FOREST AND STREAM 
939 
The Tang of Wood Smoke Will Be in Your Nostrils, and You’ll Feel the 
Sting of White Water Spray in Your Face. 
THE FIGHT ON THE WAY UP STREAM 
NOTHING BUT WORK WILL WIN YOU THERE, 
THOUGH THAT WORK BE AS GRINDING AS SIN 
By One of the “Fur Brigade.” 
in that thicket I can hear him fly up and may 
still have a chance for him. Again I look for 
the little warbler and find him busy at the tip of 
a pine twig and can see the flower catkin where 
he is at work. I had not known the pines were 
in bloom yet. The warbler is trilling his first 
low sweet run. His mate must be very near or 
she will miss that dainty carol. Again I am 
looking up stream at the thicket and lo! a change 
has come o’er the spirit of my—view—not dream, 
for it is a reality in feathers that has walked 
boldly out and comes on as if he knew just 
where he was going and what he intended to do 
when he arrived. 
A faint “putt” is all I hear and he stretches 
his neck at every few steps and looks right, 
left, up. It is growing some darker now under 
these old trees and he thinks it time a wise old 
turkey was up off the ground. Wild cats are 
not scarce hereabouts; I heard one within a 
week up this way and no doubt old Turk has 
heard several quite recently. 
Now he is about 75 yards off and seems un¬ 
decided whether to fly up or come on. Rather 
a long shot and I wait. If he comes to that 
stump I’ll fire! He eyes my screen evidently 
with interest if not with suspicion. It is well I 
did not make it any thicker perhaps, for he evi¬ 
dently thinks he can see through it and it hides 
nothing to harm him. He sidesteps a few yards 
and views a large bay that would make him a 
fine shelter for the night, especially if the wind 
blows cold. Evidently his barometer is rising 
for he comes a little farther my way and is look¬ 
ing up at the tall pines. That big topped one 
about half way between us will just suit, he 
seems to decide, and steps to the dead line I 
have drawn for him in my mind and before I 
can raise my gun he is ten feet in the air and 
coming almost straight for me! I had misjudged 
his intended roosting place and he is headed for 
a tall slender pine almost directly over me. As 
the gun strikes one, he swings off to the left, 
totters, lifts again and goes out towards the 
edge of the branch; strike two settles him and I 
tote home a mighty handsome old fellow with 
a ten inch beard and spurs that look as if grown 
for hard knocks, on a pair of dark red, case- 
hardened legs and a head and throat of brilliant 
blues and reds impossible to describe as to form 
and shadings. Surely one can get some sport 
“hunting on a log.” 
I had thought to tell of the turkey I shot near 
this same place while suffering from a case of 
inflamed eye that almost blinded me—of a deer 
that walked up to me as I rested “on a log” and 
of one or two other log hunts, but let them go 
now. The yarn is spun out too long already 
perhaps, but logs are still plentiful down here 
and game is plentiful enough to come some¬ 
times to him who waits; so let me advise the 
young hunter to sometimes try hunting on a log. 
The old hunter comes to love the soft side of 
the log even if the game does not always come 
to him and surely the best part of hunting is not 
the size of the bag but rather the free pure air; 
the tall, old trees; the sweet-scented blooms; the 
grass-grown fields; the deep, lapping waters or 
the low-voiced streams, the melody of birds, the 
brown, falling leaves and the moss-covered log. 
L URCHING under the heavy packs, w: 
scramble and slide down the leaf-strewn 
trail and stop, gasping for breath, a: the 
water’s edge. Flashing once more before our 
eyes is the river—an unslacking tide of bustling 
white and green. Well, thank God! the long 
portage is over! 
Was it noon of yesterday that we bucked the 
last eddy on the ten-mile stretch and with a fool¬ 
ish cheer raced towards the shore? When we 
crawled up the slippery clay bank with the canoe 
on our heads? Or was it the day before? Yes¬ 
terday, I thought—Jim said it was the day before. 
What’s the difference now? We’re over, and 
can dump our packs and tumps and take to the 
paddles again. It’s a change of labor, if not a 
rest. The swamps and gullies, the tearing brush 
and windfalls, the treacherous muck are behind 
us, and though the devil’s own current swirls 
by our feet, we can breathe a silent prayer in- 
The Long Portage Is Over. 
stead of a curse, for another dreaded milepost 
has been overtaken and passed. 
Well, toss your dunnage aboard, then! There’s 
no use standing and growling. Grumbling never 
slackened any stream. My paddle? ’Course it’s 
mine! You shivered yours on the stones in that 
last little lift where Bill’s eye was far from true. 
Shove her clear, there! Away together, boys! 
Quit grouching and swing your blade. “The 
line” is miles and miles and miles away yet. 
Home and rest, and white man’s grub—and may¬ 
be a girl—are waiting ahead and nothing but 
work will win you there, though that work be 
as tough as sin. 
An hour, two hours, three hours pass, and the 
back-breaking grind goes on. Arms weary and 
weak paddlers break into foolish stabbing at the 
frothing water. Buck up, lads ! Swing together ! 
A little faster, Jim! We respond to the urging 
and each stroke lifts the canoe ahead. On, on, 
every foot of the way is fought as the sun falls 
lower towards the spruces on the western bank. 
Silence reigns, except for the splash and thud of 
the paddles and an occasional muttered curse as 
a swirling eddy slews the canoe and a battered 
thumb nail catches on the gunwale. 
Then “Camp ho!” and five long, grateful sighs 
burst from five very tired men. 
The meal of bannocks and mouldy bacon is 
over and all hands recline on the scented boughs. 
The ever-soothing pipe is filled and aglow. Some 
grind that, to-day, lads! We grumbled a bit at 
that current but the louder we grumbled the 
harder we fought and that’s how the game is won. 
Well, wipe to-day off the calendar. We leave 
no hard feelings behind. A full stomach and a 
bed of brush make a powerful antidote for the 
grouch and a month hence, by the fireside, we 
speak of it all with a laugh. A year hence and 
the rough spots are all forgotten and the call of 
the river will find us all reaching for pack and 
paddle. The tang of wood smoke will be in your 
nostrils and you’ll feel the sting of white water 
spray on your face. Dame Nature calls and you 
answer. She scourges and you lick her hand. 
