332 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 26, 1911. 
stage whisper: “Lieutenant, pass me my pipe 
and tobacco,” which the Lieutenant did with the 
remark: “The only rule we insist on in this 
hotel is that guests refrain from smoking in 
bed.” But Charlie wanted it for a smudge, as 
the flies were particularly friendly that night. 
Soon the Lieutenant loaded his comforter and 
then all three of us fumed away till it seemed 
as if no fly could possibly survive, but they did 
survive. 
“It seems to me,” said the Doctor, “that flies 
are the worst things in all the woods to face. 
A man may front with complacency the punais 
of French hotels, the fleas of sunny Italy, the 
centipedes of the South, the hornets of Algiers, 
the “Kitties” of New Jersey and the yellow 
jackets in mowing days of dear New England. 
But these are the worst yet. I’d rather face a 
bear or cougar any time. Count how many kinds 
there are and see if you can tell them in the 
dark.” 
They counted. The Lieutenant scored first 
with “Here's one that marches up my nose with 
a tramp exactly like the goose step of the Ger¬ 
man army.” “Yes,” broke in Charlie, “and he 
bites like a mule foraging along a country road— 
a nibble and a trot, a bite and off. That’s the 
black fly.” 
“I have another one,” said the Doctor. “He 
walks like a ghost in a seance and gets in the 
corners of your eyes and mouth and inside your 
nose.” 
“Sure,” said the Lieutenant, “but he’s no ghost 
at biting. He burns like a spark. That’s the 
Indian No-see-um, or midge. I know him." 
“I suppose,” said Charlie, “that I needn’t men¬ 
tion this fellow with the Gibson girl walk and 
the fish horn.” 
“He’s the Jerseyman, the Kitty,” quoth the 
Lieutenant, to which Charlie replied, “Guessed 
the first time.” 
“What’s the one which drops with a whack 
like a June bug on a bald head?” inquired the 
Doctor. “He scratches like a cat sharpening his 
claws in the carpet, and then you can hear him 
spit on his hands, hump his back, pat his feet 
down like a champion lifter and begin to boost.” 
“He’s the moose fly,” put in the Lieutenant, 
“and, by Jiminy, when he gets a mouthful he 
flies off to the ridge pole to devour it in peace. 
Let’s get up and root out the ‘fly-dope.’ ” So 
we rubbed ourselves with a mixture of oil of 
citronella, pulled salt bags over our faces, tied 
on moccasins and gloves, to sleep in peace till 
the birds woke us in the cheery dawn. 
Strange how small the world is after all, and 
how far a man must go to never meet a friend. 
It was here we crossed the trail of a couple of 
veteran sportsmen from the home town. They 
had some huge salmon in pickle to be set up 
when at last they came out of the woods. Also 
they were camped on the trail of the caribou, 
of which there were abundant signs to the north. 
There a great barren stretched treeless, though 
here and there a dried branch served to tell that 
once trees grew there, and also they served to 
hide the caribou from the hunters’ vision. Here 
on a prairie of boulder-strewn moss these 
veterans set about searching for their venison. 
In spite of the evident signs it seemed in¬ 
credible that any animal so large as these mag¬ 
nificent American reindeer could hide. Yet the 
glasses revealed a group lying among the boul¬ 
ders some half-miie away. The wind was in 
favor of our hunters, so stripping down to stalk¬ 
ing regalia, hatless, with rifles capped to keep 
the moss and debris from the muzzle, they began 
their sta k, lying flat in the deep moss and keep¬ 
ing the boulders ever between them and their 
quarry. 
It seemed ages before they got in range. One 
stopped to take a photo of the caribou, four 
splendid animals lying as calmly as cows in the 
soft moss and evidently chewing the cud of 
reflections soon to be rudely broken. For “pow” 
the rifle spoke and off went the deer. They 
had missed. “Pow” barked the rifle again, and 
“Pow, pow” another rifle cracked viciously, but 
still the beasts swung away. It was too long 
a shot, for the range on those empty barrens is 
much greater than it seems. They were off now 
beyond the power of man to stop them. But no, 
one struck sharply from the rest, ran wildly till 
it banged into a boulder over which it toppled, 
shook its legs strong^ an instant and lay still. 
