B28 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 30, 1905. 
Jack had repeated his bath in the tank and had an- 
other wild run in the timber, but be did not again 
climb- the big pine as we feared be might. During .the 
remainder of our trip he took the alternate camping and 
traveling as a matter of course, and did not again stray 
far from camp. We tried to keep a red flannel collar 
upon his neck so that if he was seen at large by any 
hunter he would — or he might- — be recognized as a 
tame bear. But he did not like decorations and per- 
sistently pulled them off and lost them until our supply 
of flannel ran out. After that we chained him to a tree 
or the wagon when he was likely to stray, or when we 
all left camp at one time. He followed us well enough 
when we allowed him to go along, except that he could 
not be induced to hurry any. He was not sufficiently 
civilized to hurry unless he found it important to do 
so from his own point of view. He persisted in linger- 
ing wherever he found nooks and crannies that he 
wanted to explore — and these he found nearly every- 
where. His elegant leisure was too slow for us. He 
was inclined to please himself here and now, while we 
were more or less, according to our training, addicted 
to rainbow chasing. 
To reach Manzenita Lake we left the Tamarack 
road and followed an ancient and dim wagon track 
through forest and over very rough ground for eight 
or ten miles. In places we had to use ropes to keep 
our wagon from overturning, like a turtle, and we had 
to use the ax to cut our way tlirough dense under- 
gi'owth in others. When we readied the Shingletown 
region we again found traveled roads going to various 
mills and “Shake camps.” Shingletown is a lumber- 
ing camp — but at that time it had its name from the 
shingle or shake-making industry. Shakes are clap- 
boards, generally split or riven, and their manufacture 
has been the cause for the destruction of many of Cali- 
fornia’s noblest trees. None but the very finest and 
largest sugar pines were used in this region for shakes. 
Trees of the thriftiest growth, often six to eight feet 
in diameter are felled by the shake maker, and from 
these he uses but a small portion of the butt of the tree 
that is free from knots, pitch or curls; the balance of 
the tree is left where it falls, to eventually burn, and 
destroy perhaps a hundred other trees. Often trees 
are cut to make two or three thousand shakes, worth 
to the maker $5 to $10, while if sawn into lumber it 
would be worth in market as many hundreds of dollars. 
Often these great pines are cut down and they are 
found to not “split well,” and in this case they are left 
and others selected. The timber of California and the 
Pacific Coast, worth billions of dollars to commerce, is 
not, or has not been of sufficient consequence to the 
States or to the Government to warrant them or it 
in having a single competent commissioner to super- 
vise its protection or conservation to any noticeable 
degree. Enough of it has been needlessly destroyed by 
incompetence (incompetent lumbering methods), and 
by forest fires that are generally preventable at com- 
paratively little outlay, to have paid the national debt. 
It has sometimes been pointed out that the. tendency 
of Sate and Federal government has been to appoint 
commissioners who are notably conspicuous in political 
sciences. For forest conservation a single backwoods- 
man in a flannel shirt, and any kind of pants — even 
bloomers — would be worth a thousand politicians, and 
he would do his duty for less money. 
We tried several old roads before we found the right 
one leading to the lake. We passed several clearings 
where ranches of one kind or another had been under- 
taken — perhaps not noticeably overtaken— and we saw 
several very beautiful natural meadows. At one of 
these upon a small stream we camped for the night. 
There was a dairy here, with the milkhouse built over 
the little stream, and we were supplied with all the 
ice-cold milk, cream and butter that we could Use. 
Some children had lots of fun feeding Jack milk. They 
gave it to him in small installments in a pan, and when 
he lapped the pan dry and held it while he bleated for 
more the children yelled with amusement. They filled 
him so full of milk he slopped over, like a tank. 
We camped at the roadside and in the morning we 
found the tracks of a very large bear in the dust with- 
in fifty feet of our beds. A native examined the tracks 
and told us they were “old Clubfoot’s tracks,” giving 
us the further information that Clubfoot was a grizzly, 
and that he prowled about that \ icinity sometimes - for 
“quite a spell.” None of the local hunters had up to 
that time been able to kill him, although there was a 
standing reward of $10 on his licad. Fie had killed 
some hogs and a calf or two. He was big game, but 
he had a wide range of forest, mountain and jungle in 
which to hide by day, and from which to pay his visits 
by night. We did not return his call, notwithstanding 
the pending reward. None of us, except Enochs, 
wanted him — and Enochs did not want him eagerly 
enough to manifest dangerous symptoms. We were 
not afraid of bear— it was not that — but we could not 
afford to sit up nights to protect our bacon, so we 
moved on and reached the lake that afternoon. 
