


260 

FOREST AND STREAM. 

heart and soul. The air is soft, the brook sings 
to him in the riffles, the leaves are like castanets 
chiming a language he understands or interprets 
as a welcome from nature. 
There may be men who are proof to all these 
allurements of spring, but I do not know them, 
and pray that I never may. The average healthy 
normal man welcomes spring and goes a-fishing. 
Some kindly English critic once said, in speak- 
ing of my reminiscences of angling days, known 
as the “Log of a Sea Angler” originally pub- 
lished in Forest AND StreAM, that it was a pity 
the author did not know the delights of quiet 
streams and winding brooks, lakes and_ land- 
locked waters, a pity that he knew only hard 
contests with giant game in the sea, etc., and 
to this I reply that there are forests of the sea 
as beautiful in their way as those on land, and 
that sea angling is not without its estheticism: 
and more, the happiest days of my life have been 
spent on little rivers far from the sea, along 
trout streams, in the land of the jumping bass, 
and far from being ignorant of this phase of 
the angler’s life I have enjoyed it to the full and 
ope that my love for trout streams and the 
rentle sports of the angler is not exceeded by 
lat of the more strenuous adventures incident 
o the life of the sea angler, and in these lines 
propose to recall some of those happy days, 
ulled from a log kept by winding streams, in 
1e heart of deep forests and on placid lakes in 
le north country in the hope, perhaps, that I 
nay disprove the charge that I do not know, and 
have not felt, the full charm of the gentle art 
of angling. 

gO 
QOwnte 
= oe 
I conceive myself a lucky angler to have known 
the forest region of New York, the Catskills and 
Adirondacks before its verdure was contami- 
nated by smoke of engine, or the timid loon de- 
moralized by whirring propeller. When I first 
reached the Adirondacks at the beginning of the 
chain of lakes to the south, at the foot of Blue 
Mountain, it was like staying in Oregon to-day 
around the Klamath region on the Dead Indian 
trail. The roads were devised for buckboards 
and two horses, and the stumps left in the middle. 
Ned Buntline held forth at Blue Mountain Lake, 
and there was a little army of guides and woods- 
men to the manor born. 
I well remember the ‘first launch that dese- 
crated these limpid waters, and how when it 
whistled to arouse the dormant echoes the old 
timers who resented the intrusion as a curse and 
pestilence, came down to the shore and shook 
their big fists at the skipper as she went by. The 
inevitable had come; the lakes and forests are 
still there, though to wear evening attire among 
these lakes of pure delight even to-day in the 
big hotels of the regions does not really seem 
fair or just to nature, even to the most ardent 
believer in the conventionalities. 
The splendid forest of the Adirondack region 
still stands despite the menace of ultra civiliza- 
tion and I recall a long thirty mile drive through 
a burnt area, through thousands of skeleton 
trees, up hill and down dale; the gradual rise, 
the entrance into the untouched, undespoiled 
forest. A black bear ambled across the road 
with two inquisitive cubs, the air was clear as 
a bell, and from far away came the deep boom 
of a giant frog, the cry of some strange bird. 
Tens of hundreds of acres reached away on every 
side covered with the virgin forest, never per- 
haps profaned by the step of man, deep under- 
growth, the dying trees of ages, moss covered, 
their last estate, hidden by groves of waving 
fenrs and brakes; trunks colored yellow, blue and 
red, great lichens clinging to trees like shelves 
tacked on for use, then a bend in the road, a 
road by courtesy and the gem-like lake, reflect- 
ing the blue of the heavens opens up, and we 
pitch down to the shore and see Jim Donelley’s 
smudge rising over on the south side, and are 
soon shaking hands with Jim himself, not a bit 
older than last year, the same old Jim who has 
been a delight maker for scores of men and 
women. 
Jim’s windbrake, as that is what it was, was 
fresh as the balsam of the gods and faced a fire 
upon which fried trout, biscuits, bacon, coffee 
and venison—were all cooking at the same time 
—a magic brew, and it was then that we threw 
off the last vestige of civilization and entered 





