Wild Northern Scenes by S. H. HammondOr, Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod (page 3)

principally at the two rapids around which our boats were carried. The rest of the way it is a deep, sluggish stream, so that the descent may be reckoned within less than three miles. A ledge of rocks forms the lower boundary of the lake, through which the water, at some remote period, broke its way, and it goes roaring down rapids for three-quarters of a mile, then moves in a sluggish current across a plain of several miles in extent; then plunges down a steep descent for over a mile and a half to subside again into quiet, and move on with a sluggish current to plunge down the ledges again into Tupper’s Lake. There are no perpendicular falls of more than twenty feet, but the water goes plunging, and boiling, and foaming down shelving rocks, and eddying, and whirling around immense boulders, rushing and roaring through the gorges with a voice like thunder. These falls are all useless here, and probably will be for centuries to come; but were they out in the “living world,” in the midst of civilization, with a fertile and populous region about them, they would soon be harnessed to great wheels, and made utilitarian; the clank of machinery would soon be heard above the roar of their waters. They would do an immensity of labor on their returnless journey to the ocean. But here, they are utterly valueless, wasting their mighty power upon desolate rocks, rushing in mad and impotent fury forever through a region of barrenness and sterility, so far as the uses of civilization are concerned, a region where the manufacturer or the agriculturist will never tarry, until the world shall be so full of people that necessity will drive them to the mountains, to build up the waste places of the earth. Opposite, and across the bay from where our tents were pitched, I noticed that a small stream entered the lake, and Smith and myself crossed over to experiment among the trout I knew would be gathered there. We were entirely successful, for we took one at almost every throw. I have more than once stated, that the trout of these lakes and rivers, in the warm season, congregate where the cold streams enter; and if the sportsman will search out the little brooks, no matter how small, and cast his fly across where their waters enter the lake or river, he will be sure to find trout in any of the hot summer months.

We returned to camp before the sun went behind the hills, with our fish ready for the pan, and our boatmen provided us with a meal of jerked venison, pork, and trout, which an epicure might envy, and to which a hard day’s journey and an appetite sharpened by the bracing influence of the pure mountain air, gave a peculiar relish. It was a pleasant thing to see the moon come up from among the trees that formed a dark outline to the lake away off to the east, and travel up into the sky; to see how faithfully it was given back from down in the stirless waters, and how the stars twinkled and glowed around it in the depths below, as they did in the depths above. There was the moon, and there the stars, all bright and glorious in the heavens above; and there another moon, and other stars, as bright and glorious, down in the vault below; the lake floating, as it were, an almost viewless mist, a shadowy and transparent veil between. As we sat, in the greyness of twilight, in front of our tents, a curious sound came over the lake from the opposite shore, so like civilization that it startled us for a moment. Here we were, fifty miles from a house, away in the forest beyond the sound of anything savoring of human agency, and yet we heard distinctly what was for all the world like the blows of an axe or hammer upon a stake, driving it into the earth. It had the peculiar ring, which any one will recognise who has driven a stake into ground covered with water, by blows given by the side instead of the head of an axe. These blows were given at intervals so regular, that we all suspended smoking, certain that there were other sportsmen beside ourselves in the neighborhood of this lake.

“Who in the world is that?” asked Smith, of Martin, who seemed to enjoy our astonishment.

“That,” replied Martin, “is a gentleman known in these parts as the ‘Pile-driver.’ He visits all these lakes in the summer season, and though, as a general thing, he travels alone, yet he sometimes has half a dozen friends with him. If you’ll listen a moment, may be you’ll find that he has a friend in the neighborhood now who will drive a pile in another place.”

Sure enough, in a moment the same ringing blows came from a reedy spot in a different part of the bay.

“The bird that makes that noise,” said Martin, “is about the homeliest creature in these woods. It is a small grey heron, that lights down among the grass and weeds to hunt for small frogs and such little fish as swim along the shore. When he drives his pile, he stands with his neck and long bill pointed straight up, and pumping the air into his throat, sends it oat with the strange sound you have heard. It is the resemblance of the sound to that made by driving a stake into ground covered with water, that gives him his name. He’s an awkward, filthy bird, but he helps to make up the noises one hears in these wild regions.”

“My first thought was,” said Smith, “that we had got among the spirits of the woods, and that they were ‘rapping’ their indignation at our presence, there was something so human about it.”

“By the way,” remarked the Doctor, “and you remind me of the subject, what a strange delusion is this Spiritualism, to the ‘manifestations’ of which you refer, and how singular it is that men of strong natural sense and cultivated minds, should be drawn into it. We all know such. Their delusion, too, is stronger than mere speculative belief. It is a faith which to them appears to amount to absolute knowledge. They have no doubt or hesitancy on the subject. Their convictions are perfect; such, that were they as strong in their faith as Christians, as they are in the reality of Spiritualism, they would be able to move mountains.”

“I have noticed this intensity of their faith,” said Smith; “and while I utterly reject the whole theory of Spiritualism, I could never join in the ridicule of its earnest devotees. There is something that commands my respect in this strong faith, when honestly entertained, however stupendous the error may be to which it clings. There is something, to my mind, too solemn for derision in the idea of communing with the spirits of the departed, or that the time is approaching when living men and the souls of the physically dead, are to meet, as it were, face to face, and know each other as they are. It is one which I can, and do reject, but cannot ridicule. The world, however, regards it differently. And yet with all the contempt and derision that has been poured upon this singular delusion, its devotees have multiplied beyond all precedent in the history of the world. They number, it is said, in this country alone, millions, and have some forty or more newspapers in the exclusive advocacy of their theory.”

“The wise people of this world,” said Spalding, “that is, those who are wise in their day and generation, laugh at the believers in this modern theory of Spiritualism. They pity them, too, as the unhappy devotees of a faith which sober reason and all the experience of the past prove to be as unsubstantial as the moonbeams that dance upon the waters at midnight. Still these same devotees point to the demonstrations of what they regard as living facts, phenomena palpable to the senses, things that appeal to the eye, the ear, and the touch, and say that these are higher proofs than all the dogmas of philosophy, all the observation and experience of former times, all the logic of the past. And here is the issue between Spiritualism and the mass of mankind who deride and condemn it.

“Now, be it known to you, that I am no Spiritualist. I reject not all the evidences of the phenomena upon which it is based, but I utterly deny that such phenomena are the works of disembodied spirits. I myself have seen what utterly confounded me, and while I reject all idea of supernatural agencies, all interposition of departed spirits, yet I have become thoroughly satisfied that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. These phenomena of which the Spiritualists speak, I will not undertake to pronounce all lies. Some of them are doubtless impostures–the work of knaves, who speculate upon the credulity and superstitions which are attributes of the human mind; but they are not all such. But while I admit their reality, I insist that such as are so, are the results of natural laws, which will one day be discovered, and which will turn out to be as simple as the spirit which presides over the telegraph, or that which constitutes the life of a steam engine. There may be, and probably is, a great undiscovered principle which underlays these spiritual manifestations, as they are called, and MIND is after it, looking for it carefully; and what MIND has once started in pursuit of earnestly, it seldom fails to overtake.

“I have sometimes amused myself by endeavoring to furnish a theory for the Spiritualists to stand upon, based upon the demonstrations of the past, the evidences brought to light by the researches of science, which at all events should have about it truth enough to give color and respectability even to an error as stupendous as that of Spiritualism. This theory I have predicated upon the progress of the material world, aside from animal life, showing that what may have been impossible thousands of years ago, may be possible, or about becoming possible now; that we are about entering upon a new era in the advancement of all things towards perfectability, and that the advent of that era may be marked by an established communication between the living and the spirits of the departed.

“Science demonstrates that the material world presents in its history an illustration of the great principle and theory of progress. It is quite certain that our planet was once a very different thing from what it is now; it differed in form, in substance, in compactness, in everything from its present condition. We do not _know_ that it was once wholly aeriform, mere gasses in combination, too crude to admit of solidarity; but reasoning back from established facts, the conclusion is almost irresistible, that this earth, now so rock-ribbed and solid, so ponderous, so ragged with mountain ranges, and cloud piercing peaks, was once but vapor, floating without form through limitless space, drifting as mere nebulous matter among the older creations of God. However this may be, it is regarded as quite certain, that time was when ft was entirely void of solidity, void of dry land, with no continent, island, or solid ground, with no living thing within its circumference. It was thus passing through one of the remote eras of its existence. It was then young, just emerging, as it were, from nothingness, growing into form, assuming shape, and gathering attributes of fitness for exterior vitality, preparing the way for higher existences than mere inorganic matter. How long this era existed, science has failed to demonstrate, but it passed away, and solid land marked the next era of the earth’s progress. It was surrounded by an atmosphere absolutely fatal to animal life; an atmosphere which, while it stimulated vegetable growth, no living thing could breathe and continue to live. Hence it was, that vegetation, gigantic almost beyond conception, covered its surface. Fern, which is now a pigmy plant, nowhere higher than a few feet, grew tall and overshadowing like great oaks, while oaks, it is fair to presume, towered thousands of feet towards the sky. These stupendous forests stood alone upon the surface of the earth; no animals wandered through their fastnesses; no birds sported amidst their mighty branches; noxious exhalations came steaming up from their tangled recesses, and their gloomy shadows lay a mantle of darkness over dreary and lifeless solitudes. The storms raged, and the winds howled; the sun travelled its daily rounds, with its light dimmed and clouded by the pestilential vapors it exhaled, and silence, so far as the sounds of animal life were concerned, reigned supreme–the stillness of the grave, the quiet of utter desolation, save the voice of the wind or the storm, was unbroken all over the face of the earth. Onward, and onward, rolled this mighty orb on its pathway through the heavens, bearing with it no animal existences, freighted with no human hopes–carrying with it nothing of human destiny. Man, with all his lofty aspirations, his mighty schemes, his glory, and his pride, was a thing of the future. He had not yet emerged from the eternity of the past, to grapple with the present, or encounter the retributions of the eternity which is to come. This was the era of gigantic vegetable growth, and it had its uses; for it was preparing the way for higher and more complicated existences. As the gases that surrounded the earth became consolidated into vegetation, as this stupendous growth decomposed the noxious atmosphere, drawing from it its grosser particles and working them up into solid matter, extracting from it what was fatal to animal life, this earth entered upon another era of its progress.

“Animal life made its appearance. It was weak and feeble at first, but a step removed from vegetable matter. The molusca, the polypi, and the rudest forms of fishes, were, beyond question, the first of living things. Science demonstrates that the water brought forth the first creations endowed with animal vitality. How long this era continued no man can tell. Then came the amphibise, gigantic animals of the lizard kind; the sauruses, that could reach with their long necks and ponderous jaws across a street and pick up a man, if street and man there had been. Then came land animals, monstrous in growth, by the side of which the elephant dwindles to the diminutive stature of the dormouse. In all these advances, was a succession of steps, mounting higher and higher, in complication of structure, each more perfect in organism than its predecessor. Vegetation itself became more complicated, and as it approached perfection lost its gigantic growth. Solidarity, compactness in all things, became the order of nature; the atmosphere surrounding the earth, became more and more fitted for the higher and more complicated animal organizations. At last when time was ripe for his advent, when the earth was fitted for his residence, and the air for his breathing, MAN, the last and most perfect in his structure, the most delicate and finished in his organization of all living things, made his appearance. He stepped from the hand of God, the only thinking, reflecting, the only intellectual, responsible being, in all the world. He stood at the head of created matter, with all things on the earth subject to his will, and corresponding to his, condition, his attributes, his necessities, and his instincts.

“Thus this great earth itself, has been but one continued illustration of the great theory and principle of progress. From a beginning, lost in the thick darkness of a past eternity, it has been marching forward in a career as pause-less as the sun in his journeyings through the sky, as clearly demonstrable as the growth of the germ that starts from the buried acorn, and moves on to its full development in the great oak. Science records with unerring certainty the progress of the earth, and of animal life, from the lowest existences in the mollusca and polypi, up to the superlatively complicated, and delicate structure of man, tracing it step by step, until it is finished in the noblest work of God, a human body coupled with an immortal soul!

