"Not to take the morning dip ... was to manifest a sad lack of the true camping spirit.""Not to take the morning dip ... was to manifest a sad lack of the true camping spirit."
The idea of bathing on such a morning and in that primitive costume had not, I think, occurred to me before, but I saw presently there was nothing else for it. A little later I was following Eddie, cringing from the cold, pelting rain, limping gingerly over sharp sticks and pebbles to the water's edge. The lake was shallow near the shore which meant a fearful period of wading before taking the baptismal plunge that would restore one's general equilibrium. It required courage, too, for the water was icy—courage to wade out to the place, and once there, to make the plunge. I should never have done it if Eddie had not insisted that according to the standard text-books the day inevery well-ordered camp always began with this ceremony. Not to take the morning dip, he said, was to manifest a sad lack of the true camping spirit. Thus prodded, I bade the world a hasty good-by and headed for the bottom. A moment later we were splashing and puffing like seals, shouting with the fierce, delightful torture of it—wide awake enough now, and marvelously invigorated when all was over.
"Catching it in the skillet as it fell, compelled admiration""Catching it in the skillet as it fell, compelled admiration"
We were off after breakfast—a breakfast of trout and flapjacks—the latter with maple sirup in the little eating tent. The flapjacks were Del's manufacture, and his manner of tossing the final large oneinto the air and catching it in the skillet as it fell, compelled admiration.
The lake was fairly smooth and the rain no longer fell. A gray morning—the surface of the water gray—a gray mantle around the more distant of the islands, with here and there sharp rocks rising just above the depths. It was all familiar enough to the guides, but to me it was a new world. Seated in the bow I swung my paddle joyously, and even with our weighty load it seemed that we barely touched the water. One must look out for the rocks, though, for a sharp point plunged through the bottom of a canoe might mean shipwreck. A few yards away, Eddie and his guide—light-weight bodies, both of them—kept abreast, their appearance somehow suggesting two grasshoppers on a straw.
It is six miles across Kedgeemakoogee and during the passage it rained. When we were about half-way over I felt a drop or two strike me and saw the water about the canoe spring up into little soldiers. A moment later we were struck on every side and the water soldiers were dancing in a multitude. Then they mingled and rushed together. The green islands were blotted out. The gates of the sky swung wide.
"To put on a pair of waders like that in the front end of a canoe in a pouring rain is no light matter.""To put on a pair of waders like that in the front end of a canoe in a pouring rain is no light matter."
Of course it was necessary to readjust matters. Del drew on his oilskins and I reached for my own. I had a short coat, a sou'wester, and a pair of heavy brown waders, so tall that they came up under my arms when fully adjusted. There was no special difficultyin getting on the hat and coat, but to put on a pair of waders like that in the front end of a canoe in a pouring rain is no light matter. There seemed no good place to straighten my legs out in order to get a proper pull. To stand up was to court destruction, and when I made an attempt to put a leg over the side of the canoe Del admonished me fearfully that another such move would send us to the bottom forthwith. Once my thumbs pulled out of the straps and I tumbled back on the stores, the rain beating down in my face. I suppose the suddenness of the movement disturbed the balance of the boat somewhat,for Del let out a yell that awoke a far-away loon, who replied dismally. When at last I had the feet on, I could not get the tops in place, for of course there was no way to get them anywhere near where they really belonged without standing up. So I had to remain in that half-on and half-off condition, far from comfortable, but more or less immune to wet. I realized what a sight I must look, and I could hardly blame Eddie for howling in derision at me when he drew near enough to distinguish my outline through the downpour. I also realized what a poor rig I had on for swimming, in event of our really capsizing, and I sat straight and still and paddled hard for the other side.
It was not what might be termed a "prolonged and continuous downpour." The gray veil lifted from the islands. The myriad of battling soldiers diminished. Presently only a corporal's guard was leaping and dancing about the canoe. Then these disappeared. The clouds broke away. The sun came. Ahead of us was a green shore—the other side of Kedgeemakoogee had been reached.
Where the trail leads back from the water's edge—Tangled and overgrown—Shoulder your load and strike the roadInto the deep unknown.