into the full joy of the woods, filled our lungs 
with real air, “straight.” To have sat in that 
smoke for ten minutes down on Manhattan 
Island would have been a dire penance, but now 
it was all right; the old crop of black flies was 
here to greet us, and smoke was a comfort. It 
was the old story. This same smoke, that in 
the city would have been an abomination, now 
took on the dignity of an accessory to sport and 
had to be enjoyed, and was. 
What a night that was, out in the open, look- 
ing up at the stars as they came up over Blue 
Mountain, the air filled with incense, strange 
noises in the forest, strange splashes out on the 
lake, weird calls along shore, plunging bats, the 
deep and distant vibrant boom, boom, boom of 
the frogs, the soft wind, like velvet, the drift- 
ing blue smoke from pipes, Jim’s musical laugh 
over new stories from the big city, and then 
sleep on green living branches, each one frag- 
rant and life-giving. 
As I awoke the sunbeams were tipping over 
the Blue Mountain hills into the lake which was 
a sheet of glass, clear, pure and beautiful, re- 
flecting a thousand trees in varied tints of red 
and yellow, green and white. 
“T’ve been watchin’ a deer swim the lake for 
the past half hour,’ said Jim as I awoke. “In- 
stead of goin’ dead across like he  natchally 
would, he tuck it the longest way; an’ I reckon 
he’s goin’ by Ned Buntline’s, up Entowand Way.” 
Jim was that kind of a man. He could watch 
a buck swim up the lake and not take a pot shot 
at him, and I fancy that is why we tied up to 
Jim year after year. After breakfast we broke 
out the fishing tackle and got aboard the canoes 
and started in at the real and vital object in life 
—trolling for trout. 
The lake water was cold and pure and deep, 
and the minnow flashed like a meteor in its dark 
depths astern as I reeled out the delicate silk 
line. Not thirty feet had gone before the resili- 
ent rod leaped madly down, the little reel gave 
tongue like a hound on a fresh scent, and then, 
ah! the joy of it, a trout on a slack line—bear 
that in mind, angler—leaped madly into the sun- 
shine that had reached the summit, and in great 
beams of light poured down into the serene 
waters of the lake, leaped and flung a cascade 
of glistening drops high in air and fell to dash 
away, making everything hum to the laughter of 
Jim, who was not banking on a strike so early 
and so pronounced. 
The trout struck not ten feet from a little 
island that seemed to jut out from the shore 
as a point and made a savage rush to reach the 
intervening water where a partly submerged log 
bridged it with the shore, but the fates, good 
luck, and a better split bamboo turned it just in 
time, stopped it, and leaping again it fell prone 
and surged bravely out into the lake, taking line 
in feet and yards, while Jim backed hard and 
sent the canoe shooting after it, and then I stop- 
ped it, forced the splendid fish into the air again 
and took my turn for the first time and played 
the reel handle to the aria of its discomfiture. 
It is a weakness of anglers, of one at least, to 
believe that each fish is the best, and in that 
brief, yet ardent struggle, it seemed to me that 
I had never played so hard a fighter, one so de- 
serving liberty, and had it not been the first fish 
of the season, a first nighter as it were, I might 
have connived at its escape. 
How it plunged into deep pools! It knew 
full well how it bore bravely away, actually tow- 
ing the stern of the canoe around as Jim sat 
in rapture with oars in place; how it sprang 
again as though to challenge me, and circled 
around the boat, are but memories yet stamped 
deeply on the log of memory. The three and 
a half ounce bamboo was light enough for fair 
play. There was no question as to that, and 
for a while the trout toyed with it, but in the 
end came slowly in, fighting every inch and every 
inch a game fish, and when on the quarter, as 
I turned it, as it dashed along, canted up, gleam- 
ing, flashing, eyeing me in disdain, to fall into 
the deftly handled net of my boatman, who lifted 
it up into the sunlight, an animated sunburst, a 
living tourmaline in its splendid investment of 
tint, hue and tone. 
A colossal rainbow, two feet nine inches in 
length, which weighed nine and three-quarter 

