1 ' • 
I June 8, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
jnay have compassed his end, but one thing is 
easonably certain, he was not an American free 
89 I 
rapper Or he would have had a rifle instead of 
1 smooth bore. 
Leaving Wilder we continued on to a point 
few miles below where we camped for two 
ights and had our first flurry of snow mixed 
ith rain and a heavy wind. We put up the 
:nt for the first time after leaving Benton, hav- 
ig previously slept a la belle etoile. From the 
eights we could see the mountains covered with 
10w which remained on as long as we had 
tern in sight and probably for all winter. The 
, -orm caused the ducks and geese to fly in large 
j umbers, all going down stream, and we also 
iw five cranes go over high up. A bald eagle 
1 the dark plumage was to be seen at almost 
ay hour of the day sitting in the big cotton- 
oods. Once we saw him eating something on 
ie shore, probably a fish, surrounded by three 
• four magpies. We saw golden eagles also 
id magpies constantly. In most places the 
•ach was tracked up by coyotes and foxes, some- 
| nes forming a regular path, though we only 
w four of these animals in the flesh. Skunk 
acks were also common and occasionally traces 
;' the big gray wolf. 
: From Wilder, almost to the Big Dry, the bot-. 
jms are in places extensively timbered, and deer 
e more common and more accessible. We saw 
ur of them standing on the sand several hun- 
|!ed -yards ahead of us one da.y, and it was 
; >t long before we had venison three times a 
y, and sometimes catfish and sturgeon, too. 
e had hunted carefully and honestly all the 
jay down the river, running our legs off in the 
. ugliest countiy, and wearing out foot gear and 
tience without success, but now with deer in 
j; bottomlands, when we could get them at all, 
1 was with the minimum of effort. I happened 
: be the first one to score, getting a whitetail, 
d Mr. Tyler followed next day with a black- 
1 . The weather had grown warmer again since 
j i storm, and in the middle of the day it was 
; niild that the flies were troublesome, so that 
j had to cover our meat and hang it carefully 
the shade, so we did no more hunting till our 
der needed replenishing. 
[to be continued.] 
Three Men and a Cook. 
;vVe were four, standing disconsolately in the 
n. The bumping of the departing wagon 
it had dumped us there came to us through 
: woods, as the lanky driver urged his horses 
! new efforts in the narrow, root-filled wood 
{id. There was water everywhere. The 
e, stretching out from the shore below, 
thed with the splashing of tiny rain drops, 
e ground was saturated, the leaves dripped, 
| little streamlets of water flowed from the 
s of the disconsolate four. The philosoph- 
11 member tried to light his pipe from some 
t matches that he dug up from the bottom 
a pocket. The cook, in his rubber coat, 
k down on a stump, but a stream of water, 
owing the course of least resistance—down 
back soon aroused him. We were out for 
eek’s fishing, and had arrived on our camp¬ 
grounds. It was rather an inauspicious 
inning. 
^ith unlooked for streams of water picking 
the dry spots in our make-up until dry 
1 ts were exhausted and we were wet, un¬ 
comfortable figures, dripping at every step, we 
pitched camp. In the rain we began; in the 
rain we finished. When the last tent peg had 
been driven, the last box stowed away, the 
lain stopped. Our cook, busily mixing the 
contents of various boxes and pans, murmured 
something about the general bad character of 
the weather, but his words were lost to his¬ 
tory, as every one else was squeezing water 
from his clothes and wondering how he had 
absorbed so much. I hen the philosophical 
member took his rod and departed to try his 
luck with the bass of the lake, leaving the 
cook, our naturalist and me to arrange camp. 
The lake, throughout its mile and a half of 
length and its mile of width, stretched out 
. from shores wooded on three sides. The 
fourth was open, with fields extending to the 
water. The wooded shores rose rather steeply 
from the lake, cutting off this little sheet of 
water from the country beyond. It was a 
strange lake, lying as it did not thirty miles 
from the capital of New York State, in Albany 
county, F'or a long time it successfully re¬ 
pelled the assaults of summer cottages and 
all that comes with them, only to fall a prey 
at last to the “boarding house habit.” At the 
time of which I write, the lake was as quiet a 
place for fishing and seemingly as far re¬ 
moved from large hotels as some of the wild¬ 
est spots of Maine. Now, there are many 
cottages at the open end of the lake, a few 
puffing motor boats clatter over the water, 
stabbing the air with puffs of gasolene. Be¬ 
fore it became a summer resort, it never had 
a name. The .natives affectionately called it 
"the lake” or “our lake.” Now, no doubt, with 
motor boats and cottages, it has taken a man¬ 
ufactured name, but if so, I know it not. • 
The result of our cook’s mixing was some 
very good biscuits, which disappeared with the 
rest of the supper in a most amazing man¬ 
ner. Lots had been drawn, and when the un¬ 
fortunate 'drawer of the short straw had washed 
the dishes, we turned in, ready for the next 
day’s fishing. 
The mornings on the lake were exhilarat¬ 
ing. The mists just rising from the water, and 
the streaks of fog cloaking the mountains, gave 
a touch to the scene which cannot be ex¬ 
pressed. The days we spent for the most part 
in fishing. The cook had a peculiar notion not 
only about the preparation of food, but about 
fishing. His failing was for strangely curved 
hooks, buried in masses of many-colored feath¬ 
ers, India rubber frogs and wooden minnows. 
