410 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 16, 1907. 
“ ‘In wrath for loss of sylvan game, 
Saint Hilda’s priest ye slew.’ 
“We came, precious near killing her, though 
not on purpose, and if she hadn’t had the pluck 
of the devil, the dogs would have finished her 
for sure.” 
Previous experience had taught me that it 
was waste of time to try to draw a yarn out 
of Jake, unless he was in the humor for story 
telling, so I said nothing about the white rabbit 
or the adventure of Captain Ireland, until the 
evening. 
About sunset the snow commenced to fall. 
Jake was overjoyed, and after supper he looked 
out several time to “see how the weather was 
tending.” About 8 o’clock he informed me that 
the snow had ceased to fall, and the stars were 
out. “Not more than three inches on the level, 
wind enough to clear the branches, just enough 
frost to keep the snow soft, and prevent any 
crust forming. and bully chances for still-hunt¬ 
ing to-morrow.” 
This being the case I uncorked a bottle of 
whisky and asked Jake to join me in a toast to 
our success on the morrow. Under the influence 
of the stimulant he waxed communicative, and 
in answer to my inquiries anent Captain Ireland 
and Miss Castin, he told me the following yarn : 
“You’ve read about St. Castine, the French 
officer who did so much fighting with the Eng¬ 
lish ’round Annapolis, in the old days? Well, 
old Mr. Castin was his great grandson. When 
the French were driven out the family went back 
to France, but when the revolution happened, 
and they cut the King’s head off, they came 
back again, and took up a big grant of land at 
Lake Castin. They had plenty of money. There 
was one son, the old gentleman I speak of, and 
two daughters. One of them went to Quebec 
and married an officer there; the other one be¬ 
came a nun. Mr. Castin had no sons, and only 
one daughter. She married a deep sea captain, 
called D’Entremont, from somewhere in the 
western counties. He changed his name to 
Castin before he was married. They had one 
child, a girl, and when she was four years old 
her father and mother left her at Lake Castin 
with the old people, and started from Yarmouth 
to Rio, in the captain’s barkentine, Fleur de Lvs. 
The Fleur de Lys was never spoken after she 
left Yarmouth, but one of her boats was picked 
up empty off Bermuda. 
“The captain had a good insurance on his 
life and his vessel and the little girl came in for 
the whole of it. Her grandfather kept her at 
home for several years, then he sent her to 
Montreal, to a convent. You would have liked 
old Mr. Castin. He was about as perfect _ a 
gentleman as I ever met, and I’ve seen quite 
a few in my time. Some people said he was too 
stiff and thought too much of himself, but I 
never want to be with a better man. He had be¬ 
tween fifty and sixty head of stock, plenty of 
money in the bank, and all the land the lumber 
company has flowed at the head of the lake 
was good intervale, and grew from two or three 
tons of hay to the acre. When his daughter 
got married he made the homestead and land 
over to her and her children, but he and his 
wife were to have it as long as they lived. It’s 
about forty years since the bank of Londonderry 
failed, Mr. Castin lost thirty thousand dollars 
in that smash, and it almost ruined him. Then 
the gold fever broke out, and he lost more money 
in mines, and he had to mortgage his life in¬ 
terest in the place for what it would fetch. He 
lived in the tenant house, and kept three or four 
head of stock in a little barn away from the big 
buildings. The lumber company used to cut the 
hay and let the pasture rights out at auction. 
It was a pretty melancholy sight to happen on 
the place in the evening. The old house shut 
up, and rotting down, the garden all grown up 
with weeds, and the barns, that used to be full 
of cattle, as empty as an old hornet’s nest. Mr. 
Castin had an old French woman for house¬ 
keeper. She was his wife’s servant when she 
was alive, and except for the men who came 
to cut the hay and drive the cattle to the pasture 
in the spring, and out again in the fall, hardly 
a soul showed his face there from one year’s 
end to another. 
“I used to feel sorry for the old gentleman. 
