CHAPTER XXXI.
OUT OF THE WOODS—THE THOUSAND ISLANDS—CAPE VINCENT—BASS FISHING HOME—A SEARCHER AFTER TRUTH—AN INTERRUPTION—FINIS.
We floated quietly down the Rackett, carrying our boats around the falls, shooting like an arrow down the rapids, or gliding along under the shadows of the gigantic forest trees that line the long, calm reaches of that beautiful river. We shook hands and parted with our boatmen at the pleasant village of Pottsdam, where we arrived the second evening after leaving Tupper's Lake. We found our baggage, and it was a pleasant thing to change our long beards for shaved faces, and our forest costume for the garniture of the outer man after the fashion of civilization. We took the cars for Ogdensburgh, and the next morning found us steaming up the majestic St. Lawrence, towards that paradise of fishermen, the Thousand Islands. We stopped a couple of days at Alexandria Bay, and passed on to Cape Vincent, a beautiful village situated a mile or two below where the river takes its departure from the broad lake beyond. This pleasant little town is built upon a wide sweep of tableland, overlooking the river in front, and the open lake on the west. It is accessible both by the lake and river, having two or three arrivals' and departures of steamboats each way daily, and being the terminus of the Rome and Watertown Railroad, the great thoroughfare between Kingston and the central portion of the Tipper Provinces and the States. It is a delightful place in the hot summer months, with a climate unequalled for healthfulness, a cool breeze always fanning it from the water, and in the vicinity the best bass fishing to be found on this continent.
Opposite, and just below the town, is Carlton Island, on which stand the ruins of an old French fortification, the walls and trenches and the solitary chimneys, from which the wooden barracks have rotted or been burned away, remain as melancholy testimonials of the bloody strifes between the red men of the forest, and the pioneers of civilization who were driving them from the hunting grounds of their fathers.
The black bass of the St. Lawrence and Ontario, are the "gamest" fish that swim, and they are nowhere found in such abundance as in the neighborhood of Cape Vincent. On the outer edge of the bar, near the head of Carlton Island, we caught between seventy and eighty in one afternoon, weighing from three to five pounds each, every one of which fought like a hero, diving with a plunge for the bottom, skiving with a rush down, across, or up the river; leaping clear from the water and shaking his head furiously, to throw the hook loose from his jaw, before surrendering to his fate. In Wilson's Bay, a sweet place, three miles from the village by water, or one and a half by land, we caught as many more on another afternoon. We took a sail-boat and glided round Lighthouse Point (a pleasant drive of two miles from the village), out into the lake, and steered for Grenadier Island, five miles distant, on which we tented for the night, and the bass we brought home the next day were something worth looking at. Near the upper end of Long Island are other prolific bass shoals, where the fisherman may enjoy himself. Indeed, he can scarcely go amiss in the surrounding waters.
The black bass of the St. Lawrence are not only game fish, but are, in excellence of flavor, scarcely excelled by any fish of this country. Baked or boiled, they have few superiors, and as a pan fish, are excelled only by the brook-trout of the streams. The season for taking them commences in July; and continues through September. August is the best month in the year for the bass fishermen. If, during that month, he will supply himself with a strong bass-pole, a strong treble-action reel, stout silk lines, and proper hooks, and visit Gape Vincent, he will find boatmen with a supply of minnows, ready to serve him; and if he fails to enjoy himself for a fortnight among the black bass of the St Lawrence and Ontario, he may count himself as a man who is very hard to please.
We spent a pleasant week at Cape Vincent, and then turned our faces homeward, invigorated in strength and buoyant in spirits, to begin again a round of toil, from which we, at least, could claim no further exemption.
"H——," said a friend of mine, as he stalked into my sanctum, a few days after my return, and seated himself at my elbow, as if for a private and confidential talk, "did Smith really shoot the bear, the skin of which he brought home, and which he exhibits with such triumph. Tell me, honestly, as between you and me, did he in fact shoot him?"
"Smith certainly did shoot that bear," I replied.
"But is the marvellous story he tells about the manner of killing him really true?"
"That, of course, I cannot tell," I replied, "as I have never heard the story."
"Why," said my friend, "he tells about a beautiful lake, lying away back in the northern wilderness, above which Mount Marcy, and Mount Seward, and other nameless peaks of the Adirondacks, rear their tall heads to the clouds, throwing back the sunlight in a blaze of glory; on which the moonbeams lie like a mantle of silver, while away down in its fathomless depths the stars glow and sparkle, like the sheen of a million of diamonds. Of the old forests and trees of fabulous growth, stretching away and away on every hand, throwing their sombre shadows far out over the water, in whose tangled recesses countless deer and moose, and panthers, and bears range, and among whose branches birds of unknown melody carol. That one side of this beautiful lake is palisadoed by a wall of rocks, stand straight up sixty feet high, near the top of which is a shelf or narrow pathway, along which two men can scarcely walk abreast. That he was passing along this pathway one afternoon, examining the rocks, and looking for geological specimens. Below him was a precipice of fifty feet, against the base of which the waves, when the winds swept over the lake, dashed. Around him the birds that build their nests in the crevices of the rock were whirling and screaming, while before him lay the beautiful lake, motionless and calm, as if it had fallen asleep and was slumbering sweetly in its forest bed. That he was passing leisurely along with his rifle at a trail, admiring the transcendent loveliness of the scenery around him, where the rugged and the sublime, the placid and the beautiful, were so magnificently mingled, when, in turning a sharp angle, a huge bear"
"Copy!" shouted the printer's devil, as he came plunging down three steps at a bound from the compositors' room above. "Copy!" he screamed, as he dove into the outer office where that article was usually kept, but found none.
"Mr. H.," said he, as he opened my door so gently, with a voice so quiet, and a look so innocent, that one might well be excused for believing that he had never spoken a loud word in his life, "Mr. H——, the foreman desired me to ask you for some copy."
"You see, my friend," said I to the anxious inquirer after truth, "that I am exceedingly busy just now. You will excuse me, therefore, for referring you to the Doctor and Spalding, who know all about the matter. Good day." And my friend departed without finishing the story Smith told him about his killing the bear. I have never heard the balance of that story yet.
And now, Reader, a word to you, and I have done. When the sun comes up over the city, day after day, pouring his burning rays along the glimmering streets, shining on and on in a changeless glare, till he hides himself in the darkness again; when your strength wilts under the enervating influences of the summer heats, and you pant for the forest breezes and the "cooling streams," remember that the same wild region I have been describing, the same pleasant rivers, beautiful lakes, tall mountains, and primeval forests are there still, all inviting you to test their recuperative agencies. The same singing birds, the fishes and the game are there waiting your pleasure. Visit them when the summer heat makes the cities a desolation. Give a month to the enjoyment of a wilderness-life, and you will return to your labors invigorated in strength, buoyant in spirit—a wiser, healthier, and a better man.