“And here arises a question which science has not solved, and to which the philosophy, the wisdom, the logic of the past can give no answer. The earth, and the things of the earth, have been moving forward, marching on towards perfectability always. Is this forward movement finished? We have, in looking at the subject in the light of science, a time when there was not on the earth, in the air, or in the water, any living thing. We have an era when animal life was but a span removed from vegetable vitality; we have an era of gigantic vegetable growth; an era of gigantic but rude animal growth, and so on step by step down to the advent of man. The previous combinations of animal life and vegetable life passed away with the era in which they flourished; one class succeeding another, each emerging from, and stepping over the annihilation of its predecessor, till we come down to the present–is there no future progress for this earth as a planet? Is there to be no other era, where man himself, like the sauruses, like the mastodon, shall have passed away, to be succeeded by some nobler animal structure, some loftier intelligence, some more cunning invention of the infinite mind?

“Man, great in intellect, powerful in mind, gifted with reason, and having within him a spirit that is immortal, proud, glorious, aspiring as he is, falls very far short of perfection in every attribute of his nature. To say, therefore, that the prescience, the creative power of the Almighty, reached the limit of its achievements in the creation of man, is to impeach the omnipotence of God himself. Will any man insist that the ingenuity of the Almighty is exhausted? May it not be, then that the time will come when some sentient beings, as far superior to man, as man is to the animals of the era of the lizards and the amphibia, shall, like the geologists of the present day, be delving among the rocks and rubbish of vanished ages, for evidences of the existences of our own proud species at, to them, some remote period of the world’s progress?

“If these questions cannot be answered by the learned and the wise, if science makes no response, and philosophy furnishes no solution of them, who dare say that the world is not, even now, entering upon a new era of progress, taking another step in the forward movement? May it not be, that the time is coming when the barrier between the living, and the disembodied spirit is to be broken down? When that viewless essence, that mystery of mysteries, the spirit of life, the immortal soul, shall be permitted to come back from the unknown country, to impart to the people of this world, the wisdom, the mysteries, and the glory of the next? May not this be the new era that is about opening in the progress of all things? It may be asked, is it not possible that a new principle is about being evolved, that will admit of communication between the living and the physically dead? May it not be that the world and its surroundings, have become so changed, that what was impossible thousands, or even hundreds, of years ago, may have become, or be about to become possible now? That the same process which carried this earth forward from the beginning, that so changed the atmosphere of old, rendered it fit to sustain animal life in its rudest structure, that so changed it again, as to make it capable of sustaining a higher order of animal organism, that kept on changing, and improving the whole face of the earth, that so arranged organic matter, as to make this world, at last, a fit residence for man, may be going on still; approaching all things nearer, and nearer to perfection, until we have arrived upon the threshold of an era, when living men may commune with the spirits of the physically dead? An era as yet but in its dawn, when the stupendous future can be seen only as through a glass darkly?

“Remember, I do not assert my faith in a theory which is indicated by an affirmative answer to these inquiries, for I have none. I give the record of the earth’s progress in the past, as it is written upon the rocks, standing out upon precipices, brought to light by the researches, and translated by the energy of science from forgotten and buried ages. The deductions to be drawn from it, I leave to those who have a taste for the speculative, neither believing in, nor quarrelling with the theory which they may predicate upon it.”

CHAPTER XVII.

LITTLE TOPPER’S LAKE–A SPIKE BUCK–A THUNDER STORM IN THE FOREST–THE HOWL OF THE WOLF.

We spent the next day in coasting Round Pond, looking into its secluded bays, and resting, when the sun was hot, beneath the shadows of the brave old trees that line the banks. In floating along the shore of this beautiful sheet of water, one can hardly help imagining that in the broken rocks and rough stones piled up along the margin of the lake, he sees the rains of an ancient wall, the mortar of which has become disintegrated by time, and the masonry fallen down. He will see at intervals what, from a little distance, seems like a solid wall of stone, laid with care, and upon which the lapse of centuries has wrought no change, so regular are the strata of which it is composed, while an occasional boulder, large as a house, and covered with moss, reminds him of the ruined tower of some stronghold. He will see, as he rounds some rocky point, half a dozen of these gigantic boulders piled together, leaning against each other with great cavernous openings between, through which he can walk erect, and he involuntarily looks around him for the armor of the ancient giants who piled up these stupendous rocks and walled in the lake with these massive boulders.

As we swept around a point near the south shore of the lake, we saw a deer at a quarter of a mile from us, feeding upon the lily pads that grew along the shore. Spalding and myself were in advance of our little fleet, and our boatman paddled us carefully and silently towards the animal, using the paddle only when its head was down. He would feed for a minute or two and then look carefully all around him. Of us he took no particular notice, although we were within a hundred and fifty yards of him; and even when we were within sixty yards he seemed to regard us only as a log floating upon the water, or something else which might be regarded as perfectly harmless. Spalding was in the bow of the boat, and when within some eight rods of the game, we lay perfectly quiet for a moment, when his rifle spoke out and its voice rung and re-echoed among the surrounding hills as if a whole platoon of musketry were blazing all around us. The deer made three or four desperate leaps in a zigzag direction, and then went down. When we got to him, he was dead. He was a fine two year old buck, with spike horns, and in excellent condition. We took his saddle and skin and passed on.

From Bound Pond we rowed up the inlet, a broad and sluggish stream, full of grass and lily pads, to Little Tapper’s Lake. We saw several deer feeding along the shore that, discovering us as we rowed carelessly along, went whistling and snorting away into the forest. As we approached the lake, dark clouds gathered in the West; great ugly looking thunderheads came rolling up from behind the hills higher and higher; perfect stillness was all around us; the leaves were moveless on the trees, and the voices of the birds were hushed.

“Squire,” said Martin to me “I’m thinkin’ we’d better go ashore and put up our tents; there’s a mighty big storm over the hill, and he’ll be down this way before many minutes.”

And we rowed to a high point at a small distance, covered with spruce and fir trees, and put up our tents on the lee side of it, so as to be sheltered from the wind as well as the rain. This was the work of only ten minutes; but before we had finished, the deep voice of the thunder came rolling over the forest, and we could see the storm rising over the hills, in a long black line, all across the Western sky. The lightning darted down towards the earth, or across from cloud to cloud, and the thunder boomed and rolled along the heavens, its deep rumble shaking the ground like an earthquake. Presently, the hills were hidden from our view, we heard the rush of the storm in the forest on the other side of the river, then the splash of the big drops on the water, and then the wind and the rain were upon us. For a few minutes, I thought our tents would have been lifted bodily from the ground, but the skill of our pioneer had provided against the blast, and they remained standing safely over us. In a short time the wind passed on, leaving the heavy rain to pour down in torrents, and the deep voiced thunder to come crashing down to the earth, or go rolling solemnly and heavily along the sky. It rained for an hour as it can do only among these mountain regions. The clouds and the rain at length swept on, and the bow of promise spanned the rear of the retiring storm; a new joy seemed to take possession of the wild things, and gladness and merriment sounded from every direction in the old woods; a thin and shadowy mist hung like a veil over the water, and a refreshing coolness, as well as brightness and glory, were all around us. These storms of a hot summer day in this high region, if one is prepared for them, are full of pleasant interest; they rise so majestically, sweep along with such power, and pass away so triumphantly, leaving behind them such a calm sweetness in the air, that a journey to this wilderness would be imperfect in interest without witnessing them.

We entered Little Tripper’s Lake towards evening, at the north end, and looking down south, one of the most beautiful views imaginable opened upon our vision. Surrounded by low and undulating hills, dotted with islands, with long points running far out into the lake, and pleasant little bays hiding around behind wooded promontories, it presented a wild yet pleasing landscape, on which a painter’s eye could not rest but with delight, and which, transferred to canvas, would make a picture of which any artist might be proud.

By the way, I wonder that our artists do not summer among these mountains and lakes, sketching and painting the transcendently beautiful views they everywhere present. There is nothing like them on all this continent. We talk about the scenery of Lake George. It is all tame and spiritless compared with what may be seen here; it possesses not a tithe of the variety, the bold and grand, the placid and beautiful, all mingled, and changing always, as you pass from point to point along these lakes. Why do not the artists whose business it is to make the “canvas speak,” drift out this way, and deal with nature in all her ancient loveliness, clothed in her primeval robes, and smiling in her freshness and beauty, as when thrown from the hand of Deity? It would repay them for their labor, and yield them a rich harvest of gain.

We had heard of the shanty in which we were to encamp, and we rowed straight through the whole length of the lake towards it. We reached it as the sun was going down, and stowed away our luggage before the darkness had gathered over the forest. We took possession by the right of squatter sovereignty, the owner being unknown, or at all events, absent from the woods. This lake is one of the few in all this region that I had never visited before, and is next in beauty to its namesake, two days’ journey nearer to civilization. It is about twelve miles in length, and from one to two miles in width, with many beautiful bays stealing around behind bold rocky promontories, and sleeping in quiet beauty under the shadows of the tall forest trees that tower above their shores. It is dotted, too, with beautiful islands, some rising with a gentle slope from the water, covered with scattering Norway pines, and a dense undergrowth of low bushes; others are covered with tall spruce, fir, and hemlocks, standing up in stately and solemn grandeur, their arms lovingly intertwined, through the everlasting verdure of which the sun never shines; and others still are gigantic rocks, rising up out of the deep water, all treeless and shrubless, remaining always in brown and barren desolation, on which the eagle and osprey devour their prey, and the flocks of gulls that frequent the lake ‘light to rest from their almost ceaseless flight. Civilization has not as yet marred in anything this beautiful sheet of water; even the lumberman has not forced his way to the majestic old pines that tower in stately grandeur above the forest trees of a lesser growth; not a foot of laud has been cleared within thirty miles of it. The old woods stand around it just as God placed them, in all their pristine solemnity, stately and motionless; the wild things that roamed among them in the day of old, are there still, and the same species of birds that sported in their branches thousands of years ago, are there still. We heard the howl of the wolf at night; we heard the scream of the panther; we saw the tracks of the moose, and where he had fed on the pastures along the shore; we saw the footprints of a huge bear in the sand on the beach, and the deer-paths were like those that lead to a sheep-fold. It was a pleasant thing to row along the shore, into the bays, around the islands, and into the creeks that came in from other little lakes deeper in the wilderness. The banks are mostly bold and bluff, the rocks standing up four or eight feet from the water, or broken and fallen like an ancient wall. Here and there is a long stretch of beautiful sandy beach, on which the tiny waves break with a rippling song, and from which bars go out with a gentle slope into the water.

We intended to remain here quietly for a few days, taking things easy, rowing, and fishing, and hunting enough for exercise only. There is plenty of deer, and trout, and duck, and partridge here, to be taken with small labor; there are bears, and wolves, and panthers, in the woods around. But these are fewer and harder to be come at than the other game; there is an occasional moose too. We saw the tracks of all these animals hereabouts, and we hoped to get a shot at some or all of them before leaving the woods.

Reader, did you ever hear the wolves howl in the old woods of a Still night! No? Then you have not heard _all_ the music of the forest. Some deep-mouthed old forester will open his jaws, and send forth a volume of sound so deep, so loud, so changeful, so undulating and variable in its character, that, as it rolls along the forest, and comes back in quavering echoes from the mountains, you will almost swear that his single voice is an agglomerate of a thousand, all mixed, and mingled, and rolled up into one. May be, away in the distance, possibly on the other side of the lake, or across a broad valley, another will open his mouth and answer, with a howl as deep, and wild, and variable, as the first; and possibly a third and fourth, one on the right, and another on the left, will join in the chorus, until the whole forest seems to be fall of howling and noise; and yet not one of these animals may be within a mile of you. To a timid man, there is something terrific in the howl of the wolves; but in truth, they are harmless as the deer, quite as wild and shy, and full as cowardly in the presence of a man. They will fly as frightened from his approach, unless, possibly, in the intense cold and desolation of winter, when driven together and rendered desperate by hunger, they might be emboldened by starvation to attack a man, but even this is among the apocryphal legends of the wilderness.