Splashing these back and forth, he lashed the 
water into foam, and drove every self-respect¬ 
ing fish far away. 
The bass and pickerel of the lake afforded 
plenty of amusement for all (always excepting 
the cook). The bass were of the big-mouth 
variety, numerous enough to furnish good 
sport. The naturalist. never still-fished for 
bass, but cast, using small frogs or minnows. 
Of the two, the bass preferred the minnows, 
and this preference caused the naturalist much 
anxiety. It also caused one serious conflict 
when the cook upset a pail of bait. But our 
naturalist, who had a failing for things edible, 
was appeased when the cook made him some 
biscuits. The philosopher tried pickerel or 
bass, as the spirit moved him. He never failed 
to preach “steel rod,’ while the naturalist up¬ 
held spit-bamboo. 1 had then, and have now, 
a split-bamboo rod nine feet long, which I 
have used on various occasions; and have found 
to be very good. For pickerel or bass, in my 
opinion, it is, and will remain, unsurpassed. 
• My opinions on fishing and tackle Were con¬ 
temptuously received by both the naturalist 
and the philosopher, who were fishermen 
“tried and true.” 
For pickerel we used minnows entirely. 
Fair-sized ones, four inches or so, were best, 
as the pickerel is • near-sighted. Many fish¬ 
erman avoid gut-snelled hooks when out for 
these fish, as the ugly teeth of a pickerel often 
cut the snell. With careful playing, however— 
and in the playing lies the sport—-gut snells 
are efficient, and certainly more sportsmanlike. 
Any one can catch fish with a clothesline. 
The philosopher, who was as fine a fisher¬ 
man as I ever saw, used sproat hooks, size 2-0. 
The naturalist declared Cincinnati bass hooks 
were best. Personally I prefer the sproat 
variety, as the character of the bend is such 
that the more strain put upon the hook, so 
much the more deeply does it fix itself in the 
fish’s mouth. 
Many portly bass and pickerel were landed 
by our party. We lived on fish. We were not 
out for numbers, but for sport. The largest 
bass fell to my lot. Him I caught just at 
dusk, one evening, while using a frog. He 
made a glorious fight, but I landed him at last. 
He was just three ounces under three pounds. 
The naturalist made contemptuous remarks 
about “beginners’ luck.” I listened meekly, 
being, after all, only “the Kid.” 
The fish were biting well, and in general we 
found minnows the most killing bait for both 
bass and pickerel, of course varying the size 
of the bait to the kind of fish. As is often the 
case, the fisherman must try several different 
kinds of bait for bass, as they are sometimes 
particular as to their food. 
More important than tackle, is the way of 
fishing. A good fisherman may ^ind will catch 
fish with poor-tackle. The philosopher fished 
calmly, never becoming annoyed at the loss of 
a fish, an accident which happened seldom to 
him. Indeed it was his calm, unruffled soul, 
rising above, as he said, such trifling inci¬ 
dents, which gained him his name. But he 
was too easily moved from the narrow path 
by the vanities of this world. 
Fie had brought a good suit of clothes with 
him, of a very light shade, and clad in these 
he rowed a mile every evening to town after 
cigarettes, as he said. These trips became 
too frequent, and he was watched, to discover 
what loadstone drew him from our company. 
Fie was discovered seated on a porch of the 
village, the fair enchantress near,. The cook, 
who made the discovery, towed the philoso¬ 
pher's boat back to camp as a warning against 
such unseemly conduct (for a philosopher). 
About 12 that night emphatic words came 
floating up the road through the woods. It 
was our philosopher philosophizing about a 
three-mile walk over rough and dark country 
roads. When we had controlled ourselves suf¬ 
ficiently, the naturalist asked for the cigarettes. 
Mumbling some inarticulate words, not com¬ 
plimentary to his hearers, the philosopher 
crawled into bed. His suit, when exposed to 
daylight, appeared wrecked. He had evidently 
met with a barb-wire fence during the night 
watches. 
On the last day of our stay, two important 
happenings occurred. Two very young and 
foolish bass were caught on a bunch of feath¬ 
ers by the cook. The naturalist said the look of 
shame and disgust on those fishes’ counte¬ 
nances, when the cook hauled them in was 
pitiful. The naturalist should have stuck 
more closely to the truth. The second occur¬ 
rence nearly ended our lives. The cook made 
a pie. It was a marvel of culinary art. The 
crust was like sheet iron, and what the con¬ 
tents were no one could tell. As a pie it was 
a failure, but as an object of curiosity it made 
a hit. The cook was forbidden to make fur¬ 
ther experiments in cooking unless he first 
tried them on himself. 
We packed our things in the same wagon 
that had brought us, driven by the same lanky 
driver. Before we left I looked back at the 
lake. The picture of that little sheet of water 
tucked away in the hills, so near and yet so 
far from the hurry of modern life, long re¬ 
mained with me. And with the picture came 
the remembrance of many incidents when I 
moved in the bustle of the city, far from the 
woods. The driver climbed slowly from the 
ground .to the wheel, from the wheel to the 
seat, shook the lines, and we bumped off. The 
trees hid the lake from view. 
L. G. Bailey. 
'* tH' .jnft 
