138 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Feb. I, 1913 
nail}’ his spirits returned, even if they were not 
bottled. Nineteen and ten stood the score after 
we had fished for seeming ages. The sun was 
high in the heavens. We had smoked pipe after 
pipe of tobacco, wlicn finally Julius happened to 
think of eating, and a shade of pain overspread 
his countenance. He had forgotten. Fishing 
glories departed from his horizon. For him 
there was but one place, one destination. The 
world and all its wealth was as nothing to him 
when compared with the thought of eating. 
Thoroughly satisfied with our success we 
hit it for the shore where we found the embers 
of the fire smouldering, the great log crumbling. 
\\'e replenished it and soon were frying pork 
sausage over the glows. Enjoyment? Yes, 
considerable. A little adventure in contentment, 
the more interesting because it was so simple, 
j'et so intensely appealing. We had individually 
appetites worthy of epicures and before we 
arose and lit our pipes again, I wordlessly 
thanked Julius for remembering the pork sau¬ 
sage and the cheese. We fished some more in 
the afternoon, but around 2 o’clock it began to 
get colder and the thought of home assailed us, 
so we gathered in our fish, put them in the gunny 
sack and bid farewell to the lake. 
Half way home a thought entered my mind. 
“Where did you put the fish, Julius?” I 
asked, looking behind in the sled. 
“Oh!’’ said Julius, without turning, “they 
are hanging there on the side of the sled on the 
nail.” 
“What!” I yelled, my heart taking one leap, 
and then falling through the seat lay gasping on 
the floor of the sled. “They’re gone!” 
Julius by a superhuman effort thrust his 
head out from among the robes and yawned. 
“I was only fooling,” he said; “they are 
under that blanket in the back,” 
A drink revived me; I was shaking like an 
aspen. 
“What do you mean by ‘also and likewise?’ 
Can you explain the difference to the jury?” 
“Yes suh!” said the witness. “You am a 
judge. His honah ovah there on the bench am 
a judge—also—but not likewise.” 
“will you have the goodness to hand me that 
LITTLE BIRD I’VE JUST SHOT OFF YOUR HEDGE?” 
From a Seymour picture in the Woodward Collection. 
Enjoined from Scaring Ducks. 
Robert Schindler, of Halifax, was tempor¬ 
arily enjoined from “wantonly or maliciously” 
frightening wildfowl from the range of the gun¬ 
ning stands of George O. and Benjamin H. 
Currier on the shore of West Monponsett Lake, 
by Judge Raymond in the equity motion session 
yesterday. 
The injunction is part of an equity action 
brought by the Curriers to determine the rights 
of the public in wildfowl on a “great pond,” a 
question which has never been decided by the 
courts of this State. 'Fhe complainants plan to 
carry the issue to the supreme court, if necessary. 
—Boston Herald. 
Boston, Mass., Dec. 31. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: I spent a day in court waiting for the 
hearing of the case explained by the above clip¬ 
ping, which will give you the judge’s decision. 
This pond is a large enough body of water 
so that it is public domain, the air is free, and 
the birds are the property of the State or Federal 
Government. 
Will some legal light explain to me how, 
with the above conditions, a gunning stand on 
one side of a pond can be enjoined from shoot¬ 
ing? iMy entire interest in the goose game in 
^Massachusetts is to do what little I can to have 
the birds protected from unnecessary slaughter, 
and this injunction giving a man, or set of men, 
property rights in these flying birds is something 
beyond my capacity for understanding. Perhaps 
you have some legally trained sportsmen who 
can set us right. I only hope the losers in this 
case will spend the money to have the matter 
given proper consideration. The facts were cer¬ 
tainly not gone into at this hearing. 
Charles C. Clapp. 
The Last Hunt. 
BY W. H. BENTLEY. 
Git me down my rifle, .Sandy; now the powder horn an’ 
caps. 
There’s my doe-skin pouch o’ bullets, bangin’ up by them 
long straps; 
.'\n’ mv huntin’ knife is lyin’ on the shelf—right over 
there, 
Jes beside them greasy patches. Lay ’em all in this here 
chair. 
Now my leggins; they’re the ol’ kind made o’ buckskin 
laced with thongs; 
Saved ’em je.s ’cause Zek’I made ’em, right afore he left 
these grounds. 
Him an’ me was jes like brothers. S’pose I’ll some time 
understand 
Why at eighty-nine I’m here, while he is in the Other 
Land. 
O yes, Sandy, I’m a-goin’. Jes once more I want to see 
Them good old forest places that was alius ’tractin’ me. 
O’ course, I may go slow, at first, in makin’ hill an’ 
dale; 
Put my j’ints’ll git well limbered as I toiler ’long the 
trail. 
I want to see Bald Mount’in towerin’ up so fine an’ 
grand, 
Jes as if the Lord A’mighty had sot up a big grand¬ 
stand 
Fer them that liked to view Ilis works, an’ see the way 
things stood 
Afore men come a-choppin’ an’ a-clearin’ off the wood. 
I want to stand by Tumblin’ Falls, an’ see the water 
boom. 
An’ jump an’ fling itself like mad down to the lower 
flume; 
An’ then, as if ashamed, grow still an’ steal off to the 
lake. 
There’s a picter fer you, Sandy, that no hand but God’s 
could make. 
An’ if I find it ain’t too fur, I'd like to come around 
The ridge, w'here all them beeches is—how well I know 
that ground. 
Down at the foot's the cedar swamp, where me an Zeke 
one day, 
Scairt up two whoppin’ big bull moose; an’ neither got 
away. 
Mebbe, when I’m a-trampin’, still, along some path I 
know. 
I’ll git sight of a noble buck, or else a fine fat doe. 
IMy.eyes ain’t sharp like once they was; an’ I can’t 
h’ist up my gun 
Like I used to could: an’ I might miss if they sh’d 
start an’ run. 
Too much fer me, you think? O no. But s’pose it is: 
what then? 
What’s one day more or less to me, who’s alius ready 
when 
The Lord A’mighty, seein’ how soon I’ll be a care. 
Sends down that messenger o’ His to call me Over There. 
An’ Sandy, what’s more fittin’ than fer me, an’ oT 
woodsman 
Vdho’s lived on nature’s bounty, like—jes fed from God’s 
own han’, 
Fer long past t’nree-score-years-an’-ten—right now to lay 
my bones 
Down in the frosted, withered leaves, or ’mong the 
brown pine cones. 
What’d be more fittin’, I say, fer me who’se lived my 
years 
dost to the things of natur’, havin’ no troubles, no 
fears, 
Than to give my soul to my Maker out in the open air— 
To drop while the breeze in the spruces is chantin’ a 
fun’ral prayer. 
Sc I’ll be off now, Sandy, boy. Hand me the gun an’ 
things. 
The lure of the woods is workin’, an’ in my ears there 
rings 
The call o’ the forest places that so often I’ve bin in; 
The end o’ my days’ll be burdened onless I kin see ’em 
ag’in. 
* * He * * * * 
The twinkling stars night vigil kept. 
Over a bier that breezes swept. 
And down a glade where the spruce trees grow. 
Sang midnight requiem, soft and low. 
Through the branches wide. The only shroud 
That covered the bier was the night shade’s cloud. 
No mourners stood with uncovered head 
About the form of the placid dead. 
His last, long sleep, the hunter slept. 
If over his bier no mourners wept; 
If shroudless he lay, while but stars sent 
A feeble light from the firmament; 
If his bier was the leaf-strewn sod— 
’Twas fitting, he said. When from his God 
In the forest’s depths the call had come. 
He’d died as becometh nature’s son. 