“Hearing them wolves howlin’,” said Hank Martin, as we sat in the evening around our camp fire, “reminds me of a story Mark Shuff tells of his experience with the critters; but mind, I don’t pretend to swear to its truth, for I don’t claim to know anything about the facts myself. I’ll tell it as Mark told it to me, and if it turns out to be too tough a yarn to take down whole, don’t lay it to me. You know Mark Shuff,” said he, appealing to me, “and you may believe such parts of it as you may be able to swallow, and the rest may be divided up, as the Doctor said the other day, among the company.”

“Go ahead,” said the Doctor, “I’ll take a quarter as my share of the story, and you may cut it off of either end, or carve it out of the middle. I’ll take a quarter, tough or tender.”

“You may set down a quarter to my account,” said Smith, “and Spalding shall take another.” “Very well, then,” said Martin, “I’ll believe a quarter of it myself, and so the case is made up, as the judge would say.”

“Well,” repeated Martin, “you know MARE Shuff?” “Of course I know Mark Shuff; and who, that has visited these lakes and woods don’t know him? He is a stalwart man, six feet in his stockings, strong, healthy, and enduring as iron, I have had him as a boatman and guide about Tupper’s Lake, and the regions beyond it, more than once. He works at lumbering in the winter, and if there is one among the hundreds, I had almost said thousands, who make war, in the snowy season of the year, upon the old pines of the Rackett woods, who can swing an axe more effectually than Mark Shuff, his light is under a bushel–his fame obscured. Mark works hard for four or five months, and lays around loose the balance of the year. In the summer, he holds a cost as a thing of ornament rather than use, and boots or shoes as luxuries, not to be reckoned as among the necessaries of life. His hat, as a general thing, is of straw, and minus a little more than half the brim. He would be out of place, and out of uniform, as well as out of temper with himself, if he was for any considerable length of time without the stub of a marvelously black pipe in his mouth, filled with plug tobacco, shaved and rubbed in his hand into a proper condition for smoking. Mark, though by no means an intemperate man, is fond of a drop now and then, and when he has just a thimbleful too much, the way he will swear is emphatically a sin. And yet he is anything but quarrelsome or contrary, even when a shade over the line of strict sobriety. He is a great, strong, square-shouldered, big-breasted, good-natured specimen of the genus homo, a giant in physical strength, and were I a wolf, I would prefer letting him alone to any man in these parts. When he gets just the least grain “shiny” (and he never gets beyond that), and his oar goes a little wrong, or a twig brushes him ungently, or his seat gets a little hard, he will express his sense of its improper deportment by incontinently damning its eyes, and so forth, as if it were a sentient thing, and understood all his profane denunciations; but with all this, Mark never forgets to be respectful, and, in his way, courteous to his employers. He has, moreover, a sharp, clear eye in his head, and can see a deer, or any other game, as quick, and shoot it as far as the best, and has as good a knowledge of where they are to be found, as any man in these woods.”

“Well,” continued Martin, as he lighted his pipe by dipping it into the embers and scooping up a small coal; “Well, Mark Shuff and a friend of his by the name of Westcott, had a shanty one winter over on Tupper’s Lake; they were trappin’ martin, and mink, and muskrat, and wolves, when they could get one. They shantied on the outlet, just at the foot of the lake, below the high rocky bluff round which the little bay there sweeps. There wasn’t any house then nearer than Harriets Town, down by the Lower Saranac; but there was a company of lumbermen having a shanty up towards the head of the lake, near where the Bog River enters. Mark, one cold winter’s morning, started on an errand to the lumber shanty I speak of, calculatin’ to return the same evening. The lake was frozen over, and he took to the ice, as being the nearest and best travelin’. The winter had set in airly, and the snow had lain deep for months, and the game of the woods had got pretty well starved out. Mark did’nt take his rifle with him, thinkin’ of course that he would see no game on the ice worth shootin’, and a gun would only be an incumbrance to him. Well, he did his errand at the shanties, and started for home. I don’t know whether he took a drop or not, but they generally keep a barrel of old rye in the lumber shanties, and my opinion is that Mark was invited to take a horn, in which case, I’m bold to say, the horn was taken.

“However that may be, Mark started for home along in the afternoon, and took to the ice, as he did when he went up in the morning. Everything went right until he got within may be a mile of home, when he heard, from a point of land, a little to the left of him, a sharp, fierce bark, and turning that way, he saw a great shaggy, fierce-looking wolf trot out from behind a boulder and squat himself down on his haunches, and eye him as if calculating the probabilities of his making a good supper. While Mark was looking at him, feelin’ a little oneasy, he heard another sharp bark, and from a point just ahead of him another great wolf trotted out on to the ice, and sat himself down, eyeing him with suspicious intensity. In a moment, another came out right opposite to him, and then another, and another, until Mark swears to this day that there were more than a dozen of these fierce and hungry savages squatted on their haunches within fifty yards of him.

“Mark, as I said, had no rifle, his only weapons being a hunting knife and a heavy walking stick, which he carried in his hand. To say that he was not frightened, would be stating what I don’t believe to be true, and I’ve heard him tell how his huntin’ cap seemed to be lifted right up on his head, as if every hair pointed straight towards the sky. He looked at the wolves a moment, and then walked on; but the animals trotted along with him, still, however, keepin’ at a respectful distance. Those in advance seemed inclined to cross his path, as if to turn him towards the centre of the lake, while those behind went further and further from the shore, as if to surround him; and thus they travelled for near half a mile, Mark making for the open water, which in the coldest weather is always to be found near the outlet of the lake, determined, if they came to close quarters, to take to that and swim for it. He had heard and knew that almost every animal is afraid of the voice of a man; so he shouted at the top of his voice, and as he said, ripped out some select and choice oaths, which for a moment alarmed the wolves, and they fell back a few rods, still, however, keepin’ in a kind of half circle around him. But it was’nt long before they began to gather in on him again, and though his shoutin’ and swearin’ kept them at a good distance, yet they seemed to be gettin’ used to it, and it didn’t alarm them as it did at first. Mark had now got within reach of the water, and he felt comparatively safe. He was not more than a quarter of a mile from home, and cold as it was, he felt sure that he could swim that distance.

“Before being compelled to take to the water, it occurred to him to halloo for Westcott, which he did with all his might. The wolves did’nt appear to care much about his hallooing, but kept trottin’ along between him and the shore, and before and behind him, drawin’ the circle closer and closer every ten rods; and Mark expected every moment when they’d make a rush on him, in which case he’d made up his mind to make a dive into the water, along which he was now travelin’. Presently he saw Westcott, with his double-barrelled rifle, stealin’ along the shore, hid from the kritters by a high rocky point, within some twenty rods of him. He felt all right then, for he knew that when Westcott pinted that rifle at anything, something had to come. It was a dangerous piece, that rifle was, ‘specially when loaded and Westcott was at one end of it.

“Mark was not more than fifteen rods from the shore, but that ground was occupied by the wolves; on the right was the water, into which he might at any moment be compelled to plunge; while both before and behind him his advance and retreat was alike cut off. He had noticed that whenever he stopped, the wolves stopped, as if the time for the rush had not yet come, and it puzzled him to understand why they delayed the onset. Seeing Westcott with his rifle, Mark determined to treat his assailants to a choice lot of profane epithets, and the way he opened on the cowardly rascals, he said, astonished even himself. But while he was thus swearing at his enemies, he discovered, as he thought, the reason why they had not attacked him sooner. A troop of a dozen or more wolves broke cover some distance up the lake, and came runnin’ down towards where he stood, for whose presence, no doubt, those around him were waiting. Just then he saw WESTCOTT’S huntin’ cap above the rocks on the point, and saw his double-barrel poked out in the direction of the leader of the pack, and he knew that that old grey-back’s time had come. Mark let off a fresh volley of profanity, and as the wolves seemed preparing for a rush, WESTCOTT’S rifle broke the frozen stillness of the woods, and old grey-back turned a summerset and went down. The astonished wolves clustered together for a moment in confusion, and the other barrel spoke out. Another of the pack bounded into the air, and as he came down kicked and thrashed about in a most oncommon way, and then laid still–while the way the rest put out for the point, some distance up the lake, was a thing to be astonished at. Mark threw up his hat, and hollered, and shouted, and swore, till the last wolf disappeared into the forest, and then shoulderin’ one of the dead kritters, and WESTCOTT the other, started on home. The hides, and the bounty on the scalps, made a good day’s work of it; but Mark swears to this day, that if the last dozen of wolves had been a little earlier, or Westcott a little later, he’d a-been driven like a buck to the water, cold as it was; and if they’d been a little earlier still, he’d have been a goner. He never goes far from home since, without a rifle; although with that he has no fear of wolves, yet he concludes that a hunting-knife and a stick are no match for a whole pack of the kritters, when made savage by the starvation of winter.”

[Illustration: Westcott’s rifle broke the frozen stillness of the woods, and old greyback turned a summerset and went down. The astonished wolves clustered together for a moment in confusion, and the other barrel spoke out.]

While we were listening to the story of Mark Shuff and the wolves, the old fellow over the water made the forest ring again with his howling. He was answered from miles away down the lake by another. Their voices kept the forest echoes busy, until we laid ourselves away in our blankets, where we slept till wakened by the glad voices of the birds in the early morning.

CHAPTER XVIII.

AN EXPLORING VOYAGE IN AN ALDER SWAMP–A BEAVER DAM–A FAIR SHOT AND A MISS–DROWNING A BEAR–AN UNPLEASANT PASSENGER.

We started the next morning on an exploring voyage round the lake, to look into the bays and inlets, try the fish and deer, and see what we could see generally. We struck across to an island opposite our landing-place, containing five or six acres, covered with a dense growth of spruce, hemlock, and fir, with an occasional pine standing with its tall head proudly above the other forest trees, while along the ground the low whortleberry bushes, loaded with fruit, now just ripening, grew. This island is near the south shore, and separated from it by a narrow channel some twenty rods in width. We landed, and were regaling ourselves upon the berries, leaving our boats and guns on the lake side of the island. We had wandered near the centre of the island, when three deer started up within two rods of us, and rushed whistling and snorting in huge astonishment across the island in the direction of the mainland, and dashing wildly into the water, swam to the shore and disappeared into the forest. We, in truth, were little less astonished than they, for we certainly expected no such game to be hiding there, and when they leaped up so suddenly and plunged away, crashing and snorting through the brush, it startled us somewhat; but our boats and guns were on the other side of the island, and we could only look on as they swam boldly to the shore without the power to harm them.

At the east end of the lake a large stream, deep, sluggish, and tortuous enters, which we voted came from a lake or pond, back at the base of the hills, seen some three or four miles distant in that direction, and while the other boats passed in another direction, Spalding and myself started upstream to explore it. As we advanced, the alders and willows encroached more and more upon the channel, until it became too narrow for rowing. Our boatman took his paddle, and seated in the stern of our little craft, propelled it up stream for an hour or more. The alders gradually contracted, the channel becoming narrower until we were passing under a low archway of branches, covered with dense foliage, through which the sunlight could not penetrate. The arch grew lower and lower, and the channel narrower, until we at last absolutely stuck fast among the branches of the alders which, here grew almost horizontally over the stream. We could not turn round, and to go further was absolutely impossible; there was but one mode of extrication, and that was to back straight out the way we had entered. Our boatman changed his position to the bow of the boat, and after much labor and exertion, we started down stream. After two hours of hard work, pushing with the oars and pulling by the branches, we emerged into daylight, came out into the open stream, not a little fatigued by our efforts to find the imaginary pond at the base of the mountains.

