A FRIGHTENED ANIMAL--TROLLING FOR TROUT--THE BOATMAN'S STORY.
We sat in front of our tents, enjoying the delightful breeze that
swept quietly over the lake, and watching the stars as they stole out
from the depths. The whippoorwill piped away in the old forests, and
the frogs bellowed like ten thousand buffaloes along the shore. The
roar of their hoarse voices went rolling over the lake, through the
old woods, and surging up against the mountains to be thrown back by
the echoes that dwell among the hills. We had knocked the ashes from
our pipes, and were about retiring to our tents for the night, when a
long wake in the water across the line of the moon's reflection,
attracted our attention. It was evidently made by some animal
swimming, and the Doctor and Martin started in pursuit. It proved to
be a deer which was apparently making its way to an island, midway
across the lake. They had no desire to slaughter it, and they
concluded to drive it ashore where we were. They headed it in the
proper direction, and followed the terrified animal as it swam for
life towards the island on which we were encamped. We understood their
purpose, and sat perfectly silent. The deer struck the island directly
in front of our tent, and dashed forward in wild affright, right
through the midst of us, towards the thicket in our rear, glad to be
rid of his pursuers on the water. As he bounded past us, we sprang up
and shouted, and if ever a dumb animal was astonished it was that
deer. He leaped up a dozen feet into the air, bleated out in the
extremity of his terror, and plunged madly forward, as if a whole
legion of fiends were at his tail. The stag hounds which were tied to
a sapling, by their fierce baying, added vigor to his flight. We heard
his snort at every bound across the island, and his plunge into the
lake on the other side.
In the morning we sent forward our boatman with the tents and baggage
to an island on the Upper Saranac, and coasted this pleasant little
lake. On the right, as you approach the head, is a deep bay, skirted
by a natural meadow, where the rank wild grass, and the pond lilies
that grow along the shore furnish a rich pasture for the deer. We saw
several feeding quietly like sheep, on the little plain and upon the
lily pads in the edge of the water. We paddled silently to within a
dozen rods of them, when, as they discovered us, they dashed snorting
and whistling away.
On the right of this meadow, and among the tall forest trees are
great boulders which, piled up and partly obscured by the undergrowth,
resemble from the lake the massive ruins of some ancient
fortification. We landed by a spring, which came bubbling up from
beneath one of these great moss-covered rocks, to lunch. It was a
pleasant spot, and while we sat there dozens of small birds, of the
size and general appearance of the cuckoo, save in their hooked beaks,
attracted by the scent of our cold meats, came hopping tamely about on
the lower limbs of the forest trees around us. They were called by our
boatmen, "meat hawks," and have less fear of man than any wild birds
that I have ever seen.
We crossed the carrying place of a quarter of a mile around the
rapids, in which distance the river falls some sixty feet, roaring and
tumbling down ledges and boiling in mad fury around boulders. We
entered the Upper Saranac at the hour appointed, and found our tents
pitched and a dinner of venison and trout awaiting us on the island
selected for our encampment.
As the sun sank behind the hills, the breeze died away, and the lake
lay without a ripple around as, so calm, so smooth, and still, that it
seemed to have sunk quietly to sleep in its forest bed. The fish were
jumping in every direction, and while the rest of us sat smoking our
meerchaums after dinner, or rather supper, Smith rigged his trolling
rod, and having caught half a dozen minnows, he with Martin, rowed out
upon the water to troll for the lake trout. These are a very different
fish from the speckled trout of the streams and rivers. They had none
of the golden specks of the latter, are of a darker hue, and much
larger. They are dotted with brown spots, like freckles upon the face
of a fair-skinned girl. They are shorter too, in proportion to their
weight than the speckled trout. They are caught in these lakes,
weighing from three to fifteen pounds, and instances have been known
of their attaining to the weight of five and twenty. It is an exciting
sport to take one of these large fellows on a line of two hundred and
fifty or three hundred feet in length. They play beautifully when
hooked, and it requires a good deal of coolness and skill to land them
safely in your boat. A trolling rod for these large fish should be
much stiffer, and stronger than those used for the fly, on the rivers
and streams; and the reel should be stronger and higher geared than
the common fly reel. Three hundred feet of line are necessary, for the
fish, if he is a large one, will sometimes determine upon a long
flight, and it will not do to exhaust your line in his career. In that
case, he will snap it like a pack-thread. An English bass rod is the
best, and with such, and a large triple action reel, the largest fish
of these lakes may be secured.
