724 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 7, 1912 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
Charles Otis, President. 
W. G. Beecroft, Secretary. S. J. Gibson, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
CORRESPONDENCE — ’Forest and Stream is the 
recognized medium of entertainment, instruction and in¬ 
formation between American sportsmen. The editors 
invite communications on the subjects to which its pages 
are devoted, but, of course, are not responsible for the 
views of correspondents. Anonymous communications 
cannot be regarded. 
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MERRY CHRISTMAS. 
This is our Christmas number. It brings 
with it, whether it finds you near at hand or in 
remotest corners of the continent, our sincere 
wish for a very Merry Christmas, and our hope 
is that this offering of stories and sketches which 
Forest and Stream contributors have provided 
for your entertainment may add its mite to your 
enjoyment of the holiday season. 
THE STILL-HUNTER. 
The typical hunter is the still-hunter. There 
are many and diverse ways of taking big game 
—jacking, hounding, calling, floating, baiting— 
but none of them is so universal, none so truly 
typical of the essence of the thing as still-hunt¬ 
ing. 
The still-hunter trusts to beating wild 
nature at her own game. He enters the wilder¬ 
ness haunts with all the stealth of his aboriginal 
ancestors or of the wild things themselves. 
Though his senses are less keen than theirs, 
he has the added power of reason, and a terrible 
foe he proves. No panther creeping for the 
spring, no wolf howling its wild paean, strikes 
a keener terror to the heart of the deer than the 
suddenly realized presence of the still-hunter. 
And the fierce animals of the forest have learned 
to dread him likewise. 
The still-hunter skirts the hardwood ridges 
noiselessly, his moccasined feet resting on the 
moss-covered rock or fallen tree trunk with a 
light sureness that suggests simian prehensile 
powers. His progress is slow, but terribly sug¬ 
gestive of reserve power. Frequently he stops 
altogether as he scans some hollow where moul¬ 
dering trees have furnished food for a luxuriant 
growth of the young hardwoods, or peers under 
the dense shadows of some balsam brake. 
The things he sees and hears are full of 
meaning to the still-hunter. The turned leaf, 
the depression in that red-brown soggy pile 
where some old forest monarch fell and dis¬ 
integrated the sharply defined footprint in the 
black muck at the edge of the spring—all these 
tell their story—the broken branch and nibbled 
bough, the crackling of a stick far off under 
the forest arches. So he becomes aware of the 
presence of his game. Then with most infinite 
patience the approach is compassed and he stands 
waiting his chance for a shot. An indefinable 
something causes the wild thing to look up, and 
as it catches the dread eye that seals its fate, it 
is rooted to the spot with fear. 
The still-hunter is the king of the forest. 
All nature owes him allegiance, and he accepts 
his tribute at will. He is close to the source 
of things, and at night sleeps with the spirits of 
his primal ancestors—old Nimrod and the lot. 
To him the trees talk and the waters whisper. 
Old Mother Earth with all her burden of years 
is young again and smiles as she did on the 
first man. Freedom and power is his song— 
freedom and power. 
THE DEAD CAMP-FIRE. 
A heap of ashes, a few half-burned brands, 
a blackened pair of crotched sticks that mark the. 
place of the once glowing heart of the camp, 
furnish food for the imagination to feed upon 
or give the memory an elusive taste of departed 
pleasures. 
If you were one of those who saw its living 
flame and felt its warmth, the pleasant hours 
passed here come back with that touch of sad¬ 
ness which accompanies the memory of all de¬ 
parted pleasures and yet makes it not unwel¬ 
come. What was unpleasant, even what was al¬ 
most unendurable, has nearly faded out of re¬ 
membrance or is recalled with a laugh. 
It was ten years ago, and the winds and 
fallen leaves of as many autumns have scattered 
and covered the gray heap; or, if it was only 
last year, and you fancy that the smell of fire 
still lingers in the brands, how vividly returns 
to you the anxious deliberation with which the 
site was chosen with a view to all attainable 
comfort and convenience, and the final satisfac¬ 
tion that followed the establishment of this 
short-lived home, short-lived, but yet so much 
a home during its existence. 