This stream, with the broad alder marsh that stretches away on either side, was doubtless once a beaver dam; and we thought we could discover where these singular and sagacious animals had erected the structure that made for them an artificial lake. Our theory on this subject may have been true or false, but this much is a fact, that in all this region of lakes and rivers, I have seen no alder or other marsh of any considerable extent, save this. In the times of old, when the Indian and his brother the beaver, lived quietly together, before the greed of the white man had built up a war of extermination between them, this must have been a glorious country for the beaver. The lakes are so numerous and the ponds and rivers so fitted for them, that they must have had a good time of it here for centuries. The Indians never disturbed them, never made war upon them; their flesh was not needed or fitted for food, and the value of their fur was unknown. Tradition, speaking from the dim and shadowy past, tells us of the vast numbers of these sagacious and harmless animals which congregated in these regions, living in undisturbed quiet and happiness all the year, building their dams, their canals, and cities on all the ponds, rivers, and lakes hereabouts. But they are all gone now. I inquired if any had been seen of late years, and could hear of but a single family, which some ten years ago were said to dwell somewhere in the vicinity of Mud Lake, the highest and wildest of all these mountain lakes. The last of these was taken four or five years ago, since which no sign of the beaver has been discovered. They are doubtless all gone, and as this was their last abiding-place, they may be regarded as extinct on this side of the Alleghany ranges, and probably on this side of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Like the beaver, the Indian who turned against him, will soon be gone too. Annihilation is written as the doom of both. The wild man must pass away with the woods and the forests, before the onward rush of civilization, and history will soon be all that will remain of the Indian and his ancient brother the beaver.

Well, be it so, and who will regret it? It is a sad thing to see a whole race perish, wiped out from the aggregate of human existence. But in this instance, its place will be filled by a higher and nobler race, and the hunting-ground of the savage and the pagan, be converted into cultivated fields; where stood the wigwam, will stand the farm-house; where the council-fires blazed, will stand the halls of enlightened and Christian legislation; churches and school-houses, and all the accompaniments of Christianity and civilization will take the place of ancient forests; and educated, intellectual, cultivated minds take the place of the rude, untaught, and unteachable men and women of the woods.

As we re-entered the lake, we saw a noble buck feeding along the shore, a short distance from us. We dropped behind a point of willows, from the outer edge of which we would be in shooting distance. We paddled silently round the point, and there, within fifteen rods of us, he stood, broad side to us, presenting as beautiful a mark as a man could wish. I counted him certainly ours, when I drew upon him with my rifle. Well I blazed away, and as I did so, he raised his head suddenly, gazed in astonishment at us for a moment, with his ears thrown forward, and in an attitude of wildness, and then dashed madly away into the forest, snorting like a war-horse at every bound. I had not touched him, and I knew it the moment I fired. Our little boat was light and rollish, and just as I pressed the trigger, it rolled slightly on the water and my ball passed over, but mighty close to the back of that deer. I was mortified enough at this mishap, for I prided myself on my coolness and marksmanship, and here was a failure apparently more inexcusable than any that had occurred. But there was no help for it. The deer was gone, and Spalding and the boatman indulged in a hearty laugh at my expense.

Some half a mile up the lake, we saw a great turtle sunning himself on a rock which was partly out of water. He was twice as large as any of the fresh-water kind I had ever seen. His shell was all of two feet in diameter, and his scaly arms, as they hung loosely over the side of the rock, were as large as the wrists of a man. He was some six or eight rods from us, and Spalding gave him a shot with his rifle. The ball glanced harmlessly from his massive shell against the ledge behind him, and starting from his sleep, he clambered lazily and clumsily into the water.

We threw out a trolling line as we passed up the lake; but we caught no trout. Along the shore, however, we caught small ones in plenty with the fly. These shore trout, as I call them, seem to be a distinct species, differing in many respects from the other trout of the lakes or streams. They are uniform in size, rarely exceeding a quarter of a pound in weight. They are of a whitish color, longer in proportion than the lake, river, or brook trout, have fewer specks upon them, and those not of a golden hue, but rather like freckles. They are found among the broken rocks where the shores are bold and bluff, or near the mouths of the cold brooks that come down from the hills. I caught them at every trial, and whenever we wanted them for food. Their flesh is white and excellent–better, to my taste, than that of any other fish of these waters.

We rejoined our companions in a little bay that lay quietly around a rocky promontory, where we found them enjoying a dinner of venison and trout, under the shade of some huge firtrees, by the side of a beautiful spring that came bubbling up, in its icy coldness, from beneath the tangled roots of a stinted and gnarled birch. Happily, there was enough for us all, and we accepted at once the invitation extended to us to dine. Towards evening, we rowed back to our shanty. The breeze had entirely ceased, and the lake lay still and smooth; not a wave agitated its surface, not a ripple passed across its stirless bosom; the woods along the shore, and the mountains in the back ground, the glowing sunlight upon the hill-tops were mirrored back from its quiet depths as if there were other forests, and other mountains and hills glowing in the evening sunshine away down below, twins to those above and around us. We saw on our return along the beach, the track of a bear in the sand, that had been made during the day, and we had some talk of trying the scent of our dogs upon it. But it was too near night, to allow of a hope of securing him, even if the dogs could follow, and we gave up the idea, promising to attend to bruin’s case another day.

As we sat with our meerschaums, in the evening, speculating upon the chances of securing a bear, or a moose, before leaving the woods, a wolf lifted up his voice on the hill opposite as, and made the old forest ring again with his howling. He was answered as in the night previous, from away down the lake, and by another from the hill back of us, and another still from the narrow gorge above the head of the lake. However discordant the music appeared to us, they seemed to enjoy it, for they kept it up at intervals during all the early part of the night.

“Seeing that bear’s track, and hearing the howl of those wolves,” said the Doctor, “reminds me of a story I heard told by an old Ohio pilot, whom I found in drifting down that noble river in a pirogue, some five and twenty years ago. We tied up one night by the side of another similar craft, that had gone down ahead of us, the people on board of which had landed and built a camp-fire, and erected their tent. They were strangers to us, but in those days everybody you met in the wilderness which skirted the Upper Ohio was your friend, if you chose to regard him so. I was a mere boy then, and was in company with my father and three other gentlemen, who owned a township of land not far from Cincinnati; that is not far now, considering the difference in the mode of travelling between then and now, and we were on our way to explore that township. I did not regard it as of much value then, though it has since brought a heap of money to its owners. We found the company belonging to the other boat busily employed in cooking a supper of venison and bear-meat, they having in the course of the day killed two deer and a bear that they found swimming the river. We were invited to help ourselves; an invitation which, being cordially given, we as cordially accepted. We had been passing during most of the day through unbroken forests, standing up in stately majesty on both sides of the river, and stretching back the Lord knows how far. After the darkness gathered, the wolves made the wilderness vocal with their howling. It was the first time I had ever heard them, and for that matter the last, until since we have been in these woods: but when that old fellow over the lake lifted up his voice last night, I recognized it at once. I can’t say I admired it as a musical performance then, and I don’t appreciate its harmony now. If there are those who like it, why, _de gustibus non_, and so forth.

“But I set out to tell the story that the old Ohio pilot told that night, while the travellers sat smoking around their camp-fires, and the wolves were howling in the wilderness about us. I do not, of course, vouch for its truth; I simply tell it as he told it to us. He seemed to believe it himself, for he told it with a gravity of face, and a seriousness of manner, which would ill comport with its falsity. His hearers did not seem to regard it as passing belief, but they laughed at the idea of drowning a bear.

“‘Twenty odd years ago,’ said the old pilot, as he lighted his pipe and seated himself on the head of a whisky-keg, ‘there warn’t a great many people along the Ohio, except Ingins and bears, and we didn’t like to cultivate a very close acquaintance with either of them, for the Ingins were cheatin’, deceivin’, and scalpin’ critters, and the bears had an onpleasant way with ’em, that people of delicate narves didn’t like. I came out for some people over on the east side of the mountains, lookin’ land, in company with four men who had hunted over the country. Ohio warn’t any great shakes then, but let me tell you, stranger, it had a mighty big pile of the tallest kind of land layin’ around waitin’ to be opened up to the sunlight. It’s goin’ ahead now, and people are rushin’ matters in the way of settlin’ of it, but you could stick down a stake most anywhere in it then, and travel in any direction a hundred miles climbin’ a fence.

“‘Wal, we came down the Alleghany in two canoes, and shantied on the Ohio, just below where the Alleghany empties itself into it. We hid our canoes, and struck across the country, and travelled about explorin’ for six weeks, and when we got back to our shantyin’ ground, we were tuckered out you may believe. We rested here a couple of days, layin’ around loose, and takin’ our comfort in a way of our own. Early one morning, when my companions were asleep, I got up and paddled across the river after a deer, for we wanted venison for breakfast. I got a buck, and was returnin’, when what should I see but a bear swimmin’ the Ohio, and I put out in chase right off. I soon overhauled the critter, and picked up my rifle to give him a settler, when I found that in paddlin’ I had spattered water into the canoe, wettin’ the primin’ and makin’ the gun of no more use than a stick. I didn’t understand much about the natur of the beast then, and thought I’d run him down, and drown him, or knock him on the head. So I put the canoe right end on towards him, thinkin’ to run him under, but when the bow touched him, what did he do, but reach his great paws up over the side of the canoe, and begin to climb in. I hadn’t bargained for that; I felt mighty onpleasant, you may swear, at the prospect of havin’ sich a passenger. I hadn’t time to get at him with the rifle, till he came tumblin’ into the dugout, and as he seated himself on his stern, showed as pretty a set of ivory as a body would wish to see. There we sat, he in one end of the dugout and I in the other, eyein’ one another in a mighty suspicious sort of way. He didn’t seem inclined to come near my end of the dugout, and I was principled agin goin’ towards his. I made ready to take to the water on short notice, but at the same time concluded I’d paddle him to the shore, if he’d allow me to do it quietly.

“‘Wal, I paddled away, the bear every now and then grinnin’ at me, skinnin’ his face till every tooth in his head stood right out, and grumblin’ to himself in a way that seemed to say, ‘I wonder if that chap’s good to eat?’ I didn’t offer any opinion on the subject; I didn’t say a word to him, treatin’ him all the time like a gentleman, but kept pullin’ for the shore. When the canoe touched the ground, he clambered over the side, and climbed up the bank, and givin’ me an extra grin, started off into the woods. I pushed the dugout back suddenly, and gave him, as I felt safe again, a double war-whoop that seemed to astonish him, for he quickened his pace mightily, as if quite as glad to part company as I was. I larned one thing, stranger, that mornin’, and it’s this, never to try drownin’ a bear by runnin’ him under with a dugout. It won’t pay.'”

CHAPTER XIX.

SPALDING’S BEAR STORY–CLIMBING TO AVOID A COLLISION–AN UNEXPECTED MEETING–A RACE.

“That story,” said Spalding, “reminds _me_ of a bear story. I shall do as the Doctor did, tell it as it was told to me. I did not see the bear, but I know the man who was the hero of it, and his brother told the story in his presence one day, and he made no denial. He at least is estopped from disputing it, and we lawyers call that _prima facie_ evidence of its truth. It occurred a long time ago, when there were fewer green fields in Oswego county and especially in the town of Mexico, than there are now. The old woods stood there in all their primeval grandeur. The waves of Ontario laved a wilderness shore, and their dull sound, as they came rolling in upon the rocky beach, died away in the solitudes of a gloomy and almost boundless forest. Here and there a ‘clearing’ let in the sunlight, and the woodman’s axe broke the forest stillness as he battled against the brave old trees. The smoke of burning fallows was occasionally seen, wreathing in dense columns towards the sky. Civilization, enterprise, energy and new life were just starting on that career of progress which has moved onward till the wilderness, under the influence of their mighty power, has been made to blossom as the rose. Those were pleasant times, as we look upon them now, just fading into the dim and shadowy past, but they were times of toil and privation. The arms of the men of those times were nerved by the hope of the future, and the spirit that sustained them was that of faith in the fact that the promise of reward for their labor was sure.

