203 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Feb. 15, 1913 
Harking Back 
By CHARLES CRISTADORO 
M r. WEBBER'S reference to the call of the 
“Red Gods" takes me back to the pages 
of Forest and Stream of j'ears ago. Ffow 
many of my readers remember the “Red Gods,” 
“blackened timber,” “shingled beach,” "iron-shod 
canoe poles” and the “roming round the bend” 
controversy? The then editor inserted Kipling's 
poem and Fred Browne arose to the occasion 
and boldly asserted that Kipling did not know 
what he was writing about. And then the war 
was on. Flow the ink flew! Issue after issue 
gave the views of others, all in support of 
Rudyard, and, of course, against Browne. The 
editor threatened to shut off the discussion, but 
yet they came. It crystalized into one question 
finally as to whether canoe men ever used an 
iron-shod canoe pole or not. To give room in 
the paper for aught else, the lid was clapped 
down good and hard on the discussion, and to 
this day the question as to whether a canoe pole 
is iron-shod or not has never been authorita¬ 
tively settled. 
But it surely was a merry war while it 
lasted—and everybody who read the paper 
seemed anxious to get into the game and down 
Browne. But metaphorically backing up to the 
question, he exclaimed that— 
'1‘liis rock shall hy 
From its firm base 
As soon as I, 
and he held on to his iron-shodless canoe pole 
theory to the last until the editor rang down the 
controversial curtain. 
We had about then the Limburger and 
mallard mixup, for which the writer was re¬ 
sponsible. Vividly describing how a discarded 
empty tin of Limburger, thrown carelessly upon 
the pass, spoiled a part of an afternoon's duck 
shooting, until, it being buried, all went well, a 
controversy was started upon the question as to 
whether a duck smelled or not. or more specifi¬ 
cally, whether a duck could smell, or. better 
still and more specific yet, whether the olfactory 
nerves of a duck were sufficiently developed to 
enable it to smell. 
Coahoma (I wonder if he is yet with us on 
this side of the Silent River), who was the 
snake-story contributor from Mississippi, if I 
remember correctly, seemed to seriously regard 
my Limburger-mallard yarn and go into the 
question scientifically as to whether that odorifer¬ 
ous tin of Limburger was actually located a hun¬ 
dred or more yards away down the i)ass, and was 
the real cause of the phenomenal divergence of 
flock after flock of greenhead led birds, who 
otherwise would have come straight over the 
blind. It was great fun while it lasted, even if 
it did bring Coahoma and the writer into the 
Forest and Stream court in a friendly law 
suit. I think the editor, who was an old 
seasoned duck hunter, decided that ducks had 
not the power of scenting the enemy, but made 
Up in seeing what they lacked in smelling. 
UNTQUE GtllDES. 
What a book could be written on guides 
and their ways! One I remember in particular 
which the old man, who fished and hunted with 
me. said should have been a banker and not a 
guide. He w'as out of his calling. This guide 
in question, although an expert fisherman and 
a great bait-caster, cared really nothing about 
the sport, yet he always took along his rusty 
old steel rod with its coffee-mill reel. There 
was a reason, and a good one. Gray bass go 
in pairs and in schools. If you caught one, you 
could surely count upon its mate, and if a third 
were caught, you could make up your mind you 
had a school of them to deal wdth. It w'as a 
matter of “feeling” for them along the sandy 
bars, finding them. 
Our guide came out strong in this investi¬ 
gation work, for he had an arm like Hercules 
himself, and with heavy sinker and bait, he 
would hurl that line and set up a screeching of 
that loose old reel that seemed as if it would 
never stop. Here and there he would cast, and 
finding them at last, it w'as a matter of moving 
our boat in the right direction, wdiich he 
promptly attended to. That rod never came 
into play after the fish w'ere located. I never 
knew him to fish even when we w'ere in a 
school and there w'ere more than enough to go 
around. Flis enthusiasm long ago had oozed 
out from his finger tips. 
A pompous patron sat in our guide's boat 
for the first time. All was in readiness to push 
off. lunch basket, frying-pan and coffee-pot 
snugged away in the bow, and then before push¬ 
ing off, the old iunk rod was put into the boat 
last. The fisherman flared up. 
“What's that? Take it out at once! I 
never allow my guide to fish under any circum¬ 
stances! I’ll do all the fishing that there is to 
be done! Take it out!” 