We found Manzenita Lake to be a beautiful body of 
water about a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, 
its waters being crystal clear and very cold, but the 
surroundings were rocky and barren. One or two 
clumps of trees near its shores offered shade from the 
burning rays of the sun. Under one of these groups 
of pines, where the ground was carpeted with the 
resinous needles, we again set up out tent, at the upper 
end of the lake. A stream of icy water from the snows 
upon Mt. Lassen — a stream that we could jump across 
at any place-, emptied into the lake near us, and a stream 
of the same apparent volume emptied out of it at the 
further end. 
A few rods to the west was a smaller lake — little 
more than a pond— which, I beliece, had been made by 
the diversion of a portion of the stream into a natural 
depression by an old settler. Dr. Stockton. This old 
pioneer had a cabin near it, and with him was a still ' 
older man whose name was Cap. — that was all we knew 
or learned of it. Stockton was over seventy, while Gap. 
was older— somewhat under a hundred and seventy, I 
hope. They were a wonderful old pair, living here with 
this wonderful and mysterious lake all to themselves, 
save for the rare intrusion of some hunting or camping 
party. We had dealings witli them ydiich will crop out 
licreinafter. 
After we had arranged our camp and provided for the 
horses, I explored the lake shore a little way and 
found an old flat wreck of a rowboat. After bailing it- 
out, I estimated that it would float about half an hour, 
and then dive unless it was again bailed out. That is, 
it. would float if skillfully handled. When it was not bailed 
out promptly it would go Under, and when it was 
bailed out it wanted to go over. When it floated, it 
wanted to do that bottom up. It was a boat that was 
hopelessly discouraged or dissatisfied with its lot, and it 
tried to evolve into an umbrella or a balloon. When I 
manned it personally, and shoved off a little, it did un- 
expected things suddenly, about which I endeavored to 
express my indignation, with considerable emphasis — 
but I could only do so at a disadvantage. 
A man cannot deliver finished orations when his 
legs are shooting about at vascillating angles, and when 
he is likely to dive, with impartial celerity, either for- 
ward or backward into ice water. That boat would 
shoot my legs one way, and then when I got them 
back with commendable agility, it would shoot them in 
two or three other directions, without any appreciable 
notice, constancy or method. When I tried to say 
things, my mouth would slam to and chop my phrases 
into miserable fragments, signifying nothing. I was 
so disappointed with myself that I at length sat down 
in the thing, when fully aware that in place of a seat 
it had nothing in it but four inches of ice water and 
sand. Thereupon I got out of it and hunted up Enochs 
and told him I had found a boat. I urged him to go 
and try it and see how— how exhilarating it was to 
float upon the limpid placidity of the bosom of the 
lake, where he might see himself outlined clearly in the 
crystal tide. But Enochs was too soggy, and he would 
not. Perhaps I appeared a little to agitated and wet. 
At any rate, he said that when he went in to swim he 
took off his clothes, or words to that effect. In my 
disappointment I told him that was all right, and that 
he could take his clothes off or keep them on, for all I 
cared. And I believe I added that nothing he could 
do improved him any, in appearance or otherwise. 
We were about to get up a two-handed riot when 
old Cap. came along, and his formidable personality 
diverted our attention. Cap. looked like the Old Man 
of the Sea, and we found that he really was one of 
them — a genuine old salt cast up by the sea. high and 
dry enough. When he hailed us, he did it before he 
landed in haven, and as if he were hailing a ship in 
a fog. His old legs lurched about as though he was on 
the deck of a small ship in a very heavy gale. Every- 
thing he said savored of salt water, and he had not 
forgotten to wear a loose belt and hitch up his trousers 
at about the regulation interval. I am not fluent in 
nautical terms and I neither comprehended nor can I 
now recall those used by Cap. with precision. He 
hailed us as mates, wanted to know where we were 
bound and whether Jack manned the mizzen top-gallant, 
the jibboom, the fo’castle or the spanker. His wide 
old face wrinkled all over with benevolent furrows, and 
he knew well the inimitable art of making himself in- 
teresting and welcome against all the disadvantages of 
his oersonal appearance and his uncouth voice and 
gruff manners. He was deaf, quite so — in one ear he 
said — but we could never distinguish that one was more 
so than the other. Later we found that the Com- 
modore, as he designated Dr. Stockton, was very deaf 
in both ears, and that the old fellows had long since 
given over conversing with each other freely. They 
saved their energies to devote themselves to others. 