We were at the beginning of our first carry, now—a stretch of about two miles through the woods. The canoes were quickly unloaded, and as I looked more carefully at the various bags and baskets of supplies, I realized that they were constructed with a view of being connected with a man's back. I had heard and read a good deal about portages and I realized in a general way that the canoes had to be carried from one water system to another, but somehow I had never considered the baggage. Naturally I did not expect it to get over of its own accord, and when I came to consider the matter I realized that a man's back was about the only place where it could ride handily and with reasonable safety. I also realized that a guide's life is not altogether a holiday excursion.
I felt sorry for the guides. I even suggested to Eddie that he carry a good many of the things. I pointed out that most of them were really his, anyway, and that it was too bad to make our faithful retainers lug a drug store and sporting goods establishment, besides the greater part of a provision warehouse. Eddie sympathized with the guides, too. He was really quite pathetic in his compassion for them, buthe didn't carry any of the things. That is, any of those things.
It is the etiquette of portage—of Nova Scotia portage, at least—that the fisherman shall carry his own sporting paraphernalia—which is to say, his rods, his gun, if he has one, his fishing basket and his landing net. Also, perhaps, any convenient bag of tackle or apparel when not too great an inconvenience. It is the business of the guides to transport the canoes, the general outfit, and the stores. As this was to be rather a long carry, and as more than one trip would be necessary, it was proposed to make a half-way station for luncheon, at a point where a brook cut the trail.
But our procession did not move immediately. In the first place one of the canoes appeared to have sprung a leak, and after our six-mile paddle this seemed a proper opportunity to rest and repair damages. The bark craft was hauled out, a small fire scraped together and the pitch pot heated while the guides pawed and squinted about the boat's bottom to find the perforation. Meantime I tried a few casts in the lake, from a slanting rock, and finally slipped in, as was my custom. Then we found that we did not wish to wait until reaching the half-way brook before having at least a bite and sup. It was marshy and weedy where we were and no inviting place to serve food, but we were tolerably wet, and we had paddled a good way. We got out a can of corned beef anda loaf of bread, and stood around in the ooze, and cut off chunks and chewed and gulped and worked them down into place. Then we said we were ready, and began to load up. I experimented by hanging such things as landing nets and a rod-bag on my various projections while my hands were to be occupied with my gun and a tackle-bag. The things were not especially heavy, but they were shifty. I foresaw that the rod-bag would work around under my arm and get in the way of my feet, and that the landing nets would complicate matters. I tied them all in a solid bunch at last, with the gun inside. This simplified the problem a good deal, and was an arrangement for which I had reason to be thankful.
It was interesting to see our guides load up. Charles, the Strong, had been well named. He swung a huge basket on his back, his arms through straps somewhat like those which support an evening gown, and a-top of this, other paraphernalia was piled. I have seen pack burros in Mexico that were lost sight of under their many burdens and I remembered them now, as our guides stood forth ready to move. I still felt sorry for them (the guides, of course) and suggested once more to Eddie that he should assume some of their burdens. In fact, I was almost willing to do so myself, and when at the last moment both Charlie and Del stooped and took bundles in each hand, I was really on the very point of offering to carry something, only there was nothing more tocarry but the canoes, and of course they had to be left for the next trip. I was glad, though, of the generous impulse on my part. There is always comfort in such things. Eddie and I set out ahead.
There is something fine and inspiring about a portage. In the first place, it is likely to be through a deep wood, over a trail not altogether easy to follow. Then there is the fascinating thought that you are cutting loose another link from everyday mankind—pushing a chapter deeper into the wilderness, where only the more adventurous ever come. Also, there is the romantic gipsy feeling of having one's possessions in such compass that not only the supplies themselves, but the very means of transportation may be bodily lifted and borne from one water link to another of that chain which leads back ever farther into the unknown.
I have suggested that a portage trail is not always easy to follow. As a matter of fact the chances are that it will seldom be easy to follow. It will seldom be a path fit for human beings. It won't be even a decent moose path, and a moose can go anywhere that a bird can. A carry is meant to be the shortest distance between two given places and it doesn't strive for luxury. It will go under and over logs, through scratchy thickets and gardens of poison ivy. It will plow through swamps and quicksands; it will descend into pits; it will skin along the sharp edge of slippery rocks set up at impossible angles, so that only amountain goat can follow it without risking his neck. I believe it would climb a tree if a big one stood directly in its path.