He always used me decent when I was a young 
fellow, and many any many’s the load of wood 
I’ve cut up for him, and many’s the pound of 
moose meat I left at his house. Sometimes we 
used to wonder what his grand daughter was 
doing, and why she let him live that way. He 
never spoke of her, but everyone .knew that 
she came into thousands of dollars when _ her 
father was drowned, and Mr. Castin’s creditors 
couldn’t touch a cent of it. It was in 1870 that 
we had the ‘deep snow.’ I never remember the 
like of it. It commenced in November and we 
had no thaw until the end of March. Captain 
Ireland had hunted with me for two falls be¬ 
fore that. Then he left the army and went 
home. Some men are fond of the woods, but 
he was just crazy about hunting. Fie could 
travel all day, and keep it up for a week, and I 
never saw a better alkround shot. He didn’t 
care so much for moose hunting; foxes and cats 
were his favorite game, and we used to kill 
lots of them. 
“Just before he went home, he came across 
a notorious good foxhound at Annapolis, and 
he bought him and sent him on to me. He 
was one part bull and three parts English fox¬ 
hound, and a better dog on cats and foxes_ never 
ran a trail, nor was a worse tempered devil ever 
whelped. He would fight anything living. Most 
hounds are more or less cowardly, but Satan 
didn’t know what fear was. I had two nice 
bitches then. Floss and Lou I called them. 
Satan was civil to them, but any dog that came 
around he’d tear to pieces. The bitches always 
hunted together, but Satan went off on his' own 
account, and if you tried to lead him he’d get 
sulky. So it sometimes happened that he would 
have one fox going, and the bitches would have 
another, or maybe a cat. If they happened to 
be in hearing of one another, the dog whose 
fox was killed first would go off and join the 
others; if not he’d try to hunt up another one. 
"Well, about the time the first snow fell Cap¬ 
tain Ireland wrote me that he would be in 
Halifax abont Christmas time, and that he 
wanted me to meet him there. He wanted to go 
to the woods for a month and do some cat and 
fox hunting. I was glad to hear this, as I 
hadn’t done much that fall, and he was a good 
fellow to go to the woods with. I went out 
to my camp, about four miles west of Lake 
Castin, fixed it up, and took in some grub ; then 
I went to Halifax and met the Captain. There 
was about four feet of snow on the level, and 
the roads were very bad, only part broken, and 
when we got off the railway, we found we should 
have nearly ten miles to walk. It was impossi¬ 
ble to get a team through. Some of our stuff 
we left at the station, the rest we put on tobog¬ 
gans, and we started to haul it in across coun¬ 
try. Our conrse ran at right angles to the road 
leading to the Castin settlement. We found the 
road unbroken, as I expected, but there was a 
single snowshoe track and the trail of a hand 
sled running along it. ‘Some squaw going in?’ 
says the Captain. I looked at the tracks, and 
noticed that the snowshoes were Indian made, 
but not like our Indians make them. ‘Maybe so, 
but that’s an iron shod sled, and it has a very 
light load on it for a squaw going to camp.’ I 
said, and then we went on, and thought noth¬ 
ing more about it. Then old Satan turned sulky. 
He didn’t like hauling his toboggan, and I had 
to whale him. It was almost dark when we got 
to camp, and most bitter cold. 
“We put in the next day fixing up the camp 
and letting the dogs rest. Next day was Christ¬ 
mas eve; it snowed about an inch, and on 
Christmas morning, just as it grew light, we 
started out. Ireland didn’t know Satan’s peculiar¬ 
ities, and he let him out early in the morning. 
He put straight into the woods, and when we 
came out after breakfast we could hear him ‘boo- 
hoo, boo-hooing’ away off, half way to Lake 
Castin. I listened for a little while, and then 
I told the Captain that the dog had got a cat 
started. ‘You put the bitches in leash, and take 
them about a mile down the wood road, and 
you’re sure to strike a fresh fox track,’ I told 
him. ‘Then I’ll cut over to where Satan is, 
shoot the cat, and come on and join you.’ 
