We started down stream in the morning, towards the forks, intending to ascend the left branch to Little Tupper's Lake. We reached the forks at three o'clock. Directly opposite to where the right branch enters, a small cold stream comes in among a cluster of alder bushes on the eastern shore. At the mouth of this little stream, which one can step across, the trout congregate. We could see them laying in shoals along the bottom; but the sun shone down bright and warm into the clear water, and not a trout would rise to the fly, or touch a bait. We wanted some of those trout, and as they refused to be taken in a scientific way and according to art, it was a necessity, for which we were not responsible, which impelled us to a method of capture which, under ordinary circumstances, we should have rejected. I took off the fly from my line, and fastened upon it half a dozen snells with bare hooks, attached a small sinker, and dropped quietly among them. A large fellow worked his way lazily above where the hooks lay on the bottom, eying me, as if laughing at my folly in attempting to deceive him, with fly or bait. I jerked suddenly, and two of the hooks fastened into him near the tail. That trout was astonished, as were half a dozen or more of his fellows, when they came out of the water tail foremost, struggling with all their might against so vulgar and undignified a manner of leaving their native element. We got as beautiful a string in this way as one would wish to see, albeit they laughed at our best skill with fly and bait; and the cream of the matter was, that we had our pick of the shoal.
We pitched our tents at the foot of the second rapids, on a high, moss-covered bank. The roar of the water sounded deep and solemn among the old woods, as it went roaring and tumbling, and struggling through the gorge. The night winds moaned and sighed among the trees above us, while the night bird's notes came soothingly from the wilderness around as.
"What a strange diversity of tastes exists among the people of this world of ours," said the Doctor, addressing himself to me, as we sat in front of our tents, listening to the roar of the waters. "You and I, I take it, enjoy a fortnight or so, among these lakes, and old forests, with a keener relish than Spalding or Smith here. I judge so, because we indulge in these trips every year, while this is their first adventure of the kind. But even you and I, however much we may love the woods, however we may enjoy these occasional tramps among their shady solitudes, would not enjoy them as a residence; and yet I have sometimes thought I should love to spend the summers in a forest home, alone with nature, with my pen and books, a fishing-rod and rifle to supply my wants, and a friend to talk with occasionally.
"Many years ago, I was out on the Western prairies, some sixty days beyond the region of bread; we had encamped on the banks of a stream, along which a narrow belt of timber grew. More than a quarter of a century has passed since I took that trip to look upon the Rocky Mountains. There was no gold region laying beyond them then, or rather, the enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon had not discovered its existence, and the greed of the white man had not made the trail over the mountains, or through their dismal passes, a familiar way. Along in the afternoon we were visited by a trapper, who had, in his wanderings, discovered the smoke of our camp fires. He was a weather-beaten, iron man, of the solitudes of nature, who had wandered away from his home in New England, and from civilization, into that limitless wilderness. He was glad to see us, inquired the news from the outer world, talked about York State, Vermont, the Bay State, and then, after an hour's converse, as if his social instincts and sympathies had been satisfied, he shouldered his rifle and started off across the plain, towards a belt of timber lying dim and shadowy, like a low cloud, upon the distant horizon. I watched him for an hour or more, as he trudged away over the rolling prairie, growing less and less to the view, until he became like a speck in the distance, and then vanished from my sight. There was a solemn sort of feeling stole over me, as this lonely hunter wended his way into the deep solitudes of the prairies, to be alone with nature, communing only with himself and the things scattered around him by the great Creator. He seemed to be contented and happy. How different were his tastes from yours or mine, my friends; and yet I felt as though it would have been easy for me to have been like him, an isolated and solitary man, had circumstances in early life thrown me into a position to have followed the original bent of my nature."
"And yet," said Spalding, "if you will look into the philosophy of the matter, you will see that this diversity of tastes, as you call it, is not so great after all; that is, that the origin of the impulse which sends some men away from society among the solitudes of the wilderness, and of that which holds others in constant communion with the busy scenes of life, is very nearly the same. It is the love of adventure, of excitement, a restlessness for something new, a desire for change. This impulse is controlled, shaped by circumstances of early life, by education and association; but the foundation of it at last is the thirst for excitement, the love of adventure. One man wanders away into the wilderness in pursuit of it. Another plunges into society in pursuit of the same thing. These hardy men who are here with us, who were reared on the borders of civilization, enjoy the solitudes of their wilderness quite as much, and upon the same general theory, as we do the society to which we have been accustomed; and they plunge alone into the one with quite as much zest as we do into the other, in the pursuit of excitement. Here is Cullen, now, who has spent more time alone in the wilderness than almost any other man outside of the trappers and hunters of the prairies of the West, I appeal to him if it is not rather a love of adventure than of nature which sends him on his solitary rambles in the forests?"
"May be the Judge is right," replied Cullen, as he rubbed the shavings of plug tobacco in the palm of his left hand with the ball of his right, while he held his short black pipe between his teeth, preparatory to filling it, "may be the Judge is right, I rather think he is, and let me tell you I've met with some queer adventures, as you call them, in these woods too; some that I wouldn't have gone out arter if I'd known what they were to've been afore I started. I've been movin' back from what you call civilization for five and twenty year, because I didn't like to live where people were too thick, and where there was nothing but tame life around me. I've a kind of liking for the deer and moose, and haven't any ill will towards, now and then, a wolf or a painter. I like a rifle better than I do the handles of a plow, and I'd rayther bring down a ten-pronger than to raise an acre of corn, and I don't care who knows it. There's a place in the world for just such a man as I am yet, and will be till these old woods are gone. Do you see that?" said he, rolling up his pantaloons to his knees, revealing a deep scar on both sides of the calf of his leg, as if it had been pierced by a bullet. "And do you see that?" as he exhibited another deep scar above his knee. "And that?" as he showed another on his arm, above the elbow. "Wal, I reckon I had a time of it with the old buck that made them things on my under-pinin', and on my corn-stealer, as they say out West. Fifteen years ago I was over on Tupper's Lake, shantyin' on the high bank above the rocks, just at the outlet, fishin' and huntin', and layin' around loose, in a promiscuous way, all alone by myself, havin' nobody along but the old black dog that you," appealing to Hank Wood, who nodded assent, remember. "That dog," continued Cullen, "was human in his day, and if anybody has another like him, and wants a couple of months lumberin' in the place of him, I'm ready for a trade; he may call at my shanty. Wal, Crop and I had Seen about all there was to be looked at about Tupper's Lake, and havin' hearn some pretty tall stories about the deer and moose up about the head of Bog River from an Ingen who'd hunted that section, I mentioned to Crop one mornin' that we'd take a trip into them parts. 'Agreed,' said he, or leastwise he didn't say a word agin it, and, by the wag of his tail, I understood him to be agreeable.
