IO 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 5, 1907. 
she smelled of it, puckered up her thin lips, 
gave a little sneeze and walked off. Then I 
called Terry, and he came with a bound and 
a puppy’s appetite. He pit6hed into it with a 
sort of swallow-it-whole air, and I thought he 
was going to be able to handle t>he subject; 
but he soon backed off;.looked at it quizzically, 
and turning a solemnly reproachful face up to 
me, followed Lassie. 
The case seemed so strange that we deter¬ 
mined to hold an autopsy upon the pot-pie, 
in the hope of locating the disease. We put 
the pail on the ground, bottom side up, and 
rapped it smartly with a stick. After a little 
there was a sort of thud inside, and as we 
lifted the empty pail, there stood the veal pot- 
pie incrusted in a solid black shiny coal. Rob¬ 
ert looked at it a minute, and said, “Well, I 
thought I smelled something burning!” 
In the afternoon we drove up the Bushkill— 
the small stream which flowed by the camp— 
to visit the old bear hunter. On one side or 
the other of this creek is a narrow flat, extend¬ 
ing several miles above the village, -but the 
mountains encroached upon it continually, un¬ 
til as we reached his home, we found the flat 
only wide enough to make a small garden, and 
perhaps pasture a horse and a cow. Beyond 
his house the bases of the mountains are the 
banks of the brook, and the road, such as it 
it is, is cut out of the side of the hill, cross¬ 
ing and recrossing the stream to find the 
easiest places. 
We did not need to have his house pointed 
out to us, for one could not help.but know it. 
It was small and low, but comfortable and 
clean. Near it was a little barn, against which 
were nailed the skins of many different animals, 
besides a curious collection of bird wings, skull 
bones, and different specimens of anatomy, 
gathered by the old man on his hunting excur¬ 
sions. A great hawk, which would catch no 
more chickens, hung beside the head of a fox, 
from which the cunning had gone. The bleach¬ 
ing skeleton of a skunk was propped up on 
rustic crotches, just below the skin of a black 
snake. By the barn were ranks of newly split 
maple stove-wood, seasoning in the sun, while 
some logs not yet cut up lay between them 
and the road. A little further on were piles 
of hickory hoop-poles, prepared for market. 
These had been gathered at odd times, when 
fishing and , hunting were out of season, and 
would be handy in providing groceries. A 
giant pine with some of its roots washed bare 
by the creek, stood on the bank, and completed 
the picture. 
As we drove up, the old man with his good 
natured looking family sat in front of the house. 
They greeted us heartily, and he said, “It’s such 
a g-r-a-n-d day I felt most sure you’d come, and 
we’ve all been out in the yard waitin’ for you 
most an hour. The weather is gettin’ so warm 
these days you must be dry, so I’ll go right 
down cellar and get some cider, the first thing, 
and then we can have our visit comfortable. 
Meby you’d like some apples, too? We’ve got 
a few Roxbury russets left, but it’s gettin’ 
pretty late in the season for apples. I guess 
Mary will let us have some doughnuts to go 
with the cider, won’t you Mary?” 
As we drank and visited, he pointed out the 
different mountains, and told us their names, 
calling our attention to the shaded ravines up 
their rugged sides,, where this and that stream 
had its head. He directed so that with the field 
glass we found the rock ledges, dry stubs, and 
tall hemlocks which marked the different turn¬ 
ing points in the trails over the southern ranges. 
Then he indicated places where he had trapped 
bears, or in company with his meek looking 
little beagle, had treed and captured coons. 
As he patted the dog’s head, and drew his 
long silky ears out through his hand, he said, 
“My! but that little feller is a grand coon dog, 
• and Oh boy! how gritty he is. When he wasn’t 
more than a pup, me and another feller went 
one night over on High Point, where we knew 
there was an awful big old coon lived. He’d 
licked out three or four dogs and wouldn’t 
tree for anything. The other feller went along 
the side of the mountain, part way up, and I 
kept below him with the pup. By and by we 
come to a little stream, and the coon had gone 
up it. The dog got ahead of me climbing up 
the mountain, and when I got to where the 
coon was, he and the pup was fightin’ right 
in the middle of a little pool, and I see the 
dog was goin’ to-get drowned. I jumped onto 
the 'coon with both feet, thinkin’ I could smash 
him, but sir, he was just as hard and round 
as an injy rubber ball, and I bounded right 
off and fell kerslosh into the water. Well, I 
got up and took my revolver and held it down 
close to the coon and let him have a couple, 
and that fixed him. Well, sir! when I stretched 
him out on the ground, he was so big he most 
looked like a Ijfar, and his meat was so tough 
and rank, we Couldn’t eat it when we got it 
cooked, and the dog had about all Qf it. 
“Sometimes,” the old man continued, “these 
little dogs are just as much use as big ones. 
I remember once when a man that lives down 
the creek set a trap and got an awful big bear 
in it, but the bear got the toggle loose and 
went off with the trap. We knew he couldn’t 
go far, so we started out to find him. We. 
tracked him a good ways, but his front foot 
got so sore that he walked on his hind legs, 
and somehow we lost the track, for there wasn’t 
any snow, and the ground was froze so hard 
all we had to go by was the blood marks. We 
didn’t have no huntin’ dog, but my neighbor’s 
little black-and-tan whiffit was followin’ along, 
and barkin’ at everything he see. By and by 
we heard him making the awfullest fuss, way 
up on the side of the mountain, and thought 
it was a squirrel probably that he had treed. 
Well, he kept at it so long we went up to see, 
and there, sir! we found that old bear standin’ 
up taller than I be, and that little whiffit was 
jumping around in front of him, and barkin’ 
like he was goin’ to eat him up. The bear was 
strikin’ at the little feller with the front paw 
that wasn’t in the trap, but he might just as well 
struck at a flash of light. We watched ’um 
a few minutes, and then we shot the bear, 
and Oh boy! what a big fat one he was.” 