The guide removed the basket, then his 
slicker and then the rod, and put them safely 
away, and then turning to his now more than 
interested guest, roughly ordered him out of the 
boat. He got out. The guide stepped into 
the boat and rowed up the lake. The guest 
thought it over, and in due course got back to 
town. And the old man, when the opportunity 
presented, told Charlie, the guide, he was meant 
for a banker and missed his calling in life. Just 
a case of misinterpretation and haughtiness on 
one side and lack of tact and loss of temper on 
the other. 
the lawyer fish. 
The same guide and a law'yer, an ex-judge, 
in the boat. A mudfish, peculiar more or less 
to that lake, was landed by the lawwer. It was 
an ugly creature, more or less combative and 
a persona non grata in the boat. After the 
fish had been dispatched and thrown overboard, 
the incognito lawyer asked Charlie the name of 
the ugly fish. 
“We call that fish a “lawyer-” 
“And why a lawyer, may I ask?” 
“Well,” replied Charlie, “he's one of those 
chaps that will sting you. take your pocketbook, 
the shirt off your back and even your hide, if 
he can get it." 
After the lawyer had told that story on 
himself at the club in town and it had drifted 
back in course of time to Charlie, he denied 
that he knew the calling of his patron at the 
time, but that did not alter the facts in the case. 
All of which goes to .prove that the guide can 
be odd at times, as well as the sportsman, and 
perhaps more often the sportsman than the 
guide, as in the case of the man who could 
throw a fly and was bound to impress that fact 
upon his guide by repeatedly lengthening out 
his casts, only to be told by the guide who was 
“on,” that it was mighty fine casting, but 
equally poor fishing, inasmuch as the trout pool 
was not more than thirty feet away from the 
boat and the caster was laying his flies in water 
a few' inches deep. 
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 
Annapolis Royal, N. S., Jan. 29.' — Editor 
Forest and Stream: In your "Foreword'’ of 
this week you do me too much honor in calling 
me the man who put the “New'’ in New Bruns¬ 
wick as a popular big-game hunting ground. Of 
course- you nodded and really meant Nova 
Scotia, a country .with which I am very much 
more familiar. 
A great many people have asked me to com¬ 
pare the two Provinces in regard to hunting 
and fishing. This comparison need not be odious, 
for both have many advantages. I might put 
it shortly, thus: 
Moose.—More in New Brunswick and heads 
run larger; easier to get your head, as the beasts 
are not so sophisticated, and have the habit of 
coming out on the shores of lakes and streams 
more or less regularly. It costs at least twice 
as much to hunt in New Brunswick as in Nova 
Scotia, where there is also good moose hunting, 
though it takes more skill to get a head. Nova 
Scotia is a good place to begin, and especially 
for the poor man. You don't have to go so 
far for a pioose as in New Brunswick. The 
best place to start from is South Milford, near 
Annapolis Royal, though there are other good 
points. 
Deer and Caribou.—No deer hunting yet in 
Nova Scotia. Fair hunting in New Brunswick. 
Caribou plenty in Northern New Brunswick and 
in Cape Breton, N. S., where the hunting of 
this beast was reopened last fall. Good heads 
in both places. 
Bear.—More in New Brunswick, though a 
lot are got in Nova Scotia. It is always a chance 
if you get one, unless you run them with dogs 
or trap them. 
Salmon.—New Brunswick has the call. Very 
uncertain in Nova Scotia. Fish smaller. 
Trouting.—Good in both anywhere in sea¬ 
son. Cheaper in Nova Scotia. 
Canoe Trips.—Excellent in both, but espe¬ 
cially fine in Western Nova Scotia, where every¬ 
thing is wild, the carries very short, and the 
network of waterways extraordinary, the ideal 
canoe country. 
Tuna—Near Sidney, N. S. There are tuna 
further south, but few have been landed, I be¬ 
lieve. Edward Breck. 
A FiH.L-BLOODED Chippewa Indian n.amed 
Carlisle Kawbawgam, a graduate of the Govern¬ 
ment Indian School at Carlisle, Pa., has made a 
sensation in Berlin and Vienna, not as an athlete 
like Thorpe, but as a tenor singer. He is hailed 
by the critics as having a voice of the first order, 
and is called by them the “Red Caruso." He 
is now to study for grand opera in Berlin. 