"Mud Lake, as you've discovered, aint very near now, and it was a good deal farther off then. The settlements hadn't been pushed so far into the woods then as now. But we put out, Crop and I, for Mud Lake; we passed the eight carryin' places afore night, and reached the first chain of ponds while the sun was hangin' like a great torch in the tree-tops. I've seen a good many deer in my day, but the way they stood around in those ponds, and in the shallow water of the river below, among the grass and pond lilies, was a thing to make a man open his eyessome.I saw dozens of 'em at a time, and if it didn't seem like a sheep paster I would'nt say it. I had my pick out of the lot, and knocked over a two-year-old for provision for me and Crop. I aint at all poetical, but if there was ever a matter to make a man feel like stringin' rhymes, that evenin' that Crop and I spent on the lower chain of ponds, or little lakes on Bog River, was a thing of that sort. The sun threw his bright red light on the tops of the mountains away off to the East, spreading it all over the lofty peaks, like a golden shawl, while the gorges and deep valleys around their base rested in deep and solemn shadow. The loon spoke out clear, like a bugle on the lakes, and his voice went echoin' around among the hills; the frogs were out and out jolly, while the old woods were full of happy voices and merry songs as if all nater was runnin' over with gladness and joy; even the night breeze, as it sighed and moaned among the tree-tops, seemed to be whisperin' to itself of the joy and brightness and glory of such an evenin'. As the night gathered, the moon, in her largest growth, came up over the hills and walked like a queen up into the sky, and the bright stars gathered around her, twinklin' and flashin' and dancin', as if merry-makin' in the brightness of her presence. Away down below the bottom of the lake were other mountains and lakes, another moon with bright stars shinin' and twinklin' around her, other broad heavens just as distinct and glorious as those which arched above us. Don't laugh, Judge, for me and Crop saw and heard all that I've been describin' to you, and we felt it too, may be quite as deeply as if we'd been bred in colleges and stuffed with the larnin' of the books.
"I heard the cry of the painter, the howl of the wolf, and the hoarse bellow of the moose that night, and Crop crept close alongside of me, in our bush-shanty, and answered these forest sounds by a low growl, as if sayin' to himself, that while he'd rayther keep oat of a fight, yet, if necessary, in defence of his master, he was ready to go in. Wal, we started on up stream next mornin', passed the second chain of lakes, and went along up the crooked and windin' course of the stream, till towards night we came in sight of Mud Lake. That lake is anything but handsome to my thinkin'; you saw it was gloomy and solemn enough, situated as it is away up on the top of the mountain, higher than any other waters I know of in these parts. All about it are fir, and tamarack, and spruce, the lichens hanging like long grey hair away down from their stinted branches, while all around low bushes grow, and moss, sometimes a foot thick, covers the ground. That, Judge, is the place for black flies and mosquitoes in June. The black flies are all gone before this time in the summer, but if you'd a taken this trip the latter part of June, you'd have admitted that I'm tellin' no lie. If there's any place in the round world where mosquitoes have longer bills, or the black flies swarm in mightier hosts, I don't know where it is, and shan't go there if I happen to find out its location. I've a tolerably thick hide, but if they didn't bite mesome, I wouldn't say so. But you ought to have seen the deer feedin' on the pond-lilies and grass in that lake I They were like sheep in a pasture; and out some fifty rods from the shore was a great moose, helpin' himself to the eatables that grew there. I laid my jacket down for Crop to watch, and waded quietly in towards where the moose was feedin'. I got within twelve or fifteen rods of him, and spoke to him with my rifle. He heard it, you may guess. Without knowin' who or what hurt him, he plunged right towards me for the shore; but he never got there alive. You ought to have seen the scampering of the deer at the sound of my rifle! Maybe there wasn't much splashin' of the water, and whistlin', and snortin', and puttin' out for the shore among 'em.
"The next mornin', I got up just as the sun was risin', and a little way down on the shore of the lake I saw a buck. Wal, he was one of 'em—that buck was. The horns on his head were like an old-fashioned round-posted chair, and if they hadn't a dozen prongs on 'em, you may skin me! He wasn't as big as an ox, but a two-year-old that could match him, could brag of a pretty rapid growth. I crept up behind a little clump of bushes to about fifteen rods of where he stood on the sandy beach, and sighting carefully at his head, let drive. My gun hung fire a little, owin' to the night-dews, but that buck went down, and after kickin' a moment, laid still, and I took it for granted he was dead. So I laid down my rifle, and went up to where he was, and with my huntin' knife in my hand, took hold of his horn to raise his head so as to cut his throat. If that deer was dead, he came to life mighty quick; for I had no sooner touched him, than he sprang to his feet, and with every hair standin' straight towards his head, came like a mad bull at me. In strugglin' up he overshot me; and as he made his drive one prong went through the calf of my leg. I plunged my knife into his body, and the blood spirted all over me. But it wasn't no use. He smashed down upon me again, and made that hole in my leg above the knee. I handled my knife in a hurry, and made more than one hole in his skin, while he stuck a prong through my arm. I hollered for Crop, who was watching the shanty as his duty was. The old buck and I had it rough and tumble; sometimes one a-top, and sometimes the other, and both growin' weak from loss of blood. May be we didn't kick and tussle about, and tear up the sand on the beach of the lakesome!The buck was game to the backbone, and had no notion of givin' in, and I had to fight for it, or die; so up and down, over and over, and all around, we went for a long time, until Crop made up his mind that my callin' so earnestly meant something, and round the point he came. When he saw what was goin' on, you ought to've seen howhewent in! He didn't stop to ask any questions, but as if possessed by all the furies of creation he lit upon that buck, and the fight was up. He with his teeth, and I with my knife, settled the matter in less than a minute. But, Judge, let me tell you, that buck was dangerous; and if Crop hadn't been around, may be ther'd have been the bones of man and beast bleachin' on the sandy beach of Mud Lake! I bound up my wounds as well as I could—but it was tough work backin' my bark canoe over the carryin' places on Bog River, and across the Ingen carryin' place, and from the Upper Saranac to Bound Lake, with them holes in my leg and arm, and the other bruises I received. When I got out to the settlements I was mighty glad to lay still for six weeks, and when I got around again I was a good deal leaner than I am now.
"My gun hangin' fire made my bullet go wide of the spot I aimed at. It had grazed his skull and stunned him for a little time, and crazed him into the bargain. I learned more fully a fact that I'd an idea of before, by my fight with that deer, and it is this—that it's best to keep out of the way of a furious buck with tall, sharp horns on his head. He's a dangerous animal to handle.
"That's one of the adventures that I went out into the wilderness arter, and found without lookin' for it; and I've found a good many others that put me and Crop in a tight place more than once. I backed him over all the carryin' places between Little Tupper's and the Saranacs once, when he was too lame and weak to walk, and nussed him for a month afterwards. But that's an adventer I'll tell another time. There's a deal of excitement, as the Judge calls it, outside of the fences, if people will take the pains to look for it there."
We put up our tents the next evening, on a bold bluff near the outlet of Round Pond, a picturesque and pleasant sheet of water, some eight or ten miles in circumference. It lay there still and waveless, in that calm summer evening, as glassy and smooth as if no breeze had ever stirred its surface. All around it were old forests, old hills and rocks, and away off in the distance were the tall peaks of the Adirondacks, standing up grim, solemn, and shadowy in the distance. These peaks are seen from almost every direction. They tower so far above the surrounding highlands, that they seem always to be peering over the intervening ranges, as if holding an everlasting watch over the broad wilderness beneath them. This lake is probably more than a thousand feet above the Rackett, and the river falls that distance principally at the two rapids around which our boats were carried. The rest of the way it is a deep, sluggish stream, so that the descent may be reckoned within less than three miles. A ledge of rocks forms the lower boundary of the lake, through which the water, at some remote period, broke its way, and it goes roaring down rapids for three-quarters of a mile, then moves in a sluggish current across a plain of several miles in extent; then plunges down a steep descent for over a mile and a half to subside again into quiet, and move on with a sluggish current to plunge down the ledges again into Tupper's Lake. There are no perpendicular falls of more than twenty feet, but the water goes plunging, and boiling, and foaming down shelving rocks, and eddying, and whirling around immense boulders, rushing and roaring through the gorges with a voice like thunder. These falls are all useless here, and probably will be for centuries to come; but were they out in the "living world," in the midst of civilization, with a fertile and populous region about them, they would soon be harnessed to great wheels, and made utilitarian; the clank of machinery would soon be heard above the roar of their waters. They would do an immensity of labor on their returnless journey to the ocean. But here, they are utterly valueless, wasting their mighty power upon desolate rocks, rushing in mad and impotent fury forever through a region of barrenness and sterility, so far as the uses of civilization are concerned, a region where the manufacturer or the agriculturist will never tarry, until the world shall be so full of people that necessity will drive them to the mountains, to build up the waste places of the earth. Opposite, and across the bay from where our tents were pitched, I noticed that a small stream entered the lake, and Smith and myself crossed over to experiment among the trout I knew would be gathered there. We were entirely successful, for we took one at almost every throw. I have more than once stated, that the trout of these lakes and rivers, in the warm season, congregate where the cold streams enter; and if the sportsman will search out the little brooks, no matter how small, and cast his fly across where their waters enter the lake or river, he will be sure to find trout in any of the hot summer months.
