CHAPTER XV.

ADIRONDACK DAYS UNTRIED COMPANIONS IN THE WILDERNESS-THEIR PERILS AND EXPERIENCES.

I AM to write of the past-of days that will never return because the conditions that made them delightful can never be reproduced. I was inexperienced in the woods in 1846 when I made my first visit to the Adirondacks. I did not then know that in the forest the true inwardness of man was revealed and that one should never risk association there except with true sportsmen and very honest men. But I was an apt scholar-my first lesson was effective. I have made many later excursions there, but always with carefully selected associates.

You who visit the Adirondack region now, after vandal hands have obstructed the outlets, raised the waters and killed the trees, so that along the banks of every river and around the shores of every lake there is a row of whitened skeletons of what were once the verdant glories of arboreal life, know no more of the original beauty of that scenery of mountain, lake, tree, and river than he who looks upon the cold marble and broken arms knows of the warm glow of life and beauty which shone in the living model of the Venus of Milo.

In those days the shores of Long Lake and many others bore no marks of the hand of man. The trees

and shrubs covered them to the very edge of the clear water, so that as we floated along the surface it was impossible to distinguish where substance ended and shadow began. From the summit of Tahawus, scores of these lakes shone like jewels of purest emerald. From my first camp on the high western bank just above the outlet of Long Lake, looking eastward, there were eight well-defined masses of color, from the silvery sheen of the lake through shades of green to the deep blue of the mountain summit. It was a vision of color.

In that camp I lived five weeks and saw no human face save those which belonged to my own party. Then a saddle of venison, a brace of young wood or black ducks, or a half-dozen of ruffed grouse were to be had in an hour's shooting, and near the mouth of Cold River, just below the outlet, a couple of brook trout of four pounds weight were to be had in a cloudy day in half the time. Now there is a route of summer travel through the lake and down the river, and the game of those days has only a legendary existence. Nowhere in landscape scenery have more deplorable changes been wrought by thirty years of vandalism.

I knew no better then than to permit the addition to my party of an artist with a masculine Scotch wife who ruled him with a heavy hand, and a minister with his two boys of fourteen and sixteen years of whom I knew nothing. A chill comes over me as I think what a narrow escape I had from committing a felony upon those boys. They were unmannerly cubs who would not obey their father, and passed their time when awake in howling like untamed hyenas. They were nuisances-"from night till

morn, from morn till dewy eve.'

I got rid of them

at Newcomb, near the head of the lake, by alarming their father with the well-founded apprehension that the Indian guide would certainly contrive to rid the camp of them by accident or design.

My guides were Mitchell Sabattis and Alonzo Wetherby. Sabattis was a St. Francis Indian, a skilful hunter, and became afterward one of the finest characters I ever knew. At that time he got howling drunk at every opportunity. It is a pleasure to remember that he always attributed his reformation to his connection with me, and that for the last thirty years of his life he was a kind husband, an excellent father to worthy children, and a most reputable citizen. He died only a few years ago, a class-leader in the Methodist Church, universally respected. "Lon Wetherby" was an equally good hunter, a giant in strength and a Yankee by birth. To hear the rich, liquid sound with which he rolled out his only oath, "By Ga-u-u-ll!" was worth a journey to the outlet of Long Lake.

I did not exist five weeks in a camp with the minister or the artist and his Scotch wife, and I may as well here describe our separation.

I wanted to have a personal experience in floating for deer. The night after we reached camp, Sabattis made his "jack" to carry the light and fitted up his boat for the trial. The minister wanted to go with us. He "would not make a sound," he said. He would lie on his back in the bottom of the boat and silently watch the operation. Mitchell cautioned him that the slightest sound would destroy all our chances, and after repeated promises of absolute silence we took him along.

We placed him on his back in the bottom of the boat, where he was not to speak even in a whisper. The jack or light was in the bow and I was just in its rear. Mitchell sat in the stern and paddled. It was a weird and noiseless, a ghostly performance, as our boat crept along the shore without breaking the silence of the wilderness. The falling of a dead tree on the flank of a distant mountain woke the echoes along the shore like the report of a cannon. The note of the screech-owl in the branches overhead-the grating of a rush along the keel of the boat, alike started the blood to the extremities. Far out upon the lake was heard that desolating sound at midnight, the chattering of the loon. Overhead the stars shone through the pure atmosphere, so pure that Venus and Jupiter cast shadows.

We had been out but a few minutes when we heard the threshing of some large animal among the lily-pads, just opposite the camp. Silently the boat was turned in that direction, and I knew that we were approaching my first deer. My gun was in the hollow of my arm-I was peering into the darkness to catch the first reflection of the light upon the eyes of the noble game, which was to be my signal for a shot, when like a bellow from a bull of Bashan there broke from the bottom of the boat and rolled out upon the silence of the night the words:

"Great and wonderful are Thy works, O-—”

The rush of a noble buck as he bounded across the patch of light into the forest and the exclamation of the furious Indian, "Why don't you shoot his fool head off?" met a strong impulse in my mind to do what Mitchell suggested. But I restrained myself

to the inquiry, "How many kinds of a fool do you suppose you are, anyway?"

He was profuse in apologies. He had not heard any sound-he was so overcome by the glories of the starlit sky that he quite forgot himself-the words escaped from his mouth involuntarily. If we would now go on he was certain he could keep quiet.

"There is no deer within two miles of Long Lake now," said Mitchell. "That sound would scare the devil. We go home-no use for waste time tonight."

And home we went with no venison. On the way I told the parson that we would have to part company; that Mitchell, like all his race, was of an unforgiving nature; that he was angry and might be dangerous; that I would loan him "Lon Wetherby" to row him through Catlin Lake to Newcomb, where he might perhaps make up a party and go off in another direction. He was much frightened and very grateful. I gave 'Lon his directions, and when I arose the next morning the minister had departed and I saw him no more.

I separated from the artist and his dreadful wife on this wise. Wishing to take some exercise, on the following afternoon I took one of the boats and determined to go down the Raquette River to the mouth of Moose Creek and ascend the creek, by way of exploration. Sabattis said I should probably see nothing, but it was always well on such an exploration to take with me a loaded gun. The artist wanted to go along and make sketches, and I took him on condition that he was not under any circumstances to utter a sound or interfere with me.