Smith had trolled scarcely a quarter of a mile, when his hook was
struck by a trout, and then commenced a struggle that was pleasant to
witness. No sooner had the fish discovered that the hook was in his
jaw, than away he dashed towards the middle of the lake. The rod was
bent into a semicircle, but the game was fast; with the butt firm
between his knees and his thumb pressing the reel, the sportsman gave
him a hundred and fifty feet of line, when his efforts began to relax,
and as Smith began to reel him in, a moment of dead pull, a holding
back like an obstinate mule occurred. The trout was slowly towed in
the direction of the boat. Then, as if maddened by the force which
impelled him, he dashed furiously forward, the reel answering to his
movements and the line always taught, he rose to the surface leaping
clear from the water, shaking his head furiously as if to throw loose
the fastenings from his jaw. Failing in this, down he plunged fifty
feet straight towards the bottom, making the reel hiss by his mad
efforts to escape. Still the line was taught, pressing always, towing
him towards the boat at every relaxation. At last he rose to the
surface, panting and exhausted, permitting himself to be towed almost
without an effort, to within twenty feet of his captors. When he saw
them, all his fright and all his energies too seemed to be restored,
and away he dashed, sciving through the water a hundred and fifty feet
out into the lake. But the hook was in his jaw, and he could not
escape. After half an hour of beautiful and exciting play, he
surrendered or was drowned, and Smith lifted him with his landing net,
a splendid ten-pound trout, into his boat. By this time the shadows of
twilight were gathering over the lake, and he came ashore. A proud man
was Smith, as he lifted that fish from the boat and handed it over to
the cook to be dressed for breakfast, and though we had seen the whole
performance from our tents, yet he gave us in glowing and graphic
detail the history of his taking that ten-pound trout.
"Captain," said Hank Wood, who had been quietly whitling out a new set
of tent pins, addressing Smith, "you had a good time of it with that
trout, but it was nothing to an adventer of mine with an old
mossy-back, on this lake, five year ago this summer."
"How was that?" inquired Smith; and we all gathered around to hear
Hank Wood's story.
"I don't know how it is," he began, as he seated himself on the log in
front of the tents, with one leg hanging down, and the other drawn up
with the heel of his boot caught on a projection in the bark, his knee
almost even with his nose, and his fingers locked across his shin, "I
don't know exactly why, but the catching of that trout makes me think
of an adventer I had on this very lake, five year ago this summer. It
is curious how things will lay around in a man's memory, every now and
then startin' up and presentin' themselves, ready to be talked
about--reeled off--as it were, and then how quietly they coil
themselves away, to lay there, till some new sight, or sound, or idea,
or feelin' stirs 'em into life, and they come up again fresh and plain
as ever. Some people talk about forgotten things, but I don't believe
that any matter that gets fairly anchored in a man's mind, can ever be
forgotten, until age has broken the power of memory. It is there, and
will stay there, in spite of the ten thousand other things that get
piled in on top of it, and some day it will come popping out like a
cork, just as good and distinct as new. But I was talkin' about an
adventer I had with a trout, five year ago, here on the Upper
Saranac. I was livin' over on the _Au Sable_ then, and came over to
these parts to spend a week or so, and lay in a store of jerked
venison and trout for the winter. I brought along a bag of salt, and
two or three kegs that would hold a hundred pound or so apiece, and
filled 'em too with as beautiful orange-meated fellows as you'd see in
a day's drive. The trout were plentier than they are now. They hadn't
been fished by all the sportin' men in creation, and they had a chance
to grow to their nateral size. You wouldn't in them days row across
any of these lakes in the trollin' season without hitchin' on to an
eight, or ten, and now and then to a twenty-pounder.
