FOREST AND STREAM 
141 
This is, I fancy, what is known as “horse 
sense,’’ and I apparently had it, as have cats, 
dogs, some pigeons and many birds; so I take 
it to be an instinctive trait, which some men 
have not grown out of or lost 'with scent and 
other pretentions. We left the canoe half hauled 
up, and at once were swallowed up by the dense 
woods made up of tall black and white beeches, 
stately siiver birch, bass and white ash; compon¬ 
ents of a splendid unburnt forest, so close, firm 
and compact, so untouched for years by fire that 
the canopy reminded me of that of the red¬ 
woods of the Santa Cruz woods in California, 
where it may rain an hour, more or less, before 
the man lying at the base of a tree finds it out 
from the drops. It was dark but not gloomy 
among these trees, and the sunlight was distrib¬ 
uted in a way to bring out the fine and varied 
tints of the greens. 
As Phil-o-rum walked along he constantly 
broke off twigs here and there, and often we 
strode silently in the solitudes and listened to 
the weird song of birds, the delightful melody 
of the wood thrush, and the snarl of trees where 
limbs creaked in the wind. 
Hearing a hawk, I succeeded in imitating it 
and making it reply so loudly that Eubald crept 
Upon it and shot it. We were following up a 
little gorge lined with ferns, the rocks moss- 
covered, the huge trunks of old trees lying here, 
there and across the way. The trail could be 
traced along the edge of the little stream which 
fed Lac des Grande Piles a few miles away. 
The rocks were all ferneries and about them 
brakes in vivid greens, and among the mosses 
startling lungi in radiant colors; some a vivid 
orange, others vermilion; some fashioned like 
coral or the gorgonias I knew on the Florida 
reef. Strange creeping vines clustered about the 
base of big pines. The sides of cliffs were be¬ 
decked with tapestries of greens, dotted here and 
there with pompons of ferns. Everywhere great 
hammocks of green, yellow with moss, held the 
humiliation of some fallen monarch of the forest, 
and in the deep, low, moist places, standing out 
in vivid white, were Indian pipes, ghastly, weird 
and befitting this land of the gnomes with its 
canopy of green. 
Suddenly Phil-o-rum stopped. “Mabe jes’ lac 
you see moose or bear.” 
So I crept along, looked through the verdure 
and trees and rested my gaze on the fairest little 
meadow the sun ever shone upon, while in the 
immediate foreground was a diminutive lake. It 
was a blaze of sunshine in the heart of the forest, 
filled with tall tule-like grass that almost met 
over our heads as we cautiously stepped into it. 
The little meadow was not over three hundred 
feet across, yet it was the resting-place of deer, 
bear and possibly moose as we were constantly 
coming upon singular tracks which ended in 
beds or paths where the animal had lain down to 
rest, possibly but a short time ’before. The soft 
muddy places were covered with moose, deer 
bear and mink tracks, so clear and distinct as to 
keep us on the alert, rifle ready; yet as we stood 
in one of the big nes'ts and looked about we were 
evidently alone, the meadow of the sun was for 
the time deserted. It was a charmed spot, this 
little meadow in the forest. Great rocky cliffs 
rose all about it, big trees guarded its rim, and 
many had toppled over and formed 'bridges for 
bear, squirrel or mink. The light suffused the 
air with insect life dancing on the sunbeams, or 
drifting in rhythmic measures. Near the pond 
were many mink holes, and their runways could 
be traced along the edge of the little stream 
which fed Lac des Grande Piles a few miles away. 
We dropped into one of the little meadows, 
hoping to see some big game, but more to take in 
the sylvan beauties of the spot, and were re¬ 
warded by the sweet melody of the wood thrush 
rising from the forest, whose tapestry was like 
verd antique sprinkled with star clusters of gold, 
where the sunlight forced its way in, or if we 
looked at the beeches, the impression was of 
silver. 
The ground about the edge of this meadow 
that Walton would have loved was carpeted with 
the fine polished green of the checkerberry, while 
everywhere the earth was starred with the vivid 
berries, appreciated by bears and boys. Great 
patches of flaming red told of the fire bush, 
which appeared suddenly iike flames of fact, and 
many small flowers lent charm and beauty to this 
fragrant dell, that was ever changing tint and 
tone as the hours swept on. 
Fish, Holder’s Style. 
