FOREST AND STREAM. 
Feb. 23, 1907.] 
1 :-- ---- 
grin and moved politely out of the way. 
A truce having been declared between Billy 
id Henry, the journey was resumed. We drove 
1 steep mountain roads where the hemlock 
mghs brushed our hats; through choppings 
here the huckleberry bushes fringed the road, 
■d through open fields where the afternoon sun 
at down hot on the clouds of dust which rose 
om the horses’ hoofs and floated over the 
nee to lodge on the daisies of the meadow, 
imctimes the way led through deep shaded 
vines where the moist, cool air was fragrant 
ith the mingled perfumes of the woods. At 
st it came out on to' the flat, where 'extrava- 
nt bobolinks were sowing broadcast the notes 
Inch are the sound of the piano string that is 
t to be made or the first drop of water fall¬ 
s' into the goblefi of thin glass. Through this 
ower of song we drove to the pine path and 
alked to the camp, where the lonesome dogs 
mped all over 11s. 
“I tell you .there is a good deal of difference 
the comfortableness of camps,” remarked 
lly as we sat on the mossy bank just above 
aere the pails Of food were clustered in the 
ol spring. “Whenever I think what an easy 
ne we are having here it makes me think how 
me of this fare would have tasted if we could 
ve had it in Canada the fall we lost our out- 
.. We weren’t looking for a place to keep 
mgs cool there. The most we were after was 
mething to warm the insides of us. 
“You see. we made the trip into the bush and 
lyed the last night at Ferguson’s. Next morn- 
[? we went about four miles further to the foot 
Thirty-island Lake. We had to go up that 
ce and carry to Stony Lake, and from there 
rry to Bark Lake, for it was on the upper 
d of Bark Lake that we always camped. 
"We found the boats just as we had left 
em the fall before, and I was for making a 
e night camp and putting them in the water 
soak before we pitched them. John thought 
-t as I did, but the other four were for pitch- 
! ? the boats and starting right out with them, 
lere was a terribly cold wind blowing and the 
:e was mighty rough. John and I didn't be- 
ve it was safe, but we hated to stand in the 
y if they were bound to try it. 
‘We lashed four boats together and built a 
itform of poles on top of them, just as we 
d done other years, only the other times the 
ter had been smooth. We put everything on 
: platform, including the six dogs, and the 
ir of them started out with it. John and I 
j d to wait a little to pitch the two smaller 
| its, and then we followed as fast as we could. 
'The others had gotten out of sight by the 
1 ie we started, and we didn’t come up to them 
til ve rounded a little bluff up toward the 
I id of the lake. As soon as we came into sight 
knew there was something the matter. They 
! re yelling and jumping around and trying to 
! :p things on the platform, but most everything 
1 s sliding off into the water, and the dogs had 
jumped in. We got there just as soon as 
could, and as I had expected, one of the 
i its had filled and the whole thing was tipping 
; ‘r. 
j The wind and the weaves -yvere so high that 
I m'and I couldn’t do much, for we had our 
ids full keeping the little boats from founder- 
1;, and mine was half full of water already. 
J ere was an old fellow there with a batteau, 
1 he helped us, so we got the men and boats 
: iore on a little island about three or four 
j idred feet away. The only thing that was 
: of all the duffle they bad started out with 
13 one gun, and that was because it was down 
one of the boats and tied fast.. We emptied 
'_ boats as soon as we could and commenced 
ling around to save what was floating. I got 
tent just as it was sinking, and John res- 
d a grip, but most everything else was at 
bottom. All our blankets and heavy coats 
it down like lead. An iron kettle full of 
atoes struck right side up in the water and 
i it hobbling around until it beached itself, and 
captured it. 
I Well, we were a sorry lot, everybody wet 
i 3U gh and colder than ice. We built a rous- 
j fire and stayed up about all night, drying out 
! it little we had left. In the morning the wind 
had quit blowing, so we went to dredging, and 
brought up a sack of flour. It wasn’t hurt much, 
just a crust about a half inch thick had formed 
inside the bag. When we peeled the crust off 
the rest of the flour was dry and good. There 
was an old satchell full of beans, and when we 
got that it was about the most bloated looking 
satchel I ever saw. We got one gun and enough 
other stuff so that we went on up to Bark Lake 
and stayed a couple of weeks, but we had in¬ 
tended to be there a good deal longer than that. 
"It’s pretty tedious hunting deer when there 
are only two guns in a party of six and no change 
of clothing or warm coats. All my boots and 
heavy shoes were gone, so I only had one pair 
of light shoes and had to wade around in the 
snow with them. We were about beat out by 
the time we left camp, and one or two of the 
fellows were sick all winter to- pay for it. When 
I got back to Oswenango I told Doc. what a 
scrape we got into. He said the next time we 
went he thought it would be safer for us to 
take bows and arrows, for they would float. 
"There was one curious thing that happened 
the day our duffle was sunk which I never could 
quite understand. Of the six dogs, two of them 
had not hunted in that region before, and when 
the)'’ all jumped into the water, those two made 
straight _ for the island. The other four swam 
by two islands and went to the mainland, a dis¬ 
tance of half a mile. We thought they would 
certainly be drowned, for they had their chains 
on, but they made it and began running deer 
about as soon as they got there. One of them 
got his chain caught and we heard him howl¬ 
ing away back on the hills, and had to go and 
unfasten him. Whether they understood that 
those bits of land were islands and did not in¬ 
tend to be marooned on them, or what they had 
in their heads, it’s beyond me. At any rate they 
had to swim clear around the end of one of the 
islands to make the mainland. 