“I lost no time getting through the woods, but 
long before I got to the dog he had his cat 
treed; I could tell that when he changed his 
voice from the ‘boo-hoo, boo-hoo’ to ‘boo-hooo, 
hooo-ooo.’ I found Mr. Pussy Tom sitting in a 
tall ram pike looking as spiteful as they make 
them; shot him, leashed the dog, and stripped 
the pelt off the cat. Then I listened and away 
off I heard the bitches in full cry. The sun was 
well up. by this time, and it was one of those 
clear still mornings you can hear a hound for 
three miles; and a gun shot for any distance at 
all. I kept Mr. Satan in leash, for the cat 
tracks were thick, and I wanted him on the fox. 
The dogs seemed to be working toward the 
Castin settlement, and I worked down parallel 
with them, until I judged they had the fox 
circling. Then I slipped Satan, and away he 
went to join them. Not a minute after I heard 
a shot. I waited for the hounds to quit their 
racket (which would mean they were worrying 
the dead fox), but instead of doing so they 
changed their voices, and seemed to be heading 
my way. 
“I cut across to head the fox off, and just as 
I got to the edge of Castin’s clearing I saw the 
fox crossing the open, dragging one leg behind 
him, and the hounds coming up to him three 
strides to his one. I quit running: the dogs 
were bound to pull him down in a moment or 
so. All on a sudden the fox vanished, like a 
candle when you blow it out, then the hounds 
went out of sight the same way, but I could 
hear them crying as lively as ever. Then I heard 
Floss give a ‘ki-yi-yi.’ Says I, ‘He got a nip 
at you before you pulled him down, old lady.’ 
Then Lou turned up ’the same way, and they 
began to bay, like they did when they treed a 
cat, or ran a fox into a hollow log. 
“ ‘That’s a mighty able fox,’ says I, ‘to get 
a nip at both those bitches, and then stand them 
off,’ and I put for the place the noise came 
from. I soon saw how the fox and dogs went 
out of sight. There was a long narrow cut dug 
in the snow from the tenant house Mr. Castin 
lived, to the barn he kept his cows and steers 
in. There was a girl standing with her back to 
the barn door, and a stick in her hand; in front 
of her the hounds were crouched, just out. of 
reach. The girl was a small bit of a thing, 
dressed a!s if she came from the* city, and as 
pretty as a picture. I just had time to notice 
this, when I saw' old Satan coming for all he 
was worth. His voice was down to the snow, 
and his ears trailed behind his jowl. His tail 
was over his back, and the cry of him as he 
came down the blood tracks was one steady 
roar. I knew that the girl would stand as much 
chance against that sixty pounds of devilishness 
as she w'ould against a tiger, and I shouted to 
her not to strike the dog for God’s sake. Then 
I ran for all I w r as worth. She either didn’t 
hear me, or didn’t mind me, for she hit him 
fair in the face with the stick as he came to¬ 
ward her. He wheeled round, drew back for 
three or four yards, and sprang right at her, 
and the bitches followed suit. She went down 
with her back to the door, striking out as 
viciously as a wounded wildcat. I yelled at the 
top of my voice, and the bitches kind of drew 
back, but Satan had her down, and was worry¬ 
ing her for all he was worth. I brought my gun 
butt down on his head, and he dropped with 
his teeth locked on her arm. I pried his jaw 
open, and threw him out of the cut, on to the 
snowbank. The bitches cleared. Then Captain 
Ireland came in sight. He had run for all he 
was worth, and he was more than astonished 
when he found me in the snow trench with the 
girl, and Satan stretched out on the bank above. 
“ ‘Matter,’ says I, ‘the matter is that the dogs 
have nearly killed this girl, and there’s no doc¬ 
tor nearer than Parker’s Cross, and that’s ten 
miles off. ‘I’m not hurt,’ says the girl; ‘your 
dogs have torn the sleeve of my jacket, and my 
skirt, but their teeth haven’t harmed me. I let 
the poor fox into the barn, and if you have 
any manly feeling you will let him go.’ 
“Her skirt was all torn to tatters; she had 
lost her tuque in the struggle, and the blood was 
running down her left sleeve into the snow as 
she spoke. 
“ ‘We had better go to the house, and if you 
will let me, dress your arm. I have some knowl¬ 
edge of surgery, and then my guide, Jake Hen- 
