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 .1^'
 
 TROUTI^^G 
 
 BRULE RIYER, 
 
 SUMMER-WAYFARING 
 
 NORTHERN WILDERNESS. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN LYLE KING. 
 
 " That innocent revelry in the luxuriance of summer life which 
 only Au^^lers enjoy to the utmost."— Hi" i.wer Lytton. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 ORANGE JUDD COMPANY. 
 
 1880.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S80, 
 
 By John Lyle Kino, 
 
 In the office of the Librarian, at Wasningtcm. 
 
 Stereotyped, Printed and Bound 
 
 BY 
 
 The Chicago Legal News Company.
 
 PEEFATOEY A^D PEESOIN^AL. 
 
 TiTE exhaustion that comes of the inordinate and 
 exacting frets and activities of business, the languor 
 and inertia of summer fervors, the ennui and sati- 
 ety that follow the dissipations of social life, may 
 find in the great wilderness retreats a grateful re- 
 prieve and a speedy reparation. When the haunts 
 of game in the woods and the lairs of fish in the 
 streams incite the passion for sport to couple itself 
 with the quest and yearning for rest and vitaliza- 
 tion, the wayfarer's pathway in the wilderness be- 
 comes a pilgrimage through abounding scenes of 
 diversion and into a realm of fascination. The re- 
 straints and stress of civilization and the city, for 
 the time, are exchanged for the exhilarating free- 
 dom and simplicity of nature. The respited sports- 
 man, with only the rod or gun as the sceptre of 
 his commanding will throughout the rude domain, 
 gratifies himself and luxuriates alike in the foot- 
 steps of the advance and in the repose of the halt. 
 He realizes in a fullness of meaning gained from 
 happy experience, that, indeed, " there is a pleasure 
 in the pathless woods." 
 
 The wildernesses of the IS'orth-'West are free, vast 
 franchises of gunning and fishing. The many rivers 
 which vein these immense tracts with running 
 (iii)
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 waters, and the numberless lakes in recesses of tlie 
 woods, are inexhaustible commons of piscary, of- 
 whose affluent stores whosoever will, may, without 
 let, partake. For an excursion, and on a vacation 
 furlouorh, to one of these streams noted for trout, 
 three of the Cliica^o lawyers in August joined in a 
 party. These were James L. High, author of the 
 works on " Injunctions," " Extraordinary Legal 
 Kemedies," etc., Josiah H. Bissell, compiler of 
 "Bissell's Reports," and the writer, together with 
 Lorenzo Pratt, a Chicago capitalist. 
 
 The party sought recreation and mental rest. 
 Other members of the bar had journeyed some of 
 those regions, in their vacation freedom, on a tour 
 of rest, sport and pleasure. They had found and 
 reported a full and rare fruition of enjoyment, in 
 their wanderings to and on the Brule river. A 
 like expedition, with identical purposes, fallowing 
 the path of Cook, Campbell, Judge Blodgett and 
 others, promised equal and similar delight and good. 
 It was a journey and sojourn in open air, made up of 
 canoeing, tenting, portaging and roughing gener- 
 ally, with the incidents of shooting and fishing. 
 
 The outfit and supplies were provided in Chi- 
 cago, and sent by the Chicago & North -Western 
 railway to Section Eighteen, a station of that road 
 eighteen miles beyond Marinette, Wisconsin. The 
 other accessories — a team for the land route and the 
 guides — were engaged in advance at Marinette, and
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 met the partj at Section Eighteen. The canoes 
 ■ were to be procured at Badvvater, on the Menomi- 
 nee, where tlie water travel began. 
 
 The guides were Indians. One of them was 
 George Kaquotash, a full-blooded Menominee, mus- 
 cular, lithe, active — a veteran of the woods and of 
 the Brule. The other was Mitchell Thebault, 
 mostly Menominee, with a French infusion of blood 
 and name, with his complexion paled to a hue a 
 little lighter than the usual Indian copper tint. 
 Tliough with the manners and habits, in some de- 
 gree, of civilized life, thej were essentiallv, in na- 
 ture and native dialect, Indians. In another Aug- 
 ust a second excursion to the Brule river was made 
 by the same Chicago party, excepting that Mr. 
 FkInxlest Denison, also a Chicago lawyer, took the 
 place of Mr. Bissell. 
 
 This volume is an intineraryor narrative of these 
 excursions. It is made up and revised from dia- 
 ries whose notes were jotted down on the way. 
 They were kept chiefly to vary or to fill up and di- 
 vert idle intervals, or otherwise vacant leisures. 
 The notes were off-hand, and took the impromptu 
 form and pressure of the body of the time when 
 pencilled. It was sought to retain and reflect 
 to the writer, perchance to his fellow tourists, 
 images of summer revels that might, in the 
 light of memory, re-appear and vivify into their 
 original charm and freshness. Their present
 
 VI PKEFACE. 
 
 publicity is more at the instance of others than at 
 that of the writer himself. 
 
 They are now given to the press, in the trust that 
 they may, in this form, prove acceptable to those 
 who have sympathy with and interest in matters of 
 forest and stream. Their merit is in their minute 
 and faithful portrayal of the real life and adventures 
 of real persons in pursuit of holiday pastime and 
 respite. In the realism of delineation they may be 
 serviceable, and so justify their reproduction, as 
 faithfully revealing the really "jolly good time" 
 that may easily, surely, inexpensively and quietly 
 be had by any reasonable party exchanging briefly 
 the toils of business for a temporary business of 
 pleasure, and that in distances and with appliances 
 within ordinary reach and possibility. 
 
 They may show how that business sped prosper- 
 ously while the party was gliding in canoes, foot- 
 ing portages, dwelling in tents, sleeping balmily on 
 hemlock couches, eating with eager appetite, and 
 withal affiliating into a genial free-and-easy frater- 
 nity, knowing and having only that which was 
 mirth-inspiring, health-helping, reposeful and in- 
 vigorating. Of course, this is simplj^ narration. 
 And while angling was the main diversion and is 
 the chief theme of its pages, the work is not that 
 of an expert or proficient angler, who can speak by. 
 the card, or from a professed sjDortsman's point of 
 view, or of one who can claim to discourse instruct-
 
 ^ 
 
 PEEFACE. Vll 
 
 ively on angling itself, or generally on its delights. 
 ISTor does it aim to be of the nature of a guide book 
 or gazeteer. 
 
 " Though dear to him the angler's silent trade, 
 Through peaceful scenes in peacefulness pursued," 
 
 the writer's experiences with the rod have been in- 
 frequent and not varied, and were those of an ama- 
 teur and not of an adept. While he cannot dis- 
 conrse generally or didactically on this sport or the 
 pleasure of angling, yet in portrajdng the real lights 
 and shadows of a brief period with the rod, and 
 somewhat with tlie gun, and the content, the cheer, 
 the fruitions and happenings of a particular party 
 of anglers while ronghing it in the open air, he may 
 indicate and illustrate some of that charm with 
 which angling has always enamored so many per- 
 sons of various pursuits, temperament and genius, 
 and which has made it a devotion and practice of 
 their lives. 
 
 Probably the secret of the infatuation of this 
 amusement to most or many of the brothers of the 
 angle, is to be found in the close and quiet com- 
 munion and sympatliy with nature essential to the 
 pursuit of the spoil of the water. Sir Edward 
 Bulwer Lytton avows that he can j)alliate the wan- 
 ton destructiveness of angling by a consciousness 
 that its pleasures have not come from the success 
 of the treachery practised towards a poor little fish, 
 " but rather from that innocent revelry in the lux-
 
 VIU PEEFACE. 
 
 iiriance of summer life which only anglers enjoy to 
 the utmost." Even that Dryasdust book-worm, 
 the recluse of Oxford, Burton, has perceived a hint 
 of this, and tells us in the "Anatomy of Melancholy" 
 of angling, "it is still and quiet; and if so be the 
 angler catch no fish, yet he hath a wholesome walk to 
 the brook, pleasant shade by the sweet silver streams ; 
 he hath good air and sweet smells of fine fresh 
 meadow flowers; he hears the melodious harmony 
 of birds; he sees the swans, herons, ducks, water- 
 horns, coots, etc., and many other fowl, with their 
 brood, which he thinketh better than the noise of 
 hounds or blast of horns, and all the sport that they 
 can \nake." 
 
 It needs little experience on the stream to real- 
 ize that this sympathy and converse with nature 
 in her myriad forms of air, sky, woods, Avater, and 
 the teeming life of bird and brute and fish, are a 
 great part of the boundless delight of the " angler's 
 silent trade." These mysterious influences and 
 attractions of nature impart to the use of the rod 
 a refinement and fascination which elevate it above 
 the rank of a merely gross, illiberal, and vulgar 
 sport. This is verified in the instances of many 
 noted persons who, while swaying masterly scep- 
 tres over the minds of men, have yet also lovinglv 
 plied angling-rods in the secluded and quiet 
 streams. 
 
 The recall of a few names will illustrate how
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 even genius has ennobled and accredited the silent 
 and contemplative recreation. Many men of fame, 
 even equal to Dr. Jolmson's, have been eminent as 
 anglers, and have redeemed and discul])ated ang- 
 ling from his surly and foolish sneer, Gaj', author 
 of the " Fables," and of the " Beggar's Opera," 
 must have fondly haunted and fished the stream 
 and learned, while swaying a rod, what he has sung 
 in his "Rural Sports." Who can say how much 
 of the prelate and moralist Paley's speculations 
 were meditated when he was seclusively and dearly 
 trouting the streams of Cambridgeshire? He was, 
 as Christopher ITorth says, " a pellucid writer, and 
 bloody angler — a ten-dozen-trout-a-day man." 
 
 "We know that Sir Humphrey Davy worshij)fully 
 frequented trout-j)ools and salmon-streams with 
 boyish delight, and captured their glittering spoil 
 with rapture akin to that of a successful experi- 
 ment in his laboratory, and that he prided himself, 
 perhaps, more on his " Salmonia, or Days of Fly- 
 fishing," than he did on his invention of the safety- 
 lamp. The hero of Trafalgar and the Nile, even 
 after the loss of his right arm, wielded in his left 
 hand an angling rod with a fervor and success akin 
 to that with which he waved the sword of war and 
 victory. 
 
 When Madame Malibran, a queen of song, felici- 
 tated Chantre}" on his supposed con amove chisel- 
 ing of the marble in his studio, the frank and mod-
 
 X PKEFACE. 
 
 est sculptor ingenuouslj bespoke a rulin<^ passion 
 when he ])rotested: "I'd rather be a-fishing!" 
 And who that has read them has not hnng with 
 delight over the glowing pages of Christopher 
 North, author of " Nodes Anibi'osiancB, " and of 
 numberless contributions to the literature of brook 
 and loch, lake and river, that have idealized and 
 poetized angling into a very nobility and glory of 
 sport? Certainly, an amusement which' in itself 
 and in its accessories has unbended, diverted and 
 charmed minds and men like these, must be far 
 from gross, ignoble or puerile. It is not wonder- 
 ful that in its pursuit many gentlemen sometimes, 
 as Burton also observes, " voluntarily undertake 
 that to satisfy their pleasure, which a poor m^an for 
 a good stipend would scarce be hired to undergo." 
 Something needs to be said, generally, about the 
 regions and waters mentioned in the following 
 pages, the modes of reaching and utilizing them, as 
 introductory to the accounts of the excursions 
 thither. The river of trout, the Brule or Bois 
 Brule, is a small, clear, cold, rocky stream of sixty 
 miles, issuing from Lake Brule, running south by 
 east. !Rot far from its mouth it is joined by the 
 Paint river, and their commingled waters flowing 
 four or five miles, and then receiving another afflu- 
 ent, the Michigami river, as blended tributaries 
 become thence the Menominee river. This is a 
 tortuous stream of about one hundred and twenty-
 
 PKEFACE. XI 
 
 five miles, running into Green Bay, witli tlie Miclii- 
 o-an town of Menominee and tlie Wisconsin town 
 of Marinette at its mouth. Botli tlie Brule and 
 Menominee rivers are boundaries between the two 
 states. 
 
 The Michigami river has its source in Lake Mich- 
 igami, in the iron and copper regions of Lake 
 Superior. Its course is southeasterly. Its length 
 is about ninety miles. Our party struck this river 
 at Republic, reaching there by rail from Chicago, 
 and coursed it about fifty-three miles, making thence 
 overland and water routes by Lake Mary, the Paint 
 river. Mud lake, the Trout (known also as Sugar) riv- 
 er, Lone Grave (or Bass), lake and lakes Chicagon and 
 Minnie, to the Brule, a distance of thirty -five miles. 
 With the exception of the Hamilton and Merryman 
 lumbering company's camp, about eighteen miles 
 above its mouth, the Michigami, from the point 
 where the party touched it, traverses an unbroken 
 wilderness. This can now be reached by team on a 
 supply road from Badwater, which also extends to 
 the headwaters of Ford river. The Michigami 
 flows through the richest of forest scenery, and on 
 its banks are numerous points where deer may be 
 shot, and. at places where small streams come in, 
 trout are found. Downward canoeing is a most 
 delightful experience of the rambler on this stream. 
 
 The Brule, formerly, also ran its whole course 
 through a complete wilderness. It was then
 
 Xll PKEFAOE. 
 
 readied bj overland ronte from Section Eighteen, 
 on the Chicago and North-Western liailwaj, by way 
 of Badwater, on the Menominee, and in canoes 
 thence. Since that time, several changes are visible 
 in the few lower miles of the river. About seventeen 
 miles above its mouth at the Michigami, a dam 
 has been erected, and there is said to be fine trout- 
 ing at that point. A mile below that is Arm- 
 strong's Camp, and below the latter two miles is 
 La Montaigne's Upper Camp; three miles further 
 down is Cauldwell's ftirm, and five miles from the 
 latter is Stephenson's Brule fiirm. Here is the 
 log cabin at which our party made a descent on the 
 cook and his dog. 
 
 There is now a railroad, operated by the Chica- 
 go and North-Western company, the Menominee 
 Biver Bailroad, from the line of the former at Me- 
 nominee Biver Junction to Quiniseck, about twenty- 
 five miles. This point can be reached hj rail from 
 Chicago, direct, in about sixteen hours. From 
 Quiniseck a new wagon road lias been made 
 to Twin Falls. Between the two falls it crosses 
 the Menominee on a fine iron bridge recently con- 
 structed, and passes near the south end of Bad- 
 water (or Spread Eagle) lakes to the Commonwealth 
 iron mines, thence north-easterly, near Fisiier's 
 lake, to Stephenson's fiirm, on the Bnile. From 
 this farm supply roads run to points on Paint 
 river, and also a supply road tlieuce runs nine miles
 
 rnEFACE. xm 
 
 to Brule dam, recently built. The distance from 
 Qainiseck to this point is about thirty miles. This 
 dam is a mile below Chickabiddy Camp. 
 
 Qniniseckis already something of a village, and 
 is the depot of several productive iron regions. 
 From Yulcan, on the Menominee River Railroad, 
 a supply road runs to Sturgeon river, where both 
 good hunting and fishing may be had. On Pine 
 river, reached from Twin Falls, there are good fish- 
 ing and hunting. From Carney, on the Chicago 
 and North-Western Railway, a road runs due west, 
 crossing the Menominee at the Peemenee farm of 
 the N. Ludington Company, to the north branch of 
 Pike river. From the farm, tlie road traverses a 
 park-like and picturesque country of pine plains, 
 Norway pines and scrub oak, and is reputed to be 
 an extremely pleasant and easy route. The trout- 
 ing on the north branch of the Pike, as well as on 
 the main river, is said to be superior. Bass fishing 
 and hunti ng on Caton lakes are very fine. There is a 
 good hotel at Carney, where arrangements can be 
 made in advance, for teams and supplies for parties 
 in quest of hunting and fishing amusement at points 
 and in regions accessible from that point. The 
 sportsman may also make a fine trip on the Esca- 
 naba river, by reaching it by rail to Smith mine, 
 and thence down the stream by canoe or boat to the 
 mouth. Trouting and deer hunting on this river, 
 afford most excellent sport.
 
 XIV PBEFACE. 
 
 In consequence of these recent openings np of 
 mining and lumbering points, and of roads to them, 
 the sporting realms of forest and stream are made 
 more easily and directly accessible, A sufficiency 
 or abundance of supplies, the necessary and proper 
 staples of subsistence, may be obtained at the various 
 logging and mining points. At Marinette and 
 Menominee a retinue of Indian guides for a jour- 
 ney and sojourn in the woods, may ahvaj^s be had. 
 
 "With the exception of the points now mentioned, 
 the regions traversed by the Brule and Michigami, 
 are wholly a wilderness, unsettled, even by Indians. 
 The only landmarks are the trails or portages, im- 
 passable except on foot, and known only to hunters, 
 trappers, prospectors, locators, surveyors or adven- 
 turous sportsmen on summer rambles. There is 
 no sort of habitation or cultivation, ^ot more than 
 two or three parties, during a season, penetrate 
 these forests. For such parties the supplies and 
 appliances of subsistence must be taken along or 
 obtained at the lumber camps, and must be such as 
 will admit of being transported in canoes and 
 packed over the carries. 
 
 The forests are almost impenetrable, from the 
 dense luxuriant growth, undergrowth and fallen 
 and deca,ying timber. There are trails or port- 
 ages, as they are indifferently called, between dif- 
 ferent points, and these are passable only on foot, 
 and most of them with difficulty in that way. The
 
 c- 
 
 r.
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 canoe is the means of travel. The country is 
 threaded in many directions with watercourses, and 
 interspei'sed with lakes and lakelets, and hy port- 
 ages, the canoes and the outfit of the parties can be 
 transported from one navigating course to another. 
 
 In tliese regions mink, otter, deer, some bear, and 
 waterfowl, particularly in their season, are found. 
 The sportsman who ventures through the forests 
 may find in them and along the water a surfeit of 
 booty for his gun or rod. For the most part he is 
 powerless, except when near some of the points 
 within railway reach recently opened, to utilize the 
 spoils any more than in supplying his camp fare as 
 he passes along. Only in exceptional instances, 
 and usually in limited quantity, his trout, or deer, 
 or ducks, beyond the needs of traveling consump- 
 tion, must be wasted or left behind, neither sufii- 
 cing for his own prolonged wants or for gifts to 
 friends at home. 
 
 As well as a canoe to move him, the traveler must 
 have a tent to house him, and such outfit of camping 
 appliances and such store of provisions as may suit 
 his taste, his capacity of transporting them, the 
 length of the route and the duration of his sojourn. 
 Most essential; too, is the guide, his cicerone, the 
 impersonated guide-book of the way, the navigator 
 of the birch-bark, the carrier of the luggage, the 
 tent-builder, the log-heap fireman, the cook, the 
 baker, the scullion, in fact the indispensable general 
 
 QO/incLon
 
 XVI PKEFACE. 
 
 iitiliU' man and brother. He is, or shonld he, an 
 Indian or half-breed, and practically they are the 
 same. 
 
 He is a natural born forester. His nature, in- 
 stincts, training, traditions, adapt and predestinate 
 him to the vagrancy of the woods. The simplicity 
 and paucity of his needs, his being a hunter by he- 
 redity, specially qualify him for the services and 
 experiences incident to his position as guide. And 
 though in contact with civilized life, and sometimes 
 engaged in its industries, the aboriginal nature is 
 only modified, but never wholly effaced by his hab- 
 itancy and associations in town and village; and he 
 still, like the fox, " ne'er so tamed, so cherished, 
 will have a wild trick of his ancestors." His ances- 
 try was forest-born and forest-roving, and by inher- 
 itance come his cunning and fitness in woodcraft 
 and forestry. The white man, in tliese respects, 
 only compares with him in proportion as he is In- 
 dianized. 
 
 The canoe and the redskin are the fitting comple- 
 ment of each other. Paddle-swinging and poling 
 are necessary concomitants of his aboriginal and 
 traditional utilization of barks of the trees for a 
 vessel to float him, and for a tepee to shelter liim. 
 He is a canoeist by a sort of evolution of spe- 
 cies. The tent, too, is a variety of his race habita- 
 iton — the wigwam or tepee — the easily constructed 
 and readily shifted housing and shelter of wander-
 
 PliEFACE. XVll 
 
 ers. His senses are acute and sleepless; of what- 
 ever pertains to the wilderness he will see and 
 hear and scent and feel more keenly and quickly 
 than those having ejes, ears, nostrils and per- 
 ceptions schooled in the less exacting necessities 
 of civilized life. These were our experiences of 
 Indian guides, and they areconfii'med by tlie similar 
 realizations of other parties. This, of course, is 
 the Indian of semi-civilization, of Wisconsin and 
 Michigan, and not the war-whooi3ing, scalp-lifting, 
 thieving savage. " tattooed or woaded, clad in win- 
 ter-skins," of the great out-West. We found him 
 docile, patient, willing and zealous, and most satis- 
 tying in his service to us. 
 
