8 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 1,1911. 
Were you ever on the seashore at low tide 
in the cool of the early dawn, when all the 
beach's a stage, and all the myriad forms of sea 
life the players? Everywhere swarmed fighting 
men—scrappy little brown-backed crabs. Now 
they execute sidewise maneuvers, now with dis¬ 
tended saw-toothed claws dart to the fray, and 
woe to the victim that encounters their pinchers. 
Here the villain, an ugly old hermit crab, lurked 
in a stolen shell. Like the wolf of fairy lore 
he had probably devoured its former tough and 
aged inmate and was awaiting the arrival of a 
tender, unsophisticated Red Riding Hood mor¬ 
sel. On the mollusk-covered boulders there was 
revelry, of a quiet sort, and feasting. Bands of 
starfish, splendid in tints and shades of wistaria 
and salmon, banqueted on the juicy shellfish. Ever 
the orchestra soothed with soft music—the swish, 
swish of an incoming sea. 
Where a colony of miniature geysers played 
my brother delved with a rusty shovel while we 
girls O-ed and Ah-ed as we scooped the fat 
butter clams from the sand. Soon the bucket 
was filled and culling shells, agates, mosses and 
sand dollars from the beach’s horde, we made 
our way to the tender, and in the big red face 
of the August sun, topping the Cascades, rowed 
back to the launch. We came, we saw, and we 
devoured the mounds of flaky hot cakes, crisp 
bacon, toast and poached eggs prepared by my 
brother’s wife during our absence. 
Throughout the day the Yatchet’s course was 
a mighty charm string on which nature had 
thickly strung her enchantments. Densely 
wooded bluffs extended investigating fingers or 
dropped sheer and bare to the sea. Waves 
played at hide-and-seek in the cool coves indent¬ 
ing the rocky cliffs. Who knows but in the 
time of long ago in some such spot Narcissus 
sought and spurned the tantalizing echo? Here 
and there a thrifty son of Scandinavia had 
cleared a bit of water front and started a 
chicken ranch. 
“Whistle a salute,” commanded my chum; 
“with eggs at fifty cents a dozen in summer 
time, we are—the hens willing—passing prospec¬ 
tive millionaires.” 
Having come from a section of the country 
where farm products were cheap, the exorbitant 
prices in the West simply staggered us. We 
were horrified at the very thought of buying 
squash, tomatoes, melons, potatoes and the like 
by the pound — pounds that smacked pretty 
strongly of silver, too. 
At the close of the second day we went sail¬ 
ing, seemingly into the foothills of the Olympics. 
Their sugary crests were touched with rose and 
silver and gold—the good-night caress of a “low 
descending sun.” Through a narrow rocky en¬ 
trance we nosed our way into the quiet waters 
of Pleasant Harbor’s landlocked cradle. 
“ ‘Minnie and Winnie slept in a shell,’ ” mur¬ 
mured my chum drowsily as she gave her pillow 
a final punch. Our shell was not as the poet 
had said, “pink within” nor was it “silver with¬ 
out,” yet 
“Sounds of the great sea 
Went wandering about,” 
and sleep was not for me. The moon breathed 
her soft light; stars gemmed the sky. I heard 
the lap, lap of the water against our hull, the 
limpid notes of a nearby spring that spilled it¬ 
self over the rocks, the startled cry of a night 
bird and the frequent splash of fish. Who would 
sleep? “On such a night”. I began and opened 
my eyes to discover that it was broad daylight. 
On a big boulder chipmunks chattered over 
their breakfast, and a solitary crane, perched 
on one leg, searched the shallow water for a 
morning meal. 
. “If you girls don’t get up” admonished my 
brother from the bow of the boat, “you'll not 
get anything to eat.” The odor of burning 
flapjacks convinced us that he was telling the 
truth, and our toilets were hastily made. 
We always went ashore every morning. Over 
brake-lined trails and slippery footlogs spanning 
mountain streams, here and there catching 
glimpses of distant peaks through veils of fog, 
we made our way to the ranchers where we 
bartered for cream, broilers, honey, fruit and 
vegetables. 
It was the spawning season and the rivers 
were alive with fish. “I’m going to give you 
girls a near view of a dog salmon,” my accom¬ 
modating brother assured 11 s as he edged his 
way to the end of a slimy log where a big fel¬ 
low seemed to be tangled in a snarl of roots. 
