John Cheney’s Cabin. June.
John Cheney was born in New Hampshire, but spent his boyhood on the shores of Lake Champlain, and has resided in the Adirondac wilderness about thirteen years. He has a wife and one child, and lives in a comfortable cabin in the wild village of McIntyre. His profession is that of a hunter, and he is in the habit of spending about one half of his time in the woods. He is a remarkably amiable and intelligent man, and as unlike the idea I had formed of him, as possible. I expected, from all that I had heard, to see a huge, powerful and hairy Nimrod; but instead of such, I found him small in stature, and bearing more the appearance of a modest and thoughtful student.
The walls of his cosy little house, containing one principal room, are ornamented with a large printed sheet of the Declaration of Independence, and two engraved portraits of Washington and Jackson. Of guns and pistols he has an abundant supply, and also a good stock of all the conveniences for camping among the mountains. He keeps one cow, which supplies his family with all the milk they need; but his favourite animals are a couple of hunting dogs named Buck and Tiger.
As summer is not the time to accomplish much in the way of hunting, my adventures with John Cheney have not been distinguished by any stirring events; we have, however, enjoyed some rare sport in the way of fishing, and obtained many glorious views from the mountain peaks of this region. But the conversation of this famous Nimrod has interested me exceedingly, and wherever we might be, under his own roof, or by the side of our mountain watch-fires, I have kept him busy in recounting his former adventures. I copied into my note-book nearly everything he said, and now present my readers with a few extracts relating to his hunting exploits. I shall use his own words as nearly as I can remember them.
* * * * * * * *
“I was always fond of hunting, and the first animal I killed was a fox; I was then ten years of age. Even from childhood I was so in love with the woods that I not only neglected school but was constantly borrowing a gun, or stealing the one belonging to my father, with which to follow my favourite amusement. He finally found it a useless business to make a decent boy of me, and in a fit of desperation he one day presented me with a common fowling piece. I was the youngest of thirteen children, and was always called the black sheep of the family. I have always enjoyed good health, and am forty-seven years of age; but I have now passed my prime, and don’t care about exposing myself to any useless dangers.
* * * * * * * *
“You ask me if I ever hunt on Sunday: no, Sir, I do not; I have always been able to kill enough on week days to give me a comfortable living. Since I came to live among the Adirondacs, I have killed six hundred deer, four hundred sable, nineteen moose, twenty-eight bears, six wolves, seven wild cats, thirty otter, one panther and one beaver.
* * * * * * * *
“As to that beaver, I was speaking about, it took me three years to capture him, for he was an old fellow, and remarkably cunning. He was the last, from all that I can learn, that was ever taken in the State. One of the Long Lake Indians often attempted to trap him, but without success; he usually found his trap sprung, but could never get a morsel of the beaver’s tail; and so it was with me, too; but I finally fixed a trap under the water, near the entrance to his dam, and it so happened that he one day stepped into it and was drowned.