We returned to camp before the sun went behind the hills, with our fish ready for the pan, and our boatmen provided us with a meal of jerked venison, pork, and trout, which an epicure might envy, and to which a hard day's journey and an appetite sharpened by the bracing influence of the pure mountain air, gave a peculiar relish. It was a pleasant thing to see the moon come up from among the trees that formed a dark outline to the lake away off to the east, and travel up into the sky; to see how faithfully it was given back from down in the stirless waters, and how the stars twinkled and glowed around it in the depths below, as they did in the depths above. There was the moon, and there the stars, all bright and glorious in the heavens above; and there another moon, and other stars, as bright and glorious, down in the vault below; the lake floating, as it were, an almost viewless mist, a shadowy and transparent veil between. As we sat, in the greyness of twilight, in front of our tents, a curious sound came over the lake from the opposite shore, so like civilization that it startled us for a moment. Here we were, fifty miles from a house, away in the forest beyond the sound of anything savoring of human agency, and yet we heard distinctly what was for all the world like the blows of an axe or hammer upon a stake, driving it into the earth. It had the peculiar ring, which any one will recognise who has driven a stake into ground covered with water, by blows given by the side instead of the head of an axe. These blows were given at intervals so regular, that we all suspended smoking, certain that there were other sportsmen beside ourselves in the neighborhood of this lake.
"Who in the world is that?" asked Smith, of Martin, who seemed to enjoy our astonishment.
"That," replied Martin, "is a gentleman known in these parts as the 'Pile-driver.' He visits all these lakes in the summer season, and though, as a general thing, he travels alone, yet he sometimes has half a dozen friends with him. If you'll listen a moment, may be you'll find that he has a friend in the neighborhood now who will drive a pile in another place."
Sure enough, in a moment the same ringing blows came from a reedy spot in a different part of the bay.
"The bird that makes that noise," said Martin, "is about the homeliest creature in these woods. It is a small grey heron, that lights down among the grass and weeds to hunt for small frogs and such little fish as swim along the shore. When he drives his pile, he stands with his neck and long bill pointed straight up, and pumping the air into his throat, sends it oat with the strange sound you have heard. It is the resemblance of the sound to that made by driving a stake into ground covered with water, that gives him his name. He's an awkward, filthy bird, but he helps to make up the noises one hears in these wild regions."
"My first thought was," said Smith, "that we had got among the spirits of the woods, and that they were 'rapping' their indignation at our presence, there was something so human about it."
"By the way," remarked the Doctor, "and you remind me of the subject, what a strange delusion is this Spiritualism, to the 'manifestations' of which you refer, and how singular it is that men of strong natural sense and cultivated minds, should be drawn into it. We all know such. Their delusion, too, is stronger than mere speculative belief. It is a faith which to them appears to amount to absolute knowledge. They have no doubt or hesitancy on the subject. Their convictions are perfect; such, that were they as strong in their faith as Christians, as they are in the reality of Spiritualism, they would be able to move mountains."
"I have noticed this intensity of their faith," said Smith; "and while I utterly reject the whole theory of Spiritualism, I could never join in the ridicule of its earnest devotees. There is something that commands my respect in this strong faith, when honestly entertained, however stupendous the error may be to which it clings. There is something, to my mind, too solemn for derision in the idea of communing with the spirits of the departed, or that the time is approaching when living men and the souls of the physically dead, are to meet, as it were, face to face, and know each other as they are. It is one which I can, and do reject, but cannot ridicule. The world, however, regards it differently. And yet with all the contempt and derision that has been poured upon this singular delusion, its devotees have multiplied beyond all precedent in the history of the world. They number, it is said, in this country alone, millions, and have some forty or more newspapers in the exclusive advocacy of their theory."
"The wise people of this world," said Spalding, "that is, those who are wise in their day and generation, laugh at the believers in this modern theory of Spiritualism. They pity them, too, as the unhappy devotees of a faith which sober reason and all the experience of the past prove to be as unsubstantial as the moonbeams that dance upon the waters at midnight. Still these same devotees point to the demonstrations of what they regard as living facts, phenomena palpable to the senses, things that appeal to the eye, the ear, and the touch, and say that these are higher proofs than all the dogmas of philosophy, all the observation and experience of former times, all the logic of the past. And here is the issue between Spiritualism and the mass of mankind who deride and condemn it.
"Now, be it known to you, that I am no Spiritualist. I reject not all the evidences of the phenomena upon which it is based, but I utterly deny that such phenomena are the works of disembodied spirits. I myself have seen what utterly confounded me, and while I reject all idea of supernatural agencies, all interposition of departed spirits, yet I have become thoroughly satisfied that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. These phenomena of which the Spiritualists speak, I will not undertake to pronounce all lies. Some of them are doubtless impostures—the work of knaves, who speculate upon the credulity and superstitions which are attributes of the human mind; but they are not all such. But while I admit their reality, I insist that such as are so, are the results of natural laws, which will one day be discovered, and which will turn out to be as simple as the spirit which presides over the telegraph, or that which constitutes the life of a steam engine. There may be, and probably is, a great undiscovered principle which underlays these spiritual manifestations, as they are called, and MIND is after it, looking for it carefully; and what MIND has once started in pursuit of earnestly, it seldom fails to overtake.
"I have sometimes amused myself by endeavoring to furnish a theory for the Spiritualists to stand upon, based upon the demonstrations of the past, the evidences brought to light by the researches of science, which at all events should have about it truth enough to give color and respectability even to an error as stupendous as that of Spiritualism. This theory I have predicated upon the progress of the material world, aside from animal life, showing that what may have been impossible thousands of years ago, may be possible, or about becoming possible now; that we are about entering upon a new era in the advancement of all things towards perfectability, and that the advent of that era may be marked by an established communication between the living and the spirits of the departed.
