358 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Sept. 20, 1913. 
An Old Sailor’s Yarn 
Part Five 
By HENRY D. ATWOOD 
it that the smaller fish was healthier and already 
livelier and hence was seeking active quarry at 
the surface and was naturally better fitted for 
a fight or a frolic? It may be so, but I have 
long entertained a notion that any game fish 
taken with a surface bait will give his captor 
a more sporty response than would the same fish 
if caught upon a bottom or underwater lure. He 
finds and attacks his expected victim, the bait 
at the surface of the water. Finding himself 
fastened to the terrifying thing, he seeks to rid 
himself of it at the same place where he first 
saw it—the surface. “There I found it and 
there I must get away from it,” is his uncon¬ 
scious feeling, and hence those upward rushes 
that carry the hooked fish far up into the air 
shaking his head violently in order to dislodge 
the hold of the strange and dreadful hook and 
leave it up in its own element. But whatever 
may be the correct explanation of the discrep¬ 
ancy in the conduct of these two bass, the inci¬ 
dent goes to show that one must not base their 
opinion as to the gaminess of any species on too 
few data. 
Wildwood Lake is a pond of which the New 
York city bass angler ought to know, for with¬ 
out offering any extraordinary attractions !t will 
yield him a reasonable catch of bass when con¬ 
ditions are right, and at all times plenty of 
humbler fish, and is a naturally beautiful spot 
easy of access. 
Sharks as Prison Guards. 
Shark skin, shark teeth, shark oil, shark 
meat and several other by-products of the 
dead shark are articles of greater or lesser 
utility, but I have never heard of but one in¬ 
stance where the living shark was put to a 
practical use. This, says Lewis R. Freeman, 
in the Wide World Magazine, was when they 
used him as a prison guard in the old days 
when British convicts were transported to 
Australia, the monsters serving this purpose 
for many years at the Port Arthur settlement, 
ten miles south of Hobart, the present capital 
of Tasmania. The prisons at this point, some 
of which may still lie seen, were situated 
upon a peninsula whose only connection with 
the mainland was by a long, narrow strip of 
sand called, from its configuration, the “Eagle- 
hawk’s Neck.” 
The convicts were allowed considerable 
liberty on the peninsula, lint to prevent their 
escape to the mainland half starved blood¬ 
hounds were chained all the way across the 
narrowest portion of the “Neck.” Several 
prisoners having avoided the “bloodhound 
zone” by swimming, the authorities adopted 
the effective but gruesome expedient of feed¬ 
ing the sharks at that point several times a 
day. In a few weeks the place became literal¬ 
ly alive with the voracious man-eaters, and 
from that time on the only convict who ever 
escaped accomplished his purpose by rolling 
himself up in kelp and working along, inch by 
inch, timing his movements to correspond with 
those of the other heaps of sea weed that wdre 
being rolled by the surf. 
The following sentence appeared in the 
small boy’s letter to his chum: “You know 
Bob Jones’s neck. Well, he fell in the river 
up to it.”—Everybody’s. 
O N the following day we resumed our search 
of the swamps in hopes of securing an¬ 
other cougar, but were not rewarded with 
success, and as night fell we returned tired and 
hungry to the camps. There, over the flickering 
flame of the fire, one of my companions narrated 
the following story of an event in the Revolu¬ 
tionary days, when Kingston was in daily expec¬ 
tation of an attack from the American troops at 
Sacketts Harbor in conjunction with the naval 
forces of Commodore Chauncey. All was ac¬ 
tivity on the Canadian shore; men were concen¬ 
trating, and bodies of light horse on the look¬ 
out scouring the coast. 
A profligate by the name of De Forest and 
his companion fell in with some fifteen or twenty 
horsemen, with whose officers an agreeable ac¬ 
quaintance was formed, and soon together they 
alighted at a small village for refreshments. Bar 
room, hall and parlor of the inn were thrown 
open for their accommodation, and an hour of 
pleasure followed, seasoned with wit and wine. 
All with them was merriment, but near by was 
a little party which mingled not with them. 
It consisted of three of the aborigines of the 
country, an Indian and two native women. These 
were grave as is the habit of their race, and 
occupied a retired corner, careless of what passed 
around them, partaking of slight food and sip¬ 
ping at ale. At first sight they were evidently 
of a grade superior to the common natives. 