He plunged his arm into the water and hooked 
his fingers in the victim's gills. Then the fun 
began—for us. The salmon objected to being 
landed. He flipped and flopped, churning a 
mighty lather with his steering gear. A ranch¬ 
er’s dog suddenly appeared and donated his un¬ 
desired assistance. Ker-splash! The fish scut¬ 
tled over the rocky river bed, the dog scrambled 
to the bank, and my brother—well, my brother 
stood up and expressed himself as any other 
healthy masculine individual would have done 
had he been the recipient of an unsought icy dip. 
On the afternoon before our return while ex¬ 
ploring a little bay of shallow water, only navi¬ 
gable at high tide, near Clifton, a sudden wind 
storm whipped it into a seething caldron of big 
white-capped waves. We dared not anchor lest 
the turning tide leave us high and dry, or high 
and muddy, for the flats were the oozy kind. 
Our only course was to make all possible speed 
back to a sheltered cove near Union, seven miles 
distant. Ahead of us was a tug towing a boom 
of logs. Further on the Sisters extended twin 
points into the water, leaving but a small passage. 
“We’ve got to make the narrows first,” de¬ 
clared my brother. “If that boom should hap- 
T HERE is more truth than poetry—if by 
poetry we mean imagination—in the old 
line, “The proper study of mankind is 
man.” The daily practices of the race prove 
this. People delight in nothing so much as in 
talking about their neighbors, while those who 
read enjoy history, the drama and fiction written 
about man—what man is doing, has done or 
might do. 
One of the most interesting matters that can 
come before us has to do with man’s first ap¬ 
pearance on the earth. Flow did he come into 
being and where? What were his wanderings? 
How was the earth peopled? Of all this as yet 
pen to get jammed in there, we’d be in trouble.” 
Breathless, we watched the lessening distance 
as the Yatchet plowed a straight furrow in the 
teeth of the wind; heaved a sigh of relief, too, 
when she was safely by the tug and her attach¬ 
ment. However, our joy was short lived. As 
I was attempting to reach the bow of the boat 
my dress caught in the flywheel and stopped the 
engine. In an instant the wind whirled us into 
the trough of the sea. Rolling like a barrel, we 
made straight for the log boom. Quick work on 
my brother’s part just saved us from fouling 
the hawser between tug and boom. 
At sunset the wind died down and the night 
was quiet and still. We started the phonograph 
for our evening concert. As usual, rowboats 
put out from the fishermen’s shacks along the 
beach. 
“Found another record this morning,” my 
brother announced cheerfully. “It’s rather badiy 
worn, but we’ll try it out. The old ones are 
getting pretty monotonous.” 
Try it out we did, to our everlasting Chagrin. 
At first it only sputtered and popped. We 
strained our ears to discover what it was all 
about. Incidentally, I might mention that the 
rowboats had drawn very near. Suddenly there 
sounded a string of cuss words that would have 
made a longshoreman envious. Before my 
brother could throttle that awful talking machine 
its raucous voice inquired: “Why in (oh, a 
dreadfully naughty word) don't you go home?” 
It is a matter of history that that record lies 
buried in the bottom of the sea, also that we 
made an early start for home the next morn¬ 
ing. The Yatchet bounded over the water, the 
tender followed with a bone in her teeth. We 
did not slacken our speed until we had placed a 
goodly distance between ourselves and the scene 
of our embarrassing predicament. 
As night came on, fishermen's fires twinkled 
here and there along the beach. Excited voices 
told where the toilers of the sea pulled and 
dragged at heavy nets. 
"Did you ever see anything more beautiful?” 
inquired my chum, fascinated by the play of 
phosphoresence about the launch’s keel. 
We had just entered Seattle's harbor. “Yes,” 
I answered, “look at yonder Queen City with her 
myriad terraces ablaze with scintillating lights.” 
Parts —I. 
we know nothing. We do very well so long as 
we confine ourselves to the Christian era and to 
a few centuries before that, but as we go back 
further and further, history becomes more and 
more vague and misty, until at last dates wholly 
disappear, and we can talk only of periods—the 
iron age, the bronze age, the stone age and its 
sub-divisions. 
No one knows when, where, or how man made 
his first appearance; nor, indeed, is it conceivable 
that he made a 'first appearance at all. No one 
can say to-day—nor could anyone say if he had 
before him a complete series of spec : mens— 
where the ancestor of man ended and man him- 
The Primitive Hunter in Europe 
In Two 