"Science demonstrates that the material world presents in its history an illustration of the great principle and theory of progress. It is quite certain that our planet was once a very different thing from what it is now; it differed in form, in substance, in compactness, in everything from its present condition. We do notknowthat it was once wholly aeriform, mere gasses in combination, too crude to admit of solidarity; but reasoning back from established facts, the conclusion is almost irresistible, that this earth, now so rock-ribbed and solid, so ponderous, so ragged with mountain ranges, and cloud piercing peaks, was once but vapor, floating without form through limitless space, drifting as mere nebulous matter among the older creations of God. However this may be, it is regarded as quite certain, that time was when ft was entirely void of solidity, void of dry land, with no continent, island, or solid ground, with no living thing within its circumference. It was thus passing through one of the remote eras of its existence. It was then young, just emerging, as it were, from nothingness, growing into form, assuming shape, and gathering attributes of fitness for exterior vitality, preparing the way for higher existences than mere inorganic matter. How long this era existed, science has failed to demonstrate, but it passed away, and solid land marked the next era of the earth's progress. It was surrounded by an atmosphere absolutely fatal to animal life; an atmosphere which, while it stimulated vegetable growth, no living thing could breathe and continue to live. Hence it was, that vegetation, gigantic almost beyond conception, covered its surface. Fern, which is now a pigmy plant, nowhere higher than a few feet, grew tall and overshadowing like great oaks, while oaks, it is fair to presume, towered thousands of feet towards the sky. These stupendous forests stood alone upon the surface of the earth; no animals wandered through their fastnesses; no birds sported amidst their mighty branches; noxious exhalations came steaming up from their tangled recesses, and their gloomy shadows lay a mantle of darkness over dreary and lifeless solitudes. The storms raged, and the winds howled; the sun travelled its daily rounds, with its light dimmed and clouded by the pestilential vapors it exhaled, and silence, so far as the sounds of animal life were concerned, reigned supreme—the stillness of the grave, the quiet of utter desolation, save the voice of the wind or the storm, was unbroken all over the face of the earth. Onward, and onward, rolled this mighty orb on its pathway through the heavens, bearing with it no animal existences, freighted with no human hopes—carrying with it nothing of human destiny. Man, with all his lofty aspirations, his mighty schemes, his glory, and his pride, was a thing of the future. He had not yet emerged from the eternity of the past, to grapple with the present, or encounter the retributions of the eternity which is to come. This was the era of gigantic vegetable growth, and it had its uses; for it was preparing the way for higher and more complicated existences. As the gases that surrounded the earth became consolidated into vegetation, as this stupendous growth decomposed the noxious atmosphere, drawing from it its grosser particles and working them up into solid matter, extracting from it what was fatal to animal life, this earth entered upon another era of its progress.
"Animal life made its appearance. It was weak and feeble at first, but a step removed from vegetable matter. The molusca, the polypi, and the rudest forms of fishes, were, beyond question, the first of living things. Science demonstrates that the water brought forth the first creations endowed with animal vitality. How long this era continued no man can tell. Then came the amphibise, gigantic animals of the lizard kind; the sauruses, that could reach with their long necks and ponderous jaws across a street and pick up a man, if street and man there had been. Then came land animals, monstrous in growth, by the side of which the elephant dwindles to the diminutive stature of the dormouse. In all these advances, was a succession of steps, mounting higher and higher, in complication of structure, each more perfect in organism than its predecessor. Vegetation itself became more complicated, and as it approached perfection lost its gigantic growth. Solidarity, compactness in all things, became the order of nature; the atmosphere surrounding the earth, became more and more fitted for the higher and more complicated animal organizations. At last when time was ripe for his advent, when the earth was fitted for his residence, and the air for his breathing, MAN, the last and most perfect in his structure, the most delicate and finished in his organization of all living things, made his appearance. He stepped from the hand of God, the only thinking, reflecting, the only intellectual, responsible being, in all the world. He stood at the head of created matter, with all things on the earth subject to his will, and corresponding to his, condition, his attributes, his necessities, and his instincts.
"Thus this great earth itself, has been but one continued illustration of the great theory and principle of progress. From a beginning, lost in the thick darkness of a past eternity, it has been marching forward in a career as pause-less as the sun in his journeyings through the sky, as clearly demonstrable as the growth of the germ that starts from the buried acorn, and moves on to its full development in the great oak. Science records with unerring certainty the progress of the earth, and of animal life, from the lowest existences in the mollusca and polypi, up to the superlatively complicated, and delicate structure of man, tracing it step by step, until it is finished in the noblest work of God, a human body coupled with an immortal soul!
"And here arises a question which science has not solved, and to which the philosophy, the wisdom, the logic of the past can give no answer. The earth, and the things of the earth, have been moving forward, marching on towards perfectability always. Is this forward movement finished? We have, in looking at the subject in the light of science, a time when there was not on the earth, in the air, or in the water, any living thing. We have an era when animal life was but a span removed from vegetable vitality; we have an era of gigantic vegetable growth; an era of gigantic but rude animal growth, and so on step by step down to the advent of man. The previous combinations of animal life and vegetable life passed away with the era in which they flourished; one class succeeding another, each emerging from, and stepping over the annihilation of its predecessor, till we come down to the present—is there no future progress for this earth as a planet? Is there to be no other era, where man himself, like the sauruses, like the mastodon, shall have passed away, to be succeeded by some nobler animal structure, some loftier intelligence, some more cunning invention of the infinite mind?
"Man, great in intellect, powerful in mind, gifted with reason, and having within him a spirit that is immortal, proud, glorious, aspiring as he is, falls very far short of perfection in every attribute of his nature. To say, therefore, that the prescience, the creative power of the Almighty, reached the limit of its achievements in the creation of man, is to impeach the omnipotence of God himself. Will any man insist that the ingenuity of the Almighty is exhausted? May it not be, then that the time will come when some sentient beings, as far superior to man, as man is to the animals of the era of the lizards and the amphibia, shall, like the geologists of the present day, be delving among the rocks and rubbish of vanished ages, for evidences of the existences of our own proud species at, to them, some remote period of the world's progress?
"If these questions cannot be answered by the learned and the wise, if science makes no response, and philosophy furnishes no solution of them, who dare say that the world is not, even now, entering upon a new era of progress, taking another step in the forward movement? May it not be, that the time is coming when the barrier between the living, and the disembodied spirit is to be broken down? When that viewless essence, that mystery of mysteries, the spirit of life, the immortal soul, shall be permitted to come back from the unknown country, to impart to the people of this world, the wisdom, the mysteries, and the glory of the next? May not this be the new era that is about opening in the progress of all things? It may be asked, is it not possible that a new principle is about being evolved, that will admit of communication between the living and the physically dead? May it not be that the world and its surroundings, have become so changed, that what was impossible thousands, or even hundreds, of years ago, may have become, or be about to become possible now? That the same process which carried this earth forward from the beginning, that so changed the atmosphere of old, rendered it fit to sustain animal life in its rudest structure, that so changed it again, as to make it capable of sustaining a higher order of animal organism, that kept on changing, and improving the whole face of the earth, that so arranged organic matter, as to make this world, at last, a fit residence for man, may be going on still; approaching all things nearer, and nearer to perfection, until we have arrived upon the threshold of an era, when living men may commune with the spirits of the physically dead? An era as yet but in its dawn, when the stupendous future can be seen only as through a glass darkly?
"Remember, I do not assert my faith in a theory which is indicated by an affirmative answer to these inquiries, for I have none. I give the record of the earth's progress in the past, as it is written upon the rocks, standing out upon precipices, brought to light by the researches, and translated by the energy of science from forgotten and buried ages. The deductions to be drawn from it, I leave to those who have a taste for the speculative, neither believing in, nor quarrelling with the theory which they may predicate upon it."
We spent the next day in coasting Round Pond, looking into its secluded bays, and resting, when the sun was hot, beneath the shadows of the brave old trees that line the banks. In floating along the shore of this beautiful sheet of water, one can hardly help imagining that in the broken rocks and rough stones piled up along the margin of the lake, he sees the rains of an ancient wall, the mortar of which has become disintegrated by time, and the masonry fallen down. He will see at intervals what, from a little distance, seems like a solid wall of stone, laid with care, and upon which the lapse of centuries has wrought no change, so regular are the strata of which it is composed, while an occasional boulder, large as a house, and covered with moss, reminds him of the ruined tower of some stronghold. He will see, as he rounds some rocky point, half a dozen of these gigantic boulders piled together, leaning against each other with great cavernous openings between, through which he can walk erect, and he involuntarily looks around him for the armor of the ancient giants who piled up these stupendous rocks and walled in the lake with these massive boulders.