We tried to answer some of old Cap’s questions, and 
lie would nod with satisfaction now and then; but when 
we asked questions, his replies were so irrelevant we 
wondered whether he heard anything or not. In my 
opinion, he heard very little we said. He guessed at it 
bv watching our lips or our gestures and attitude. 
When we asked where he lived, he replied: 
“O, I blew in here tryin’ for another port. Sailed 
’round the Horn in ’48; never signed to cast anchor 
in a pile o’ mount’ins two hunder’ miles from deep 
water. This pond’s deep enuff for a ship, but it’s 
nothing but a rocky cove without a chance to git to 
open water.” 
We asked several times about the fishing in the lake, 
but it was only after we had made a good many gestures 
that he seemed to comprehend, and when he dicl, he 
left us abruptly and rolled away in the direction of his 
pbin. We did not understand this until he returned 
in a few moments' with two fine trout, weighing four 
or five pounds. They were magnificent fish and nicely 
dressed. We tendered him a dollar for them and he 
hesitated and then firmly refused to accept more than 
fifty cents. 
“Commodore an’ me have plenty of fish. Our pond 
is full of them. There’s plenty of ’em in the lake, an’ 
you might get ’em with a gig. They don’t bite any 
tackle that we know of.” 
The old man insisted that many kinds of bait and 
flies had been tried, but not half a dozen fish had been 
taken, as long as he had lived there, with hook and 
line. He said we were welcome to the use of the boat, 
and that we could get a gig by calling at the cabin. 
This gig we got in the evening, and it proved to be a 
spear with a long pole handle, a very crude three-tined 
spear, dull, and with a barb or two broken. 
Enochs surprised us by showing some knowledge of 
boats. Fie directed the overhauling of the old flat- 
bottom, calked it up somewhat, put in a seat, and got a 
pair of paddles at the cabin that served to propel it 
some. We found that the boat was adapted to two' 
persons — two only. Three were too many, and one 
was only half enough. With two in her, one had to lean 
to starboard and the other to larboard, or port. At 
first this was, a difficult exercise, but after we got the 
hang of it, and knew just how far to lurch, we could 
keep her from going bottom up by strict attention to - 
the matter. The proper handling of the paddles was 
also an art peculiar to the outfit, for they did not fit 
the boat in any particular. Nevertheless, Enochs and 
I rowed twice across the lake, and Dick and I rowed 
half way around it, and crossed it after dark. These 
adventures were reckless affairs, and that we were not 
drowned is no fault of ours. 
Many parts of fhe lake were dotted with what 
seemed to be stumps or mere snags, and we judged the 
water to be shallow in these places. We found, as we 
rowed out on our first voyage, that these were stumps 
—but they were some of the tallest we had ever found. 
I think we .could see the bottom clearly at a depth of 
a hundred feet, and in the places where the stumps 
broke the surface we could, in rowing by them, look 
down the trunks of immense trees and see that they 
were still rooted to the bottom. There were hundreds 
of these trees about the shallower portions of the lake, 
standing upright as they had stood when alive and 
growing. Now they had rotted and broken off at the 
surface, while the trunks had stood submerged for an 
unknown period. Most of these trees were as white 
as stone, and appeared to be somewhat petrified. 
As we floated over the deeper parts of the lake the 
white forest below' us in the clear water receded, 
pitching deeper and deeper, until the white trunks 
blended in the blue unfathomed depths. We saw many 
fish, none other than trout, and some of them very 
large ones. The water was so clear, and all our move- 
ments so visible, the first we saw were all deep down 
and quite shy. It was intensely fascinating to gaze 
down into this submerged forest, and when we failed 
to see bottom there was something sufficiently ap- 
palling about the prospect. At one time we found that 
our dangerous craft was not progressing. We did not 
realize this for some time, and we pulled away at the 
paddles with a funny, crawling sensation. When we did 
realize it we forgot all about the funny part of it. We 
now ascertained that we were hung up on a submerged 
treetop where we could see no bottom, and we were 
about midway in the lake. In our efforts we were at 
all times in danger of staving the bottom out of our 
rotten boat, in which case we could imagine nothing 
to prevent our going to the bottom of the lake, frozen 
first, and then drowned. The freezing would not take 
long, and the drowning would not matter so much — 
but the thought of the combination was disheartening. 