"Wal, I was on the Upper Saranac, up towards the head of the lake, ten
or twelve miles from here, trollin' with an old-fashioned line, about
as big as a pipe stem, a hundred and fifty feet long, and a hook to
match. Nobody in them days tho't of sich contrivances as
trollin'-rods, reels, and minny-gangs. You held your lines in your
fingers, and when you hooked a fish, you drew him in, hand over hand,
in a human way. It was in the latter part of June, and the way the
black flies swarmed along the shore, was a thing to set anybody a
scratchin' that happened to be around. It was a clear still mornin',
and the sun as he went up into the heavens, blazed away, and as he
walked across the sky, if he didn't pour down his heat like a furnace,
I wouldn't say so. I had tolerable good luck in the forenoon, and
landed on a rocky island to cook dinner. I made such a meal as a
hungry man makes when he's out all alone fishin' and huntin' about
these waters, and started off across the lake, with my trollin' line
to the length of a hundred feet or more, draggin' through the water
behind me. The breeze had freshened a little, and my boat drifted
about fast enough for trollin', and feelin' a little drowsy, I tied
the end of the line to the cleets across the knees of the boat, and
lay down in the bottom with my hand out over the side holdin' the
line. I hadn't laid there long, when I felt a twitch as if something
mighty big was medlin' with the other end of the string. I started up
and undertook to pull in, but you might as well undertake to drag an
elephant with a thread. I couldn't move him a hair. Pretty soon the
boat began to move up the lake in a way I didn't at all like. At first
it went may be three miles an hour, then five, ten, twenty, forty,
sixty miles the hour, round and round the lake, as if hurled along by
a million of locomotives. We went skiving around among the islands,
into the bays, along the shore, away out across the lake, crossing and
re-crossing in every direction; and if there's a place about this lake
we didn't visit, I should like to have somebody tell me where it is.
You may think it made my hair stand out some, to find myself flyin'
about like a streak of chain lightnin', and to see the trees and rocks
flyin' like mad the other way. I tried to untie the line, but it was
drawn into a knot so hard, that the old Nick himself couldn't move it.
I looked for my knife to cut it, but it had, somehow, got overboard in
our flight, besides flyin' about at the rate of sixty mile an hour,
kept a fellow pretty busy holdin' on, keepin' his place in the boat.
"After an hour or two we came to a pause, and the old feller that was
towin' me about, walked up to the surface, and stickin' his head out
of the water, 'Good mornin',' says he, in a very perlite sort of way.
'Good mornin',' says I, back again. 'How goes it?' says he. 'All
right,' says I. 'Step this way and I'll take the hook out of your
gums.' 'Thank you for nothing,' says he, and he opened his month like
the entrance to a railroad tunnel, and blame me, if he hadn't taken a
double hitch of the line around his eye tooth, while the hook hung
harmless beside his jaw.
"'I've a little business down in the lower lake,' says he, 'and must
be movin',' and away he bolted like a steam engine, down the lake.
When he straightened up, my hat flew more than sixty yards behind me,
and the way I came down into the bottom of the boat was anything but
pleasant. Away we tore down towards the outlet, the boat cuttin' and
plowin' through the water, pilin' it up in great furrows ten feet high
on each side. There is, as you know, sixty feet fall between the Upper
Saranac and Round Lake, and the river goes boilin' and roarin',
tumblin' and heavin' down the rapids and over the rocks, pitchin' in
some places square down a dozen feet among the boulders. No sensible
man would think of travellin' that road in a little craft like mine,
unless he'd made up his mind to see how it would seem to be drowned,
or smashed to pieces agin the rocks. But right down the rapids we
went, swifter than an eagle in his stoop, down over the boilin'
eddies, down over the foamin' surge, down the perpendicular falls, as
if the old Nick himself was kickin' us on end. How we got down I won't
undertake to say, but when I got breath and looked out over the side
of the boat I saw the old woods and rocks along the shore below the
falls, rushin' up stream like a racehorse.