As we swept around a point near the south shore of the lake, we saw a deer at a quarter of a mile from us, feeding upon the lily pads that grew along the shore. Spalding and myself were in advance of our little fleet, and our boatman paddled us carefully and silently towards the animal, using the paddle only when its head was down. He would feed for a minute or two and then look carefully all around him. Of us he took no particular notice, although we were within a hundred and fifty yards of him; and even when we were within sixty yards he seemed to regard us only as a log floating upon the water, or something else which might be regarded as perfectly harmless. Spalding was in the bow of the boat, and when within some eight rods of the game, we lay perfectly quiet for a moment, when his rifle spoke out and its voice rung and re-echoed among the surrounding hills as if a whole platoon of musketry were blazing all around us. The deer made three or four desperate leaps in a zigzag direction, and then went down. When we got to him, he was dead. He was a fine two year old buck, with spike horns, and in excellent condition. We took his saddle and skin and passed on.
From Bound Pond we rowed up the inlet, a broad and sluggish stream, full of grass and lily pads, to Little Tapper's Lake. We saw several deer feeding along the shore that, discovering us as we rowed carelessly along, went whistling and snorting away into the forest. As we approached the lake, dark clouds gathered in the West; great ugly looking thunderheads came rolling up from behind the hills higher and higher; perfect stillness was all around us; the leaves were moveless on the trees, and the voices of the birds were hushed.
"Squire," said Martin to me "I'm thinkin' we'd better go ashore and put up our tents; there's a mighty big storm over the hill, and he'll be down this way before many minutes."
And we rowed to a high point at a small distance, covered with spruce and fir trees, and put up our tents on the lee side of it, so as to be sheltered from the wind as well as the rain. This was the work of only ten minutes; but before we had finished, the deep voice of the thunder came rolling over the forest, and we could see the storm rising over the hills, in a long black line, all across the Western sky. The lightning darted down towards the earth, or across from cloud to cloud, and the thunder boomed and rolled along the heavens, its deep rumble shaking the ground like an earthquake. Presently, the hills were hidden from our view, we heard the rush of the storm in the forest on the other side of the river, then the splash of the big drops on the water, and then the wind and the rain were upon us. For a few minutes, I thought our tents would have been lifted bodily from the ground, but the skill of our pioneer had provided against the blast, and they remained standing safely over us. In a short time the wind passed on, leaving the heavy rain to pour down in torrents, and the deep voiced thunder to come crashing down to the earth, or go rolling solemnly and heavily along the sky. It rained for an hour as it can do only among these mountain regions. The clouds and the rain at length swept on, and the bow of promise spanned the rear of the retiring storm; a new joy seemed to take possession of the wild things, and gladness and merriment sounded from every direction in the old woods; a thin and shadowy mist hung like a veil over the water, and a refreshing coolness, as well as brightness and glory, were all around us. These storms of a hot summer day in this high region, if one is prepared for them, are full of pleasant interest; they rise so majestically, sweep along with such power, and pass away so triumphantly, leaving behind them such a calm sweetness in the air, that a journey to this wilderness would be imperfect in interest without witnessing them.
We entered Little Tripper's Lake towards evening, at the north end, and looking down south, one of the most beautiful views imaginable opened upon our vision. Surrounded by low and undulating hills, dotted with islands, with long points running far out into the lake, and pleasant little bays hiding around behind wooded promontories, it presented a wild yet pleasing landscape, on which a painter's eye could not rest but with delight, and which, transferred to canvas, would make a picture of which any artist might be proud.
By the way, I wonder that our artists do not summer among these mountains and lakes, sketching and painting the transcendently beautiful views they everywhere present. There is nothing like them on all this continent. We talk about the scenery of Lake George. It is all tame and spiritless compared with what may be seen here; it possesses not a tithe of the variety, the bold and grand, the placid and beautiful, all mingled, and changing always, as you pass from point to point along these lakes. Why do not the artists whose business it is to make the "canvas speak," drift out this way, and deal with nature in all her ancient loveliness, clothed in her primeval robes, and smiling in her freshness and beauty, as when thrown from the hand of Deity? It would repay them for their labor, and yield them a rich harvest of gain.
We had heard of the shanty in which we were to encamp, and we rowed straight through the whole length of the lake towards it. We reached it as the sun was going down, and stowed away our luggage before the darkness had gathered over the forest. We took possession by the right of squatter sovereignty, the owner being unknown, or at all events, absent from the woods. This lake is one of the few in all this region that I had never visited before, and is next in beauty to its namesake, two days' journey nearer to civilization. It is about twelve miles in length, and from one to two miles in width, with many beautiful bays stealing around behind bold rocky promontories, and sleeping in quiet beauty under the shadows of the tall forest trees that tower above their shores. It is dotted, too, with beautiful islands, some rising with a gentle slope from the water, covered with scattering Norway pines, and a dense undergrowth of low bushes; others are covered with tall spruce, fir, and hemlocks, standing up in stately and solemn grandeur, their arms lovingly intertwined, through the everlasting verdure of which the sun never shines; and others still are gigantic rocks, rising up out of the deep water, all treeless and shrubless, remaining always in brown and barren desolation, on which the eagle and osprey devour their prey, and the flocks of gulls that frequent the lake 'light to rest from their almost ceaseless flight. Civilization has not as yet marred in anything this beautiful sheet of water; even the lumberman has not forced his way to the majestic old pines that tower in stately grandeur above the forest trees of a lesser growth; not a foot of laud has been cleared within thirty miles of it. The old woods stand around it just as God placed them, in all their pristine solemnity, stately and motionless; the wild things that roamed among them in the day of old, are there still, and the same species of birds that sported in their branches thousands of years ago, are there still. We heard the howl of the wolf at night; we heard the scream of the panther; we saw the tracks of the moose, and where he had fed on the pastures along the shore; we saw the footprints of a huge bear in the sand on the beach, and the deer-paths were like those that lead to a sheep-fold. It was a pleasant thing to row along the shore, into the bays, around the islands, and into the creeks that came in from other little lakes deeper in the wilderness. The banks are mostly bold and bluff, the rocks standing up four or eight feet from the water, or broken and fallen like an ancient wall. Here and there is a long stretch of beautiful sandy beach, on which the tiny waves break with a rippling song, and from which bars go out with a gentle slope into the water.
We intended to remain here quietly for a few days, taking things easy, rowing, and fishing, and hunting enough for exercise only. There is plenty of deer, and trout, and duck, and partridge here, to be taken with small labor; there are bears, and wolves, and panthers, in the woods around. But these are fewer and harder to be come at than the other game; there is an occasional moose too. We saw the tracks of all these animals hereabouts, and we hoped to get a shot at some or all of them before leaving the woods.