 An excursion to and through the wilderness may, 
 of course, be at such cost of time, of money and of 
 such length of route as the parties may choose. 
 The party itself may consist of any number of per- 
 sons. The outfit may be of any desired extent, from 
 that of enough, on a scale of frugality and modera- 
 tion, to that of surperiluity, on a scale of elegance 
 and luxury — either in a just comfortable or in a 
 princely style. The considerations quite material in 
 that respect are those relating to convenience, rapid- 
 ity, facility and freedom of movement, and the small- 
 est and least burdensome of impedimenta of course 
 subserve or answer best those conditions. 
 
 The essentials of such a trip are simple and mod- 
 erate. For apparel, a heavy suit worn on the per-
 
 XVIU PREFACE. 
 
 son, dark shirts, clianges of underclothing, and a 
 few toilette articles, are sufficient. For provisions, 
 a supply of staples, such as pork, flour, meal, pota- 
 toes, biscuit, coffee and tea, butter and lard, calcu- 
 lated on the scale of the army ration. A pair of 
 heaviest blankets to each man and the tent are suffi- 
 cient for the dormitory. With these must be the 
 necessary utensils for cookery, and a tin service for 
 the table. To all of these may be added whatever 
 fancy or taste may prompt, consistently with the 
 portable capacity. 
 
 A party of four is probably the most pleasant and 
 practicable for companionship and congeniality. 
 The number of guides should equal that of the party. 
 One canoe will transport four persons and half of 
 the outfit, and that and the vessels can conveniently 
 and without much strain, be carried over the por- 
 tages. The expense of the trip will be proportioned, 
 certainly, to its time, distance and kind of equip- 
 ment. 
 
 A month's roving and sojourning in the wilder- 
 ness, as distant as that of the Brule, with ample 
 outfit, not stinted of substantial for comfort, in- 
 clnding the compensation of guides, and fare from 
 Chicago and return, and the canoes, may be easily 
 accomplished by each of a party of four, at a cost 
 of from eighty to one hundred dollars. Those who 
 have rambled in vacations in quest of rest, health 
 and sport, in those or similar regions, have no occa-
 
 PKEFACE. XIX 
 
 sion ever to regret their cost in time and money. 
 
 Since this work has been in type, tlie map and 
 tables of routes and distances, have been prepared 
 and appended. They were compiled from maps 
 of surveys or other authentic sources, are accurate, 
 and probably, as a whole, are the first that have 
 appeared in any form accessible to the public. The 
 distances stated in the book are such as were given 
 by the Indians, or were conjectured by ourselves. 
 The names of places are spelled as they were pro- 
 nounced by the guides. In only a few instances 
 are there errors of distance or of orthography, and 
 they are trivial and unimportant. The map and 
 tables will serve to correct them. For these ta- 
 bles and the map, and for other valuable informa- 
 tion, the writer is indebted to Arthur T. Jones, of 
 Marinette, whose intelligence in respect to the re- 
 gions traversed, and their facilities for sport and 
 modes of reaching them, is as conspicuous as the 
 obliging and courteous nature which prompted him 
 to contribute them. 
 
 If the lover of woods and waters shall, on peru- 
 sal of this volume, be inspired with a desire to go 
 and do likewise — should he perceive the charm 
 and catch the spirit of idling, rambling and sport- 
 ing in the wilderness — especially should the lawyer, 
 wearied and spent in professional labor, seeking to 
 escape it and the roar and whirl of the city, be led 
 by the reading to betake himself, for needed recrea-
 
 XX PREFACE. 
 
 tion and respite, to the silence and peace of the 
 great forests, and so refresh and vitalize his wasted 
 forces for his renewed work of the desk or of the 
 re-opened forum, then the writer's purpose has 
 not been fruitless, his ambition will have been 
 satisfied, and he may feel that he has in a sense not 
 unmeaning and in a measure not unimportant, done 
 something towards the discharge of that debt which 
 Lord Bacon says every lawyer owes to his profes- 
 sion«
 
 TROUTIKG ON THE BRULE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SECTION EIGHTEEN — THE START — THE ABORIGINES AND TEAM- 
 STER — KAQUOTASH REFRACTORY — RAIN — RELAY HOUSE — 
 A BOTTLE-FIEND — A CLERIC CURJItTDGEON — ON THE "WAY 
 — ARMA YIRUMQUE CANO — FIRST BLOOD — GAIETY IN THE 
 RAIN— AN INDIAN TATTERDEMALION — STEPHENSOK'S. 
 
 At two o'clock, afternoon, we slinnted off, and 
 dumped the outfit from the train, at Section 18. 
 Tlie eigliteenness of the section was the most 
 there was of it — tliat is, its being that distance in 
 miles from Menominee. The rest — the odds and 
 ends of it — was a small, rude, uncovered log plat- 
 form, with a log cabin and a little wheezing steam 
 sawmill in the background of a bit of clearing 
 in the woods. Here began our acquaintance with 
 the teamster, George Evanson, a tough I*^orwe- 
 gian, with a span of rugged, stout horses, giving.
 
 2 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 the most satisfying assurances of possibilities of 
 drauo-ht in a wag-on fit forTouwliino^, and also with our 
 aboriginal guides. The Indians were not the wild 
 savages typified in the wooden effigy of the snuff 
 and tobacco shops, with moccasins, leggings, blanket, 
 eagle-plume and tomahawk, and with streaked and 
 painted jaws. One was a full-blooded, copper-skin- 
 ned Menominee, and the other a mixed-blooded Me- 
 nominee. They were coated, trowsered and booted in 
 backwoods atti re. They were stalwart, and seeming- 
 ly in superb order for our purposes. From their thews 
 and sinews we had a prescience of splendid service 
 and all re(j^uisite utilities. The first M'as George 
 Kaquotash, and the other, Mitchell Thebault. 
 
 The road started rough and up and down. We 
 footed some distance of the journey, to stretch our 
 legs and straighten the crinkles of the railway sit- 
 ting. Kaquotash was grogg\'. lie seemed to fancy 
 my company, and. in a warmth of spontaneous 
 friendliness, veliemently fraternized me, and walked 
 me hand-in-hand, until I tired of tlie grip. lie pro- 
 posed switching off and heading the team by a 
 short cut through the woods. I declined taking a 
 route of continuous shower-baths through the drip- 
 ping foliage. Either from this, or because he was 
 steaming up to fuller pressure from a nip he took 
 from a flask, the fraternal affinity rapidly weakened, 
 and he began to grow ugly, atid soon, from mere 
 "cussedness," or from a streak of untamed aboriginal
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 6 
 
 deviltr}', became impudent, defiant and mutinous. 
 He threatened to turn back and go liome. He sulked 
 and grumbled. We halted in the rain, to appease 
 him, or find what the trouble was. When our own 
 patience was about exhausted at his perv^ersity, 
 he suddenly and unaccountably gave in and lapsed 
 into'sheepish quiet and servility. The procession 
 moved on. 
 
 We had arranged our time-table to make Peemony 
 farm for the night. The showers, however, rather 
 abated the ardor of advance. The Relay House 
 was eight miles from the railway. When we 
 reached it, we were wet enough, with so many of 
 the jolly kinks wilted out of ns as to make us glad of 
 a friendly shelter. Though it was but four o'clock 
 and the fever of on-and-ahead was not all subsi- 
 ded, nobody remonstrated when it was cautiously 
 hinted that the roof of a house was preferable to the 
 i*oof of a showering sky, and, regarding the situation 
 as inevitably determinative, we accepted the neces- 
 sity with all possible good grace. Evanson unhar- 
 nessed the dripping roadsters and stabled them. 
 
 AVe four moistly advanced on the bar-room stove, 
 in which was quickly crackling the combustive fuel, 
 and our wet clothes, when changed, were strung 
 around to dry, and sent up plentiful steaming exhal- 
 ations. George had an exclusive flask of whiskey, 
 which he began to swig from, and which made him 
 again ugly, noisy and very boozy. He muttered
 
 4 TROUTIXG ON THE BRULE. 
 
 and mumbled unintelligibly at everything and 
 everybody, and became an unmitigated nuisance. 
 He was smart enough withal to embosom the fiery 
 bottle flibbertigibbet under his red shirt, and tliere 
 was no Chicago lawyer crafty enough to slip or steal 
 it out. There was no help for it but to let his 
 demonish familiar be exhausted to emptiness. It 
 was sharp collective finessing to get him laid by for 
 the night. As too inflammatory a ration for his 
 native temperamentj we determined out of abundant 
 caution to suspend George from the franchise of the 
 excursional grog thereafter. 
 
 After supper, we strolled over to the Menominee, 
 a half-mile walk, for a glimpse of river scener3\ 
 It was narrow there, and brawled in little rapids. 
 A short way down the bank was a large, abandoned, 
 logman's cabin. There was a ghostly inmate with- 
 in it, however, a Catholic priest with a lay follower, 
 utilizing the gloomy hugeness of the hut for tem- 
 porary camping. They were bound up the river 
 deer-hunting.. It was evident that the consecrated 
 sportsman loved to handle a weapon that was not 
 spiritual, as well as to twiddle a rosary. He may 
 have been saintly, too, but he certainly was not so- 
 ciable, and gave us men of the .world the cold 
 shoulder. He extended to us, in no way, any ben- 
 efit of clergy; and willingly sufi*ered us to depart 
 from him without fatherly benediction, or any im- 
 plied pax voMscum.
 
 SUMMER WAYFAEIKG. " 
 
 Next morning, we 'were egregiously chap-fallen 
 
 when we took weather observations, and saw rain, 
 
 signs of greater rain, and of rain all daj. On, on, 
 
 was the watchword, though the heavens should fall. 
 
 A shower, after all, was a trifle, and mast not be 
 
 allowed to dash 
 
 ' ' The even virtue of our enterprise, 
 
 Nor th' insuppressive mettle of our spiiits." 
 
 George's whiske}^ -fiend was laid completely; he 
 himself was straight, more white and less Indian, 
 and in full feather with the party. We piled in the 
 wagon and went on, heroically taking the drip as it 
 came. 
 
 Pratt was our gunner. His weapon was a shot- 
 gun fowling piece, not brought for any premed- 
 itated service in the wa}'^ of havoc to game, of wing 
 or of foot, but merely as a usual and handy imple- 
 ment to have along, if anything should come in 
 the way and permit itself to be shot at, and, at 
 any rate, to help kill time with, if to kill nothing 
 else. He was not a practiced marksman. We did 
 not count much on his often harming bird or beast, 
 and he himself was not very vain or conceited in 
 tlie way of fatality or prowess with his gun. But 
 for all that, he trusted in Providence, and in all the 
 pitiless drench, kept his powder dry. 
 
 Though to any ardent son of saltpetre, the pros- 
 pect for triggering was slim, to all appearances, a 
 few miles out, three siek-looking partridges, soaked
 
 b TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 and bedraggled, spiritless as wet liens, poked stupid- 
 ly out of a cover of brush by the wayside, flapped 
 the raindrops off their wings and fluttered up to the 
 limbs. This diance would animate a soul under the 
 ribs of death, and aroused Pratt to the requirements 
 of the exciting crisis. He uncovered his battery, so 
 to say, and got out in the mud, adroitly stole a march 
 to a good strategic point, made ready, took aim, and 
 fired. An irrigated partridge " felt the fiery wound, 
 fluttered in blood, and panting, beat the ground." 
 The others of the flock were too weather-beaten and 
 droopy to whir themselves far away. Pratt fol- 
 lowed them up, and again sprung the trigger and 
 let fly, but he let fly the miserable fowls as well, 
 unharmed. 
 
 It rained steadily. We took the pouring without 
 flinching. "\Ve had to. Hydropathic treatment 
 was unavoidable. It was a great problem to keep 
 the stores dry. We tried to tickle ourselves with 
 mirth, and to weather it, or volatilize the exceed- 
 ing moistness and ourselves with dry jokes. We 
 jested at the rain, while it was pelting us. High 
 had the face and ill-timed effrontery to torture us 
 with his Arkansas hash story, a varioruinth edition 
 of it, and so rung the changes on it as nearly to 
 cause a manifestation of our Relay House hash. 
 But in time the facetiae became sickish and too flat. 
 The heavy levity was too much for us. We relapsed 
 into sullenness and sulks. We didn't care. We
 
 SUMMER WATFAKING. T 
 
 were resigned. We could join in Falstaff's invo- 
 cation: " Let the sky rain potatoes ; let it thunder 
 to the tune of Green Sleeves, hail kissing comfits, 
 and snow eringoes." ^ 
 
 As we jogged on, the road worsened greatly. 
 High and I, jostling on the seat with the driver, par- 
 tially covered Bissell, Pratt and the tacit aborigines, 
 who were astride and atop of the load, ballasting it, 
 and to keep from being pitched off was all the art 
 they knew. Kubber coats proved the wretched fal- 
 lacy of caoutchouc. I wore one, which glistened in 
 the most assuring semblance of imperviability, but 
 ray shoulders were no dryer than my legs. The 
 water streamed off hats, and dribbled down our 
 noses. We were soaked throncjh and through. 
 
 The roughness of the road added greatly to the 
 mishaps of the rain. The last ten miles of way 
 towards Stephenson's were simply execrable. There 
 was nowhere a level of more than a few rods. The 
 vehicle canted from one side to the other, threaten- 
 ing to dump the top-heavy load of men and bag- 
 gage in the ditch, creaking and straining, as in 
 throes of trial, bouncing over corduroy, and pitch- 
 ing into holes and ruts. By way of variety of mis- 
 ery, some or all of us got out and walked, and soon, 
 as we trod along, our boots or shoes were soaked like 
 sponges, and squshed the water up our shins and 
 knees. The asylum we longed for was Stephen- 
 son's, and on the omne ignotum pro magmjico prin-
 
 S TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 ciple, we idealized it into a blissful sanctuary of 
 content and shelter. The onl}'^ habitation between 
 that and the Kelay House was the Peeniony farm, 
 at the rapids. . The road trends to and touches the 
 river. 
 
 At a deserted cabin a weather-bound, dismal 
 Menominee tatterdemalion was crouching under 
 its meagre vestige of clap-board roof for cover. 
 Our natives interviewed him, and learned tliat he 
 was navigating supplies np to Sturgeon river for 
 John Stockton and Eobert Clark, who were to travel 
 the overland route there. This forlorn redskin 
 was the solitary human being we yet had met all 
 that day. It restored us to some degree of grim 
 complacency to perceive that we were not the only, 
 or even most miserable, sinners in such a woful, 
 aqueous pliglit. Like the hares that went to drown 
 themselves in a sheer desperation of misery, .yet 
 took heart to live when they saw the frogs in the 
 pool, swelled to burstirig with batracliian grief far 
 exceeding their own, our hearts lifted from the 
 depths, at the comforting thought that at least one 
 wretched pagan was in more "doleful dumps " than 
 we. 
 
 When told we were within two miles of Stephen- 
 son's our hearts rose higher from the depths. But 
 it was a too flattering tale that hope told us. The 
 buoyancy was premature. We did not know what 
 that reputed two miles meant, either of distance,
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 9 
 
 time, rain, road and travel under increased difficul- 
 ties. Each mile, in the going, seemed a league, and. 
 the hour and a half of harder plodding thither 
 seemed to stretch to three. After tugging slowly 
 and crookedly up a hill, where the law of gravitation 
 appeared to oi)erate with more than its usual force 
 against our ascent, the much-vaunted and eagerly 
 looked-for Stephenson's hosj^ice stood before us. 
 
 It was a large, double, low, pine log and log- 
 men's cabin of the most primitive frontier order of 
 architecture. But we promptly unloaded ourselves 
 from the wagon, each one dripping like a bather 
 from his wash. The wooden pile was a welcome 
 castle of shelter. Interiorly, it wasHtted up roughly 
 but comfortably, for the needs of the hardy chop- 
 pers, whose axes make annual havoc in the neigh- 
 boring forests of pine. In one part, are tiers of 
 bunks for slee2)ers, and in the other, are the kitchen 
 and dining rooms. The loggers live there only in 
 the winter; two or three persons were all who quar- 
 tered there at this season. 
 
 We lost no time in changing wet for dry clothes. 
 Every peg around the large stove was festooned, 
 and three-legged stools were hung with an ill- 
 favored display of drenched coats, saturated breeches, 
 watered shirts and soaked socks, which so strung 
 about, made the apartment look like a second-hand 
 " old clo ' " shop in Jewry. They M'ere the cast-off 
 debris of garmenture, then doing their last service.
 
 10 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 Of all tlie Stepliensonian denizens, the cook was the 
 most imj)ortant personage to us. He was a shiny- 
 faced, stumpy young French Canadian, with a patois 
 of Quebec and Boston. But he knew his business 
 of skillet and dish, and discerning hunger as the one 
 common facial expression of the crowd, he bustled 
 around with promptness in preparing us a meal of 
 pork, biscuit, potatoes and coffee. The spread 
 gratifyingly surprised and satisfied us. At the 
 signal we charged on the viands, and soon the bounti- 
 ful provision vanished like the baseless fabric of a 
 vision, scarce leaving crust or scrap behind. 
 
 There were signs of clearing in the sky, and the 
 words " go ahead " were spoken; but then, that we 
 were well dried and warmed, and could not surely 
 forecast dryness and warmth for the rest of theda}', 
 we considerately resolved to wait, abide and bear 
 the ills we had — mainly an impatience to be moving 
 — rather than to chance others that we knew not 
 of. And, as if specially to verify to us our sensible 
 prescience in stajdng, it was not long before some 
 western clouds trooped up in dark masses, and 
 rained down like mad, and made us conscious of 
 liow wisely discerning were our prophetic souls, and 
 how much the woodman's rude cabin was a friendly 
 home of ease and comfort. 
 
 We had ample chance to overhaul the tackle and 
 see to having everything in perfect trim. Bissell 
 took the situation contentedly enough to spread
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKING. 11 
 
 himself on the floor, pillowed on a satchel, and in the 
 glow of the firelight he reveled in the pages of Victor 
 Hugo's '"93." High had a novel, too, and in it^ 
 apart and with his pipe, was wrapt in pensive con- 
 templation, on a stool, Pratt and I cultivated good 
 graces and friendly intimacy with the maestro of 
 the kitchen bureau. The situation, for one of 
 weather-bound confinement^ w^as not, by any means, 
 intolerable.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 rx CLOVER — AFOOT — THE KOAD — STURGEON FARM — TO DICK- 
 Et's — A LANDSCAPE AND RIVER VIEW — AT DICKEY'S — HIS 
 DOG AND A DINNER — A CANOE — A HURDLE ROUTE — FIRST 
 CAMP — BADWATER — TOM KING — EMBARKATION — MICHI- 
 GAMI FALLS — A PICKEREL CAPTURE — TRAIL TO BRULE 
 FALLS — OLD SLEDGE AND NEW FRIENDS. 
 
 Our liost of tlie cabin meant us well, and was 
 generous of his best hospitality. He had a couple 
 of double bunks fitted expressly for our sleeping, 
 and his choicest blankets laid to enfold us in their 
 soft and ample spread. The arrangement looked 
 well enough, and promising to our tired natures 
 of sleep that would be balmy and restful. Yet when 
 it came time to wrap the covers of the bunk around 
 us, certain entomological speculations were aroused 
 by the prying research of one of our observers, who 
 had a restless habit of inquisitiveness, and more 
 than a suspicion of the chnex lectularius crept 
 into our study of imagination and perturbed us. 
 (12)
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 13 
 
 We were in a dilemma between considerations of 
 vermin and of propriety. What to do or not to do, 
 so as neither to offend our o^ood host or onr better 
 selves, was a delicate question. But Bissell, in a 
 pause of the rain, gadding around with a thirst for 
 knowledge, or on a reconnoisance of curiosity, had 
 discovered a haystack, a huge cone or mound of 
 mown grass, with a movable roofing over it. lie 
 bethought himself of the haycock and imparted the 
 discovery to us. We hailed this as a happy solu- 
 tion of the quandar3\ The haymow was moved as 
 a substitute for the cabin scaffolds, and after the 
 previous question, and then the main question 
 being put — the party decidedly preferring the 
 chance of hay-seed to a prospect of the hospitable 
 bug — the matter was settled nem. con. 
 