“Do the men of the present day ever think what a gigantic labor that was of clearing away those old forests? Contemplate a wilderness, reaching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, from the great lakes and the majestic St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, every acre of which was covered with tall trees which had to be cut away one by one, not with some great machine which mowed them down in broad swaths like the grass of a meadow, but by a single arm and a single axe. Talk about the Pyramids, the Chinese Wall, the great canals of the earth! They sink into utter insignificance when compared with the prodigious labor of clearing away the American forests, and spreading out green fields where our fathers found only a limitless wilderness of woods. The sons of these men who performed that labor, in my judgment, have a better patent to preferment and honors than those who come from other lands to claim their inheritance after it has been thus perfected by such toil and hardships, and dangers as the history of the world cannot parallel.”

“I think, if I remember rightly,” said the Dr., “you set out to tell a bear story. You are now indulging in a sermon on progress. Allow me to call your attention to the bear.”

“I appeal to the court,” said Spalding, addressing Smith and myself, “against this interruption.”

“The counsel will proceed,” said Smith, with all the gravity of a judge; “we hope the interruption will not be repeated.”

“Well,” said Spalding, resuming his narrative, “some fifty years ago, two enterprising men (brothers) marched into the woods in the town of Mexico, now in Oswego county, with their axes on their shoulders, and stout hearts beating in their bosoms. They located a mile or more apart, and began a warfare, such as civilization wages, against the old forest trees. Men talk about courage on the battle-field, the facing of danger amid the conflict of armed hosts, and the crash of battle. All that is well, but what is such courage, stimulated by excitement and braced by the ignominy which follows the laggard in such a strife, to that calm, enduring, moral courage of him who encounters the toil and hardships incident to the settlement of a new country, and battles with the dangers, the long years of privation, which lie before the pioneer who goes into the forest to carve out a home for himself and his children? How much more noble is such courage, how infinitely superior is such a warfare, one which mows down forest trees instead of men, which creates green pastures, broad meadows, and fields of waving grain, instead of smouldering cities, and desolated homes! How much more pleasant is the sound of the woodman’s axe, than that of the booming cannon! How much more cheerful the smoke that goes up from the burning fallow, than that which hangs in darkness over the desolation of the battle field, beneath which lie the dead in their stillness, and the wounded in their agony! But I am losing sight of the bear.”

“Exactly so,” said the Doctor; “and we have not as yet had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. Suppose you give us an introduction to the gentleman.”

“These interruptions are entirely out of order,” gravely remarked Smith; “they must not be repeated. The counsel will proceed.”

“Well,” resumed Spalding, bowing deferentially to the court, “one of these settlers started one day across the woods to visit his brother. There were few roads in those times, and these were laid out without much reference to distance; they went winding and crooking every way to avoid this hill, or that creek, or water course, or any other impediment which nature may have thrown in the way, and a blind footpath, or a line of marked trees, was more commonly travelled from one forest house to another. The forester was tramping cheerfully along, thinking doubtless of the good time coming, when his farm would be shorn of all its old woods, when flocks and herds would be grazing in luxurious pastures, tall grain waving in fields, the summer grass clothing in richness meadows reclaimed by his labor from the wilderness, and he should be at ease among his children. First settlers of a new country think of these things, and it is because they think of them, that their hearts are strong and buoyant with hope. They live in the future, enduring the darkness and privation of the present, in their faith in the brightness of the years to come. Thus they wait in patience for, while they command success, and the end of their toil is an old age of competence, and in the closing years of life, quiet and repose. Well, he was enjoying these pleasant visions when he saw, some thirty rods ahead of him, a huge bear, with her cubs, ‘travelling his way,’ as the saying is, in other words coming directly towards him. He was no hunter, and had with him no weapon. He had heard strange stories of the ferocity of the bear when her cubs were by her side, and to say that he was not horribly frightened would be a departure from the strict requirements of truth. He had heard, too, that a bear could not climb a small, straight tree, and _he_ could. The question then was between climbing and running. He was not much in a race, and he decided to climb; so selecting a smooth-barked, perpendicular ash sapling, he started with might and main towards the top. He went up, as he supposed, till he was out of the reach of the bear, and held on, all the time keeping his eye on the animal, and making as little noise as possible. The bear, doubtless seeing that he was beyond her reach, passed on out of sight, and after he remained till the danger was over, he concluded to come down. He was astonished to find that his efforts to descend were powerless. He seemed to have frozen to the tree. Upon looking around, to his utter amazement, he found himself sitting on the ground, _with both legs and arms locked fast around the, tree! He had not climbed an inch, and the bear had not been aware of his presence in the woods!_

“That ash sapling was safe from that day. It stood then in the old forest. The woodman’s axe spared it. It stands now in the open field, a majestic tree; its great trunk, eight feet in circumference, its long arms covered with foliage, casting a broad shadow over the pasture beneath, in which cattle and sheep seek for coolness and ruminate in the heat of the summer days. It is pointed out as the tree which the man who was frightened by a bear _didn’t_ climb, and is referred to as evidence of the truth of my story, as the Dutchman proved the authenticity of his Bible, ‘by the pictures.'”

“And that,” said I, “puts _me_ in mind of a bear story, which has this merit over both of yours–it is true. I can speak of it as a thing of personal knowledge, occurring within my own personal experience. I began the study of law in Angelica, the county seat of Alleghany county, and as it was a good many years ago, it is fair to assume that I was a good many years younger than I am now, and that the country in that region was younger too. Everybody knows that Alleghany county is, or used to be, a great place for whirlwinds and tornadoes. If they do not, they may understand and be assured of the fact now. A few years (less than twelve) ago, a black cloud came looming up in the northwest, and started on its career towards the southeast. As it swept along, it sent its fierce winds crashing, and howling, and roaring, through the old forests, uprooting, hurling to the ground, and scattering everything that encountered its fury. Houses, barns, haystacks, fences, trees, everything were prostrated, and to this day its track is visible in the swath it mowed through the old woods, from sixty to a hundred rods wide, plain and distinct still, for miles and miles. It was not of that tornado, however, that I propose to speak. Others had preceded it, and in the country all about Angelica were what were called ‘windfalls.’ These windfalls were neither more nor less than the old tracks of these whirlwinds and tornadoes, that had swept down the forest trees. Fire had finished what the whirlwind begun. In time, blackberry-bushes had grown up among the charred trunks of the old pines, and other trees, bearing an immensity of fruit; and it was a pleasant resort for young people, one of those windfalls, when the blackberries were ripe and luscious. These windfalls were great places, too, for rabbits, partridges, and ‘such small deer,’ and it was no great thing to boast of, to kill a dozen or two of the birds of an afternoon.

“I went out with a friend one day to one of these windfalls, partly after blackberries, and partly for partridges. We were both boys, younger than fifteen, then, and each possessing, probably, quite as much discretion as valor. We had separated a short distance from each other, he to gather berries, and I, with a small fowling-piece, in pursuit of game. Presently I saw my friend crashing through the brush towards me, and also towards the fields, without his basket, and bare headed, his hair standing straight up, putting in his very best jumps, as if a thousand tigers were at his heels. Without heeding for a moment my anxious inquiries as to what was the matter, he kept right on, leaping the logs like a deer, looking neither to the right hand nor the left, but with his coat tail sticking out on a dead level behind, making a straight wake for home. Fear is said to be contagious, and I believe in the doctrine that it is so. I caught it bad; and without knowing what I was afraid of, I started, and if any fourteen year old boy can make better time than I did on that occasion, I should like to see him run. I kept possession of my fowling-piece, and came out neck and neck with my friend. We scrambled over the outer fence, and ran some dozen rods or more in the open field, without either of us looking back. Then, however, we made the astounding discovery, that there was nothing after us, and we both paused to take breath, and, so far as I was concerned, to ascertain, if possible, what had occasioned the race. I learned that my friend, after I left him, had gone into the windfall, and was standing upon the long trunk of a fallen tree, picking berries, when he saw, a few rods from him towards the other end of the log on which he was standing, a great black hand reach up and bend down a tall blackberry-bush that was loaded with berries. This alarmed him somewhat, for whoever the great black hand belonged to was concealed by the thick bushes and their foliage from his view. Presently, two great black hands were placed upon the log, and a huge black bear clambered lazily up, and, for a second, stood in utter amazement, face to face, and within fifty feet of my friend. Both broke at the same instant, in affright; my friend in one direction, and the bear in the other–my friend for the fields, and the bear for the deep woods–and each as anxious as fear could make him to put a ‘broad belt of country’ between them. My friend dropped his basket, as he leaped from the log; it was no time to stop for a basket; a limb caught his hat and pulled it off; he had not time to stop for his hat. The truth is, he was in a hurry, and something more than a hat or a basket was required to stay his progress towards home.”

“The Squire’s story,” said Cullen, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe, and commenced shaving a fresh supply of tobacco with his jack-knife, and depositing it in the palm of his left hand, “the Squire’s story reminds me of an adventer Crop and I met with, over towards St. Regis Lake, a good many year ago; and I’ll state the circumstances of the case, as the Judge would say. It was an adventer that don’t happen often–leastwise, not in the same way. It made me understand some things that I hadn’t much idea of before. Let me tell you, Judge, if you don’t want a fight with an animal that’s got long claws and sharp teeth, don’t come close upon him onawares, or may be there’ll be trouble. Give him time to think, and ten to one he’ll take to his heels. Most animals have more confidence in their legs than they have in their teeth and claws, and they’ll be very likely to use ’em, if you’ll give ’em time to consider. But if you find a painter, or a bear, takin’ a nap in your path, and don’t want to have a clinch with him, wake him up before you get right onto him, or he’ll be very likely to think he’s cornered, and them animals have onpleasant ways with ’em when they’re in that fix.

“Wal, as I was sayin’, Crop and I was over on St. Regis Lake, layin’ in a store of jerked venison, and trappin’ martin, and mink, and muskrat, and huntin’ wolves, and sich other wild animals as came in our way. The scalp of a wolf was good for fifteen dollars in them days, and a backload of furs was worth a heap of money. We had a line of martin traps leadin’ back to the hills, and over into a valley beyond, where the animal was plentier than they were on our side. In passin’ along this line, we had to round the end of a hill that terminated in a sharp point of rocks. In a deep gully at its foot, a stream went surgin’ over rapids; the bank on the side towards the hill was, may be, twenty feet high, and a right up and down ledge. Above this ledge, and between it and the rocky point, was a narrow path, only three or four feet wide, that turned short around the end of the hill. On the left hand was the ledge, and at the bottom of it were broken rocks, and on the right was a bluff point of rocks, that made up the end of the hill, standin’ straight up, may be, fifty feet. Around this point, the path turned sharp almost as your elbow.