Reader, did you ever hear the wolves howl in the old woods of a Still night! No? Then you have not heardallthe music of the forest. Some deep-mouthed old forester will open his jaws, and send forth a volume of sound so deep, so loud, so changeful, so undulating and variable in its character, that, as it rolls along the forest, and comes back in quavering echoes from the mountains, you will almost swear that his single voice is an agglomerate of a thousand, all mixed, and mingled, and rolled up into one. May be, away in the distance, possibly on the other side of the lake, or across a broad valley, another will open his mouth and answer, with a howl as deep, and wild, and variable, as the first; and possibly a third and fourth, one on the right, and another on the left, will join in the chorus, until the whole forest seems to be fall of howling and noise; and yet not one of these animals may be within a mile of you. To a timid man, there is something terrific in the howl of the wolves; but in truth, they are harmless as the deer, quite as wild and shy, and full as cowardly in the presence of a man. They will fly as frightened from his approach, unless, possibly, in the intense cold and desolation of winter, when driven together and rendered desperate by hunger, they might be emboldened by starvation to attack a man, but even this is among the apocryphal legends of the wilderness.
"Hearing them wolves howlin'," said Hank Martin, as we sat in the evening around our camp fire, "reminds me of a story Mark Shuff tells of his experience with the critters; but mind, I don't pretend to swear to its truth, for I don't claim to know anything about the facts myself. I'll tell it as Mark told it to me, and if it turns out to be too tough a yarn to take down whole, don't lay it to me. You know Mark Shuff," said he, appealing to me, "and you may believe such parts of it as you may be able to swallow, and the rest may be divided up, as the Doctor said the other day, among the company."
"Go ahead," said the Doctor, "I'll take a quarter as my share of the story, and you may cut it off of either end, or carve it out of the middle. I'll take a quarter, tough or tender."
"You may set down a quarter to my account," said Smith, "and Spalding shall take another." "Very well, then," said Martin, "I'll believe a quarter of it myself, and so the case is made up, as the judge would say."
"Well," repeated Martin, "you know MARE Shuff?" "Of course I know Mark Shuff; and who, that has visited these lakes and woods don't know him? He is a stalwart man, six feet in his stockings, strong, healthy, and enduring as iron, I have had him as a boatman and guide about Tupper's Lake, and the regions beyond it, more than once. He works at lumbering in the winter, and if there is one among the hundreds, I had almost said thousands, who make war, in the snowy season of the year, upon the old pines of the Rackett woods, who can swing an axe more effectually than Mark Shuff, his light is under a bushel—his fame obscured. Mark works hard for four or five months, and lays around loose the balance of the year. In the summer, he holds a cost as a thing of ornament rather than use, and boots or shoes as luxuries, not to be reckoned as among the necessaries of life. His hat, as a general thing, is of straw, and minus a little more than half the brim. He would be out of place, and out of uniform, as well as out of temper with himself, if he was for any considerable length of time without the stub of a marvelously black pipe in his mouth, filled with plug tobacco, shaved and rubbed in his hand into a proper condition for smoking. Mark, though by no means an intemperate man, is fond of a drop now and then, and when he has just a thimbleful too much, the way he will swear is emphatically a sin. And yet he is anything but quarrelsome or contrary, even when a shade over the line of strict sobriety. He is a great, strong, square-shouldered, big-breasted, good-natured specimen of the genus homo, a giant in physical strength, and were I a wolf, I would prefer letting him alone to any man in these parts. When he gets just the least grain "shiny" (and he never gets beyond that), and his oar goes a little wrong, or a twig brushes him ungently, or his seat gets a little hard, he will express his sense of its improper deportment by incontinently damning its eyes, and so forth, as if it were a sentient thing, and understood all his profane denunciations; but with all this, Mark never forgets to be respectful, and, in his way, courteous to his employers. He has, moreover, a sharp, clear eye in his head, and can see a deer, or any other game, as quick, and shoot it as far as the best, and has as good a knowledge of where they are to be found, as any man in these woods."
"Well," continued Martin, as he lighted his pipe by dipping it into the embers and scooping up a small coal; "Well, Mark Shuff and a friend of his by the name of Westcott, had a shanty one winter over on Tupper's Lake; they were trappin' martin, and mink, and muskrat, and wolves, when they could get one. They shantied on the outlet, just at the foot of the lake, below the high rocky bluff round which the little bay there sweeps. There wasn't any house then nearer than Harriets Town, down by the Lower Saranac; but there was a company of lumbermen having a shanty up towards the head of the lake, near where the Bog River enters. Mark, one cold winter's morning, started on an errand to the lumber shanty I speak of, calculatin' to return the same evening. The lake was frozen over, and he took to the ice, as being the nearest and best travelin'. The winter had set in airly, and the snow had lain deep for months, and the game of the woods had got pretty well starved out. Mark did'nt take his rifle with him, thinkin' of course that he would see no game on the ice worth shootin', and a gun would only be an incumbrance to him. Well, he did his errand at the shanties, and started for home. I don't know whether he took a drop or not, but they generally keep a barrel of old rye in the lumber shanties, and my opinion is that Mark was invited to take a horn, in which case, I'm bold to say, the horn was taken.
"However that may be, Mark started for home along in the afternoon, and took to the ice, as he did when he went up in the morning. Everything went right until he got within may be a mile of home, when he heard, from a point of land, a little to the left of him, a sharp, fierce bark, and turning that way, he saw a great shaggy, fierce-looking wolf trot out from behind a boulder and squat himself down on his haunches, and eye him as if calculating the probabilities of his making a good supper. While Mark was looking at him, feelin' a little oneasy, he heard another sharp bark, and from a point just ahead of him another great wolf trotted out on to the ice, and sat himself down, eyeing him with suspicious intensity. In a moment, another came out right opposite to him, and then another, and another, until Mark swears to this day that there were more than a dozen of these fierce and hungry savages squatted on their haunches within fifty yards of him.
"Mark, as I said, had no rifle, his only weapons being a hunting knife and a heavy walking stick, which he carried in his hand. To say that he was not frightened, would be stating what I don't believe to be true, and I've heard him tell how his huntin' cap seemed to be lifted right up on his head, as if every hair pointed straight towards the sky. He looked at the wolves a moment, and then walked on; but the animals trotted along with him, still, however, keepin' at a respectful distance. Those in advance seemed inclined to cross his path, as if to turn him towards the centre of the lake, while those behind went further and further from the shore, as if to surround him; and thus they travelled for near half a mile, Mark making for the open water, which in the coldest weather is always to be found near the outlet of the lake, determined, if they came to close quarters, to take to that and swim for it. He had heard and knew that almost every animal is afraid of the voice of a man; so he shouted at the top of his voice, and as he said, ripped out some select and choice oaths, which for a moment alarmed the wolves, and they fell back a few rods, still, however, keepin' in a kind of half circle around him. But it was'nt long before they began to gather in on him again, and though his shoutin' and swearin' kept them at a good distance, yet they seemed to be gettin' used to it, and it didn't alarm them as it did at first. Mark had now got within reach of the water, and he felt comparatively safe. He was not more than a quarter of a mile from home, and cold as it was, he felt sure that he could swim that distance.
"Before being compelled to take to the water, it occurred to him to halloo for Westcott, which he did with all his might. The wolves did'nt appear to care much about his hallooing, but kept trottin' along between him and the shore, and before and behind him, drawin' the circle closer and closer every ten rods; and Mark expected every moment when they'd make a rush on him, in which case he'd made up his mind to make a dive into the water, along which he was now travelin'. Presently he saw Westcott, with his double-barrelled rifle, stealin' along the shore, hid from the kritters by a high rocky point, within some twenty rods of him. He felt all right then, for he knew that when Westcott pinted that rifle at anything, something had to come. It was a dangerous piece, that rifle was, 'specially when loaded and Westcott was at one end of it.
