March 23, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
449 
wronged me, my story of lies in answer to his 
request. From time to time I stole a look at 
my woman. She was watching my hand as I 
made the signs, but she would not look me in 
the face. At last we went out, and returned to 
the chief’s lodge. ‘Thi^ is your home,’ he told 
me; ‘that is your couch; my food is your food; 
my pipe and tobacco are also yours. Go and 
come as you will.’ 
I walked about in the village, out to the river. 
I sat in the shade of the lodges and smoked, and 
told lies about the south country, all the time 
thinking about my woman, how to rescue her. 
Thus two days passed. I found that she was 
never allowed to go out alone, two of her cap¬ 
tor’s wives always going with her for wood and 
even to the river for water. In the afternoon 
of the second day I sat by the water trail where 
it descended the cut bank to the river’s edge. 
Came my woman with her guard for water; re¬ 
turning she led the way up the steps, and before 
the others reappeared I quickly signed to her: 
‘Don’t sleep; to-night I shall enter your lodge 
and take you away.’ She nodded her head to 
signify that she understood. 
"The village was very quiet when I arose and 
crept out of the chief’s lodge. Not a dog was 
barking; not a fire was alight nor a single per¬ 
son moving about. A mere hand’s width at a 
time I crawled past the curtain of the hated 
one’s doorway and into his lodge. Putting out 
my left hand I touched my woman’s head, and 
she reached up and grasped me by the neck, 
pulled me down so that her lips reached my ear 
and whispered so softly I could scarcely hear 
her: ‘He is asleep beside me. I am tied to 
him. Be careful.’ 
‘‘I had been angry, but these words filled me 
with the rage of a wounded grizzly, and that is 
the most terrible rage of anything that walks 
the earth. I felt that I had the strength of a 
hundred men in my arms and hands. Edging- 
up closer to my woman I reached out carefully 
to feel with my finger tips, my enemy’s position. 
He was lying on his side, back to me, breathing 
slow and deep. I put my knife in my mouth, 
put my hand in the right position, and then sud¬ 
denly I gripped him around the neck, at the 
same time pressing my right knee against his 
shoulder and pushing him over on his belly, face 
down. He struggled. I could feel his big 
muscles quiver under me, but he could not move, 
nor cry out, nor reach up to pull me off, and 
all the time my fingers gripped tighter and 
tighter around his throat. I don’t know how 
long I choked him before I began to feel him 
limp under me, and then withdrawing my right 
hand I grasped my knife and pushed the blade 
down between his ribs along the side of the 
back bone, down into his mean heart, and then 
I made another cut or two and slashed off a 
big braid of his hair, skin and all. 
During all this my woman had lain quiet. She 
was indeed, tied to the man by a rope which 
encircled both their waists. I cut it and whis¬ 
pered to her to rise. She was so weak from 
terror that she could not get up, and I half 
carried her, half led her out of the lodge. Not 
one of the sleeping women there had wakened 
through it all. I laughed to myself thinking of 
the excitement and mourning which would take 
place there when daylight came. I opened the 
passageway in the high fence and went out across 
the bottom, down into the timber where I raised 
my cache. We were not afraid of our voices 
now. ‘You had better kill me here,’ said my 
woman, ‘after what has happened I am disgraced. 
You cannot love me any more.’ 
"I will not tell you how I answered. ‘You 
were satisfied, weren’t you Pit'-ah-ki?’ (address¬ 
ing the comely, neatly dressed old woman who 
sat beside him). 
“‘Ai,’ she answered, smilingly. ‘You had great 
pity; you made me truly happy.’ And then she 
shivered and spat disgustedly into the fire. 
“Yes. Well,” Lone Elk continued, “I waded 
out and recovered my boat, and getting into it 
we drifted on down the river and hid on a big- 
island. We had food, plenty of dried meat and 
pemmican I had got from Four Bears’ women. 
We ate a plenty and then watched the river 
shores turn about all day. Not a man did we 
see. When it came night again we crossed over 
to the north shore, sunk our boat and traveled 
westward. Three days later we walked into the 
village of our friends, where Four Bears greeted 
me like a brother. We had a big dance over the 
scalp I had taken and three horses were given 
us, also saddles, robes and food for our journey 
home. I tell you they are good people those 
Earth-lodge dwellers, 
“There, friend,” the old man concluded, “what 
say you now ? Who but the gods enabled me to 
find my woman and take revenge on the man 
who wronged me. There is no use of talking, 
the gods live; watch over us; protect us in our 
trouble.” 
“About your other dream?” I asked. “The one 
in which you saw your woman crying.” 
“I escaped from the dog,” Pit'-ah-ki answered, 
“and started homeward. I was alone in the 
timber. I did sit under a big tree crying. He 
overtook me. and after that I had no more 
chances to get away. How did he capture me 
in the first place? I was Very foolish. I went 
out alone just below our camp to pick berries, 
and all of a sudden the man seized me, told 
me in signs that if I cried out he would stab 
me. He led me into a patch of willows, and 
when night came he tied me tight to a tree 
while he made a raft, and then he tied me on 
that and we went drifting off down the river.” 