We did not get through with entire safety. The guides, shod in their shoepacks, trained to the business, went along safely enough, though they lurched a good deal under their heavy cargoes and seemed always on the verge of disaster. Eddie and I did not escape. I saw Eddie slip, and I heard him come down with a grunt which I suspected meant damage. It proved a serious mishap, for it was to one of his reels, a bad business so early in the game. I fell, too, but I only lost some small areas of skin which I knew Eddie would replace with joy from a bottle in his apothecary bag.
But there were things to be seen on that two-mile carry. A partridge flew up and whirred away into the bushes. A hermit thrush was calling from the greenery, and by slipping through very carefully we managed to get a sight of his dark, brown body. Then suddenly Eddie called to me to look, and I found him pointing up into a tree.
"Porky, Porky!" he was saying, by which I guessed he had found a porcupine, for I had been apprised of the numbers in these woods. "Come, here's a shot for you," he added, as I drew nearer. "Porcupines damage a lot of trees and should be killed."
I gazed up and distinguished a black bunch clingingto the body of a fairly large spruce, near the top. "He doesn't seem to be damaging that tree much," I said.
"No, but he will. They kill ever so many. The State of Maine pays a bounty for their scalps."
I looked up again. Porky seemed to be inoffensive enough, and my killing blood was not much aroused.
"But the hunters and logmen destroy a good many more trees with their fires," I argued. "Why doesn't the State of Maine and the Province of Nova Scotia pay a bounty for the scalps of a few hunters and logmen?"
But Eddie was insistent. It was in the line of duty, he urged, to destroy porcupines. They were of no value, except, perhaps, to eat.
"Will you agree to eat this one if I shoot him?" I asked, unbundling my rifle somewhat reluctantly.
"Of course—that's understood."
I think even then I would have spared Porky's life, but at that moment he ran a little way up the tree. There was something about that slight movement that stirred the old savage in me. I threw my rifle to my shoulder, and with hasty aim fired into the center of the black bunch.
I saw it make a quick, quivering jump, slip a little, and cling fast. There was no stopping now. A steady aim at the black ball this time, and a second shot, followed by another convulsive start, a long slide, then a heavy thudding fall at our feet—a writhingand a twisting—a moaning and grieving as of a stricken child.
And it was not so easy to stop this. I sent shot after shot into the quivering black, pin-cushioned ball before it was finally still—its stained, beautifully pointed quills scattered all about. When it was over, I said:
"Well, Eddie, they may eat up the whole of Nova Scotia, if they want to—woods, islands and all, but I'll never shoot another, unless I'm starving."
We had none of us starved enough to eat that porcupine. In the first place he had to be skinned, and there seemed no good place to begin. The guides, when they came up, informed us that it was easy enough to do when you knew how, and that the Indians knew how and considered porcupine a great delicacy. But we were not Indians, at least not in the ethnological sense, and the delicacy in this instance applied only to our appetites. I could see that Eddie was anxious to break his vow, now that his victim was really dead by my hand. We gathered up a few of the quills—gingerly, for a porcupine quill once in the flesh, is said to work its way to the heart—and passed on, leaving the black pin cushion lying where it fell. Perhaps Porky's death saved one or two more trees for the next Nova Scotia fire.
There were no trout for luncheon at our half-way halt. The brook there was a mere rivulet, and we had not kept the single small fish caught that morning.Still I did not mind. Not that I was tired of trout so soon, but I began to suspect that it would require nerve and resolution to tackle them three times a day for a period of weeks, and that it might be just as well to start rather gradually, working in other things from time to time.
I protested, however, when Del produced a can of Columbia River salmon. That, I said, was a gross insult to every fish in the Nova Scotia waters. Canned salmon on a fishing trip! The very thought of it was an offense; I demanded that it be left behind with the porcupine. Never, I declared, would I bemean myself by eating that cheap article of commerce—that universally indigenous fish food—here in the home of the chief, the prince, thene plus ultraof all fishes—the Nova Scotia trout.
