The Sunrise Buck 
A Day on a Stand and an Evening Beside the 
Camp-Fire With an Adirondack Guide 
By PAUL BRANDRETH 
T HE fire had burned low. Overhead, be¬ 
tween the dark silhouettes of the balsams 
the stars glittered with that peculiarly 
brilliant luster which precedes the break of . day. 
Gusts of air, cool and fragrant with the odor 
of frosted leaves, circulated around the camp, 
puffing slender columns of smoke from the dying 
embers, and in the forest there had fallen a 
complete and unbroken silence—the silence of 
night lulled to the deeper silence of the early 
morning. 
I knew it was time to be stirring, but no 
sooner would I get one eye open than the other 
would close. A charred log slid off the fire 
and sent a cloud of sparks whirling upward into 
the darkness. High among the treetops a light 
wind rustled almost inaudibly. I looked at the 
Naiad comfortably tucked in a red blanket, deep 
in slumber and quite oblivious tO' the struggle 
I was making in the name of sport. The sight 
being more than human nature could stand, I 
went to sleep again. 
Further sleep, however, was destined to be 
brief, and I had barely dropped off when I was 
roused by hearing Rube cough in the tent ad¬ 
joining our spruce bark tepee. As a matter of 
fact, Rube’s cough is more compelling than any 
alarm clock ever invented, especially if one is 
bent on the daylight quest of game or fish, and 
thenceforth I remained awake. Presently I heard 
him shake himself out of the tent, throw an 
armful of birch logs on the fire, and a few 
minutes later the tea pail commenced to bubble 
and twitter over a crackling blaze. 
By this time a yellow streak of dawn had 
broken in the east, and looking off into the 
woods, one could vaguely catch the outlines of 
the trees, standing black and shrouded in billows 
of gray-white fog. The air was fresh, but 
lacked the sting of frost, for it was still early 
in the autumn. When I had dressed and 
emerged from the camp, I found Rube squatted 
before the fire, in one hand a frying-pan and in 
the other a fork with which he kept a golden 
island of butter circling and sizzling on the 
bottom. 
“Hev an egg fer breakfast?” he inquired with¬ 
out looking up and endeavoring to wave back 
an assault of pungent smoke. Eggs being a de¬ 
cided luxury in camp, I made haste to say, 
“Yes,” and from a tin cracker box he produced 
four —white, spotless, appetizing. These he 
deftly broke into the pan, and in less time than 
it takes to teil, breakfast stood hot and smok¬ 
ing on the rickety affair we used as a dining 
table. Then we sat down, and with visions of 
deer, great and small, walking in my head, and 
dawn brightening between the balsams, I for¬ 
got to envy the Naiad and her dreams. 
“Awful still, ain’t it?” Rube remarked when 
we had eaten for some minutes in silence. He 
poured himself a third cup of tea from his 
much treasured tea pail, and stirred it thought¬ 
fully with a spoon. 
“I guess we’ll hev to let the still-huntin go 
fer this morning and watch the pond instead, ’ 
he added. 
“All right,” I agreed; “those eggs are fine, 
Rube.” 
"They do taste kinder nice, don’t they?” In 
the half light his patriarchal beard flickered 
steadily as he did honor to the repast, and al¬ 
ways with the alertness of the born woodsman, 
his glance kept searching the shadowy vistas of 
the outlying wilderness. His had been a life¬ 
long and intimate relationship with the things 
that lay therein. Every square foot of the re¬ 
gion in which we were camped he knew, even 
as you and I might know a room which, for 
many seasons, had housed and sheltered us. In¬ 
deed, there were times when we were hunting 
together that I believed him possessed of an 
intuition as mysterious as the forest itself; a 
knowledge that only years of living in the wild¬ 
erness could make perfect. On occasions too 
numerous to mention I have seen him hasten 
through the woods, careless of the noise he 
made, breaking twigs at every step, and bent 
solely on picking out the easiest trail. Then 
suddenly he would alter his pace, stealthily mov¬ 
ing forward without sound, and a little while 
later you would either hear or see a deer. 
Breakfast over, we put the dishes aside, built 
up the fire, and slipped away from camp with¬ 
out wakening the Naiad. Rube walked ahead, 
a weather-stained canvas pack slung over his 
shoulder and a small pocket axe swinging in his 
hand. The pack, which was his own invention, 
contained a coil of stout rope, a pulley block and 
a few hardtack, the former to be used in hang¬ 
ing up game if we were luckv enoueh to bag 
any—the latter to ward off hunger pangs in 
case we were late in getting back to camp. In 
the line of firearms I carried an old model re¬ 
peater. Otherwise we went unburdened, and 
when you are hunting it is a never-ending com¬ 
fort to travel light. 
The trail to Buck Pond led northward from 
the camp. For the first quarter of a mile it 
zig-zagged through a belt of low, swampy 
ground where the balsams stood close together 
and twilight fell before the sun had set. Be¬ 
yond it emerged on a wide expanse of beaver 
meadow. Clumps of alders, young spruce trees 
and flag pole tamaracks decked out with long 
streamers of gray-green moss were scattered far 
and near, and in all directions deer runways 
crossed and re-crossed each other in a labyrinth 
of pathways. The pond lay in the southwest 
corner of the meadow, a narrow strip of water 
scarcely a hundred yards wide in any place and 
not more than half a mile in length. On the 
further side it was backed by thick timberland 
and a rocky fire-swept hillock. Yellow patches 
of marsh cut the edge of the woods in various 
places, and the shore skirting the beaver meadow 
was soft and boggy, running grassy tongues out 
into the cool black mud where in summer and 
early autumn the deer loved to wallow. An 
abiding seclusion, abundance of food, and the 
fact that every condition was favorable to their 
wants had long made it their chosen haunt. 
We followed the trail in silence, picking our 
way over the slippery tree roots and seeing the 
woods fill with light as it grew time for the 
sun to rise. Bluejays chattered in the balsams, 
and as we came out on the beaver meadow, sev¬ 
eral whiskeyjacks passed overhead, mysteriously 
silent. The mist lay so dense in every direction 
that it was difficult to distinguish anything fur¬ 
ther than a few feet in advance, and while near 
objects loomed up dark and strange, those fur¬ 
ther away melted into a ghostly vagueness and 
uncertainty. 
The trail now fell in with a runway. On 
each side the small spruce trees growing in the 
marsh were wreathed with dew-sprinkled cob¬ 
webs that flashed and sparkled as though covered 
with hoar frost, and through this miniature glit¬ 
tering forest we advanced noiselessly, our moc- 
casined feet sinking ankle deep at every step 
in the spongy reindeer moss. Behind us, over 
the rim of a hog-backed hill, flame ravaged and 
sentineled by the gaunt figures of dead pine 
trees, the rising sun blazed through a rift in 
the clouds and touched the cobwebs with gleam¬ 
ing rainbow tints. Above the phantom sea of 
mist it resembled a livid moon. Then as quickly 
as it had broken its cloudy nightcap, it disap¬ 
peared again, drowned in a gulf of milky fog. 
When we reached the pond, the mist had ap¬ 
parently grown more dense than ever. It was 
impossible to see the opposite shore, so there 
was nothing to do but sit down and wait. Pres- 