About the time we began to feel somewhat religiously 
inciined we got off, for a wonder, and we rowed ashore 
with as much judgment and skill as we had left. We 
had been ro much absorbed in this adventure that we 
really felt relieved to get out upon a big rock, and from 
thac we had some notion of climbing into a tree. Water 
as deep as this lake, and as cold, looks well at and 
from the surface. As for us we could see no personal 
advantage in the point of view in the bottom of it. 
At tnar time, if I had been assured, or even told, that 
I v. infld float across this laks in about the same place 
and in the same Doat, in absolute darkness, about mid- 
nigfir. I should have set out for home if I had to walk. 
If I gave the matter second thought, I believe I would 
run most of the way. 
We wanted some of those fish, and after supper that 
night Dick and I prepared to spear some of them. We 
fixed a basket out of wire to attach to the prow of the 
boat, while we collected some splintered pitch-pine for 
torch material. _ We took what appeared to be a good 
supply of the pitch, and Enochs having agreed to re- 
main in camp and keep the fire going so that we would 
know our location from time to time, we got our spear 
and cast off in the boat. We proposed keeping in shal- 
low water, as there only could fish be speared. 
We fixed our pitch-pine in the prow, set fire to it, 
and found that it worked nicely, ligthing up the clear 
water for yards about the boat. We could see every 
object and pebble to considerable depth, and in the 
shallow water we could scarcely tell that there was 
water between us and the bottom. Dick, by careful 
manipulation of the oars, could keep the boat steady 
now and then, while I stood at the bow with ready 
spear. We could soon see trout darting about and fre- 
quently one would lie still as if dazed by the light, but 
between the task of keeping the torch burning, dodging 
the almost stifling smoke, and maintaining an upright 
position, I found this project also required tact, mixed 
up with a good deal of labor. Finally, directly ahead, 
I saw a fine fish holding still, the fire blazed up nicely, 
the water was very shallow, and I shot the spear at 
him with such success that I brought him into the boat 
very gracefully, and even Dick grunted that it was well 
done. 
As for me, I now saw how easy and nice this thing 
9 ^ gigging' them was. Soon we saw several fine ones 
in a little deeper water apparently, and I began to get 
interested very much. The fish — the largest of three or 
four — looked like he might weigh five or six pounds, 
and I could almost feel him on the spear, in the an- 
ticipation. 
“Slow up, Dick, pull in a triffle — now — no, pull out 
a little — a little more— now, steady!” And at that 
instant, with deadly aim, I shot the spear well abaft 
of where the fish appeared to be, as the tendency is 
always to overshoot. The spear cut through the water 
like a knife, but neither the fish nor the bottom was 
where I expected them to be. In fact, neither spear nor 
pole came in contact with anything, but I would really 
like to see some one else go into the water like I went 
into it. The boat tipped at the right instant the wrong 
way, and then it tipped back at the wrong instant the 
righ way, and, as I failed to reach the bottom with the 
spear, I dived for bottom without it. Cold? Words, 
mere words are very insipid! Yet I could stand the 
cold for a moment, and even the wet, but the undigni- 
fied part of it, the humiliating impetuosity with which I 
scrambled out of that, merely to keep myself from 
drowning, was horrible! I shiver as I set down the fact 
in this history. I would have omitted it — I should have 
done it — I even wish I had! 
The only thing that kept Dick from laughing himself 
into a spasm, was the way in which I clutched that boat 
and got back into it. He had all he could do to hold 
her from going over. After I had been in the boat 
awhile, here came the spear. It bobbed up more 
serenely than I did, after failing to find bottom. There 
was no fish on it, and I am satisfied that, if he was not 
scared to death, the fish escaped. I put on my coat, 
and wished I had half a dozen more of them. Then I 
rowed the boat in an effort to keep warm, while Dick 
wanted to try his hand at the spear. I wanted very 
much to see him do it, and I was almost interested 
enough in a little scheme I had with regard to tipping 