 We stood not on the order of going. To charge on 
 and scale the heights of the towering heap were no 
 sooner said than done, and once on the summit, we 
 were quickly cuddled in the blankets and nestling in 
 slumbrous repose. All there is of being snug as 
 a bug in a rug was each one's happy fate while 
 snuggling in the haycock dormitory. We had at 
 least stolen a march on the suspected lectularian 
 pest, and instead of it, had nothing other than 
 slumber "gently o'er us stealing." We fancied, 
 however, that the master of the messuage greeted 
 us with no very gushing morning salutation, Avhen 
 we crept out of the haystack. Possibjy he felt that
 
 li TKOUTIN'G ON THE BKULIE. 
 
 onr giving a M'ide berth to his bnnks was rather un- 
 gracious — a reflection on his accommodation and an 
 insensibility to the kindness and hospitality meant 
 in putting them into extra trim for our service. 
 
 The shiny-faced Canadian breakfasted us early 
 for a timely start. A few minutes after five, before 
 tliere was sun to glisten the drops on the herbage, 
 we made our adieus to Stephenson's, and took to the 
 road, which was exceedingly rough and uneven. 
 At first we went afoot. But Pratt, who was slightl y 
 ailing, perched on the seat with the driver. When 
 we mounted and squatted on the luggage, the 
 bouncing motion of the wagon made it more un- 
 pleasant to hold the load and ourselves on than it 
 was to walk. The choice between the veli.icular and 
 pedestrian mode of travel was about an even thing. 
 We saw nothing but woods, passed two log clear- 
 ings, heard a couple of unseen choppers hacking 
 at invisible trees, went through a large sugar maple 
 camp, and twice touched near enough the river to 
 catch its silver glistening through the embowering 
 verdure, and hear the babbling music of the rapids. 
 Our natives went afoot, tramping short-cuts, and 
 kept in the advance. Sturgeon farm was the first 
 objective point, said to be fifteen miles from Steph- 
 enson's. 
 
 About ten o'clock we came to Sturgeon river, 
 where it flows into the Menominee. Fording the 
 former at its mouth — it beinsc then from summer
 
 SUMMER WAYFAUIXG. 15 
 
 shrinking much down in the mouth — we struck the 
 bounds of Sturgeon, otlierwise Xe\v York farm, 
 Mhich lies there bordering the two streams. After 
 the density of w^ilderness and naturahiess we had 
 traversed, it opened on us like a perspective of 
 beauty and a scene of life. There are some good 
 buildings of wood on the place, a capacious barn, a 
 store-room, and a large acreage of meadow, the 
 property of a lumbering company. It is the base 
 of supplies and stores of various kinds, and also 
 the abode of the choppers in the company's winter 
 employ. There is an aspect of neatness, thrift, en- 
 terprise and prosperity about the farm. Its chief 
 importance to us, however, was in its capability of 
 supplying wants already felt. "We were customers 
 on its subsistence reserves. 
 
 The next point was Dickey's. Ten miles stretched 
 between it and the farm. It was not a much more 
 pleasing route than that already passed over. It 
 led up a hill, and ran a goodly distance along a ridge 
 of hills, and some of it was comparatively smooth 
 going, while other portions of the road were rough 
 and broken. "We tested considerably our pedestrian 
 capacities on the way. Huckleberries were plen- 
 tiful, and we picked and mouthed our fill of them. 
 There was much dead timber, with scattering num- 
 bers of skeleton pines and hemlocks, and nothing 
 enlivening in the way of scenery to relieve the 
 cheerless monotony.
 
 16 TKOUTINO ON THE BRULE. 
 
 "We plodded wearily on till we recaclied a liill range 
 overlooking the river. There was an open S]mce 
 from which the timber had been cleanly stripped, 
 and a deserted cabin then in decay, was the sole ves- 
 tige of a former busy logging camp. The ground 
 was worthless for culture, but had a great apparent 
 capacity for brambles and weeds. And when its 
 original wealth of pines had been exhausted, the 
 place wtis abandoned and relapsed into a dismal 
 waste. But the site, desolate in itself, yet afforded 
 an outlook of a charming stretch of river and forest 
 panorama. The guides, with something of an eye 
 for, the beautiful, had told us of the view, and had 
 led us to it. 
 
 High said that within his experience, which was 
 one of considerable familiarity with the indigenes 
 of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, our Indian retinue 
 were the first of the race whom he had known to 
 have a sensibility to the charms of scenery. Kaquo- 
 tash and Thebault lingered, as we did, in admi- 
 ration of the vista. Below us was the river bend- 
 ing, a belt or outline of gleaming silver winding 
 through masses of verdant ibrest magically coloring 
 to varying and shifting hues, from the stirring of 
 the breeze, the shading of a cloud or the full efful- 
 gence of the sun. The blending view of woodland 
 and stream was much finer than that at Sturgeon 
 farm, and was, really, our first vision of the 
 Menominee picturesque.
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 17 
 
 We were tiring of the way, and longing for Dick- 
 ^tfl^" ey's, wliere we were to halt for rest and dining. 
 The plodding along was wearisome, till the propor- 
 tions of his cabin, in a patch of clearing, loomed 
 into siffht. Like the few and far between kindred 
 structures of the woods, it was of the rude, primal, 
 wooden style of architecture. It is a trading sta- 
 tion, lonely in its isolation as a hermit's retreat, 
 where the scattered few Indians re2)air to dicker 
 their furs, skins and deer, for pork, flour, tobacco, 
 gawdy trinkets and such commodities as suit their 
 primitive wants and tastes. 
 
 Dickey, his cook and dog, were sole occupants of 
 the solitary ranch. It serves as a domicile, as a store 
 in a rudimentary form, and as a hostelry or inn, in a 
 legal sense, as a place where the traveler is furnished 
 with everything he wants, provided the traveler has 
 occasion fur very little. The little we wanted was a 
 dinner. Our lean and hungry look was hint enough 
 to the cook to vigorously bestir himself. We heard 
 the clatter of pans and the simmer of the fry, and, in 
 our waiting eagerness, grateful and tantalizing fore- 
 tastes of the meal crept into our senses in savory 
 wafts from the kitchen. 
 
 While the preparation was going on, some of us 
 stretched on the bunks, or blanketed shelves, for ease. 
 Dickey's white, shaggy dog jumped up and laid 
 down beside the recumbent, or tried to; and when 
 kicked out, betook himself to another and offered the 
 2
 
 18 ■ TKOUTIXG ON THE BKULE. 
 
 same doggish familiarity, but witli like result. The 
 traveling of the day had sharj)ly appetized us, so that 
 the devastation of bread, pork, potatoes, syrup and 
 Oolong, surprised, though satisfying, ourselves, but 
 disquieted the host. Probably, with limited sup- 
 plies in the out-of-the-way cabin, the exploits of our 
 six able-bodied appetites in reducing his stores, 
 might easily have inspired some anxiety, if not actual 
 consternation. But we were traveling in search 
 of appetites of zest and longing unknown to the 
 lagging or dormant appetence of the home-stomach. 
 It was here that I gave way to the seductiveness 
 of tobacco. I had long been a cloud-compeller, 
 but for the two years previously was a teetotaler in 
 smoking, and the delicious aroma of the weed was 
 only known to me in the vain fruition of occasional 
 collateral sweets and sideway perfumes, which 
 chanced to be whiffed about by other smokers. But 
 here, looking forward to days and nights in the 
 w^oods, where, of all places, my ancient familiar or 
 genius of the fume, would be an always readily 
 evoked and answering solace and companion, alike 
 in the hours of the sun and of the stars, and when 
 just at my side I saw High leaning against a tree 
 puffing so pleasingly, and as if impersonating all 
 the beatitudes, and the rich burning incense that 
 spread in a glory of cloud and odor from his amber- 
 tipped and ruddy-tinted meerschaum — "O, it came 
 in my nose like the sweet scent that breathes upon
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 19 
 
 a bank of violets, stealing and giving odor'' — the 
 smoking passion sprang from its trance of two 
 years like smouldered embers leaping into instant, 
 living flame. 
 
 I was at once irrecoverably enthralled in the deli- 
 cious spell, and felt my utter impoteney to banish 
 the fascinating Satan-tempter to the rear. I threw 
 myself headlong, as it were, into the full tide of 
 fruition. Dickey had clay-pipes and yellow paper 
 packages of tobacco with the Milwaukee trade-mark 
 on. Of these I provided a supply; as they were the 
 best in Dickey's bazaar, I was not inclined to be 
 critical or squeamish. The luxury of that first after- 
 dinner smoking was a supreme felicity indeed. 
 
 "And the last trace of feeling with life shall depart, 
 Ere the smoke of that moment shall pass from my heart." 
 
 Our prospectus of the journey had noted on it, 
 " canoes at Badwater," But Dickey's saleable estate 
 included a birch bark. It occurring to us that 
 as a bird in the hand is worth more than the pos- 
 sible or uncertain bird or dozen birds in the 
 bush, a canoe we could secure was more valuable 
 and to our purpose than supposed or conjectural 
 canoes up the river, we advised ourselves to in- 
 vest in a present vessel. Our marine force, George 
 and Thebault, was dispatched to the river to inspect 
 the offered bargain and report. We put the mat- 
 ter in our pipes and leisurely smoked it while they 
 were gone. Their report was satisfactory. The
 
 20 TEOUTINO OX THE BKULE. 
 
 canoe was first-class, and ready for instant service. 
 Dickey's figure was twenty dollars. The score was 
 settled. 
 
 The Indians returned to the river, and soon 
 thence shouldered the vessel to ns, when we saw 
 at a glance that we had acquired a very model 
 and beauty of water-craft. It had dimensions for 
 storage. It was staunch and tight; it was graceful 
 and shapely; and when George lifted and balanced 
 it on his head, to carry it through the woods, we 
 saw its good qualities of form, size, grace and port- 
 ability, at a glance. It protruded like an elongated, 
 but seemingly imponderable, hood of bark, or huge 
 fibrous pod. ^Nothing but Indian experience and 
 patience could have worked it a way through such 
 woods. High went afoot with it and the natives. 
 It was to be portaged to a point above Twin Falls. 
 On the trail were two small lakes. Bissell, Pratt 
 and myself went with the wagon. 
 
 The route, or landway, from Dickey's to Badwater 
 was ten miles. It was not really a road, in the 
 sense of that leveling, grubbing, filling and cut- 
 ting, which are supposed to be implied in thp legal 
 conception of a road where there are supervisors 
 of highways about. The ground was of varying 
 grades and forms of curve; declivities and acclivities, 
 on spurs of little hills, seemingly too abrupt for 
 safe teaming, and menacing constant npsettings. 
 The branches of trees had often to be pushed aside;
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 21 
 
 they scratched into the driver's eyes, and if our 
 JSTorwegian Jehu liad been long-haired, like his 
 remote barbarous ISTorse progenitors, there were 
 many obtrusive limbs which might have swung 
 him, like Absalom, by the locks. The trail was 
 sometimes blocked with fallen trees, and the barri- 
 cade yielded only to the axe, or it might be, trees 
 had to be felled to open a detour. 
 
 One of us went afoot, in advance, to explore the 
 way. Another followed behind to see that nothing 
 slipped or jarred out of the wagon. AVe skirted one 
 of the lakelets which the Indians had crossed with 
 the canoe, and S(jon after, coming to another sheet, a 
 perilous looking bog or slough extended across the 
 wa}^, and there was nothing for us. but to risk the 
 treacherous passage. The horses plunged in the 
 slough, and at once sank to their bellies, and pitched 
 forward and fell, one nearly on top of the other. 
 They floundered and struggled a moment. The 
 teamster waded in, and rapidly unharnessing the 
 animals, they recovered their legs, and being hitched 
 to the tongue and put to their mettle, after sundry 
 hard pulls, they jerked the vehicle from the mire, 
 out on solid ground. We were in not a little sus- 
 pense as to the j^robability of extricating the wagon, 
 in its integrity, from the awkward fix. 
 
 When the route touched the river above Twin 
 Falls, Pratt left tlie team and navigated with High 
 the canoe there launched and awaitino- him. There
 
 22 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 were then five miles of roufjliiiio: before us. In 
 tliat distance, tliere were the same, or moi*e, obsta- 
 cles to impede our journeying. Fortunately, the 
 horses were of the sturdy and enduring kind. 
 Their day's work would have worn down common 
 scrubs. Evanson was an experienced teamster, and 
 knew his business well. So neither wagon nor 
 horses had any but trivial mishaps, though it Avas 
 ahnost a miracle that we had not been capsized a 
 dozen times. Towards the close of the day and the 
 end of the I'oute, difficulties provokingly multiplied. 
 The timber across the trail appeared to be larger and 
 plentier, and the chopping was more laborious. 
 
 The gloom of the twilight gathered in the trees 
 above us, and before we had made way to the end of 
 the trail, the night encoinpnssed us in darkness; the 
 twinkle of the stai*s through the overshadowing 
 foliage was too feeble a glimmer to guide us among 
 the mazes. We groped the way cautiously, and, 
 spite of his skill in night-driving,' the teamster 
 drove much at liap-hazard, or trusted to his horses. 
 When within a few rods of the intended stopping 
 place, we were impeded in a fastness of fallen timber 
 from which there was no G-ettino- on or o^oiuir back. 
 We were unwittingly impounded for the night. 
 We were actually nearer the river than we sup- 
 posed, as in a moment or so, we heard the halloo 
 signal of the water-wayfarers, who had themselves 
 but just barely escaped tlie fate of being helplessly
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKIXG. 23 
 
 Ijeniglited down the river. Oiir responding sliouts 
 brought them quickly to us. 
 
 As we had to make the best of the imbroijlio in 
 which we had in snared ourselv^es, an available spot 
 for camping was found by candle light. It was 
 sliort work to heap and fire a log pile into flames. 
 With the increasing irradiation of the blazes, the 
 dark shadows of the woods lighted up, and the foli- 
 age changed into weird shapes as the glare of the 
 firelight illumined and wavered. They lent us, too, 
 a glow of good cheer. We could well have resigned 
 ourselves to the situation, were it not that the same 
 camp-fire which brightened us was the signal for the 
 mosquitoes to swarm upon us for an eager recep- 
 tion. 
 
 So too, those winged motes, with most annoy- 
 ing perforating effects, the midgets, unmerci- 
 fully pricked us at every exposure of cuticle. Even 
 the oil and tar with which we smeared our faces, 
 necks and hands, gave little protection against the 
 stinging pests. But neither they nor the abundant 
 viands of Dickey's dinner, abated our eagerness for 
 another meal. Thebault's first exploit with kettle 
 and pan, though rather hurried, so as sooner to meet 
 the yehemency of our demands, was impatiently 
 awaited. We came up smiling to our first table, 
 the provision box, with blanket bundles for seats, 
 and we unanimously pronounced the supper a happy 
 success.
 
 24 TROTITING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 We too readily yielded to sleep to be long or 
 mucli worried by mosquitoes and midgets. In the 
 tent, though, the notes of their morning reveille 
 were early and vigorously struck, and there was 
 but sliffht yearning: for a little more slumber and 
 folding of the hands in the blanket couch. The 
 surroundings were not pleasant, and v/e were not 
 loth to be off on the way. The matinal repast 
 was speeded and despatched with, at least, the re- 
 puted American devouring haste. We set our 
 shoulders to the wheel (figuratively) and helped 
 the wagon out of its nocturnal dead-lock. In day- 
 light, it could scarcely have been driven purposely 
 into such an environment of timber. Evanson left 
 us for his solitary return journey, with man}^ part- 
 ing ffood wishes. We then lost no time in moving 
 ourselves and the expeditionary paraphernalia to the 
 river bank. 
 
 Small meadows on either side, with five or six 
 rude Indian cabins scattered over them, all but one 
 on the Michigan shore, were the vista before us, 
 called Bad water. A squalid Chippewa, with a 
 few ragged redskin youngsters, were the populace 
 that silently and curiously hung around. Across 
 was Tom King's cabin home. This name was an 
 adopted alias. He was really, and of his race, 
 and of kith and kin, known as AVeawbiny-Ket. 
 He was the particular native American we wished 
 to hold present imparlance with. For further ad-
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKING. 25 
 
 vance, another canoe and another canoeist were 
 essential. Tom was a sine qua noii, therefore, and 
 so was one of the two canoes he had, 
 
 George bawled loudly at the cabin, and brought 
 out the whole domestic circle, including Tom him- 
 self, and hailed him to cross over. He launched a 
 birch bark, and paddled it and himself into our 
 presence. The interview was to the point, and the 
 negotiation brief. We could have a canoe and we 
 could have him. The legal tender required for the 
 first was fifteen dollars, and the ^><?r dleiii in cur- 
 I'enc}^ for the services was a dollar and a quarter. 
 This was not hard on the collective exchequer, and 
 we accepted the terras, the vessel and Tom. Find- 
 ing that this moderate item, in our general expense 
 account, left us a liberal margin within the estimate 
 for the trip, we thought it would not be unthrifty 
 to charter another Chippewa auxiliary. 
 
 The Badwater men of the tribe M'cre out fencino^ 
 deer for winter venison. The only one at hand 
 was the tawny vagrant we first saw. He, prob- 
 ably, was too lazy or worthless to go fencing with 
 his more enterprising fellows. Thebault inter- 
 preted our overtures to him. He, thinking he was 
 the monopolist of all the present available paddling 
 force of the hamlet, attempted to corner" the market 
 on us, and struck for three dollars a day. As in 
 fact the aboriginal triumvirate already engaged 
 would v/ell suflice, his exorbitant terms were de- 
 clined. When we pusheji off, he gazed wistfully
 
 2G TIIOUTING ON THE BEULE. 
 
 at the departing squadron, as if he felt ho had 
 badlj overdone the business, and had made himself 
 a too greedy instance of vaulting ambition over- 
 leaping itself. 
 
 Tom King navigated his late canoe, with High, 
 Bissell, and part of the luggage embarked in it. 
 Pratt, m3-selfand the bulk of the outfit, with George 
 and Thebault for polers, were in the larger canoe, 
 which we named the Dickey. We set forth in high 
 feather. This was my own first experience of birch 
 bark navigation. The shapely and fragile coracle 
 sat on the water gracefully and in feather-like light- 
 ness. Its treacherous unsteadiness and vagaries of 
 equilibrium were speedily learned, and demanded 
 a critical and ticklish nicety of poise or equilibra- 
 tion quite new to me. We had to bestow ourselves 
 most cautiously, squatted on our blanket bundles, 
 with our legs awkwardly twisted, and cramping 
 and bending ourselves low, making it an efibrt and 
 a study to maintain the trim. The facility of 
 careening, the peril of a heedless movement turning 
 the balance, or of tipping her over, made our 
 probational experiences and trials in attitudes and 
 positions, for a time, anything but assuring. 
 
 It was curious how fidgety we became and how 
 often we wanted to shift positions, and had iri-epres- 
 sibie tendency to motions we ought not to and dare 
 not make. Of course, my immediate notion was, 
 that the vaunted perfection of the canoe, as a pleas-
 
 SUMMER WAYFAEING. 27 
 
 ure boat, and the reputed charms of canoeing, were 
 mythical and a tale to be told to the marines. To 
 me, the disaster of a ducking seemed too imminent 
 to admit of any foolishness or indiscretion. Still, 
 High, who knew the eccentricities of the birches, 
 had told us we would get used to all that sort of 
 thing. 
 
 Our Menominees knew their business. . One fore 
 and one aft, they poled the canoe along shore, with 
 tireless steadiness, and made it speed, mile after 
 mile, with an ease and uniformity quite admirable 
 and surprising to us. The Tom King — as we chris- 
 tened our purchase from liim — followed closely in 
 our wake. High and Bissell puthingly devoted 
 their Chicago muscle to occasional short paddling, 
 adding their by-play of momentum to Tom's push- 
 ing. Tom surprised a wild duck napping among 
 the grasses fringing the shore, and dispatched him 
 with a stroke of his pole. This took the job oif 
 Pratt's hands of firing into the unwary water- fowl. 
 By noon we had reached the mouth of the Michi- 
 gami river, a few yards up which are the falls, a cas- 
 cade of about thirty feet in higlit, over which the 
 whole stream rushes in one volume — but without 
 any picturesque accessories. We ran in for lunch 
 and to prepare for a portage. 
 