Off went the rest, with one lagging behind, 
so after that the hunters started, and at no slow 
pace, for wounded as the caribou was he went 
away with scarcely diminished speed. But the 
hunters had planned well, for the animal must 
turn and pass them or run into a blind ravine 
in the distant rocks. Gamely the deer went for¬ 
ward, till sensing its danger it began to circle 
afar off. They would certainly lose him any¬ 
way. So it looked, for a full 500 yards away he 
turned and swung swiftly away toward the open 
and the distant hills. Then “bang” went a rifle 
again, the flash and smoke appearing long before 
the report crashed along in its wake. A long 
shot, but down went the quarry all in a heap, 
front legs doubled up and horns plowing the 
soil. The hunt was over, but by the time the 
men reached the game, the eyes and nostrils of 
the deer were filied with swarming mosquitoes 
and black flies, eager for the blood of the deer 
as they had been for ours. 
Further on we crossed the trail of these 
veterans again. This time they had gotten down 
to the coast. Geese and ducks were abundant 
here and many of the former went into the pot- 
luscious meals indeed, tender and juicy as the 
best our market affords, and in addition having 
the gamy tang of the wilds. 
Hair seals were also numerous, but to bag 
one is another thing. It seems easy to stand in 
a. dory and take a pot shot with a pistol at a 
seal scarcely twenty yards away, but let him who 
has vainly tried to draw a bead on them tell 
how quickly they dive while the bullets futilely 
spatter the briny over the spot where but now 
the seal swam. Round a rock and catch one 
napping in the warm sun and you have your 
leather rug or moccasins sure as fate, unless the 
water be deep and the seal sinks before you 
can recover him. But in the open water the 
chances are all in his favor; at least, I found 
it so. 
But when it comes to jigging for cod in these 
sub-arctic waters there is no chance of an empty 
creel. To me there is something peculiarly fasci¬ 
nating about the sport. A twenty-fathom line 
dropped straight down from the rocks or from 
the prow of an anchored boat; no bait is used 
except the cod jig, an invention of these North¬ 
ern Indians, I understand, adapted by the white 
man. The jig is about five inches long, for all 
the world like a tiny, sharp grappling hook with 
four or six prongs. Then up and down you 
saw it just as the deep sea fishers saw their 
lines, now and again giving a sharp jerk. 
What schools of cod were down below one 
may only imagine. For at almost every jerk 
up comes a fine cod hooked through nose or 
flank or tail. Lured by this strange, dancing 
bait they gather about in bunches, enviously tum¬ 
bling over each other for at least a smell. And 
when one comes soaring up through the green 
deeps it seems to them only more alluring. For 
as long as you will, you may pull them up, only 
stopping when your arm is tired or the sport 
palls. 
So the days went by in exploring the unknown 
hills and trailing through the terrible thickets. 
Sometimes we crawled on hands and knees 
through the thick brush; sometimes we waded 
up to the hips in the cold water or toiled over 
the rocky cobbles of the river bed, and always 
those quiet pools hidden away in the forest were 
full of sea trout, which now we overweeningly 
despised, since- among them lay the salmon. 
Often I stretched over the edge of a bank and 
watched the salmon drowsing in the sweet, clear 
water till the satisfied sucking of their gills 
made me long to dive in and lie by their silver 
sides to drink in the peace of the river with 
them. 
But the time had come to break camp, so in 
the mists of dawn, with the camp-fire sending 
up a thin blue line of smoke, we packed our 
dory and drifted down the river until we drop¬ 
ped through the rapids into Big Salmon Pool. 
Here we saw the biggest salmon of the trip, 
easily a thirty-pounder, lying in the clear water 
beneath us as the boat drifted twelve feet above 
him. So transparent was the river that we could 
see his markings and gill movements even at 
that depth. 
Down and always down we sped. Overfall 
with its nasty breakers and whirlpools was safely 
passed, but scarcely had we cleared the first bend 
below when a white squall struck us. The rain 
fell in stinging, blinding sheets, while the wind 
swung the dory around and threatened to swamp 
us, but leaping overboard in the waist deep water 
we held fast. Then, with the sky black and 
forest and stream smoking from the storm, we 
faced the last bad rapid. Here the water roared 
and tumbled in a chaos of foaming billows be¬ 
neath which the rocks lurked, but we went 
through like a rocket, drifted down a mile of 
easy water to fall with a splash into Tidal Pool, 
where wind and tide were in our favor all the 
way back. 
Once more we loaded our baggage on the old 
conveyance, hand made and primitive, and in 
the late afternoon, sunshine breaking through 
the heavy clouds, we looked off to the distant 
mountains where two mile-long cataracts cut a 
white gash through the spruce. Once more we 
gazed where the Codroy broadened to join the 
ocean, and then said good-bye to the rocks and 
salmon pools, the caribou trails, the forests and 
clear, mysterious ocean gnawing at the reefs of 
the Newfoundland coast. 
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