“And that’s all,” said Lone Elk, ostentatiously 
knocking the ashes from the smoked out pipe 
bowl as a sign of dismissal. “That is all. The 
gods are, friend—they are. Go ye your home¬ 
ward ways.” 
We went. I to record this before I sleep. 
Berry has just come in. I wonder where he has 
been prowling. J. W. Schultz. 
If True Hunter-Born. 
Pierced by the blasts of a bitter cold day, 
Facing- the gale on a lone, bleak shore, 
Cramped in your "blind” on a reed-marged bay, 
While from afar sounds the ocean’s wild roar, 
Weary and dreary and lone and forlorn, 
Yet loving it all—if true hunter-born. 
Stationed alone in a wilderness drear, 
Watching a trail thro’ the gloom of dawn, 
Chilled to the marrow, your eyesight a-blear. 
Watching and waiting for buck, doe or fawn, 
Watching and waiting and praying for morn, 
Yet loving it all—if true hunter-born. 
Thrashing about through the frost-bronzed brush, 
Hampered by bush, brier, tangle and log, 
Watchful, expecting each moment a flush, 
Striving to keep wary eye on your dog. 
Railing your luck. But a fig for your scorn, 
You’re loving it all—if true hunter-born. 
Will Cum back Ludlow. 
Pan’s Followers. 
Of the larger American mammals found wild 
to-day, none has been able successfully to meet 
the changes which go with civilization as has 
the Virginia or white-tailed deer. Acuteness of 
hearing, highly sensitive olfactory organs, the 
ability to detect motion, even at considerable 
distances, and a keen instinct of self-preserva¬ 
tion have saved it from extinction. In certain 
localities where the presence of man is an every¬ 
day occurrence, deer will become very tame, and 
again we may often come upon individuals— 
christened by the modern hunter “fool deer”— 
which display perilous stupidity. But taken all in 
all, the deer will nine times out of ten succeed 
in outwitting the wisest hunter, and when some 
of our acquaintances chance to remark that “they 
don’t like to shoot deer, because they’re too 
easy,” we are at liberty to indulge our suspicions 
or to laugh wisely in our sleeve. 
In the Adirondacks—changed, yet in a sense 
unchanged—we find a haven which as yet has not 
ceased to assuage our thirst for the wilderness, 
for the primitive and for freedom. I have been 
fortunate in knowing this region as it used to 
be; in seeing and hunting over an area which 
thus far has escaped undesirable encroachments, 
and which seems indefinitely removed from all 
summer resorts. The very remembrance of it 
fills the heart with perfume. It is assuredly one 
of the few oases now left in the desert. 
No sooner do the birches and maples com¬ 
mence to reflect the afternoon sunlight, assum¬ 
ing, as it were, a more youthful and eager 
autumnal flush, than we experience those vague 
aspirations, half sad, half joyous, which herald 
the advance of a glorious, but swift passing sea¬ 
son. We dream of camp-fires and crisp starlit 
nights in the woods; of the cool beechy fragrance 
of fresh fallen leaves and the dry grating snort 
of a buck in the purple dusk. Pan sounds his 
lute, and yet how few of us hear it! Those 
silver cool-thrilling notes must be dormant in 
the heart from the beginning, else they will find 
no echo, no answering thrill to respond to their 
melody. 
“So we come back to the old myth, and hear 
the goat-footed piper making the music which 
is itself the charm and terror of things; and 
when a glen invites our visiting footsteps, fancy 
that Pan leads us thither with a gracious tremolo ; 
or when our hearts quail at the thunder of the 
cataract, tell ourselves that he has stamped his 
hoof in the night thicket.” 
Let us often recall this little paragraph of 
Stevenson’s, and profit by its illusions. For 
most of the time each one locks his affinity with 
earth, water, sky, in some remote corner of his 
mind that is peculiarly his own; but in the 
wilderness he must love Pan, or he becomes a 
stranger and an outcast. Under the shelter of his 
jocund eye we may come and go and taste the 
luxury of Elysian thoughts at will. He stands 
on the threshold ready to cast over our shoulders 
the robe which will invest us with all the riches 
of Arcady. He administers a reviving draught 
to our ennui and pours a libation of golden 
juices upon our brows. His genial sunburnt, 
weather-beaten face is a godsend to the care¬ 
worn and world-weary man who seeks refuge in 
his dominions. Those of us, therefore, to whom 
as the days ripen and advance, the pastime of 
hunting becomes a still more supreme and 
fascinating occupation, should, above all, cherish 
his companionship and seek to win the good 
fortune attendant upon such relations. In the 
winking fire-light, in the serene hours of morn¬ 
ing and evening, when we are lodged amid 
primeval gardens of pine and spruce, may’st thou, 
oh Pan, smile on us and extend toward us thy 
favor ! May not only the first, but last prize of 
our hunting be crowned with thy immortal 
wreath. 
The art of still-hunting has ever been classed 
among the highest forms of sport. Its boundaries 
are limitless. Tbe more we learn, the more we 
find unlearned, and our theories are alternately 
exploded and corroborated. There are certain 
nrinciples, however, which as to the North Woods 
invariably hold uood, and certain conditions that 
lead to inevitable results. In my limited ex¬ 
perience I have merely followed out the instruc- 