They were neatly and indeed richly attired, after 
the Indian fashion, with a profusion of beads 
curiously wrought into various articles of their 
dress, which were also adorned with heavy orna¬ 
ments of silver. The Indian himself was tall 
and well formed, considerably advanced in years, 
and as he conversed with his women in a low 
gutteral tone, there was nothing peculiar in his 
appearance, save a dark and' somewhat restless 
eye. One of the females might have been his 
wife, the other his daughter, a small fair native, 
with beautiful long shining hair, black as her 
sparkling eyes. 
As De Forest and his friends were about to 
depart, this little group caught their attention, 
and the former exclaimed: “Eh! Colonel, a 
prize, by Jupiter. There are eyes and shape 
for you that no one need be ashamed to own.” 
The young woman to whom allusion was 
made cast her eye to the floor with a native bash¬ 
fulness, but immediately raised them for an in¬ 
stant, and took a timorous survey of the ap¬ 
proaching gentlemen. Her dress was in fact 
so disposed as to show off her fair form to good 
advantage. It was of light calico, extending to 
the knee and confined around the waist by a 
broad rich belt of wampum, such as the kings 
of the land wore in the days of old. The wrists 
were circled with clasps of silver, the throat and 
bosom were confined by brooches and ornamented 
with beads and shells of the color and brilliance 
of pearls, and her little feet were encased in a 
pair of beautifully wrought moccasins. 
The colonel addressed the Indian as one he 
had previously met, while De Forest, his eye 
luminous with wine, bespoke the attention of 
the women. 
“Hah! my girl of the woods,” said he, “didst 
know thy feet are prettier than the forest flowers 
they are accustomed to tread on? Thine eyes—” 
“She no understand Inglis,” interrupted the 
Indian woman. 
“Well, d—n me!” continued he, “there is a 
language understood by all, white or black, and 
from the wench to the queen. Eh! my girl,” 
added he, chucking her chin, “know’st thou the 
language of the lips?” 
“Off, rascal of a white,” shouted the old 
Indian as he suddenly sprung forward and 
thrust his tall powerful frame between his 
daughter and insult. “The hen defends her 
brood, and the nestling of the red skin is safe 
with her father.” 
De Forest gave back from the unsuspected 
onset, and the Indian had time to fold his arms 
quietly upon his breast before receiving the blow 
which followed from the clenched hands of the 
indignant and inconsiderate Englishman. There 
was a single shout, quick, loud and shrill, and 
the glance of a knife was seen in the arm of 
the savage circled round his head and bent to¬ 
ward the breast of De Forest, when the colonel 
with a quick movement of his sheathed sword 
turned the blow aside, and the soldiers rushed 
up to the affray. The Indian stood calmly be¬ 
fore them. He showed no expression of anger 
or disappointment, but there was a difference 
between him and the humble native of a moment 
before. He had now the bearing of a chief and 
seemed calculated for command rather than 
obedience, and his eye was changed from what 
it had been. Its main characteristic was its 
power of penetration. I have felt it upon me, 
years since, when age should have dimmed its 
lustre, but even then, when excited, it was not 
like an eye of earth. Its keenness was insup¬ 
portable ; it looked into and read the very depths 
of the soul. De Forest quailed before it, and 
the soldiers as they caught it drew back a step. 
The affray, however, was ended; the savage 
was overawed by the number of the whites, and 
the young Englishman contented himself with 
abusive language toward the inoffensive natives 
he had so deeply insulted. No one attached fur¬ 
ther importance to the affair, and fifteen minutes 
after De Forest and his traveling companions 
were pursuing their journey and leisurely review¬ 
ing the events which had last transpired. 
Three or four days passed off, and they 
came to York. De Forest knew not that any 
danger threatened him, that his footsteps were 
dogged, and his path repeatedly crossed by a 
foe as untiring and unrelenting when bound on 
an office of destruction as faithful as an errand 
of love. In fact, though unnoticed by those he 
pursued, an Indian enveloped in a blanket with 
nothing about him to distinguish him to a casual 
eye from the others of his race upon the lake 
shore kept on the same direction with them¬ 
selves, sometimes before and again in the rear; 
in the woods when it could be so, and frequently 
