Wild Northern Scenes - S. H. Hammond
[Illustration: 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.]
WILD NORTHERN SCENES.
OR
SPORTING ADVENTURES
WITH
THE RIFLE AND THE ROD.
BY S. H. HAMMOND.
1857
TO JOHN H. REYNOLDS, ESQ., OF ALBANY.
You have floated over the beautiful lakes and along the pleasant
rivers of that broad wilderness lying between the majestic St.
Lawrence and Lake Champlain. You have, in seasons of relaxation from
the labors of a profession in which you have achieved such enviable
distinction, indulged in the sports pertaining to that wild region.
You have listened to the glad music of the woods when the morning was
young, and to the solemn night voices of the forest when darkness
enshrouded the earth. You are, therefore, familiar with the scenery
described in the following pages.
Permit me, then, to dedicate this book to you, not because of your
eminence as a lawyer, nor yet on account of your distinguished
position as a citizen, but as a keen, intelligent sportsman, one who
loves nature in her primeval wildness, and who is at home, with a
rifle and rod, in the old woods.
With sentiments of great respect,
I remain your friend and servant,
THE AUTHOR.
INTRODUCTORY.
There is a broad sweep of country lying between the St. Lawrence and
Lake Champlain, which civilization with its improvements and its rush
of progress has not yet invaded. It is mountainous, rocky, and for all
agricultural purposes sterile and unproductive. It is covered with
dense forests, and inhabited by the same wild things, save the red man
alone, that were there thousands of years ago. It abounds in the most
beautiful lakes that the sun or the stars ever shone upon. I have
stood upon the immense boulder that forms the head or summit of
Baldface Mountain, a lofty, isolated peak, looming thousands of feet
towards the sky, and counted upwards of twenty of these beautiful
lakes--sleeping in quiet beauty in their forest beds, surrounded
by primeval woods, overlooked by rugged hills, and their placid waters
glowing in the sunlight.
It is a high region, from which numerous rivers take their rise to
wander away through gorges and narrow valleys, sometimes rushing down
rapids, plunging over precipices, or moving in deep sluggish currents,
some to Ontario, some to the St. Lawrence, some to Champlain, and some
to seek the ocean, through the valley of the Hudson. The air of this
mountain region in the summer is of the purest, loaded always with the
freshness and the pleasant odors of the forest. It gives strength to
the system, weakened by labor or reduced by the corrupted and
debilitating atmosphere of the cities. It gives elasticity and
buoyancy to the mind depressed by continued toil, or the cares and
anxieties of business, and makes the blood course through the veins
with renewed vigor and recuperated vitality.
The invalid, whose health is impaired by excessive labor, but who is
yet able to exercise in the open air, will find a visit to these
beautiful lakes and pleasant rivers, and a fortnight or a month's stay
among them, vastly more efficacious in restoring strength and tone to
his system than all the remedial agencies of the most skillful
physicians. I can speak understandingly on this subject, and from
evidences furnished by my own personal experience and observation.
To the sportsman, whether of the forest or flood, who has a taste for
nature as God threw it from his hand, who loves the mountains, the old
woods, romantic lakes, and wild forest streams, this region is
peculiarly inviting. The lakes, the rivers, and the streams abound in
trout, while abundance of deer feed on the lily pads and grasses that
grow in the shallow water, or the natural meadows that line the shore.
The fish may be taken at any season, and during the months of July and
August he will find deer enough feeding along the margins of the lakes
and rivers, and easily to be come at, to satisfy any reasonable or
honorable sportsman. I have been within fair shooting distance of
twenty in a single afternoon while floating along one of those rivers,
and have counted upwards of forty in view at the same time, feeding
along the margin of one of the beautiful lakes hid away in the
deep forest.
The scenery I have attempted to describe--the lakes, rivers,
mountains, islands, rocks, valleys and streams, will be found as
recorded in this volume. The game will be found as I have asserted,
unless perchance an army of sportsmen may have thinned it somewhat on
the borders, or driven it deeper into the broad wilderness spoken of.
I was over a portion of that wilderness last summer, and found plenty
of trout and abundance of deer. I heard the howl of the wolf, the
scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow of the moose, and though
I did not succeed in taking or even seeing any of these latter
animals, yet I or my companion slew a deer every day after we entered
the forest, and might have slaughtered half a dozen had we been so
disposed. Though the excursion spoken of in the following pages was
taken four years ago, yet I found, the last summer, small diminution
of the trout even in the border streams and lakes of the "Saranac and
Rackett woods."
