Once out upon the Squatook River our course was rapid, for the current was swift and the channel clear. There were some wild rapids, but we ran them victoriously. By noon we were on the bosom of Big Squatook Lake. By six o’clock we had traversed this beautiful and solitary water, and were pitching our tent near the outlet, on a soft brown carpet of pine-needles. Here was a circular opening amid the huge trunks. Between the lake and our encampment hung a screen of alder and wild-cherry, whence a white beach of pebbles slanted broadly to the waves. While Stranion and Queerman made preparations for supper, the rest of us whipped the ripples of the outlet for trout. The shores of the lake at this spot draw together in two grand curves, and at the apex flows out the Squatook River, about waist-deep and a stone’s throw broad. It murmurs pleasantly on for the first few rods, and then begins to dart and chafe, and lift an angry voice. Hither the Indians come to spear whitefish in their season. To assist their spearing they had the outlet fenced part way across with a double row of stakes. All but the smallest fish were thus compelled to descend through a narrow passage, wherein they were at the mercy of the spearman. This fence we now found very convenient. Letting the canoe drift against it, we perched on top of the stakes, a couple of feet above water, and cast our flies unimpeded in every direction. The trout were abundant, and took the flies freely. For an hour we had most exciting sport. It was in itself, for all true fishermen, worth the whole journey. The Squatook trout are of a good average size, and very game. Of the twenty odd fish we killed that evening, there were two that passed the one and one-half pound scratch upon our scales, and several that cleared the pound.
Deciding to spend some days in this fair spot, we named it Camp de Squatook. Lopping the lower branches of the trees, we made ourselves pegs on which to hang our tins and other utensils; while a dry cedar log, split skilfully by Stranion, furnished us with slabs for a table. Our commissariat was well supplied with campers’ necessities and luxuries, but it was upon trout above all that we feasted. Sometimes we boiled them; sometimes we broiled them; more often we fried them in the fragrant, yellow corn-meal. The delicate richness of the hot, pink, luscious flakes is only to be realized by those who feast on the spoils of their own rods, with the relish of free air and vigor and out-door appetites.
Campers prate much of early hours, and of seeking their blankets with sunset; but we held to no such doctrine. Night in these wilds is rich with a mysterious beauty, an immensity of solitude such as day cannot dream of. Supper over, we stretched ourselves out between tent-door and camp-fire, pillowing our heads on the folded bedding. Across the yellow, fire-lit circle, through the trunks and hanging branches, we watched the still, gleaming level of the lake, whence at intervals would ring out startlingly clear the goblin laughter of the loon.
We were not so tired as on the previous evening, and it took us longer to settle down into the mood for story-telling. At last Stranion was called upon. He was ready, and speech flowed from him at once, as if his mouth had been just uncorked.
A NIGHT ENCOUNTER.
“I’ll tell you a tale,” said he, “of this very spot, on this very Big Squatook; and, of course, with me and the panther both in it.
“Once upon a time—that is to say in the summer of 1886—I fished over these waters with Tom Allison. You remember he was visiting Fredericton nearly all that year. We camped right here two days, and then went on to the Little Lake, or Second Squatook, just below.
“One moonlight night, when the windless little lake before our camp was like a shield of silver, and the woody mountains enclosing us seemed to hold their breath for delight, I was seized with an overwhelming impulse to launch the canoe and pole myself up here to Big Squatook. The distance between the two lakes is about a mile and a half, with rapid water almost all the way; and Allison, who had been amusing himself laboriously all day, was too much in love with his pipe and blankets by the camp-fire to think of accompanying me. All my persuasions were wasted upon him, so I went alone.
“Of course I had an excuse. I wanted to set night-lines for the gray trout, or togue, which haunt the waters of Big Squatook. A favorite feeding-ground of theirs is just where the water begins to shoal toward the outlet yonder. Strange as it may seem, the togue are never taken in Second Lake, or in any other of the Squatook chain.
“It was a weird journey up-stream, I can tell you. The narrow river, full of rapids, but so free from rocks in this part of its course that its voice seldom rises above a loud, purring whisper, was overhung by many ancient trees. Through the spaces between their tops fell the moonlight in sharp white patches. As the long slow thrusts of my pole forced the canoe stealthily upward against the current, the creeping panorama of the banks seemed full of elvish and noiseless life. White trunks slipped into shadow, and black stumps caught gleams of sudden radiance, till the strangeness of it all began to impress me more than its beauty, and I felt a curious and growing sense of danger. I even cast a longing thought backward toward the camp-fire’s cheer and my lazier comrade; and when at length, slipping out upon the open bosom of the lake, I put aside my pole and grasped my paddle, I drew a breath of distinct relief.