CHAPTER IX.
Tracing Gentlemen Timber Thieves—Getting Wet—Fawn.
I have said that the country tributary to the waters of the Wisconsin River constituted a good field for the selection of valuable government pine-timbered lands. It is equally true that it was a country where the custom had grown among lumbermen to enter a few forties of government land, sufficient at least to make a show of owning a tract of timber on which to conduct a winter's operation of logging, and then to cut the timber from adjacent or near by forty-acre tracts of land yet belonging to the government.
This method of trespassing upon the timber not owned by the operator, but being the property of the United States, was carried on to a greater extent there than in any other section of the state in which I was familiar with the methods and practices of logging pine timber. Many logging jobbers having formed this habit of helping themselves to government timber, found it difficult, after the government lands had been entered by private purchase of others than themselves, to discontinue their practice of taking timber that was not their own. Reforms of such habits do not come voluntarily nor easily, as a rule, but generally under some sort of pressure.
In the years following my purchase of considerable tracts of timber on these waters, I found it necessary, annually, to make a trip into the country where our timber lands were situated, to ascertain whether or not there had been near-by logging camps during the preceding winter, and if so, to carefully run out the lines around our own timber, to determine whether or not trespass had been committed on any of them. In many instances I found that this was the fact. One spring I found a very considerable number of the best pine trees cut from the interior of forty acres of excellent timber, so that the selling value of the whole tract was injured far more than the full value of the amount of timber that had been unlawfully cut and hauled away. The trespass had been committed by a man prominent in the community and well-known among the lumbermen of the Wisconsin River. The late Gust Wilson of Wisconsin, a fine man, a lawyer of much experience in lumber cases in that state, and whose counsel was considered of a high order, was retained to bring suit to recover the value of the timber trespassed. Not only that, but, annoyed at the boldness of the trespass, I wished also to have him prosecuted criminally for theft. Mr. Wilson said in reply to the request, "Now, don't try that. All of those fellows have had 'some of them hams,' and you can't get a jury in all that country that will bring you in a verdict of guilty, no matter how great and strong your evidence may be." There was nothing left to do under Mr. Wilson's advice but to cool off, keep smiling, and collect the best price for the stumpage taken (not stolen), so as to be polite to the gentlemanly wrongdoer.
One spring, accompanied by Mr. W. B. Buckingham, cashier of one of the national banks at Stevens Point, who also owned interests in valuable pine timber lands adjacent to, or near by those in which I owned interests, I went into the countries of the Spirit and Willow Rivers. The snow was melting and the waters nearly filled the banks of the respective streams. Wishing to cross the Spirit River, we found a point where an island occupied the near center of the stream, on which was a little standing timber. A tree was felled, the top of which landed on the island. Having crossed on the tree to the island, we felled another tree which reached from the island to the farther shore. It was not large in diameter, and, under the weight of Mr. Buckingham, who first proceeded, it swayed until he lost his balance and fell into the water and was obliged to swim to the opposite shore. I was more fortunate in this instance, and stayed on the tree until I reached the shore.
"We succeeded in crossing Burnt Side Lake". (Page [146].)
Swimming in ice water is never found comfortable, and we hurried to a close at hand, deserted logging camp, where, fortunately, we found a large heating stove set up and ready for use, and near by a fine pile of dry wood for the stove, which had been left over from the recent winter's operations of logging. In a few minutes, a rousing fire was made, and, after removing his garments and wringing them as dry as possible, we hung them on lines about the stove and quickly dried them and made them ready for use. This was necessary, as no change of clothing had been provided for this intended short excursion into the woods.
By the time our work was finished, the snow had mostly melted away. The ice was all out of the rivers, and we found ourselves one morning on the banks of the Tomahawk River, wondering how we were to cross it, if possible, without the delay of constructing a raft sufficiently large to carry us. The tote-road leading to Merrill, which we wished to follow, was on the opposite side of the Tomahawk from where we approached it. We finally discovered an old birch canoe hidden in the brush. It was leaky and in very bad repair, so we set ourselves to work gathering pitch from the ends of a pile of freshly cut pine logs lying on the bank of the river, banked there to be pushed into the stream by the log drivers. This we put into a dish with a little grease and boiled until it was of the right consistency to stick to the bark of the canoe. Patches of cloth were laid over the riven places in the bark, and pitched until the boat was made waterproof—for temporary use at least.
With our small belongings, we got into the canoe and started down the Tomahawk, intending to stay in it as long as it would hold together and take us on our journey, saving us that much walking. Unfortunately, however, for us, we soon came to a long strip of rapids with which we were not familiar. Selecting what we believed to be the best water, we permitted the frail craft to float into the rapids, and our fast journey down stream had begun almost before we realized the fact. All went well until nearly to the lower end of the rapids, when the old canoe struck a sharp rock slightly hidden under the water, and split in two. Partly by swimming and partly by wading, we reached the coveted shore, wetter and wiser than when an hour before we had taken an old canoe that was not our own, in which to cross the stream, instead of spending considerably more time to construct a raft on which we could safely and with dry clothes, have reached the opposite shore. The usual woodsman's process of drying clothes was again gone through with, since it was too cold, at that season of the year, to travel all day in our wet garments.
One early summer day while traveling through a part of this same country, watered by the Willow River, my companion and I stopped in a majestic forest of towering white pine trees, interspersed with the more spreading hemlocks. It was nearing twelve o'clock, and we were both hungry. While my companion was collecting wood for a fire, I went in search of water with which to make a pail of hot coffee. Returning, I climbed over a large hemlock tree that had fallen, probably, from old age. There, nestled in the moss and leaves, lay a spotted fawn. It made no effort to get up and run from me, so I carefully approached it and gently caressed it. Then I lifted the handsome little creature, with its great, trusting brown eyes, into my arms, and carried it near to our camp fire. While my helper was preparing dinner, I fondled this beautiful infant of the forest that yet knew no fear. I sweetened some water to which I added just a sprinkle of meal, then fed it from a spoon to this confiding baby animal. After this, when I moved, the trusting little creature followed me. When it came time for us to resume our work I carried my little newly found friend back to the spot where its mother had probably left it and put it down in its mossy, leafy bed, and, carefully climbing over the log, left it to be better cared for than it was possible for me to do.