930 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June 13, 1908. 
comfortably settled in the golden bloom of mid¬ 
summer, could be seen breaking the sky line. 
A warm grassy aroma filled the air, mingled 
with a tang of the sea, and presently, amid a 
clamor of bells and whistles the steamer moored 
beside the ancient and medieval quays of Antwerp. 
The river with which I have always borne the 
most intimate acquaintance, would carry half a 
dozen or more of such waterways as the Scheldt 
on its broad bosom. The expressions and varia¬ 
tions of its seasonal changes never grow old. 
In winter it is as lonely and remote as the great 
glacier currents of the North. Cold, immense, 
tranquil, it reaches from shore to shore in an 
unbroken plain of white, something that is beau 
tiful, yet melancholy. 
When March comes it grows restless, and 
perhaps in a single night bursts its icy fetters 
and goes “singing to the ancient sea.” The fol¬ 
lowing day it has opened out in wonderful 
sapphrine tones, the land spreads a tawny belt 
beyond its margins, and still beyond a blue frieze 
of mountains is hung in the bright windy air. 
Now, do the living heralders of spring put in 
shield. Or, perhaps, in the shape of an iris, in 
the plum-colored bloom and perishable intensity 
of its loveliness we find an expression for the 
indefinite, something that companions our 
thoughts and floods our dreams. But beyond the 
luxury of these influences, beyond the essentially 
human part of a great waterway, and yet as 
one with every beat of its mighty circulation, we 
are conscious still of that deep-seated warrior 
strain; that paean of immeasurable time, echo¬ 
ing of a strength and fidelity unknown to the 
rest of the world. 
As a last word I would not forget the little 
rivers of the North Woods, stealing from out 
the pine-bearded wilderness in threads of gold 
and amber— 
“The rivulet, 
Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine 
Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell 
Among the moss with hollow harmony, 
Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones 
It danced; like childhood laughing as it went.” 
Unlike their ocean-linked, traffic-laden col¬ 
leagues they strike an unmistakably individual 
note. They are not our brothers in arms, but 
AN ADIRONDACK RIVER. 
From a photograph by Francis Harper. 
an appearance, sitting on cakes of broken ice, 
or cutting the air with lusty wing; for with the 
first vantage of warmer tides come the eagles— 
solitary, golden, majestic—strong spirits of the 
year’s adolescence. 
It is natural, however, that we should be 
drawn to a river most of all during the hey-day 
of the summer months, when like true riparians 
we can take our leisure on its banks, drift with 
its slumbrous currents, or steep our sight in 
vistas of liquid shadow. We thirst for shade, 
for cooling sights and sounds, and a river is 
the fountain head of all these. The effervescent 
temper of spring yields to an almost tropical 
serenity. Voices drift from afar; oars flash in 
the afternoon sunlight; a blackbird tunes his 
glassicord among the reeds. Delicious depths of 
water fill the landscape and the turreted clouds 
lie smooth and still, where the sun’s rays flicker 
hotly as on the embossed surface of an immense 
our brothers in repose; and we turn our ears to 
them for a moment of rest rather than for a 
moment of stimulation. In reality, moreover, 
they but represent the greater in their infancy; 
buoyant and youthful and resuscitating. We find 
relief in the very constancy of their moods, the 
remoteness of their issues. Small wonder poets 
have loved them, have encased beautiful expres¬ 
sion in their translucent motion and tireless wan¬ 
derings; for, indeed, mystery unburdens on their 
tongues as they travel through long solitudes 
to multiply their voices in some broad pastoral 
highway. And shall we not remember them, 
these that are mighty rivers in childhood ? Shall 
we not remember them also as mothers of the 
sea? Their voices sing the first song, and 
melodize when all else is silent; and though they 
sing night and day and forever there is always 
one thing left unsung. And still we wait to 
hear it. 
When a Maine man tells you about his catch 
of trout, he likes to be very impressive, and 
gives dimensions in terms not. likely to be mis¬ 
taken. But I do not recall any statement which 
I remembered longer than one which appeared 
recently in a Maine paper, to the effect that ? 
certain man caught a fine squaretail trout ir 
Lake Penneseewassee, its weight being “thret 
pounds and seventeen ounces.” And no men¬ 
tion of “tipping the scales,” either. 
* * * 
One of the most curious experiences I have 
ever had in connection with hunting was this 1 
I saved the skins of the first two antelope ' 
killed in the Southwest, a good many years ago 
intending to bring them East with me. An ok 
Indian helped me to cure them with the hai 
on, but he did not inform me that they wen 
worthless for use as rugs, and this fact I di< 
not learn until long afterward. 
When I left the cattle country and fare' 
southward into Mexico, the skins went aloni 
in my baggage, tightly rolled and tied with core 
The customs men on both sides of the Rf 
Grande sniffed contemptuously at the bundle, am 
refused to touch it; so it remained unopene 
until, nearly a year later, I spread my belong 
ings about my quarters in a Northern city, am 
thinking the skins would serve as rugs, cut th 
cord and unrolled the skins. My heart sank, fo 
moths had been at work on my trophies, pro!; 
ably for months, and they were a mass of ct 
hair and leather of no special value. 
Eventually I tied up the package again, heave 
it over the fence into a vacant lot, and forge 
about it. But not long afterward a friend wh 
lived in the suburbs, at least four miles awa; 
told me of a parcel he had found that mornin 
in his yard, neatly wrapped in hardware pape 
On opening it, he said, he found two moth-eate 
antelope skins, and as he had in former yeai 
shot a good many antelope, but had not see 
one in a wild state in a long time, he regarde 
his find as a very strange one. 
One of the skins, he said, had a very lari 
bullet mark in it, and the other one— 
“Had three bullet holes, two of them with 
as many inches,” I interrupted, “and the thi: 
about six inches away. The big hole in the otk 
skin was made by a hgllow-point bullet.” 
He stared at me, dumbfounded. “That 
right,” he admitted finally; “but what do yc 
know about them?” 
I teased him for a long time about the skin 
which I assumed had been found by some of 
rags man, and discarded by him at the far er 
of his route when he, too, found them ruin< 
by moths; but it was not until I told my sto 
that my friend was convinced that my min 
reading powers were not so highly develop' 
as he had at first assumed. Grizzly King. 
