784 
FOREST AND STREAM 
June 22, 1912 
DAM AT HEAD OF CAUCUMGOMAC. 
Greenville Junction at the foot of Moosehead 
Lake. 
We spent that night at the little village hotel 
in Fort Kent to be ready early next morning 
for the long train ride in a roundabout way 
across the State to Greenville to await the ar¬ 
rival of our trunks, which we had telephoned 
to be sent down by steamer from Northwest 
Carry where we left them when we entered the 
woods three weeks before. 
Our pride had something of a setback in 
having to take the train at Fort Kent in our 
woods costume consisting of the oldest suits the 
men owned, and for the four ladies, short skirts 
and high boots which met just below the knee, 
and sweaters and felt hats which had many 
times been wet through. Now this costume, 
which had been the height of style and appro¬ 
priateness in the woods, was not exactly hke 
the gowns of the other ladies in the trains and 
hotels, and our feeling of elation at having been, 
as one of the guides said, ‘‘The most sensibly 
dressed ladies he ever took into the woods,” 
changed to the embarrassed consciousness of the 
overgrown school girl who feels, like the spider, 
‘‘all legs.” Our elegant ‘‘custom made” high tan 
boots, which had been the pride of our hearts 
in the woods, now asserted themselves in glar¬ 
ing conspicuousness whenever the eyes of a 
curious fellow passenger involuntarily traveled 
downward, after a first glance at our healthy 
looking faces and tanned cheeks, but at Green¬ 
ville we again felt complacent, for the people 
about Moosehead are used to the sight of 
“sports” returning from the woods, and re¬ 
alized the significance of our costume. When we 
go again our skirts will not be one inch the 
longer, so great is the comfort in being able to 
step over fallen trees in the pathway without 
danger of catching or tearing the skirt, and of 
sitting in a canoe without fear of wetting the 
hem of the dress from water which has splashed 
into the bottom of the boat, for it will splash 
in when you shoot rapids or cross a large lake 
in a heavy sea. 
My advice to any woman going into the 
woods is: “Cut your skirt just as short as your 
conscience will allow, then shut your eyes and 
cut off three or four inches more.” It will be 
neither immodest nor improper in the woods 
with high boots or leg¬ 
gings, and its comfort 
is beyond measure; but 
have it of strong dark 
woolen cloth that will 
stand the wear and 
tear of roughing it— 
an old walking skirt 
cut down preferred, so 
says the lady of our 
party who entered the 
woods gowned to per¬ 
fection in an immacu¬ 
late new gray sporting 
suit on which she later 
gazed ruefully, for the 
havoc wrought by the 
combined effects -of 
the sun, rain, citro- 
nella oil and a varied 
accumulation of camp 
grease and dirt cul¬ 
minating in her inad¬ 
vertently sitting on the 
smutty side of the camp spider, soon changed 
it beyond recognition. Suitably dressed, a 
woman may enter upon this trip with the 
rarely blissful consciousness that she may 
take no thought of her clothes. The head guide 
sees to it that his party may feel free to “take 
no thought of the morrow,” for he is expected 
to attend to all the details of the journey, such 
as buying the provisions, engaging the necessary 
number of guides, and providing a sufficient 
number of tents and cooking utensils. Each 
guide furnishes his own canoe and tent, but his 
passenger, unless he requests the head guide to 
purchase them for him, brings his own head net 
and blankets or steamer rugs (we found United 
States Army blankets highly satisfactory) and, 
if he prefers an air bed to one of fir boughs, 
he may add that, too. 
The Allegash trip up as far as Fort Kent 
is about 150 miles, without any side trips, and 
may be made in two weeks, though it is much 
more desirable to take three or even four, thus 
allowing time for some of the delightful side 
trips to other lakes and streams, and for linger¬ 
ing several days in camps, which are particu¬ 
larly attractive. Certainly it would be a crime 
to rush it through in such remorseless haste as 
did the energetic New York lawyer who, hav¬ 
ing only a short vacation, insisted on making 
the most of it by taking this trip in a week, 
assisting in the paddling, and planning each 
day’s journey from his map. The gu’de who 
was so unfortunate as to pilot, or be piloted by 
this strenuous individual, said that in order to 
make the required mileage of one particularly 
hard day’s journey they made camp after night¬ 
fall, too dead tired even to build a fire or pitch 
a tent in the dark, just taking a cold bite and roll¬ 
ing themselves up in their blankets for the night. 
This ultra-American method of taking a 
holiday with all the fun and play left out may 
be all right as a record-breaker, but as a holi¬ 
day it bears too close a resemblance to the play 
of Hamlet with Hamlet left out. As a hunting 
party our expedition was eminently successful, 
for we saw five moose and 105 deer along the 
way without the slightest desire for a shot ex¬ 
cept with the camera, and the men caught all 
the trout we could eat, handsome speckled beau¬ 
ties. I could write volumes of the delights of 
camp life, of the stories of the moose, bear and 
deer hunting which the men told us as we sat 
around the blazing camp-fire at night, of the 
wild creatures of the wood which we have seen 
and heard, the weird call of the loon over the 
water at midnight, and one dark night the 
screech of a wildcat; the cow moose and her 
baby calf, which we surprised eating lilypads 
at the head of the Allegash, and the beautiful 
dainty deer, which appeared to us all along the 
way, only to vanish with an upward whisk of 
the white tail at our near approach; of the big 
jam of logs caught on the Allegash Falls, and 
the thousands of them we saw further down— 
but I must content myself with the hope that 
I have succeeded in helping other forest lovers 
share in some small degree the joy of this life 
in the wilderness, which will always remain to 
me a delightful memory. 
[the end,] 
THE TOP RAIL. 
A California newspaper tells the following; 
“Steve Ghio caught an eight-legged fish that 
has a ravenous appetite and barks like a dog off 
the Lower California coast, and took it to San 
Diego with a rope around its neck. 
“It has teeth like a dog, gills and dorsal 
fins, scales like a fish, and is two feet long. It 
eats raw potatoes whole, but will not touch 
meat. It cannot remain out of water long.” 
^ * 
Fisfiermen in California have a brand new 
excuse for an empty creel, according to a Los 
Angeles correspondent. 
The invasion of millions of caterpillars in the 
San Bernardino Mountains has interfered with 
trout fishing, according to nimrods who have 
encountered poor luck along the best streams 
in the range. 
The worms are blown from the trees into 
the water and the trout feed on them. Fish 
caught shortly after daybreak were found 
gorged on worms. The appeasing of the appe¬ 
tite so early in the morning has caused the fish 
to pass up the most tempting bait. 
* * * 
Governor Luther Hall, of Louisiana, and 
a party of political friends, had a peculiar ex¬ 
perience on the new shell roadway near West 
End in New Orleans a few days ago while au- 
tomobiling. Their car collided with a five-foot 
alligator in the middle of the roadway. The 
chauffeur could not stop his conveyance and ran 
over the head of the saurian and stunned it. 
The party alighted and after considerable trouble 
captured the alligator by lassoing him with a 
rope. They tied the animal to the steps of the 
auto and brought him to the business section 
of the city where he was disposed of. It is 
thought the alligator was driven out of his 
haunts by the recent high waters. He was very 
vicious. Grizzly King. 