I have visited portions of this wilderness at least once every summer
for the last ten years, and I have never yet been disappointed with my
fortnight's sport, or failed to meet with a degree of success which
abundantly satisfied me, at least. I have generally gone into the
woods weakened in body and depressed in mind. I have always come out
of them with renewed health and strength, a perfect digestion, and a
buoyant and cheerful spirit.
For myself, I have come to regard these mountains, these lakes and
streams, these old forests, and all this wild region, as my settled
summer resort, instead of the discomforts, the jam, the excitement,
and the unrest of the watering-places or the sea shore. I visit them
for their calm seclusion, their pure air, their natural cheerfulness,
their transcendent beauty, their brilliant mornings, their glorious
sunsets, their quiet and repose. I visit them too, because when among
them, I can take off the armor which one is compelled to wear, and
remove the watch which one must set over himself, in the crowded
thoroughfares of life; because I can whistle, sing, shout, hurrah and
be jolly, without exciting the ridicule or provoking the contempt of
the world. In short, because I can go back to the days of old, and
think, and act, and feel like "a boy again."
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
A Great Institution
CHAPTER II.
Hurrah! for the Country
CHAPTER III.
The Departure--The Stag Hounds--The Chase--Round Lake
CHAPTER IV.
The Doctor's Story--A Slippery Fish--A Lawsuit and a
Compromise
CHAPTER V.
A Frightened Animal--Trolling for Trout--The Boatman's Story
Defence
CHAPTER VII.
Kinks!--"Dirty Dogs"--The Barking Dog that was found Dead in
the Yard--The Dog that Barked himself to Death
CHAPTER VIII.
Stony Brook--A Good Time with the Trout--Rackett
River--Tupper's Lake--A Question Asked and Answered
CHAPTER IX.
Hunting by Torchlight--An Incompetent Judge--A New Sound in
the Forest--Old Sangamo's Donkey
CHAPTER X.
Grindstone Brook--Forest Sounds--A Funny Tree covered with
Snow Flakes
CHAPTER XI.
A Convention broken up in a Row--The Chairman ejected
CHAPTER XII.
The First Chain of Ponds--Shooting by Turns--Sheep
Washing--A Plunge and a Dive--A Roland for an Oliver
CHAPTER XIII.
A Jolly Time for the Deer--Hunting on the Water by
Daylight--Mud Lake--Funereal Scenery--A New way of
Taking Rabbits--The Negro and the Merino Buck--A
Collision
CHAPTER XIV.
A Deer Trapped--The Result of a Combat--A Question of Mental
Philosophy Discussed
CHAPTER XV.
Hooking up Trout--The Left Branch--The Rapids--A Fight with
a Buck
CHAPTER XVI.
Round Pond--The Pile Driver--A Theory for Spiritualists
CHAPTER XVII.
Little Tupper's Lake--A Spike Buck--A Thunder Storm in the
Forest--The Howl of the Wolf
CHAPTER XVIII.
An Exploring Voyage in an Alderswamp--A Beaver Dam--A Fair
Shot and a Miss--Drowning a Bear--an Unpleasant
Passenger
CHAPTER XIX.
Spalding's Bear Story--Climbing to avoid a Collision--An
Unexpected Meeting--A Race
CHAPTER XX.
The Chase on the Island--The Chase on the Lake--The
Bear--Gambling for Glory--Anecdote of Noah and the
Gentleman who offered to Officiate as Pilot on Board
the Ark
CHAPTER XXI.
The Doctor and his Wife on a Fishing Excursion--The Law of
the Case--Strong-minded Women
CHAPTER XXII.
A Beautiful Flower--A New Lake--A Moose--His Capture--A
Sumptuous Dinner
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Cricket in the Wall--The Minister's Illustration--Old
Memories
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Accidents of Life--"Some Men Achieve Greatness, and Some
have Greatness Thrust Upon Them"--A Slide--Rattle at
the Top and an Icy Pool at the Bottom--A Fanciful Story
CHAPTER XXV.
Headed Towards Home--The Martin and Sable Hunter--His
Cabin--Autumnal Scenery
CHAPTER XXVI.
A Surprise--A Serenade--A Visit from Strangers--An
Invitation to Breakfast--A Fashionable Hour and a
Bountiful Bill of Fare
CHAPTER XXVII.
Would I were a Boy Again!
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Headed Down Stream--Return to Tupper's Lake--The Camp on the
Island
CHAPTER XXIX.
A Mysterious Sound--Treed by a Moose--Angling for a Powder
Horn--An Unheeded Warning and the Consequences
CHAPTER XXX.
