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

by S. H. Hammond

"My father, though not a member of any church, was strict in his family discipline in regard to the observance of the Sabbath, the breach of which, on the part of his children, was very apt to be followed by consequences not the most pleasant in the world, for he held that a good switch was an essential article of household furniture, and its occasional use a cardinal principle in the philosophy of family rule. One Sunday, when I was some ten or eleven years old, when the old people were gone to meeting (and they had to go eight miles to find a meeting house), I, with an older brother, tired of lying around the house, concluded to take a stroll along up the brook. It was a time of severe drouth, and the stream was dried up, save here and there a small pool, clear and cold, the bottom of which consisted of smooth and clean-washed stones and pebbles. In one of these was a number of beautiful speckled trout, averaging maybe a quarter of a pound each in weight. Here was a temptation too strong to be resisted. We had no hooks or lines with us, and would not have ventured to use them on Sunday, if we had. That would have been fishing. But the taking of those trout with our hands was quite another matter. So, rolling our pants up above our knees (there was no use of talking about shoes and stockings; such luxuries were not within the range of indulgence to boys of our age in those days, save in the frosts and snows of winter, and stubbed toes, stone bruises, and thorns in the feet, come floating along down from the long past, like shadows of darkness on the current of memory. By the way, will some rich man, who was reared in the country in the good old times when boys went barefooted in the summer months, when chapped feet, stone bruises, stubbed toes, and thorns that pierced and festered in their soles were the great ills that 'darkened deepest around human destiny,' solve for me a problem of the human mind? Will he tell me whether, in his after life, when he was the owner of broad acres, fine houses, piles of stocks in paying corporations, and huge deposits in solvent banks, he ever felt richer or prouder when counting his gains, and contemplating the aggregate of his wealth, than he did when he pulled on his first pair of boots?) So, as I said, we rolled up our pants, and waded in for the trout. We caught a beautiful string of twenty or more, took them home, dressed them nicely, and sat them carefully away in the cool cellar. We had a notion that the greatness of the prize would wipe away the offence by which it was secured, and that the delicious breakfast they would afford, would be received as a sufficient atonement for the sin of having taken them on a Sunday. But we were never more mistaken in our lives. My father went into the cellar for some purpose in the evening, after his return from meeting, and discovered the trout. An inquiry was instituted, our dereliction was exposed, and we were promised a flogging. Now that was a promise, which, while it was rarely made, was never broken. When my father in his calm, quiet way, made up his mind and so expressed it, that he owed one of his boys a flogging, it became, as it were, a debt of honor, what, in modern parlance, would be termed a confidential debt, and he to whom it was acknowledged to be due, became a prefered creditor, and was sure to be paid.

"Well, the trout were eaten for breakfast, and after the meal was over, my brother and myself were duly paid off, at a hundred cents on the dollar, with full interest. That flogging cured me of 'tickling' trout, especially on Sunday. I am never tempted to take trout with my hands, without feeling a tickling sensation about the back; and though old recollections of the long past, of that pleasant stream and the gorge through which it flowed, with the side hill covered with old forests above it, and the green fields spread out on the other side, of the home of my boyhood, the old log-house, the cattle, the sheep, the old watch-dog, and the thousand other things around which memory loves to linger, come clustering around my heart, yet conspicuous among them all, is the flogging I got for 'tickling' trout on a Sunday."

CHAPTER XIII.

A JOLLY TIME FOR THE DEER—HUNTING ON THE WATER BY DAYLIGHT—MUD LAKE FUNEREAL SCENERY—A NEW WAY OF TAKING RABBITS—THE NEGRO AND THE MARINO BUCK—A COLLISION.

As we came down to the lake in the morning to perform our ablations, we saw a fine deer on the opposite shore, feeding upon the pond lilies that grew along in the shallow water. It was nearly half a mile from us, and while we were looking at it, four others came walking carelessly out of the tall grass upon the beach, and commenced playing, as we have seen lambs do, on the sandy shore. They would run here and there, back and forth, at full speed along the sands, leap high into the air, kicking up their heels, and performing all the various antics of which animals so supple and active may be supposed capable. We saw one fellow leap, with a clear bound, over two that were standing looking out over the water, and run some fifty rods up the beach, as if all the hounds in Christendom were at his tail, and then wheel gracefully, and return with equal speed to his companions, when they all commenced jumping and bounding, and running up and down along the shore, as if they were out on a regular spree, and were determined to be jolly. After half an hour of exceedingly active play, they hoisted their white flags, and went bounding over the meadow into the woods.

