GOOD-BYE--FLOATING DOWN THE RACKETT--A BLACK FOX--A TRICK UPON THE
MARTIN TRAPPERS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
We rose with the dawn the next morning, and before the sun was above
the hills we were on our way down the lake, to separate as we struck
the Rackett; the Doctor and Smith to return by the way of Keeseville
and the Champlain, and Spalding and myself to drift down that pleasant
stream to Pottsdam, and thence to the majestic St. Lawrence, to spend
a fortnight among the "Thousand Islands" of that noble river. Near the
outlet of the lake is a bold rocky bluff, rising right up out of the
deep water twenty feet, against which the waves dash, and around which
a romantic bay steals away to hide itself in the old woods. This
beautiful bay is always calm, for even the narrow strait which
connects it with the open water is divided by a rocky, but wooded
island, shutting out alike the winds and the waves from disturbing its
repose. It is surrounded by gigantic forest trees, whose shadows make
it a cool retreat in the heat of noon, and whose dense foliage fills
the air with freshness and fragrance when the sun is hot in the sky.
Towards its head, a cold stream comes creeping around the boulders,
and dancing and singing down the rocks from a copious spring, a short
way back in the forest. Near where this brook enters we landed at
seven o'clock to breakfast. We supplied ourselves with fish by casting
across the mouth of the little stream, while our boatmen were
preparing a fire. Our sail of eight miles down the lake furnished us
with appetites which gave to the beautiful speckled trout we caught
there a peculiar relish. We arranged matters so that the Doctor and
Smith were to return in one boat to the Saranacs, while Spalding and
myself were to move on down the Rackett with the other two. Cullen and
Wood were to go with us to Pottsdam, from whence our route lay by
railroad to Ogdensburgh. We had, on entering the woods, dispatched our
baggage to the former place to await our arrival there. At nine
o'clock we launched out upon the lake again. There are two outlets
which enter the Rackett, half a mile apart, down the right hand one of
which the Doctor and Smith's course lay, and ours down the left. We
shook hands with our friends, and lay upon our oars while they passed
on towards home, wishing them a pleasant voyage, and a safe return.
"I say," shouted Smith, as they were about rounding a point that would
hide them from our view, "remember our compact about killing the bear.
The glory of that achievement belongs to me, you know. Don't say a
word about it when you get home till you see me. I haven't fully made
up my mind as to the manner of capturing him, and there must be no
contradictions on the subject."
"Go ahead," replied Spalding, "we'll be careful of your honor. Drop us
a line at Cape Vincent, when you've digested the matter, and we'll
stand by you. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" And our friends disappeared from our sight on their voyage
home.
"And so," said Spalding, "we are to leave this beautiful lake, and
these old forests so soon. I could linger here a month still, enjoying
these shady and primitive solitudes. To you and I, the quiet which one
finds here is vastly more inviting than it is to the friends who have
just left us. The Doctor, of necessity, leads a life of activity,
feeling physical weariness as the result of his labors, but little of
that strong yearning for intellectual repose which those in your
profession or mine so often feel. Smith's life demands excitement. The
absence of the cares and toil of business occasions a restlessness and
desire of change, which makes him discontented here. With them the
great charm of this wild region is its novelty. They enjoy its
beauties for a season with peculiar relish, but as these become
familiar, the spell is broken, and they turn towards home without a
regret To you and I, there is something beyond this. We, too, feel and
appreciate the beauty of these lakes and mountains The hill-sides and
placid waters, the forest songs, and wild scenery are pleasant to us;
but we enjoy them the more from the intellectual relaxation, the
mental quiet and repose, which we find among them. We feel that we are
resting, that the process of recuperation, intellectual as well as
physical, is going on within us. We can almost trace its progress,
and we feel that the time spent by us here is full of profit as well
as pleasure. At all events, it is so with me, and if duty to others,
whose interests it is my business to serve, did not demand my return,
I could enjoy another month here with unabated pleasure."
"You have left me little," I replied, "to add to what you have already
said, in expressing the sources of my enjoyment among these beautiful
lakes. Fishing and hunting, considered in the abstract, are things I
care but little about. They are pleasant enough in their way, but what
brings me here is the strong desire as well as necessity for the
repose of which you speak. There is a luxury in intellectual rest,
when the brain is wearied with protracted toil, which far surpasses
the mere animal enjoyment which follows relaxation from physical
labor. That rest I cannot find in society. I must seek it among wild
and primeval solitudes, where I can be alone with nature in her
unadorned simplicity, away from the barbarisms, so to speak, of
civilization, where I can act and talk and think as a natural, and not
an artificial man, where I can be off my guard, and free from the
weight of that armor which the conventionalities of life, the captions
espionage of the world compels us to wear, un-tempted by the thousand
enticements which society everywhere presents to lure us
into unrest."