 By overland, the distance is three miles to Brule 
 Falls, while by river it is seven miles. We pur- 
 posed sending all the load by the Dickey, and to
 
 28 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 trail to the Paint, and as that river conies in near the 
 falls, and would have to he crossed, to portage the 
 smaller canoe for ferriao-e there. We were eao-er to 
 reach the river of trout sooner than we could by the 
 water ascent, and besides, we wanted to relieve our- 
 selves from the weariness of our compressed, and in- 
 the-stocks-like, sitting in the canoe. The boys — for 
 that was the term of designation of the guides among 
 ourselves — having engaged in culinary procedure. 
 High and I mounted our rods to employ the vacant 
 interim in prospecting the waters for possible trout. 
 Pratt and Bissell lazily reclined in the shade, sniff- 
 ing the savoriness of the coming dinner. 
 
 We brought up close under the falls, in the moist- 
 ure of the spray, for the piscatory trial. I had the 
 mishap of slipping a foothold from a wet boulder and 
 pitched half over and in among sharp rocks, with 
 the slight damage of peeling a shin. High posted 
 himself on a projecting rock and patiently whipped 
 the foaming element with his fly for a conjectural 
 trout, but it was love's labor lost, and when his as- 
 siduity was at length rewarded with the capture of 
 a worthless chub, he retired with intense disgust 
 from his coigne of rock and from the experimental 
 sport. 
 
 But the ignominious chub proved a prelude 
 of good luck to me. I impaled it on my hook, and- 
 threw in a shalliow pool, which was foamy and froth- 
 bubbled and an eddy below the cascade. Some un-
 
 SUM]SIER WAYFARING. 29 
 
 known straggler of tlie fins pounced on tlie bait, 
 and dashed off with a few vards of line, but flopped 
 off without making way with the chub. It was cast 
 again, and had barely sunk under the foam, when 
 quick, like an electrical effect, I felt the jerk and 
 heavy pull of some fish that would put an angler's 
 skill to the test. It nearly pulled me off my feet. 
 The tip of the rod snapped, and tlie line went buzz- 
 ing down stream. The broken tip prevented play- 
 ing, but I perceived tlie fish was struck, and began 
 reeling up, and then found I was dragging the cap- 
 tive on the bottom. He made a jump which 
 foamed the water and revealed his size, but he was 
 fast on the hook. I slowly worked him in. When 
 it was apparent what a monster he was, High 
 snatched up a slab and volunteered to brain him 
 with the timber. I declined the barbarous sugges- 
 tion, and brought him ashore legitimately. 
 
 " Cast on the bank, he dies with gasping pains, 
 And trickUng blood his silver mail distains." 
 
 It proved to be a ten pound pickerel. That catcli, 
 when taken in, made a sensation in the camp. 
 "When I mentioned High's generous offer of smash- 
 ing the fish, it was noted as one of the wonders of 
 the country to kill ducks with a pole and catch fish 
 with a club. 
 
 . Thebault and George loaded all the outfit in the 
 larger canoe and started it up the river. Tom 
 shouldered the smaller one and balanced it on his
 
 30 TROUTING ON THE BEULE. 
 
 head for the carry, and with it, trndi^ed through the 
 woods on a crooked path, as easily overcoming the 
 obstacles of the \vay as any of ns who only carried 
 rods and baskets, and keej)ing equal pace with the 
 party. This facility of portage, as, also, another 
 nse to which it was pnt, when Tom slanted it, in- 
 verted, against a tree, to shelter us all from a sud- 
 den drenching shower, went far to dispel my skep- 
 ticism as to the many boasted merits of the birch 
 bark canoe. Bissell was ambitious to catch the 
 first glimpse of the stream which was the longed- 
 for scene of our sport, and with this aspiration as 
 an accelerating impulse, kept the extreme front of 
 the line of march. When, at length, he vocifer- 
 ously shouted "Brule! Brnle!" we huzzaed him 
 back an uj)roarious answer, "the Brule! the Brule!" 
 The Paint coming in there was frothy and foam- 
 ing with rapids. We had to run the apj^arently 
 portentous ordeal to reach the further shore of the 
 Brule. It would be my first personal experience 
 of the kind, and when I saw the water bursting 
 madly over the rocks, and knew that the slightest 
 miscalculation, or swerve, or accident, might cap- 
 size the birch or dash it in pieces on a boulder, I 
 was, at least, a trifle anxious. But I also knew 
 that Tom King would hold it firmly and well in 
 hand. We were scarcely seated, when almost before 
 one could realize it, we were swept safely through 
 and over, and touched our feet on the bank of the 
 Brule.
 
 SUMMER WAYFAEING. 31 
 
 The fishermen were ready for a trial of the rod 
 at the very first. Eagerness became enthnsiasm, 
 and the party, excepting myself, at once sought 
 places in which to throw their flies. I was not 
 myself, just then, so piscatorially frantic as that 
 "with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts 
 of love," I should sweep to my trouting. I pre- 
 ferred a leisurely stroll, to take in the situation. 
 Straying onlj^ a few paces among the trees, I came 
 upon a full-i=pread tent in which, through clouds of 
 tobacco smoke, I discerned a party in shirt-sleeves, 
 vigorously fli])ping cards in a game of old sledge. 
 The gentleman, who said he had played the deuce 
 for low, was first to see me, and his and my surprise 
 were simultaneous and mutual. The surprise was 
 for a few instants only. There was a greeting all 
 around. I was invited to a camp-stool, and sat. 
 Who they were and from whence, who I was, my 
 wherefrom and whereto, were mysteries only of the 
 brief interval in which hasty self-introductions could 
 be exchanged. Enough of their story and of t'heir 
 recent travel and happenings were made known to me 
 to enable me soon afterwards, as mutual friend, to 
 introduce them and our party. 
 
 My comrades 1 ad straggledin, looking blank, as, 
 in all their switching, neither had had a rise. But 
 they forgot their chagrin in the pleasure of the 
 new acquaintance, which was not long in being put 
 on most friendly footing. Our tents were pitched
 
 32 TKOUTIXG OX THE 'bRULE. 
 
 near theirs. We .were neighbors at once. But 
 the new friends did not divert Bissell from his rest- 
 less and hopeful ambition to swoop out a mess, 
 and with his rod he started out in quest of amuse- 
 ment. When he rejoined us, he cackled rather 
 triumphantly over a single puny trout he had cap- 
 ured, because it was the first trophy of the campaign. 
 Our neighbors had a portable oven, and prepared 
 us a pan of biscuit wliich were as light as the 
 bulbs of foam on the water, and with them and 
 the spread from our own supplies, we thought the 
 refection was elegant. Had Dickey been there to 
 observe the gusto of enjoyment by us, he would 
 have seen that appetite had lost nothing of its 
 healthiness by our further travel in pursuit of one. 
 The evening and night wore delightfully away, 
 in a circle of both parties around the camp-fire, 
 in gossip of sport, travel and experience by field 
 and flood. Our neighbors had been encamped 
 here for a week. They had trouted no further than 
 six or seven miles up the Brule. Their success 
 had not been brilliant, and was not encouraging 
 to us. But then the stream was lower than now, 
 when it was swollen from the rains They had 
 but just touched the region of prosperous fishing. 
 But they soothed and consoled themselves in the 
 confidence of making up for lost time and dearth 
 of trout, by reprisals and compensation on the 
 deer down on the Menominee. They were excel-
 
 SUMilEE WATFAEIXG. 33 
 
 lentlj equipped for tliat sport as well as for com- 
 fortable sojourn iu the woods. These gentlemen 
 were G. D. Hayden and G. Barry of Alton, and W. 
 W. Brown of Jacksonville. Our sociabilities with 
 them were prolonged till late. When we retired to 
 the blankets we were lulled into deepest sleep and 
 into dreams by the murmur of the waters that tum- 
 bled at our feet. 
 3
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 GOOD-BYE TO NEW-MADE FRIENDS — ADVANCE ON THE BRULE 
 — SKIRMISHING FOR TROUT — A FIRST TROUT AND WHOOP 
 la! — WADING FOR FISH — CAMP THEBAULT — TROUT SUPPER 
 . — METAPHYSICS — A LEAKY TENT — TABLEWARE — HIGH's 
 DIARIAL EFFORT — LITERARY RESOURCES — SUNDAY IN CAMP 
 AND ON RIVER — TROUT RODS — SUNSHINE — CAMP-FIRE. 
 
 While woodsmen, the weather prospects were 
 our first concern. Beyond the range of Old Proba- 
 bilities and his reports, we could only forecast the 
 changes from the air and skies. To be drenched in 
 the rain, or to shiver in a raw atmosphere, was not 
 favorable to enterprises of pith and moment. The 
 early morning signs, when we looked out and read 
 the heavens, were portentous of showers, and boded 
 no pleasant starting of our Alton friends downward, 
 or of our own starting upward. The tokens, how- 
 ever, somewhat later, were more hopeful. The cloud- 
 iness while we were breakfasting and then smoking, 
 partially dispersed, and fitful glimpses of sun came 
 (34)
 
 SUMMER WAYi^ARING. dO 
 
 tlirongh, and niuch enlivened the prospects of the 
 day and ourselves. The Alton party, when it was 
 seen that no more than showers, and not torrents 
 of rain were probable, struck its tent and shipped 
 its impedimenta into the battean; and after an 
 exchange of warm parting civilities, embarked 
 and rapidly dropped down out of view. 
 
 Our care was, then, to pack up and pack oiF. Our 
 mission of sport would be not really begun until 
 we were on the bosom of the Brule. We thous^ht 
 ourselves weather-wise enough to predict a dry, if 
 not clear day, so we set out hopefully. There 
 were rapids at the mouth of the river. The Indians 
 forced the canoes up the foaming torrent. "We 
 passed them by a flank movement on foot. High 
 and Bissell sometimes tarried at points, and risked 
 a footing on unsteady logs on the shore to throw a 
 fly. The only success they had for their pains, was 
 to permanently hang some of their tackle on ob- 
 Ftructive limbs. 
 
 When re-embarked, Pratt and myself, with Ka- 
 quotash and Thebault, manned the large birch, and 
 as the armament was borne by it, it was the gun- 
 boat of the flotilla. As we were now making head- 
 way into the supposed domain of deer, bear, wolf, 
 fox, mink, muskrat and duck, it was tit that our 
 craft should lead the advance. It was Pratt's mission 
 to deal with any hapless creature of the Brule ani- 
 mal kingdom that might appear.
 
 36 TROUTING OX THE BRULE. 
 
 Up to noon not a trontwas taken. This did not 
 dislieurten ns, for we liad not jet touclied the 
 verge of the trout fishing j»roper. But, after lunch, 
 and an hour furtlier on, the luring fly began to 
 strike the responsive tish. The canoes were held 
 at a stand, by the setting poles, at intervals, and 
 the water was vigorously w hijiped with casts. As a 
 troutsman, I was the decided novice of the party. 
 My throwing was rather wild, and Pratt was more 
 particular about it than I was, watching it more 
 than he did his own, and, though I did not cause him 
 an optical catastrophe by whirling the hook in his 
 eyes, he feared I would. As to twisting my line 
 with his, or wrapping it round his rod, he didn't 
 mind that much. It was merely our good luck 
 that the canoe did not capsize, when he ducked his 
 head down, on one side, to give my line clear swing, 
 and threw her out of trim. His patience was above 
 all praise. "Look out, King!" was the sharpest 
 of his cautionary expostulations. I tried to look 
 out, and I know he did himself, vigilantly look 
 out. Nor had I the trained cunning of hand to 
 securely fasten a fish. My jerking was too soon or 
 too tardy. Pratt, however, was good enough to 
 encourage me by telling me I would soon get my 
 hand in. 
 
 George ran the canoe to a large boulder which 
 parted the river into swirls below it. I preferred 
 it for a base to cast from, rather than from the
 
 SUMMER WATFAEIXG. 37 
 
 canoe, in which I did not yet dare perj^endicular- 
 itj. I stepped out on the rock, and cast a fresli fly. 
 In a twinkling it was snatched at, and to ray sur- 
 prise, I had really struck a trout of dimensions, as 
 was plain from the lively struggle it made. But I 
 brought him in. It was about a fourteen-ouncer. 
 It was the first trout I ever caught. The achieve- 
 ment brought down the house, and the whole party 
 huzzaed with a will. I was once told that the sensa- 
 tion of catching one's first trout was akin to a 
 father's elation over his first baby. That was a 
 criterion of the ecstatic of wliich I had had only hear- 
 say experience, but, though in the taking of the trout 
 there was a bit of satisfaction, it did not electrify 
 me into thrills of delight, even though my victim, 
 by its size, dwarfed the pettier catches of the day. 
 The clouds began ominous lowering, and provi- 
 dent forethought moved us on to the intended camp- 
 ing place. George and Thebault knew the river 
 and the eligibilities of shores, ground, situation, 
 distance, etc., for encampment, and had an afore- 
 thought spot selected. In the previous summer 
 Thebault had camped and cooked there in the serv- 
 ice of our bar brethren, George C. Campbell and 
 Burton C. Cook, of Chicago. We pushed on stead- 
 ily, so as to forerun the rain. Bissell's taste of the 
 sport was not satisfied with random casts from the 
 canoe. He turned up his breeches and stepped out 
 to wade the riffles and currents at will, in quest of
 
 38 TKODTISG ON THE BELLE. 
 
 more trout. He was left groping and stumbling all 
 about in tlie water, to be returned for with a canoe 
 to carry him to camp. 
 
 The camping ground WdS a high, steep grassy 
 bank, at a bend, and with a space, under immense 
 trees, already cleared for prior camps. "We had 
 come to it in complacent mood. We had made a 
 fair start in trouting. The record of the day, not 
 so much for its count — fiftj'-five — but as a promise 
 of better yet to come, a catching that was but a 
 cheering prologue to the more lavish perform anc3 
 that was to follow, was eminently satisfactory. We 
 were just enough fagged to make rest enjoyable, 
 and hungry enough to make the evening culinary 
 process most appetizing. Of course our board- 
 literally so, a box cover — was luxuriously spr.ad 
 with a fry of trout, the first banquet of the fins to 
 which we sat, and that, too, with stomach enough, 
 Indian appetites included, to clear the platters. 
 
 While Georo^e was uoins' down to Ijrino^ Bissell in 
 from his angling waddle in the stream, he started a 
 deer. When he afterwards told us this, Pratt 
 pricked up his ears, taking it for granted that the 
 buck was a straggler or forerunner of a herd not far 
 olf in the woods, and his eyes glistened at the thought 
 that if there was such game afoot, there must be 
 sport ahead. The mosquitoes burdened the air with 
 their songs, but the oil and tar with v.liich we copi- 
 ously anointed ourselves served to repel them to
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 39 
 
 respectful distance, until, at least, the malodorous 
 unguent lost its effect, and then the slicking was 
 repeated. On the whole, in that, our first camping 
 on the Brule, an eminent sense of satisfaction as to 
 the daj itself, and as to the prospects ahead, per- 
 vaded the wliole party. 
 
 I turned in early, with a slight headache. My 
 comrades had no idea of prematurely retiring with 
 too much trout to liealthily go to bed with; and 
 while the camp-fire was wasting to embers and 
 ashes, they reclined in the tent, in the fading re- 
 flection of the dying light. They were not, then, 
 the contemplative men anglers are said to be. Be- 
 tween the snatches of sleep, I heard high discourse 
 among them about Darwin, evolution, Swedenbor- 
 gianism, and also other rambling profundities of 
 theory and speculation. When their jaws wearied at 
 last of their verbosity and of what, in my somnolence, 
 appeared incoherent and wind}^ twaddle, another per- 
 turbing element to prevent an " exposition of sleep " 
 coming upon me, was a rain which set in. This 
 of itself should have proved only a gentle lullaby 
 to slumber, but, to tlie common dismay, it was 
 found tliat the tent was leaky, and the shower was 
 dripping through it. 
 
 Our concern was more for the provisions than 
 for ourselves, and though the ponchos at hand had 
 not been a success on the wagon route, in the way 
 of shedding continuous torrents, they were imper-
 
 40 TKOUTING ON THE BEULE. 
 
 vious to the drip of the leaks, and the stores already 
 in the tent were covered with rubber coats. These 
 protected the commissariat well enongti, but left us 
 exposed to the drizzle. However, the general hu- 
 midity and discomfort of tlie situation, and the 
 dampness of "the drapery of the couch," did not 
 prevent the party from finally settling into stillness 
 again, and from slumbers that would have been re- 
 freshing if they had been more prolonged. But the 
 mosquitoes swarmed early to their morning onset, 
 and brought us to the scratch and fretted us merci- 
 lessly. Even the customary dope lost some of its 
 repelling virtue. The consequence was, we were 
 irritated and unwilling early risers. 
 
 For the breakfast, Thebault eclipsed all his pre- 
 vious culinary successes, in the way of fried corn- 
 meal cakes, in Indian style. Probably a knack 
 for preparing the native maize, in its simple and 
 natural excellence, is an inherited or traditional 
 trick of the native race, but, in this instance, In- 
 dian instinct was blended with enlightened art in 
 forming a superb farinaceous product. Our salle a 
 manger was the ground under spreading foliage. 
 We squatted on blanket bundles, or on a log, for 
 sitting at the board. The crockery and china ser- 
 vice were platters, and cups of tin, span new. They 
 were better to us than pieces of Sevres or porcelain. 
 Though not decorated with any of the infinite 
 designs or tracings of the ceramic art, in their glis-
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 41 
 
 lening spotless lustre we could see our own broad- 
 ened and OT'innino; faces reflected. 
 
 High, thinking the shining morning calm was pro- 
 pitious for working up his diary, carefully fixed him- 
 self in the mossy root of a tree, opened his neat mo- 
 rocco-covered red-edged note book, began jotting 
 down, for the spouse at home, the events — a kind of 
 pilgrim's progress — of the trip. The arrearage of the 
 past days of our itineracy, the book so far being in- 
 nocent of a single diarial pencil trace, appeared too 
 much for any reasonable patience and diligence at 
 his command. Besides, to recall and set down the 
 wretchedness of our first daj-s on the road in the 
 rain and in the dumps, was, in a degree, to renew 
 and go through all those infelicities again. He pre- 
 ferred not to live them over, even by way of reminis- 
 cence. He said he was disgusted ; that a diary 
 was a plague anyhow ; that his promise to his wife 
 was neither willing nor considerate ; that to keep it 
 was not practicable ; that his cue, now, was the 
 rod and not the pencil. He was on the point 
 of declaring an absolute rescission of the contract 
 with his wife. I ventured to remonstrate with him, 
 and rallied him on the enormity of his threatened 
 recreancy to the obligations of loving and well regu- 
 lated husbandry. He said he would farther con- 
 sider, and at least would pledge to us all that he 
 would tabulate in his note-book the figures of our 
 fishiner.
 
 42 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 It was Sunday, and we liad the Sunday question 
 to deal witli. How to put in the day — read, sleep, 
 lisli? There was a limited suppl}^ of profane lit- 
 erature in camp, but not any sacred, suited to the 
 day. No Moses or Mattliew, bnt some Victor Hugo 
 and Willcie Collins. For short exercises in read- 
 ing that would not over-tax the mind, I had Timb's 
 "Century of Anecdote." All of it was pretty thin 
 nutriment and not at all sanctifying and but slightly 
 more entertaining. The fact was, we had an im- 
 pression that reading, even novel reading, was 
 rather out of order, or an incongruity, in a party 
 the first postulate of whose progamme was com- 
 plete mental rest. The trip was intended as a fur- 
 lough and off-duty to the collective and individual 
 brains of the Chicago galaxy. By no very subtle 
 casuistry we satisfied ourselves that literature was, 
 therefore, not just the recreation lor the day before us. 
 
 High, as the veteran, experienced in Sabbatizing 
 in the woods, after some yawning and wearisome 
 lounging, equipped himself for reverent diversion 
 with the fishes, and committed himself to Tom and. 
 the canoe for combined meditation and flj^-fishing, 
 up the silent river. The example contagiously in- 
 fected Pratt and myself, and, under the guidance 
 of Thebault, our canoe was sped on the waters in 
 similar quest of edification and trout. Bissell was 
 truer to the day, to the traditions of his Christian 
 ancestry, and to the teachings of the shorter cate-
 
 SUMMER WAYFARIIsG. 43 
 
 cliisin. lie laid liis rod on the slope of the tent for 
 unbroken Sunday rest. He remained in the camp, 
 and, on the plea of necessity, employed a consider- 
 able degree of his thoughtful reverence for the day 
 in patching his breeches and in overhauling his rig, 
 and then further satisfied his meditative disposition 
 in a solemn perusal of one of Victor Hugo's ro- 
 mances. His sartorial efforts would have done 
 credit to one of those nine wiseacre tailors of Tooley 
 street. 
 