“I was passin’ quietly round this pint, lookin’ down into the gully, with Crop at my heels, when, on turnin’ the short elbow, there I stood, face to face, and within ten feet of a mighty big bear, that was travellin’ my way, as the Judge said. I had no idee that he was around, and I’m quite sartain he didn’t expect to meet a human in such a place. Of course, we were naterally astonished at seein’ one another just then, and the meetin’ didn’t seem to be altogether agreeable to either party. I ain’t easily scared when I’ve time to prepare for a scrimmage, yet, I’m free to say, I’d have given a couple of wolf-scalps to’ve been on the other side of the gully, just at that time. The bear seemed to expect me to begin the fight, for, after gruntin’ out in a very oncivil way his surprise at makin’ my acquaintance, he reared himself up on eend, and, with a fierce growl, showed a set of ivory that wasn’t pleasant to look at. I should have been willin’ myself, to’ve backed down, and apologized for my rudeness in crossin’ his path, for I was carryin’ my rifle carelessly in my left hand, and our meetin’ was so sudden that I scarcely had time to bring it to bear upon the kritter. I rather think I should have dodged back, any how, but Crop seemed to think his master was in danger, and that he was obligated, live or die, to go in. So, quick as a flash, he rushed by me, and threw himself into the very face of the desperate brute. Crop made a great mistake when he calculated he was a match for that bear, for, with one cuff, the animal sent him eend over eend down the bank, upon the broken rocks below. But the little time that was so occupied saved me a deal of trouble and danger, for it lasted just long enough for me to bring my rifle into position, which I did about the quickest, you may bet your life on that. I run my eye along the barrel, sighted him between the eyes, and pulled. The bear keeled over onto his back with a jerk, gave a spiteful kick with both hind feet, and he, too, went over the ledge onto the sharp rocks below. I looked over, and saw Crop staggerin’ to his feet, and lookin’ about in a bewildered way, as if not quite understandin’ how he came there. I went round a little way, and got down into the gully where the animals were. I found the bear stone dead, and Crop with two ribs broken and his shoulder out of joint, whinin’, and moanin’ piteously with pain. I set his shoulder as well as I could, and, after takin’ the skin off the bear, I backed him two miles to my shanty. It was a fortnight before he ‘left the house,’ but he learned a little piece of wisdom by that cuff that sent him down the bank, and got a little insight into the nater of an angry bear.”

[Illustration: Crop made a great mistake when he calculated he was a match for that bear, for, with one cuff, the animal sent him eend over eend down the bank, upon the broken rocks below. But the little time that was so occupied saved me a deal of trouble and danger, for it lasted just long enough for me to bring my rifle into position, which I did about the quickest, you may bet your life on that.]

CHAPTER XX.

THE CHASE ON THE ISLAND–THE CHASE IN THE LAKE–THE BEAR–GAMBLING FOR GLORY–ANECDOTE OF NOAH AND THE GENTLEMAN WHO OFFERED TO OFFICIATE AS PILOT ON BOARD THE ARK.

We had as yet had no use for our dogs since we left the Saranac. They had travelled quietly with us as we moved from place to place, or stayed inactive at the tents while we remained stationary. The game was so abundant, that the real difficulty was to restrain ourselves from destroying more than was needful for our use. We had indeed, failed to live strictly up to the law we had imposed upon ourselves, for we had at all times trout and venison beyond our present wants, excusing ourselves on the ground that an excess of supply was always preferable to a scant commissariat. More than one deer was slaughtered, if the truth must be told, for no better reason than that given by an Irishman for smashing a bald head he chanced to see at a window: it presented a mark too tempting to be resisted the lake from our camping ground. We stationed two of our boats between the island and the shore nearest the main land, and the other on the opposite side, and sent Cullen upon the island to beat for game. It was scarcely five minutes, before the voices of the dogs broke upon the stillness of the morning, in a simultaneous and fierce cry, as if they had started the game suddenly, and fresh from his lair. Away they went in full cry across the island, the deer sweeping around the upper end, and returning on the opposite side, as if loth to take to the water; but true to their instincts, the hounds followed, making the hills and the old woods ring again with the music of their voices. Presently, a noble buck broke cover, directly opposite to where the Doctor and Smith’s boat lay. As our object was rather to enjoy the music of the chase, than to capture the deer, they shouted and hallooed as he entered the water, and he wheeled back, and went tearing in huge affright through the woods, up the island again. Still the howling was upon his trail, and as he approached the upper end, he again took to the water, to be frightened back by Martin and myself, and with renewed energy he bounded across to a point stretching out into the lake on the opposite side. Here Spalding and Wood were stationed, and they, by their shouting, drove him back again to the thickets. By this time, the poor animal began to appreciate the full peril of his position, for turn where he would he found an enemy in front, while the cry of his pursuers followed him like his destiny. Thus far every effort to escape by taking to the water had failed, and he seemed to think, as Martin expressed it, that “day was breaking.” He essayed it again on the land side, and was driven back by us, and thus he coursed three times round the island, until, in desperation, he plunged into the broad lake and struck boldly out for the opposite shore, three quarters of a mile distant. Spalding shouted to us, and when we rounded the headland, we saw that he and Wood had headed, and were driving him towards a small island, of less than half an acre, covered only with low bushes, half a mile down the lake. We did not propose to harm him, but we intended to drive him upon that little island, and by surrounding it, keep him there for a while by way of experimenting upon his fears, or rather as Martin said, “to see what he would do.” As he approached the shore, he bounded upon the island, and tossing his head from side to side, as if looking for a place of concealment or escape. Finding none, he dashed across to the opposite side and plunged into the lake. He was met by the Doctor and Smith, and turned back. He rushed in another direction, across the island, to be headed by the boat in which I was seated, and again in another direction to be headed by Spalding. Thus met and driven back at every turn, he at last stationed himself on a high knoll, near the centre of the island, apparently expecting that the last struggle for life was to be made there. We rested upon our oars, making no noise, and watching his movements. The bushes were low, coming only up midside to the animal. He watched us latently for half an hour, tossing his head up and down, looking first at one, then at another, as if calculating from which the attack upon his life was to come. At last, as if overcome by weariness, or concluding that after all there was no real danger, he laid quietly down. In answer to his confidence in the harmlessness of our intentions, we rowed away back to the island where we started him. We had not reached it, however, when we saw him enter the water, and swim to the main land, and glad enough he seemed to be when he had regained the protection of his native forests.

We took our dogs from the island, and rowed to the broad channel of the inlet which enters the lake on the left hand side, as you look to the south. There are two of these inlets, which enter within a quarter of a mile of each other, each of which comes down from little lakes, or ponds, deeper in the wilderness. The one we entered flows in a tortuous course through a natural meadow, stretching away on either hand forty or fifty rods, to a dense forest of spruce, maple, and beech, above which gigantic pines stand stately and tall in their pride. Three miles from the lake, the hills approach each other, and the little river comes plunging down through a gorge, over shelving rocks, and around great boulders, as if mad with the obstructions piled up in its way.

As we approached these falls, Smith, who sat in the bow of the boat, motioned to the boatman to lay upon his oars, and pointed to an object partly concealed by some low bushes, forty or fifty rods in advance of us. Remaining perfectly still a moment, we saw a bear step out upon a boulder, look up and down the stream, and stretch his long nose out over the water, as if looking for a good place to cross the rapids. After scratching his ear with one of his hind feet, and his side with the other, he turned and walked deliberately from our sight into the forest. By this time, the boat with the dogs came in sight, and we beckoned its occupants to come to us. One of the hounds only had ever seen game of this kind. But Cullen declared that there was no game that they would not follow when once fairly laid on. We wanted that bear. It was the only one we had seen; indeed it was the only one I had ever seen wild in the forest. We went to the spot where we last saw him, and there in the sand, by the side of the boulder, was his great track, almost like a human foot. Cullen called the attention of the dogs to it, and hallooed them on. They took the scent cheerfully, and with a united and fierce cry they dashed away in pursuit. They had ran but a short distance, when they seemed to become stationary, and deep, quick baying succeeded the lengthened and ringing sound of their voices.

“Treed, by Moses!” cried Cullen, as he dashed forward, the rest of us following as fast as we could.

“Not too fast,” said Martin, “not too fast. There’s no hurry; he won’t come down unless our noise frightens him. Let us go quietly; there’s plenty of time. Belcher has got his eye on him, and will stay by him till we come.” We travelled quietly, and as silently as we could for near half a mile, and as we rounded a low but steep point of a hill, there sat bruin, some twelve rods from us, in the forks of a great birch tree, forty feet from the ground, looking down in calm dignity upon the dogs that were baying and leaping up against the tree beneath him. Did anybody ever notice what a meek, innocent look a bear has when in repose? How hypocritically he leers upon everything about him, as if butter would not melt in his mouth? Well, such was the look of that bear, as he peered out first on one side, then on the other of the great limbs between which he was sitting, secure, as he supposed, from danger. But he was never more mistaken in his life. In watching the dogs he had failed to discover us. We agreed that three should fire upon him at once, reserving the fourth charge for whatever contingency might happen. Smith, the Doctor, and Spalding sighted him carefully, each with his rifle resting against the side of a tree, and blazed away, their guns sounding almost together. It was pitiful the scream of agony that bear sent up. It was almost human in its anguish. It went ringing through the woods, dying away at last almost in a human groan. After struggling and clasping his arms for a moment around the great branch of the tree, his hold relaxed, he reeled from side to side, and then fell heavily to the ground, with three balls within an inch of each other, right through his vitals. He was larger than a medium sized animal of his species, and in excellent case.

The next thing in order was to transport him to our boats. This was done by tying his feet together, then running a long pole, cut for the purpose, between them, and lifting each end upon the shoulder of a boatman, he was “strung up,” as Allen expressed it, clear from the ground. They stumbled along as best they could, over the rough ground, and through the tangle brush, towards the river. It was a heavy load considering the unevenness of the path, and the men were compelled to halt every few rods to breathe. We got him safely to the landing at last, and tumbling him into the bottom of one of the boats, started down stream towards our shanty. A proud trio were Spalding, Smith, and the Doctor that afternoon, returning with their game across the lake; and they certainly had some occasion to congratulate themselves, for this was the first wild, uncaged bear either of us had ever seen, and him they had succeeded in capturing.

We dined that afternoon on a roasted sirloin of bear, stewed jerked venison, fried trout, and pork. I cannot say that I altogether relished the roast, though some of our company took to it hugely. The truth is, that with some of them venison and trout were beginning to be somewhat stale dishes, they did not relish fat pork, and a change therefore to roasted bear meat was peculiarly acceptable.

“Gentlemen,” said Smith to the Doctor and Spalding, as we sat after our meal, enjoying our pipes, “what say you to selling out your interest in that bear? If you’re open for a bargain, I’ll make you a proposition.”

“Why,” the Doctor replied, “there’ll be nothing left but the skin, and that will be of no special value except as a trophy.”

“Not exactly,” resumed Smith. “I’ll deal frankly with you, gentlemen. There’ll be a good many stories to be told about the killing of that bear, and my object is to appropriate the glory of the achievement. Now it wont be a matter to boast of, to say that we three fired into one bear, and that none of the largest.”

“Oh! as to that,” said the Doctor, “I intend to enlarge upon the subject, exaggerating the size of the bear, describing the terrible conflict I had with him, how I happened to save myself by remembering my double-barrelled pistol; how I made the three ball holes in him, while you and Spalding were running away, and how he bit me in the arm, and almost hugged me to death, while I was trying to get at the pistol. I shall shine in that bear story! Yes! yes! I shall shine!”

“Hear the cormorant!” exclaimed Smith. “Hear him! And he’ll do precisely as he says he will, only a great deal worse. We must buy him out, Spalding. We must purchase his silence for our own credit.”

“Well, gentlemen,” replied Spalding, “settle it between you–you are welcome to my share of the achievement. The scream of mortal agony which that bear sent up when our three balls went crashing through its body rings in my ears yet. I don’t feel quite so proud of the shot as I otherwise should have done. You are welcome to my share of the glory.”

“Spoken like a liberal and free-hearted gentleman,” said Smith. “Well, Doctor, name the amount and nature of the blackmail you intend to levy upon me. But have a conscience, man! have a conscience!”

“It will be making a great sacrifice on my part,” the Doctor replied, “but out of friendship for you, I’ll make you a proposition. We’ll toss op a dollar, and the one that wins shall have the honour of having killed the bear, and of telling the story in his own way, and the others shall indorse it.”

“Agreed,” said Smith, “but if you win, I shall have to borrow a conscience of Spalding, or some other lawyer, for there’ll be need of a pretty elastic one.”

“Yours will answer, I think,” drily remarked Spalding.

“It appears to me, gentlemen,” said I “that I’ve something to say about the killing of that bear.”

“You,” exclaimed the Doctor, “what had you to do with it, pray? There stands your rifle, with the same ball in it that you placed there this morning. You haven’t discharged your rifle to-day.”