"Wal, we entered Round Lake, crossed it in five minutes, and down the
river we rushed over the little falls at a bound, and into the Lower
Saranac. I'd got a little used to it by this time, and though it was
mighty hard work to catch my breath in such a wind as we made by our
flight, yet I managed to sit up and look around me. It was curious to
see how the islands on the Lower Saranac danced about, and how the
shores ran away behind while I was looking at 'em; and how the forest
trees dodged, and whirled, and jumped about one another, as we tore
along. After tearin' about the lake a spell, we came to something like
a halt, and old Mossyback stuck his head out of water, and openin' his
great glassy eyes like the moon in a mist, 'How do you like that?'
said he, in a jeerin' sort of way. 'All right,' said I; 'go it while
you're young.' I didn't care about appearin' skeered or uneasy, but
I'd have given a couple of month's wages just then, to have been on
dry land. 'Well,' said he, 'I guess we'll be gittin' towards home.'
And away he started for the Upper Saranac, and up the river, across
Round Lake, and right up over the rapids we went. Two or three times I
made up my mind that I was a goner, as the water piled up around me
along over the falls; but somehow our very speed made our boat glance
upward at such times, and skim along the surface like a duck. We went
boundin' from hillock to hillock, on the mad waters, till we entered
the broad lake and went skiving about again among the islands.
"All at once he seemed to take a notion to go down towards the bottom;
so shortenin' the line some fifty foot or more, he hoisted his great
tail straight up towards the sky, and down he went, the boat standing
up on end, and somehow the waters didn't seem to close above us, so
rapid was our descent. It was tight work, as you may guess, to hold on
under such circumstances, but I managed to keep my place. How deep we
went I wont undertake to say, but this much is quite sartin, we went
down so far that I couldn't see out at the hole we went in at. There
are some mighty big fish away down in them parts, you may bet your
life on that; trout that it wouldn't be pleasant to handle.
"By-and-bye we started for daylight again. The fish had to stand out
of the way as we rushed like an express train towards the surface;
them that didn't we made a smash of. One bull head, I remember, about
twice as long as one of our boats wasn't quick enough; the bow of the
boat struck him about in the middle and cut him in two like a knife.
One old trout seemed to have made up his mind for a fight, and he
chased us more than two miles with his jaws open like a great pair of
clamps, as if he'd a mind to swallow us boat and all, and from the
size of the openin', I'm bold to say he'd a done it too, if he'd have
caught us; but as we rounded an island, he run head foremost, jam
against a rock. That kind o' stunned him, and he gave in.
"Wal, after we got to the surface, the trout that was towin' me,
seemed to let on an extra amount of steam for a mile or so, and let me
say the way we went was a caution. I've travelled on the cars in my
day, when they made every thing gee again, but that kind o' goin'
wasn't a circumstance to the way we tore along. The water rose up on
either hand more than twenty feet, and went roarin', and tumblin', and
hissin', as if everything was goin' to smash. All at once the line was
thrown loose, and the boat went straight ahead bows on, to one of the
small islands up towards the head of the lake, and when she struck, I
went through the air eend over eend, clear across the island, more
than fifteen rods, ca-splash into the lake on the other side.
"Human nater couldn't stand all that, so startin' up I found that
while I'd been layin' in the bottom of the boat the wind had ris, and
was blowin' a stiff gale. The boat had drifted across the lake and had
struck broadside agin the shore, and the waves were makin' a clean
breach into her at every surge. I soon got her, head on to the waves,
and feelin' something mighty lively at the other eend of the line,
hauled in a twelve-pounder."
"Pshaw!" exclaimed one of the audience; "you've only been telling a
dream, in this long yarn, we've been listening to."
"Wal," replied the narrator; "some people that I've told it to, have
suspicioned that it might be so; but every thing about it seemed so
nateral, that I'm almost ready to make my affidavy that it was sober
fact. One thing, however, I always had my doubts about: I never fully
believed, that _I was actually pitched over that island_. I've hearn
it said that when a man has eaten a hearty dinner, and goes to sleep
with the hot sun pourin' right down on him, he's apt to see and hear a
good many strange things before he wakes up. May be it was so
with me."