 We stopped here and there at hap-hazard to cast 
 about us. We could get rises at nearly any point. 
 I was more than ever satisfied how little I knew, and 
 how much I had to learn, of trout fishing, and that 
 I was not particularly well fitted out to learn. My 
 earlier piscatorial experiences and ti'ophies of any 
 at all notable sort with game fishes were wholly 
 those of bass-fishing in Southern Indiana. I had, 
 without conferring with any one who could have 
 enlightened me as to the best or the proper outfit, 
 provided myself with only a bass rod, of perhaps 
 eighteen ounce weight. It is true, in choosing it, 
 1 had an eye to use in the lacustral bonanzas of bass 
 on and in reach of our route of which I had heard. 
 But even the taste, already, of trouting had almost 
 wholly disenamored me of bassing. The rod for 
 bass, I now saw was not the rod for trout. Mine 
 had too little of the whip, or of springiness, and 
 required a more muscular arm than mine to wield
 
 44 TKODTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 it slasliingly and wliizzino-ly. Just wliat it was not 
 I knew from Pratt's slender and elastic eight ounce 
 rod, which he handled lithely and lightly, almost as 
 freely as if it were a lady's riding whip. 
 
 We landed at the head of a small island and in 
 the shore chute, and Pratt happened to strike a lusty 
 trout, but in lifting it, got his rod demoralized 
 among the limbs, and lost the fish. The river was 
 running comparatively high, with the swell of the 
 late rains. Most of the riffles of the normal stage 
 were covered and swollen into smooth, swift cur- 
 rents. It was easily canoed with the pushing poles. 
 They would strike bottom anywhere except in rare 
 deep holes. The water was little roiled even with 
 the washes of the rain ; its bed was gravelly or rocky. 
 As a consequence of the tumid volume of the stream, 
 the trout seemed dispersed from ordinary pools, and 
 sea' tered broadcast through the whole river at large, 
 so that wherever we chose to hold up, and cast from 
 either side, we were almost sure of striking the 
 vagrant fish. 
 
 While out in the afternoon we were wetted with 
 the usual shower. We very little minded a sprinkle 
 or a moderate rain. After we returned from our 
 cruising, Pratt went gunning, a few paces in the 
 woods, and broke the solemn forest silence with a 
 shot which brought down a solitary pigeon that 
 was stupid enough to moan its loneliness in a j^ine- 
 tree top so near the camp. After the evening re-
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 45 
 
 past we loitered around the fire, some of us dili- 
 gently burning tobacco in the pipes and listening to 
 the Indians, who related to us their forest adven- 
 tures, and incidents of their trapping mink, otter, 
 martin and beaver, in these and other regions. If 
 we had needed more than the oppressive stillness, 
 the deep shadows and heavy foliage which over- 
 spread us, to remind us that we were in the wilds 
 of nature, the howl of a wolf which we heard in the 
 distance would have been assurance enough.
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 THE WINDFALL— EAIN AND TROUTTNG— BAIT-FISHING — AN 
 EXPOSTULATORY FLY-FISHER — UNDEK THE CEDARS — 
 A NIGHT SCENE OF THE PICTURESQUE — LORENZO PRATT'S 
 FRIVOLITY — ADIEU TO WINDFALL — THE FUTURE CAMP — A 
 LANTERN HUNT ORGANIZED — BISSELL AS A MEDICINE- MAN. 
 
 Though we bad slept coldly and brokenly, it was 
 joyous in the morning to greet, with opening eyes, 
 a full flush of sunshine and a cloudless sky, really 
 the first of the trip. These happy auspices were 
 enjoyed and hailed by us as signs of weather fair- 
 ness and bettering, and of splendor for the day, at 
 least, and we hoped for many days. Before leav- 
 ing, the camp was formally christened Camp The- 
 banlt, in honor of him whose masterly cunning in 
 the kitchen department had won the good opinion 
 of us all. 
 
 With exhilaration and bright as the glow of the 
 morning, we embarked for up-river, and for a time 
 on the wav, the beams of the sun touched the rip- 
 (46)
 
 SUMMER WAYTAEIjSTG. 47 
 
 pies, made by our cutting the water, into dazzling 
 sparkles. But after all and after a while, the cheer- 
 ing resplendence proved delusive and fleeting. The 
 day, ere long, turned out to be like one of April, 
 
 "Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, 
 And by and by a cloud takes all away." 
 
 As it were, a dim smoke, a shadow, crept up in the 
 w.est, and soon formed into a cloud which rapidly 
 advanced and spread. If not portending a storm, 
 it, at least, boded a shower. Tlie full capacity of 
 propelling power was apj^lied to hurry us to the 
 "Windfall. This is a point fifteen miles from the 
 mouth of the river, where a tornado had leveled 
 the forest at some not remote period. "We could, 
 at the same time, dine and shelter there. 
 
 To make for and reach the Windfall before the 
 rain was then all that our foresight and timely press- 
 ing speed barely enabled us to do. The Menomiuees 
 got the tent set almost in a jiffy, and we and the 
 cargo were no more than under cover, when a most 
 copious rain began. On the way up, we had not been 
 idle or indifferent as to trouting, but had vigorously 
 slashed the lines on the water, tarrying briefly by a 
 tree, a log, under riffles, or alongside of a boulder, or 
 in a smooth reach. The baskets were plentifully re- 
 plenished, and with choicer spoils, on the average, 
 than those of previous sport. There had been other 
 Brule voyagers here at some former season. "We 
 discovered, in the bushes, an abandoned birch-bark.
 
 •18 TKOUTIXa ox THE BRULE. 
 
 in a stage of decrej)itiicle whicli showed that its 
 career of floating was ended. A sorry looking 
 rusted camp kettle, also, hung on a brancli near by 
 it. Like ourselves, doubtless the navigators of the 
 craft had put in at so forbidding a point, under a 
 stress of necessity. There was not a single attract- 
 ive feature in the whole landscape. 
 
 We appeased the customary noon-day hunger on 
 a trout dinner. Tlie rain had abated sufficiently 
 to allow of frying by the camp lire. In a pause 
 of the elements, High sallied out with his rod, and, 
 from a neigliboring log, essayed the stream a short 
 while, and was successful in killing a numV^er of 
 handsome fish. He quoted an accepted piscatory 
 authority that trout will not rise after a rain, and now 
 claimed that his replete basket avouched a different 
 story as to the ready hungering propensity of Brule 
 trout, at least. Seeing the results of this breeze of 
 prosperity that set upon High even under the cloud, 
 all of us ventured on an afternoon trouting cruise. 
 High and I had our canoe guided up stream. I 
 brought to the boat one of the mammoths of the 
 water. George reached out to seize it, but it flojiped 
 off, and shot away like a lightning flash. 
 
 We had wandered some distance from camp, when 
 the remorseless clouds suddenly trooped up again, 
 from all quarters. The densest shower of the day 
 burst upon us. We as well as our comrades in the 
 other birch, made for a group of towering cedars over-
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 49 
 
 branching the water, and laid by underneath. 'SVq 
 harbored there an liour, patiently waiting the stop 
 or slackening of the down-ponr, all the while, too, 
 the percolating drops pelting us until we were 
 "demnitioB moist," There was no surcease, and 
 but little moderating of the rain, and after all our 
 pains to escape a shower-bath, v>-e were forced to 
 face the watery music and run the elFnsive gauntlet 
 down to camp. Spite of the day's adverse condi- 
 tions, though, we could compute sensations of 
 pleasure to an aggregate of one hundred and forty- 
 five, for the party, those being the figures of joint 
 capture. 
 
 While out with High, I tried a pink fragment of 
 Pratt's pigeon on my hook. It proved a taking 
 dainty for the trout, and with it, I snapped them up 
 vigorously, for me, at least. This sort of fishing 
 was an abomination, and utterly immitigable, to 
 High. It was bait-fishing, and baiting for trout, 
 whether the bait were worm, flesh, fowl, fish or 
 natural insect, or whatever else, was simply a gross 
 and vulgar folly. Fly-fishing is the only fishing 
 for him. He was our artistic and expert trout 
 angler. He had victoriously trouted in the Rocky 
 Mountain regions, and has proud memories of 
 Bear and Snake river salmon-trout. He is a learned 
 pundit and savan in the genesis and products of 
 artificial-fly entomology. His own fly-book is a 
 curiosity shop of the vagaries and inventions of 
 4
 
 50 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 insect manufacture, a petty museum of gim-cracks 
 made of wire, hair, floss, feathers and tinsel, called 
 flies, probably because they have so little resem- 
 blance to any known creatures of the natural fly 
 family. These are to him the only allowable trout 
 lures and deceits. 
 
 Bait, therefore, to High is a scarcely pardona- 
 ble imi^iety, and nothing less than piscatory bar- 
 barism. The fellow that trouts with fish, flesh or 
 fowl, he thinks, will never come to any good, 
 and justifies Doctor Johnson's crabbed fleer, that 
 angling is a stick and a string with a worm (or 
 bait) at one end, and a fool at the other. But for all 
 his reprobatory pantomime of features, I kept my- 
 self on the best of terms with the trout, and persisted 
 in enticing them with slices of pigeon. He, also, 
 practices constant casting, witli the rod-arm in per- 
 petual see-sawing, to barely tip the water with the 
 fly, and then give it a back over-shoulder throw for 
 a cast again from behind; or sometimes he tickles 
 the stream with his tackle, by skipping it along the 
 surface. In the floo-mna; mode of castins'. I could 
 not pretend to be his peer. A thought of rivaling 
 him in it would have been absurd, if only for the 
 reason that my flexors and extensors were consti- 
 tutionally unequal to such practice with eighteen 
 ounce tackle. 
 
 When the starless, beclouded night came on, our 
 group, the tents and canoes, presented a striking
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 51 
 
 scene of tlie picturesque. Our pyre of pine trunks 
 was blazing near our tent; the other, tlie cooking 
 fire, being furtlier in front. The canoes were on the 
 ground, turned up on edge and at right angles with 
 each other, forming a half square aflank the native's 
 burning log heap, to make a shelter for their sleep- 
 ing. The firelight flickering in their dusky visages 
 as they moved and stole about in luminous relief 
 against the night beyond, with their ceaseless chat- 
 ter of Menominee, seeming to alienize them still 
 more to our fancies, or to sound as mysterious 
 voices of the niglit, gave them a weird or phantom- 
 like aspect, or made them seem apparitions, like the 
 Macbetli witches — " on the earth but not of it." 
 
 We had hardly ceased musing on the scene of 
 the nocturnal picturesque, when Pratt surprised us 
 by an ill-timed pleasantry. The untoward news 
 had come to us from the chief of the scullery, that 
 the caddy of lard was nearly exhausted. This com- 
 modity was so important an element in the cookery 
 of the camp, that a total deficit thereof was regard- 
 ed as a dispensation too serious for serene contem- 
 plation. As a matter touching the food question, 
 it was a vital point, and we thought it was trifling 
 with the gravity of the prospect for Pratt to inflict 
 upon us a bit of heartless jocularity by telling us 
 that it had been a doubt with High and Bissell, 
 whether a caddy of lard should be added to our 
 stores, as a needful supply; but, for his ])art, he
 
 52 TEOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 tlionght it " safest to be on the larcVs side," and 
 had, therefore, brought the useful caddy along. 
 This gri m and irreverent facetiousness only provoked 
 from US the withei-ing rebnke of silence which 
 promptly subdued him. We hid ourselves in the 
 blankets to sleep. It may have been a deserved 
 retribution that Pratt's wicked joke, possibly, had 
 perturbed him in the night, like a horrid phantom 
 returning to plague the inventor, for, in the morn- 
 ing he complained of unwonted insomnia. 
 
 "We were prompt enough to make a start from 
 the "Windfall. We had only run in there for pro- 
 tection against the rain. It was a low, flat ground, 
 thickly luxuriant with bushes and alders. The few 
 trees left by the tornado stood out, apart, and skele- 
 ton-like, gaunt and branchless, the naked trunks 
 blasted and charred by fire, which, at some time, blew 
 in ffusts of flame over what the breath of the tern- 
 pest spared. K"one of us slept comfortably. The air 
 was damp, raw and chilly, and sleeping in couples, 
 the joint exertions of both the pairs were unequal 
 to the problem of warmth and comfort. Thus far, 
 this was the only occasion of coolness between any 
 of us. High was an ex2:)erienced Rocky Mountain 
 blanketeer, and knew more than any of us about 
 sleeping out of nights, and, also, from his army 
 teaching, had learned what manner of blanket would 
 be needed. His red and gray California blankets 
 were of a size and weight to make ours, in the com-
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 53 
 
 parison, seem mere airy, tliiii apparitions of blankets. 
 Bissell, as his bed-fellow, got their benefit. 
 
 These were not arctic latitudes bj any means, 
 but here, even in August, which down at Chicago 
 usually burns with something of tropical heat, thick 
 clothing, stuffs of wool, instead of flax or cotton, 
 are necessities of open-air life. The coat one wears 
 against the blast of a norther from Lake Michigan, 
 and the heavy undershirt one takes to his bosom, 
 when the Fahrenheit marks zero, and the cutting 
 January air whistles along the South Park boule- 
 vard, are the garments for all nights, and :or fre- 
 quent days, on a summer voyage on the Brule. 
 The hemlocks are always spoliated for boughs, for 
 a ground stratum on which to spread the blankets. 
 Their ela-ticity and balsamic breath seem to be a 
 happy contrivance of nature for the very purpose of 
 supplying such satisfying use. 
 
 The further limit of our bearings and depart- 
 ures was a point about fifteen or sixteen miles 
 up from the mouth. It was the intention to pitch 
 the tent there for the longest sojourn. From 
 that point, is a trail to a triplet of small lakes, 
 separated by short distances. The water-sheets 
 are called Boot Lakes. The first of them is noted 
 as fertile in bass and as a resort for deer. We 
 looked forward to the vicinage of the lakes of Boot 
 as our land of promise for venison. The Indians 
 spoke hojDc's flattering tale to us of the p'enty of
 
 54 TROUTING ON THE BRDLE. 
 
 deer that frequented the region. Our autochthones 
 hunt them at night, and in the canoe, with a dark 
 lantern. While the birch is creeping along shore, 
 they are concealed behind a bark shield, with the 
 light in front of it streaming out ahead. The ani- 
 mals in the bushes, or splashing in the water, when 
 cropping the grasses or watei'-lilies, on the brink or 
 in the sloughs, are dazed and bewildered by the 
 glare, and stand still as if spell-bound, while their 
 eyes glare luminously from the reflection, making 
 tliem a shining mark for the hunter, who is steal- 
 ing closely on them, so that the shooting is e isy 
 and the result nearly certain. 
 
 Boot lake trail was reached in the afternoon. 
 In the usual tarrying by the way, we had intervals 
 of sport in which the waters were flagellated so 
 prosperously that we punished more of the trout 
 than we could use, returning the useless ones to the 
 water. The appearance of the camping ground was 
 far from captivating. A little island fronted it 
 across a petty groove of stream. It was a flat sit- 
 uation, and adjacently it was marshy. A small 
 spring oozed out near at hand, and a tiny limpid 
 rill of coldness flowed — enough to supply our drink- 
 ing cups with pure draughts. There was just 
 enough dry, sandy surface for cam]) use. There 
 was only the shade of a ragged tree over the tent. 
 But as our business was fishing, we would be but 
 little at the camp, and when there, for the most part
 
 SUMMER WAYTABING. 55 
 
 the niglit would hide its uninviting aspects in the 
 common obscurity. 
 
 We began to sate, or rather the appetite 
 lost much of its keenness in the superfluity of 
 trout, and our desire was now for venison. We 
 were on the tip-toe of expectation for diet of 
 deer. Our iirst concern, wlien our house was set in 
 order, was to prepare for a hunt that very night. 
 Tom King and Thebault were to try their hands as 
 deer-slayers, and at six o'clock they filed out on tJie 
 path to Boot lake, with a shouldered canoe, which, 
 however the hunting might turn out, was to be left 
 at the lake for bassing next day, specially for my 
 benefit. Bissell had been seized by the preposter- 
 ous whim of taking a little exercise, and was not 
 to be laughed out of it, and went along merely to 
 ply his legs. On his return in a couple of hours, 
 he gave us to understand that he had had all the 
 gratuitous exercise he wanted — quite enough for all 
 the trip — and was a tired but a wiser man. 
 
 We were doubtful about the prospering of the deer 
 enterprise. As it cost us nothing, and the Indians 
 were to bear the burden of the work, while we only 
 bore the burden of suspense, we had encouraged them 
 to the attempt, in the face of unfavorable conditions. 
 One of these was the moon, which shone through 
 the clouds. The other was the windiness. These 
 turned the chances against success. The deer scent 
 keenly when a breeze is stirring. The illumination
 
 56 TKOTTTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 pales in the moonlight. Our men, for want of a 
 lantern, provided a screen of bark with a candle in 
 a split. It was liable to flare or blow out in the 
 wind. Though by no means sanguine, we hoped 
 for success. Our imaginations pictured deer, and 
 all the mouths in camp watered for venison. I had 
 a headache that throbbed and throbbed me. Bis- . 
 sell put his versatile wits at work to devise me 
 some relief, assuming to act as medicine-man and 
 therapeutist. I preferred the headache to his pre- 
 scribed remedies. Finally, he prescribed Doctor 
 Sangrado's invariable panacea — warm water,without 
 the blood-letting. I swallowed about a quart of the 
 Brule, tepid and salted. The pickle really helped 
 to relieve me in the manner predicted.
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 TOO MOONSHINY — MIXK MARAUDERS — GOING A-BASSING — 
 BOOT LAKE — ROUGH TRAIL — BROILED BASS FOOD FOR MINKS 
 — THE "WHOLE HOG GONE — LAST DAY AT UPPER CAMP — DOE 
 AND FAWNS — RED SQUIRRELS — LIVELY TROUTING — RETRO- 
 GRESSIVE AND DOWNWARD— CAMP OCCUPATION — MOSQUI- 
 TOES. 
 
 • The candle-bearers returned at midnight. They 
 brought in nothing but themselves, and were so 
 tired they could hardly do that, Tom King told 
 the whole story of failure sententioiisly when he 
 said, " It too much moonshine," at the same time 
 glancing spitefully at the moon. They had seen a 
 couple of deer, but in truth the deer had seen them, 
 too, and their velocity of departure was something 
 marvelous. But Tom said we would have enough 
 of deer in going down the Menominee, and on the 
 strength of that soothing prediction, we resumed 
 our slumbers. While we slept, the enemy came and 
 despoiled us of the breakfast mess. The pick of the 
 (57)
 
 58 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 day's trout had been dressed, and laid out over night 
 in beautiful array, on the provision box, right close 
 to the nostrils of George, where he must have been 
 frightfully snoring, as was his wont, under the 
 canoe. The minks stole a march on the sleeping 
 sentinel at liis post, and made a foray on the fish, 
 and portaged the entire lot to their holes. This 
 mishap was the occasion of various impromptu ex- 
 pressions of temper in emphatic vernacular phrases, 
 as well as in voluble Indian lingo. 
 
 As well in respect of other supplies, as in the case 
 of the lard, we had miscalculated the relations of 
 demand and supply. Our appetitive faculties in- 
 creased from the start, so much at odds or out of 
 tally with the appetitive supply, that we were fairly 
 running short of stores. To meet the contingency 
 we should have to moderate the consumption, reduce 
 the rations, or change our base, and that, too, speed- 
 ily. There was already a potato dearth in the camp, 
 and by some of the party the esculent tubers were 
 thought as much a staff of life as bread itself. In 
 this fact of scarcity alone, we foresaw an early 
 retrofirressive move. 
 
 The weather omens were, at first, unpropitious 
 for the intended bassing at Boot lake. The sky was 
 sullen with clouds that threateningly hovered, and 
 in the earlier hours we were dismal indeed, with a 
 prospect of a stupid, lagging day on the camp 
 ground ; but we knew the fickleness of the elements
 
 SUMMER TVATFAKTXG. 59 
 
 here; and, surely enough, just like themselves, ere 
 a great while the "base, contagious clouds" van- 
 ished, leaving^ not a rack behind. The Boot lake 
 business then came on the tapis. I was the only 
 volunteer ready to respond. Bissell had disen- 
 chanted himself of any more Boot lake, by his su- 
 pererogatory and romantic exercise over there the 
 last evening, and to go again was like the task of 
 Sisyphus. Pratt and High had no fancy for bass, 
 and still less for the miserable trail that led to them. 
 Still, they admitted it was reasonable that I should 
 have a fair field for bassing, and that the expedi- 
 tion should proceed. A canoe was already await- 
 ing it on that placid water. "Who was to be my 
 companion there was settled only by an impartial 
 conscription by lot. Bissell drew the short twig 
 from High's disinterested fingers, and was elected. 
 Pratt and High sh'ly tipped themselves the wink, 
 and happily twirled the longer twigs, the tokens of 
 their better luck, and quietly chuckled at their es- 
 cape from trials of the route and from the tamer 
 sporting for bass when so much superb trouting was 
 more handy. 
 