“One of the four w.e called Roger, and he 
was a sort of leader in the pack. He was a wise 
old guy and you couldn’t fool him much. He 
was an awful laster on a deer track and some¬ 
times would not get in until morning, but we 
never had to hunt him up. It was a sure thing 
that he could get to camp when he wanted to. 
Once, though, we thought we had lost him for 
certain. We had had one dog poisoned and had 
found him dead down by the lake, so when 
Roger did not show up for two days we de¬ 
cided he had got a dose of it, too. Three days 
after he failed to come in John and I were row¬ 
ing along the other end of the lake and we saw 
something move in the bushes. We pulled over 
to it, and sure enough it was Roger. Another 
party of hunters had shot a deer and dressed 
it there. Roger had found what they left and 
was camping right by it as long as it lasted. 
We saw where he was sleeping in a hollow birch 
and he wasn’t for going back with us, either. 
To get from there to camp by land you had to 
go up a little stream and over quite a high 
ridge. There was about four inches of snow, 
and we saw where he had gone to the top of 
the ridge, and looked down on to the camp to 
see that we were still there. We found three 
sets of tracks, so it looked as if he had gone 
once each day to make sure that we were not 
quitting and leaving him behind.” 
Old Billy had never seen the city of Kingston, 
so as it was but an hour’s ride by train we all 
went there one day. It used to be two towns, 
Kingston and Rondout, but Rondout grew up 
the hill, and Kingston grew down the hill until 
they met and were joined under a single gov¬ 
ernment. So far as we could see they were a 
pretty contented pair. It is a quaint old town 
with a curious mingling of the past and present. 
Many of the little low stone houses still re¬ 
main, which date back to the Revolution and 
beyond it. They are interesting to look at and 
write about; rather more so I should say than 
to live in, for the thick walls and tiny windows 
seem gloomy. Some have been built on to or 
enlarged with results which are not pleasing. 
Such changes usually leave an ornate little gable 
window to peek out over a nondescript veranda, 
or else try to make the sturdy stone structure 
adopt a flimsy frame wing. Some unchanged, 
stand meekly beside beautiful modern homes. 
29 I 
On the site of the present court house was 
started the movement which changed New York 
from the colony into a State, and the first gov¬ 
ernor, Clinton, was ’ inaugurated there. In the 
heart of the city, surrounded by a beautifully 
kept burial ground, stands a solid old stone 
church, Dutch Reformed. The graves are so old 
that the tombstones have commenced to crumble, 
and casings of copper are being used to protect 
them as much as possible. 
It was while wandering through this yard and 
studying the curious inscriptions that we came 
upon a red cedar post firmly planted in the 
ground. It looked as if it might at some time 
have been part of a fence, but if so all the neigh¬ 
boring posts are gone. It is claimed that it has 
been there more than a hundred years. I don’t 
know how authentic the statement is, but allow¬ 
ing that it has been there half the time, it makes 
a pretty venerable fence post. It is curious how 
red cedar will withstand decay. Often when I 
have been squirming around in a dentist’s chair 
I have wished that the Creator had thought to 
make my teeth of red cedar. 
We went to the Senate House. It is a small 
one-and-a-half story stone building standing 
tight up to the sidewalk with a broad lawn in 
the rear. Here the first Senate of the State of 
New York convened. Then it was a private 
house, but recently it has been turned into a 
museum, so we went inside. The rooms are 
small and low, so that oratory must have had 
a short flight unless it twisted around consider¬ 
ably. It seems much better adapted to the de¬ 
liberations of a Dutch family than a legislative 
body. It is filled with an interesting collection 
of old implements of war, husbandry and speci¬ 
mens of art. Most of these curios have a dis¬ 
tinctly Dutch ampleness about them. They put 
plenty of metal into their guns in those days and 
were’ not stingy of wood when they made their 
farming implements. Once a man was equipped 
with those tools, the annual loss from breakage 
must have been very slight. The building is 
quite famous for never having laid a claim to 
being one of Washington’s headquarters. This 
fact plainly distinguishes it from nearly every 
other old building along the Hudson. 
In a shallow bay of the river just opposite 
the city v/e found a canal boat graveyard where 
acres of the abandoned craft had been left to 
rot. Numerous crows were flying from one to 
the other and quizzically looking down into their 
emptiness, just as if it was a new thing, and 
they had not been looking into those dark holes 
every day of their lives. Of course not all of 
Kingston is old and relicky. It abounds in 
beautiful modern homes and has all the improve¬ 
ments of the age, yet there are sufficient evi¬ 
dences of the colonial days left to make the 
whole place interesting. Perhaps its greatest 
charm lies in the fact that throughout the entire 
city giant maples and lofty elms throw their 
grateful shade over both the old and the new. 
Winfield T. Sherwood. 
[to be concluded.] 
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remain, Curtis I. Gilbert. 
