THE DEPARTURE--THE STAG HOUNDS--THE CHASE--ROUND LAKE.
From Martin's Lake House we were to take our departure in the morning.
We had arranged for three boats, and as many stalwart boatmen. Two of
these boats were for our own conveyance, and one for our luggage and
provisions; the latter to be sent forward with our tents in advance,
so as to have a home ready for us always, at our coming, when we chose
to linger by the way. These boatmen were all jolly, good-natured and
pleasant people, with a vast deal of practical sense, and a valuable
experience in woodcraft, albeit they were rough and unpolished. Their
hearts were in the right place, and they commanded our respect always
for their kindness and attention to our wants, while they maintained
at all times that sturdy independence which enters so largely into the
character of the border men of our country. Their boats are
constructed of spruce or cedar boards of a quarter of an inch in
thickness, "clap-boarded," as the expression is, upon "knees" of the
natural crook, and weigh from ninety to one hundred and ten pounds
each. They are carried around rapids, or from river to river, on the
back of the boatman in this wise: A "yoke" is provided, such as every
man in the country, especially all who have visited a "sugar bush" at
the season of sugar making, has seen. At the end of this yoke is a
round iron projection, made to fit into a socket in the upper rave of
the boat. The craft is turned bottom upwards, the yoke adjusted to the
shoulders, the iron projections fitted into the sockets, and the
boatman marches off with his boat, like a turtle with his shell upon
his back. He will carry it thus sometimes half a mile before
stopping to rest.
With us were to go two staid and sober stag hounds, grave in aspect
and trained and experienced, almost, in woodcraft, as their masters;
animals that had been reared together, and who possessed the rare
instinct of returning always to the shanty from which they started,
however far the chase may have led them. It was a glorious sound in
the old forests, the music of those two hounds, as their voices rang
out bold and free, like a bugle, and went, ringing through the forest,
echoing among the mountains and dying away over the lakes. But of that
hereafter.
Our little fleet swung out upon the water, while the sun was yet
hanging like a great torch among the tops of the trees, on the eastern
hills. It was a beautiful morning, so fresh, so genial, so balmy. A
pleasant breeze came sweeping lazily over the lake, and went sighing
and moaning among the old forest trees. All around us were glad
voices. The partridge drummed upon his log; the squirrels chattered as
they chased each other up and down the great trunks of the trees; the
loon lifted up his clarion voice away out upon the water; the eagle
and the osprey screamed as they hovered high above us in the air,
while a thousand merry voices came from out the old woods, all
mingling in the harmony of nature's gladness. A loud and repeated
hurrah! burst from us all as our oars struck the water, and sent our
little boats bounding over the rippled surface of the beautiful
Saranac.
This is a indeed a beautiful sheet of water. The shores were lined
with a dense and unbroken forest, stretching back to the mountains
which surround it. The old wood stood then in all its primeval
grandeur, just as it grew. The axe had not harmed it, nor had fire
marred its beauty. The islands were covered with a lofty growth of
living timber clothed in the deepest green. There were not then, as
now, upon some of them, great dead trees reaching out their long bare
arms in verdureless desolation above a stinted undergrowth, and piled
up trunks charred and blackened by the fire that had revelled among
them, but all were green, and thrifty, and glorious in their robes of
beauty. Thousands of happy songsters carolled gaily among their
branches, or hid themselves in the dense foliage of their
wide-spreading arms. The islands are a marked feature of these
northern lakes, lending a peculiar charm to their quiet beauty, and
one day, when the iron horse shall go thundering through these
mountain gorges, the tourist will pause to make a record of their
loveliness.