 The pathway to the lake was nearly a mile of all 
 the worst features of a forest trail. We had logs to 
 climb over or leap, bogs and swamps to flounder in, 
 hills to scuffle up, ravines to cross, briars to scratch 
 us, and bushes to switch in our foces. How a canoe 
 could be made to furrow its way through those
 
 60 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 woods was a mystery, but it had been done. We 
 struck the leg ])art of the boot-shai^ed lake at a 
 beaver dam, launching there, and had to paddle 
 through a little wilderness of reeds, water-lilies, 
 sunken branches and scattered logs, so intertangled 
 that passage was a matter of patience and trouble. 
 Both Thebault and Tom grunted with the task. 
 But once in full swing on the clear, deep water of 
 the foot-shape of the lake, we were ready for busi- 
 ness in the noted haunt of bass. It is according 
 to Gunter to bass with minnows for bait. But it 
 was impossible to capture a single one, and we were 
 compelled to fall back on pork. 
 
 It was short experience to find that the adipose 
 tissue of the unclean flesh was as killing a bait as the 
 minim of fins. My pinch of bacon fat had but just 
 left a greasy film and sunk under the surface, when 
 it was snapped up and run away with, several fathoms 
 length of line. I was equal to the occasion, and 
 hauled in a thumping gretn bass. Bissell's bait 
 of pork was appropriated with like prompt voracity, 
 and he hitched on his trout-rod a three-jDOunder of 
 shining viridescence, which sorely tested the elas- 
 ticity and strength of his wand. And so it went on. 
 The fish so eagerly took the hook, and the playing 
 in was such heavy, dull and simply muscular busi- 
 ness, that it was more work than play to catch them. 
 My line presently took a freak of twisting and foul- 
 ing, and so the reel clogged and worked badly, or
 
 SUMMER WATFAKING. 61 
 
 not at all; but, in truth, the fun was too tame and 
 unexciting to warrant the repeated requirement of 
 time and patience to set tlie tackle to rights, and I 
 early and willingly rested from ray labors. Bissell, 
 too, soon tired of a monotony that he fancied was 
 not much sport and was a good deal of toil. We had 
 parted eleven of the bass from their native element. 
 Besides, a breeze had sprung up and roughed the 
 waters into wavelets. "We were quite willing to 
 give it our adieus and leave Boot lake to its usual 
 solitude. The canoe, the bass and ourselves were 
 in camp again at noon. 
 
 The sky was now clear, and more of the infinite 
 azure was seen than on anj' of our daj's. We availed 
 ourselves of such an auspicious circumstance to 
 give apparel and blankets an airing. They were 
 hung around to take the genial sunshine and the 
 ventilating breeze, but scarcely added any pictur- 
 esqueness to the scene. "While Tom and Thebault 
 were clinking the kettle and pan, and preparing the 
 bass to be served for dinner, Bissell and I shaded 
 ourselves in the tent and scribbled; he was sketch- 
 ing our trip for the press, and read to me some of 
 his graphic touches. High and Pratt had been 
 doing a forenoon cruise, but as they never were 
 known to lag superfluous anywhere or far-off when 
 dinner smelt ready to their educated and hankering 
 nostrils, they were in on time. They brought a 
 fine mess of trout, which were speedily consigned
 
 62 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 to the frying pan, and then served on the board, 
 and our appetite being edged up to nicety and deli- 
 cacy on tliem, the grosser coarse — fry of bass — was 
 distastefnl, and after a few morsels eaten, was igno- 
 miniously dispensed with, and the whole lot of Boot 
 lake spoil was chucked into the bushes, as rubbish 
 for the minks. 
 
 Bissell and I started the canoe out in the after- 
 noon to skim some of the neighboring waters. 
 The angling was all well enough until my rod got 
 in the way of disjointing itself in the cast, the last 
 joint and the tip, with the line running from the 
 reel, and dropping in the water. Two or three in- 
 stances of this severance of the pieces were tolera- 
 ble, but when it became habitual, the mishap was 
 calculated to make one a trifle irritable. The means 
 were not at hand to remedy the mischief, and as this 
 was a nuisance to Bissell as well as vexation to me, 
 in a degree spoiling his sport and entirely ruinous 
 to mine, I had myself pushed back to camp. He, 
 with one of the boys, started out again in further 
 pursuit of his mission, and it proved to be a pros- 
 perous one. 
 
 High and Pratt had also enriched themselves with 
 much booty of the Brule. The day's total return 
 was one hundred and seventy-three. We learned at 
 the camp fire that the subsistence department was 
 almost depleted of pork and potatoes. They were 
 prime articles of consumption. As a staple in the
 
 SDMMEK WAYFAEING. 63 
 
 woods, no fish, other flesh, or fowl, can compare with 
 the products of the indispensable hog. A pound 
 of a porker up on the Brule is worth more, for steady 
 diet, than some scores of trout. We needing the 
 essential pig, the question of longer staying virtually 
 settled itself. To retrace our course was, therefore, 
 a necessity, but a much regretted one. Here our 
 sport had been, and would continue, best and most 
 generous. 
 
 The last night at this camp was peculiar for its 
 splendid moonlight and its sharp air. All the cov- 
 ering at command was j)wt to service for our 
 sleeping. The breakfast trout had been precau- 
 tionally placed in the tent under common guard, 
 to secure them from the furtive minks, and fur- 
 nished us a choice repast early, while yet the rose- 
 ate hues of morning tinged the east. We purposed 
 making a last full half day's ranging of the waters, 
 and so to make the most of the time. Hish and 
 myself, with Kaquotash as our canoeist, stemmed 
 the current upwardly. 
 
 While rounding a bend, an exciting view pre- 
 sented itself. On the point of an island, directly 
 facing us, and a fair mark, in gun range, stood a doe 
 and twin fawns. The sun on the water must have 
 dazzled them, for tliey were motionless, a couple of 
 minutes. This was my first sight of deer on the trip ; 
 in fact, it was the fii-st of my life, of wild deer in the 
 woods. I thought I now knew something of the
 
 64 TEOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 buck-fever I had heard of, and was realizing some of 
 those sui generis febrile symptoms in the excitement 
 and thrill of the scene. The sight was a kind of fas- 
 cination. We held ourselves motionless, too, from 
 fear of breaking the spell. We could only gaze, 
 wonder and admire. Pratt's gun and projectiles, 
 of course, were lying in their cover, in harmless 
 disservice in the away-off camp. We could only 
 enjoy the view as a matchless picture of grace and 
 beauty. AU at once the doe pricked u]) her ears, 
 seeino; or scentinor dans^er, and wliirled around her 
 white tail on us, the fawns doing the same, and all 
 stampeded into the bushes. The tableau vanished 
 like an instantly dissolving view. 
 
 We scared a saw-bill duck into fits, from a nook 
 of water, under a clump of bushes, wliere we sur- 
 prised it napping, and heard its obstreperous squawk 
 and flapping of the water far in the distance. We 
 frequently beard pigeons humming their wings. 
 At the camp, or near about, was a community of 
 small red squirrels. One of these ruddj^ free for- 
 esters seemed to haunt, or be partial to a particular 
 tree which he thought was a convenient observa- 
 tory of our camp. He liked to cock upon a limb, 
 wagging his brush, and keeping his quizzing eyes 
 in our direction. He and myself came to know 
 each other by sight, and allowed ourselves the priv- 
 ilege of mutual close approach and free parley. 
 Once, Avhen he presumed too much on his short
 
 SUMMER WAYFAEIXG. 65 
 
 acquaintance, and impudently chattered at me, I 
 flung a chunk at him just to teach liim manners. 
 The projectile was a lesson not exactly to his taste, 
 and he was not afterward so friendly, and quit 
 frisking among the branches of our trysting tree. 
 How much game there might be in the depths of 
 the woods, and what it is, were not known to us, 
 much less was it sought by us. Stalking the forest 
 to hunt would be a task of such difficulty in the 
 face of almost impassability, that, even with the 
 stoutest legs, the most dauntless spirit would re- 
 coil from it. 
 
 The trouting that morning was exceptionally su- 
 perb. Our Menominee appeared to have an instinct 
 when and where to halt. Generally the fish jumped 
 as fast as we could throw, and, like little meteors, they 
 shot and shot again. Sometimes, as if in a freak of 
 playfulness, the same fish dashed in and out in hop, 
 skip and jump style. In one cast made, the same 
 trout, by actual count, leaped a dozen times after 
 the fly, which was tweaked or skipped along the 
 surface without re-throwing. This one was a nim- 
 ble tumbler, and flirted pretty somersaults in chase 
 of the tantalizing fly in the neatest way. 
 
 To me, a novice, much of the charm of fly-fishing 
 was in the brilliant, sometimes comical, leaping 
 activities and topsy-turvy inversions of the trout. 
 They vaulted in all the forms of grace and beauty, 
 and looked like flashing jets or spurts of color from 
 5
 
 66 TROUTIXG ON THE BRULE. 
 
 tlie stream. They frisked as readily at the touch of 
 my fly to the water as they did at the knack with 
 which High aUnred them. But he had the cunning 
 of the experienced angler in his hand — that timely 
 skillful twitcliine: of the WTist Mdiich 2:ives the killins: 
 touch which marks much of the difference between 
 the angling verdant and the veteran. It was that 
 deft knack of wrist that made any trifling or non- 
 sense about his hook dangerous to the trout, and, in 
 the count, made him come out with great numbers 
 ahead of me. 
 
 On return to camp, the traps were found ready 
 and arranged for departure, and it was but brief 
 manipulation to prepare the trout and serve them 
 for the feast. It was a penury, not of trouting sport, 
 but of staple provisions that impelled us to a return- 
 ing movement. By a vigorous parsimony in pork, 
 and similar economy in potatoes, in pinching con- 
 trast to the careless profuseness of those substantial, 
 with which we had, all the way, inarched into the 
 bowels of the land, we had up to this very lunch, 
 eked out some of each to serve our needs. But now, 
 the tale was to\di,fuitporcus, solanum tuberosum 
 noil est, the whole hog w^as gone and the wholesome 
 tuber is not! 
 
 After carving on a memorial tree the names of 
 the party, and the oflicial returns of our trouting ex- 
 ploits, we embarked with something of sorrow, but 
 with naught in anger, from the cheerless locality.
 
 SUMMEK WAYFARING. 67 
 
 The forenoon vagrancy had been so fertile of sport, 
 and so rich in the rarest loot of the stream, in fact, 
 we were so satisfied with trouting, that it-was only a 
 very promising or exceptionally tempting pool or 
 place, that could prick the sides of our intent to any 
 further piscatory trials. As many as we needed, of 
 the trout captured on the way we stored in the 
 baskets, and the surplus was returned to the stream 
 for piscicultural purposes at any rate. We passed 
 the Windfall with much felicitation, that there was 
 no stress or predicament forcing us to harbor there 
 again. We had the calm and glory of a golden 
 sunset attending us when we rounded in, and struck 
 the brink at Camp Thebault again. 
 
 As soon as we touched the sliore, with ready com- 
 motion of wings, the mosquitoes swarmed to greet 
 us with a gory and raj^acious welcome. There ap- 
 peared an eager rivalry in each particular sucker of 
 our veins to be first of the swarm to imprint on our 
 faces a bloody and pitiless salute. The benign 
 extract of olive and pine was liberally spread over 
 us, until like an oil of joy, it made the counte- 
 nance to shine. The process was repeated. 
 
 While Thebault was exercising his official func- 
 tions, of the kitchen, Bissell and Pratt had a mild 
 attack of polite literature. The first gentleman was 
 giving himself an insight into the high life of the last 
 century through Timb's anecdotes. It was an open 
 question as to Pratt, who was worrying himself
 
 68 TEOUTING ON THE BErLE. 
 
 over a Wilkie Collins' novel, and witli a host of 
 mosquitoes, at the same time, which excited his 
 most lively interest and attention — the plot and 
 personages of the book, or the bloody, biting fiends 
 whirling and buzzing on the wing. High propped 
 himself on a huge pine root, and in an exemplary 
 mood of dutiful regard for his promise and his wife, 
 penciled in his diary. Of the firkin that contained 
 our butter, possibly oleomargerine, I improvised 
 an easy chair and made notes of the excursional 
 history. The reading and the writing though were 
 not satisfactory. The entire party, with prompt 
 unanimity, was then, and at all times, most happy 
 to swap a feast of reason for a feast of victuals. A 
 diet of fish was the brain nutrition for which we 
 waited.
 
 CHAPTEK YI. 
 
 BOILED TROUT — ADIEU TO THE BliULE — THE MICHIGAMI 
 AGAIN — SHOWER AND TORRENTS — BADWATER HAMLET 
 AND king's cabin — DEER-FENCING — OJIBBWA LITERA- 
 TURE — A TROUT STREAM AND A TROUT's IGNOBLE FATE 
 — BADWATER LAKES — A DISTANT DEER. 
 
 Without pork or lard the fry was done for. The 
 next best thing, as a culinary expedient for serving 
 trout, was broiling. We were now reduced to this. 
 We had a patent broiler, heretofore unused. That 
 utensil was now in demand. But wlien intended to 
 be utilized it was found ridiculously unequal to the 
 needs of the occasion. Broiling on an extended 
 scale had not been contemplated, and only for a bit 
 of occasional roasting to suit a momentary whim of 
 taste, the device had been provided. But it had only 
 a capacity of three trout at one toasting. Our 
 forest-sharpened hunger was usually too keen and 
 devouring to wait on courses of three fish for four 
 men of robust and full-grown appetite. But 
 (69)
 
 70 TROUTING ON THE BEULE. 
 
 Kaquotasli luckily knew a thing or two about 
 broiling a collective mess. He extemporized a 
 broiler from a slender alder branch, and splitting it 
 and placing eight or ten of the fish between the 
 splits, bound together with tliongs of bark, he 
 thrust the branch in the ground slanting over the 
 coals. Thus a whole batch of trout was grilled at 
 one and the same time, and broiled and crisped 
 to a charm. When we saw how much the contri- 
 vance of Indian wit eclipsed the Yankee patent 
 invention, we indiunantlj hoisted the wire fraud and 
 delusion into the middle of the Brule. 
 
 Bj some insidious and mysterious means High 
 had inveigled Thebault to boil a few trout and set 
 them before us. The discovery of the boiled trout 
 almost incited a riot in the camp. The folly of sub- 
 jecting a brook trout to the hot and geyser-like bub- 
 bling, 2120 Fahrenheit, to the utter washing out and 
 annihilation of the delicate and subtle flavor, and 
 reducing the fish to paste, and leaving it as insipid 
 and tasteless as a boiled rag, was a culinary blunder 
 and crime. It was an abomination that could only 
 find its match in some of the fish dishes of the din- 
 ner served up in the manner of the ancients in "Per- 
 egrine Pickle." The peace was preserved, liowever, 
 by pitching th'e sickish and viscous pulj) into the 
 river, though High himself was not heaved in 
 with it. 
 
 According to the custom of all trouters and
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 71 
 
 saunterers on tlieBrule, we left memorials of our 
 trouting and presence inscribed in names, words 
 and figures, on a barked pine tree, to tell to all to 
 whom sucli presents should come greeting, our storj 
 of piscatorial exploits. Here our angling prac- 
 tically ended. AVe had nothing to do but to commit 
 our barks to the downward way, and take it easy. 
 We landed for the portage around the falls, near 
 the mouth, and halted at the camping ground long 
 enough to add there, also, on a tree, the statistics of 
 our fishing, and to recall reminiscences of our Alton 
 friends. The rather formidable rapids just at the 
 camp, now that we were iamiliar with the canoe 
 and with Indian skill and mastery, we had no 
 hesitation in venturing to shoot, and enjoyed the 
 excitement of boundino^ down throuo^li the tossinii- 
 
 o O J? 
 
 waters. 
 
 When our fleet was embosomed on the broader 
 and calmer stream, the paddles sped it along smooth- 
 ly and rapidly ahead of the swift current, giving to 
 us all the luxury of delicious motion. We swept 
 into the mouth of the Michigami and rounded to, 
 at the point where the marvelous pickerel was 
 brought in. A meagre lunch, the remains of our 
 store of provisions, was served us on a bleached pine 
 log, stranded there by some Michigami freshet. 
 During the interval there I threw in a hook with a 
 scrap of trout, to try for another phenomenal fish. 
 But the call might as well have been for spirits 
 from the vasty deep, as for bass or pickerel.
 
 72 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 The Menominee river liei-e really begins, and the 
 scenery becomes striking and picturesque. The 
 shores are partly hills and swells crowned with mag- 
 nificence of foliage, in summer glory of luxuriance 
 and green. 
 
 The next objective point was Bad water and Tom 
 King's cabin. Before we were far afloat, our seem- 
 ingly inevitable and pitiless fate, dark clouds, gath- 
 ered behind and portentously loomed towards us. 
 The boys lustily swung the paddles, and the barks 
 sprang and leaped to the strokes, cleaving the water 
 like things of abounding life. But the clouds, like 
 a rushing, bannered host, massed and marched rap- 
 idly, gaining on us, and, at last, the lighter skirmish 
 van overtaking us, we were moderately showered, 
 and, in moistened plight, we hurried into the cover 
 of the sheltering hospice. We were fortunate in 
 making the refuge of Tom King's castle of pine just 
 in time. The showering was a petty overture only 
 to the rain-storm that followed it, and which, as if 
 all the windows of heaven had opened widest, poured 
 in torrents. The clatter of the rain on the bark 
 roof was dinning, but it was not unpleasing music. 
 
 While the storm was wildly driving, two drenched 
 and be-draggled Chippewas, living across the river, 
 the most abject and forlorn looking of redskin 
 ragamuffins, returned from a deer-fencing enter- 
 prise, and, svith a vociferous hullabaloo signalled 
 for a canoe to cross them over. Fencing is an In-
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKING. 73 
 
 dian mode of deer hunting. A line of fallen trees 
 and branches, making a rude cheval de frise, is 
 laid and arranged from east to west, between two 
 points, sometimes several miles apart, at intervals 
 of which the hunters are stationed. At the season 
 when the deer travel south and come to the fence, 
 instead of leaping or forcing through it, they face 
 about and pace alongside, and passing the hidden 
 Indian on his watch, are easily shot from the 
 cover. This kind of ambuscading snjjplies most 
 of the winter venison. Such killing seems more 
 a massacre or bntchery than sport. 
 
 While we were drying our wet clothes, we took a 
 survey of the cabin. There was a good deal of the 
 white as well as of the red-man in the household. 
 Most of the furniture was of the usual plain sort. 
 In place of Axminster carpeting or drngget, there 
 was an Indian many-colored, woven grass matting, 
 laid on part of the floor, which was smooth, glist- 
 ening neat pine. The bed-covers were a patch-work 
 of the brightest and gaudiest colors. Parts of the 
 walls were profusely and jumblingly pasted with 
 Harper, Frank Leslie and other pictorial prints and 
 cartoons, a maze of wood-cuts, the only embellish- 
 ment or art pretension in the room. 
 
 Tom had a library of sacred literature — the New 
 Testament in English, which he could not read, and 
 the New Testament in Ojibbwa (Chippewa) which 
 he could read, but apparently did not. The aborig-
 
 74 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 inal evangel excited my curiosity. I took a sliy at 
 it, to see how the gospels ran in Cliippewa vernacu- 
 lar, and began the investigation in comparative 
 philology, witli the first verse, first chapter, of. 
 Matthew: '■'■ 3fesit oo otlan illeh-einatiziani-MtL- 
 zinaugun au Jesus Christ ifiic dahidum oouisum 
 gaio i7iu AbralianumP The twenty-four lettered 
 word, almost an alphabet, was too much for me as 
 a totality, 1 tried it in sections and by install- 
 ments, with no better result — it was a poser in 
 orthoepy, and beyond mj' power to vocalize. 
 Ojibbwa may be a pleasing dialect, but some of its 
 parts of speech are rather long-drawn-out, and the 
 syllables, in many words, run too far tandem to be 
 conveniently rolled as sweet morsels of speech under 
 the tongue. 
 