The deer that was feeding paid no further attention to them than to raise his head and look quietly, and perhaps contemptuously at them occasionally, while he chewed his breakfast, that he was picking up in the shape of lily pads upon the surface of the water. Spalding and a boatman paddled across the lake to make Mm a morning call. It is a curious fact that one skilled in the art will paddle or scull one of these light boats to within a few rods of a deer while feeding, in plain open sight, provided always that the wind blows from the direction of the animal, and no noise is made by the boatman. The deer will feed on, and the time for paddling is while his head is down. When he raises it to look about him, in whatever position the boatman is, he must remain immovable. If his paddle is up, it must remain so; not a motion must be made, or the game will be off, with a snort and a rush, for the shore and the woods. The deer may, and probably will look, with a vacant stare, directly at the approaching boat without its curiosity being in the least excited, and then go to feeding again. The marksman must take his aim while the game is feeding; when it raises its head high in the air, throws forward its ears and gazes at him for a moment with a wild and startled look, then is his time to fire. Five seconds at the longest is all that is allowed him when he sees these motions, for within that time, with its fears thoroughly aroused, the game will be plunging for the shelter of the woods.

The boatman paddled Spalding quietly and silently to within twelve or fifteen rods of the deer that was feeding, when a column of white smoke shot suddenly up from the bow of the boat; the sharp crack of the rifle rung out over the water, and the deer went down. Spalding was a proud man as he returned to us with a fine fat spike buck in his boat.

These little lakes are probably sixty-five miles from the settlements, allowing for the winding course of the rivers. Just above, where the river enters, is a dam, built of logs some fifteen feet high, erected by the lumbermen the last winter to hold back the water, so as to float their logs down from this to Tupper's Lake, and so on down the Rackett to the mills away below. Around this dam is the last carrying place between this and Mud Lake, over which our boatmen trudged with their boats, like great turtles with their shells upon their backs. This is still called Bog River, and though above the dam to Mud Lake, where it takes its rise, it is deep and sluggish, yet it is doing it honor overmuch to dignify it by the name of a river. It was large enough, however, to float our little craft. We left our baggage-master here with most of our luggage, to perfect his operations in the way of jerking venison, intending to return the next day. We might have left everything without a guard, so far as human depredations were concerned. No bolts or bars would be necessary for its protection. In the first place, nobody would visit the spot, and if they did, our property would be perfectly protected by the law of the woods. It would be doubtless carefully inspected by any curious banter passing that way, but theft or robbery are unknown here. True, a bottle of good liquor, if handled by a visitor, might lose somewhat of its contents, but it would be drank to the health of the owner, and in a spirit of good fellowship, and not of theft, all which would be regarded by woodsmen as strictly within rule, there being, as Hank Wood said, "no law agin it."

We left the first chain of ponds, and rowed some ten miles up the deep and sluggish but narrow channel of the river, startling every little way a deer from its propriety by our presence as it was feeding along the shore. Few sportsmen ever visit this remote region, and it is above the range of the lumbermen. We came to some rapids near the outlet of the second chain of ponds, around which we walked, and up which the boatmen pushed their little craft. These rapids are a quarter of a mile in length, with no great amount of fall, but still enough to prevent the passage up them of a loaded boat. Directly at the head of these rapids is the "second chain of ponds," three pleasant little lakelets, of from two to four hundred acres each, surrounded by dense forests, and shores in the main walled in by huge boulders and broken rocks. We passed through these, in which were several loons, or great northern divers, quietly floating, and as they watched us, sending forth their clear and clarion voices over the water. We took each a passing shot at them, but with no other effect than to make them dive quicker and deeper, and stay under longer than usual; at the flash of our rifles they would go down, and in a few minutes would be again on the surface sixty rods from us, laughing aloud, as it were, with their clear and quavering voices, at our impotent attempts to shoot them.

We left the "second chain of ponds" by the narrow and sluggish inlets, still the Bog River, here so small that the boatman's oars spanned the narrow channel, and as crooked a stream as it is possible for one to be. It flows for miles through a low and marshy region, with dense alderbushes clustering along the shore, and scattering fir-trees, dead at the top, standing between these and the forests in the background. The bottom, much of the way, is of clean yellow sand, in which are imbedded millions of clams, resembling, in every respect, those of the ocean beach. Some of these we opened, and found the living bivalves in appearance precisely like their kindred of the salt water. I have seen occasionally muscle shells in other streams, and along the shores of the lakes, but I never before saw any such as these save near the ocean, where the salt water ebbs and flows, and not even there in such quantities. One might gather barrels and barrels of them, large and apparently fat, and yet there would be hundreds or thousands of barrels left. The mink, the muskrat, and other animals that hunt along the water, and have a taste for fish, have a good time of it among them, for we saw bushels of shells in places where the fish had been extracted and devoured.