Now it darkened as silvery cumulous cloud 
masses drifted over head, shutting out the blue 
pf the heavens and the light of the sun. This 
made an extraordinary impression on me, as the 
change was so sudden and striking. Now the 
greens would be of the lightest and most ethe¬ 
real golden hue, as though the verdure had been 
sprinkled by the hand of Midas, and the little 
glen became almost iridescent with the flood of 
sunlight, then suddenly it was shut out, and deep, 
impenetrable gloom set in. The radiant greens 
became dark, cold and sombre, and the glorified 
spot of a moment before became a cave of si¬ 
lence, save for the deep booming of distant 
frogs, that seemed to die away as the sun burst 
in again, revealing long lines of gnats in rising, 
falling, drifting, silvery clouds. 
Everything spoke of life in this glade of the 
moose, yet everywhere under foot was the wreck¬ 
age of ten thousand trees; some reduced to pulp 
in which we sank, others still retaining form and 
shape, some struck down by lightning, shattered 
and slivered, others again blasted by the wind, 
but all covered wonderfully and kindly by the 
green shroud of lichens and moss of infinite 
variety. The former often appeared as shelves 
or miniature roofs, single and double, white be¬ 
low, and above imitating the tint and tone of 
the bark. Everywhere the struggle for existence 
was emphasized; great pines growing from dis¬ 
mantled trunks, white streamers waving, gesticu¬ 
lating from the silvery birch. 
We made a long detour through this fascinat¬ 
ing forest, never leaving the preserve of the 
“Lord of the Manor,” and late in the afternoon 
when the sun was low found the canoe again. 
Phil-o-rum soon had me facing the hyacinth bed 
on the edge of which my Royal Coachman, tied 
by one Tim McCarthy of Cork, dropped by a 
special dispensation into the preserve of a small- 
mouth black bass, which later in the proceed¬ 
ings weighed three pounds; just one pound less 
than the giant taken by my rival. He held the 
championship and landed various bass at any 
and all hours, “beating me to a frazzle,” then on 
my birthday healing the breech by immortalizing 
my alleged prowess in dulcet verse, which I dis¬ 
covered tacked to the wall of the salle a manger 
one morning. It was written on birch bark and 
embellished with appropriate illustrations. 
We were so near and so constantly in the 
forest that we did not notice the birds, yet when 
I begin to round them up in my memory I can 
see that I did see or hear many familiar bird 
voices. Every night when I took a little paseo 
in the forest, or walked out to its borders just 
to listen, and to relieve my curiosity, I always 
heard the whip-poor-will, also the soft clicking 
of the bird-like bats. These latter seemed to 
love to fly around sharp corners of the palatial 
log house, and I could have caught them as I 
did at Pelican Bay one year, with a short-handled 
trout net. 
It was our custom every day when we were 
not fishing to bring out the rods and have a 
casting match on the undulating natural lawn. 
We made every effort to defeat the Lord of the 
Manor, but the facts are, we never did, the doc¬ 
tor, the boy and I. Pie had a twist of the wrist 
which gave wings to his flies, and was a sort of 
muscular nemesis to the luckless trout that came 
his way, though not on the lawn. Trout will 
leap, but they never reached “Sans Souci.” 
Sometimes these casting tournaments lasted 
until into the long twilight and then there was 
game in the bats, which came out of the forest 
deeps and began their day. The White Coach¬ 
man seemed irresistible to them and they would 
dash at it, follow it down. I can conceive hook¬ 
ing one with a very light line and a little Eng¬ 
lish dry fly gnat lure. I often watched them in 
this way, but none were hooked, nor did we ex¬ 
pect to hook them. 
Among the interesting animals here were the 
black crickets, of which there was a prodigious 
number, moving about on the edge of the forest, 
and at night they began to rub 'their legs, saw¬ 
ing out music that has inspired many men to 
melancholia or joy. The “Cricket on the 
Hearth” is the ode to this little creature, which 
always carries me back to an ancestral home of 
my boyhood in New Hampshire. I was not born 
there, but I occasionally visited it, and shall al¬ 
ways remember going out at night and sitting on 
the stone fence to listen to the “voice” of the 
cricket. In later years it gave me a shock to 
learn that this plaintive melancholy mysterious 
“song” was not sung, but fiddled by the little 
animal, and that he was but one of a big band. 
It is a consolation even now to know that 
scores of anglers to-day believe that crickets 
sing, when the song is only the noise made by 
(Continued on page 167.) 