 Tom handsomely played host to us. He was 
 liberal of his plain civilities. He wanted us to feel 
 we had the freedom of the house. His tawny 
 spouse, in speech, was nothing, if not Chippewa, 
 and had nothing to say to us, but performed her 
 part in the etiquette of the occasion with a panto- 
 mime of features quite as meaning of cordiality 
 and welcome as if phrased in the formulas of 
 the best society. She certainlj'^ wort her way to our 
 hearts and stomachs by the excellent supper set 
 before us. The fried dried venison was a specially 
 native dish that seemed to have a flavor and gami- 
 ness and wildness racy of the wigwam and the for-
 
 SUMMER WAYFAEIlsrG. 75 
 
 est. Tlie sauce of raspberries, picked from near-by 
 buslie-, and the syrup from the tap of maples oh 
 the hill, were so choice that by a mistake of appro- 
 priation, or thonghtlessly, we quite overstepped the 
 etiquette which constrains guests from emptying a 
 host's dishes, and not enough of either was left to 
 serve as a bare hint of what it was. 
 
 As Tom King had not caught the parental usage 
 of many civilized good families, of turning the 
 children loose in the drawing-room to practice their 
 hilarious infantile diversions and general boister- 
 ousness for the entertainment and admiration of 
 guests, the juvenile fraction or fractions of the house- 
 hold were secluded, doubtless to temporary exile 
 and silence in the kitchen corner. Tom and his 
 helpmate, also, themselves occupied that small apart- 
 ment for the night. They assigned to us the two 
 beds, in what was chamber, dining and drawing- 
 room, with their gay butterfly -like overspreads. 
 These coverlets were light and as bright and gay as 
 the dream of a tropical flower-garden. 
 
 Early next morning, Tom saddled a horse, and set 
 out for a trip to Dickey's, to procure supplies for 
 our use — possibly, too, for his own. Our pine box 
 pantry told a beggarly tale of emptiness. He had 
 carte Blanche to bring us such commodities of sus- 
 tenance as that limited market would afford. The 
 whole day Avould be required for the accomplish- 
 ment of his mission of food, and was before us for 
 disposal.
 
 76 TROTJTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 Witli a trout stream onl}^ two miles distant, of 
 wbicli we had most favorable hearsay, High was 
 not the man to lazily dawdle away a good clear 
 angling day in an Indian cabin. The chance of 
 sport there was the more alluring from the fact that 
 a pale-face angler was said never to have cast a line 
 or his shadow in the petty stream. High thought, 
 doubtless, it would very notably feather his cap to 
 be, of all civilized fly-anglers, the pioneer to the 
 mysterious and occult water. In the glamour of 
 his vision of the venture, Pratt, also, discerned a 
 degree and eclat of novelty. Both, therefore, on 
 the directions given by Tom, took the trail and the 
 hazard of losing it, and themselves, too, in the 
 woods. 
 
 Bissell and myself rather preferred enjoying con- 
 venient scenery, and, with George and the canoe 
 set out on an excursion to a panorama of the scenery 
 of BadM'ater lakes. These sheets are a chain of 
 irregularly shaped lakelets opening one into an- 
 other — perhaps more than a half-dozen of them — 
 said to be called Badwater from the reputed dark 
 shade of the water. ^ The portage to them is a half- 
 mile, over a steep ridge, and starts from the river a 
 mile below Tom King's place. Of course the ca- 
 noe was indispensable, both to carry us on the river 
 and to cruise us on the lakes. Fishing for bass 
 and pickerel was to be merely an incident, not the 
 purpose, of the excursion, an exploration of the lakes
 
 SUMMER -WAYFARING. 77 
 
 and a view of the scenery being the mam intent. 
 
 As George told us there would be a chance to sight 
 a deer, Bissell took Pratt's artillery and munitions 
 of war for the benefit of the contingent deer. It is 
 questionable whether the gunner had a remote idea 
 of killing the hypothetical stag, should one be 
 obliging enough to appear, but the ambition to try 
 was laudable and natural. We skirted, when afloat, 
 round about, and crossed some of the lakes, when 
 finally George, with his telescopic eye, descried a 
 deer a half mile away, browsing the shore herbage. 
 After a series of observations, Bissell got his eye on 
 it, and was seized with the usual buck fever of the 
 novice. The deer was not disposed to await closer 
 familiarity, after its first windward sniff" of the 
 enemy, but forthwith took to its hoofs, leaving to 
 the excited man-at arms but the poor satisftiction 
 of no other than a very distant and perfectly harm- 
 less shot. 
 
 Our lunching place was a beautiful, smooth, high 
 and shaded knoll, from which there was a fine view 
 of curving shores and rich foliage in every direc- 
 tion. Though not grand, the scenery was charm- 
 ing and lovely — a picture for a landscape artist. The 
 fate of the daily shower followed us here, but the 
 sun appeared soon enough to dry us into comfort. 
 The lakes are supposed to abound in bass and pick- 
 erel. Bissell put out a trolling line, and I used the 
 rod. My pork bait was a failure. But Bissell's
 
 78 TEOUTING ON THE BEULE. 
 
 spoon was attractive enongli to allure three several 
 bass to a miserable fate. George, too, let ont 
 a tarnished spoon on a length of line, and alter- 
 nately paddled and fingered the trolling appliance, 
 and had the fortune of capturing a greenish four- 
 pound bass. 
 
 The fishing was not an excitino- amusement. The 
 perfect calm of the water, the stillness of the air, 
 and the repose of the whole scene were so eflfectivc 
 that we yielded to their drowse-like influence, and 
 only gently and languidly glided in the' canoe. A 
 pair of loons, mournfully crooning, a duck, the deej", 
 were the only living objects on or at these silent 
 waters. On the return way to the cabin, and at 
 some rapids near Tom's, we disembarked, left the 
 canoe, and started to walk thj-ough tlic woods. 
 Unexpectedly, a covey of partridges >tarted up from 
 •the ground, and Bissell fired a ]'andom charge at the 
 flock, but it was a wild shot. One of the birds 
 perched on a near limb, and quietly watched Bis- 
 sell re-loading, and apparently wai'ed for the shot. 
 George and I stood by in expectation of a partridge 
 for the pot. Bissell blazed away, and made the 
 feathers fly — away with the fowl to parts unknown. 
 
 Rounding over the hill at Tom's, we were greeted 
 with a roaring whoop-Ia from High and Pratt, who 
 had jnst returned from the trout stream. Their 
 vociferation was meant as u triumphal shout, as 
 we knew presently, when they told their story of
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 79 
 
 the day. Their exploits threw ours in the shade. 
 The four bass of our party, the deer not shot and 
 the partridge not bagged, were not to be glorified 
 in view of the fifty-one handsome trout in their 
 baskets, taken from the hidden nooks of the unfamed 
 stream. It was a b'-ooklet winding darkly under 
 the sliadows of tangled, interlacing forest growths, 
 and so obscurelj' creeping or wriggling its way 
 through the dense wood that it is not singular that 
 it was reported to have been ever untouched of a 
 white man's fly. 
 
 In this tiny water-run, so hard to be reached and 
 to be fislicd, and so unpromising of more than small 
 fiw, but in a segment of natural meadow, in and 
 out of Avliicii it \¥Ound, Pratt was fortuned with the 
 most hrilliant piscatorial coup of the trip; that is, a 
 prize trout, more than a full pounder, tinged and 
 s])eckled in the richest emblazonry of his species. 
 The peerless beauty was landed and unhooked, clean 
 out in the meadow grass, but, as gamey in onr ele- 
 ment as in its own, struggled desperately, and in its 
 expiring convulsion, ingloriously flopped plum]) 
 into a muskrat hole. 
 
 That a paragon trout should be converted to the 
 base uses of a musquash's meal was, indeed, a start- 
 ling contretemps^ and " if 'twere not to consider too 
 curiously to consider so," in its small way, an in- 
 stance of the cruel irony of late, of a kind with that 
 final ignominy of a liero dead and turned to clay
 
 80 TKOUTING ON THE BEULE. ' 
 
 stopping a hole to keej) the wind awaj. Indeed, 
 there was a mixture of the hidicrous and pathetic 
 in the ignoble fate of Pratt's splendid tront. But 
 over the grievous mischance to the fish and to him- 
 self, he kept a manful composure, and bore himself 
 as one that could smile at grief, and possess his soul 
 in patience against either the jests or the calamities 
 of outrageous fortune. It was noted by us all that, 
 at the evening repast, his emotional nature had not 
 so worked on liis appetite as to impair his healthy 
 capacity of getting away with his accustomed share 
 of trout and all wholesome viands.
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 FIRST FROST — ADIEU TO BADWATER — TWIN FALLS— RED-FLY 
 FISHINa— A BUCK AND THE FEVER — A PLUNGE BATH — 
 DEXTER's party— big QUINISECK palls— scenery— LIT- 
 TLE QUINISECK FALLS —KICKING A BUCKET— SAND RAPID 
 — A TRAIL — SHOOTING THE RAPIDS— STURGEON FARM AND 
 STURGEON FALLS— BOBBING FOR PIKE. 
 
 Tom Kjng had horticultural pretensions; and, 
 we had seen, in his carefully weeded garden, vines 
 of water-melons and cucumbers, and other garden 
 stuffs, in profusion of healthy flourishing. In the 
 night, a rare August frost, a most premature 
 spectral harbinger of winter, strayed from the far 
 north, and nipped and blighted by its touch the 
 whole abundant plant. In the morning, a dense 
 fog overhung the river and obscured the sun, but 
 ere long the warm radiance dispelled the cloud of 
 mist as if it were snow melted away magically. It 
 was then an unclouded heaven and a dazzling sunny 
 day, and these were hailed by us as signs of ended 
 6 (81)
 
 82 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 rains, lowering clouds and cliilling moisture, and as 
 propitious of tlie favoring skies and prospering 
 airs wliicli would make the Menominee voyage a 
 prolonged felicity and exhilaration. AYe had an- 
 ticipated the descent of the river as the crowning 
 delight of the trip. 
 
 The squaw of the cabin breakfasted lis before 
 starting. The trout of the meadow and wood, from 
 their being the captives of a hap-hazard venture and 
 surprise, and possibly because they were positively 
 the last of the season to us, were sjiecially i-elished. 
 After the customary smokino- and the loadinof of the 
 
 •JO o 
 
 baggage, and after Tom had got an extended fur- 
 lough, for a day or two longer with us, from his 
 better half, as neither he nor we w^ere desirous of 
 parting then, we launched away about nine o'clock. 
 The river was unrippled, excepting at rapids; and 
 just below tliose nearest the cabin, the other canoe 
 was hauled from the dockage of leaves in which it 
 was left the day previous, and the crews and the 
 traps were divided between the two birches. 
 
 We had by this time familiai'ized ourselves with 
 the peculiarities and caprices of the birch-bark, and 
 felt at home and at ease in it, so that it was no 
 longer a precarious or ticklish navigation to us. We 
 knew now how to shift positions, how to stretch 
 out or to stand erect, and had mastered the niceties 
 of balancing ourselves and the canoe. For its ease, 
 grace, lightiiesSj quickness and docility of motion.
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKIXG. S3 
 
 the Ijircli-bark canoe is peerless and superb among 
 water-craft; and the Menominee we expected to 
 find precisely the stream for canoe navigation, in 
 its most favorable conditions. 
 
 The Twin Falls are three miles aj^art. Wliile 
 the Indians were transferring the canoes and their 
 burden around the upper falls, we scrambled to the 
 foot, and High ventured a cast of a brilliant red fly 
 in the whirl, though it was quite improbable that a 
 pike or a bass would be enticed by such a flaring 
 gawd. jSTevertheless, though all chances were 
 against him, he whipped the water with the fly just 
 the same, thinking if he did not win, he would at 
 least deserve success. He saved his fly and restored 
 the fictitious insect to the company of its fellow 
 entomological gewgaws, in his fly-book, in its per- 
 fect integrity, for future use. 
 
 In the eddy of the lower fall, I thought the water 
 looked as if it should be a lair of fish, and that a 
 pickerel might be captured by one not too fastid- 
 ious to try a killing bait. I rigged my tackle, 
 and experimented with a scrap of pork on the hook, 
 but the swine's flesh decoyed no perch, bass or pick- 
 erel, that I could grapple with hook of steel. Not 
 even one of the abounding pitiful chubs was hungry 
 enough to offer it a nibble. I was not long in satis- 
 fying myself that fishing in that pool was not my 
 vocation. After pushing out and getting fairly un- 
 der way, George saw a couple of deer grazing
 
 84 TKOUTIXG ON THE BKTILE. 
 
 \vater herbage afar off. It was only a momentary 
 vision. They vanished. 
 
 Soon again we had another sensation of deer — 
 a splendid buck feeding in the bushes. The boys 
 slyly stole the canoes thereaway. Pratt's ardor was 
 enkindled; he shouldered arms, and held at the 
 ready; the buck lifted his spreading antlers, and 
 then dropped his nose to the grass again. George 
 was stealthily paddling the canoe, with a fair show 
 of stealing unawares, within shooting range. We 
 were expecting great things of Pratt, but owing, 
 probably, to a fluster of buck-fever, he pulled an 
 ill-timed trigger, and though the deer was not 
 harmed, the water was badly torn up about mid- 
 way between the buck's pasturing place and our- 
 selves. The deer bounded and ricocheted into the 
 forest, where the woodbine twines. Pratt admit- 
 ted that his premature firing was a mistake, worse 
 even than would be that of shooting at a pigeon 
 and killing a crow; but as the deer was just going 
 to spring, he had to spring the trigger then, or lose 
 the shot. 
 
 The next event, furtlier down, was a frolic of 
 immersion. We had turned ashore to lunch, and 
 after dealing full justice to the spread, Bissell and 
 Pratt were impetuously seized with a mania for a 
 swim in the Menominee. The performance was 
 marvelously brisk and brief. They plunged in the 
 crystal tide with a slap-dash precipitance, but the
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 85 
 
 reduction of their temperature from the frigid in- 
 clemency of the stream was so instantaneous and 
 the effect was so glacial that with "chattering teeth 
 and bristling hair upriglit," they rebounded, and 
 plunged out, with surprising agility, Bissell rather in 
 the lead. 
 
 Two miles further on, was the head of the portage 
 around Big Quiniseck Falls. It was the scene of a 
 surprise party. At about the same moment Wirt 
 Dexter's party and our own reached the spot. 
 With him, were Jesse Spaulding, of Chicago, and a 
 Mr. Smith, a Bostonian lawyer, en route to the 
 Brule. Their suite and outfit were complete. 
 They had four Indians of the Chippewa order of 
 redmen, but they were lean, stunted-looking weak- 
 lings and manikins, aside of our brawny and robust 
 aborigines; also, a weazened, shrivelled little 
 mulatto cook, who seemed a scullion apart, with no 
 affinity for his fellows of the retinue, who, in their 
 turn, seemed to look tomahawks at the kitchen 
 satellite, and as if they would like to strip his 
 scalp in the first convenient bushes. The cargo was 
 immense. Tents, cots, hair mattresses, stools, 
 cases, barrels, kegs, crockery, valises, gun-cases, 
 as if for a whole season's campaign. Pratt thought 
 their equipage for roughing it was hardly complete 
 without a piano and brussels carjDet. But he is 
 rather peculiar and high-toned, and we did not 
 accord with him in that hypothesis. The couple of
 
 86 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 hours spent tliere, while botli retinues were making 
 portages of the loads, were a delightful episode in 
 our forest adventure. Our converse was mainly on 
 matters of the woods. Dexter has been a forest 
 ranging Michigander, as apt in handling a trout-rod 
 or rifle in his vacations, as he is in practice with 
 the mysteries of Coke and Chitty in term time. 
 There is not much about game of his native State, 
 that which swims, goes on foot or sweeps on the 
 wing, with which he is not familiar. His reminis- 
 cences of hunting and fishing, flavored as they were 
 with the fragrance of Partagas, greatly entertained 
 us. 
 
 This portage was a little more than two miles in 
 length. It was over a rolling, hillocky surface, and 
 though the path was not so barricaded with trunks 
 of trees to be climbed over as most of the carries, it 
 was yet tedious and wearisome. But at the foot of 
 the declivity, where the trail ends, a large rock towers 
 thirty feet above the water at its base. From this 
 peak of rock, a splendid view bursts upon the sight, 
 in an outlook of magnificent scenery. Ofi", at the 
 right, the river avalanches down a steep incline, 
 and pitches tumultuously far, and rolls into waves, 
 with clouds of spray, "showering wide sleet of 
 diamond drift and pearly hail." The water spreads 
 and rounds out into a cii'cular bay or basin of nearly 
 a half mile diameter, and this is partially girded 
 round withcliifs wooded with heaviest pageantry of
 
 SUMMER WAYFAEING. b< 
 
 forest pines and cedars, except at the further side, 
 where the river contracts and glides away in a 
 smooth flow or stretch between level shores and the 
 richest of verdure. 
 
 The scene, resplendent in the setting sun, was 
 enchanting and worthy of some master to commem- 
 orate. It was the spontaneous resolve of all the 
 part}', that the tent should be pitched on the rock, 
 in view of scenery so picturesque and striking; 
 and there, from the summit of the rock, and in the 
 last rays of the sun fading and in the twilight glim- 
 mering on, we quietly enjoyed the situation with 
 wonder and delight. "We were among the splen- 
 dors of primeval nature. 
 
 When the moonshine softened the landscape, 
 and portions of it M^ere deepened into shadow, we 
 had time to realize how cool our elevated position 
 was. The blankets were not quite equal to the oc- 
 casion, when we retired from the expiring camp-fire 
 and betook ourselves to the sleeping ground-spread. 
 After their camp duties had been performed, and 
 tired, as they must have been, from the two port- 
 ages required for the transfer of canoes and luggage, 
 Tom and Thebault had launched and paddled 
 away in a canoe for a night-hunt of deer. Tliey 
 skimmed along in the shadows of the woods, creep- 
 ing softly among the reeds, and though they heard 
 and saw that the deer were afoot, the moonlight 
 was too bright to admit of successful ambuscadinor.
 
 bo TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 We rose early and willingly to renew our enjoy- 
 ment of the charms of the scenery. There was no 
 satiety in the outlook around and beyond. When 
 taking the canoes for the start, we paddled to tiie 
 centre of the basin, and held up for a view from 
 that point. Though not so grand as from the pin- 
 nacle, the scene was yet lovely. We receded from 
 it with lingering glances. Doubtless, when means 
 of access are opened to it. Big Qiiiniseck Falls will 
 become a resort of many who make summer pil- 
 grimages in search of healtli, rest and river and for- 
 est sporting. The stretch below the falls would 
 be admirable for regattas and boating. 
 
 Three or four miles down w^as the base of the 
 elevation from which, on our way up, we had our 
 first river perspective. The Dexter party had 
 camped there, and its Indians gave our Indians in- 
 formation that raspberries were to be found there. 
 We went ashore to devastate the supposed raspberry 
 bushes. But neither that berry nor its bush was 
 discoverable on a pretty thorough exploration. 
 The ascent up the steep path of sand to the plateau 
 was compensated for in another view of the land- 
 scape, there being on this river but very rarely high- 
 browed hills, from which a commanding prospect 
 may be had. In consonance with the loneliness, 
 almost desolation, of the place, a raven croaked 
 hoarsely its ill-omened notes from a dead tree-top. 
 On the edge of the stream a bunch of deep crimson
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 89 
 
 leaves liimg from their stem, quivering gently in 
 the breeze, and reflected in the water like a burst 
 of brilliant wavering flame. 
 
 While rounding in for the head, or trail at the 
 head of Little Quiniseck Falls, Pratt fluttered 
 again on espying a deer within easy range. The 
 gun was out of harm's way, under some baggage 
 and safely encased in its cover, tied up with knots 
 of which at first he forgot the combination. Pres- 
 ently, though, the piece was uncovered, and then 
 rummaging his pockets for caps, he, in his leisurely 
 haste, managed to kick against a tin pail at his feet. 
 This clatter of the tin struck an alarum at least 
 half a mile all around, and, of course, the fright- 
 ened browser leaped and cleared from sight and shot. 
 Pratt lost the deer, but he gained a valuable ex- 
 perience, which satisfied him that hunting with the 
 gun covered and uncapped, in the bottom of the 
 boat, under a stratum of traps, was not promising 
 of great spoil of deer or other game. 
 
 While the portaging was being attended to, we 
 descended the rocks on the lower side and clambered 
 along the ledges to see the cascade. Its noise ap- 
 prised us that there was more than a little confu- 
 sion of the ^vaters. On the brink a large mass of 
 rock parted the stream, and the water plunged in 
 separate headlong cataracts of snowy white. Tliese 
 volumes rebound from the fall, as it were, spout up 
 in columns or jets and, falling, mingled together
 
 90 TEOUTING OX THE BEULE. 
 
 jind rolled away in billows, with a mist of spray 
 
 and the sun 
 
 " Caught the sparkles, and in circles. 
 Purple gauzes, go'. den h.iz3j, liquid mazes, 
 Flung the torrent rainbow round.'' 
 