So Del put the can away, smiling a little, and produced beans. That was different. One may eat beans anywhere under the wide sky.
The black rock juts on the hidden poolAnd the waters are dim and deep,Oh, lightly tread—'tis a royal bed,And a king lies there asleep.
It was well into the afternoon before the canoes reached the end of the carry—poking out through the green—one on the shoulders of each guide, inverted like long shields, such as an ancient race might have used as a protection from arrows. Eddie and I, meantime, had been employed getting a mess of frogs, for it was swampy just there, and frogs, mosquitoes and midges possessed the locality. We anointed for the mosquitoes and "no-see-ums," as the midges are called by the Indians, and used our little rifles on the frogs.
I wonder, by the way, what mosquitoes were made for. Other people have wondered that before, but you can't overdo the thing. Maybe if we keep on wondering we shall find out. Knowledge begins that way, and it will take a lot of speculation to solve the mosquito mystery.
I can't think of anything that I could do without easier than the mosquito. He seems to me a creature wholly devoid of virtues. He is a glutton, a poisoner, a spreader of disease, a dispenser of disturbing music. That last is the hardest to forgive. If he would only be still I could overlook the other things. I wonder if he will take his voice with him into thenext world. I should like to know, too, which place he is bound for. I should like to know, so I could take the other road.[2]
Across Mountain Lake was not far, and then followed another short carry—another link of removal—to a larger lake, Pescawess. It was nearly five miles across Pescawess, but we made good time, for there was a fair wind. Also we had the knowledge that Pescawah Brook flows in on the other side, and the trout there were said to be large and not often disturbed.
We camped a little below this brook, and while the tents were going up Eddie and I took one of the canoes and slipped away past an island or two, among the strewn bowlders at the stream's mouth, pausing to cast a little here and there, though at first with no other result than to get our lines in a mess together.
"Now, say, old man," Eddie began, as my line made a turn around his neck and a half-dozen twists around his tackle, the whole dropping in a heap in the water, "you mustn't cast like that. You should use the treetop cast—straight up in the air, when there's a man behind you. Don't you know you might laceratea fellow's ear, or put a hook through his lip, or his nose, or something?"
I said that I was sorry, and that if he would give me a few points on the treetop cast, and then avoid sitting in the treetops as much as possible himself I thought there would be no further danger.
He was not altogether pacified. The lines were in a bad tangle and he said it was wasting precious time to be fooling that way. Clearly two men could not fish from one canoe and preserve their friendship, and after our lines were duly parted and Eddie had scolded me sufficiently, we went ashore just below where the swift current tumbles in, and made our way to the wide, deep, rock-bound pools above. The going was pretty thick and scratchy, and one had to move deliberately.
Eddie had more things to carry than I did, for he had brought his gun and his long-handled net, and these, with his rod, set up and properly geared with a long leader and two flies, worried him a good deal. The net had a way of getting hung on twigs. The line and leader displayed a genius for twisting around small but tough branches and vines, the hooks caught in unexpected places, and the gun was possessed to get between his legs. When I had time to consider him, he was swearing steadily and I think still blaming me for most of his troubles, though the saints know I was innocent enough and not without difficulties of my own. Chiefly, I was trying to avoidpoison ivy, which is my bane and seemed plentiful in this particular neck of the woods.
We were out at last, and the wide, dark pool, enclosed by great black bowlders and sloping slabs of stone, seemed as if it might repay our efforts. Not for years, maybe, had an artificial fly been cast in that water. Perhaps Eddie was still annoyed with me, for he pushed farther up to other pools, and was presently lost to view.
I was not sorry of this, for it may be remembered that I had thus far never caught a trout by casting in open, smooth water, and I was willing to practice a little alone. I decided to work deliberately, without haste and excitement, and to get my flies caught in the treetops as infrequently as possible. I adjusted them now, took a good look behind and tossed my cast toward the other side of the dark pool. I thought I did it rather well, too, and I dragged the flies with a twitching motion, as I had seen Eddie do it, but nothing happened. If there were trout anywhere in the world, they would be in a pool like this, and if there was ever an evening for them it was now. It was in the nature of probability that Eddie would come back with a good string, and I could not let him find me a confessed failure. So once more I sent the flies out over the pool—a little farther this time, and twitched them a little more carefully, but I might have been fishing in a tub, so far as any tangible fish were concerned.
