Wild Northern Scenes; Or, Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod

by S. H. Hammond

The Doctor, by rotation, now became the leading marksman. He was cool and calm, as if going to perform some delicate surgical operation. We soon came in sight of a buck feeding in a shallow pasture, and the boat glided quietly within fifteen rods of it. The Doctor's hand was firm, and his aim steady. There was about him none of that nervous agitation which is so apt to disturb the first efforts at deer slaying. The boat came to a pause a moment, when his rule rang out quick and sharp, waking the echoes of the mountains around and reverberating along the shore. At the crack of the rifle, the buck leaped high into the air, and plunged madly towards the bank, up which he dashed with a prodigious bound, made a single jump among the tall grass, and disappeared from the sight. The Doctor was greatly mortified, supposing he had missed. He declared solemnly that he had taken steady and sure aim just back of the fore-shoulders of the deer, had a perfect sight upon it, and that it did not fall in its tracks, could only be owing to its bearing a charmed life. The boatman, however, knew that the animal, from its actions, was mortally wounded. He said nothing, but paddled quietly to the shore, and there, just over the bank, in the tall grass and weeds, lay the noble buck, stone dead. He had gone down and died without a struggle. A proud man was the Doctor, as he passed his hunting-knife across the throat of the deer, and gazed upon its broad antlers, now in the velvet, pointing to the course of the ball right through its vitals, in on one side and out on the other. We had venison for the next four-and-twenty hours, and we disturbed the deer no more that afternoon.

The deep baying of the stag-hounds, as we entered the little lake, apprised us of the location of our tents, and we were glad to reach them, and stretch our limbs upon the bed of boughs beneath them, for the day had been warm, and our journey a weary one. Our pioneer had made the entire journey the day before, though he had to pass over all the carrying-places three times. We found that he had killed two deer, and had the meat from them, cut into thin slips, undergoing the process of "jerking," in a bark smokehouse erected near the tents. He had also a beautiful string of trout ready for our supper, taken in a way peculiarly his own. He had used neither bait nor fly.

After supper, as we sat looking out over the lake in front of our tents, the Doctor inquired of our pioneer how he had taken his fish, as he had with him neither rod nor flies, and there was no bait to be found in the woods proper for trout.

"Why," said he, "I got lonesome yesterday, all alone up here in the woods, waiting for you, and I thought I'd take a look around the shore of the lake, thinking I might find a gold mine, or a pocketful of diamonds, or something of that sort; so I took my rifle and the two dogs, and started on an explorin' voyage. I didn't find any gold, but I found, just across there by those willows and alders, a cold stream entered the lake, and right in the mouth of it the trout were lyin' as thick as your fingers. They were fine little fellows as I ever happened to see, weighing about a quarter of a pound each. I had a hook or two, and a piece of twine in my pocket, but they were of no sort of use in common fishin', for I had no kind of bait, and couldn't get any. After thinking the matter over, I concluded I'd see if I couldn't bag some of them in a quiet way. So I cut me a long pole, tied the hook and line to the end of it, and reaching out over the water, dropped quietly down among them. I let the line drift gently up against the one I wanted. He didn't seem to mind it, but was rather pleased as the line tickled his sides. After letting it lay there a moment, I jerked suddenly, and up came the trout clean over my head on to the flat rock behind me. However this might have astonished him, it didn't seem to disturb the rest. In that way I caught all I wanted, and could have caught a bushel. It isn't a very science way of fishin', but it answers when a man is hungry, and hasn't got any bait or fly."

"I scarcely know why," said the Doctor, "but Cullen's account of catching his trout, reminds me of a circumstance which occurred when I was a boy, and which for the moment made a deal of sport. I have not probably thought of it in twenty years, but it comes to me now as fresh as though it were the occurrence of yesterday. It must be, as Hank Wood said the other day, that a thing which gets fairly anchored in a man's mind, remains there always, and covered up as it may be by other and later things, it can never be forgotten. It will come drifting back on the current of memory, fresh and palpable as ever.