We drifted leisurely down the left hand channel, and entered the
Rackett, bidding good-bye to the beautiful lake as a bend in the river
hid it from our view. A mile below the junction, the river runs square
against a precipice some sixty feet in height, wheeling off at a right
angle, and stretching away though a natural meadow on either hand, of
hundreds of acres in extent. At the base of this precipice, formed by
the rocky point of a hill, the water is of unknown depth. Above, and
fifty feet from the surface of the river, there are ledges of a foot
or two in width, like shelves, along which the fox, the fisher, and
possibly the panther, creep, instead of travelling over the high ridge
extending back into the forest. As we rounded a point which brought us
in view of this precipice, Spalding, who was in the forward boat,
discovered a black object making its way along the face of the rocks.
A signal for silence was given, and the boats were permitted to float
with the current in the direction of the precipice. We were forty rods
distant, and the animal, whatever it was, had no suspicion of danger.
It paused midway across the rocks, looked about, nosing out over the
water, and sat down upon its haunches, as if enjoying the beauty of
the scenery around it. In the meantime, the boats had drifted within
twenty rods, and Spalding, taking deliberate aim, fired. At the crack
of the rifle, the animal leapt dear of the ledge, struck once against
the face of the rock some twenty feet below, and then went, end over
end, thirty feet into the river. As he struck the water he commenced
swimming round and round in a circle, evidently bewildered by
Spalding's bullet, or the effect of his involuntary plunge down the
rocks. Our men bent to their oars, and had got within five or six rods
of it, when it straightened up in alarm for the shore.
"Hold on, Cullen," said I, "lay steady for a moment." I drew upon the
animal, and just as it reached the shore, fired, and it turned over
dead. We found it to be a black fox, that had walked out upon the
ledge, and thus been added another victim to the indulgence of an idle
curiosity. Spalding's bullet had grazed its belly, raking off the hair
and graining the skin; mine had gone through its head.
"There, Judge," said Cullen, as he lifted the animal into the boat,
"is a kritter that isn't often met with in these parts, and the wonder
is, that he didn't discover us as we floated down the stream. He's
about the cunningest animal that travels the woods. He's got an eye
that's always open, a delicate ear, and a sharp nose, and he keeps 'em
busy, as a general thing. He never neglects their warnin', but puts
out about the quickest, whenever they notify him that there's an enemy
about. I've had a good deal of trouble with them in my day, when I've
been out trappin' martin. They'll manage to spring the trap and carry
off the bait. When one of them chaps gets on a line of traps, there's
no use in talkin'. The game's up, and the trapper may make up his mind
to get rid of the varmint in some way, or locate in another range of
country. He'll find his traps sprung and his bait gone. Or if a martin
has been in ahead of the fox, he'll find only the skull, the end of
the tail, the feet, and a few of the larger bones, and they'll be
picked mighty clean at that. You've seen a martin trap, or if you
haven't, I'll try and describe one so that you'll understand it. It's
a very simple contrivance, and if a martin was not a good deal more
stupid than a goose, he'd never be caught in one of them. We drive
down a couple of rows of little stakes, plantin' the stakes close
together, and leaving between the rows a space of six or eight inches.
The rows are may be a foot and a half long. We then cut and trim a
long saplin', say five or six inches across at the butt, and leaving
one end on the ground, set the other, may be two feet high, with a
kind of figure four, so that when it falls, it will come down between
the rows of stakes. We fix the bait so that a martin in getting at it,
will have to go in between the rows of stakes, and displace the trap
sticks, when down comes the pole upon him and crushes him to death. We
talk about a _line_ of traps, because we blaze a line of trees,
sometimes for miles, and set a trap every twenty or thirty rods. I've
had a line of a dozen miles or more, in my day, in a circle around my
campin' ground. In minding our traps, we follow the line of marked
trees from one to the other, and so never miss a trap, nor get lost in
the woods.