A little more line and a reckless back cast landed my tail fly in a limb—a combination which required time and patience to disengage. By the time I had worked out the puzzle it began to seem like a warm evening. Then I snapped the flies into several different corners of the pool, got hung again on the same limb, jerked and broke the fly and repeated some of the words I had learned from Eddie as we came through the brush.
I was cooler after that, and decided to put on a new and different fly. I thought a Jenny Lind would be about the thing, and pretty soon was slapping it about—at first hopefully, then rashly. Then in mere desperation I changed the top fly and put on a Montreal. Of course I wouldn't catch anything. I never would catch anything, except by trolling, as any other duffer, or even a baby might, but I would have fun with the flies, anyway. So the Montreal went capering out over the pool, landing somewhere amid the rocks on the other side. And then all at once I had my hands full of business, for there was a leap and a splash, and a z-z-z-t of the reel, and a second later my rod was curved like a buggy whip, the line as taut as wire and weaving and swaying from side to side with a live, heavy body, the body of a trout—a real trout—hooked by me with a fly, cast on a quiet pool.
I wouldn't have lost that fish for money. But I was deadly afraid of doing so. A good thing for me,then, my practice in landing, of the evening before. "Easy, now—easy," I said to myself, just as Del had done. "If you lose this fish you're a duffer, sure enough; also a chump and several other undesirable things. Don't hurry him—don't give him unnecessary line in this close place where there may be snags—don't, above all things, let him get any slack on you. Just a little line, now—a few inches will do—and keep the tip of your rod up. If you point it at him and he gets a straight pull he will jump off, sure, or he will rush and you cannot gather the slack. Work him toward you, now, toward your feet, close in—your net has a short handle, and is suspended around your neck by a rubber cord. The cord will stretch, of course, but you can never reach him over there. Don't mind the reel—you have taken up enough line. You can't lift out a fish like that on a four-ounce rod—on any rod short of a hickory sapling. Work him toward you, you gump! Bring your rod up straighter—straighter—straight! Now for the net—carefully—oh, you clumsy duffer, to miss him! Don't you know that you can't thrash him into the net like that?—that you must dip the netunderhim? I suppose you thought you were catching mice. You deserve to lose him altogether. Once more, now, he's right at your feet—a king!"
Two long backward steps after that dip, for I must be certain that he was away from the water's edge. Then I bumped into something—something soft thatlaughed. It was Eddie, and he had two fish in his landing net.
"Bully!" he said. "You did it first-rate, only you don't need to try to beat him to death with the landing net. Better than mine," he added, as I took my trout off the fly. "Suppose now we go below. I've taken a look and there's a great pool, right where the brook comes out. We can get to it in the canoe. I'll handle the canoe while you fish."
That, also, is Eddie's way. He had scolded me and he would make amends. He had already taken down his rod, and we made our way back through the brush without much difficulty, though I was still hot with effort and excitement, and I fear a little careless about the poison ivy. A few minutes later, Eddie, who handles a canoe—as he does everything else pertaining to the woods—with grace and skill, had worked our craft among the rocks into the wide, swift water that came out from under a huge fallen log—the mouth of Pescawah Brook.
"Cast there," he said, pointing to a spot just below the log.
Within twenty minutes from that time I had learned more about fishing—real trout fishing—than I had known before in all my life. I had, in Eddie, a peerless instructor, and I had such water for a drill ground as is not found in every day's, or every week's, or every month's travel. Besides, there were fish. Singly and in pairs they came—great, beautiful, mottledfellows—sometimes leaping clear of the water like a porpoise, to catch the fly before it fell. There were none less than a pound, and many over that weight. When we had enough for supper and breakfast—a dozen, maybe—we put back the others that came, as soon as taken from the hook. The fishing soon ended then, for I believe the trout have some means of communication, and one or two trout returned to a pool will temporarily discourage the others. It did not matter. I had had enough, and once more, thanks to Eddie, returned to the camp, jubilant.
