A Camp of the Kingfishers 
By OLD SAM 
I N the summer of 1891 the Kingfisher Club 
had decided to omit its usual outing to the 
great North Woods, except in detachments 
of go as you please.” Three of the group from 
Frankfort, Ky., decided to accept the invitation 
of a party from Decatur, Ill., headed by Ed. 
Woods, who had camped with the Kingfishers 
the year before on Platte Lake, and under their 
guidance make camp in the woods near Thunder 
Lake, thirty-five miles north of Manistique. 
The Decatur party was to go by rail to 
Chicago, thence by boat to Manistique, where 
the Frankfort contingent, consisting of Furr, 
Morris and myself, were to join them. The 
journey of the Tatter party was uneventful until 
Pembine, a small station on the Chicago and 
Northern Railroad, was reached. Here they 
were to make transfer to the Sault Ste. Marie 
road via Manistique. Pembine w r as reached at 
10 P. M., and the following morning the three 
anglers were up early, and with grips in hand 
were at the station in wait for the expected 
train. Shortly after, the train came thunder¬ 
ing by, and without stopping at the station, 
halted at a water tank two hundred yards be¬ 
low. 1 hinking, of course, it would back up to 
the station we sauntered leisurely about and 
waited. By some sudden inspiration I casually 
remarked to the baggage master, “The train 
will back up, won’t it?” 
Oh, no, he replied; “it will go on from 
there.” 
Had a hundred volts of electricity made the 
circuit of our nerves it could not have produced 
a greater shock. Time was up, the bell was 
ringing, and making w’ild snatches at our bag¬ 
gage we leaped from the platform and for an 
anxious moment or two it was almost a dead 
heat between the three. Norris touched the hand 
rail of the rear car, an arm and neck ahead. 
Arriving at Manistique an hour or so later 
we found the Decatur party at the station, 
wagons loaded and everything ready for the 
start. The fourth wagon was short a driver, 
and Morris, as best equipped in that line, was 
given the reins. 
The game warden of the county had been 
ell 8 a ged as guide, and with a light spring wagon, 
loaded with camp cots borrowed from the lum¬ 
ber company, had gone ahead to select a camp 
ground. 1 he day was bright and promising, 
though detached squadrons of opaque clouds 
floated to face the bracing breeze after leaving 
the hot breath of the South. 
I wo miles out from Manistique, as the fore¬ 
most wagon, on which I rode, was ascending a 
slight knoll, a deer leaped across the road fifty 
yards ahead, ascending the eminence a few 
yards to the left—a very large and splendid doc, 
oblivious to the noise of the wagons, stood on 
the edge of the ridge in full view, with ears 
erect and neck bent, looking at us over her 
back. For several seconds she stood in silent 
pose, and then leaping over the declivity, was 
out of sight. 
The soft sand roads made easy traveling 
except when intercepted by the hard wood sec¬ 
tions, when ruts and. bog holes gave varying 
exercise and appetites. Our hair stood on end 
at times when our driver, starting from the top 
of a ridge, would recklessly go down the sand 
road at full speed, missing the pine trees at sharp 
turns in the road by scarcely a foot margin. 
Morris, who was more careful in his driving of 
the next wagon, said he expected every moment 
to see a crushed wagon with work for the sur¬ 
geon in broken limbs. Probably the driver 
understood his business. We had doubts. 
After missing the path where we were to leave 
the main road, indicated by a handkerchief tied 
to the limb of a tree, and going to a logging 
camp two miles beyond, we finally got on the 
right trail and reached the campsite just at night¬ 
fall. The spring wagon with camp cots had 
overturned shortly after leaving the main road. 
The camp was in a beautiful grove of Norway 
pines. The trim slender shafts stood straight 
as an arrow, devoid of limbs, for sixty to ninety 
feet, topped with a bushy canopy that swayed 
in high winds over a space of twenty to thirty 
feet. Beneath the ground was covered with a 
thick carpet of soft pine needles, free of under¬ 
growth. Rain began to fall before the wagons 
could be unloaded, so only one large dining tent 
was pitched, and the calamities, as Kingfisher 
would term them, were hived in it for the night, 
lying at will in the nooks and corners. 
Next day the sun rose bright and clear. The 
duffle was unpacked, the tents pitched, the table 
of deal boards fastened to its stout framework 
of stakes, the sheet-iron stove mounted on its 
box of sand and a “colored gemman,” named 
White, installed as master of ceremonies over 
the commissary and frying pans. White was 
really so black that he was absolutely invisible 
after the sun went down. Under my own cot 
I placed a bed of wood ferns to shut out the 
cold night air, but on breaking camp and re¬ 
moving them I found they had exuded moisture 
and were wet. 
Rods were jointed, tackle boxes inspected and 
overhauled, and after catching a few speckled 
frogs in the low ground near by, Woods and 
Morris set out to circumvent a bass. Furr and 
I, under the guidance of the game warden, left 
for the dam, three miles away, to secure a “mess 
o’ trout.” 
Our camp was in the midst of a forest, un¬ 
broken save by the lumberman’s axe, that 
stretched for miles in every direction, almost 
devoid of habitation. The lumbermen’s camp, 
two miles away, had been occupied the night 
of our arrival, otherwise settlers were scarce 
and distant. Bass Lake, a small sheet of water, 
lay a quarter of a mile to the north, while 
1 hunder Lake, a larger body, lay four or five 
miles to the east. Other pretty lakes were scat¬ 
tered through the woods like gems in an antique 
setting. 
Furr and I reached the dam after a sharp 
walk via the lumber camp. A small stream 
meandering through the woods had been dam¬ 
med with rock cribbing, with a flood gate of 
stout boards to unloose, when needed, the cur¬ 
rent that floated the logs down. The water was 
now low in the dam, showing the drift and 
sunken logs that lay on the bottom in many 
places, with water lilies and plants interspersed 
at intervals. Trout were occasionally rising to 
seize the flies and bugs that touched the surface. 
Our rods were not the pliant fly-rod, with its 
elastic swish and bend, dropping the lure as light 
as air on the surface, but the slender stiff rod 
for bass or pike. Yet we were soon busy cast¬ 
ing artificial flies as far out as our provisional 
tackle would permit, to find them greedily caught 
on the jump by the wary watchers as they lay 
in wait. Not every one was hooked by the quick 
recovery, but at every third or fourth cast, some¬ 
times oftener, a speckled trout was dropped into 
the basket. Their cold bodies, like fleshy icicles, 
glistened with sheen of silver and carmine while 
the spotted rings dappled the tinted edges of 
deep blue that shaded their sides and backs. No 
fish delights the Northern waters with gamier 
qualities or more beauteous coloring. The small- 
mouth black bass alone vies with its claims, but 
it is bigger. 
While standing on the bank, busily engaged 
in luring the trout from their lurking places, 
there was a sudden loud rush in the air over¬ 
head. and with a heavy splash a wild duck set¬ 
tled on the water not thirty yards away. It 
seemed unconcerned at our presence, glancing 
at us with its black eyes, and with a supercilious 
toss of the head swam leisurely away. 
As the trout seemed to tire of the fly we 
shifted our bait to the ignoble angle worm and 
did better. With nearly three dozen trout in 
the basket, all small but exceeding the five-inch 
limit, we reeled up our lines and returned to 
camp. 
