532 
FOREST AND STREAM 
The 
IN THE WAKE OF THE FEATHERED 
THUNDER. 
Was it a far-off cry 
Shivered the gathering dark? 
As a wierd voice below 
Where the dead lie stark? 
High and still higher aloof 
Ripple a murmur. Hark! 
Swiftly they come, 
Southbound, that ghostly clan! 
Hear the wild swan voice 
Deep in the moonlight wan— 
One deathless cry 
Haunting the mystic van. 
That night we went over the ammunition I 
had in store, and much talk was the result, as 
to the matter of velocity, pattern spread, and 
penetration of the various brands I had lined 
up on silent duty. Fred had an absolute ad¬ 
miration for them, each and all. Fred is easily 
satisfied; but then cranks will exist, and I had 
my special brands picked from experience. We 
stood there in that solitary hunting shack fully 
an hour, upon our weary legs, talking of com¬ 
parative merits, but when it branched off into 
guns I drew the line and we made preparations 
for a supper, delayed four hours. Perhaps we 
did not have an appetite! No, not in the least. 
Forgive for intruding into domains epicurean, 
but I must say that Fred and I, each and in¬ 
dividually, severally and particularly could have 
consumed food uncooked, and coffee as strong 
as a mule. Well, anyway, we had walked only 
about eight miles to this lonely woods and this 
lonely cabin—object, hunting; hope; abundant; 
stomachs empty. 
It was Pat Gilbert’s cabin. He held it the 
first two weeks in October in company with 
his son. Fred and I came in for the last two 
Wood Hollow 
By Robert Page Lincoln. 
Part I. 
weeks of October, if we cared to stay that length 
of time. We found the cabin in good condition 
and the grub list intact, this owing to the fact 
that Pat Gilbert is first, last and all times at¬ 
tentive to the needs of his fellow-men, especially 
to those of his friends. 
A warm fire made, supper progressed finely, 
and we soon had the old cabin looking like home, 
though it was far from the sight and sound of 
human beings. All the more, for this reason, 
did we enjoy it. The country around is typical 
of some of Minnesota’s still-to-long-remain, 
hardwood forests, and was sufficiently out of 
the pale of civilization to assure of a scarcity 
of the hunting, and near-hunting, element. Fred 
was in the midst of a virtual triumph. The 
occasion he told me was but a presentation of 
a hunting dream he had always borne. He had 
never, never, he told me quite frankly, ever 
hoped to get thus far away for such a long 
time to hunt and recuperate. As I say Fred is 
easily satisfied and he appreciates each outing 
pleasure so fully that one is warmed through 
and through to hear him encourage and prophesy 
forthcoming good luck. Often, well, we do not 
have much good luck together; but never do 
you hear a word against it from friend Fred. 
That night we went to sleep with fond anti¬ 
cipations of the morrow to come, with its hunt¬ 
ing delights: the partridge booming out ahead 
of us; the ducks to be got in the sloughs, along 
with the snipe and the occasional woodcock, 
fate seems to put in a fellow’s way now and 
then. The branches brushed away on the old 
roof. An owl hooted off somewhere; there 
were queer scratchings here and there around 
the cabin; and Fred kept on dreaming of dou¬ 
bles, clipped out with startling regularity. I 
smiled broadly, exultantly, inconceivably tickled 
by the thought- 
Morning arrived on speedy wings, and allow¬ 
Days 
ing Fred the privilege of lying in bed I made 
breakfast of bacon, and oatmeal, and fried po¬ 
tatoes, bread, and coffee in brimful abundance. 
Fred lay in bed and laughed to think that he 
would not have to catch the car for work. His 
exultations were keyed in various tones, some¬ 
times in snorts of delight, all of them bearing 
upon his absolute, unequivocal, unbounded free¬ 
dom. And when I served him his coffee in 
bed his delight soared through the spheres of 
the empyrean. Note: Fred still talks about those 
days. They always begin this way, when he 
gets some fellow cornered on the street-car plat¬ 
form on his way to work of a morning; it be¬ 
gins this way: “Well, sir, I never forget the 
time we had last fall—” 
It was an ideal day of October; just right 
as far as atmospheric conditions were concerned; 
and giving promise of the feathered fellows be¬ 
ing well on wing. We had purposely meant to 
exclude the first morning as to duck hunting. 
Our first day, from the new-fledged beginning, 
was to be in the big woods. After breakfast 
we started out. 
We were to keep pretty well in sight of each 
other during our hunting operations. And so 
we started in, the first day was begun. 
The leaves were now very much shed, and 
one could look through the branches easily. The 
timber was immense. The great trees rose high 
above us, and seemed to conserve sound below, 
dose to the ground, more than ever. Thus in 
the added quietude of the day the breaking of 
a twig could be heard. A gray squirrel with a 
long, drooping, beautiful tail, sprang from 
ground to tree, and raced upward. I longed for 
the little rifle, but I had no choice save the shot¬ 
gun ; and he fell, though I did not shoot till he 
had reached the topmast branch. I stowed him 
away with a thrill of innate joy, having noted 
how fully fat and plump was his body. Per¬ 
haps there is no pleasure in hunting the silent, 
autumn woods, when game is around, and the 
day is the best that can be found! Well, we, 
who have known the pleasure, can testify to its 
inherent worth—and there is a reason why we 
come again, each fall, when the fever begins 
gnawing at the red blood vitals. 
I stood there in an immense timber. Never 
was the bigness of Nature, and her munificence 
so impressed upon my delighted consciousness. 
The stateliness of these monarch trees; the 
vast respect they command; and their health- 
imparting amosphere—and all those million odors 
that make these mouldering halls so mysterious¬ 
ly appealing. Then, too, the great, dignified, 
listening silence, yes, even Silence listening to 
Silence speak—and the picture of a leaf floating 
through the air, to earth, without a single in¬ 
terrupting sound! 
Fred’s gun sounded loud upon the stillness 
as I was making my way along some time later. 
“There is a charge on the tear,” I mentally 
told myself. “Wonder what he lit onto.” 
And as though to answer my thoughts a swift 
flying partridge came my way, alighting on a 
tree some forty yards distant; I was standing 