Where the path is thick and the branches twineI pray you, friend, beware!For the noxious breath of a lurking vineMay wither your gladness there.
It was raining next morning, but that was not the worst. During the night I had awakened with a curious, but not entirely unfamiliar sensation about one of my eyes. There was a slight irritant, itching tendency, and the flesh felt puffy to the touch. I tried to believe it was imagination, and went to sleep again.
But there was no doubt next morning. Imagination is a taunting jade, but I don't believe she could close one of my eyes and fatten up the other—not in so short a time. It was poison ivy—that was what it was—and I had it bad.
"Our one looking-glass was not big enough to hold all of even one eye.""Our one looking-glass was not big enough to hold all of even one eye."
When Eddie woke, which he did, finally, he took one look at me and dove back into his sleeping bag out of pure fear. He said I was a sight, and he was correct. Our one looking-glass was not big enough to hold all of even one eye, but taking my features in sections I could see that he had not overstated my appearance. Perhaps the situation was amusing, too—at least Eddie, and even the guides, professed to be entertained—but for me, huddled against one side of a six by eight tent—a tent otherwise packed with bags and bundles and traps of various kinds—Eddie's things, mostly, and Eddie himself among them—witha chill rain coming down outside, and with a face swollen and aching in a desperate way with poison, the quality of the humor to me seemed strained when I tried to distinguish it with the part of an eye I had left.
Eddie meantime had dived down into his bag of remedies, happy to have a chance to use any or all of them, and was laying them out on his sleeping bag in front of him—in his lap, as it were, for he had notyet arisen—reading the labels and wondering which he should try on me first. I waited a little, then I said:
"Never mind those, Eddie, give me your alcohol and witch hazel."
But then came an embarrassing moment. Running his eye over the bottles and cans Eddie was obliged to confess that not one of them contained either alcohol or witch hazel.
"Eddie," I said reproachfully, "can it be, in a drug store like that, there is neither alcohol nor witch hazel?"
He nodded dismally.
"I meant to bring them," he said, "but the triple extract of gelsemium would do such a lot of things, and I thought I didn't need them, and then you made fun of that, and—and——"
"Never mind, Eddie," I said, "I have an inspiration. If alcohol cures it, maybe whisky will, and thank Heaven we did bring the whisky!"
We remained two days in that camp and I followed up the whisky treatment faithfully. It rained most of the time, so the delay did not matter. Indeed it was great luck that we were not held longer by that distressing disorder which comes of the malignant three-leaved plant known as mercury, or poison ivy. Often it has disqualified me for a week or more. But the whisky treatment was a success. Many times a day I bathed my face in the pure waters of the lakeand then with the spirits—rye or Scotch, as happened to be handy. By the afternoon of the first day I could see to put sirup on my flapjacks, and once between showers I felt able to go out with Eddie in the canoe, during which excursion he took a wonderful string of trout in a stagnant-looking, scummy pool where no one would ever expect trout to lie, and where no one but Eddie could have taken them at all.
By the next morning, after a night of sorrow—for my face always pained and itched worse when everybody was in bed and still, with nothing to soothe me but the eternal drip, drip from the boughs and from the eaves of the tent—the swelling was still further reduced, and I felt able to travel. And I wish to add here in all seriousness that whatever may be your scruples against the use of liquors, don't go into the woods without whisky—rye or Scotch, according to preference. Alcohol, of course, is good for poison ivy, but whisky is better. Maybe it is because of the drugs that wicked men are said to put into it. Besides, whisky has other uses. The guides told us of one perfectly rigid person who, when he had discovered that whisky was being included in his camp supplies, had become properly incensed, and commanded that it be left at home. The guides had pleaded that he need not drink any of it, that they would attend to that part of what seemed to them a necessary camp duty, but he was petrified in his morals, and the whisky remained behind.
Well, they struck a chilly snap, and it rained. It was none of your little summer landscape rains, either. It was a deadly cold, driving, drenching saturation. Men who had built their houses on the sand, and had no whisky, were in a bad fix. The waves rose and the tents blew down, and the rigid, fossilized person had to be carried across an overflowed place on the back of a guide, lifting up his voice meanwhile in an effort to convince the Almighty that it was a mistake to let it rain at this particular time, and calling for whisky at every step.