"Mark was not more than fifteen rods from the shore, but that ground was occupied by the wolves; on the right was the water, into which he might at any moment be compelled to plunge; while both before and behind him his advance and retreat was alike cut off. He had noticed that whenever he stopped, the wolves stopped, as if the time for the rush had not yet come, and it puzzled him to understand why they delayed the onset. Seeing Westcott with his rifle, Mark determined to treat his assailants to a choice lot of profane epithets, and the way he opened on the cowardly rascals, he said, astonished even himself. But while he was thus swearing at his enemies, he discovered, as he thought, the reason why they had not attacked him sooner. A troop of a dozen or more wolves broke cover some distance up the lake, and came runnin' down towards where he stood, for whose presence, no doubt, those around him were waiting. Just then he saw WESTCOTT'S huntin' cap above the rocks on the point, and saw his double-barrel poked out in the direction of the leader of the pack, and he knew that that old grey-back's time had come. Mark let off a fresh volley of profanity, and as the wolves seemed preparing for a rush, WESTCOTT'S rifle broke the frozen stillness of the woods, and old grey-back turned a summerset and went down. The astonished wolves clustered together for a moment in confusion, and the other barrel spoke out. Another of the pack bounded into the air, and as he came down kicked and thrashed about in a most oncommon way, and then laid still—while the way the rest put out for the point, some distance up the lake, was a thing to be astonished at. Mark threw up his hat, and hollered, and shouted, and swore, till the last wolf disappeared into the forest, and then shoulderin' one of the dead kritters, and WESTCOTT the other, started on home. The hides, and the bounty on the scalps, made a good day's work of it; but Mark swears to this day, that if the last dozen of wolves had been a little earlier, or Westcott a little later, he'd a-been driven like a buck to the water, cold as it was; and if they'd been a little earlier still, he'd have been a goner. He never goes far from home since, without a rifle; although with that he has no fear of wolves, yet he concludes that a hunting-knife and a stick are no match for a whole pack of the kritters, when made savage by the starvation of winter."
[Illustration: Westcott's rifle broke the frozen stillness of the woods, and old greyback turned a summerset and went down. The astonished wolves clustered together for a moment in confusion, and the other barrel spoke out.]
While we were listening to the story of Mark Shuff and the wolves, the old fellow over the water made the forest ring again with his howling. He was answered from miles away down the lake by another. Their voices kept the forest echoes busy, until we laid ourselves away in our blankets, where we slept till wakened by the glad voices of the birds in the early morning.
We started the next morning on an exploring voyage round the lake, to look into the bays and inlets, try the fish and deer, and see what we could see generally. We struck across to an island opposite our landing-place, containing five or six acres, covered with a dense growth of spruce, hemlock, and fir, with an occasional pine standing with its tall head proudly above the other forest trees, while along the ground the low whortleberry bushes, loaded with fruit, now just ripening, grew. This island is near the south shore, and separated from it by a narrow channel some twenty rods in width. We landed, and were regaling ourselves upon the berries, leaving our boats and guns on the lake side of the island. We had wandered near the centre of the island, when three deer started up within two rods of us, and rushed whistling and snorting in huge astonishment across the island in the direction of the mainland, and dashing wildly into the water, swam to the shore and disappeared into the forest. We, in truth, were little less astonished than they, for we certainly expected no such game to be hiding there, and when they leaped up so suddenly and plunged away, crashing and snorting through the brush, it startled us somewhat; but our boats and guns were on the other side of the island, and we could only look on as they swam boldly to the shore without the power to harm them.
At the east end of the lake a large stream, deep, sluggish, and tortuous enters, which we voted came from a lake or pond, back at the base of the hills, seen some three or four miles distant in that direction, and while the other boats passed in another direction, Spalding and myself started upstream to explore it. As we advanced, the alders and willows encroached more and more upon the channel, until it became too narrow for rowing. Our boatman took his paddle, and seated in the stern of our little craft, propelled it up stream for an hour or more. The alders gradually contracted, the channel becoming narrower until we were passing under a low archway of branches, covered with dense foliage, through which the sunlight could not penetrate. The arch grew lower and lower, and the channel narrower, until we at last absolutely stuck fast among the branches of the alders which, here grew almost horizontally over the stream. We could not turn round, and to go further was absolutely impossible; there was but one mode of extrication, and that was to back straight out the way we had entered. Our boatman changed his position to the bow of the boat, and after much labor and exertion, we started down stream. After two hours of hard work, pushing with the oars and pulling by the branches, we emerged into daylight, came out into the open stream, not a little fatigued by our efforts to find the imaginary pond at the base of the mountains.
This stream, with the broad alder marsh that stretches away on either side, was doubtless once a beaver dam; and we thought we could discover where these singular and sagacious animals had erected the structure that made for them an artificial lake. Our theory on this subject may have been true or false, but this much is a fact, that in all this region of lakes and rivers, I have seen no alder or other marsh of any considerable extent, save this. In the times of old, when the Indian and his brother the beaver, lived quietly together, before the greed of the white man had built up a war of extermination between them, this must have been a glorious country for the beaver. The lakes are so numerous and the ponds and rivers so fitted for them, that they must have had a good time of it here for centuries. The Indians never disturbed them, never made war upon them; their flesh was not needed or fitted for food, and the value of their fur was unknown. Tradition, speaking from the dim and shadowy past, tells us of the vast numbers of these sagacious and harmless animals which congregated in these regions, living in undisturbed quiet and happiness all the year, building their dams, their canals, and cities on all the ponds, rivers, and lakes hereabouts. But they are all gone now. I inquired if any had been seen of late years, and could hear of but a single family, which some ten years ago were said to dwell somewhere in the vicinity of Mud Lake, the highest and wildest of all these mountain lakes. The last of these was taken four or five years ago, since which no sign of the beaver has been discovered. They are doubtless all gone, and as this was their last abiding-place, they may be regarded as extinct on this side of the Alleghany ranges, and probably on this side of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Like the beaver, the Indian who turned against him, will soon be gone too. Annihilation is written as the doom of both. The wild man must pass away with the woods and the forests, before the onward rush of civilization, and history will soon be all that will remain of the Indian and his ancient brother the beaver.
Well, be it so, and who will regret it? It is a sad thing to see a whole race perish, wiped out from the aggregate of human existence. But in this instance, its place will be filled by a higher and nobler race, and the hunting-ground of the savage and the pagan, be converted into cultivated fields; where stood the wigwam, will stand the farm-house; where the council-fires blazed, will stand the halls of enlightened and Christian legislation; churches and school-houses, and all the accompaniments of Christianity and civilization will take the place of ancient forests; and educated, intellectual, cultivated minds take the place of the rude, untaught, and unteachable men and women of the woods.
As we re-entered the lake, we saw a noble buck feeding along the shore, a short distance from us. We dropped behind a point of willows, from the outer edge of which we would be in shooting distance. We paddled silently round the point, and there, within fifteen rods of us, he stood, broad side to us, presenting as beautiful a mark as a man could wish. I counted him certainly ours, when I drew upon him with my rifle. Well I blazed away, and as I did so, he raised his head suddenly, gazed in astonishment at us for a moment, with his ears thrown forward, and in an attitude of wildness, and then dashed madly away into the forest, snorting like a war-horse at every bound. I had not touched him, and I knew it the moment I fired. Our little boat was light and rollish, and just as I pressed the trigger, it rolled slightly on the water and my ball passed over, but mighty close to the back of that deer. I was mortified enough at this mishap, for I prided myself on my coolness and marksmanship, and here was a failure apparently more inexcusable than any that had occurred. But there was no help for it. The deer was gone, and Spalding and the boatman indulged in a hearty laugh at my expense.
