The intervale was very beautiful as it lay tranquil in the autumn haze, but the memories of last Christmas-time had a charm about them which even the foretaste of Indian summer could not equal. Snow adds greatly to the dignity and grandeur of our New England mountains, making them more akin to the Alps, perpetual in their wintry covering. Chocorua, always a reminder of the Matterhorn, is much more like it when clad in ice, and rose-tinted by the morning sun. Even Swift River, framed in meadow brakes, waving osmundas, and gay scarlet maples, seemed less sparkling than when set in ice and overhanging banks of pure white snow.
As night came, coldness suggestive of winter crept over the great plain. The first light frost came caressingly in the still night hours and fell upon the pumpkin vines and the delicate ferns by the roadside, so that morning saw them wither away and die in the early sunbeams. With the dawn came many bird-notes. Crows, jays, flickers, red nuthatches, chickadees, golden kinglets, robins, cedar-birds, and goldfinches all made their voices heard. In the bushes by the road, Maryland yellow-throats mingled with various migrating sparrows, and among the spruces dozens of warblers flitted joyously back and forth, saying little, perhaps because nuthatches and red-eyed vireos said too much. Swallows had gone, but grace of flight was shown by hawks of various kinds which circled, soared, or shot past on even wing. The fickle crossbills, present a year ago this week in large numbers, were nowhere to be seen.
Sabba Day Falls were even grander than I remembered them to be, and although nothing could surpass in loveliness the icicles, frozen spray, masses of snow, and other paraphernalia of winter which had surrounded them in December, their present dress of tender green and brown, relieved by autumnal colors and crowned by a cloudless sky of purest blue, was wonderfully fair to look upon, and to lay away in the mind for weary days when brick walls and English sparrows should replace the wilderness and its warblers.
It was high noon when I turned my back on Carrigain and Bear and climbed the ridge towards Paugus valley. Would the traps be sprung? The question gave speed to my footsteps, which might otherwise have lagged by spring or brookside, for the day was meltingly warm and no breeze came over the Paugus ramparts. The first trap was near the top of the ridge, under a huge boulder. It was two miles from the nearest house in the intervale, and more than double that distance from Berry’s or any other inhabited dwelling in Tamworth. Perhaps gnomes did not live in spots so remote from man and his grain-fields. The trap was sprung. Evotomys had found it and perished. The next one was sprung, and a second long-eared victim lay in it. So with the third and fourth, set at intervals of many rods. The fifth was sprung, but empty; the sixth contained a gray Hesperomys; the seventh another Evotomys. I was now in the deep, dark valley between the northern ridges of Paugus and Chocorua. Three miles and a half of the roughest mountain woodland lay between this spot and tilled land, yet animal life was so abundant that it seemed to make no difference where I set my traps and scattered my corn; gnomes were everywhere waiting.
Out of twenty-five traps, fifteen held victims and six others were sprung, but empty. One of the slain was a chipmunk, another a mole. Of the remainder, three were long-tailed gray Hesperomys, and ten were red-backed Evotomys. The latter are clearly the most numerous inhabitants of the dark evergreen forests, but they are also to be found near secluded farm buildings in spots where the fulvous Hesperomys is the prevailing sprite. Among these gnomes of the woods and fields, all true American species, a European intruder is found. In some thickly settled places he has done among gnomes what the European sparrow has done among birds, elbowed himself into exclusive possession. When found in a trap, or seen scampering along the pantry shelf, this gnome is called, in vulgar English, a mouse.
OLD SHAG.
Old Shag, Toadback, or Paugus Mountain stands in the Sandwich range between Chocorua on the east and Passaconaway on the west. It is better armed against attack by mountain climbers than any of its neighbors, and this in spite of the fact that in elevation it is the lowest of the range. Its defenses consist of numerous radiating ridges covered with dense growths of spruce and crossed by belts of “harricane,” miles of cliffs so forbidding as to repel any but determined assault, and ravines choked by débris of rock and fallen forest. No path of any kind leads to its top, and when its summit is gained, none of the familiar marks indicating previous visits by egg-eating, initial-cutting tourists are discoverable.
Like most impregnable fortresses, Paugus has its weak spot. There is a way to reach its southern summit without touching a “harricane,” climbing a precipice, or struggling through more than a few rods of spruce jungle. Moreover, on this way the traveler is sung to by one of the most musical of streams, while his eyes are charmed by the ever-changing beauties of a series of as exquisite cascades as are to be found in the White Mountains. It is true that in midsummer the brook is so reduced in size that its chief charm is seriously lessened, but if the time chosen for ascent is in spring, autumn, or after a heavy summer rain, the falls will be found at their best.
PAUGUS FROM WONALANCET ROAD NEAR START OF LIBERTY TRAIL UP MOUNT CHOCORUA