard sort of a swish out that ar way, an' ez I 
looked I seed a big grip jes' risin' out er the water 
with one ov my ducks. I jerks Ole Bess ter' my 
shoulder and bangs inter him and down he cum; I 
pulls right over thar an' picks up three ov the ducks, 
an' then L sorter begins ter notice that ar grip." 
Here I interrupted him,- and asked what a "grip" 
was. ■ 
He looked at me pityingly. "Say, Kurn'l, a grip is 
what you sientific fellers would call a bald-headed eagle. 
Az I said afore, I begins payin' 'tention to that ar grip. 
He hed fas'ened onter that ar duck like death ter a 
nigger. I wanted the duck, but I seed that I had only 
broke ther end ov his wing, so he couldn't fly, and 
'ceptin' the lame wing he was jest ez healthy as any 
bird 'round them parts. Say, Kurn'l, did yer ever 
fight er grip? No, I sorter thought not. Kurn'lj them 
are cusses cu'd lick ther best grizzly b'ar thet ever 
trotted, but ez I wus sayin', I sorter wanted ther duck, 
so I gets up close and tries ter 'shoo' him, but he 
wouldn't 'shoo' wuth a cuss. Then I jabs at him with 
Ole Bess, but the grip jest gripped my gun and jest 
friz outer it with one foot; so I pulls him inter the 
boat, and he drug the duck in with his other foot. 
"I sez ter myself, 'Well, ole man, I'll give yer a ride 
home 'th me.' I went ter get an oar outen the bot- 
tom ov ther boat, but the grip riz up and commenced 
hostile operations at onc't. I retreated ter th' other 
end of ther boat ter think it over. Soon as I left him 
he - commenced ter eat ther duck. That ar conduct 
sorter riled me, an' I started to'rds him, but he spreads 
hisself out and screeched, an' hed a sort of look in his 
eye that I didn't Hke, so I reconsidered the matter. 
. "By this time we had drifted out inter rough water, 
an' it was gettin' 'long to'rds night, an' we wuz gettin' 
close to some breakers, an' I figgered it out thet the 
grip wuz in kermand ov thet boat, and I wuz sort ov 
a steerage passenger, only he wouldn't let me steer. 
I cu'd see someone on ther shore, an' takin' my sliker 
I stood up an' waves and yells loud ez I cu'd. Say, 
Kurn'l, durn my buttons, if that ar cuss didn't hop 
onter the gunnel an' flop his wings an' screech t' raise 
the dead; an' he looked ready ter fight an eliphant, an' 
he wuz, too. 
"About this time I begin ter get nafvbus, fer we wuz 
right close ter the breakers, an' I dasn't try ter git 
an oar, fer that cuss would hev mauled the stuffin' 
outer me, an' chawed me all up in no time. Ole Bess 
wuzn't loaded, an' I hed los' my powder horn in the 
fust of the skirmish, an' besides, the grip hed Ole Bess 
in his end ov the boat, enyway, an' it looked, sort ov 
squally fer yer Uncle Darius. Jest then I looks to- 
ward home, an' seed a boat startin' out. I 
yelled, an' the grip screamed, an' soon they 
come, an' I wuz powerful glad ter see 'em. 
They towed me an' ther grip in, or, I reckon more 
kerxectly, ther grip an' me. By this time ther wuz 
a big excitement on shore, an' all ther wimen folks 
wus thar. My woman hollers, 'Darius! what on arth 
hev yer got?' I hollers back, Tv got ther devil, an' 
am bringin' him in.' It bein' 'bout dark, an' that ar 
grip standin' on the gunnel an screechin' must ov 
looked sorter odd like from the shore, an' them fool 
wimen tho't I hed the devil sure nuf, an' some run, 
an' some screamed, an' some fainted, an' in th' excite- 
ment that ar cussed grip got erway, an' 'scaped inter 
ther woods." O. C. F. 
A Hybrid Jack* 
A SIX-POUND fish was caught here in Beaver Creek on 
Saturday night which has the head and fins of an esox, 
and the proportions and general complexion of a small- 
mouth black bass. Jack and trout (local for black bass) 
are both caught in the above-named stream in great 
abundance. Formerly this stream was open to the pub- 
lic, but is now a magnificent preserve belonging to Her- 
bert Lutterloh, Esq., on which he has spent many thous- 
and dollars for- dams, keeper's house, and valuable acces- 
sories. In this locality a pike is a jack; that is the Eng- 
lish of it, Fayetteville being originally a Scotch settle- 
ment. It is distinguished from the pickerel by the fins, 
those of the latter being bright red. The depth of this 
fish was about i to 4^ of the length, and the length of 
head was about in proportion to length of body, the 
latter being 22 inches. There were no bar marks on this 
fish, the coloration being solid and precisely like that of a 
small-mouth black bass, and it would be taken for such as 
it laid in a pile with others, unless the shape of the head 
were detected. Our folks here allow it to be a hybrid. 
It is a freak, anyhow. Beaver Creek is a tributary of 
Cape Fear River. Charles HalLock. 
Fayetteville, N. C, Feb. 22. 
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receive attention. We have no other oMce. 