“Notwithstanding that,” I replied, “I am entitled to a portion of the glory, as I am chargeable with my share of the responsibility, of killing the bear. I was one of the first who discovered him; I was among the foremost in the pursuit; I was present, aiding and advising in the manner of the killing; I had my weapon in my hand, and was restrained from using it, only because you might fail to accomplish what my reserved bullet would have made secure. Now, if this bear had been human, and we were accused of killing him, I would be regarded in the eye of the law as equally guilty with you. I appeal to Spalding if this is not so?”

“H—-is right,” replied Spalding, as he sent a column of smoke wreathing upward from his lips. “Such is the law.”

“We must buy this fellow off, Smith,” said the Doctor, “we must buy him off. He’s an old hunter, known as such, and he’ll take to himself all the glory; and what is worse, the world will believe him. He’ll spread himself beyond all bounds. He’ll shine beyond endurance upon the strength of this bear. We must buy him off. It is against all conscience, but there is no help for it. We must buy him off. There’s an impudence in this claim which reminds me of an anecdote related by Noah.”

“By Noah?” asked Smith, interrupting him, “Noah who?”

“What ignorance there is in this world, even in these days of educational enlightenment!” remarked the Doctor to Spalding and myself. “Now, here is a decently informed gentleman, claiming to be a Christian man, to have studied the Bible, and don’t know who Noah was. Such an instance of human ignorance in these times, is shocking.”

“Oh! I understand now,” said Smith, “he was the gentleman who built the ark. Well, go on with your anecdote.”

“Well, as I was saying,” the Doctor resumed, “this claim of H—-‘s to a share of the glory of slaying the bear, reminds me of an anecdote related by Noah soon after the subsidence of the flood, and it shows that impudence is, at least, not post-deluvian in its origin. It seems that there were in the world before, as well as after the flood, some very meddling impudent fellows, who were always interfering with other people’s business, claiming a share of other people’s credit, trying to make the world believe that they were great things, and persuading everybody that whatever remarkable achievement was accomplished, occurred through their counsel and advice, and as a consequence, claiming a large share of all the honors going.

“Well, after the rain had continued falling for a number of days, and the valleys were all full of water, and the angry surges went roaring, with the voice of ten thousand thunders, high up along the sides of the hills, one of these pestilent fellows–deriding the miraculous exhibition going on all around him–undertook, in his self-conceit, to lead the people to a place of safety. So he selected a lofty peak that shot up from a range of mountains, and commenced travelling up its steep acclivities. But the flood followed him, roaring, and boiling, and heaving, in its onward rush. Day by day, night by night, it crept up, and up, higher and higher, until the self-confident leader, who scoffed at the supernatural warning, had but a mighty small place above the surge, whereon to shelter himself from the destruction that surrounded him. About that time the Ark, with Noah and his people, all safe and snug, came drifting that way.

“‘Halloo!’ says the occupant of the rock, ‘send us a boat, and take us aboard. The freshet is getting pretty bad, and it is getting a little damp, up here.’

“‘I can’t do it,’ says Noah, ‘my craft is full of better people.’

“‘But,’ says the applicant for admission into the Ark, ‘let me in, and I’ll superintend the navigation. I’ll man the wheel, and see that the sails are all right, and we can pick up a deal of floating plunder as we go along.’

“‘Can’t do it,’ says Noah, ‘we’ve got a good steersman and safe navigators on board already.’

“‘Well,’ says the applicant, ‘I’ll work my passage as a deck hand, asking only a small portion of such spoils as we may pick up. Come, bring us aboard.’

“‘Can’t do it,’ says Noah, ‘can’t think of such a thing.”

“‘Then,’ said the persevering applicant for a passage in the Ark, ‘I’ll go along for nothing–giving the benefit of my counsel and assistance free gratis; more than all that, I’ll stand the liquor all round.’

“‘No use in talking,’ says Noah, ‘you can’t come on board of my craft, on any terms. You’d corrupt my people, and set them by the ears in a week. You can’t have a berth on any conditions. Good-bye!’

“‘Then go to thunder with your old Ark,’ indignantly responded the occupant of the rock, ‘I don’t believe there’s going to be much of a shower, after all.’

“In a day or two, Noah drifted that way again. The mountain peak had disappeared beneath the waters, and the occupants were all gone.” “I give up my claim,” said I, “Doctor, in consideration of your anecdote. Take the glory of killing the bear. I see you’re not disposed to give me a place in your Ark. So toss up the dollar.”

The dollar was tossed up, and Smith won the glory.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE DOCTOR AND HIS WIFE ON A FISHING EXCURSION–THE LAW OF THE CASE–STRONG-MINDED WOMEN.

The right to the glory of having killed the bear being settled, the Doctor, addressing himself to Spalding, remarked–“There was something in H—-‘s appeal to you about the law of his case, that reminded me of a little scene between my wife and myself, many years ago, when we were both younger than we are now, and certainly had never anticipated the dark years of trial, through which we were unexpectedly called upon to pass. You know that I started in life, like Smith here, a gentleman of fortune, calculating, like him, to live at my ease, without troubling myself with the cares of any particular business, as I passed along. Still I thought, or rather my father thought, that it would be well enough, even for a gentleman, to have at least a nominal title to some profession. So I studied the law, and was admitted as an attorney and counsellor of the courts. Never intending to practise, I did not become very profoundly learned in the profession; still I became, to some extent, indoctrinated with its mysteries. I did not like it; and when the necessity for some active employment came looming up in the distance, I chose a different calling, and at six-and-twenty, commenced the study of my present profession. This did not occur until after I had been married some three years. I lived in the country then, or rather, summered there, in a beautiful little village in the interior of the State, in a pleasant, old-fashioned house, which my father built, and which, as I was his only heir, I supposed of course I owned. Some half a dozen miles from the village was a fine trout stream, to which my wife and myself used occasionally to go on a fishing excursion. On such occasions we went on horseback, as the road was somewhat rough, and my wife was as much at home in the saddle as I was. This, I repeat, was a good while ago, and we were both a score of years younger than we are now. Well, I started out alone one day to visit this trout stream, anticipating a good time with its speckled, and usually greedy inhabitants. I say I was alone, and yet there was with me, all the way, and all the time, one who can talk, reason, philosophise, understand things as well as you or I; and one, to all appearance, as much and distinctly human as you or I.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Smith, “we can’t go that, Doctor. I can’t stand my quarter of that.”

“Foolish man!” continued the Doctor; “I say I was alone; let me demonstrate my proposition. Blackstone says, and what he says every lawyer will concede is the end of the law, and the beginning too, for that matter, that when a woman becomes a wife, she loses her identity, becomes nobody; that her husband absorbs her existence, as it were, as he does her goods and chattels, in his own. Now, sir, do you comprehend? My wife was with me, and she, being according to law nobody, of course I was alone. You, sir, being a law abiding man, must admit that my proposition is Q.E.D.

“The doctrine of absorption, as I call it, is convenient. It promotes harmony of action, by subjecting it to the control of a single will, thus avoiding all embarrassment from a conflict of opinion between man and wife. So, on my way to the trout stream (I say _my_ way, for though my wife was on horseback by my side, yet she being, according to the best legal authorities, nobody, you see I was alone), I thought I would enlighten the good lady in regard to the true position, or rather the no position at all, which she occupied. Our way lay for a couple of miles along an old road, towards a clearing which had been abandoned, and through which the stream flowed. The tall old trees spread their long arms over us, clothed in the rich verdure of spring, and the breeze, so fresh and fragrant, moaned, and sighed, and whispered among the leaves.

“‘My dear,’ said I, blandly, as we rode along, the birds singing merrily among the branches above us, ‘do you know that you are NOBODY?’

“‘Nobody, Mr. W—-,’ (I was simply Mr. W—-then; I had not become, nor even dreamed that I should become a Doctor), ‘Nobody, Mr. W—-? Did you say nobody?’

“‘Absolutely nobody,’ said I. ‘A perfect nonentity. You are less even than a legal fiction.’

“‘Look you,’ said she, as she applied the whip to her pony, in a way that brought him, with a bound, across the road directly in front of me (she rode like a belted knight), obstructing my progress, ‘Look you, Mr. W—-,’ and there was a red spot on her cheek, and her eye sparkled like the sheen of a diamond, ‘let us settle this matter now. I can bear being of small consideration, occupying very little space in the world, but to be stricken out of existence entirely, to possess no legal identity, to be regarded as absolutely nobody, is a thing I don’t intend to stand–mark that, Mr. W—-.’

“‘Keep cool, my dear,’ said I; ‘let us argue this matter.’ I was calm, for I knew the law was on my side; I had the books, and the courts, and the statutes all in my favor. I was fortified, you see.

“‘Argue the matter!’ she exclaimed; ‘not till it is admitted that I’m somebody. If I’m nobody, I can’t be argued with, I can’t reason, nor talk. Now, Mr. W—-, I’ve a tongue.’

“‘Gospel truth,’ said I, ‘whatever the authorities may say. But we will admit, for the sake of the argument, that you are somebody; Blackstone says’—-

“‘Out on Blackstone,’ she exclaimed; ‘what do I care for Blackstone, whose bones have been mouldering in the grave for more than a hundred years, for what I know. Don’t talk to me about Blackstone.’

“‘But, my dear, you are _my_ wife, and Blackstone says’–

“‘I don’t care a fig what Blackstone says. If I _am_ your wife, I am my mother’s daughter, and my brother’s sister, and Tommy’s mother, and there are four distinct individualities all centered in myself.’

“‘But,’ said I again, ‘Blackstone says’–

“‘Confound that Blackstone,’ she exclaimed; ‘I do believe he has driven the wits out of the man’s head. Now, look you, Mr. W—-, you invited me to ride with you; you now say I am nobody. Very well. If nobody leaves you, I suppose you won’t be without company, for somebody certainly left home with you this morning, and has rode with you thus far. So, good-bye, Mr. W—-; success to your fishing, Mr. W—-,’ and she struck into a gallop towards home.

“‘Hallo!’ said I, ‘I give up the point. I take back all I said. _Culpa mea_, my good wife. If Blackstone does say’–

“‘Not a word more about Blackstone,’ said she, shaking her whip, half serious half playfully, at me; ‘if I go with you, I go as somebody–a legal entity.’

“‘Very well,’ said I, ‘we’ll drop the argument.’

“‘Not the argument, but the fact, Mr. W—-; and admit that Blackstone was a goose, and that his law, like his logic, is all nonsense when measured by the standard of common sense and practical fact. Admit that a woman, when she becomes a wife does not become a mere nonentity, or I leave you to journey alone.’

“‘Very well, my dear, let us see if we cannot compromise this matter. Suppose we allow his philosophy to stand as a general truth, making you an exception. We’ll say that wives in general are nobody, but that you shall be exempt from the general rule, and be considered always hereafter, and as between ourselves, as somebody.’

“You see the shrewdness of my proposition. Firstly, it saved Blackstone; secondly, it saved _me_, let me down easy; and thirdly, it appealed to the womanly vanity of my wife, and it took.

“‘Oh, well,’ she said, as she brought her pony alongside of me, and we jogged along cosily together, ‘I see no objection to that. Other wives can take care of themselves. But this compromise, as between _us_, Mr. W—-, must be a _finality_. No Nebraska traps, Mr. W—-. No Kansas bills hereafter. It must be a finality, mind.’

“‘Very well,’ said I; and a robin that was building its nest on a limb that hung over the road, paused in its labors, and burst into song, and the burden of its lay seemed to be a compromise, which, in truth, should be a FINALITY.

“We were successful in our fishing, and we followed the old-fashioned custom as to bait. We discarded the fly, using only the angle-worm. At the foot of the ripples; under the old logs; where the water went whirling under the cavernous banks; in the eddies; among the driftwood; everywhere, we found trout–not large, none weighing over six ounces, and few less than three. We caught my basket full in less then two hours, and then rode home. It was a day of enjoyment to us, you may be sure.