It is well to carry one's morals into the woods, but if I had to leave either behind, I should take the whisky.
It was a short carry to Lake Pescawah. Beyond that water we carried again about a quarter of a mile to a lake called Pebbleloggitch—perhaps for the reason that the Indian who picked out the name couldn't find a harder one. From Pebbleloggitch we made our way by a long canal-like stillwater through a land wherein no man—not even an Indian, perhaps—has ever made his home, for it lies through a weird, lonely marsh—a sort of meadow which no reaper ever harvested, where none but the wild moose ever feeds.
We were nearing the edge of the unknown now. One of the guides, Del, I think, had been through this stillwater once before, a long time ago. At the end of it, he knew, lay the upper Shelburne River, which was said to flow through a sheet of water calledIrving Lake. But where the river entered the lake and where it left it was for us to learn. Already forty miles or more from our starting point, straight into the wilderness, we were isolated from all mankind, and the undiscovered lay directly before. At the end of the stillwater Del said:
"Well, gentlemen, from this on you know as much of the country as I do. All I know is what I've heard, and that's not much. I guess most of it we'll have to learn for ourselves."
By lonely tarn, mid thicket deep,The she-moose comes to bearHer sturdy young, and she doth keepIt safely guarded there.
We got any amount of fly-casting in the Pebbleloggitch stillwater, but no trout. I kept Del dodging and twice I succeeded in hooking him, though not in a vital spot. I could have done it, however, if he had sat still and given me a fair chance. I could land Del even with the treetop cast, but the trout refused to be allured. As a rule, trout would not care to live in a place like that. There would not be enough excitement and activity. A trout prefers a place where the water is busy—where the very effort of keeping from being smashed and battered against the rocks insures a good circulation and a constitution like a steel spring. I have taken trout out of water that would have pulverized a golf ball in five minutes. The fiercer the current—the greater the tumult—the more cruel and savage the rocks, the better place it is for trout.
Neither do I remember that we took anything in the Shelburne above Irving Lake, for it was a good deal like the stillwater, with only a gentle riffle here and there. Besides, the day had become chill, and a mist had fallen upon this lonely world—a wet white, drifting mist that was closely akin to rain. On such a day one does not expect trout to rise, and is seldom disappointed. Here and there, where the current wasslow-moving and unruffled, Eddie, perhaps, would have tried his dry flies, but never a trout was seen to break water, and it is one of the tenets of dry-fly fishing that a cast may only be made where a trout has been seen to rise—even then, only after a good deal of careful maneuvering on shore to reach the proper spot on the bank without breaking the news to the trout. It wasn't a pleasant time to go wriggling through marsh grass and things along the shore, so it is just as well that there was no excuse for doing it.
As it was, we paddled rather silently down the still river, considerably impressed with the thought that we were entering a land to us unknown—that for far and far in every direction, beyond the white mist that shut us in and half-obliterated the world, it was likely that there was no human soul that was not of our party and we were quieted by the silence and the loneliness on every hand.
Where the river entered the lake there was no dashing, tumbling water. In fact, we did not realize that we had reached the lake level until the shores on either hand receded, slowly at first, and then broadly widening, melted away and were half lost in the mist.
The feeling grew upon me, all at once, that we were very high here. There were no hills or ridges that we could see, and the outlines of such timber as grew along the shore seemed low. It was as if we had reached the top of the world, where therewere no more hills—where the trees had been obliged to struggle up to our altitude, barely to fringe us round. As for course now, we had none. Our map was of the vaguest sort. Where the outlet was we could only surmise.
In a general way it was supposed to be at the "other end" of the lake, where there was said to be an old dam, built when the region was lumbered, long ago. But as to the shape of the lake, and just where that "other end" might lie, when every side except the bit of shore nearest at hand was lost in the wet, chill mist, were matters for conjecture and experiment. We paddled a little distance and some islands came out of the gray veil ahead—green Nova Scotia islands, with their ledges of rock, some underbrush and a few sentinel pines. We ran in close to these, our guides looking for moose or signs of them.