"Everybody understands, or ought to understand, how sheep are washed. A small yard is built on the bank of a stream adjacent to a deep place. One side of which is open to the water, and into which the flock is crowded. The washers take their places in the water, where it is three or four feet deep, and the sheep are caught by others, and tossed to them, where they undergo ablution (an operation by the way, that they do not seem altogether to enjoy), to wash the dirt and gum from their fleeces. On such occasions, it is regarded as a lawful thing, a standing and ancient practical joke, to pitch any outsider, who may happen to indulge his curiosity by stopping to look on, into the stream. If he is verdant, he will be very likely to be inveigled into the yard, and in an unguarded moment, be made to take an involuntary dive, head foremost into the water.

"A few rods above the place in which my father washed his sheep, was an old dam, the apron of which remained, and beneath which was a basin some five or six feet in depth, and thirty or forty feet in diameter, filled of course with water. On one occasion, a man who was employed to catch the sheep, was one of those shiftless, good-natured, lazy fellows, to be found in almost every neighborhood, who prefer smoking and telling stories in bar-rooms to regular work, and who greatly prefer odd jobs to consecutive labor. Tom G——was one of this genus, full of fun and mischief, but without a particle of real malice in his composition. As he was busy throwing sheep to the washers, a young fellow from the neighboring village happened that way, and becoming somewhat interested in the process, was seduced by Tom G——, inside of the yard, to try his hand at catching and tossing in sheep. About the second or third one he operated upon, his treacherous friend stumbled against him, giving him a tremendous push, and with a sheep in his arms he drove head foremost among the washers. The water was cold, and there was a good deal of puffing and blowing about the time his head came above the surface. He was a sensible chap, and took the joke as a wise man should, especially when the odds are all against him, albeit, it was somewhat rude.

"He came out on the other side of the stream, and after joining in the laugh against himself, and taking off and wringing his garments, he wandered up to the apron of the old dam, and stretching himself along the planks, went to looking anxiously down into the deep water. After a while, he seemed to have discovered something, and called out to his friend below, 'I say Tom, have you got a fishhook in your pocket? Here is a trout that will weigh two pounds, and I want to hook him up.' Now Tom was a fisherman, and a big trout was his weakness; moreover, he was never without half a dozen hooks and lines in his pockets. He left his business at once, and went up to the apron to assist in taking the two-pound trout. A pole was cut, and a couple of feet of line, with a hook attached, was fastened a little way from the top, and the haft of the hook stuck into the end so that by a little force it might be removed, and Tom and his friend got upon the apron, and stooped over to see where the great trout lay.

"'Here he is, Tom, just under the edge of this rock.' Tom stretched himself over to get a view of the fish, when a vigorous shove from the rear sent him like a great frog plump towards the bottom of the pool. This was a consummation that Tom had not bargained for, but there was no alternative but to swim for the shore, dripping like a rat from a flooded sewer. That joke had two points to it, and Tom G——had the worst of them."

"Your anecdote," said Smith, "reminds me of one in which I was an actor, and which was impressed upon my mind by a process which few boys are fond of, but which is very apt to make the impression durable. I fished for trout once without line or hook. I got a fine string of them, and myself into a pretty kettle of fish in the bargain. On my father's farm, as it was when I was a boy, was a stream that came down through a gorge in the mountains that bounded the pleasant valley in which that farm lay. In the spring freshets and the summer rains, that stream was a mighty and resistless torrent, that came roaring and plunging down from the plain above, cascading and leaping down ledges and rushing though a gorge, on either side of which precipices of solid rock stood straight up two hundred feet in height. It was a goodly sight to see that stream when its back was up, come rushing and foaming, a mighty flood from the deep and shadowy gulf, rolling in its resistless course great boulders of tons upon tons in weight, and eddying, and twisting, and roaring onward in its furious course towards the lake. In the summer time the drouth lapped up its waters, and it dried away to a little brook, trickling over the falls, and went winding, a small streamlet, around the base of the hill; sometimes it disappeared in the gravel, or among the loose stones, save here and there a pool of narrow limits and shallow depth. It was a fine trout stream at times. Its waters were cold and pure, and the brook trout loved to hide away under the great smooth stones or shelving rocks, and be comfortable in the shade, when the summer sun was hot and fiery in the sky. When the creek was low, they would congregate in the pools and still places, and in times of extreme drouth, might be seen huddled together in such places in great numbers.