Four or five miles down the lake, is a beautiful bay, stretching for
near half a mile around a high promontory, almost reaching another bay
winding around a like promontory beyond, leaving a peninsula of five
hundred acres joined to the main land, by a narrow neck of some forty
rods in width. Our first sport among the deer was to be the "driving"
of this peninsula. We stationed ourselves on the narrow isthmus within
a few rods of each other, while a boatman went round to the opposite
side to lay on the dogs. We had been at our posts perhaps half an
hour, when we heard the measured bounds of a deer, as he came crashing
through the forest. We could see his white flag waving above the
undergrowth, as he came bounding towards us. Neither Smith nor
Spalding had ever seen a deer in his native woods, and they were, by a
previous arrangement, to have the first shot, if circumstances should
permit it. The noble animal came dashing proudly on his way, as if in
contempt of the danger he was leaving behind him. Of the greater
danger into which he was rushing, he was entirely unconscious, until
the crack of Smith's rifle broke upon his astonished ear. He was
unharmed, however, and quick as thought he wheeled and plunged back in
the direction from which he came; Spalding's rifle, as it echoed
through the forest, with the whistling of the ball in close proximity
to his head, added energy to his flight.
The rifles were scarcely reloaded when the deep baying of the hounds
was heard, and two more deer came crashing across the isthmus where we
were stationed. The foremost one went down before the doctor's
unerring rifle and cool aim, while the other ran the gauntlet of the
three other rifles, horribly frightened, but unharmed, away. The
hounds were called off, and with our game in one of the boats, we
rowed back around the promontory, and passed on towards the Saranac
River, which connects by a tortuous course of five miles, the Lower
Saranac with Round Lake.
Midway between these two lakes, is a fall, or rather rapids, down
which the river descends some ten feet in five or six rods through a
narrow rocky channel, around which the boats had to be carried. While
this was being done, Smith and Spalding adjusted their rods, eager to
make up in catching trout what they failed to achieve in the matter of
venison. And they succeeded. In twenty minutes they had fifteen
beautiful fish, none weighing less than half a pound, safely deposited
on the broad flat rock at the head of the rapids. "One throw more,"
said Smith, "and I've done;" and he cast his fly across the still
water just above the fall. Quick as thought it was taken by a
two-pound trout. Landing nets and gaff had been sent forward with the
baggage, and without these it was an exciting and delicate thing to
land that fish. The game was, to prevent him dashing away down the
rapids, or diving beneath the shelving rock above, the sharp edge of
which would have severed the line like a knife. Skillfully and
beautifully Smith played him for a quarter of an hour, until at last
the fish turned his orange belly to the surface, and ceased to
struggle. He was drowned.
We had in the morning directed the boatman in charge of the baggage to
go on in advance, and erect our tents on an island in Round Lake. When
we entered this beautiful sheet of water, about four o'clock, we saw
the white tents standing near the shore of the island, with a column
of smoke curling gracefully up among the tall trees that overshadowed
them. When we arrived, we found everything in order. They were pitched
in a pleasant spot, looking out to the west over the water, while
within were beds of green boughs from the spruce and fir trees, and
bundles of boughs tied up like faggots for pillows. Our first dinner
in the wilderness was a pleasant one, albeit the cookery was somewhat
primitive. With fresh venison and trout, seasoned with sweet salt
pork, we got through with it uncomplainingly.
This little lake is a gem. It is, as its name purports, round, some
four miles in diameter, surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills,
beneath whose shadows it reposes in placid and quiet beauty. On the
northeast, Ballface Mountain rears its tall head far above the
intervening ranges, while away off in the east Mount Marcy and Mount
Seward stand out dim and shadowy against the sky. Nearer are the Keene
Ranges, ragged and lofty, their bare and rocky summits glistening in
the sunlight, while nearer still the hills rise, sometimes with steep
and ragged acclivity, and sometimes gently from the shore. Here and
there a valley winds away among the highlands, along which the
mountain streams come bounding down rapids, or moving in deep and
sluggish, but pure currents, towards the lake. The rugged and sublime,
with the placid and beautiful, in natural scenery, are magnificently
mingled in the surroundings of this little sheet of water.