While the old bear hunter was telling the 
stories, his half grown daughter had amused 
herself by looking at the mountains through 
our field-glasses, ahd having exhausted that 
source of entertainment, had taken to watching 
objects with the glasses reversed. After t various 
expressions of astonishment, at the great dis¬ 
tance and diminutive proportions which the 
glasses, when used in this manner, lend to every¬ 
thing, a brood of little chickens running about 
the garden came into her range of vision. “O 
pa!” she exclaimed, “it most puts the chickens 
clear back into the eggs.” 
On the way back to camp the dogs felt more 
familiar with the country, and showed their 
confidence in themselves by making 'side excur¬ 
sions into barnyards and around houses. Some¬ 
times they would meet friendly dogs who rather 
welcomed the call, and they would stay until 
the wagon got nearly out of sight, then race 
after us as if it just occurred to them that they 
might be left. Upon reaching the team, they 
would dash by and on ahead to investigate the 
next strange habitation. This kept up with no 
serious results until well toward home, and they 
began to feel that they could enter any new 
domain, without finding hostile occupants. 
We were nearing a home which was partly 
hidden from the street by a dense hedge, hav¬ 
ing two gates in it, one just above and the 
other a little below the house. The dogs were 
racing on madly ahead of us, with Lassie fifty 
feet in the lead, when we saw her dash into the 
first opening, while Terry 'was doing his best 
to keep up. As he reached the gate and dis¬ 
appeared, Lassie darted out of the second one, 
and went on down the road. Just then, from 
behind the hedge, came about three yelps, and 
in an instant Terry shot out of the second gate 
too. His tail was not only between his legs, 
but clear up under his chops, and the pace he 
set beat all puppy records. 
When we came opposite the house, we saw 
a huge mongrel stand bracing, as if anxious to 
welcome more strangers. It looked as if Lassie 
in her flight had awakened him from his after¬ 
noon nap and Terry had appeared just in time 
to get the full force of the irritation which 
follows sudden awakenings. We did not see 
anything more of them for a full mile, and de¬ 
cided they would be at camp awaiting us, and 
Lassie was, but at a bend of the road we found 
Terry sitting in the dust, looking back and 
watching. ’ 
Visions of savage mongrels preyed upon Ter¬ 
ry’s mind through the early hours of the night, 
and he kept us awake a long time, with his 
jumping and barking. I did not have the heart 
to correct him, for he was doing just what 
I would have done, had I met with the same 
surprise that he did. He slept under my bed, 
in the smaller tent, and between his growing 
like a weed, and the bed’s settling under my 
weight, the space had become rather too small 
for him, so that he gave me a jolt every time 
he sprang from his dreamland enemy. 
The first few nights in camp the dogs had 
been very restless. The sounds were so new 
and suspicious to them. Every toad that hopped 
or every mouse that worked its way among 
the dry leaves, came in for careful attention. 
About our first work in the morning had been 
to go out in front of the tents, and gather the 
harvest of boots and shoes which had'been 
thrown at Lassie during the night to induce 
her to sleep quietly. She had of late become 
more accustomed to the sounds, and now it 
was only the unusual that attracted her keen 
ear. 
She knew there was something wrong with 
Terry that night, and I watched her actions in 
the moonlight. She slept in front of the larger 
tent and was tied to the pole, but every time 
he jumped and barked she would get up and 
come as near my bed as the leash would per¬ 
mit. Standing with her head down she listened, 
and when he made a sudden move, she gave a 
plaintive little whine. I unbuckled her collar 
and she came and lay down beside him. Then 
we all went to sleep. 
Winfield T. Sherwood, 
[to be continued.] 
Billy. 
At the time I first knew Billy he had sailed 
the seven seas in seventy-seven keels, as sailor 
on merchantmen and men-of-war. The flags 
that Billy had sailed under would make a truly 
wonderful patch-quilt, and the harbors in which 
he had adventured were legion. 
There came a time when the call of the sea 
no longer held him, and then Billy forsook the 
ships and those that go down to the sea in them, 
and builded him an ark, that swung at anchor 
in a land-locked estuary on the California coast. 
I will not be more exact, for this is a bit of 
personal history, and details are not essential.' 
Although Billy had forsworn the sea, he 
could not altogether take himself from the sound 
of the billows and the tang and taste of salt 
air. So Billy compromised. He built the afore¬ 
mentioned ark, which swung at double anchor 
in an estuary in sound of the breakers (riding 
in with the white manes flying, just on the other 
side of the dunes) in sight of the sea (which 
stretched away to the Channel Islands and 
thence to the other side of the world). 
Here in summer Billy fished—with seine when 
fish were in the surf, with troll and set lines 
when fish were in deep water, and here in winter 
Billy shot swan and crane, and ducks and geese 
and curley and marlin, and snipe and rail. 
For the spoil of his nets, and the harvest o: 
his heavy ten-bore were alike shipped to mar¬ 
ket. Billy was in sooth a market shooter, but 
withal had in him the elements of good sportsj 
manship. He never shot a duck unfairly, an: 
the pleasure of the chase was more his recom j 
pense .than the hard-earned dollars. 
Billy had few friends, other than his pipe anc 
his gun, his boat and his nets and his snug 
little ark; but those few were, always welcomi! 
to the spare bunk on the port side of the arlfc 
and to what fare the season and his lardei 
afforded. 
In winter, when the south-east winds wen 
loosed, and the storm clouds gathered^ and th« 
sea outside grew dark and rough, the ducks tha 
were driven out of the preserves on the marshej 