I may say here that no expedition in Nova Scotia is a success without having seen at least one moose. Of course, in the hunting season, the moose is the prime object, but such is the passion for this animal among Nova Scotia guides, that whatever the season or the purpose of the expedition, and however triumphant its result, it is accounted a disappointment and a failure by the natives when it ends without at least a glimpse of a moose.
We were in wonderful moose country now; the uninvaded wild, where in trackless bog and swamp, or on the lonely and forgotten islands the she-moosesecludes herself to bear and rear her young. That Charlie and Del were more absorbed in the possibility of getting a sight of these great, timid, vanishing visions of animal life—and perhaps a longer view of a little black, bleating calf—than in any exploration for the other end of the Shelburne River was evident. They clung and hovered about those islands, poking the canoes into every nook and corner, speaking in whispers, and sitting up straight at sight of any dark-looking stump or bunch of leaves. Eddie, too, seemed a good deal interested in the moose idea. I discovered presently that he was ambitious to send a specimen of a moose calf, dead or alive, to the British Museum, and would improve any opportunity to acquire that asset.
I may say that I was opposed to any such purpose. I am overfond of Eddie, and I wanted him to have a good standing with the museum people, but I did not like the idea of slaughtering a little calf moose before its mother's very eyes, and I did not approve of its capture, either. Even if the mother moose could be convinced that our intentions were good, and was willing to have her offspring civilized and in the British Museum, or Zoo, or some other distinguished place, I still opposed the general scheme. It did not seem to me that a calf moose tied either outside or inside of our tent for a period of weeks, to bleat and tear around, and to kick over and muss up things generally, would be a proper feature to add to a well-orderedcamp, especially if it kept on raining and we had to bring him inside. I knew that eventually he would own that tent, and probably demand a sleeping bag. I knew that I should have to give him mine, or at least share it with him.
I stated and emphasized these views and insisted that we go over toward the half-obscured shore, where there appeared to be an opening which might be the river. We did go over there, at length, and there was, in fact, an opening, but it was made by a brook entering the lake instead of leaving it. Our memorandum of information declared that a stream called the Susketch emptied into the lake somewhere, and we decided to identify this as the place. We went up a little way to a good looking pool, but there were no trout—at least, they refused to rise, though probably the oldest and mossiest inhabitant of that place had never had such an opportunity before. Back to the lake again, we were pretty soon hovering about the enchanted islands, which seemed to rise on every hand.
It was just the sort of a day to see moose, Del said, and there was no other matter that would stand in importance against a proposition like that. I became interested myself, presently, and dropped my voice to a whisper and sat up at every black spot among the leaves. We had just about given it up at length, when all at once Del gave the canoe a great shove inshore, at the same time calling softly to theother canoe, which had already sheared off into the lake.
They were with us in an instant and we were clambering out. I hadn't seen a thing, but Del swore that he had caught a glimpse of something black that moved and disappeared.
Of course we were clad in our wet-weather armor. I had on my oilskins, and what was more, those high, heavy wading boots that came up under my arms. It is no easy matter to get over even level ground rapidly with a rig like that, and when it comes to scaling an island, full of ledges and holes and underbrush and vines, the problem becomes complex. Del and Charlie, with their shoepacks, distanced me as easily as if I had been sitting still, while that grasshopper, Eddie, with only the lightest sort of waders, skipped and scampered away and left me plunging and floundering about in the brush, with scarcely the possibility of seeing anything, even if it were directly in front of my nose.
As a matter of fact, I didn't care anything about seeing moose, and was only running and making a donkey of myself because the others were doing it, and I had caught a touch of their disease.
Suddenly, I heard Charlie call, "There they are! There they go!" and with a wild redoubled effort I went headlong into a deep pit, half-filled with leaves and brush, and muck of various sorts. This, of course, would seem to assassinate any hope I mighthave of seeing the moose, but just then, by some occult process, Charles, the Strong, discovered my disaster, and with that prowess which has made him famous yanked me out of the mess, stood me on my feet and had me running again, wallowing through the bushes toward the other side of the little island whence the moose had fled.
"There they go—they are swimming!" I heard Del call, and then Eddie:
"I see em! I see em!" and then Charles's voice, a little ahead of me: