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diff --git a/3132-0.txt b/3132-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd620f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/3132-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3560 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Wilderness, by Charles Dudley Warner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: In the Wilderness + +Author: Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: August 22, 2006 [EBook #3132] +Last Updated: February 24, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE WILDERNESS *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +IN THE WILDERNESS + +By Charles Dudley Warner + + + +CONTENTS: + + HOW I KILLED A BEAR + LOST IN THE WOODS + A FIGHT WITH A TROUT + A-HUNTING OF THE DEER + A CHARACTER STUDY (Old Phelps) + CAMPING OUT + A WILDERNESS ROMANCE + WHAT SOME PEOPLE CALL PLEASURE + + + + +I. HOW I KILLED A BEAR + +So many conflicting accounts have appeared about my casual encounter +with an Adirondack bear last summer that in justice to the public, to +myself, and to the bear, it is necessary to make a plain statement of +the facts. Besides, it is so seldom I have occasion to kill a bear, that +the celebration of the exploit may be excused. + +The encounter was unpremeditated on both sides. I was not hunting for +a bear, and I have no reason to suppose that a bear was looking for me. +The fact is, that we were both out blackberrying, and met by chance, the +usual way. There is among the Adirondack visitors always a great deal of +conversation about bears,--a general expression of the wish to see one +in the woods, and much speculation as to how a person would act if he or +she chanced to meet one. But bears are scarce and timid, and appear only +to a favored few. + +It was a warm day in August, just the sort of day when an adventure of +any kind seemed impossible. But it occurred to the housekeepers at our +cottage--there were four of them--to send me to the clearing, on the +mountain back of the house, to pick blackberries. It was rather a series +of small clearings, running up into the forest, much overgrown with +bushes and briers, and not unromantic. Cows pastured there, penetrating +through the leafy passages from one opening to another, and browsing +among the bushes. I was kindly furnished with a six-quart pail, and told +not to be gone long. + +Not from any predatory instinct, but to save appearances, I took a +gun. It adds to the manly aspect of a person with a tin pail if he also +carries a gun. It was possible I might start up a partridge; though how +I was to hit him, if he started up instead of standing still, puzzled +me. Many people use a shotgun for partridges. I prefer the rifle: it +makes a clean job of death, and does not prematurely stuff the bird with +globules of lead. The rifle was a Sharps, carrying a ball cartridge (ten +to the pound),--an excellent weapon belonging to a friend of mine, who +had intended, for a good many years back, to kill a deer with it. He +could hit a tree with it--if the wind did not blow, and the atmosphere +was just right, and the tree was not too far off--nearly every time. Of +course, the tree must have some size. Needless to say that I was at that +time no sportsman. Years ago I killed a robin under the most humiliating +circumstances. The bird was in a low cherry-tree. I loaded a big shotgun +pretty full, crept up under the tree, rested the gun on the fence, with +the muzzle more than ten feet from the bird, shut both eyes, and pulled +the trigger. When I got up to see what had happened, the robin was +scattered about under the tree in more than a thousand pieces, no one +of which was big enough to enable a naturalist to decide from it to what +species it belonged. This disgusted me with the life of a sportsman. I +mention the incident to show that, although I went blackberrying armed, +there was not much inequality between me and the bear. + +In this blackberry-patch bears had been seen. The summer before, our +colored cook, accompanied by a little girl of the vicinage, was picking +berries there one day, when a bear came out of the woods, and walked +towards them. The girl took to her heels, and escaped. Aunt Chloe was +paralyzed with terror. Instead of attempting to run, she sat down on +the ground where she was standing, and began to weep and scream, +giving herself up for lost. The bear was bewildered by this conduct. +He approached and looked at her; he walked around and surveyed her. +Probably he had never seen a colored person before, and did not know +whether she would agree with him: at any rate, after watching her a few +moments, he turned about, and went into the forest. This is an authentic +instance of the delicate consideration of a bear, and is much more +remarkable than the forbearance towards the African slave of the +well-known lion, because the bear had no thorn in his foot. + +When I had climbed the hill,--I set up my rifle against a tree, and +began picking berries, lured on from bush to bush by the black gleam of +fruit (that always promises more in the distance than it realizes when +you reach it); penetrating farther and farther, through leaf-shaded +cow-paths flecked with sunlight, into clearing after clearing. I could +hear on all sides the tinkle of bells, the cracking of sticks, and +the stamping of cattle that were taking refuge in the thicket from the +flies. Occasionally, as I broke through a covert, I encountered a meek +cow, who stared at me stupidly for a second, and then shambled off into +the brush. I became accustomed to this dumb society, and picked on in +silence, attributing all the wood noises to the cattle, thinking nothing +of any real bear. In point of fact, however, I was thinking all the time +of a nice romantic bear, and as I picked, was composing a story about a +generous she-bear who had lost her cub, and who seized a small girl in +this very wood, carried her tenderly off to a cave, and brought her +up on bear's milk and honey. When the girl got big enough to run away, +moved by her inherited instincts, she escaped, and came into the valley +to her father's house (this part of the story was to be worked out, so +that the child would know her father by some family resemblance, and +have some language in which to address him), and told him where the bear +lived. The father took his gun, and, guided by the unfeeling daughter, +went into the woods and shot the bear, who never made any resistance, +and only, when dying, turned reproachful eyes upon her murderer. The +moral of the tale was to be kindness to animals. + +I was in the midst of this tale when I happened to look some rods away +to the other edge of the clearing, and there was a bear! He was +standing on his hind legs, and doing just what I was doing,--picking +blackberries. With one paw he bent down the bush, while with the other +he clawed the berries into his mouth,--green ones and all. To say that +I was astonished is inside the mark. I suddenly discovered that I didn't +want to see a bear, after all. At about the same moment the bear saw me, +stopped eating berries, and regarded me with a glad surprise. It is +all very well to imagine what you would do under such circumstances. +Probably you wouldn't do it: I didn't. The bear dropped down on his +forefeet, and came slowly towards me. Climbing a tree was of no use, +with so good a climber in the rear. If I started to run, I had no doubt +the bear would give chase; and although a bear cannot run down hill +as fast as he can run up hill, yet I felt that he could get over this +rough, brush-tangled ground faster than I could. + +The bear was approaching. It suddenly occurred to me how I could divert +his mind until I could fall back upon my military base. My pail was +nearly full of excellent berries, much better than the bear could pick +himself. I put the pail on the ground, and slowly backed away from it, +keeping my eye, as beast-tamers do, on the bear. The ruse succeeded. + +The bear came up to the berries, and stopped. Not accustomed to eat out +of a pail, he tipped it over, and nosed about in the fruit, “gorming” + (if there is such a word) it down, mixed with leaves and dirt, like a +pig. The bear is a worse feeder than the pig. Whenever he disturbs a +maple-sugar camp in the spring, he always upsets the buckets of syrup, +and tramples round in the sticky sweets, wasting more than he eats. The +bear's manners are thoroughly disagreeable. + +As soon as my enemy's head was down, I started and ran. Somewhat out of +breath, and shaky, I reached my faithful rifle. It was not a moment too +soon. I heard the bear crashing through the brush after me. Enraged at +my duplicity, he was now coming on with blood in his eye. I felt that +the time of one of us was probably short. The rapidity of thought at +such moments of peril is well known. I thought an octavo volume, had +it illustrated and published, sold fifty thousand copies, and went to +Europe on the proceeds, while that bear was loping across the clearing. +As I was cocking the gun, I made a hasty and unsatisfactory review of +my whole life. I noted, that, even in such a compulsory review, it is +almost impossible to think of any good thing you have done. The sins +come out uncommonly strong. I recollected a newspaper subscription I had +delayed paying years and years ago, until both editor and newspaper were +dead, and which now never could be paid to all eternity. + +The bear was coming on. + +I tried to remember what I had read about encounters with bears. I +couldn't recall an instance in which a man had run away from a bear in +the woods and escaped, although I recalled plenty where the bear had run +from the man and got off. I tried to think what is the best way to kill +a bear with a gun, when you are not near enough to club him with the +stock. My first thought was to fire at his head; to plant the ball +between his eyes: but this is a dangerous experiment. The bear's brain +is very small; and, unless you hit that, the bear does not mind a bullet +in his head; that is, not at the time. I remembered that the instant +death of the bear would follow a bullet planted just back of his +fore-leg, and sent into his heart. This spot is also difficult to reach, +unless the bear stands off, side towards you, like a target. I finally +determined to fire at him generally. + +The bear was coming on. + +The contest seemed to me very different from anything at Creedmoor. I +had carefully read the reports of the shooting there; but it was not +easy to apply the experience I had thus acquired. I hesitated whether I +had better fire lying on my stomach or lying on my back, and resting the +gun on my toes. But in neither position, I reflected, could I see +the bear until he was upon me. The range was too short; and the bear +wouldn't wait for me to examine the thermometer, and note the direction +of the wind. Trial of the Creedmoor method, therefore, had to be +abandoned; and I bitterly regretted that I had not read more accounts of +offhand shooting. + +For the bear was coming on. + +I tried to fix my last thoughts upon my family. As my family is small, +this was not difficult. Dread of displeasing my wife, or hurting her +feelings, was uppermost in my mind. What would be her anxiety as hour +after hour passed on, and I did not return! What would the rest of the +household think as the afternoon passed, and no blackberries came! What +would be my wife's mortification when the news was brought that her +husband had been eaten by a bear! I cannot imagine anything more +ignominious than to have a husband eaten by a bear. And this was not +my only anxiety. The mind at such times is not under control. With the +gravest fears the most whimsical ideas will occur. I looked beyond the +mourning friends, and thought what kind of an epitaph they would be +compelled to put upon the stone. + +Something like this: + + HERE LIE THE REMAINS + + OF + ----- ------- + + EATEN BY A BEAR + Aug. 20, 1877 + +It is a very unheroic and even disagreeable epitaph. That “eaten by +a bear” is intolerable. It is grotesque. And then I thought what an +inadequate language the English is for compact expression. It would not +answer to put upon the stone simply “eaten”; for that is indefinite, and +requires explanation: it might mean eaten by a cannibal. This difficulty +could not occur in the German, where essen signifies the act of feeding +by a man, and fressen by a beast. How simple the thing would be in +German! + + HIER LIEGT + HOCHWOHLGEBOREN + HERR ---- ------ + + GEFRESSEN + Aug. 20, 1877 + +That explains itself. The well-born one was eaten by a beast, and +presumably by a bear,--an animal that has a bad reputation since the +days of Elisha. + +The bear was coming on; he had, in fact, come on. I judged that he could +see the whites of my eyes. All my subsequent reflections were confused. +I raised the gun, covered the bear's breast with the sight, and let +drive. Then I turned, and ran like a deer. I did not hear the bear +pursuing. I looked back. The bear had stopped. He was lying down. I then +remembered that the best thing to do after having fired your gun is to +reload it. I slipped in a charge, keeping my eyes on the bear. He never +stirred. I walked back suspiciously. There was a quiver in the hindlegs, +but no other motion. Still, he might be shamming: bears often sham. To +make sure, I approached, and put a ball into his head. He didn't mind +it now: he minded nothing. Death had come to him with a merciful +suddenness. He was calm in death. In order that he might remain so, I +blew his brains out, and then started for home. I had killed a bear! + +Notwithstanding my excitement, I managed to saunter into the house with +an unconcerned air. There was a chorus of voices: + +“Where are your blackberries?” “Why were you gone so long?” “Where's +your pail?” + +“I left the pail.” + +“Left the pail? What for?” + +“A bear wanted it.” + +“Oh, nonsense!” + +“Well, the last I saw of it, a bear had it.” + +“Oh, come! You didn't really see a bear?” + +“Yes, but I did really see a real bear.” + +“Did he run?” + +“Yes: he ran after me.” + +“I don't believe a word of it. What did you do?” + +“Oh! nothing particular--except kill the bear.” + +Cries of “Gammon!” “Don't believe it!” “Where's the bear?” + +“If you want to see the bear, you must go up into the woods. I couldn't +bring him down alone.” + +Having satisfied the household that something extraordinary had +occurred, and excited the posthumous fear of some of them for my own +safety, I went down into the valley to get help. The great bear-hunter, +who keeps one of the summer boarding-houses, received my story with +a smile of incredulity; and the incredulity spread to the other +inhabitants and to the boarders as soon as the story was known. However, +as I insisted in all soberness, and offered to lead them to the bear, a +party of forty or fifty people at last started off with me to bring the +bear in. Nobody believed there was any bear in the case; but everybody +who could get a gun carried one; and we went into the woods armed with +guns, pistols, pitchforks, and sticks, against all contingencies or +surprises,--a crowd made up mostly of scoffers and jeerers. + +But when I led the way to the fatal spot, and pointed out the bear, +lying peacefully wrapped in his own skin, something like terror seized +the boarders, and genuine excitement the natives. It was a no-mistake +bear, by George! and the hero of the fight well, I will not insist upon +that. But what a procession that was, carrying the bear home! and what +a congregation, was speedily gathered in the valley to see the bear! Our +best preacher up there never drew anything like it on Sunday. + +And I must say that my particular friends, who were sportsmen, behaved +very well, on the whole. They didn't deny that it was a bear, although +they said it was small for a bear. Mr... Deane, who is equally good with +a rifle and a rod, admitted that it was a very fair shot. He is probably +the best salmon fisher in the United States, and he is an equally good +hunter. I suppose there is no person in America who is more desirous to +kill a moose than he. But he needlessly remarked, after he had examined +the wound in the bear, that he had seen that kind of a shot made by a +cow's horn. + +This sort of talk affected me not. When I went to sleep that night, my +last delicious thought was, “I've killed a bear!” + + + + +II. LOST IN THE WOODS + +It ought to be said, by way of explanation, that my being lost in the +woods was not premeditated. Nothing could have been more informal. +This apology can be necessary only to those who are familiar with the +Adirondack literature. Any person not familiar with it would see the +absurdity of one going to the Northern Wilderness with the deliberate +purpose of writing about himself as a lost man. It may be true that a +book about this wild tract would not be recognized as complete without +a lost-man story in it, since it is almost as easy for a stranger to +get lost in the Adirondacks as in Boston. I merely desire to say that my +unimportant adventure is not narrated in answer to the popular demand, +and I do not wish to be held responsible for its variation from the +typical character of such experiences. + +We had been in camp a week, on the Upper Au Sable Lake. This is a +gem--emerald or turquoise as the light changes it--set in the virgin +forest. It is not a large body of water, is irregular in form, and about +a mile and a half in length; but in the sweep of its wooded shores, and +the lovely contour of the lofty mountains that guard it, the lake +is probably the most charming in America. Why the young ladies and +gentlemen who camp there occasionally vex the days and nights with +hooting, and singing sentimental songs, is a mystery even to the +laughing loon. + +I left my companions there one Saturday morning, to return to Keene +Valley, intending to fish down the Au Sable River. The Upper Lake +discharges itself into the Lower by a brook which winds through a mile +and a half of swamp and woods. Out of the north end of the Lower +Lake, which is a huge sink in the mountains, and mirrors the savage +precipices, the Au Sable breaks its rocky barriers, and flows through a +wild gorge, several miles, to the valley below. Between the Lower Lake +and the settlements is an extensive forest, traversed by a cart-path, +admirably constructed of loose stones, roots of trees, decayed logs, +slippery rocks, and mud. The gorge of the river forms its western +boundary. I followed this caricature of a road a mile or more; then +gave my luggage to the guide to carry home, and struck off through the +forest, by compass, to the river. I promised myself an exciting scramble +down this little-frequented canyon, and a creel full of trout. There was +no difficulty in finding the river, or in descending the steep precipice +to its bed: getting into a scrape is usually the easiest part of it. The +river is strewn with bowlders, big and little, through which the amber +water rushes with an unceasing thunderous roar, now plunging down in +white falls, then swirling round in dark pools. The day, already past +meridian, was delightful; at least, the blue strip of it I could see +overhead. + +Better pools and rapids for trout never were, I thought, as I concealed +myself behind a bowlder, and made the first cast. There is nothing like +the thrill of expectation over the first throw in unfamiliar waters. +Fishing is like gambling, in that failure only excites hope of a +fortunate throw next time. There was no rise to the “leader” on the +first cast, nor on the twenty-first; and I cautiously worked my way down +stream, throwing right and left. When I had gone half a mile, my opinion +of the character of the pools was unchanged: never were there such +places for trout; but the trout were out of their places. Perhaps they +didn't care for the fly: some trout seem to be so unsophisticated as +to prefer the worm. I replaced the fly with a baited hook: the worm +squirmed; the waters rushed and roared; a cloud sailed across the +blue: no trout rose to the lonesome opportunity. There is a certain +companionship in the presence of trout, especially when you can feel +them flopping in your fish basket; but it became evident that there were +no trout in this wilderness, and a sense of isolation for the first time +came over me. There was no living thing near. The river had by this time +entered a deeper gorge; walls of rocks rose perpendicularly on either +side,--picturesque rocks, painted many colors by the oxide of iron. It +was not possible to climb out of the gorge; it was impossible to find a +way by the side of the river; and getting down the bed, over the falls, +and through the flumes, was not easy, and consumed time. + +Was that thunder? Very likely. But thunder showers are always brewing +in these mountain fortresses, and it did not occur to me that there was +anything personal in it. Very soon, however, the hole in the sky closed +in, and the rain dashed down. It seemed a providential time to eat my +luncheon; and I took shelter under a scraggy pine that had rooted itself +in the edge of the rocky slope. The shower soon passed, and I continued +my journey, creeping over the slippery rocks, and continuing to show +my confidence in the unresponsive trout. The way grew wilder and more +grewsome. The thunder began again, rolling along over the tops of the +mountains, and reverberating in sharp concussions in the gorge: the +lightning also darted down into the darkening passage, and then the +rain. Every enlightened being, even if he is in a fisherman's dress of +shirt and pantaloons, hates to get wet; and I ignominiously crept under +the edge of a sloping bowlder. It was all very well at first, until +streams of water began to crawl along the face of the rock, and +trickle down the back of my neck. This was refined misery, unheroic and +humiliating, as suffering always is when unaccompanied by resignation. + +A longer time than I knew was consumed in this and repeated efforts +to wait for the slackening and renewing storm to pass away. In the +intervals of calm I still fished, and even descended to what a sportsman +considers incredible baseness: I put a “sinker” on my line. It is the +practice of the country folk, whose only object is to get fish, to use +a good deal of bait, sink the hook to the bottom of the pools, and wait +the slow appetite of the summer trout. I tried this also. I might as +well have fished in a pork barrel. It is true that in one deep, black, +round pool I lured a small trout from the bottom, and deposited him +in the creel; but it was an accident. Though I sat there in the awful +silence (the roar of water and thunder only emphasized the stillness) +full half an hour, I was not encouraged by another nibble. Hope, +however, did not die: I always expected to find the trout in the next +flume; and so I toiled slowly on, unconscious of the passing time. At +each turn of the stream I expected to see the end, and at each turn I +saw a long, narrow stretch of rocks and foaming water. Climbing out of +the ravine was, in most places, simply impossible; and I began to look +with interest for a slide, where bushes rooted in the scant earth would +enable me to scale the precipice. I did not doubt that I was nearly +through the gorge. I could at length see the huge form of the Giant of +the Valley, scarred with avalanches, at the end of the vista; and it +seemed not far off. But it kept its distance, as only a mountain can, +while I stumbled and slid down the rocky way. The rain had now set in +with persistence, and suddenly I became aware that it was growing dark; +and I said to myself, “If you don't wish to spend the night in this +horrible chasm, you'd better escape speedily.” Fortunately I reached +a place where the face of the precipice was bushgrown, and with +considerable labor scrambled up it. + +Having no doubt that I was within half a mile, perhaps within a few +rods, of the house above the entrance of the gorge, and that, in any +event, I should fall into the cart-path in a few minutes, I struck +boldly into the forest, congratulating myself on having escaped out of +the river. So sure was I of my whereabouts that I did not note the bend +of the river, nor look at my compass. The one trout in my basket was no +burden, and I stepped lightly out. + +The forest was of hard-wood, and open, except for a thick undergrowth of +moose-bush. It was raining,--in fact, it had been raining, more or +less, for a month,--and the woods were soaked. This moose-bush is most +annoying stuff to travel through in a rain; for the broad leaves slap +one in the face, and sop him with wet. The way grew every moment +more dingy. The heavy clouds above the thick foliage brought night on +prematurely. It was decidedly premature to a near-sighted man, whose +glasses the rain rendered useless: such a person ought to be at home +early. On leaving the river bank I had borne to the left, so as to be +sure to strike either the clearing or the road, and not wander off into +the measureless forest. I confidently pursued this course, and went +gayly on by the left flank. That I did not come to any opening or path +only showed that I had slightly mistaken the distance: I was going in +the right direction. + +I was so certain of this that I quickened my pace and got up with +alacrity every time I tumbled down amid the slippery leaves and catching +roots, and hurried on. And I kept to the left. It even occurred to me +that I was turning to the left so much that I might come back to the +river again. It grew more dusky, and rained more violently; but there +was nothing alarming in the situation, since I knew exactly where I was. +It was a little mortifying that I had miscalculated the distance: yet, +so far was I from feeling any uneasiness about this that I quickened my +pace again, and, before I knew it, was in a full run; that is, as full +a run as a person can indulge in in the dusk, with so many trees in +the way. No nervousness, but simply a reasonable desire to get there. I +desired to look upon myself as the person “not lost, but gone before.” + As time passed, and darkness fell, and no clearing or road appeared, I +ran a little faster. It didn't seem possible that the people had moved, +or the road been changed; and yet I was sure of my direction. I went +on with an energy increased by the ridiculousness of the situation, +the danger that an experienced woodsman was in of getting home late +for supper; the lateness of the meal being nothing to the gibes of the +unlost. How long I kept this course, and how far I went on, I do not +know; but suddenly I stumbled against an ill-placed tree, and sat down +on the soaked ground, a trifle out of breath. It then occurred to me +that I had better verify my course by the compass. There was scarcely +light enough to distinguish the black end of the needle. To my +amazement, the compass, which was made near Greenwich, was wrong. +Allowing for the natural variation of the needle, it was absurdly wrong. +It made out that I was going south when I was going north. It intimated +that, instead of turning to the left, I had been making a circuit to the +right. According to the compass, the Lord only knew where I was. + +The inclination of persons in the woods to travel in a circle is +unexplained. I suppose it arises from the sympathy of the legs with the +brain. Most people reason in a circle: their minds go round and round, +always in the same track. For the last half hour I had been saying over +a sentence that started itself: “I wonder where that road is!” I had +said it over till it had lost all meaning. I kept going round on it; and +yet I could not believe that my body had been traveling in a circle. +Not being able to recognize any tracks, I have no evidence that I had so +traveled, except the general testimony of lost men. + +The compass annoyed me. I've known experienced guides utterly discredit +it. It couldn't be that I was to turn about, and go the way I had come. +Nevertheless, I said to myself, “You'd better keep a cool head, my +boy, or you are in for a night of it. Better listen to science than +to spunk.” And I resolved to heed the impartial needle. I was a little +weary of the rough tramping: but it was necessary to be moving; for, +with wet clothes and the night air, I was decidedly chilly. I turned +towards the north, and slipped and stumbled along. A more uninviting +forest to pass the night in I never saw. Every-thing was soaked. If +I became exhausted, it would be necessary to build a fire; and, as I +walked on, I couldn't find a dry bit of wood. Even if a little punk were +discovered in a rotten log I had no hatchet to cut fuel. I thought it +all over calmly. I had the usual three matches in my pocket. I knew +exactly what would happen if I tried to build a fire. The first match +would prove to be wet. The second match, when struck, would shine and +smell, and fizz a little, and then go out. There would be only one match +left. Death would ensue if it failed. I should get close to the log, +crawl under my hat, strike the match, see it catch, flicker, almost +go out (the reader painfully excited by this time), blaze up, nearly +expire, and finally fire the punk,--thank God! And I said to myself, +“The public don't want any more of this thing: it is played out. Either +have a box of matches, or let the first one catch fire.” + +In this gloomy mood I plunged along. The prospect was cheerless; for, +apart from the comfort that a fire would give, it is necessary, at +night, to keep off the wild beasts. I fancied I could hear the tread of +the stealthy brutes following their prey. But there was one source of +profound satisfaction,--the catamount had been killed. Mr. Colvin, +the triangulating surveyor of the Adirondacks, killed him in his +last official report to the State. Whether he despatched him with a +theodolite or a barometer does not matter: he is officially dead, and +none of the travelers can kill him any more. Yet he has served them a +good turn. + +I knew that catamount well. One night when we lay in the bogs of the +South Beaver Meadow, under a canopy of mosquitoes, the serene midnight +was parted by a wild and humanlike cry from a neighboring mountain. +“That's a cat,” said the guide. I felt in a moment that it was the voice +of “modern cultchah.” “Modern culture,” says Mr. Joseph Cook in a most +impressive period,--“modern culture is a child crying in the wilderness, +and with no voice but a cry.” That describes the catamount exactly. The +next day, when we ascended the mountain, we came upon the traces of this +brute,--a spot where he had stood and cried in the night; and I confess +that my hair rose with the consciousness of his recent presence, as it +is said to do when a spirit passes by. + +Whatever consolation the absence of catamount in a dark, drenched, and +howling wilderness can impart, that I experienced; but I thought what +a satire upon my present condition was modern culture, with its plain +thinking and high living! It was impossible to get much satisfaction +out of the real and the ideal,--the me and the not-me. At this time +what impressed me most was the absurdity of my position looked at in the +light of modern civilization and all my advantages and acquirements. It +seemed pitiful that society could do absolutely nothing for me. It +was, in fact, humiliating to reflect that it would now be profitable +to exchange all my possessions for the woods instinct of the most +unlettered guide. I began to doubt the value of the “culture” that +blunts the natural instincts. + +It began to be a question whether I could hold out to walk all night; +for I must travel, or perish. And now I imagined that a spectre was +walking by my side. This was Famine. To be sure, I had only recently +eaten a hearty luncheon: but the pangs of hunger got hold on me when +I thought that I should have no supper, no breakfast; and, as the +procession of unattainable meals stretched before me, I grew hungrier +and hungrier. I could feel that I was becoming gaunt, and wasting away: +already I seemed to be emaciated. It is astonishing how speedily a +jocund, well-conditioned human being can be transformed into a spectacle +of poverty and want, Lose a man in the Woods, drench him, tear his +pantaloons, get his imagination running on his lost supper and the +cheerful fireside that is expecting him, and he will become haggard +in an hour. I am not dwelling upon these things to excite the reader's +sympathy, but only to advise him, if he contemplates an adventure of +this kind, to provide himself with matches, kindling wood, something +more to eat than one raw trout, and not to select a rainy night for it. + +Nature is so pitiless, so unresponsive, to a person in trouble! I had +read of the soothing companionship of the forest, the pleasure of +the pathless woods. But I thought, as I stumbled along in the dismal +actuality, that, if I ever got out of it, I would write a letter to +the newspapers, exposing the whole thing. There is an impassive, stolid +brutality about the woods that has never been enough insisted on. +I tried to keep my mind fixed upon the fact of man's superiority to +Nature; his ability to dominate and outwit her. My situation was an +amusing satire on this theory. I fancied that I could feel a sneer in +the woods at my detected conceit. There was something personal in +it. The downpour of the rain and the slipperiness of the ground were +elements of discomfort; but there was, besides these, a kind of terror +in the very character of the forest itself. I think this arose not +more from its immensity than from the kind of stolidity to which I have +alluded. It seemed to me that it would be a sort of relief to kick the +trees. I don't wonder that the bears fall to, occasionally, and scratch +the bark off the great pines and maples, tearing it angrily away. One +must have some vent to his feelings. It is a common experience of people +lost in the woods to lose their heads; and even the woodsmen themselves +are not free from this panic when some accident has thrown them out of +their reckoning. Fright unsettles the judgment: the oppressive silence +of the woods is a vacuum in which the mind goes astray. It's a hollow +sham, this pantheism, I said; being “one with Nature” is all humbug: I +should like to see somebody. Man, to be sure, is of very little account, +and soon gets beyond his depth; but the society of the least human being +is better than this gigantic indifference. The “rapture on the lonely +shore” is agreeable only when you know you can at any moment go home. + +I had now given up all expectation of finding the road, and was steering +my way as well as I could northward towards the valley. In my haste I +made slow progress. Probably the distance I traveled was short, and the +time consumed not long; but I seemed to be adding mile to mile, and hour +to hour. I had time to review the incidents of the Russo-Turkish war, +and to forecast the entire Eastern question; I outlined the characters +of all my companions left in camp, and sketched in a sort of comedy +the sympathetic and disparaging observations they would make on +my adventure; I repeated something like a thousand times, without +contradiction, “What a fool you were to leave the river!” I stopped +twenty times, thinking I heard its loud roar, always deceived by the +wind in the tree-tops; I began to entertain serious doubts about the +compass,--when suddenly I became aware that I was no longer on level +ground: I was descending a slope; I was actually in a ravine. In a +moment more I was in a brook newly formed by the rain. “Thank Heaven!” + I cried: “this I shall follow, whatever conscience or the compass says.” + In this region, all streams go, sooner or later, into the valley. This +ravine, this stream, no doubt, led to the river. I splashed and tumbled +along down it in mud and water. Down hill we went together, the fall +showing that I must have wandered to high ground. When I guessed that I +must be close to the river, I suddenly stepped into mud up to my ankles. +It was the road,--running, of course, the wrong way, but still the +blessed road. It was a mere canal of liquid mud; but man had made it, +and it would take me home. I was at least three miles from the point I +supposed I was near at sunset, and I had before me a toilsome walk of +six or seven miles, most of the way in a ditch; but it is truth to say +that I enjoyed every step of it. I was safe; I knew where I was; and I +could have walked till morning. The mind had again got the upper hand +of the body, and began to plume itself on its superiority: it was even +disposed to doubt whether it had been “lost” at all. + + + + +III. A FIGHT WITH A TROUT + +Trout fishing in the Adirondacks would be a more attractive pastime than +it is but for the popular notion of its danger. The trout is a retiring +and harmless animal, except when he is aroused and forced into a combat; +and then his agility, fierceness, and vindictiveness become apparent. No +one who has studied the excellent pictures representing men in an open +boat, exposed to the assaults of long, enraged trout flying at them +through the open air with open mouth, ever ventures with his rod upon +the lonely lakes of the forest without a certain terror, or ever reads +of the exploits of daring fishermen without a feeling of admiration for +their heroism. Most of their adventures are thrilling, and all of them +are, in narration, more or less unjust to the trout: in fact, the +object of them seems to be to exhibit, at the expense of the trout, the +shrewdness, the skill, and the muscular power of the sportsman. My own +simple story has few of these recommendations. + +We had built our bark camp one summer and were staying on one of the +popular lakes of the Saranac region. It would be a very pretty region if +it were not so flat, if the margins of the lakes had not been flooded +by dams at the outlets, which have killed the trees, and left a rim of +ghastly deadwood like the swamps of the under-world pictured by Dore's +bizarre pencil,--and if the pianos at the hotels were in tune. It would +be an excellent sporting region also (for there is water enough) if the +fish commissioners would stock the waters, and if previous hunters had +not pulled all the hair and skin off from the deers' tails. Formerly +sportsmen had a habit of catching the deer by the tails, and of being +dragged in mere wantonness round and round the shores. It is well known +that if you seize a deer by this “holt” the skin will slip off like the +peel from a banana--This reprehensible practice was carried so far +that the traveler is now hourly pained by the sight of peeled-tail deer +mournfully sneaking about the wood. + +We had been hearing, for weeks, of a small lake in the heart of the +virgin forest, some ten miles from our camp, which was alive with trout, +unsophisticated, hungry trout: the inlet to it was described as stiff +with them. In my imagination I saw them lying there in ranks and rows, +each a foot long, three tiers deep, a solid mass. The lake had never +been visited except by stray sable hunters in the winter, and was +known as the Unknown Pond. I determined to explore it, fully expecting, +however, that it would prove to be a delusion, as such mysterious haunts +of the trout usually are. Confiding my purpose to Luke, we secretly +made our preparations, and stole away from the shanty one morning at +daybreak. Each of us carried a boat, a pair of blankets, a sack of +bread, pork, and maple-sugar; while I had my case of rods, creel, and +book of flies, and Luke had an axe and the kitchen utensils. We think +nothing of loads of this sort in the woods. + +Five miles through a tamarack swamp brought us to the inlet of Unknown +Pond, upon which we embarked our fleet, and paddled down its vagrant +waters. They were at first sluggish, winding among triste fir-trees, but +gradually developed a strong current. At the end of three miles a +loud roar ahead warned us that we were approaching rapids, falls, +and cascades. We paused. The danger was unknown. We had our choice +of shouldering our loads and making a detour through the woods, or of +“shooting the rapids.” Naturally we chose the more dangerous course. +Shooting the rapids has often been described, and I will not repeat +the description here. It is needless to say that I drove my frail bark +through the boiling rapids, over the successive waterfalls, amid rocks +and vicious eddies, and landed, half a mile below with whitened hair +and a boat half full of water; and that the guide was upset, and boat, +contents, and man were strewn along the shore. + +After this common experience we went quickly on our journey, and, a +couple of hours before sundown, reached the lake. If I live to my dying +day, I never shall forget its appearance. The lake is almost an exact +circle, about a quarter of a mile in diameter. The forest about it was +untouched by axe, and unkilled by artificial flooding. The azure water +had a perfect setting of evergreens, in which all the shades of the +fir, the balsam, the pine, and the spruce were perfectly blended; and +at intervals on the shore in the emerald rim blazed the ruby of the +cardinal flower. It was at once evident that the unruffled waters had +never been vexed by the keel of a boat. But what chiefly attracted my +attention, and amused me, was the boiling of the water, the bubbling and +breaking, as if the lake were a vast kettle, with a fire underneath. A +tyro would have been astonished at this common phenomenon; but sportsmen +will at once understand me when I say that the water boiled with the +breaking trout. I studied the surface for some time to see upon what +sort of flies they were feeding, in order to suit my cast to their +appetites; but they seemed to be at play rather than feeding, leaping +high in the air in graceful curves, and tumbling about each other as we +see them in the Adirondack pictures. + +It is well known that no person who regards his reputation will ever +kill a trout with anything but a fly. It requires some training on +the part of the trout to take to this method. The uncultivated, +unsophisticated trout in unfrequented waters prefers the bait; and the +rural people, whose sole object in going a-fishing appears to be to +catch fish, indulge them in their primitive taste for the worm. No +sportsman, however, will use anything but a fly, except he happens to be +alone. + +While Luke launched my boat and arranged his seat in the stern, I +prepared my rod and line. The rod is a bamboo, weighing seven ounces, +which has to be spliced with a winding of silk thread every time it is +used. This is a tedious process; but, by fastening the joints in this +way, a uniform spring is secured in the rod. No one devoted to high +art would think of using a socket joint. My line was forty yards +of untwisted silk upon a multiplying reel. The “leader” (I am very +particular about my leaders) had been made to order from a domestic +animal with which I had been acquainted. The fisherman requires as good +a catgut as the violinist. The interior of the house cat, it is well +known, is exceedingly sensitive; but it may not be so well known that +the reason why some cats leave the room in distress when a piano-forte +is played is because the two instruments are not in the same key, and +the vibrations of the chords of the one are in discord with the catgut +of the other. On six feet of this superior article I fixed three +artificial flies,--a simple brown hackle, a gray body with scarlet +wings, and one of my own invention, which I thought would be new to the +most experienced fly-catcher. The trout-fly does not resemble any known +species of insect. It is a “conventionalized” creation, as we say of +ornamentation. The theory is that, fly-fishing being a high art, the fly +must not be a tame imitation of nature, but an artistic suggestion of +it. It requires an artist to construct one; and not every bungler +can take a bit of red flannel, a peacock's feather, a flash of tinsel +thread, a cock's plume, a section of a hen's wing, and fabricate a +tiny object that will not look like any fly, but still will suggest the +universal conventional fly. + +I took my stand in the center of the tipsy boat; and Luke shoved off, +and slowly paddled towards some lily-pads, while I began casting, +unlimbering my tools, as it were. The fish had all disappeared. I +got out, perhaps, fifty feet of line, with no response, and gradually +increased it to one hundred. It is not difficult to learn to cast; but +it is difficult to learn not to snap off the flies at every throw. Of +this, however, we will not speak. I continued casting for some moments, +until I became satisfied that there had been a miscalculation. +Either the trout were too green to know what I was at, or they were +dissatisfied with my offers. I reeled in, and changed the flies (that +is, the fly that was not snapped off). After studying the color of the +sky, of the water, and of the foliage, and the moderated light of the +afternoon, I put on a series of beguilers, all of a subdued brilliancy, +in harmony with the approach of evening. At the second cast, which was +a short one, I saw a splash where the leader fell, and gave an excited +jerk. The next instant I perceived the game, and did not need the +unfeigned “dam” of Luke to convince me that I had snatched his felt hat +from his head and deposited it among the lilies. Discouraged by this, we +whirled about, and paddled over to the inlet, where a little ripple was +visible in the tinted light. At the very first cast I saw that the hour +had come. Three trout leaped into the air. The danger of this manoeuvre +all fishermen understand. It is one of the commonest in the woods: three +heavy trout taking hold at once, rushing in different directions, smash +the tackle into flinders. I evaded this catch, and threw again. I recall +the moment. A hermit thrush, on the tip of a balsam, uttered his long, +liquid, evening note. Happening to look over my shoulder, I saw the +peak of Marcy gleam rosy in the sky (I can't help it that Marcy is fifty +miles off, and cannot be seen from this region: these incidental touches +are always used). The hundred feet of silk swished through the air, and +the tail-fly fell as lightly on the water as a three-cent piece (which +no slamming will give the weight of a ten) drops upon the contribution +plate. Instantly there was a rush, a swirl. I struck, and “Got him, +by---!” Never mind what Luke said I got him by. “Out on a fly!” + continued that irreverent guide; but I told him to back water, and make +for the center of the lake. The trout, as soon as he felt the prick of +the hook, was off like a shot, and took out the whole of the line with +a rapidity that made it smoke. “Give him the butt!” shouted Luke. It +is the usual remark in such an emergency. I gave him the butt; and, +recognizing the fact and my spirit, the trout at once sank to the +bottom, and sulked. It is the most dangerous mood of a trout; for you +cannot tell what he will do next. We reeled up a little, and waited five +minutes for him to reflect. A tightening of the line enraged him, and he +soon developed his tactics. Coming to the surface, he made straight +for the boat faster than I could reel in, and evidently with hostile +intentions. “Look out for him!” cried Luke as he came flying in the air. +I evaded him by dropping flat in the bottom of the boat; and, when I +picked my traps up, he was spinning across the lake as if he had a new +idea: but the line was still fast. He did not run far. I gave him the +butt again; a thing he seemed to hate, even as a gift. In a moment the +evil-minded fish, lashing the water in his rage, was coming back again, +making straight for the boat as before. Luke, who was used to these +encounters, having read of them in the writings of travelers he had +accompanied, raised his paddle in self-defense. The trout left the water +about ten feet from the boat, and came directly at me with fiery eyes, +his speckled sides flashing like a meteor. I dodged as he whisked by +with a vicious slap of his bifurcated tail, and nearly upset the boat. +The line was of course slack, and the danger was that he would entangle +it about me, and carry away a leg. This was evidently his game; but I +untangled it, and only lost a breast button or two by the swiftly-moving +string. The trout plunged into the water with a hissing sound, and went +away again with all the line on the reel. More butt; more indignation on +the part of the captive. The contest had now been going on for half an +hour, and I was getting exhausted. We had been back and forth across +the lake, and round and round the lake. What I feared was that the trout +would start up the inlet and wreck us in the bushes. But he had a new +fancy, and began the execution of a manoeuvre which I had never read of. +Instead of coming straight towards me, he took a large circle, swimming +rapidly, and gradually contracting his orbit. I reeled in, and kept my +eye on him. Round and round he went, narrowing his circle. I began to +suspect the game; which was, to twist my head off.--When he had +reduced the radius of his circle to about twenty-five feet, he struck +a tremendous pace through the water. It would be false modesty in +a sportsman to say that I was not equal to the occasion. Instead of +turning round with him, as he expected, I stepped to the bow, braced +myself, and let the boat swing. Round went the fish, and round we went +like a top. I saw a line of Mount Marcys all round the horizon; the +rosy tint in the west made a broad band of pink along the sky above the +tree-tops; the evening star was a perfect circle of light, a hoop of +gold in the heavens. We whirled and reeled, and reeled and whirled. I +was willing to give the malicious beast butt and line, and all, if he +would only go the other way for a change. + +When I came to myself, Luke was gaffing the trout at the boat-side. +After we had got him in and dressed him, he weighed three-quarters of +a pound. Fish always lose by being “got in and dressed.” It is best to +weigh them while they are in the water. The only really large one I ever +caught got away with my leader when I first struck him. He weighed ten +pounds. + + + + +IV. A-HUNTING OF THE DEER + +If civilization owes a debt of gratitude to the self-sacrificing +sportsmen who have cleared the Adirondack regions of catamounts and +savage trout, what shall be said of the army which has so nobly +relieved them of the terror of the deer? The deer-slayers have somewhat +celebrated their exploits in print; but I think that justice has never +been done them. + +The American deer in the wilderness, left to himself, leads a +comparatively harmless but rather stupid life, with only such excitement +as his own timid fancy raises. It was very seldom that one of his tribe +was eaten by the North American tiger. For a wild animal he is very +domestic, simple in his tastes, regular in his habits, affectionate in +his family. Unfortunately for his repose, his haunch is as tender as his +heart. Of all wild creatures he is one of the most graceful in action, +and he poses with the skill of an experienced model. I have seen the +goats on Mount Pentelicus scatter at the approach of a stranger, climb +to the sharp points of projecting rocks, and attitudinize in the most +self-conscious manner, striking at once those picturesque postures +against the sky with which Oriental pictures have made us and them +familiar. But the whole proceeding was theatrical. + +Greece is the home of art, and it is rare to find anything there natural +and unstudied. I presume that these goats have no nonsense about them +when they are alone with the goatherds, any more than the goatherds +have, except when they come to pose in the studio; but the long ages of +culture, the presence always to the eye of the best models and the forms +of immortal beauty, the heroic friezes of the Temple of Theseus, the +marble processions of sacrificial animals, have had a steady molding, +educating influence equal to a society of decorative art upon the people +and the animals who have dwelt in this artistic atmosphere. The Attic +goat has become an artificially artistic being; though of course he is +not now what he was, as a poser, in the days of Polycletus. There is +opportunity for a very instructive essay by Mr. E. A. Freeman on the +decadence of the Attic goat under the influence of the Ottoman Turk. + +The American deer, in the free atmosphere of our country, and as yet +untouched by our decorative art, is without self-consciousness, and +all his attitudes are free and unstudied. The favorite position of +the deer--his fore-feet in the shallow margin of the lake, among the +lily-pads, his antlers thrown back and his nose in the air at the +moment he hears the stealthy breaking of a twig in the forest--is still +spirited and graceful, and wholly unaffected by the pictures of him +which the artists have put upon canvas. + +Wherever you go in the Northern forest you will find deer-paths. So +plainly marked and well-trodden are they that it is easy to mistake them +for trails made by hunters; but he who follows one of them is soon in +difficulties. He may find himself climbing through cedar thickets an +almost inaccessible cliff, or immersed in the intricacies of a marsh. +The “run,” in one direction, will lead to water; but, in the other, +it climbs the highest hills, to which the deer retires, for safety and +repose, in impenetrable thickets. The hunters, in winter, find them +congregated in “yards,” where they can be surrounded and shot as +easily as our troops shoot Comanche women and children in their winter +villages. These little paths are full of pitfalls among the roots and +stones; and, nimble as the deer is, he sometimes breaks one of his +slender legs in them. Yet he knows how to treat himself without a +surgeon. I knew of a tame deer in a settlement in the edge of the forest +who had the misfortune to break her leg. She immediately disappeared +with a delicacy rare in an invalid, and was not seen for two weeks. Her +friends had given her up, supposing that she had dragged herself away +into the depths of the woods, and died of starvation, when one day she +returned, cured of lameness, but thin as a virgin shadow. She had the +sense to shun the doctor; to lie down in some safe place, and patiently +wait for her leg to heal. I have observed in many of the more refined +animals this sort of shyness, and reluctance to give trouble, which +excite our admiration when noticed in mankind. + +The deer is called a timid animal, and taunted with possessing courage +only when he is “at bay”; the stag will fight when he can no longer +flee; and the doe will defend her young in the face of murderous +enemies. The deer gets little credit for this eleventh-hour bravery. But +I think that in any truly Christian condition of society the deer would +not be conspicuous for cowardice. I suppose that if the American girl, +even as she is described in foreign romances, were pursued by bull-dogs, +and fired at from behind fences every time she ventured outdoors, she +would become timid, and reluctant to go abroad. When that golden era +comes which the poets think is behind us, and the prophets declare is +about to be ushered in by the opening of the “vials,” and the killing of +everybody who does not believe as those nations believe which have +the most cannon; when we all live in real concord,--perhaps the +gentle-hearted deer will be respected, and will find that men are not +more savage to the weak than are the cougars and panthers. If the little +spotted fawn can think, it must seem to her a queer world in which the +advent of innocence is hailed by the baying of fierce hounds and the +“ping” of the rifle. + +Hunting the deer in the Adirondacks is conducted in the most manly +fashion. There are several methods, and in none of them is a fair chance +to the deer considered. A favorite method with the natives is practiced +in winter, and is called by them “still hunting.” My idea of still +hunting is for one man to go alone into the forest, look about for a +deer, put his wits fairly against the wits of the keen-scented animal, +and kill his deer, or get lost in the attempt. There seems to be a sort +of fairness about this. It is private assassination, tempered with a +little uncertainty about finding your man. The still hunting of the +natives has all the romance and danger attending the slaughter of sheep +in an abattoir. As the snow gets deep, many deer congregate in the +depths of the forest, and keep a place trodden down, which grows larger +as they tramp down the snow in search of food. In time this refuge +becomes a sort of “yard,” surrounded by unbroken snow-banks. The hunters +then make their way to this retreat on snowshoes, and from the top of +the banks pick off the deer at leisure with their rifles, and haul them +away to market, until the enclosure is pretty much emptied. This is one +of the surest methods of exterminating the deer; it is also one of +the most merciful; and, being the plan adopted by our government for +civilizing the Indian, it ought to be popular. The only people who +object to it are the summer sportsmen. They naturally want some pleasure +out of the death of the deer. + +Some of our best sportsmen, who desire to protract the pleasure of +slaying deer through as many seasons as possible, object to the practice +of the hunters, who make it their chief business to slaughter as many +deer in a camping season as they can. Their own rule, they say, is +to kill a deer only when they need venison to eat. Their excuse is +specious. What right have these sophists to put themselves into a desert +place, out of the reach of provisions, and then ground a right to slay +deer on their own improvidence? If it is necessary for these people +to have anything to eat, which I doubt, it is not necessary that they +should have the luxury of venison. + +One of the most picturesque methods of hunting the poor deer is called +“floating.” The person, with murder in his heart, chooses a cloudy +night, seats himself, rifle in hand, in a canoe, which is noiselessly +paddled by the guide, and explores the shore of the lake or the dark +inlet. In the bow of the boat is a light in a “jack,” the rays of which +are shielded from the boat and its occupants. A deer comes down to feed +upon the lily-pads. The boat approaches him. He looks up, and stands a +moment, terrified or fascinated by the bright flames. In that moment the +sportsman is supposed to shoot the deer. As an historical fact, his hand +usually shakes so that he misses the animal, or only wounds him; and the +stag limps away to die after days of suffering. Usually, however, +the hunters remain out all night, get stiff from cold and the cramped +position in the boat, and, when they return in the morning to camp, +cloud their future existence by the assertion that they “heard a big +buck” moving along the shore, but the people in camp made so much noise +that he was frightened off. + +By all odds, the favorite and prevalent mode is hunting with dogs. The +dogs do the hunting, the men the killing. The hounds are sent into the +forest to rouse the deer, and drive him from his cover. They climb the +mountains, strike the trails, and go baying and yelping on the track of +the poor beast. The deer have their established runways, as I said; and, +when they are disturbed in their retreat, they are certain to attempt to +escape by following one which invariably leads to some lake or stream. +All that the hunter has to do is to seat himself by one of these +runways, or sit in a boat on the lake, and wait the coming of the +pursued deer. The frightened beast, fleeing from the unreasoning +brutality of the hounds, will often seek the open country, with a +mistaken confidence in the humanity of man. To kill a deer when he +suddenly passes one on a runway demands presence of mind and quickness +of aim: to shoot him from the boat, after he has plunged panting into +the lake, requires the rare ability to hit a moving object the size of +a deer's head a few rods distant. Either exploit is sufficient to make +a hero of a common man. To paddle up to the swimming deer, and cut his +throat, is a sure means of getting venison, and has its charms for some. +Even women and doctors of divinity have enjoyed this exquisite pleasure. +It cannot be denied that we are so constituted by a wise Creator as to +feel a delight in killing a wild animal which we do not experience in +killing a tame one. + +The pleasurable excitement of a deer-hunt has never, I believe, been +regarded from the deer's point of view. I happen to be in a position, by +reason of a lucky Adirondack experience, to present it in that light. I +am sorry if this introduction to my little story has seemed long to +the reader: it is too late now to skip it; but he can recoup himself by +omitting the story. + +Early on the morning of the 23d of August, 1877, a doe was feeding on +Basin Mountain. The night had been warm and showery, and the morning +opened in an undecided way. The wind was southerly: it is what the +deer call a dog-wind, having come to know quite well the meaning of “a +southerly wind and a cloudy sky.” The sole companion of the doe was her +only child, a charming little fawn, whose brown coat was just beginning +to be mottled with the beautiful spots which make this young creature +as lovely as the gazelle. The buck, its father, had been that night on a +long tramp across the mountain to Clear Pond, and had not yet returned: +he went ostensibly to feed on the succulent lily-pads there. “He feedeth +among the lilies until the day break and the shadows flee away, and he +should be here by this hour; but he cometh not,” she said, “leaping upon +the mountains, skipping upon the hills.” Clear Pond was too far off for +the young mother to go with her fawn for a night's pleasure. It was a +fashionable watering-place at this season among the deer; and the doe +may have remembered, not without uneasiness, the moonlight meetings of +a frivolous society there. But the buck did not come: he was very likely +sleeping under one of the ledges on Tight Nippin. Was he alone? “I +charge you, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not +nor awake my love till he please.” + +The doe was feeding, daintily cropping the tender leaves of the young +shoots, and turning from time to time to regard her offspring. The fawn +had taken his morning meal, and now lay curled up on a bed of moss, +watching contentedly, with his large, soft brown eyes, every movement of +his mother. The great eyes followed her with an alert entreaty; and, if +the mother stepped a pace or two farther away in feeding, the fawn made +a half movement, as if to rise and follow her. You see, she was his +sole dependence in all the world. But he was quickly reassured when she +turned her gaze on him; and if, in alarm, he uttered a plaintive cry, +she bounded to him at once, and, with every demonstration of affection, +licked his mottled skin till it shone again. + +It was a pretty picture,--maternal love on the one part, and happy trust +on the other. The doe was a beauty, and would have been so considered +anywhere, as graceful and winning a creature as the sun that day shone +on,--slender limbs, not too heavy flanks, round body, and aristocratic +head, with small ears, and luminous, intelligent, affectionate eyes. +How alert, supple, free, she was! What untaught grace in every movement! +What a charming pose when she lifted her head, and turned it to regard +her child! You would have had a companion picture if you had seen, as I +saw that morning, a baby kicking about among the dry pine-needles on a +ledge above the Au Sable, in the valley below, while its young mother +sat near, with an easel before her, touching in the color of a reluctant +landscape, giving a quick look at the sky and the outline of the Twin +Mountains, and bestowing every third glance upon the laughing boy,--art +in its infancy. + +The doe lifted her head a little with a quick motion, and turned her ear +to the south. Had she heard something? Probably it was only the south +wind in the balsams. There was silence all about in the forest. If the +doe had heard anything, it was one of the distant noises of the world. +There are in the woods occasional moanings, premonitions of change, +which are inaudible to the dull ears of men, but which, I have no +doubt, the forest-folk hear and understand. If the doe's suspicions were +excited for an instant, they were gone as soon. With an affectionate +glance at her fawn, she continued picking up her breakfast. + +But suddenly she started, head erect, eyes dilated, a tremor in her +limbs. She took a step; she turned her head to the south; she listened +intently. There was a sound,--a distant, prolonged note, bell-toned, +pervading the woods, shaking the air in smooth vibrations. It was +repeated. The doe had no doubt now. She shook like the sensitive mimosa +when a footstep approaches. It was the baying of a hound! It was far +off,--at the foot of the mountain. Time enough to fly; time enough to +put miles between her and the hound, before he should come upon her +fresh trail; time enough to escape away through the dense forest, and +hide in the recesses of Panther Gorge; yes, time enough. But there was +the fawn. The cry of the hound was repeated, more distinct this time. +The mother instinctively bounded away a few paces. The fawn started up +with an anxious bleat: the doe turned; she came back; she couldn't leave +it. She bent over it, and licked it, and seemed to say, “Come, my child: +we are pursued: we must go.” She walked away towards the west, and the +little thing skipped after her. It was slow going for the slender legs, +over the fallen logs, and through the rasping bushes. The doe bounded in +advance, and waited: the fawn scrambled after her, slipping and tumbling +along, very groggy yet on its legs, and whining a good deal because its +mother kept always moving away from it. The fawn evidently did not hear +the hound: the little innocent would even have looked sweetly at the +dog, and tried to make friends with it, if the brute had been rushing +upon him. By all the means at her command the doe urged her young one +on; but it was slow work. She might have been a mile away while they +were making a few rods. Whenever the fawn caught up, he was quite +content to frisk about. He wanted more breakfast, for one thing; and his +mother wouldn't stand still. She moved on continually; and his weak legs +were tangled in the roots of the narrow deer-path. + +Shortly came a sound that threw the doe into a panic of terror,--a +short, sharp yelp, followed by a prolonged howl, caught up and reechoed +by other bayings along the mountain-side. The doe knew what that meant. +One hound had caught her trail, and the whole pack responded to the +“view-halloo.” The danger was certain now; it was near. She could not +crawl on in this way: the dogs would soon be upon them. She turned again +for flight: the fawn, scrambling after her, tumbled over, and bleated +piteously. The baying, emphasized now by the yelp of certainty, came +nearer. Flight with the fawn was impossible. The doe returned and stood +by it, head erect, and nostrils distended. She stood perfectly still, +but trembling. Perhaps she was thinking. The fawn took advantage of the +situation, and began to draw his luncheon ration. The doe seemed to +have made up her mind. She let him finish. The fawn, having taken all he +wanted, lay down contentedly, and the doe licked him for a moment. Then, +with the swiftness of a bird, she dashed away, and in a moment was lost +in the forest. She went in the direction of the hounds. + +According to all human calculations, she was going into the jaws of +death. So she was: all human calculations are selfish. She kept straight +on, hearing the baying every moment more distinctly. She descended +the slope of the mountain until she reached the more open forest of +hard-wood. It was freer going here, and the cry of the pack echoed more +resoundingly in the great spaces. She was going due east, when (judging +by the sound, the hounds were not far off, though they were still hidden +by a ridge) she turned short away to the north, and kept on at a +good pace. In five minutes more she heard the sharp, exultant yelp of +discovery, and then the deep-mouthed howl of pursuit. The hounds had +struck her trail where she turned, and the fawn was safe. + +The doe was in good running condition, the ground was not bad, and she +felt the exhilaration of the chase. For the moment, fear left her, and +she bounded on with the exaltation of triumph. For a quarter of an hour +she went on at a slapping pace, clearing the moose-bushes with bound +after bound, flying over the fallen logs, pausing neither for brook nor +ravine. The baying of the hounds grew fainter behind her. But she struck +a bad piece of going, a dead-wood slash. It was marvelous to see her +skim over it, leaping among its intricacies, and not breaking her +slender legs. No other living animal could do it. But it was killing +work. She began to pant fearfully; she lost ground. The baying of the +hounds was nearer. She climbed the hard-wood hill at a slower gait; but, +once on more level, free ground, her breath came back to her, and she +stretched away with new courage, and maybe a sort of contempt of her +heavy pursuers. + +After running at high speed perhaps half a mile farther, it occurred +to her that it would be safe now to turn to the west, and, by a wide +circuit, seek her fawn. But, at the moment, she heard a sound that +chilled her heart. It was the cry of a hound to the west of her. The +crafty brute had made the circuit of the slash, and cut off her retreat. +There was nothing to do but to keep on; and on she went, still to the +north, with the noise of the pack behind her. In five minutes more she +had passed into a hillside clearing. Cows and young steers were grazing +there. She heard a tinkle of bells. Below her, down the mountain slope, +were other clearings, broken by patches of woods. Fences intervened; +and a mile or two down lay the valley, the shining Au Sable, and the +peaceful farmhouses. That way also her hereditary enemies were. Not a +merciful heart in all that lovely valley. She hesitated: it was only for +an instant. She must cross the Slidebrook Valley if possible, and gain +the mountain opposite. She bounded on; she stopped. What was that? From +the valley ahead came the cry of a searching hound. All the devils were +loose this morning. Every way was closed but one, and that led straight +down the mountain to the cluster of houses. Conspicuous among them was +a slender white wooden spire. The doe did not know that it was the spire +of a Christian chapel. But perhaps she thought that human pity dwelt +there, and would be more merciful than the teeth of the hounds. + + “The hounds are baying on my track: + O white man! will you send me back?” + +In a panic, frightened animals will always flee to human-kind from the +danger of more savage foes. They always make a mistake in doing so. +Perhaps the trait is the survival of an era of peace on earth; perhaps +it is a prophecy of the golden age of the future. The business of this +age is murder,--the slaughter of animals, the slaughter of fellow-men, +by the wholesale. Hilarious poets who have never fired a gun write +hunting-songs,--Ti-ra-la: and good bishops write war-songs,--Ave the +Czar! + +The hunted doe went down the “open,” clearing the fences splendidly, +flying along the stony path. It was a beautiful sight. But consider what +a shot it was! If the deer, now, could only have been caught I No doubt +there were tenderhearted people in the valley who would have spared her +life, shut her up in a stable, and petted her. Was there one who +would have let her go back to her waiting-fawn? It is the business of +civilization to tame or kill. + +The doe went on. She left the sawmill on John's Brook to her right; she +turned into a wood-path. As she approached Slide Brook, she saw a boy +standing by a tree with a raised rifle. The dogs were not in sight; +but she could hear them coming down the hill. There was no time for +hesitation. With a tremendous burst of speed she cleared the stream, +and, as she touched the bank, heard the “ping” of a rifle bullet in the +air above her. The cruel sound gave wings to the poor thing. In a moment +more she was in the opening: she leaped into the traveled road. Which +way? Below her in the wood was a load of hay: a man and a boy, with +pitchforks in their hands, were running towards her. She turned south, +and flew along the street. The town was up. Women and children ran to +the doors and windows; men snatched their rifles; shots were fired; at +the big boarding-houses, the summer boarders, who never have anything +to do, came out and cheered; a campstool was thrown from a veranda. Some +young fellows shooting at a mark in the meadow saw the flying deer, and +popped away at her; but they were accustomed to a mark that stood still. +It was all so sudden! There were twenty people who were just going to +shoot her; when the doe leaped the road fence, and went away across a +marsh toward the foothills. It was a fearful gauntlet to run. But nobody +except the deer considered it in that light. Everybody told what he was +just going to do; everybody who had seen the performance was a kind of +hero,--everybody except the deer. For days and days it was the subject +of conversation; and the summer boarders kept their guns at hand, +expecting another deer would come to be shot at. + +The doe went away to the foothills, going now slower, and evidently +fatigued, if not frightened half to death. Nothing is so appalling to a +recluse as half a mile of summer boarders. As the deer entered the thin +woods, she saw a rabble of people start across the meadow in pursuit. +By this time, the dogs, panting, and lolling out their tongues, came +swinging along, keeping the trail, like stupids, and consequently losing +ground when the deer doubled. But, when the doe had got into the timber, +she heard the savage brutes howling across the meadow. (It is well +enough, perhaps, to say that nobody offered to shoot the dogs.) + +The courage of the panting fugitive was not gone: she was game to the +tip of her high-bred ears. But the fearful pace at which she had just +been going told on her. Her legs trembled, and her heart beat like a +trip-hammer. She slowed her speed perforce, but still fled industriously +up the right bank of the stream. When she had gone a couple of miles, +and the dogs were evidently gaining again, she crossed the broad, deep +brook, climbed the steep left bank, and fled on in the direction of the +Mount-Marcy trail. The fording of the river threw the hounds off for +a time. She knew, by their uncertain yelping up and down the opposite +bank, that she had a little respite: she used it, however, to push on +until the baying was faint in her ears; and then she dropped, exhausted, +upon the ground. + +This rest, brief as it was, saved her life. Roused again by the baying +pack, she leaped forward with better speed, though without that keen +feeling of exhilarating flight that she had in the morning. It was still +a race for life; but the odds were in her--favor, she thought. She +did not appreciate the dogged persistence of the hounds, nor had any +inspiration told her that the race is not to the swift. + +She was a little confused in her mind where to go; but an instinct kept +her course to the left, and consequently farther away from her fawn. +Going now slower, and now faster, as the pursuit seemed more distant +or nearer, she kept to the southwest, crossed the stream again, left +Panther Gorge on her right, and ran on by Haystack and Skylight in the +direction of the Upper Au Sable Pond. I do not know her exact course +through this maze of mountains, swamps, ravines, and frightful +wildernesses. I only know that the poor thing worked her way along +painfully, with sinking heart and unsteady limbs, lying down “dead beat” + at intervals, and then spurred on by the cry of the remorseless dogs, +until, late in the afternoon, she staggered down the shoulder of +Bartlett, and stood upon the shore of the lake. If she could put that +piece of water between her and her pursuers, she would be safe. Had she +strength to swim it? + +At her first step into the water she saw a sight that sent her back with +a bound. There was a boat mid-lake: two men were in it. One was rowing: +the other had a gun in his hand. They were looking towards her: they had +seen her. (She did not know that they had heard the baying of hounds on +the mountains, and had been lying in wait for her an hour.) What should +she do? The hounds were drawing near. No escape that way, even if she +could still run. With only a moment's hesitation she plunged into the +lake, and struck obliquely across. Her tired legs could not propel the +tired body rapidly. She saw the boat headed for her. She turned toward +the centre of the lake. The boat turned. She could hear the rattle of +the oarlocks. It was gaining on her. Then there was a silence. Then +there was a splash of the water just ahead of her, followed by a roar +round the lake, the words “Confound it all!” and a rattle of the oars +again. The doe saw the boat nearing her. She turned irresolutely to +the shore whence she came: the dogs were lapping the water, and howling +there. She turned again to the center of the lake. + +The brave, pretty creature was quite exhausted now. In a moment more, +with a rush of water, the boat was on her, and the man at the oars had +leaned over and caught her by the tail. + +“Knock her on the head with that paddle!” he shouted to the gentleman in +the stern. + +The gentleman was a gentleman, with a kind, smooth-shaven face, and +might have been a minister of some sort of everlasting gospel. He took +the paddle in his hand. Just then the doe turned her head, and looked at +him with her great, appealing eyes. + +“I can't do it! my soul, I can't do it!” and he dropped the paddle. “Oh, +let her go!” + +“Let H. go!” was the only response of the guide as he slung the deer +round, whipped out his hunting-knife, and made a pass that severed her +jugular. + +And the gentleman ate that night of the venison. + +The buck returned about the middle of the afternoon. The fawn was +bleating piteously, hungry and lonesome. The buck was surprised. He +looked about in the forest. He took a circuit, and came back. His doe +was nowhere to be seen. He looked down at the fawn in a helpless sort of +way. The fawn appealed for his supper. The buck had nothing whatever to +give his child,--nothing but his sympathy. If he said anything, this is +what he said: “I'm the head of this family; but, really, this is a novel +case. I've nothing whatever for you. I don't know what to do. I've the +feelings of a father; but you can't live on them. Let us travel.” + +The buck walked away: the little one toddled after him. They disappeared +in the forest. + + + + +V. A CHARACTER STUDY + +There has been a lively inquiry after the primeval man. Wanted, a man +who would satisfy the conditions of the miocene environment, and yet +would be good enough for an ancestor. We are not particular about our +ancestors, if they are sufficiently remote; but we must have something. +Failing to apprehend the primeval man, science has sought the primitive +man where he exists as a survival in present savage races. He is, at +best, only a mushroom growth of the recent period (came in, probably, +with the general raft of mammalian fauna); but he possesses yet some +rudimentary traits that may be studied. + +It is a good mental exercise to try to fix the mind on the primitive man +divested of all the attributes he has acquired in his struggles with +the other mammalian fauna. Fix the mind on an orange, the ordinary +occupation of the metaphysician: take from it (without eating it) odor, +color, weight, form, substance, and peel; then let the mind still dwell +on it as an orange. The experiment is perfectly successful; only, at the +end of it, you haven't any mind. Better still, consider the telephone: +take away from it the metallic disk, and the magnetized iron, and the +connecting wire, and then let the mind run abroad on the telephone. +The mind won't come back. I have tried by this sort of process to get a +conception of the primitive man. I let the mind roam away back over +the vast geologic spaces, and sometimes fancy I see a dim image of him +stalking across the terrace epoch of the quaternary period. + +But this is an unsatisfying pleasure. The best results are obtained by +studying the primitive man as he is left here and there in our era, +a witness of what has been; and I find him most to my mind in the +Adirondack system of what geologists call the Champlain epoch. I suppose +the primitive man is one who owes more to nature than to the forces of +civilization. What we seek in him are the primal and original traits, +unmixed with the sophistications of society, and unimpaired by the +refinements of an artificial culture. He would retain the primitive +instincts, which are cultivated out of the ordinary, commonplace man. +I should expect to find him, by reason of an unrelinquished kinship, +enjoying a special communion with nature,--admitted to its mysteries, +understanding its moods, and able to predict its vagaries. He would be a +kind of test to us of what we have lost by our gregarious acquisitions. +On the one hand, there would be the sharpness of the senses, the keen +instincts (which the fox and the beaver still possess), the ability to +find one's way in the pathless forest, to follow a trail, to circumvent +the wild denizens of the woods; and, on the other hand, there would be +the philosophy of life which the primitive man, with little external +aid, would evolve from original observation and cogitation. It is our +good fortune to know such a man; but it is difficult to present him to +a scientific and caviling generation. He emigrated from somewhat limited +conditions in Vermont, at an early age, nearly half a century ago, and +sought freedom for his natural development backward in the wilds of the +Adirondacks. Sometimes it is a love of adventure and freedom that sends +men out of the more civilized conditions into the less; sometimes it is +a constitutional physical lassitude which leads them to prefer the rod +to the hoe, the trap to the sickle, and the society of bears to town +meetings and taxes. I think that Old Mountain Phelps had merely the +instincts of the primitive man, and never any hostile civilizing intent +as to the wilderness into which he plunged. Why should he want to slash +away the forest and plow up the ancient mould, when it is infinitely +pleasanter to roam about in the leafy solitudes, or sit upon a mossy log +and listen to the chatter of birds and the stir of beasts? Are there not +trout in the streams, gum exuding from the spruce, sugar in the maples, +honey in the hollow trees, fur on the sables, warmth in hickory logs? +Will not a few days' planting and scratching in the “open” yield +potatoes and rye? And, if there is steadier diet needed than venison +and bear, is the pig an expensive animal? If Old Phelps bowed to the +prejudice or fashion of his age (since we have come out of the tertiary +state of things), and reared a family, built a frame house in a +secluded nook by a cold spring, planted about it some apple trees and a +rudimentary garden, and installed a group of flaming sunflowers by the +door, I am convinced that it was a concession that did not touch his +radical character; that is to say, it did not impair his reluctance to +split oven-wood. + +He was a true citizen of the wilderness. Thoreau would have liked him, +as he liked Indians and woodchucks, and the smell of pine forests; and, +if Old Phelps had seen Thoreau, he would probably have said to him, “Why +on airth, Mr. Thoreau, don't you live accordin' to your preachin'?” + You might be misled by the shaggy suggestion of Old Phelps's given +name--Orson--into the notion that he was a mighty hunter, with the +fierce spirit of the Berserkers in his veins. Nothing could be farther +from the truth. The hirsute and grisly sound of Orson expresses only his +entire affinity with the untamed and the natural, an uncouth but gentle +passion for the freedom and wildness of the forest. Orson Phelps has +only those unconventional and humorous qualities of the bear which +make the animal so beloved in literature; and one does not think of Old +Phelps so much as a lover of nature,--to use the sentimental slang of +the period,--as a part of nature itself. + +His appearance at the time when as a “guide” he began to come into +public notice fostered this impression,--a sturdy figure with long body +and short legs, clad in a woolen shirt and butternut-colored trousers +repaired to the point of picturesqueness, his head surmounted by a limp, +light-brown felt hat, frayed away at the top, so that his yellowish hair +grew out of it like some nameless fern out of a pot. His tawny hair was +long and tangled, matted now many years past the possibility of being +entered by a comb. + +His features were small and delicate, and set in the frame of a reddish +beard, the razor having mowed away a clearing about the sensitive mouth, +which was not seldom wreathed with a childlike and charming smile. +Out of this hirsute environment looked the small gray eyes, set near +together; eyes keen to observe, and quick to express change of thought; +eyes that made you believe instinct can grow into philosophic judgment. +His feet and hands were of aristocratic smallness, although the latter +were not worn away by ablutions; in fact, they assisted his toilet to +give you the impression that here was a man who had just come out of +the ground,--a real son of the soil, whose appearance was partially +explained by his humorous relation to-soap. “Soap is a thing,” he said, +“that I hain't no kinder use for.” His clothes seemed to have been +put on him once for all, like the bark of a tree, a long time ago. +The observant stranger was sure to be puzzled by the contrast of this +realistic and uncouth exterior with the internal fineness, amounting to +refinement and culture, that shone through it all. What communion had +supplied the place of our artificial breeding to this man? + +Perhaps his most characteristic attitude was sitting on a log, with a +short pipe in his mouth. If ever man was formed to sit on a log, it +was Old Phelps. He was essentially a contemplative person. Walking on +a country road, or anywhere in the “open,” was irksome to him. He had +a shambling, loose-jointed gait, not unlike that of the bear: his short +legs bowed out, as if they had been more in the habit of climbing +trees than of walking. On land, if we may use that expression, he was +something like a sailor; but, once in the rugged trail or the unmarked +route of his native forest, he was a different person, and few +pedestrians could compete with him. The vulgar estimate of his +contemporaries, that reckoned Old Phelps “lazy,” was simply a failure +to comprehend the conditions of his being. It is the unjustness of +civilization that it sets up uniform and artificial standards for all +persons. The primitive man suffers by them much as the contemplative +philosopher does, when one happens to arrive in this busy, fussy world. + +If the appearance of Old Phelps attracts attention, his voice, when +first heard, invariably startles the listener. A small, high-pitched, +half-querulous voice, it easily rises into the shrillest falsetto; and +it has a quality in it that makes it audible in all the tempests of the +forest, or the roar of rapids, like the piping of a boatswain's whistle +at sea in a gale. He has a way of letting it rise as his sentence goes +on, or when he is opposed in argument, or wishes to mount above other +voices in the conversation, until it dominates everything. Heard in the +depths of the woods, quavering aloft, it is felt to be as much a part +of nature, an original force, as the northwest wind or the scream of the +hen-hawk. When he is pottering about the camp-fire, trying to light +his pipe with a twig held in the flame, he is apt to begin some +philosophical observation in a small, slow, stumbling voice, which seems +about to end in defeat; when he puts on some unsuspected force, and the +sentence ends in an insistent shriek. Horace Greeley had such a voice, +and could regulate it in the same manner. But Phelps's voice is not +seldom plaintive, as if touched by the dreamy sadness of the woods +themselves. + +When Old Mountain Phelps was discovered, he was, as the reader has +already guessed, not understood by his contemporaries. His neighbors, +farmers in the secluded valley, had many of them grown thrifty and +prosperous, cultivating the fertile meadows, and vigorously attacking +the timbered mountains; while Phelps, with not much more faculty of +acquiring property than the roaming deer, had pursued the even tenor +of the life in the forest on which he set out. They would have been +surprised to be told that Old Phelps owned more of what makes the value +of the Adirondacks than all of them put together, but it was true. This +woodsman, this trapper, this hunter, this fisherman, this sitter on a +log, and philosopher, was the real proprietor of the region over +which he was ready to guide the stranger. It is true that he had not a +monopoly of its geography or its topography (though his knowledge was +superior in these respects); there were other trappers, and more deadly +hunters, and as intrepid guides: but Old Phelps was the discoverer of +the beauties and sublimities of the mountains; and, when city strangers +broke into the region, he monopolized the appreciation of these delights +and wonders of nature. I suppose that in all that country he alone +had noticed the sunsets, and observed the delightful processes of +the seasons, taken pleasure in the woods for themselves, and climbed +mountains solely for the sake of the prospect. He alone understood what +was meant by “scenery.” In the eyes of his neighbors, who did not know +that he was a poet and a philosopher, I dare say he appeared to be +a slack provider, a rather shiftless trapper and fisherman; and his +passionate love of the forest and the mountains, if it was noticed, was +accounted to him for idleness. When the appreciative tourist arrived, +Phelps was ready, as guide, to open to him all the wonders of his +possessions; he, for the first time, found an outlet for his enthusiasm, +and a response to his own passion. It then became known what manner +of man this was who had grown up here in the companionship of forests, +mountains, and wild animals; that these scenes had highly developed in +him the love of beauty, the aesthetic sense, delicacy of appreciation, +refinement of feeling; and that, in his solitary wanderings and musings, +the primitive man, self-taught, had evolved for himself a philosophy and +a system of things. And it was a sufficient system, so long as it was +not disturbed by external skepticism. When the outer world came to +him, perhaps he had about as much to give to it as to receive from it; +probably more, in his own estimation; for there is no conceit like that +of isolation. + +Phelps loved his mountains. He was the discoverer of Marcy, and caused +the first trail to be cut to its summit, so that others could enjoy +the noble views from its round and rocky top. To him it was, in noble +symmetry and beauty, the chief mountain of the globe. To stand on it +gave him, as he said, “a feeling of heaven up-h'istedness.” He heard +with impatience that Mount Washington was a thousand feet higher, and he +had a childlike incredulity about the surpassing sublimity of the Alps. +Praise of any other elevation he seemed to consider a slight to Mount +Marcy, and did not willingly hear it, any more than a lover hears the +laudation of the beauty of another woman than the one he loves. When he +showed us scenery he loved, it made him melancholy to have us speak of +scenery elsewhere that was finer. And yet there was this delicacy about +him, that he never over-praised what he brought us to see, any more than +one would over-praise a friend of whom he was fond. I remember that when +for the first time, after a toilsome journey through the forest, the +splendors of the Lower Au Sable Pond broke upon our vision,--that +low-lying silver lake, imprisoned by the precipices which it reflected +in its bosom,--he made no outward response to our burst of admiration: +only a quiet gleam of the eye showed the pleasure our appreciation +gave him. As some one said, it was as if his friend had been admired--a +friend about whom he was unwilling to say much himself, but well pleased +to have others praise. + +Thus far, we have considered Old Phelps as simply the product of the +Adirondacks; not so much a self-made man (as the doubtful phrase has it) +as a natural growth amid primal forces. But our study is interrupted +by another influence, which complicates the problem, but increases its +interest. No scientific observer, so far as we know, has ever been able +to watch the development of the primitive man, played upon and fashioned +by the hebdomadal iteration of “Greeley's Weekly Tri-bune.” Old Phelps +educated by the woods is a fascinating study; educated by the woods +and the Tri-bune, he is a phenomenon. No one at this day can reasonably +conceive exactly what this newspaper was to such a mountain valley as +Keene. If it was not a Providence, it was a Bible. It was no doubt owing +to it that Democrats became as scarce as moose in the Adirondacks. But +it is not of its political aspect that I speak. I suppose that the most +cultivated and best informed portion of the earth's surface--the Western +Reserve of Ohio, as free from conceit as it is from a suspicion that +it lacks anything owes its pre-eminence solely to this comprehensive +journal. It received from it everything except a collegiate and a +classical education,--things not to be desired, since they interfere +with the self-manufacture of man. If Greek had been in this curriculum, +its best known dictum would have been translated, “Make thyself.” This +journal carried to the community that fed on it not only a complete +education in all departments of human practice and theorizing, but the +more valuable and satisfying assurance that there was nothing more to be +gleaned in the universe worth the attention of man. This panoplied its +readers in completeness. Politics, literature, arts, sciences, universal +brotherhood and sisterhood, nothing was omitted; neither the poetry of +Tennyson, nor the philosophy of Margaret Fuller; neither the virtues of +association, nor of unbolted wheat. The laws of political economy and +trade were laid down as positively and clearly as the best way to bake +beans, and the saving truth that the millennium would come, and come +only when every foot of the earth was subsoiled. + +I do not say that Orson Phelps was the product of nature and the +Tri-bune: but he cannot be explained without considering these two +factors. To him Greeley was the Tri-bune, and the Tri-bune was Greeley; +and yet I think he conceived of Horace Greeley as something greater than +his newspaper, and perhaps capable of producing another journal equal +to it in another part of the universe. At any rate, so completely did +Phelps absorb this paper and this personality that he was popularly +known as “Greeley” in the region where he lived. Perhaps a fancied +resemblance of the two men in the popular mind had something to do with +this transfer of name. There is no doubt that Horace Greeley owed his +vast influence in the country to his genius, nor much doubt that he owed +his popularity in the rural districts to James Gordon Bennett; that is, +to the personality of the man which the ingenious Bennett impressed upon +the country. That he despised the conventionalities of society, and was +a sloven in his toilet, was firmly believed; and the belief endeared him +to the hearts of the people. To them “the old white coat”--an antique +garment of unrenewed immortality--was as much a subject of idolatry as +the redingote grise to the soldiers of the first Napoleon, who had seen +it by the campfires on the Po and on the Borysthenes, and believed that +he would come again in it to lead them against the enemies of France. +The Greeley of the popular heart was clad as Bennett said he was clad. +It was in vain, even pathetically in vain, that he published in his +newspaper the full bill of his fashionable tailor (the fact that it was +receipted may have excited the animosity of some of his contemporaries) +to show that he wore the best broadcloth, and that the folds of his +trousers followed the city fashion of falling outside his boots. If this +revelation was believed, it made no sort of impression in the country. +The rural readers were not to be wheedled out of their cherished +conception of the personal appearance of the philosopher of the +Tri-bune. + +That the Tri-bune taught Old Phelps to be more Phelps than he would +have been without it was part of the independence-teaching mission of +Greeley's paper. The subscribers were an army, in which every man was a +general. And I am not surprised to find Old Phelps lately rising to +the audacity of criticising his exemplar. In some recently-published +observations by Phelps upon the philosophy of reading is laid down this +definition: “If I understand the necessity or use of reading, it is to +reproduce again what has been said or proclaimed before. Hence, letters, +characters, &c., are arranged in all the perfection they possibly can +be, to show how certain language has been spoken by the original author. +Now, to reproduce by reading, the reading should be so perfectly like +the original that no one standing out of sight could tell the reading +from the first time the language was spoken.” + +This is illustrated by the highest authority at hand: I have heard +as good readers read, and as poor readers, as almost any one in this +region. If I have not heard as many, I have had a chance to hear nearly +the extreme in variety. Horace Greeley ought to have been a good reader. +Certainly but few, if any, ever knew every word of the English language +at a glance more readily than he did, or knew the meaning of every mark +of punctuation more clearly; but he could not read proper. 'But how +do you know?' says one. From the fact I heard him in the same lecture +deliver or produce remarks in his own particular way, that, if they had +been published properly in print, a proper reader would have reproduced +them again the same way. In the midst of those remarks Mr. Greeley took +up a paper, to reproduce by reading part of a speech that some one else +had made; and his reading did not sound much more like the man that +first read or made the speech than the clatter of a nail factory sounds +like a well-delivered speech. Now, the fault was not because Mr. Greeley +did not know how to read as well as almost any man that ever lived, if +not quite: but in his youth he learned to read wrong; and, as it is +ten times harder to unlearn anything than it is to learn it, he, like +thousands of others, could never stop to unlearn it, but carried it on +through his whole life. + +Whether a reader would be thanked for reproducing one of Horace +Greeley's lectures as he delivered it is a question that cannot detain +us here; but the teaching that he ought to do so, I think, would please +Mr. Greeley. + +The first driblets of professional tourists and summer boarders who +arrived among the Adirondack Mountains a few years ago found Old Phelps +the chief and best guide of the region. Those who were eager to throw +off the usages of civilization, and tramp and camp in the wilderness, +could not but be well satisfied with the aboriginal appearance of this +guide; and when he led off into the woods, axe in hand, and a huge +canvas sack upon his shoulders, they seemed to be following the +Wandering Jew. The contents--of this sack would have furnished a modern +industrial exhibition, provisions cooked and raw, blankets, maple-sugar, +tinware, clothing, pork, Indian meal, flour, coffee, tea, &c. Phelps was +the ideal guide: he knew every foot of the pathless forest; he knew all +woodcraft, all the signs of the weather, or, what is the same thing, how +to make a Delphic prediction about it. He was fisherman and hunter, and +had been the comrade of sportsmen and explorers; and his enthusiasm for +the beauty and sublimity of the region, and for its untamable wildness, +amounted to a passion. He loved his profession; and yet it very soon +appeared that he exercised it with reluctance for those who had neither +ideality, nor love for the woods. Their presence was a profanation amid +the scenery he loved. To guide into his private and secret haunts a +party that had no appreciation of their loveliness disgusted him. It was +a waste of his time to conduct flippant young men and giddy girls who +made a noisy and irreverent lark of the expedition. And, for their part, +they did not appreciate the benefit of being accompanied by a poet and +a philosopher. They neither understood nor valued his special knowledge +and his shrewd observations: they didn't even like his shrill voice; +his quaint talk bored them. It was true that, at this period, Phelps +had lost something of the activity of his youth; and the habit +of contemplative sitting on a log and talking increased with the +infirmities induced by the hard life of the woodsman. Perhaps he would +rather talk, either about the woods-life or the various problems of +existence, than cut wood, or busy himself in the drudgery of the camp. +His critics went so far as to say, “Old Phelps is a fraud.” They would +have said the same of Socrates. Xantippe, who never appreciated the +world in which Socrates lived, thought he was lazy. Probably Socrates +could cook no better than Old Phelps, and no doubt went “gumming” about +Athens with very little care of what was in the pot for dinner. + +If the summer visitors measured Old Phelps, he also measured them by +his own standards. He used to write out what he called “short-faced +descriptions” of his comrades in the woods, which were never so +flattering as true. It was curious to see how the various qualities +which are esteemed in society appeared in his eyes, looked at merely +in their relation to the limited world he knew, and judged by their +adaptation to the primitive life. It was a much subtler comparison than +that of the ordinary guide, who rates his traveler by his ability to +endure on a march, to carry a pack, use an oar, hit a mark, or sing +a song. Phelps brought his people to a test of their naturalness and +sincerity, tried by contact with the verities of the woods. If a person +failed to appreciate the woods, Phelps had no opinion of him or his +culture; and yet, although he was perfectly satisfied with his own +philosophy of life, worked out by close observation of nature and study +of the Tri-bune, he was always eager for converse with superior minds, +with those who had the advantage of travel and much reading, and, above +all, with those who had any original “speckerlation.” Of all the society +he was ever permitted to enjoy, I think he prized most that of Dr. +Bushnell. The doctor enjoyed the quaint and first-hand observations of +the old woodsman, and Phelps found new worlds open to him in the wide +ranges of the doctor's mind. They talked by the hour upon all sorts +of themes, the growth of the tree, the habits of wild animals, the +migration of seeds, the succession of oak and pine, not to mention +theology, and the mysteries of the supernatural. + +I recall the bearing of Old Phelps, when, several years ago, he +conducted a party to the summit of Mount Marcy by the way he had “bushed +out.” This was his mountain, and he had a peculiar sense of ownership in +it. In a way, it was holy ground; and he would rather no one should +go on it who did not feel its sanctity. Perhaps it was a sense of some +divine relation in it that made him always speak of it as “Mercy.” To +him this ridiculously dubbed Mount Marcy was always “Mount Mercy.” By a +like effort to soften the personal offensiveness of the nomenclature +of this region, he invariably spoke of Dix's Peak, one of the southern +peaks of the range, as “Dixie.” It was some time since Phelps himself +had visited his mountain; and, as he pushed on through the miles of +forest, we noticed a kind of eagerness in the old man, as of a lover +going to a rendezvous. Along the foot of the mountain flows a clear +trout stream, secluded and undisturbed in those awful solitudes, which +is the “Mercy Brook” of the old woodsman. That day when he crossed it, +in advance of his company, he was heard to say in a low voice, as if +greeting some object of which he was shyly fond, “So, little brook, do I +meet you once more?” and when we were well up the mountain, and emerged +from the last stunted fringe of vegetation upon the rock-bound slope, +I saw Old Phelps, who was still foremost, cast himself upon the ground, +and heard him cry, with an enthusiasm that was intended for no mortal +ear, “I'm with you once again!” His great passion very rarely found +expression in any such theatrical burst. The bare summit that day was +swept by a fierce, cold wind, and lost in an occasional chilling cloud. +Some of the party, exhausted by the climb, and shivering in the rude +wind, wanted a fire kindled and a cup of tea made, and thought this the +guide's business. Fire and tea were far enough from his thought. He had +withdrawn himself quite apart, and wrapped in a ragged blanket, still +and silent as the rock he stood on, was gazing out upon the wilderness +of peaks. The view from Marcy is peculiar. It is without softness or +relief. The narrow valleys are only dark shadows; the lakes are bits +of broken mirror. From horizon to horizon there is a tumultuous sea of +billows turned to stone. You stand upon the highest billow; you command +the situation; you have surprised Nature in a high creative act; the +mighty primal energy has only just become repose. This was a supreme +hour to Old Phelps. Tea! I believe the boys succeeded in kindling a +fire; but the enthusiastic stoic had no reason to complain of want of +appreciation in the rest of the party. When we were descending, he told +us, with mingled humor and scorn, of a party of ladies he once led to +the top of the mountain on a still day, who began immediately to talk +about the fashions! As he related the scene, stopping and facing us in +the trail, his mild, far-in eyes came to the front, and his voice rose +with his language to a kind of scream. + +“Why, there they were, right before the greatest view they ever saw, +talkin' about the fashions!” + +Impossible to convey the accent of contempt in which he pronounced the +word “fashions,” and then added, with a sort of regretful bitterness, “I +was a great mind to come down, and leave 'em there.” + +In common with the Greeks, Old Phelps personified the woods, mountains, +and streams. They had not only personality, but distinctions of sex. It +was something beyond the characterization of the hunter, which +appeared, for instance, when he related a fight with a panther, in such +expressions as, “Then Mr. Panther thought he would see what he could +do,” etc. He was in “imaginative sympathy” with all wild things. The +afternoon we descended Marcy, we went away to the west, through the +primeval forests, toward Avalanche and Colden, and followed the course +of the charming Opalescent. When we reached the leaping stream, Phelps +exclaimed, + +“Here's little Miss Opalescent!” + +“Why don't you say Mr. Opalescent?” some one asked. + +“Oh, she's too pretty!” And too pretty she was, with her foam-white +and rainbow dress, and her downfalls, and fountainlike uprising. A +bewitching young person we found her all that summer afternoon. + +This sylph-like person had little in common with a monstrous lady whose +adventures in the wilderness Phelps was fond of relating. She was built +some thing on the plan of the mountains, and her ambition to explore was +equal to her size. Phelps and the other guides once succeeded in raising +her to the top of Marcy; but the feat of getting a hogshead of molasses +up there would have been easier. In attempting to give us an idea of her +magnitude that night, as we sat in the forest camp, Phelps hesitated a +moment, while he cast his eye around the woods: “Waal, there ain't no +tree!” + +It is only by recalling fragmentary remarks and incidents that I can put +the reader in possession of the peculiarities of my subject; and +this involves the wrenching of things out of their natural order and +continuity, and introducing them abruptly, an abruptness illustrated by +the remark of “Old Man Hoskins” (which Phelps liked to quote), when one +day he suddenly slipped down a bank into a thicket, and seated himself +in a wasps' nest: “I hain't no business here; but here I be!” + +The first time we went into camp on the Upper Au Sable Pond, which has +been justly celebrated as the most prettily set sheet of water in the +region, we were disposed to build our shanty on the south side, so that +we could have in full view the Gothics and that loveliest of mountain +contours. To our surprise, Old Phelps, whose sentimental weakness for +these mountains we knew, opposed this. His favorite camping ground was +on the north side,--a pretty site in itself, but with no special view. +In order to enjoy the lovely mountains, we should be obliged to row out +into the lake: we wanted them always before our eyes,--at sunrise and +sunset, and in the blaze of noon. With deliberate speech, as if weighing +our arguments and disposing of them, he replied, “Waal, now, them +Gothics ain't the kinder scenery you want ter hog down!” + +It was on quiet Sundays in the woods, or in talks by the camp-fire, that +Phelps came out as the philosopher, and commonly contributed the light +of his observations. Unfortunate marriages, and marriages in general, +were, on one occasion, the subject of discussion; and a good deal of +darkness had been cast on it by various speakers; when Phelps suddenly +piped up, from a log where he had sat silent, almost invisible, in the +shadow and smoke, “Waal, now, when you've said all there is to be said, +marriage is mostly for discipline.” + +Discipline, certainly, the old man had, in one way or another; and years +of solitary communing in the forest had given him, perhaps, a childlike +insight into spiritual concerns. Whether he had formulated any creed or +what faith he had, I never knew. Keene Valley had a reputation of not +ripening Christians any more successfully than maize, the season there +being short; and on our first visit it was said to contain but one +Bible Christian, though I think an accurate census disclosed three. Old +Phelps, who sometimes made abrupt remarks in trying situations, was not +included in this census; but he was the disciple of supernaturalism in a +most charming form. I have heard of his opening his inmost thoughts to +a lady, one Sunday, after a noble sermon of Robertson's had been read +in the cathedral stillness of the forest. His experience was entirely +first-hand, and related with unconsciousness that it was not common to +all. There was nothing of the mystic or the sentimentalist, only a vivid +realism, in that nearness of God of which he spoke,--“as near some-times +as those trees,”--and of the holy voice, that, in a time of inward +struggle, had seemed to him to come from the depths of the forest, +saying, “Poor soul, I am the way.” + +In later years there was a “revival” in Keene Valley, the result of +which was a number of young “converts,” whom Phelps seemed to regard +as a veteran might raw recruits, and to have his doubts what sort of +soldiers they would make. + +“Waal, Jimmy,” he said to one of them, “you've kindled a pretty good +fire with light wood. That's what we do of a dark night in the woods, +you know but we do it just so as we can look around and find the solid +wood: so now put on your solid wood.” + +In the Sunday Bible classes of the period Phelps was a perpetual anxiety +to the others, who followed closely the printed lessons, and beheld +with alarm his discursive efforts to get into freer air and light. His +remarks were the most refreshing part of the exercises, but were outside +of the safe path into which the others thought it necessary to win +him from his “speckerlations.” The class were one day on the verses +concerning “God's word” being “written on the heart,” and were keeping +close to the shore, under the guidance of “Barnes's Notes,” when Old +Phelps made a dive to the bottom, and remarked that he had “thought a +good deal about the expression, 'God's word written on the heart,' +and had been asking himself how that was to be done; and suddenly it +occurred to him (having been much interested lately in watching the work +of a photographer) that, when a photograph is going to be taken, all +that has to be done is to put the object in position, and the sun makes +the picture; and so he rather thought that all we had got to do was to +put our hearts in place, and God would do the writin'.” + +Phelps's theology, like his science, is first-hand. In the woods, one +day, talk ran on the Trinity as being nowhere asserted as a doctrine in +the Bible, and some one suggested that the attempt to pack these +great and fluent mysteries into one word must always be more or +less unsatisfactory. “Ye-es,” droned Phelps: “I never could see much +speckerlation in that expression the Trinity. Why, they'd a good deal +better say Legion.” + +The sentiment of the man about nature, or his poetic sensibility, was +frequently not to be distinguished from a natural religion, and was +always tinged with the devoutness of Wordsworth's verse. Climbing slowly +one day up the Balcony,--he was more than usually calm and slow,--he +espied an exquisite fragile flower in the crevice of a rock, in a very +lonely spot. + +“It seems as if,” he said, or rather dreamed out, “it seems as if the +Creator had kept something just to look at himself.” + +To a lady whom he had taken to Chapel Pond (a retired but rather +uninteresting spot), and who expressed a little disappointment at its +tameness, saying, of this “Why, Mr. Phelps, the principal charm of this +place seems to be its loneliness.” + +“Yes,” he replied in gentle and lingering tones, and its nativeness. “It +lies here just where it was born.” + +Rest and quiet had infinite attractions for him. A secluded opening in +the woods was a “calm spot.” He told of seeing once, or rather being in, +a circular rainbow. He stood on Indian Head, overlooking the Lower Lake, +so that he saw the whole bow in the sky and the lake, and seemed to be +in the midst of it; “only at one place there was an indentation in it, +where it rested on the lake, just enough to keep it from rolling off.” + This “resting” of the sphere seemed to give him great comfort. + +One Indian-summer morning in October, some ladies found the old man +sitting on his doorstep smoking a short pipe. + +He gave no sign of recognition except a twinkle of the eye, being +evidently quite in harmony with the peaceful day. They stood there a +full minute before he opened his mouth: then he did not rise, but slowly +took his pipe from his mouth, and said in a dreamy way, pointing towards +the brook,-- + +“Do you see that tree?” indicating a maple almost denuded of leaves, +which lay like a yellow garment cast at its feet. “I've been watching +that tree all the morning. There hain't been a breath of wind: but for +hours the leaves have been falling, falling, just as you see them now; +and at last it's pretty much bare.” And after a pause, pensively: “Waal, +I suppose its hour had come.” + +This contemplative habit of Old Phelps is wholly unappreciated by his +neighbors; but it has been indulged in no inconsiderable part of his +life. Rising after a time, he said, “Now I want you to go with me and +see my golden city I've talked so much about.” He led the way to a +hill-outlook, when suddenly, emerging from the forest, the spectators +saw revealed the winding valley and its stream. He said quietly, +“There is my golden city.” Far below, at their feet, they saw that vast +assemblage of birches and “popples,” yellow as gold in the brooding +noonday, and slender spires rising out of the glowing mass. Without +another word, Phelps sat a long time in silent content: it was to him, +as Bunyan says, “a place desirous to be in.” + +Is this philosopher contented with what life has brought him? Speaking +of money one day, when we had asked him if he should do differently if +he had his life to live over again, he said, “Yes, but not about money. +To have had hours such as I have had in these mountains, and with such +men as Dr. Bushnell and Dr. Shaw and Mr. Twichell, and others I could +name, is worth all the money the world could give.” He read +character very well, and took in accurately the boy nature. “Tom” (an +irrepressible, rather overdone specimen),--“Tom's a nice kind of a +boy; but he's got to come up against a snubbin'-post one of these +days.”--“Boys!” he once said: “you can't git boys to take any kinder +notice of scenery. I never yet saw a boy that would look a second +time at a sunset. Now, a girl will some times; but even then it's +instantaneous,--comes an goes like the sunset. As for me,” still +speaking of scenery, “these mountains about here, that I see every +day, are no more to me, in one sense, than a man's farm is to him. What +mostly interests me now is when I see some new freak or shape in the +face of Nature.” + +In literature it may be said that Old Phelps prefers the best in the +very limited range that has been open to him. Tennyson is his favorite +among poets an affinity explained by the fact that they are both +lotos-eaters. Speaking of a lecture-room talk of Mr. Beecher's which he +had read, he said, “It filled my cup about as full as I callerlate to +have it: there was a good deal of truth in it, and some poetry; waal, +and a little spice, too. We've got to have the spice, you know.” He +admired, for different reasons, a lecture by Greeley that he once heard, +into which so much knowledge of various kinds was crowded that he said +he “made a reg'lar gobble of it.” He was not without discrimination, +which he exercised upon the local preaching when nothing better offered. +Of one sermon he said, “The man began way back at the creation, and just +preached right along down; and he didn't say nothing, after all. It just +seemed to me as if he was tryin' to git up a kind of a fix-up.” + +Old Phelps used words sometimes like algebraic signs, and had a habit +of making one do duty for a season together for all occasions. +“Speckerlation” and “callerlation” and “fix-up” are specimens of words +that were prolific in expression. An unusual expression, or an unusual +article, would be charactcrized as a “kind of a scientific literary +git-up.” + +“What is the program for tomorrow?” I once asked him. “Waal, I +callerlate, if they rig up the callerlation they callerlate on, we'll +go to the Boreas.” Starting out for a day's tramp in the woods, he would +ask whether we wanted to take a “reg'lar walk, or a random scoot,”--the +latter being a plunge into the pathless forest. When he was on such an +expedition, and became entangled in dense brush, and maybe a network +of “slash” and swamp, he was like an old wizard, as he looked here and +there, seeking a way, peering into the tangle, or withdrawing from a +thicket, and muttering to himself, “There ain't no speckerlation there.” + And when the way became altogether inscrutable,--“Waal, this is a +reg'lar random scoot of a rigmarole.” As some one remarked, “The +dictionary in his hands is like clay in the hands of the potter.” “A +petrifaction was a kind of a hard-wood chemical git-up.” + +There is no conceit, we are apt to say, like that born of isolation +from the world, and there are no such conceited people as those who have +lived all their lives in the woods. Phelps was, however, unsophisticated +in his until the advent of strangers into his life, who brought in +literature and various other disturbing influences. I am sorry to say +that the effect has been to take off something of the bloom of his +simplicity, and to elevate him into an oracle. I suppose this is +inevitable as soon as one goes into print; and Phelps has gone into +print in the local papers. He has been bitten with the literary “git +up.” Justly regarding most of the Adirondack literature as a “perfect +fizzle,” he has himself projected a work, and written much on the +natural history of his region. Long ago he made a large map of the +mountain country; and, until recent surveys, it was the only one that +could lay any claim to accuracy. His history is no doubt original in +form, and unconventional in expression. Like most of the writers of +the seventeenth century, and the court ladies and gentlemen of the +eighteenth century, he is an independent speller. Writing of his work on +the Adirondacks, he says, “If I should ever live to get this wonderful +thing written, I expect it will show one thing, if no more; and that +is, that every thing has an opposite. I expect to show in this that +literature has an opposite, if I do not show any thing els. We could +not enjoy the blessings and happiness of riteousness if we did not +know innicuty was in the world: in fact, there would be no riteousness +without innicuty.” Writing also of his great enjoyment of being in the +woods, especially since he has had the society there of some people he +names, he adds, “And since I have Literature, Siance, and Art all spread +about on the green moss of the mountain woods or the gravell banks of a +cristle stream, it seems like finding roses, honeysuckels, and violets +on a crisp brown cliff in December. You know I don't believe much in the +religion of seramony; but any riteous thing that has life and spirit in +it is food for me.” I must not neglect to mention an essay, continued +in several numbers of his local paper, on “The Growth of the Tree,” in +which he demolishes the theory of Mr. Greeley, whom he calls “one of the +best vegetable philosophers,” about “growth without seed.” He treats +of the office of sap: “All trees have some kind of sap and some kind of +operation of sap flowing in their season,” the dissemination of seeds, +the processes of growth, the power of healing wounds, the proportion of +roots to branches, &c. Speaking of the latter, he says, “I have thought +it would be one of the greatest curiosities on earth to see a thrifty +growing maple or elm, that had grown on a deep soil interval to be two +feet in diameter, to be raised clear into the air with every root and +fibre down to the minutest thread, all entirely cleared of soil, so that +every particle could be seen in its natural position. I think it would +astonish even the wise ones.” From his instinctive sympathy with +nature, he often credits vegetable organism with “instinctive judgment.” + “Observation teaches us that a tree is given powerful instincts, which +would almost appear to amount to judgment in some cases, to provide for +its own wants and necessities.” + +Here our study must cease. When the primitive man comes into literature, +he is no longer primitive. + + + + +VI. CAMPING OUT + +It seems to be agreed that civilization is kept up only by a constant +effort: Nature claims its own speedily when the effort is relaxed. If +you clear a patch of fertile ground in the forest, uproot the stumps, +and plant it, year after year, in potatoes and maize, you say you +have subdued it. But, if you leave it for a season or two, a kind of +barbarism seems to steal out upon it from the circling woods; coarse +grass and brambles cover it; bushes spring up in a wild tangle; the +raspberry and the blackberry flower and fruit; and the humorous bear +feeds upon them. The last state of that ground is worse than the first. + +Perhaps the cleared spot is called Ephesus. There is a splendid city on +the plain; there are temples and theatres on the hills; the commerce +of the world seeks its port; the luxury of the Orient flows through +its marble streets. You are there one day when the sea has receded: the +plain is a pestilent marsh; the temples, the theatres, the lofty gates +have sunken and crumbled, and the wild-brier runs over them; and, as you +grow pensive in the most desolate place in the world, a bandit lounges +out of a tomb, and offers to relieve you of all that which creates +artificial distinctions in society. The higher the civilization has +risen, the more abject is the desolation of barbarism that ensues. The +most melancholy spot in the Adirondacks is not a tamarack-swamp, where +the traveler wades in moss and mire, and the atmosphere is composed of +equal active parts of black-flies, mosquitoes, and midges. It is the +village of the Adirondack Iron-Works, where the streets of gaunt houses +are falling to pieces, tenantless; the factory-wheels have stopped; the +furnaces are in ruins; the iron and wooden machinery is strewn about in +helpless detachment; and heaps of charcoal, ore, and slag proclaim an +arrested industry. Beside this deserted village, even Calamity Pond, +shallow, sedgy, with its ragged shores of stunted firs, and its +melancholy shaft that marks the spot where the proprietor of the +iron-works accidentally shot himself, is cheerful. + +The instinct of barbarism that leads people periodically to throw aside +the habits of civilization, and seek the freedom and discomfort of the +woods, is explicable enough; but it is not so easy to understand why +this passion should be strongest in those who are most refined, and +most trained in intellectual and social fastidiousness. Philistinism and +shoddy do not like the woods, unless it becomes fashionable to do so; +and then, as speedily as possible, they introduce their artificial +luxuries, and reduce the life in the wilderness to the vulgarity of a +well-fed picnic. It is they who have strewn the Adirondacks with paper +collars and tin cans. The real enjoyment of camping and tramping in the +woods lies in a return to primitive conditions of lodging, dress, +and food, in as total an escape as may be from the requirements of +civilization. And it remains to be explained why this is enjoyed most by +those who are most highly civilized. It is wonderful to see how easily +the restraints of society fall off. Of course it is not true that +courtesy depends upon clothes with the best people; but, with others, +behavior hangs almost entirely upon dress. Many good habits are easily +got rid of in the woods. Doubt sometimes seems to be felt whether Sunday +is a legal holiday there. It becomes a question of casuistry with a +clergyman whether he may shoot at a mark on Sunday, if none of his +congregation are present. He intends no harm: he only gratifies a +curiosity to see if he can hit the mark. Where shall he draw the line? +Doubtless he might throw a stone at a chipmunk, or shout at a loon. +Might he fire at a mark with an air-gun that makes no noise? He will not +fish or hunt on Sunday (although he is no more likely to catch anything +that day than on any other); but may he eat trout that the guide has +caught on Sunday, if the guide swears he caught them Saturday night? Is +there such a thing as a vacation in religion? How much of our virtue do +we owe to inherited habits? + +I am not at all sure whether this desire to camp outside of civilization +is creditable to human nature, or otherwise. We hear sometimes that the +Turk has been merely camping for four centuries in Europe. I suspect +that many of us are, after all, really camping temporarily in civilized +conditions; and that going into the wilderness is an escape, longed for, +into our natural and preferred state. Consider what this “camping out” + is, that is confessedly so agreeable to people most delicately reared. I +have no desire to exaggerate its delights. + +The Adirondack wilderness is essentially unbroken. A few bad roads that +penetrate it, a few jolting wagons that traverse them, a few barn-like +boarding-houses on the edge of the forest, where the boarders are +soothed by patent coffee, and stimulated to unnatural gayety by Japan +tea, and experimented on by unique cookery, do little to destroy the +savage fascination of the region. In half an hour, at any point, one can +put himself into solitude and every desirable discomfort. The party that +covets the experience of the camp comes down to primitive conditions of +dress and equipment. There are guides and porters to carry the blankets +for beds, the raw provisions, and the camp equipage; and the motley +party of the temporarily decivilized files into the woods, and begins, +perhaps by a road, perhaps on a trail, its exhilarating and weary march. +The exhilaration arises partly from the casting aside of restraint, +partly from the adventure of exploration; and the weariness, from the +interminable toil of bad walking, a heavy pack, and the grim monotony +of trees and bushes, that shut out all prospect, except an occasional +glimpse of the sky. Mountains are painfully climbed, streams forded, +lonesome lakes paddled over, long and muddy “carries” traversed. Fancy +this party the victim of political exile, banished by the law, and a +more sorrowful march could not be imagined; but the voluntary hardship +becomes pleasure, and it is undeniable that the spirits of the party +rise as the difficulties increase. + +For this straggling and stumbling band the world is young again: it has +come to the beginning of things; it has cut loose from tradition, and +is free to make a home anywhere: the movement has all the promise of a +revolution. All this virginal freshness invites the primitive instincts +of play and disorder. The free range of the forests suggests endless +possibilities of exploration and possession. Perhaps we are treading +where man since the creation never trod before; perhaps the waters of +this bubbling spring, which we deepen by scraping out the decayed leaves +and the black earth, have never been tasted before, except by the wild +denizens of these woods. We cross the trails of lurking animals,--paths +that heighten our sense of seclusion from the world. The hammering of +the infrequent woodpecker, the call of the lonely bird, the drumming +of the solitary partridge,--all these sounds do but emphasize the +lonesomeness of nature. The roar of the mountain brook, dashing over its +bed of pebbles, rising out of the ravine, and spreading, as it were, a +mist of sound through all the forest (continuous beating waves that +have the rhythm of eternity in them), and the fitful movement of the +air-tides through the balsams and firs and the giant pines,--how these +grand symphonies shut out the little exasperations of our vexed life! It +seems easy to begin life over again on the simplest terms. Probably +it is not so much the desire of the congregation to escape from the +preacher, or of the preacher to escape from himself, that drives +sophisticated people into the wilderness, as it is the unconquered +craving for primitive simplicity, the revolt against the everlasting +dress-parade of our civilization. From this monstrous pomposity even the +artificial rusticity of a Petit Trianon is a relief. It was only human +nature that the jaded Frenchman of the regency should run away to the +New World, and live in a forest-hut with an Indian squaw; although he +found little satisfaction in his act of heroism, unless it was talked +about at Versailles. + +When our trampers come, late in the afternoon, to the bank of a lovely +lake where they purpose to enter the primitive life, everything is +waiting for them in virgin expectation. There is a little promontory +jutting into the lake, and sloping down to a sandy beach, on which the +waters idly lapse, and shoals of red-fins and shiners come to greet the +stranger; the forest is untouched by the axe; the tender green sweeps +the water's edge; ranks of slender firs are marshaled by the shore; +clumps of white-birch stems shine in satin purity among the evergreens; +the boles of giant spruces, maples, and oaks, lifting high their crowns +of foliage, stretch away in endless galleries and arcades; through the +shifting leaves the sunshine falls upon the brown earth; overhead are +fragments of blue sky; under the boughs and in chance openings +appear the bluer lake and the outline of the gracious mountains. The +discoverers of this paradise, which they have entered to destroy, note +the babbling of the brook that flows close at hand; they hear the splash +of the leaping fish; they listen to the sweet, metallic song of the +evening thrush, and the chatter of the red squirrel, who angrily +challenges their right to be there. But the moment of sentiment passes. +This party has come here to eat and to sleep, and not to encourage +Nature in her poetic attitudinizing. + +The spot for a shanty is selected. This side shall be its opening, +towards the lake; and in front of it the fire, so that the smoke shall +drift into the hut, and discourage the mosquitoes; yonder shall be +the cook's fire and the path to the spring. The whole colony bestir +themselves in the foundation of a new home,--an enterprise that has all +the fascination, and none of the danger, of a veritable new settlement +in the wilderness. The axes of the guides resound in the echoing spaces; +great trunks fall with a crash; vistas are opened towards the lake and +the mountains. The spot for the shanty is cleared of underbrush; forked +stakes are driven into the ground, cross-pieces are laid on them, and +poles sloping back to the ground. In an incredible space of time there +is the skeleton of a house, which is entirely open in front. The roof +and sides must be covered. For this purpose the trunks of great spruces +are skinned. The woodman rims the bark near the foot of the tree, and +again six feet above, and slashes it perpendicularly; then, with a blunt +stick, he crowds off this thick hide exactly as an ox is skinned. +It needs but a few of these skins to cover the roof; and they make a +perfectly water-tight roof, except when it rains. Meantime busy hands +have gathered boughs of the spruce and the feathery balsam, and shingled +the ground underneath the shanty for a bed. It is an aromatic bed: in +theory it is elastic and consoling. Upon it are spread the blankets. The +sleepers, of all sexes and ages, are to lie there in a row, their feet +to the fire, and their heads under the edge of the sloping roof. Nothing +could be better contrived. The fire is in front: it is not a fire, but +a conflagration--a vast heap of green logs set on fire--of pitch, and +split dead-wood, and crackling balsams, raging and roaring. By the time, +twilight falls, the cook has prepared supper. Everything has been cooked +in a tin pail and a skillet,--potatoes, tea, pork, mutton, slapjacks. +You wonder how everything could have been prepared in so few utensils. +When you eat, the wonder ceases: everything might have been cooked +in one pail. It is a noble meal; and nobly is it disposed of by these +amateur savages, sitting about upon logs and roots of trees. Never were +there such potatoes, never beans that seemed to have more of the bean in +them, never such curly pork, never trout with more Indian-meal on them, +never mutton more distinctly sheepy; and the tea, drunk out of a tin +cup, with a lump of maple-sugar dissolved in it,--it is the sort of tea +that takes hold, lifts the hair, and disposes the drinker to anecdote +and hilariousness. There is no deception about it: it tastes of tannin +and spruce and creosote. Everything, in short, has the flavor of +the wilderness and a free life. It is idyllic. And yet, with all our +sentimentality, there is nothing feeble about the cooking. The slapjacks +are a solid job of work, made to last, and not go to pieces in a +person's stomach like a trivial bun: we might record on them, in +cuneiform characters, our incipient civilization; and future generations +would doubtless turn them up as Acadian bricks. Good, robust victuals +are what the primitive man wants. + +Darkness falls suddenly. Outside the ring of light from our +conflagration the woods are black. There is a tremendous impression of +isolation and lonesomeness in our situation. We are the prisoners of +the night. The woods never seemed so vast and mysterious. The trees are +gigantic. There are noises that we do not understand,--mysterious winds +passing overhead, and rambling in the great galleries, tree-trunks +grinding against each other, undefinable stirs and uneasinesses. The +shapes of those who pass into the dimness are outlined in monstrous +proportions. The spectres, seated about in the glare of the fire, talk +about appearances and presentiments and religion. The guides cheer the +night with bear-fights, and catamount encounters, and frozen-to-death +experiences, and simple tales of great prolixity and no point, and jokes +of primitive lucidity. We hear catamounts, and the stealthy tread of +things in the leaves, and the hooting of owls, and, when the moon rises, +the laughter of the loon. Everything is strange, spectral, fascinating. + +By and by we get our positions in the shanty for the night, and arrange +the row of sleepers. The shanty has become a smoke-house by this time: +waves of smoke roll into it from the fire. It is only by lying down, and +getting the head well under the eaves, that one can breathe. No one can +find her “things”; nobody has a pillow. At length the row is laid out, +with the solemn protestation of intention to sleep. The wind, shifting, +drives away the smoke. + +Good-night is said a hundred times; positions are readjusted, more last +words, new shifting about, final remarks; it is all so comfortable and +romantic; and then silence. Silence continues for a minute. The fire +flashes up; all the row of heads is lifted up simultaneously to watch +it; showers of sparks sail aloft into the blue night; the vast vault +of greenery is a fairy spectacle. How the sparks mount and twinkle and +disappear like tropical fireflies, and all the leaves murmur, and clap +their hands! Some of the sparks do not go out: we see them flaming in +the sky when the flame of the fire has died down. Well, good-night, +goodnight. More folding of the arms to sleep; more grumbling about the +hardness of a hand-bag, or the insufficiency of a pocket-handkerchief, +for a pillow. Good-night. Was that a remark?--something about a root, +a stub in the ground sticking into the back. “You couldn't lie along a +hair?”---“Well, no: here's another stub. It needs but a moment for the +conversation to become general,--about roots under the shoulder, stubs +in the back, a ridge on which it is impossible for the sleeper to +balance, the non-elasticity of boughs, the hardness of the ground, the +heat, the smoke, the chilly air. Subjects of remarks multiply. The whole +camp is awake, and chattering like an aviary. The owl is also awake; but +the guides who are asleep outside make more noise than the owls. Water +is wanted, and is handed about in a dipper. Everybody is yawning; +everybody is now determined to go to sleep in good earnest. A last +good-night. There is an appalling silence. It is interrupted in the most +natural way in the world. Somebody has got the start, and gone to sleep. +He proclaims the fact. He seems to have been brought up on the seashore, +and to know how to make all the deep-toned noises of the restless ocean. +He is also like a war-horse; or, it is suggested, like a saw-horse. How +malignantly he snorts, and breaks off short, and at once begins again in +another key! One head is raised after another. + +“Who is that?” + +“Somebody punch him.” + +“Turn him over.” + +“Reason with him.” + +The sleeper is turned over. The turn was a mistake. He was before, it +appears, on his most agreeable side. The camp rises in indignation. +The sleeper sits up in bewilderment. Before he can go off again, two or +three others have preceded him. They are all alike. You never can +judge what a person is when he is awake. There are here half a dozen +disturbers of the peace who should be put in solitary confinement. At +midnight, when a philosopher crawls out to sit on a log by the fire, +and smoke a pipe, a duet in tenor and mezzo-soprano is going on in the +shanty, with a chorus always coming in at the wrong time. Those who +are not asleep want to know why the smoker doesn't go to bed. He is +requested to get some water, to throw on another log, to see what +time it is, to note whether it looks like rain. A buzz of conversation +arises. She is sure she heard something behind the shanty. He says it is +all nonsense. “Perhaps, however, it might be a mouse.” + +“Mercy! Are there mice?” + +“Plenty.” + +“Then that's what I heard nibbling by my head. I shan't sleep a wink! Do +they bite?” + +“No, they nibble; scarcely ever take a full bite out.” + +“It's horrid!” + +Towards morning it grows chilly; the guides have let the fire go out; +the blankets will slip down. Anxiety begins to be expressed about the +dawn. + +“What time does the sun rise?” + +“Awful early. Did you sleep? + +“Not a wink. And you?” + +“In spots. I'm going to dig up this root as soon as it is light enough.” + +“See that mist on the lake, and the light just coming on the Gothics! +I'd no idea it was so cold: all the first part of the night I was +roasted.” + +“What were they talking about all night?” + +When the party crawls out to the early breakfast, after it has washed +its faces in the lake, it is disorganized, but cheerful. Nobody admits +much sleep; but everybody is refreshed, and declares it delightful. It +is the fresh air all night that invigorates; or maybe it is the tea, +or the slap-jacks. The guides have erected a table of spruce bark, with +benches at the sides; so that breakfast is taken in form. It is served +on tin plates and oak chips. After breakfast begins the day's work. +It may be a mountain-climbing expedition, or rowing and angling in the +lake, or fishing for trout in some stream two or three miles distant. +Nobody can stir far from camp without a guide. Hammocks are swung, +bowers are built novel-reading begins, worsted work appears, cards +are shuffled and dealt. The day passes in absolute freedom from +responsibility to one's self. At night when the expeditions return, the +camp resumes its animation. Adventures are recounted, every statement of +the narrator being disputed and argued. Everybody has become an adept in +woodcraft; but nobody credits his neighbor with like instinct. Society +getting resolved into its elements, confidence is gone. + +Whilst the hilarious party are at supper, a drop or two of rain falls. +The head guide is appealed to. Is it going to rain? He says it does +rain. But will it be a rainy night? The guide goes down to the lake, +looks at the sky, and concludes that, if the wind shifts a p'int more, +there is no telling what sort of weather we shall have. Meantime the +drops patter thicker on the leaves overhead, and the leaves, in turn, +pass the water down to the table; the sky darkens; the wind rises; there +is a kind of shiver in the woods; and we scud away into the shanty, +taking the remains of our supper, and eating it as best we can. The +rain increases. The fire sputters and fumes. All the trees are dripping, +dripping, and the ground is wet. We cannot step outdoors without getting +a drenching. Like sheep, we are penned in the little hut, where no +one can stand erect. The rain swirls into the open front, and wets +the bottom of the blankets. The smoke drives in. We curl up, and enjoy +ourselves. The guides at length conclude that it is going to be damp. +The dismal situation sets us all into good spirits; and it is later than +the night before when we crawl under our blankets, sure this time of +a sound sleep, lulled by the storm and the rain resounding on the bark +roof. How much better off we are than many a shelter-less wretch! We +are as snug as dry herrings. At the moment, however, of dropping off to +sleep, somebody unfortunately notes a drop of water on his face; this +is followed by another drop; in an instant a stream is established. He +moves his head to a dry place. Scarcely has he done so, when he feels +a dampness in his back. Reaching his hand outside, he finds a puddle of +water soaking through his blanket. By this time, somebody inquires if +it is possible that the roof leaks. One man has a stream of water under +him; another says it is coming into his ear. The roof appears to be a +discriminating sieve. Those who are dry see no need of such a fuss. The +man in the corner spreads his umbrella, and the protective measure is +resented by his neighbor. In the darkness there is recrimination. One of +the guides, who is summoned, suggests that the rubber blankets be passed +out, and spread over the roof. The inmates dislike the proposal, saying +that a shower-bath is no worse than a tub-bath. The rain continues to +soak down. The fire is only half alive. The bedding is damp. Some +sit up, if they can find a dry spot to sit on, and smoke. Heartless +observations are made. A few sleep. And the night wears on. The morning +opens cheerless. The sky is still leaking, and so is the shanty. The +guides bring in a half-cooked breakfast. The roof is patched up. +There are reviving signs of breaking away, delusive signs that create +momentary exhilaration. Even if the storm clears, the woods are soaked. +There is no chance of stirring. The world is only ten feet square. + +This life, without responsibility or clean clothes, may continue as long +as the reader desires. There are, those who would like to live in this +free fashion forever, taking rain and sun as heaven pleases; and there +are some souls so constituted that they cannot exist more than three +days without their worldly--baggage. Taking the party altogether, +from one cause or another it is likely to strike camp sooner than was +intended. And the stricken camp is a melancholy sight. The woods have +been despoiled; the stumps are ugly; the bushes are scorched; the +pine-leaf-strewn earth is trodden into mire; the landing looks like a +cattle-ford; the ground is littered with all the unsightly dibris of a +hand-to-hand life; the dismantled shanty is a shabby object; the charred +and blackened logs, where the fire blazed, suggest the extinction of +family life. Man has wrought his usual wrong upon Nature, and he can +save his self-respect only by moving to virgin forests. + +And move to them he will, the next season, if not this. For he who has +once experienced the fascination of the woods-life never escapes its +enticement: in the memory nothing remains but its charm. + + + + +VII. A WILDERNESS ROMANCE + +At the south end of Keene Valley, in the Adirondacks, stands Noon Mark, +a shapely peak thirty-five hundred feet above the sea, which, with the +aid of the sun, tells the Keene people when it is time to eat dinner. +From its summit you look south into a vast wilderness basin, a great +stretch of forest little trodden, and out of whose bosom you can hear +from the heights on a still day the loud murmur of the Boquet. This +basin of unbroken green rises away to the south and southeast into the +rocky heights of Dix's Peak and Nipple Top,--the latter a local name +which neither the mountain nor the fastidious tourist is able to shake +off. Indeed, so long as the mountain keeps its present shape as seen +from the southern lowlands, it cannot get on without this name. + +These two mountains, which belong to the great system of which Marcy +is the giant centre, and are in the neighborhood of five thousand +feet high, on the southern outposts of the great mountains, form the +gate-posts of the pass into the south country. This opening between them +is called Hunter's Pass. It is the most elevated and one of the wildest +of the mountain passes. Its summit is thirty-five hundred feet high. In +former years it is presumed the hunters occasionally followed the game +through; but latterly it is rare to find a guide who has been that way, +and the tin-can and paper-collar tourists have not yet made it a runway. +This seclusion is due not to any inherent difficulty of travel, but to +the fact that it lies a little out of the way. + +We went through it last summer; making our way into the jaws from the +foot of the great slides on Dix, keeping along the ragged spurs of the +mountain through the virgin forest. The pass is narrow, walled in on +each side by precipices of granite, and blocked up with bowlders and +fallen trees, and beset with pitfalls in the roads ingeniously covered +with fair-seeming moss. When the climber occasionally loses sight of a +leg in one of these treacherous holes, and feels a cold sensation in his +foot, he learns that he has dipped into the sources of the Boquet, which +emerges lower down into falls and rapids, and, recruited by creeping +tributaries, goes brawling through the forest basin, and at last comes +out an amiable and boat-bearing stream in the valley of Elizabeth Town. +From the summit another rivulet trickles away to the south, and finds +its way through a frightful tamarack swamp, and through woods scarred by +ruthless lumbering, to Mud Pond, a quiet body of water, with a ghastly +fringe of dead trees, upon which people of grand intentions and weak +vocabulary are trying to fix the name of Elk Lake. The descent of the +pass on that side is precipitous and exciting. The way is in the stream +itself; and a considerable portion of the distance we swung ourselves +down the faces of considerable falls, and tumbled down cascades. The +descent, however, was made easy by the fact that it rained, and +every footstep was yielding and slippery. Why sane people, often +church-members respectably connected, will subject themselves to this +sort of treatment,--be wet to the skin, bruised by the rocks, and flung +about among the bushes and dead wood until the most necessary part of +their apparel hangs in shreds,--is one of the delightful mysteries of +these woods. I suspect that every man is at heart a roving animal, and +likes, at intervals, to revert to the condition of the bear and the +catamount. + +There is no trail through Hunter's Pass, which, as I have intimated, is +the least frequented portion of this wilderness. Yet we were surprised +to find a well-beaten path a considerable portion of the way and +wherever a path is possible. It was not a mere deer's runway: these are +found everywhere in the mountains. It is trodden by other and larger +animals, and is, no doubt, the highway of beasts. It bears marks of +having been so for a long period, and probably a period long ago. Large +animals are not common in these woods now, and you seldom meet anything +fiercer than the timid deer and the gentle bear. But in days gone by, +Hunter's Pass was the highway of the whole caravan of animals who were +continually going backward; and forwards, in the aimless, roaming way +that beasts have, between Mud Pond and the Boquet Basin. I think I can +see now the procession of them between the heights of Dix and Nipple +Top; the elk and the moose shambling along, cropping the twigs; the +heavy bear lounging by with his exploring nose; the frightened deer +trembling at every twig that snapped beneath his little hoofs, intent on +the lily-pads of the pond; the raccoon and the hedgehog, sidling along; +and the velvet-footed panther, insouciant and conscienceless, scenting +the path with a curious glow in his eye, or crouching in an overhanging +tree ready to drop into the procession at the right moment. Night and +day, year after year, I see them going by, watched by the red fox +and the comfortably clad sable, and grinned at by the black cat,--the +innocent, the vicious, the timid and the savage, the shy and the bold, +the chattering slanderer and the screaming prowler, the industrious and +the peaceful, the tree-top critic and the crawling biter,--just as it +is elsewhere. It makes me blush for my species when I think of it. This +charming society is nearly extinct now: of the larger animals there only +remain the bear, who minds his own business more thoroughly than any +person I know, and the deer, who would like to be friendly with men, but +whose winning face and gentle ways are no protection from the savageness +of man, and who is treated with the same unpitying destruction as the +snarling catamount. I have read in history that the amiable natives of +Hispaniola fared no better at the hands of the brutal Spaniards than +the fierce and warlike Caribs. As society is at present constituted in +Christian countries, I would rather for my own security be a cougar than +a fawn. + +There is not much of romantic interest in the Adirondacks. Out of the +books of daring travelers, nothing. I do not know that the Keene Valley +has any history. The mountains always stood here, and the Au Sable, +flowing now in shallows and now in rippling reaches over the sands +and pebbles, has for ages filled the air with continuous and soothing +sounds. Before the Vermonters broke into it some three-quarters of a +century ago, and made meadows of its bottoms and sugar-camps of its +fringing woods, I suppose the red Indian lived here in his usual +discomfort, and was as restless as his successors, the summer boarders. +But the streams were full of trout then, and the moose and the elk left +their broad tracks on the sands of the river. But of the Indian there is +no trace. There is a mound in the valley, much like a Tel in the +country of Bashan beyond the Jordan, that may have been built by some +pre-historic race, and may contain treasure and the seated figure of +a preserved chieftain on his slow way to Paradise. What the gentle +and accomplished race of the Mound-Builders should want in this savage +region where the frost kills the early potatoes and stunts the scanty +oats, I do not know. I have seen no trace of them, except this Tel, +and one other slight relic, which came to light last summer, and is not +enough to found the history of a race upon. + +Some workingmen, getting stone from the hillside on one of the little +plateaus, for a house-cellar, discovered, partly embedded, a piece of +pottery unique in this region. With the unerring instinct of workmen in +regard to antiquities, they thrust a crowbar through it, and broke the +bowl into several pieces. The joint fragments, however, give us the +form of the dish. It is a bowl about nine inches high and eight inches +across, made of red clay, baked but not glazed. The bottom is round, +the top flares into four comers, and the rim is rudely but rather +artistically ornamented with criss-cross scratches made when the clay +was soft. The vessel is made of clay not found about here, and it is +one that the Indians formerly living here could not form. Was it brought +here by roving Indians who may have made an expedition to the Ohio; was +it passed from tribe to tribe; or did it belong to a race that occupied +the country before the Indian, and who have left traces of their +civilized skill in pottery scattered all over the continent? + +If I could establish the fact that this jar was made by a prehistoric +race, we should then have four generations in this lovely valley:-the +amiable Pre-Historic people (whose gentle descendants were probably +killed by the Spaniards in the West Indies); the Red Indians; the Keene +Flaters (from Vermont); and the Summer Boarders, to say nothing of the +various races of animals who have been unable to live here since the +advent of the Summer Boarders, the valley being not productive enough to +sustain both. This last incursion has been more destructive to the noble +serenity of the forest than all the preceding. + +But we are wandering from Hunter's Pass. The western walls of it are +formed by the precipices of Nipple Top, not so striking nor so bare as +the great slides of Dix which glisten in the sun like silver, but rough +and repelling, and consequently alluring. I have a great desire to scale +them. I have always had an unreasonable wish to explore the rough summit +of this crabbed hill, which is too broken and jagged for pleasure +and not high enough for glory. This desire was stimulated by a legend +related by our guide that night in the Mud Pond cabin. The guide had +never been through the pass before; although he was familiar with the +region, and had ascended Nipple Top in the winter in pursuit of the +sable. The story he told doesn't amount to much, none of the guides' +stories do, faithfully reported, and I should not have believed it if I +had not had a good deal of leisure on my hands at the time, and been of +a willing mind, and I may say in rather of a starved condition as to any +romance in this region. + +The guide said then--and he mentioned it casually, in reply to our +inquiries about ascending the mountain--that there was a cave high up +among the precipices on the southeast side of Nipple Top. He scarcely +volunteered the information, and with seeming reluctance gave us any +particulars about it. I always admire this art by which the accomplished +story-teller lets his listener drag the reluctant tale of the marvelous +from him, and makes you in a manner responsible for its improbability. +If this is well managed, the listener is always eager to believe a great +deal more than the romancer seems willing to tell, and always resents +the assumed reservations and doubts of the latter. + +There were strange reports about this cave when the old guide was a +boy, and even then its very existence had become legendary. Nobody knew +exactly where it was, but there was no doubt that it had been inhabited. +Hunters in the forests south of Dix had seen a light late at night +twinkling through the trees high up the mountain, and now and then a +ruddy glare as from the flaring-up of a furnace. Settlers were few in +the wilderness then, and all the inhabitants were well known. If the +cave was inhabited, it must be by strangers, and by men who had some +secret purpose in seeking this seclusion and eluding observation. If +suspicious characters were seen about Port Henry, or if any such landed +from the steamers on the shore of Lake Champlain, it was impossible to +identify them with these invaders who were never seen. Their not +being seen did not, however, prevent the growth of the belief in their +existence. Little indications and rumors, each trivial in itself, became +a mass of testimony that could not be disposed of because of its very +indefiniteness, but which appealed strongly to man's noblest faculty, +his imagination, or credulity. + +The cave existed; and it was inhabited by men who came and went on +mysterious errands, and transacted their business by night. What this +band of adventurers or desperadoes lived on, how they conveyed their +food through the trackless woods to their high eyrie, and what could +induce men to seek such a retreat, were questions discussed, but never +settled. They might be banditti; but there was nothing to plunder in +these savage wilds, and, in fact, robberies and raids either in the +settlements of the hills or the distant lake shore were unknown. In +another age, these might have been hermits, holy men who had retired +from the world to feed the vanity of their godliness in a spot where +they were subject neither to interruption nor comparison; they would +have had a shrine in the cave, and an image of the Blessed Virgin, with +a lamp always burning before it and sending out its mellow light over +the savage waste. A more probable notion was that they were romantic +Frenchmen who had grow weary of vice and refinement together,--possibly +princes, expectants of the throne, Bourbon remainders, named Williams or +otherwise, unhatched eggs, so to speak, of kings, who had withdrawn out +of observation to wait for the next turn-over in Paris. Frenchmen do +such things. If they were not Frenchmen, they might be honest-thieves or +criminals, escaped from justice or from the friendly state-prison of New +York. This last supposition was, however, more violent than the others, +or seems so to us in this day of grace. For what well-brought-up New +York criminal would be so insane as to run away from his political +friends the keepers, from the easily had companionship of his pals +outside, and from the society of his criminal lawyer, and, in short, to +put himself into the depths of a wilderness out of which escape, when +escape was desired, is a good deal more difficult than it is out of the +swarming jails of the Empire State? Besides, how foolish for a man, if +he were a really hardened and professional criminal, having established +connections and a regular business, to run away from the governor's +pardon, which might have difficulty in finding him in the craggy bosom +of Nipple Top! + +This gang of men--there is some doubt whether they were accompanied +by women--gave little evidence in their appearance of being escaped +criminals or expectant kings. Their movements were mysterious but not +necessarily violent. If their occupation could have been discovered, +that would have furnished a clew to their true character. But about this +the strangers were as close as mice. If anything could betray them, it +was the steady light from the cavern, and its occasional ruddy flashing. +This gave rise to the opinion, which was strengthened by a good many +indications equally conclusive, that the cave was the resort of a +gang of coiners and counterfeiters. Here they had their furnace, +smelting-pots, and dies; here they manufactured those spurious quarters +and halves that their confidants, who were pardoned, were circulating, +and which a few honest men were “nailing to the counter.” + +This prosaic explanation of a romantic situation satisfies all the +requirements of the known facts, but the lively imagination at once +rejects it as unworthy of the subject. I think the guide put it forward +in order to have it rejected. The fact is,--at least, it has never been +disproved,--these strangers whose movements were veiled belonged to that +dark and mysterious race whose presence anywhere on this continent is a +nest-egg of romance or of terror. They were Spaniards! You need not +say buccaneers, you need not say gold-hunters, you need not say swarthy +adventurers even: it is enough to say Spaniards! There is no tale of +mystery and fanaticism and daring I would not believe if a Spaniard is +the hero of it, and it is not necessary either that he should have the +high-sounding name of Bodadilla or Ojeda. + +Nobody, I suppose, would doubt this story if the moose, quaffing deep +draughts of red wine from silver tankards, and then throwing themselves +back upon divans, and lazily puffing the fragrant Havana. After a day of +toil, what more natural, and what more probable for a Spaniard? + +Does the reader think these inferences not warranted by the facts? He +does not know the facts. It is true that our guide had never himself +personally visited the cave, but he has always intended to hunt it up. +His information in regard to it comes from his father, who was a mighty +hunter and trapper. In one of his expeditions over Nipple Top he chanced +upon the cave. The mouth was half concealed by undergrowth. He entered, +not without some apprehension engendered by the legends which make it +famous. I think he showed some boldness in venturing into such a place +alone. I confess that, before I went in, I should want to fire a Gatling +gun into the mouth for a little while, in order to rout out the bears +which usually dwell there. He went in, however. The entrance was low; +but the cave was spacious, not large, but big enough, with a level floor +and a vaulted ceiling. It had long been deserted, but that it was once +the residence of highly civilized beings there could be no doubt. The +dead brands in the centre were the remains of a fire that could not +have been kindled by wild beasts, and the bones scattered about had +been scientifically dissected and handled. There were also remnants of +furniture and pieces of garments scattered about. At the farther end, in +a fissure of the rock, were stones regularly built up, the remains of a +larger fire,--and what the hunter did not doubt was the smelting furnace +of the Spaniards. He poked about in the ashes, but found no silver. That +had all been carried away. + +But what most provoked his wonder in this rude cave was a chair I This +was not such a seat as a woodman might knock up with an axe, with rough +body and a seat of woven splits, but a manufactured chair of commerce, +and a chair, too, of an unusual pattern and some elegance. This chair +itself was a mute witness of luxury and mystery. The chair itself might +have been accounted for, though I don't know how; but upon the back of +the chair hung, as if the owner had carelessly flung it there before +going out an hour before, a man's waistcoat. This waistcoat seemed to +him of foreign make and peculiar style, but what endeared it to him was +its row of metal buttons. These buttons were of silver! I forget now +whether he did not say they were of silver coin, and that the coin was +Spanish. But I am not certain about this latter fact, and I wish to cast +no air of improbability over my narrative. This rich vestment the hunter +carried away with him. This was all the plunder his expedition afforded. +Yes: there was one other article, and, to my mind, more significant than +the vest of the hidalgo. This was a short and stout crowbar of iron; not +one of the long crowbars that farmers use to pry up stones, but a short +handy one, such as you would use in digging silver-ore out of the cracks +of rocks. + +This was the guide's simple story. I asked him what became of the vest +and the buttons, and the bar of iron. The old man wore the vest until he +wore it out; and then he handed it over to the boys, and they wore it +in turn till they wore it out. The buttons were cut off, and kept as +curiosities. They were about the cabin, and the children had them to +play with. The guide distinctly remembers playing with them; one of them +he kept for a long time, and he didn't know but he could find it now, +but he guessed it had disappeared. I regretted that he had not treasured +this slender verification of an interesting romance, but he said in +those days he never paid much attention to such things. Lately he has +turned the subject over, and is sorry that his father wore out the vest +and did not bring away the chair. It is his steady purpose to find the +cave some time when he has leisure, and capture the chair, if it has not +tumbled to pieces. But about the crowbar? Oh I that is all right. The +guide has the bar at his house in Keene Valley, and has always used it. + +I am happy to be able to confirm this story by saying that next +day I saw the crowbar, and had it in my hand. It is short and thick, and +the most interesting kind of crowbar. This evidence is enough for me. I +intend in the course of this vacation to search for the cave; and, if +I find it, my readers shall know the truth about it, if it destroys the +only bit of romance connected with these mountains. + + + + +VIII. WHAT SOME PEOPLE CALL PLEASURE + +My readers were promised an account of Spaniard's Cave on Nipple-Top +Mountain in the Adirondacks, if such a cave exists, and could be found. +There is none but negative evidence that this is a mere cave of the +imagination, the void fancy of a vacant hour; but it is the duty of the +historian to present the negative testimony of a fruitless expedition in +search of it, made last summer. I beg leave to offer this in the simple +language befitting all sincere exploits of a geographical character. + +The summit of Nipple-Top Mountain has been trodden by few white men of +good character: it is in the heart of a hirsute wilderness; it is itself +a rough and unsocial pile of granite nearly five thousand feet high, +bristling with a stunted and unpleasant growth of firs and balsams, and +there is no earthly reason why a person should go there. Therefore we +went. In the party of three there was, of course, a chaplain. The guide +was Old Mountain Phelps, who had made the ascent once before, but not +from the northwest side, the direction from which we approached it. The +enthusiasm of this philosopher has grown with his years, and outlived +his endurance: we carried our own knapsacks and supplies, therefore, and +drew upon him for nothing but moral reflections and a general knowledge +of the wilderness. Our first day's route was through the Gill-brook +woods and up one of its branches to the head of Caribou Pass, which +separates Nipple Top from Colvin. + +It was about the first of September; no rain had fallen for several +weeks, and this heart of the forest was as dry as tinder; a lighted +match dropped anywhere would start a conflagration. This dryness has its +advantages: the walking is improved; the long heat has expressed all the +spicy odors of the cedars and balsams, and the woods are filled with a +soothing fragrance; the waters of the streams, though scant and clear, +are cold as ice; the common forest chill is gone from the air. The +afternoon was bright; there was a feeling of exultation and adventure +in stepping off into the open but pathless forest; the great stems of +deciduous trees were mottled with patches of sunlight, which brought +out upon the variegated barks and mosses of the old trunks a thousand +shifting hues. There is nothing like a primeval wood for color on a +sunny day. The shades of green and brown are infinite; the dull red of +the hemlock bark glows in the sun, the russet of the changing moose-bush +becomes brilliant; there are silvery openings here and there; and +everywhere the columns rise up to the canopy of tender green which +supports the intense blue sky and holds up a part of it from falling +through in fragments to the floor of the forest. Decorators can learn +here how Nature dares to put blue and green in juxtaposition: she has +evidently the secret of harmonizing all the colors. + +The way, as we ascended, was not all through open woods; dense masses +of firs were encountered, jagged spurs were to be crossed, and the going +became at length so slow and toilsome that we took to the rocky bed of +a stream, where bowlders and flumes and cascades offered us sufficient +variety. The deeper we penetrated, the greater the sense of savageness +and solitude; in the silence of these hidden places one seems to +approach the beginning of things. We emerged from the defile into an +open basin, formed by the curved side of the mountain, and stood silent +before a waterfall coming down out of the sky in the centre of the +curve. I do not know anything exactly like this fall, which some +poetical explorer has named the Fairy-Ladder Falls. It appears to have +a height of something like a hundred and fifty feet, and the water +falls obliquely across the face of the cliff from left to right in short +steps, which in the moonlight might seem like a veritable ladder for +fairies. Our impression of its height was confirmed by climbing the very +steep slope at its side some three or four hundred feet. At the top we +found the stream flowing over a broad bed of rock, like a street in the +wilderness, slanting up still towards the sky, and bordered by low firs +and balsams, and bowlders completely covered with moss. It was above the +world and open to the sky. + +On account of the tindery condition of the woods we made our fire on the +natural pavement, and selected a smooth place for our bed near by on the +flat rock, with a pool of limpid water at the foot. This granite couch +we covered with the dry and springy moss, which we stripped off in heavy +fleeces a foot thick from the bowlders. First, however, we fed upon the +fruit that was offered us. Over these hills of moss ran an exquisite +vine with a tiny, ovate, green leaf, bearing small, delicate berries, +oblong and white as wax, having a faint flavor of wintergreen and the +slightest acid taste, the very essence of the wilderness; fairy food, no +doubt, and too refined for palates accustomed to coarser viands. There +must exist somewhere sinless women who could eat these berries without +being reminded of the lost purity and delicacy of the primeval senses. +Every year I doubt not this stainless berry ripens here, and is +unplucked by any knight of the Holy Grail who is worthy to eat it, +and keeps alive, in the prodigality of nature, the tradition of the +unperverted conditions of taste before the fall. We ate these berries, I +am bound to say, with a sense of guilty enjoyment, as if they had been +a sort of shew-bread of the wilderness, though I cannot answer for +the chaplain, who is by virtue of his office a little nearer to these +mysteries of nature than I. This plant belongs to the heath family, and +is first cousin to the blueberry and cranberry. It is commonly called +the creeping snowberry, but I like better its official title of +chiogenes,--the snow-born. + +Our mossy resting-place was named the Bridal Chamber Camp, in the +enthusiasm of the hour, after darkness fell upon the woods and the stars +came out. We were two thousand five hundred feet above the common world. +We lay, as it were, on a shelf in the sky, with a basin of illimitable +forests below us and dim mountain-passes-in the far horizon. + +And as we lay there courting sleep which the blinking stars refused to +shower down, our philosopher discoursed to us of the principle of fire, +which he holds, with the ancients, to be an independent element that +comes and goes in a mysterious manner, as we see flame spring up +and vanish, and is in some way vital and indestructible, and has a +mysterious relation to the source of all things. “That flame,” he says, +“you have put out, but where has it gone?” We could not say, nor whether +it is anything like the spirit of a man which is here for a little hour, +and then vanishes away. Our own philosophy of the correlation of forces +found no sort of favor at that elevation, and we went to sleep leaving +the principle of fire in the apostolic category of “any other creature.” + +At daylight we were astir; and, having pressed the principle of fire +into our service to make a pot of tea, we carefully extinguished it or +sent it into another place, and addressed ourselves to the climb of some +thing over two thousand feet. The arduous labor of scaling an Alpine +peak has a compensating glory; but the dead lift of our bodies up Nipple +Top had no stimulus of this sort. It is simply hard work, for which the +strained muscles only get the approbation of the individual conscience +that drives them to the task. The pleasure of such an ascent is +difficult to explain on the spot, and I suspect consists not so much in +positive enjoyment as in the delight the mind experiences in tyrannizing +over the body. I do not object to the elevation of this mountain, nor to +the uncommonly steep grade by which it attains it, but only to the other +obstacles thrown in the way of the climber. All the slopes of Nipple +Top are hirsute and jagged to the last degree. Granite ledges interpose; +granite bowlders seem to have been dumped over the sides with no more +attempt at arrangement than in a rip-rap wall; the slashes and windfalls +of a century present here and there an almost impenetrable chevalier des +arbres; and the steep sides bristle with a mass of thick balsams, with +dead, protruding spikes, as unyielding as iron stakes. The mountain +has had its own way forever, and is as untamed as a wolf; or rather +the elements, the frightful tempests, the frosts, the heavy snows, the +coaxing sun, and the avalanches have had their way with it until its +surface is in hopeless confusion. We made our way very slowly; and it +was ten o'clock before we reached what appeared to be the summit, a +ridge deeply covered with moss, low balsams, and blueberry-bushes. + +I say, appeared to be; for we stood in thick fog or in the heart of +clouds which limited our dim view to a radius of twenty feet. It was a +warm and cheerful fog, stirred by little wind, but moving, shifting, and +boiling as by its own volatile nature, rolling up black from below and +dancing in silvery splendor overhead As a fog it could not have been +improved; as a medium for viewing the landscape it was a failure and we +lay down upon the Sybarite couch of moss, as in a Russian bath, to await +revelations. + +We waited two hours without change, except an occasional hopeful +lightness in the fog above, and at last the appearance for a moment +of the spectral sun. Only for an instant was this luminous promise +vouchsafed. But we watched in intense excitement. There it was again; +and this time the fog was so thin overhead that we caught sight of a +patch of blue sky a yard square, across which the curtain was instantly +drawn. A little wind was stirring, and the fog boiled up from the valley +caldrons thicker than ever. But the spell was broken. In a moment more +Old Phelps was shouting, “The sun!” and before we could gain our feet +there was a patch of sky overhead as big as a farm. “See! quick!” The +old man was dancing like a lunatic. There was a rift in the vapor at +our feet, down, down, three thousand feet into the forest abyss, and lo! +lifting out of it yonder the tawny side of Dix,--the vision of a second, +snatched away in the rolling fog. The play had just begun. Before +we could turn, there was the gorge of Caribou Pass, savage and dark, +visible to the bottom. The opening shut as suddenly; and then, looking +over the clouds, miles away we saw the peaceful farms of the Au Sable +Valley, and in a moment more the plateau of North Elba and the sentinel +mountains about the grave of John Brown. These glimpses were as fleeting +as thought, and instantly we were again isolated in the sea of mist. The +expectation of these sudden strokes of sublimity kept us exultingly +on the alert; and yet it was a blow of surprise when the curtain was +swiftly withdrawn on the west, and the long ridge of Colvin, seemingly +within a stone's throw, heaved up like an island out of the ocean, +and was the next moment ingulfed. We waited longer for Dix to show its +shapely peak and its glistening sides of rock gashed by avalanches. The +fantastic clouds, torn and streaming, hurried up from the south in haste +as if to a witch's rendezvous, hiding and disclosing the great summit +in their flight. The mist boiled up from the valley, whirled over the +summit where we stood, and plunged again into the depths. Objects were +forming and disappearing, shifting and dancing, now in sun and now gone +in fog, and in the elemental whirl we felt that we were “assisting” in +an original process of creation. The sun strove, and his very striving +called up new vapors; the wind rent away the clouds, and brought new +masses to surge about us; and the spectacle to right and left, above +and below, changed with incredible swiftness. Such glory of abyss and +summit, of color and form and transformation, is seldom granted to +mortal eyes. For an hour we watched it until our vast mountain was +revealed in all its bulk, its long spurs, its abysses and its savagery, +and the great basins of wilderness with their shining lakes, and the +giant peaks of the region, were one by one disclosed, and hidden and +again tranquil in the sunshine. + +Where was the cave? There was ample surface in which to look for it. If +we could have flitted about, like the hawks that came circling round, +over the steep slopes, the long spurs, the jagged precipices, I have no +doubt we should have found it. But moving about on this mountain is not +a holiday pastime; and we were chiefly anxious to discover a practicable +mode of descent into the great wilderness basin on the south, which we +must traverse that afternoon before reaching the hospitable shanty +on Mud Pond. It was enough for us to have discovered the general +whereabouts of the Spanish Cave, and we left the fixing of its exact +position to future explorers. + +The spur we chose for our escape looked smooth in the distance; but we +found it bristling with obstructions, dead balsams set thickly together, +slashes of fallen timber, and every manner of woody chaos; and when +at length we swung and tumbled off the ledge to the general slope, we +exchanged only for more disagreeable going. The slope for a couple of +thousand feet was steep enough; but it was formed of granite rocks all +moss-covered, so that the footing could not be determined, and at short +intervals we nearly went out of sight in holes under the treacherous +carpeting. Add to this that stems of great trees were laid +longitudinally and transversely and criss-cross over and among the +rocks, and the reader can see that a good deal of work needs to be done +to make this a practicable highway for anything but a squirrel.... + +We had had no water since our daylight breakfast: our lunch on the +mountain had been moistened only by the fog. Our thirst began to be that +of Tantalus, because we could hear the water running deep down among +the rocks, but we could not come at it. The imagination drank the +living stream, and we realized anew what delusive food the imagination +furnishes in an actual strait. A good deal of the crime of this world, +I am convinced, is the direct result of the unlicensed play of the +imagination in adverse circumstances. This reflection had nothing to do +with our actual situation; for we added to our imagination patience, and +to our patience long-suffering, and probably all the Christian virtues +would have been developed in us if the descent had been long enough. +Before we reached the bottom of Caribou Pass, the water burst out from +the rocks in a clear stream that was as cold as ice. Shortly after, we +struck the roaring brook that issues from the Pass to the south. It is +a stream full of character, not navigable even for trout in the upper +part, but a succession of falls, cascades, flumes, and pools that would +delight an artist. It is not an easy bed for anything except water to +descend; and before we reached the level reaches, where the stream flows +with a murmurous noise through open woods, one of our party began to +show signs of exhaustion. + +This was Old Phelps, whose appetite had failed the day before,--his +imagination being in better working order than his stomach: he had eaten +little that day, and his legs became so groggy that he was obliged to +rest at short intervals. Here was a situation! The afternoon was wearing +away. We had six or seven miles of unknown wilderness to traverse, a +portion of it swampy, in which a progress of more than a mile an hour is +difficult, and the condition of the guide compelled even a slower +march. What should we do in that lonesome solitude if the guide became +disabled? We couldn't carry him out; could we find our own way out +to get assistance? The guide himself had never been there before; and +although he knew the general direction of our point of egress, and was +entirely adequate to extricate himself from any position in the woods, +his knowledge was of that occult sort possessed by woodsmen which it +is impossible to communicate. Our object was to strike a trail that +led from the Au Sable Pond, the other side of the mountain-range, to an +inlet on Mud Pond. We knew that if we traveled southwestward far enough +we must strike that trail, but how far? No one could tell. If we reached +that trail, and found a boat at the inlet, there would be only a row of +a couple of miles to the house at the foot of the lake. If no boat was +there, then we must circle the lake three or four miles farther through +a cedar-swamp, with no trail in particular. The prospect was not +pleasing. We were short of supplies, for we had not expected to pass +that night in the woods. The pleasure of the excursion began to develop +itself. + +We stumbled on in the general direction marked out, through a forest +that began to seem endless as hour after hour passed, compelled as we +were to make long detours over the ridges of the foothills to avoid the +swamp, which sent out from the border of the lake long tongues into +the firm ground. The guide became more ill at every step, and needed +frequent halts and long rests. Food he could not eat; and tea, water, +and even brandy he rejected. Again and again the old philosopher, +enfeebled by excessive exertion and illness, would collapse in a heap +on the ground, an almost comical picture of despair, while we stood and +waited the waning of the day, and peered forward in vain for any sign of +an open country. At every brook we encountered, we suggested a halt for +the night, while it was still light enough to select a camping-place, +but the plucky old man wouldn't hear of it: the trail might be only a +quarter of a mile ahead, and we crawled on again at a snail's pace. His +honor as a guide seemed to be at stake; and, besides, he confessed to +a notion that his end was near, and he didn't want to die like a dog +in the woods. And yet, if this was his last journey, it seemed not an +inappropriate ending for the old woodsman to lie down and give up the +ghost in the midst of the untamed forest and the solemn silences he felt +most at home in. There is a popular theory, held by civilians, that a +soldier likes to die in battle. I suppose it is as true that a woodsman +would like to “pass in his chips,”--the figure seems to be inevitable, +struck down by illness and exposure, in the forest solitude, with heaven +in sight and a tree-root for his pillow. + +The guide seemed really to fear that, if we did not get out of the +woods that night, he would never go out; and, yielding to his dogged +resolution, we kept on in search of the trail, although the gathering +of dusk over the ground warned us that we might easily cross the trail +without recognizing it. We were traveling by the light in the upper sky, +and by the forms of the tree-stems, which every moment grew dimmer. At +last the end came. We had just felt our way over what seemed to be a +little run of water, when the old man sunk down, remarking, “I might as +well die here as anywhere,” and was silent. + +Suddenly night fell like a blanket on us. We could neither see the guide +nor each other. We became at once conscious that miles of night on all +sides shut us in. The sky was clouded over: there wasn't a gleam of +light to show us where to step. Our first thought was to build a fire, +which would drive back the thick darkness into the woods, and boil +some water for our tea. But it was too dark to use the axe. We scraped +together leaves and twigs to make a blaze, and, as this failed, such +dead sticks as we could find by groping about. The fire was only a +temporary affair, but it sufficed to boil a can of water. The water we +obtained by feeling about the stones of the little run for an opening +big enough to dip our cup in. The supper to be prepared was fortunately +simple. It consisted of a decoction of tea and other leaves which had +got into the pail, and a part of a loaf of bread. A loaf of bread which +has been carried in a knapsack for a couple of days, bruised and handled +and hacked at with a hunting-knife, becomes an uninteresting object. +But we ate of it with thankfulness, washed it down with hot fluid, and +bitterly thought of the morrow. Would our old friend survive the night? +Would he be in any condition to travel in the morning? How were we to +get out with him or without him? + +The old man lay silent in the bushes out of sight, and desired only to +be let alone. We tried to tempt him with the offer of a piece of toast: +it was no temptation. Tea we thought would revive him: he refused it. A +drink of brandy would certainly quicken his life: he couldn't touch it. +We were at the end of our resources. He seemed to think that if he +were at home, and could get a bit of fried bacon, or a piece of pie, he +should be all right. We knew no more how to doctor him than if he had +been a sick bear. He withdrew within himself, rolled himself up, so +to speak, in his primitive habits, and waited for the healing power of +nature. Before our feeble fire disappeared, we smoothed a level place +near it for Phelps to lie on, and got him over to it. But it didn't +suit: it was too open. In fact, at the moment some drops of rain fell. +Rain was quite outside of our program for the night. But the guide +had an instinct about it; and, while we were groping about some yards +distant for a place where we could lie down, he crawled away into the +darkness, and curled himself up amid the roots of a gigantic pine, very +much as a bear would do, I suppose, with his back against the trunk, and +there passed the night comparatively dry and comfortable; but of this we +knew nothing till morning, and had to trust to the assurance of a voice +out of the darkness that he was all right. + +Our own bed where we spread our blankets was excellent in one +respect,--there was no danger of tumbling out of it. At first the rain +pattered gently on the leaves overhead, and we congratulated ourselves +on the snugness of our situation. There was something cheerful about +this free life. We contrasted our condition with that of tired invalids +who were tossing on downy beds, and wooing sleep in vain. Nothing was so +wholesome and invigorating as this bivouac in the forest. But, somehow, +sleep did not come. The rain had ceased to patter, and began to fall +with a steady determination, a sort of soak, soak, all about us. In +fact, it roared on the rubber blanket, and beat in our faces. The wind +began to stir a little, and there was a moaning on high. Not contented +with dripping, the rain was driven into our faces. Another suspicious +circumstance was noticed. Little rills of water got established along +the sides under the blankets, cold, undeniable streams, that interfered +with drowsiness. Pools of water settled on the bed; and the chaplain had +a habit of moving suddenly, and letting a quart or two inside, and down +my neck. It began to be evident that we and our bed were probably the +wettest objects in the woods. The rubber was an excellent catch-all. +There was no trouble about ventilation, but we found that we had +established our quarters without any provision for drainage. There was +not exactly a wild tempest abroad; but there was a degree of liveliness +in the thrashing limbs and the creaking of the tree-branches which +rubbed against each other, and the pouring rain increased in volume and +power of penetration. Sleep was quite out of the question, with so much +to distract our attention. In fine, our misery became so perfect that +we both broke out into loud and sarcastic laughter over the absurdity of +our situation. We had subjected ourselves to all this forlornness simply +for pleasure. Whether Old Phelps was still in existence, we couldn't +tell: we could get no response from him. With daylight, if he continued +ill and could not move, our situation would be little improved. Our +supplies were gone, we lay in a pond, a deluge of water was pouring down +on us. This was summer recreation. The whole thing was so excessively +absurd that we laughed again, louder than ever. We had plenty of this +sort of amusement. Suddenly through the night we heard a sort of reply +that started us bolt upright. This was a prolonged squawk. It was like +the voice of no beast or bird with which we were familiar. At first it +was distant; but it rapidly approached, tearing through the night and +apparently through the tree-tops, like the harsh cry of a web-footed +bird with a snarl in it; in fact, as I said, a squawk. It came close +to us, and then turned, and as rapidly as it came fled away through the +forest, and we lost the unearthly noise far up the mountain-slope. + +“What was that, Phelps?” we cried out. But no response came; and we +wondered if his spirit had been rent away, or if some evil genius had +sought it, and then, baffled by his serene and philosophic spirit, had +shot off into the void in rage and disappointment. + +The night had no other adventure. The moon at length coming up behind +the clouds lent a spectral aspect to the forest, and deceived us for a +time into the notion that day was at hand; but the rain never ceased, +and we lay wishful and waiting, with no item of solid misery wanting +that we could conceive. + +Day was slow a-coming, and didn't amount to much when it came, so +heavy were the clouds; but the rain slackened. We crawled out of our +water-cure “pack,” and sought the guide. To our infinite relief he +announced himself not only alive, but in a going condition. I looked at +my watch. It had stopped at five o'clock. I poured the water out of it, +and shook it; but, not being constructed on the hydraulic principle, it +refused to go. Some hours later we encountered a huntsman, from whom I +procured some gun-grease; with this I filled the watch, and heated it in +by the fire. This is a most effectual way of treating a delicate Genevan +timepiece. + +The light disclosed fully the suspected fact that our bed had been made +in a slight depression: the under rubber blanket spread in this had +prevented the rain from soaking into the ground, and we had been lying +in what was in fact a well-contrived bathtub. While Old Phelps was +pulling himself together, and we were wringing some gallons of water out +of our blankets, we questioned the old man about the “squawk,” and what +bird was possessed of such a voice. It was not a bird at all, he said, +but a cat, the black-cat of the woods, larger than the domestic animal, +and an ugly customer, who is fond of fish, and carries a pelt that is +worth two or three dollars in the market. Occasionally he blunders into +a sable-trap; and he is altogether hateful in his ways, and has the most +uncultivated voice that is heard in the woods. We shall remember him as +one of the least pleasant phantoms of that cheerful night when we lay +in the storm, fearing any moment the advent to one of us of the grimmest +messenger. + +We rolled up and shouldered our wet belongings, and, before the shades +had yet lifted from the saturated bushes, pursued our march. It was a +relief to be again in motion, although our progress was slow, and it +was a question every rod whether the guide could go on. We had the day +before us; but if we did not find a boat at the inlet a day might not +suffice, in the weak condition of the guide, to extricate us from our +ridiculous position. There was nothing heroic in it; we had no object: +it was merely, as it must appear by this time, a pleasure excursion, +and we might be lost or perish in it without reward and with little +sympathy. We had something like a hour and a half of stumbling through +the swamp when suddenly we stood in the little trail! Slight as it was, +it appeared to us a very Broadway to Paradise if broad ways ever lead +thither. Phelps hailed it and sank down in it like one reprieved from +death. But the boat? Leaving him, we quickly ran a quarter of a mile +down to the inlet. The boat was there. Our shout to the guide would +have roused him out of a death-slumber. He came down the trail with the +agility of an aged deer: never was so glad a sound in his ear, he said, +as that shout. It was in a very jubilant mood that we emptied the boat +of water, pushed off, shipped the clumsy oars, and bent to the two-mile +row through the black waters of the winding, desolate channel, and over +the lake, whose dark waves were tossed a little in the morning breeze. +The trunks of dead trees stand about this lake, and all its shores are +ragged with ghastly drift-wood; but it was open to the sky, and although +the heavy clouds still obscured all the mountain-ranges we had a sense +of escape and freedom that almost made the melancholy scene lovely. + +How lightly past hardship sits upon us! All the misery of the night +vanished, as if it had not been, in the shelter of the log cabin at Mud +Pond, with dry clothes that fitted us as the skin of the bear fits him +in the spring, a noble breakfast, a toasting fire, solicitude about our +comfort, judicious sympathy with our suffering, and willingness to hear +the now growing tale of our adventure. Then came, in a day of absolute +idleness, while the showers came and went, and the mountains appeared +and disappeared in sun and storm, that perfect physical enjoyment which +consists in a feeling of strength without any inclination to use it, +and in a delicious languor which is too enjoyable to be surrendered to +sleep. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's In the Wilderness, by Charles Dudley Warner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE WILDERNESS *** + +***** This file should be named 3132-0.txt or 3132-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/3/3132/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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