Good-bye--Floating Down the Rackett--A Black Fox--A Trick
upon the Martin Trappers and its Consequences
CHAPTER XXXI.
Out of the Woods--The Thousand Islands--Cape Vincent--Bass
Fishing--Home--A Searcher after Truth--An
Interruption--Finis
THE RIFLE AND THE ROD.
CHAPTER I.
A GREAT INSTITUTION.
"It is a great institution," I said, or rather thought aloud, one
beautiful summer morning, as my wife was dressing the baby. The little
thing lay upon its face across her lap, paddling and kicking with its
little bare arms and legs, as such little people are very apt to do,
while being dressed. It was not our baby. We have dispensed with that
luxury. And yet it was a sweet little thing, and nestled as closely in
our hearts as if it were our own. It was our first grandchild, the
beginning of a third generation, so that there is small danger of our
name becoming extinct. A friend of mine, who unfortunately has no
voice for song, has a most excellent wife and beautiful baby, and
cannot therefore be said to be without music at home. It is his first
descendant, and everybody knows that such are just the things of which
fathers are very apt to be proud. He was spending an evening with a
neighbor, and was asked to sing. He declined, of course, giving as a
reason that he never sang. "Why, Mr. H----," said a black-eyed little
girl, of seven--"why, Mr. H----, don't you never sing to the baby?"
Sure enough! I wonder if there ever was a civilized, a human man, who
never sang to the baby. I do not believe that there was ever such a
paradox in nature, as a man who had tossed the baby up and down,
balanced it on his hand, given it a ride on his foot, and yet never
sang to it. I do not care a fig about melody of voice, or science in
quavering; I am not talking about sweetness of tone; what I mean to
say is, that I do not believe there is a man living, even though he
have no more voice than a raven, who is human, and yet never sang to
the baby, always assuming that he has one.
"A great institution," I repeated, half in soliloquy and half to my
wife.
"What in the world are you talking about?" said Mrs. H----, as she
took a pin from her mouth, and fastened the band that encircled the
waist of the baby. The nurse was looking quietly on, quite willing
that her work should be thus taken off her hands. Will somebody tell
me, if there ever was a grandmother, especially one who became such
young, who could sit by, and see the nurse dress her first, or even
her tenth grandchild, while it was a helpless little thing, say a foot
or a foot and a half long? The nurse is so unhandy; she tumbles the
baby about so roughly, handles it so awkwardly, she will certainly
dress it too loosely, or too tight, or leave a pin that will prick it,
or some terrible calamity will happen. So she takes possession of the
little thing, and with a hand guided by experience and the instincts
of affection, puts its things on in a Christian and comfortable way.
"A great institution!" I repeated again.
"I do believe the man has lost his wits," remarked Mrs. H----, handing
the baby to the nurse. "Who ever heard of a baby less than three
months old being called an institution?"
"Never heard of such a thing in my life," I replied, "though a much
greater mistake might be made."
"What then, in the name of goodness, have you been talking about?"
inquired Mrs. H----.
"The COUNTRY of course," I replied.
I had just returned from a business trip to Vermont--who ever thought
that Vermont would be traversed by railroads, or that the echoes which
dwell among her precipices and mountain fastnesses, would ever wake to
the snort of the iron horse? Who ever thought that the locomotive
would go screaming and thundering along the base of the Green
Mountains, hurling its ponderous train, loaded with human freight,
along the narrow valleys above which mountain peaks hide their heads
in the clouds? How old Ethan Allen and General Stark, "Old Put," and
the other glorious names that enrich the pages of our revolutionary
history, would open their eyes in astonishment, if they could come
back from "the other side of Jordan," and sit for a little while on
their own tombstones in sight of the railroads, and see the trains as
they go rushing like a tornado along their native valleys.
I had made up my mind that morning, all at once, to go into the
country. It was a sudden resolve, but I acted upon it. Going into the
country is a very different thing from what it used to be. There is no
packing of trunks, or taking leave of friends. You take your satchel
or travelling bag, kiss your wife in a hurry at the door, and jump
aboard of the cars; the whistle sounds, the locomotive breathes
hoarsely for a moment, and you are off like a shot. In ten minutes the
suburbs are behind you; the fields and farms are flying to the rear;
you dash through the woods and see the trees dodging and leaping
behind and around each other, performing the dance of the witches "in
most admired confusion;" in three hours you are among the hills of
Massachusetts, the mountains of Vermont, on the borders of the
majestic Hudson, in the beautiful valley of the Mohawk, a hundred
miles from the good city of Albany, where you can tramp among the wild
or tame things of nature to your heart's content.