Nothing contributed so much to make it one 
as the camp-fire. How intently you watched its 
first building and lighting, how labored for its 
maintenance with awkwardly-wielded ax, how 
you inhaled the odors of its cookery and essayed 
long-planned culinary experiments with extem¬ 
porized implements, over its bed of coals, and 
the consequent exaltation of triumph or morti¬ 
fication of failure. 
All these come back to you, and the relight¬ 
ing of the fire in the sleepy dawn, the strange 
mingling of white sunlight and yellow firelight 
when the sun shot its first level rays athwart 
the camp, the bustle of departure for the day’s 
sport, the pleasant loneliness of camp keeping 
with only the silent woods, the crackling fire and 
your thoughts for company; the incoming at 
nightfall and the rekindling of the fire, when 
the rosy bud of sleeping embers suddenly ex¬ 
panded into a great blossom of light whose 
petals quivered and faded and brightened among 
the encircling shadows of the woods. You 
laugh again at the jokes that ran around that 
merry circle and wonder again and again at the 
ingenuity with which small performances were 
magnified into great exploits, little haps into 
strange adventure, and with which bad shots 
and poor catches were excused. 
At last came breaking camp, the desolation 
of dismantling and leave taking. How many 
of you will ever meet again? How many of 
those merry voices are stilled forever, from 
how many of those happy faces has the light of 
life faded? 
Who lighted this camp-fire? Years have 
passed since it lit the nightly gloom of the woods, 
for moss and lichens are creeping over the 
charred back log. A green film is spread over 
the ashes, and thrifty sprouts are springing up 
through them. 
You know that the campers were tent dwell¬ 
ers, for there stand the rows of rotten tent pins 
inclosing a rusty heap of mold that once was 
a fragrant couch of evergreens inviting tired 
men to rest. You know they spent their nights 
in a shanty, for there are the crumbling walls, 
the fallen-in roof of bark that never again will 
echo song or jest. 
The pile of fish bones attests that they were 
anglers, and skillful or lucky ones, for the pile 
is large. If you are an ichthyologist, you can 
learn by these vestiges of their sport whether 
they satisfied the desire of soul and stomach 
with the baser or the nobler fishes; perhaps a 
rotting pole, breaking with its own weight, may 
decide whether they fished with worm or fly, 
but whether you relegate them to the class of 
scientific or unscientific anglers, you doubt not 
they enjoyed their sport as much in one way as 
in the other. 
You know that they were riflemen, for there 
is the record of their shots in the healing bullet 
wounds on the trunk of a great beech. For a 
moment you may fancy that the woods still echo 
the laughter that greeted the shot that just raked 
the side of the tree, but it is only the cackle of 
a yellowhammer. 
There is nothing to tell you who they were, 
whence they came, or whither they went, but 
they were campers, lovers of the great outdoor 
world, so akin to you, and you bid them hail and 
farewell without a meeting. 
SAYS LONDON FIELD. 
London Field, the most comprehensive 
sportsman’s periodical in Europe, in fact, we 
may say, in the world, publishes in ‘its issue of 
Nov. 16 an unusual and interesting article on 
the “stimulating reading” to be found in Forest 
and Stream, which it recognizes as “the paper 
which deals more fully with shooting and fish¬ 
ing than any other in America.” The article is 
well worth reading. It appears in the trap de¬ 
partment in this issue. 
To the Canada Jay. 
BV PAUL BRANDRETH. 
Little brother of the green solitudes, 
Whose silent flight and mild, mysterious eye 
Seem wrought of twilight and poetic moods, 
Whose wings are like a veiled November sky, 
With here and there a dark cloud floating by— 
Come, take your share of venison-meat and game, 
And while upon fresh balsam boughs we lie 
Join us beside the camp-fire’s ruddy flame. 
Like a gray shadow, glancing into light, 
Softly you come and go. Oh, impish sprite, 
Born of the snow-lands and the north wind’s sigh, 
Wild as an arctic spell, half-tame, yet shy, 
Withal so strange the magic forest seems 
In you to voice its everlasting dreams. 