“And now I appeal to you, in all seriousness, my friend,” the Doctor continued, addressing himself to Spalding, “if there is not something due to the wives and mothers of the present generation? Is there not some relaxation of the law necessary in vindication of the civilization of the age, against the legal barbarisms still remaining on the statute books, and adhered to by the common law, in regard to wives and mothers? Is the current of progress to flow by them for ever, bearing no reforms which shall affect them? Do not misunderstand me. I am no advocate of the practices of the ‘strong-minded women,’ who hold their conventions and public meetings, who unsex themselves by mounting the forum, and, throwing off the retiring modesty of the true woman, seek to secure notoriety at the price of popular contempt. But there are evils which bear heavily, too heavily, upon the women even of this country, and which, for the credit of the civilization of the age, should be corrected. As calm-minded, philanthropic men, we, the American people, should look into this subject, and, regardless of jeer and scoff, do what justice, humanity, and the right demand of us, in regard to some of the social and legal inequalities between the sexes, pertaining to the married state.”

“It is one of the mysteries of our system of jurisprudence,” replied Spalding, “that while everything else is on the move, while progress is written in letters of living light upon all other things, that remains stationary–at least in a comparative sense. The world moves on, civilization advances, science and the arts stride forward, but the law stands still. A principle which may have been somewhat changed, modified, bent, if you please, into an adaptation to the exigencies of the present, and a fitness for the changed circumstances of the times in which we live, is suddenly thrown back into its old position by the exhumation of some ‘decision’ from the dust of ages, made by some judge away back in the olden times, resurrected by the research of some antiquarian lawyer, who loves to delve among the rubbish of past generations. The learning, the wisdom, the philosophy of the present is discarded, and the spirits of a lower civilization are conjured from the darkness of vanished centuries, to settle rules for the government of commerce, personal conduct, and the social relations of the times in which we live. There seems to be something paradoxical in the idea that the older the decision the better the law–the more ancient the commentator, the profounder the wisdom of his axioms. This might be well, were it true that civilization is ‘progressing backwards,’ the science of government retrograding. In that case, it would of course be true, that the nearer you approach the fountain, the purer the stream would be. But such is not the fact. In all these attributes the world is on the advance, the science of government progressive; and to make the wisdom of centuries ago override the wisdom, or overshadow the light of the present, is a paradox peculiar to our system of jurisprudence. There are lawyers and judges, who enjoy a high reputation, whose fame rests upon their profound research among the worm-eaten tomes of black-letter law, and whose glory consists in their familiarity with the opinions and axioms of men who lived and died so long ago that their very tombs are forgotten. This class of lawyers and jurists hold in contempt all the learning, the philosophy, the practical wisdom of the present –rejecting everything that is not bearded and hoary with age. Seated in their libraries, in the midst of their ponderous octavos, their Roman and black-letter volumes, they reject with disdain the commentators, the opinions of the jurists of the present century; and brushing away the cobwebs and dust from the covers of their treasured relics of bygone ages, they clasp them in a loving embrace close to their hearts, exclaiming, ‘These are my jewels.’ Whatever has not the sanction of ancient authority, is folly to them–worse than folly, for it is innovation, and that is rank impiety.

“I remember an anecdote of the celebrated William Wirt, related to show how ready his mind was, how instant in activity, and how suddenly it would flash with an eloquence, superior to that exhibited by the most elaborate preparation. He was arguing a cause before the Supreme Court of the United States, and laid down, as the basis of his argument, a principle to which he desired to call the particular attention of the judges. The opposing counsel interrupted him, calling for the authority sustaining his principle,–‘The book–the book!’ demanded his adversary. ‘Sir, and your honors,’ said Wirt, straightening himself up to his full height, ‘I am not bound to grope my way among the ruins of antiquity, to stumble over obsolete statutes, or delve in black letter law, in search of a principle written in living letters upon the heart of every man.’ If the idea contained in this answer of Wirt, were more fully appreciated by our modern jurists, it would be all the better for the country.

“The common law is said to be the perfection of reason. This is doubtless true, but it is the perfection of the reason of the present, as well as of the past. Its principles are elastic, suiting themselves to the civilization of all ages. They are progressive, keeping pace with the progress of all times. They are not immutable, save in the element of right, and they therefore shape themselves to all circumstances, moving along with the onward march of trade, the commerce, the social relations, and business of the people. The learning of to-day, the wisdom, the philosophy of to-day is profounder than that of any preceding century, and it is folly to overthrow it by, or compel it to give place to, the learning, the wisdom, the philosophy of departed and ruder ages.

“In regard to your question, whether there is not some relaxation of the law necessary, in vindication of the civilization of the age, against the legal barbarisms remaining upon the statute book, and in the common law in regard to our wives, I answer frankly that I do not know about that. The law, as you read it in Blackstone, and as you expounded it to your wife, on your fishing excursion, has been somewhat modified. Wives have been given a _status_ by modern legislation; and a woman, by becoming a wife, does not now cease to be a legal entity. The law permits her to retain and control her property irrespective of her husband, and she has, therefore, thus far, ceased to be ‘nobody.’ But my private opinion is, that, as a general thing, the women of this country get along very well, even under the pressure of the ‘barbarisms’ of which you speak. They manage, one way and another, to get the upper hand of their legal lords, law or no law. If their existence, in the light of authority, is ‘less than a legal fiction,’ they come to be regarded, or make themselves felt in the world as practical facts. They are quite as apt to be at the top, as at the bottom of the ladder, notwithstanding what ‘Blackstone says’ about their legal position. There is, doubtless, a good deal of abuse of authority on the part of husbands, but the women get their share of the good that is going in the world, as a general thing. If the law is against them, they manage to usurp full an even amount of privilege and authority, and keep along about in line with the other sex. I never knew an out and out controversy between a man and his wife, in which the former did not get the worst of it in the end; and as to the impositions, which as a melancholy truth are too frequent, they are about as much on one side as the other. It is not to legal enactments that we must look for the cure of unhappiness incident to the married state, but to a reform in temper and habits of life. Besides, I do not believe the wives of this country would accept of a strict legal equality at all, if it were tendered them as a FINALITY. I believe they would prefer remaining as they are; for by being so, they are left to the resources of their own genius, to win by their tact, what is not guaranteed by law. I know that there are a good many crazy-headed people in pantaloons as well as petticoats, who go about laboring for the ’emancipation of women,’ as if the heavens and earth were coming together. But those of them who wear skirts, generally have delicate white hands, flowing curls, flashing black eyes, and the gift of oratory–and a desire to exhibit them all; while those in pantaloons have their hair combed smoothly back, as if preparing to be swallowed by a boa-constrictor, wear white cravats, talk softly, and show a good deal of the whites of their eyes, from a chronic habit of looking up towards the moon and stars. As a general thing, these latter are of no practical use in the world, and make as good a tail to the kite of the ‘strong-minded women’ as anything else. But these people represent a very small portion of the American women, and until the masses demand ’emancipation,’ I rather think that matters had better be permitted to remain as they are. The women will take care of themselves–no fear of that.”

CHAPTER XXII.

A BEAUTIFUL FLOWER–A NEW LAKE–A MOOSE–HIS CAPTURE–A SUMPTUOUS DINNER.

We started the next morning on an exploring voyage up the right-hand stream, which enters this beautiful lake some half a mile west of the one we had looked into the day before. On either hand, as we passed along the narrow channel, was a natural meadow, covered with a luxuriant growth of rank grass and weeds, conspicuous among which was a beautiful flower, the like of which I have never seen anywhere else. I am no botanist, and therefore cannot describe it in the language of the florist, so that the learned in that beautiful science might classify it. It resembles somewhat the wild lily in shape, growing upon a tall, strong stem, almost like the stem of the flag. The flower itself is double, and its deep crimson–the deepest almost of any flower I have ever seen–shone conspicuously, as it waved gracefully in the breeze above the surrounding vegetation. It has one defect, however; it is without fragrance, I infer from the fact that its roots spread far out every way, and reach down into the water beneath, that it can hardly be transferred to the garden, or become civilized. It would be a great acquisition to the collection of the florist if it could, for I know of no flower that excels it in richness of color, gracefulness of appearance, or in gorgeousness of beauty.

We saw abundance of deer feeding quietly upon the narrow meadows, and upon the lily pads on our way. We had no inclination to injure them, and we let them feed on. Some of them were hugely astonished, however, at our presence, and dashed away, whistling and snorting, into the forest. Two miles from the lake, we came to a rocky barrier, down which the stream, came rushing and roaring, for fifty or sixty rods, in a descent of perhaps sixty feet in all. Around these rapids the boats were carried, and we found, above them, the water deep and sluggish, flowing through a dense forest, the tall trees on the banks stretching their leafy arms across the narrow channel, forming above it an arch delightfully cool, through which the sunlight could scarcely penetrate. We followed this channel a long way, when we came to a little lake or pond, four or five miles in circumference. It was a perfect gem, laying there all alone, so calm, so lovely in its solitude, with no sign of civilization around it, no sound of civilization startling its echoes from their sleep of ages, no human voice having perhaps ever been heard upon its shore since the red man departed from the hunting-ground of his fathers. The shores all around it were bold and rocky, save on the western side, where a broad sandy beach, of a quarter of a mile in extent, lay between the water and the shadow of the deep forest beyond. A solitary island of half a dozen acres, covered with majestic pines and tall, straight spruce trees, rises near the centre of the lake, adding a new charm to its quiet beauty. The waters of this little lake are clearer and more transparent than those of any other we had seen; we could see the white shells on its sandy bottom, fifteen feet below the surface. This peculiarity induced us to believe that we were above the stratum of iron ore which seems to underlay most of this wild region, coloring, while it does not render impure, the waters of most of these lakes and rivers. I have frequently, in my wanderings in these northern wilds, stumbled upon outcropping orebeds, which, were they nearer market, or more accessible to the energy and enterprise of the American people, would be capable of building up gigantic fortunes, but they are all valueless here, and probably will continue so for generations to come.

We saw the fresh tracks of a moose on the sandy beach, tracks that had been made that morning, and we concluded to spend the day here, in the hope of securing one of these gigantic deer. We rowed to the island, intending to encamp there. We entered a little bay, of half an acre, the points forming it coming within a few yards of each other, and the branches of the trees intertwining their long arms lovingly above. As we landed, our dogs began nosing and dashing about, as if suddenly roused into excitement by the hot scent of some animal that had been disturbed by our coming. They broke into a simultaneous cry, and plunged like mad into the thicket. We pushed our boat back towards the open water, when we heard the plunge of some animal into the lake, on the other side of the island. Martin, who was in the leading boat with me, by a few vigorous pulls at the oar, rounded the point between us and the spot where we had heard the plunge, and there, not ten rods from the shore, making for the mainland, was the game which, of all others, we most desired to see.

“A moose! by Moses!” exclaimed Martin, in huge excitement. “Hurrah! hurrah! A moose! he’s ours! he can’t escape!” and away he dashed in pursuit. The other boats now hove in sight, and a loud hurrah! went up from each, when they saw the nature of the game that had been started. There was no difficulty in overtaking the animal, desperate as were his efforts to escape. We shot past him, and turned him back in a direction towards the island again, and I picked up my rifle to settle the matter.

“Don’t shoot him,” said Martin; “don’t shoot him yet; he can’t get away, and if you kill him, he’ll sink; and if he don’t, we can’t get him into the boat. Let us drive him back to the island.” The other boats were, by this time, up with us, every man in a wild state of excitement, eager to be first in at the death. We had headed the animal towards the island, with our three boats so arranged, as that he could swim in no other direction, without running one of them down. The dogs had started a deer that had taken to the water, on the other side of the island.

“Look here!” said I; “gentlemen, this game is mine. I claim him by right of discovery, and my right must not be interfered with.”