"I mind once, a good many years ago, Crop and I was over towards the
St. Regis, on a cruise after martin and sable, and anything else in
the way of game we could pick up. I'd laid out my trappin'
arrangements on a pretty large scale, and was doin' a little better
than midlin', when I found that my traps were sprung by some animal
that helped himself to the bait, without leavin' his hide as a
consideration for settin' of 'em. After a few days, I found that
whatever it was, understood the line as well as I did, for he took the
range regular, and not only stole the bait, but ate up half a dozen
martin, that had given me a claim on their hides by springin' my
traps. This was a kind of medlin' with my private concerns that I
didn't like, and I was bound to find out who the interloper was, and
if possible, to make his acquaintance. There was no snow on the
ground, and I couldn't get at his track. So I made up my mind to watch
for him. Well, one day I spoke to Crop to stay by the shanty and take
care of the things, while I went to find out who it was that was
medlin' with our property, and started off on my line of traps. I got
up into the crotch of a great birch near one of 'em, and sat there
with my rifle, waitin' for something to turn up. It was a little after
noon when I got located. The sun travelled slowly along down towards
the western hills, his bright light, in that calm November day, makin'
the rocky ranges and the bare heads of the tall peaks shine out in a
blaze of glory. The livin' things of the old woods were busy and jolly
enough. An old owl came flying lazily out of the thick branches of a
hemlock, and lightin' within a dozen feet of me, opened his great
round eyes in astonishment, and as the bright sunlight dazzled him, he
squinted and turned his cat-like face from side to side, as if makin'
up his mind that he'd know me the next time we met. By-and-by he
opened his hooked beak, and great red mouth, and roared out, 'Hoo!
hohoo! hoo!' as much as to say, 'who the devil are you?' I didn't
answer a word, and after a little, he flew back to his shadowy perch
among the dense foliage of the hemlock. A black squirrel came hopping
along with his mouth full of beech nuts, and running nimbly up the
tree on which I was perched, and out upon one of the great limbs,
deposited his store in a hollow he found there. He caught sight of me
as he came back, and seating himself upon a branch, not six feet from
my head, began chatterin' and barkin' as if givin' me a regular lecter
for invadin' his premises, and takin' possession of his tree. He
didn't seem to understand the matter at all, and I didn't undertake to
explain the reason of my being there. After a little, he went off
about his business, and left me to attend to mine. A raccoon came
nosing along, stoppin' every little way to turn over the leaves, or
pull away the dirt from a root with his long hands, tastin' of one
thing and smellin' of another in a mighty dainty way. When he came to
my tree, he seemed to think that there might be something among its
branches worth looking at. So he came clambering up its rough bark
towards where I sat. He came up on the other side of the tree from me,
till he got about even with my huntin'-cap, and then came round to my
side, and there we were, face to face, not two feet apart. I reckon
that coon was astonished when our eyes met, for with a sort of scream
he let right loose, and dropped twenty feet to the ground like a clod,
and the way he waddled away into the brash, mutterin' and talkin' to
himself, was a thing to laugh at.
"The sun was, may be, an hour high, when lookin' along the line of
marked trees, I saw a black animal come trotting mighty softly towards
the trap I was watchin'. I knew him at once. He was a black fox, and I
knew that he was the gentleman that had been makin' free with my
property for the last few days. He trotted up to the trap, and walked
carefully around it, nosin' out towards the bait, but keepin' out from
under the pole. He seemed to understand what that pole meant, and that
if it fell on him, he'd be very likely to be hurt. After a little, he
trotted out to the other end of the pole, and gettin' on to it, walked
carefully along to within ten or twelve feet of the bait; if he didn't
begin jumpin' up and down till he sprung the trap, you may shoot me.
When he'd done that job, he went back, and gettin' hold of the bait
with his teeth, drew it out and began very cooly to eat it. By this
time I'd brought my rifle to bear upon the gentleman, but I gave him a
little law, to see what his next move would be. After he'd finished
the bait, and found there warn't any more to be come at, he stretched
himself on his belly along the ground, and began lickin' his paws, and
passing them over his cheeks, as you've seen a cat do. After he'd
washed his face awhile, he sat himself down on his haunches, curled
his long bushy tail around his feet, and looked about as if
considerin' what he should do next. Just then I paid my respects to
him, and as my rifle broke the stillness of the forest, he turned a
double summerset, and after kickin' around a little, laid still. I
came down from my perch, and took the gentleman to the shanty and
added his hide to those of the martins I'd taken. My traps warn't
disturbed after that, and I carried home a pack of furs that bro't me
near two hundred dollars."