[AuG, *17, 1007. 

pounds when I took. it from the waters of Kla- 
math, looks down from the wall upon me as [| 
write. It fought me half an hour on an eight- 
ounce rod one happy day last summer, yet the 
battle this three-pound trout of Blue Mountain 
Lake waged is most enduring, and had the big 
rainbow been possessed of half its spirit I should 
not be chronicling its defeat. 
“That’s the uncertainness of fishin’,” said Jim. 
“I was going to take you for a sure thing about 
five miles up in Raquette, but here you strike 
the game not a stone’s throw from camp.” The 
big trout duly weighed and stowed away, Jim 
rowed along shore and we celebrated with 
a cigar, and Jim being a famous Shakespearean 
student as well as a boatman, fell to quoting. 
“Dye ye know,” he said to me, “nine out of 
ten people get their Shakespeare and Bible 
mixed. Last summer two college men fell to 
arguing in my camp and they finally left it to 
me whether the line, ‘I go a-fishin’’ was from 
Shakespeare or Butler’s Hudibras, and both 
turned on me when I said the Bible. The line 
‘neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring,’ 
which you may find in Sheers’ ‘Satyrs on the 
Sea Officers,’ in ‘AEneus Sylvius’ Letter,’ and 
Dryden’s ‘Epilogue to the Duke of Guise’ is al- 
ways laid to Shakespeare or Bacon,” and Jim 
stopped rowing a moment to swear gently at 
the Baconians. 
“Shakespeare is the most apt in his reference 
to fishes,’ continued Jim, who dropped from 
classical language to illiteracy seemingly at will. 
“They cling to the memory. You remember in 
Pericles the first fisherman says, ‘Master, I marvel 
how the fishes live in the sea, and the second 
fisherman comes back at him, ‘Why, as men do 
a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.’ 
There’s philosophy for you. See”—and at that 
instant quotations fled to the winds as my rod 
bent; the reel snarled viciously as a fine fish 
seized it and got off. 
“Then in “The Tempest,’ ”’ continued Jim, putting 
on a fresh bait, “what more fetching, line is there 
than a ‘very ancient and fish-like smell’ as stale 
fish is ancient. Shakespeare perhaps played on 
the ancients for his wisdom, but had the gift of 
arranging his words so that they stick in the 
memory,” tossing the minnow over. “Hamlet 
says, ‘A man may fish with a worm that hath 
eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed 
of that worm,’ and the pictures he draws of the 
sea, there never was drawn so vivid a picture 
of the sea as that in ‘Richard III.” and Jim 
stopped rowing, took his cigar out, and leaned 
forward with his eyes on the blue haze about the 
mountains : 
““O Lord, methought, what pain it was to drown! 
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes! 
Methonught I saw a thousand fearful wrecks, 
A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon. 
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, 
All scathed in the bottom of the sea. 
Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and in those holes 
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept, 
As ’twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,’ ” 
“There’s a picture for you,” said the boatman, 
picking up his stroke; and as I sat and held the 
trembling rod I could but wonder where Jim 
attained all his Shakespearean lore, as there was 
not a question relating to the bard of Avon, but 
what he could talk on, and talk well, and to the 
point. I once invited a man and a scholar to fish 
with Jim. I had not told him of my boatman’s 
peculiarity, but he soon discovered it when Jim 
tripped him on a quotation and proved him 
wrong. There was a mystery about Jim. Who 
he was, or where he came from I know not nor did 
anyone. I fancied he affected the extreme idioms 
of the Yankee, the dropping of “ings” to conceal 
the fact that he had once been a man of parts 
somewhere, as when he forgot himself he drop- 
ped into the air and manner that only comes 
from association with men of ripe scholarship. 
Whatever it was, Jim was a man of mystery. 
He had left the world behind, and with the shade 
of William Shakespeare he had taken to the 
woods and left the haunts of men. Some day, I 
thought, someone who had known Jim in the 
long ago, will drop into his camp, as it is prac- 























































































































