I had for the moment no particular place in view. What I wanted was,
to get outside of the city, among the hills, where I could see the old
woods, the streams, the mountains, and get a breath of fresh air, such
as I used to breathe. I wanted to be free and comfortable for a month;
to lay around loose in a promiscuous way among the hills, where
beautiful lakes lay sleeping in their quiet loveliness; where the
rivers flow on their everlasting course through primeval forests;
where the moose, the deer, the panther and the wolf still range, and
where the speckled trout sport in the crystal waters. I had made up my
mind to throw off the cares and anxieties of business, and visit that
great institution spread out all around us by the Almighty, to make
men healthier, wiser, better. I had resolved to go into the country.
That was a fixed fact. But where?
There stood my rifle in one corner of the room, and my fishing rods in
the other. The sight of these settled the matter. "I will go to the
North," I said.
"Go to the North!" said Mrs. H----. "Do tell me if you've got another
of your old hunting and fishing fits on you again?"
"Yes," I replied, "I've felt it coming on for a week, and I've got it
bad."
"Very well," said my wife, "if the fit is on you, there's no use in
remonstrating; your valise will be ready by the morning train." And so
the matter was settled.
But I must have a companion, somebody to talk to and with, somebody
who could appreciate the beauties of nature; who loved the old woods,
the wilderness, and all the wild things pertaining to them; to whom
the forests, the lakes, and tall mountains, the rivers and streams,
would recall the long past; to whom the forest songs and sounds would
bring back the memories of old, and make him "a boy again." So I
sallied out to find him. I had scarcely traversed a square, when I
met my friend, the doctor, with carpet bag in hand, on his way to
the depot.
"Whither away, my friend?" I inquired, as we shook hands.
"Into the country," he replied.
"Very well, but where?"
"Into the country," he repeated, "don't you comprehend? Into the
country, by the first train; anywhere, everywhere, all along shore."
"Go with me," said I, "for a month."
"A month! Bless your simple soul, every patient I've got will be well
in less than half that time; but let them, I'll be avenged on them
another time. But where do _you_ go?"
"To my old haunts in the North," I replied.
"To follow the stag to his slip'ry crag,
And to chase the bounding roe."
"But," said he, "I've no rifle."
"I've got four."
"I've no fishing rod."
"I've half a dozen at your service."
"Give me your hand," said he; "I'm with you." And so the doctor was
booked.
"Suppose," said the doctor, "we beat up Smith and Spalding, and take
them along. Smith has got one of his old fits of the hypo. He sent for
me to-day, and. I prescribed a frugal diet and the country. Wild
game, and bleeding by the musquitoes, will do him good. Spalding is
entitled to a holiday, for he's working himself into dyspepsia in this
hot weather."
"Just the thing;" I replied, and we started to find Smith and
Spalding. We found them, and it was settled that they should go with
us for a month among the mountains. Everybody knows Smith, the
good-natured, eccentric Smith; Smith the bachelor, who has an income
greatly beyond his moderate expenditures, and enough of capital to
spoil, as he says, the orphan children of his sister. By way of saving
them from being thrown upon the cold world with a fortune, he declares
he will spend every dollar of it _himself_, simply out of regard for
_them_. But Smith will do no such thing, and the tenderness with which
he is rearing the two beautiful, black-eyed, raven-haired little
girls, proves that he will not. But Smith has no professional calling
or business, and when his digestion troubles him, he has visions of
the alms-house, and the Potters' Field, and of two mendicant little
girls, while his endorsement would be regarded as good at the bank for
a hundred thousand dollars.
Spalding, as everybody within a hundred leagues of the capitol knows,
is a lawyer of eminence, full of good-nature, always cheerful, always
instructive; a troublesome opponent at the bar; a man of genial
sympathies and a big heart. If I have given him, as well as Smith, a
_nom de plume_, it is out of regard for their modesty. We arranged to
meet at the cars, the next morning at six, each with a rifle and
fishing rod, to be away for a month among the deer and the trout,
floating over lakes the most beautiful, and along rivers the
pleasantest that the sun ever shone upon.
CHAPTER II.
HURRAH! FOR THE COUNTRY!
Hurrah! Hurrah! We are in the country--the glorious country! Outside
of the thronged streets; away from piled up bricks and mortar; outside
of the clank of machinery; the rumbling of carriages; the roar of the
escape pipe; the scream of the steam whistle; the tramp, tramp of
moving thousands on the stone sidewalks; away from the heated
atmosphere of the city, loaded with the smoke and dust, and gasses of
furnaces, and the ten thousand manufactories of villainous smells. We
are beyond even the meadows and green fields. We are here alone with
nature, surrounded by old primeval things. Tall forest trees, mountain
and valley are on the right hand and on the left. Before us,
stretching away for miles, is a beautiful lake, its waters calm and
placid, giving back the bright heavens, the old woods, the fleecy
clouds that drift across the sky, from away down in its quiet depths.