Some half a mile up the lake, we saw a great turtle sunning himself on a rock which was partly out of water. He was twice as large as any of the fresh-water kind I had ever seen. His shell was all of two feet in diameter, and his scaly arms, as they hung loosely over the side of the rock, were as large as the wrists of a man. He was some six or eight rods from us, and Spalding gave him a shot with his rifle. The ball glanced harmlessly from his massive shell against the ledge behind him, and starting from his sleep, he clambered lazily and clumsily into the water.
We threw out a trolling line as we passed up the lake; but we caught no trout. Along the shore, however, we caught small ones in plenty with the fly. These shore trout, as I call them, seem to be a distinct species, differing in many respects from the other trout of the lakes or streams. They are uniform in size, rarely exceeding a quarter of a pound in weight. They are of a whitish color, longer in proportion than the lake, river, or brook trout, have fewer specks upon them, and those not of a golden hue, but rather like freckles. They are found among the broken rocks where the shores are bold and bluff, or near the mouths of the cold brooks that come down from the hills. I caught them at every trial, and whenever we wanted them for food. Their flesh is white and excellent—better, to my taste, than that of any other fish of these waters.
We rejoined our companions in a little bay that lay quietly around a rocky promontory, where we found them enjoying a dinner of venison and trout, under the shade of some huge firtrees, by the side of a beautiful spring that came bubbling up, in its icy coldness, from beneath the tangled roots of a stinted and gnarled birch. Happily, there was enough for us all, and we accepted at once the invitation extended to us to dine. Towards evening, we rowed back to our shanty. The breeze had entirely ceased, and the lake lay still and smooth; not a wave agitated its surface, not a ripple passed across its stirless bosom; the woods along the shore, and the mountains in the back ground, the glowing sunlight upon the hill-tops were mirrored back from its quiet depths as if there were other forests, and other mountains and hills glowing in the evening sunshine away down below, twins to those above and around us. We saw on our return along the beach, the track of a bear in the sand, that had been made during the day, and we had some talk of trying the scent of our dogs upon it. But it was too near night, to allow of a hope of securing him, even if the dogs could follow, and we gave up the idea, promising to attend to bruin's case another day.
As we sat with our meerschaums, in the evening, speculating upon the chances of securing a bear, or a moose, before leaving the woods, a wolf lifted up his voice on the hill opposite as, and made the old forest ring again with his howling. He was answered as in the night previous, from away down the lake, and by another from the hill back of us, and another still from the narrow gorge above the head of the lake. However discordant the music appeared to us, they seemed to enjoy it, for they kept it up at intervals during all the early part of the night.
"Seeing that bear's track, and hearing the howl of those wolves," said the Doctor, "reminds me of a story I heard told by an old Ohio pilot, whom I found in drifting down that noble river in a pirogue, some five and twenty years ago. We tied up one night by the side of another similar craft, that had gone down ahead of us, the people on board of which had landed and built a camp-fire, and erected their tent. They were strangers to us, but in those days everybody you met in the wilderness which skirted the Upper Ohio was your friend, if you chose to regard him so. I was a mere boy then, and was in company with my father and three other gentlemen, who owned a township of land not far from Cincinnati; that is not far now, considering the difference in the mode of travelling between then and now, and we were on our way to explore that township. I did not regard it as of much value then, though it has since brought a heap of money to its owners. We found the company belonging to the other boat busily employed in cooking a supper of venison and bear-meat, they having in the course of the day killed two deer and a bear that they found swimming the river. We were invited to help ourselves; an invitation which, being cordially given, we as cordially accepted. We had been passing during most of the day through unbroken forests, standing up in stately majesty on both sides of the river, and stretching back the Lord knows how far. After the darkness gathered, the wolves made the wilderness vocal with their howling. It was the first time I had ever heard them, and for that matter the last, until since we have been in these woods: but when that old fellow over the lake lifted up his voice last night, I recognized it at once. I can't say I admired it as a musical performance then, and I don't appreciate its harmony now. If there are those who like it, why,de gustibus non, and so forth.
"But I set out to tell the story that the old Ohio pilot told that night, while the travellers sat smoking around their camp-fires, and the wolves were howling in the wilderness about us. I do not, of course, vouch for its truth; I simply tell it as he told it to us. He seemed to believe it himself, for he told it with a gravity of face, and a seriousness of manner, which would ill comport with its falsity. His hearers did not seem to regard it as passing belief, but they laughed at the idea of drowning a bear.
"'Twenty odd years ago,' said the old pilot, as he lighted his pipe and seated himself on the head of a whisky-keg, 'there warn't a great many people along the Ohio, except Ingins and bears, and we didn't like to cultivate a very close acquaintance with either of them, for the Ingins were cheatin', deceivin', and scalpin' critters, and the bears had an onpleasant way with 'em, that people of delicate narves didn't like. I came out for some people over on the east side of the mountains, lookin' land, in company with four men who had hunted over the country. Ohio warn't any great shakes then, but let me tell you, stranger, it had a mighty big pile of the tallest kind of land layin' around waitin' to be opened up to the sunlight. It's goin' ahead now, and people are rushin' matters in the way of settlin' of it, but you could stick down a stake most anywhere in it then, and travel in any direction a hundred miles climbin' a fence.
"'Wal, we came down the Alleghany in two canoes, and shantied on the Ohio, just below where the Alleghany empties itself into it. We hid our canoes, and struck across the country, and travelled about explorin' for six weeks, and when we got back to our shantyin' ground, we were tuckered out you may believe. We rested here a couple of days, layin' around loose, and takin' our comfort in a way of our own. Early one morning, when my companions were asleep, I got up and paddled across the river after a deer, for we wanted venison for breakfast. I got a buck, and was returnin', when what should I see but a bear swimmin' the Ohio, and I put out in chase right off. I soon overhauled the critter, and picked up my rifle to give him a settler, when I found that in paddlin' I had spattered water into the canoe, wettin' the primin' and makin' the gun of no more use than a stick. I didn't understand much about the natur of the beast then, and thought I'd run him down, and drown him, or knock him on the head. So I put the canoe right end on towards him, thinkin' to run him under, but when the bow touched him, what did he do, but reach his great paws up over the side of the canoe, and begin to climb in. I hadn't bargained for that; I felt mighty onpleasant, you may swear, at the prospect of havin' sich a passenger. I hadn't time to get at him with the rifle, till he came tumblin' into the dugout, and as he seated himself on his stern, showed as pretty a set of ivory as a body would wish to see. There we sat, he in one end of the dugout and I in the other, eyein' one another in a mighty suspicious sort of way. He didn't seem inclined to come near my end of the dugout, and I was principled agin goin' towards his. I made ready to take to the water on short notice, but at the same time concluded I'd paddle him to the shore, if he'd allow me to do it quietly.
"'Wal, I paddled away, the bear every now and then grinnin' at me, skinnin' his face till every tooth in his head stood right out, and grumblin' to himself in a way that seemed to say, 'I wonder if that chap's good to eat?' I didn't offer any opinion on the subject; I didn't say a word to him, treatin' him all the time like a gentleman, but kept pullin' for the shore. When the canoe touched the ground, he clambered over the side, and climbed up the bank, and givin' me an extra grin, started off into the woods. I pushed the dugout back suddenly, and gave him, as I felt safe again, a double war-whoop that seemed to astonish him, for he quickened his pace mightily, as if quite as glad to part company as I was. I larned one thing, stranger, that mornin', and it's this, never to try drownin' a bear by runnin' him under with a dugout. It won't pay.'"