Beyond still, are mountain ranges, whose castellated peaks stand out
in sharp and bold relief, on whose tops the beams of the descending
sun lie like a mantle of silver and gold. Glad voices are ringing;
sounds of merriment make the evening joyous with the music of the wild
things around us. Hark! how from away off over the water, the voice of
the loon comes clear and musical and shrill, like the sound of a
clarion; and note how it is borne about by the echoes from hill to
hill. Hark! again, to that clanking sound away up in the air; metallic
ringing, like the tones of a bell. It is the call of the cock of the
woods as he flies, rising and falling, glancing upward and downward in
his billowy flight across the lake. Hark! to that dull sound, like
blows upon some soft, hollow, half sonorous substance, slow and
measured at first, but increasing in rapidity, until it rolls like the
beat of a muffled drum, or the low growl of the far-off thunder. It is
the partridge drumming upon his log Hark! still again, to that
quavering note, resembling somewhat the voice of the tree-frog when
the storm is gathering, but not so clear and shrill. It is the call of
the raccoon, as he clambers up some old forest tree, and seats himself
among the lowest of its great limbs. Listen to the almost human
halloo, the "hoo! hohoo, hoo!" that comes out from the clustering
foliage of an ancient hemlock. It is the solemn call of the owl, as he
sits among the limbs, looking out from between the branches with his
great round grey eyes. Listen again and you will hear the voice of the
catbird, the brown thrush, the chervink, the little chickadee, the
wood robin, the blue-jay, the wood sparrow, and a hundred other
nameless birds that live and build their nests and sing among these
old woods.
But go a little nearer the lake, and you will have a concert that will
drown all these voices in its tumultuous roar. Compared to these
feeble strains, it is the crashing of Julien's hundred brazen
instruments to the soft and sweet melody of Ole Bull's violin. Come
with me to this rocky promontory; stand with me on this moss-covered
boulder, which forms the point. On either hand is a little bay, the
head of which is hidden around among the woods. See! over against us,
on the limb of that dead fir tree, which leans out over the water, is
a bald eagle, straightening with his hooked beak the feathers of his
wings, and pausing now and then to look out over the water for some
careless duck of which to make prey. See! he has leaped from his
perch, has spread his broad pinions, and is soaring upward towards the
sky. See! how he circles round and round, mounting higher and higher
at every gyration. He is like a speck in the air. But see! he is above
the mountains now, and how like an arrow he goes, straight forward,
with no visible motion to his wings. He has laid his course for some
lake, deeper in the wilderness, beyond that range of hills, and he is
there, even while we are talking of his flight. A swift bird, the
swiftest of all the birds, is the eagle, when he takes his descending
stoop from his place away up in the sky. He cleaves the air like a
bullet, and so swift is his career that the eye can scarcely trace his
flight. But, hark! all is still now, save the piping notes of the
little peeper along the shore. Wait, however, a moment. There, hear
that venerable podunker off to the right, with his deep bass, like the
sound of a brazen serpent. Listen! another deep voice on the left has
fallen in. There, another right over against us! another and another
still! a dozen! a hundred! a thousand! ten thousand! a million of
them! close by us! far off! on the right hand and on the left! here!
there! everywhere! until above, around us, all through the woods, all
along the shore, all over the lake is a solid roar, impenetrable to
any other sound, surging and swaying, rolling and swelling as if all
the voices in the world were concentrated in one stupendous concert.
But, hark! the roar is dying away; voice after voice drops out; here
and there is one laggard in the song, still dragging out the chorus.
Now all is still again, save the note of the little peeper along the
shore. In two minutes that band will strike up again. The roar will go
bellowing over the lake through the woods, to be thrown from hill to
hill, to die away into silence again; and so it will be through all
the long night, and until the sun looks out from among the tree tops
in the morning. Touch that solemn looking old croaker on yonder broad
leaf of that pond lily, with the end of your fishing rod, while the
music is at the highest, he will send forth a quick discordant and
cracked cry, like that of a greedy dog choked with a bone, as he
plunges for the bottom; and note how suddenly that sound will be
repeated, and how quick the roar of the frogs will be hushed into
silence. That is a cry of alarm, a note of danger, and every frog
within hearing understands its import.