 These are grander cascades than that of Big 
 Quiniseck, but the surrounding scenery, though 
 wild, is not so grand. 
 
 After embarkino: and makine; a mile further, in 
 the field of his vision, but far off, George discovered 
 a couple more deer dabbling their noses in the 
 water. But being as far-sighted as Kaquotash, they 
 left no time for any strategy being practiced on them. 
 
 The next noted stage of the voj^age was the Sand 
 Rapid. This is the Scjdla and Charybdis ordeal of 
 the river, on account of its danger and length. The 
 rapids area curving sweep of three miles, and test 
 all the skill, courage and muscle of tlie most ex- 
 perienced canoeist. The canoes cauld be taken 
 through with the loads, but not witli ourselves 
 weio:htino^ them. There is a trail of two miles 
 nearly, across to the foot of the Rapid. Before the 
 descent of Sand Rapid begfns there are short rapids 
 around which a portage must be made. By our 
 trailing over the short-cut, and by gaining so much 
 start while the short carry was being made, we 
 could reach the end of the Rapid considerably before 
 the canoes would make the run throuo-h. 
 
 Thebeginning^f the trail was on a long ascent
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 91 
 
 of a hill, and toward the end was a corresponding 
 declivitVj and then the course on the level was 
 through marshes where it became obscure or lost in 
 the grasses and brush. We groped our way out of 
 the troublesome maze, and touched the river at the 
 foot of the Rapid. It was a grassy bank, high and 
 dry, and finely shaded by over-arching branches of 
 splendid trees. We were to witness the shooting 
 of rapids under the most exciting conditions, and, 
 from that point, a mile of the agitated water could 
 be seen. We waited for the canoes to come in sight. 
 
 In tlie meantime, Pratt and Bissell prospected 
 among the bushes. High was resting against a 
 colossal pine, on the shady side, confidentially giving 
 himself away to his diary. I stretched on the grass, 
 looking up to the dense evergreens overhead, grate- 
 fully thinking benedictions on Wirt Dexter, for the 
 rare cigar whose luscious odors of Cuba were then 
 mingling with the abounding forest perfumes of 
 Michigan. All the while, the turmoiled rapids 
 sounded their ceaseless lulling monotone of liquid 
 music. 
 
 Soon Bissell roared out the whoop-la signal. We 
 were instantly up, and on tip-toe for the scene. 
 Away at the further end of the perspective, the 
 canoes bounded into sight, George and Thebault 
 manned the larger, and Tom, alone, swayed his old 
 familiar smaller one. The birches seemed things 
 of life that leaped and came pitching ahead, the
 
 92 TBOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 Indians swinging tlie paddle from side to side or ply- 
 ing the setting poles as needful to slieer oif from a 
 rock, or to hold them from rushing into a breaker, or 
 to turn them into the winding chutes, and keep them 
 always steady and trim from dipping or shipping 
 water. 
 
 Alone, erect, in the middle of his canoe, his hat 
 off and his dark hair streaminof, handlino; the 
 paddle, at times dropping it and snatching the set- 
 ting pole, with the celerity of thought, holding her 
 to his will, running her in the swift descent where 
 he would, steady through a waste of seething perils, 
 long reaching, but most swiftly shot through, 
 when the slightest deviation from the right course 
 would dash the frail structure to pieces or swamp 
 her instantly, Tom was a marvel of handling, 
 nerve and' skill. 
 
 We watched them breathlessly, through the long 
 stretching ordeal, seeming though, in the swift- 
 ness of advance, but a few moments of passage. 
 When they safely ran in the barks to shore, M'ith as 
 masterly a control as that of a trained jockey reining 
 in and bringing to bay his fiery-mettled horse, our 
 admiration was boundless, and we greeted the dar- 
 ino; and successful runners of the water with the 
 loudest of huzzas. 
 
 The next stoppage was at Sturgeon farm, at Stur- 
 geon river. That stream is the route to Hamilton 
 lake. It is in a region noted as a stamping ground
 
 SUMMER WATEARING. 93 
 
 for deer. For several years Chicago parties have 
 encamped there, and found food for powder among 
 the '• poor dappled fools of the forest," and enjoyed 
 the abounding sport, until ammunition was all shot 
 away, or they wearied of the excess and gore of 
 deer. The hunting places seemed to have been re- 
 garded as a sort of private and exclusive rifle range 
 or game preserve for their own special sport. Lake 
 Hamilton is, practically, to the general public, nearly 
 as little known as the Yictoria jSTyanza of Central 
 Africa. 
 
 Our supplies, procured from Dickey's, had been 
 limited, and we found it prudent to meet the con- 
 tingency of short commons, or of possible delays in 
 the voyage, to increase them. So, at the farm, we 
 had negotiations with the supply department. From 
 its abundant store we laid in plenteous tea, pork, 
 syrup, flour, potatoes, butter and tobacco. 
 
 To a forest menu to which these would contribute, 
 there was one delicacy needed to make it sumptu- 
 ous. Our teeth were by this time set on edge for 
 that dainty fare by frequent previous cervine eva- 
 nescences. We had seen that game near and afar; 
 had shot at it hopefully within one range and hope- 
 lessly at another distance, and, sometimes, had not 
 shot at all, but always the deer played us the slip. 
 These escapes, so nearly fruitions, served to tease 
 and tantalize appetite to importunate longing. We 
 were pledged antlers and haunches, if we could pro-
 
 94 TKOUTING OX THE BRULE. 
 
 vide a dark lantern for a night hunt. This require- 
 ment we were fortunate in supplying at Sturgeon 
 farm. We borrowed a lantern well approved for 
 the j^urpose. 
 
 Making a portage around, the tents were pitched 
 just below Sturgeon Falls, in the last "glow of sun- 
 set on the water. There is Indian hearsay that 
 pike abound in the basin here. As that fish is pe- 
 culiarly voracious, it was thought there was a prob 
 able field for lively amusement in the twilight. 
 High encouraged a trial, and captured a colossal 
 grasshopper, for which it is known the pike has a 
 special greed; and the fine one now his prisoner 
 was, certainly, a most lusty and tempting specimen 
 of that skipping family. I impaled it on my 
 hook. I felt sure of one pike at least. It was a 
 hard scuffle to reach a certain throwing point — a 
 narrow ledge on a scarp of rock — and there was a 
 preliminary tribulation of undergrowth and briars 
 to be gone through; but I worked away to the 
 perch. I wagered with myself large imaginary 
 stakes that I would take a notable pike, and rather 
 expected my comrades were waiting to applaud the 
 feat to the echo. 
 
 There was no reason why pike were not numer- 
 ous there, and why they should not suffer themselves 
 to be caught. In that trust, I plunged in the 
 enticing grasshopper. But the fish were too unac- 
 countably wary and shy to make a rush for the hook.
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 95 
 
 I placed and replaced the bait in every direction. The 
 reputed voracity showed no sign. I began to doubt 
 whether ravenousness was indeed a vice of the 
 species. At any rate, the myth of grasshopper 
 killingness was now exploded. "VYould a shred of 
 pork rally the clan? A fragment of Sturgeon farm 
 bacon was tried. But, if that had been tainted 
 with trichina spiralis, it could not have been more 
 cautiously shunned. The nutritious grasshopper 
 and the unctuous pork proved equally fallacious. 
 
 I was at my wits end, and further, was convinced 
 that even the existence there of pike was a hallu- 
 cination, and thought in future I would treat all In- 
 dian tradition with contempt. Feeling myself a 
 victim of misplaced confidence, I swore off from 
 even the bare imagination of pike forever, scram- 
 bled perilously from off the rock, and scathingly 
 through the briar hedge and alder thicket, back to 
 the camp. 
 
 How mercilessly I might have been bantered and 
 twitted on my egregious water-haul, I was luckily 
 unaware, from the fact that, just then, attention 
 was diverted in another direction. Across the 
 basin, in the chiar-oscuro of the deepening twilight, 
 was a figure of a deer shadowly outlined. George 
 slipped a canoe silently across, to try a shot, and 
 everybody held his peace and watched for the result. 
 But noiselessly though the birch-bark thitherward 
 stole its course, the deer was too vigilant to be sur- 
 prised, and it vanished into the evening shades.
 
 CHAPTER yill. 
 
 NIGHT HUNT — VENISON — SPLENDID ANTLERS — TOM KING's 
 PARTING— A LOOK FOR A DEER — A PAWN SLAIN — COM- 
 PUNCTION — PEEMBINWUN RAPIDS AND RUNNING THEM — 
 A MARCH STOLEN- -BISSELL's BUCK-HORNS — HOME LONCiING 
 — WHITE RAPIDS — ANOTHER PARTING — A BROOKLET TROUT- 
 ED IN — PIKE RIVER — INDIAN MAIDEN — WAUSAUKA 
 BEND — high's devoirs TO THE GENTLE SEX — MOSQUITOES. 
 
 The Indians intended doing their part towards 
 verifying the promise of deer. They organized a 
 lantern hunt, and expected, before the moon arose, 
 or was high, to accomplish the mission. They 
 trimmed the wick, rubbed up the gun, fresh loaded 
 and capped it, and parleyed briej&y but earnestly, in 
 their native tongue, and in their air and actions 
 evinced a serious purpose of business. They now 
 had the lantern, whose use they had declared was 
 an ahnost certain gage of success, and their own 
 credit was pledged, from the start down the river, 
 to diet us with venison on the trip. They now 
 (96)
 
 SUMMER WATTAEING. 97 
 
 meant to make good their promise, and assured us 
 that from deer resorts in the vicinage, thej would 
 return to the camp witli at least one carcass. 
 
 George, with the gun and lantern, and Thebault, 
 with the paddle, slipped the canoe quietly down 
 the river in the dark. Tom King crept under the 
 other upturned canoe in front of the fire, and curled 
 up for slumber, and quickly slipped into happy hunt- 
 ing grounds in the realm of sleep and dreams. We 
 prated and speculated on the results. The query 
 whether Diogenes, on his lantern hunt, ever found 
 his man, which sometimes used to be a school-boy 
 quiz, was never a quirk or conceit as interesting and 
 speculative to men of our stomach, as was now the 
 conundrum whether Kaquotash's lantern would 
 prove a means of success. 
 
 A deer was the necessary complement of our 
 wants. It omitted, all the voyage, thence to the 
 end, would be bound in shallows and in miseries. 
 Before we were asleep the report of the gun in the 
 distance told us a hopeful tale. Another shot fol- 
 lowed in a brief interval. We were content, then, 
 to wrap our blanket covering around us and lie down 
 for the night, with our last waking thoughts of 
 venison, and with assurance of a morning reality 
 of deer. 
 
 At sunrise, while the shadows of sleep were yet 
 on us, the boys rounded in the canoe, and roused us 
 with a cheering loud whoop-la. We quickly opened 
 7
 
 98 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 our eyes, lurned out, and hailed the natives with 
 acclamations, as we saw the carcass of a fat-haunched 
 doe stretched on the grass. The stripping of the 
 hide, and the dissection necessary for packing away 
 and for the present cooking fire, were processes that 
 nimble fingers and a keen knife soon accomplislied. 
 The breakfast was a princely banquet to us. 
 
 While Thebault was cleaning the platters, all at 
 once he signaled us with a finger pointing across 
 the basin. There, in plain view, was a magnificent 
 buck, with lordly horns, pasturing in the grass, 
 raising his head gracefully to look around, and 
 dropping it again to the herbage. The sight was 
 one to move even an old hunter's blood. Tom and 
 George instantly launched and stepped in a canoe, 
 crouched down and noiselessly sped it to and behind 
 a petty wooded island which, was enough a cover 
 to mask their movement. Tom landed, and, cat-like, 
 crept stealthily to a good position, and within easy 
 shooting distance, where the " fat burgher of the 
 woods " still stood feeding. Tom poised himself 
 and the gun. We stood motionless, waiting the 
 shot, and heard Tom snap both caps — the gun missed 
 fire! The click, of course, startled the buck, and, 
 with a lofty spring, and in a great agitation of 
 bushes, and with an erected tail, he bounded into 
 the distance. Even Indian passivity gave way, and 
 both George and Tom uttered a cry of disappoint- 
 ment. Both pronounced him a noble fellow, and
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKING. 99 
 
 Tom's liiguest praise of liim was that his horns 
 would weigh thirty pounds. 
 
 This incident was Tom King's last in our service. 
 He left us here to return home afoot. In the woods, 
 on the stream, in the camp and in his own cabin, 
 he had been faithful, pleasant and valuable. There 
 was not a little of the white man's ways, mingled 
 with a good deal of the red man's, in him. He is 
 ready, like most of his race, to lend a hand at any 
 casual thing that he may find, but is mostly a trap- 
 per. He makes Marquette the trading place for 
 his pelts, and makes journeys there in winter on the 
 ice and snow of the Michigami river. The parting 
 hand we gave him was warm with the friendliest 
 adieu. No one of us will soon forget the Menomi- 
 nee, Tom King, of Bad water. 
 
 The first shot of the night hunt we heard, was at 
 a deer on the river bank. The Indians thought the 
 animal was disabled, if not killed, and would proba- 
 bly be found in the woods. The deer brought in 
 was shot on the edge of a small lake. The boys re- 
 mained there, sleeping in the canoe. After leaving 
 the camp, on our wa}^ down, a landing was made for a 
 search at the place where the deer of the night be- 
 fore was thought to have been shot. The brush, 
 thickets of bushes and trunks of fallen timber, were 
 so nearly impenetrable, to us, at least, that it seemed 
 a mystery how even an unwounded buck could get 
 his crown of antlers and himself through the com- 
 pact wilderness.
 
 100 TEOUTING ON THE BEULE. 
 
 This density of undergrowth and dehris of timber 
 are found everywhere, but for all that, the flying 
 deer vanishes with unaccountable certainty and 
 speed. The Indians had trouble to move about, but 
 scoured the fastnesses all around. We struck on a 
 profusion of red raspberries, near the bank, and 
 vigorously raided the bushes while the search for the 
 suppositional deer was going on. The Indians 
 must have befooled themselves, after all, as they 
 found no trace of the deer, wounded or dead, Pratt 
 and myself, with George, went on in the advance. 
 
 Pratt's time at last came to witcli us. with a feat 
 of marksmanship. A doe and her twin fawns were 
 pacing down a partially cleared bank ahead, not 
 seeing us. Around a bend we stole a quick, close 
 turn and surprise on them as they were lapping the 
 water in the edge of the stream. Before they could 
 top the steep bank, for which they sprang, the gun 
 was ready, just then,with fatal accuracy,and shattered 
 the hind leg of one of the fawns, when it fell back 
 and reeled into a shallow pool formed by a tongue of 
 sand, and helplessly struggled in the water. George 
 leaped ashore and grappled it. Pratt stepped out 
 and towards it. The woeful creature turned its 
 head to Pratt, looking him in the face, and bleated 
 piteously, as if imploring him to help or spare it. 
 George dispatched it with a merciful thrust of a 
 knife in its throat. 
 
 The crying, quivering fawn, crimsoning the sand,
 
 SUMMER WAYFARIXG. 101 
 
 was a spectacle recalling the similar one of the 
 wounded deer in the forest of Arden: 
 
 " The wretched animal heaved forth such groans 
 That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat 
 Almost to bursting; and his big round tears 
 Coursed one another down his innocent nose 
 In piteous chase." 
 
 Pratt, like the melancholy Jaqnes, was disposed 
 to sigh over the sobbing creature; the spectacle so 
 touched his tender and sympathetic nature that, in a 
 mood of compassion and compunction, he solemnly 
 vowed himself against any future merely sportive 
 or needless slaughter of the innocents. 
 
 "We passed all along through the finest and love- 
 liest river and forest scenery. The stream was broad 
 and smooth, and a delicious air tempered the radi- 
 ance of the sun, so that gliding in easy and gentle 
 motion over the water, with the senses all in repose- 
 ful harmony, wfts like the calm and soft lapsing into 
 sleep. At a little cleft in the solid wall of verdure 
 was a solitary white man lying on the ground with 
 a rifle pitched against a tree, just at hand, on a 
 lonely watch for deer. The place was a deer cross- 
 ing, a run-Ax-ny or path to the water, to which they 
 repair for swimming over. Many of them are fre- 
 quently ambushed in this way, during the season, 
 when they are migrating. 
 
 Not far below him was an Indian encampment, 
 or bark cabin, where venison for winter was being 
 smoked, and deerskins were drying in the sun. A
 
 102 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 graded inftint school of papooses seemed to have 
 been turned out to play when we passed, Avliile 
 a couple of curs j'^^elped at us an unfriendly clamor. 
 At noon we reached Peembinwun rapids. They 
 were an ugly and hazardous rush and tumult of 
 waters. The canoes were brought to; the Indians 
 got out and took a survey, and held an earnest and 
 considerate pow-wow. They thought they might 
 venture to run the canoes through, if partially 
 lightened of the load of ourselves and what bag- 
 gage we could carry around. 
 
 Each of us gripped our blankets and valises and, 
 in not very light marching order, filed along the 
 ])ortage. The lighter canoe went safely through 
 the turmoil. But the ordeal was more doubtful and 
 perilous for the larger and more loaded birch-bark, 
 as both skill and danger were involved in the head- 
 long passage. We were eager to witness the home- 
 stretch of the exciting run. Our point of view was 
 the brow of a little cliff overlooking the scene. We 
 saw the craft let loose, and sweeping on among 
 the tossing breakers, guided by incredibly quick 
 changes of the paddle, or by sheering with the pole, 
 and shooting madly ahead, and swiftly, like a weav- 
 er's shuttle, all through, but in safety, into the 
 calm waters below. We huzzaed the boys with a 
 will. 
 
 It was only a short time after leaving that place, 
 that an inconsiderate deer was seen nibbling grass
 
 SUMJIEK WAYFARING. 103 
 
 in the water's edge. As it was a short-horned buck, 
 and Pratt's vow of compassionate forbearance only 
 applied to fawns, it was no act of perfidy to him- 
 self to shoot the heedless quadruped then before him, 
 if he could. He, therefore, mobilized his forces for 
 the occasion. The deer must have been as deaf as 
 a post, or the victim of some inscrutable delusion or 
 optical infirmity, else George could not have sneaked 
 a direct march to within forty yards distance from it. 
 As it stood with its whole broadside fully exposed, 
 in point blank range, a conspicuous target, Pratt 
 himself must have been egregiously wild and ran- 
 dom in his gunnery, not to have smitten the deer 
 with a hail of buckshot. So, in fact, he did effect- 
 ually pepper and perforate its leathern coat, so that 
 the deer dropped wounded into the water, where it 
 struggled desperately to regain its feet. 
 
 George ran the canoe to it, sprang out, and with 
 a cut-throat jab of his knife, ended its respiratory 
 functions forever. The readiness with which the 
 Indians flayed off the skin, was suggestive of the 
 neatness and dispatch of the scalp-stripping ]M"o- 
 cess for which the untamed savage has anatuial 
 devilish proclivity and historic repute. A haunch 
 was carved off for venison steaks, and the rest of 
 the carcass was left there to feast the minks and 
 crows- of the woods. 
 
 Pratt had now fairly won his spurs as a deer- 
 slayer, and being once more a little scrupulous
 
 104 TKOUTINtt ON THE BRULE. 
 
 about needless bloodsliedding, was ready to hand 
 over the armament and munitions to Bissell, who 
 was more than willing to undertake the gory busi- 
 ness. He was not much of a field sportsman, and 
 had yet to realize his first flurry of buck-fever. He 
 wanted to try his hand. To shoot one deer only 
 would be glory and fame enough for him. 
 
 Bissell ]jad very wiselj^ forethought that, in case 
 of failure to hack a pair of horns from the bleeding 
 front of a buck of his own slaying, as a souvenir of 
 the woods to be taken home to excite the admira- 
 tion of his friends, it might be well to take the hint 
 from a frequent trick of luckless fishers who come 
 home laden with messes caught in the fish market 
 with a price. So lie had provided at Dickey's a 
 jolly front of antlers, which had long hung season- 
 ing among the cobwebs of the cabin rafters, and 
 sent it by Evanson's team to Marinette for express- 
 age to Chicago. 
 
 A rage to kill just one deer is not uncommon 
 with verdant men-at-arms. There is a story of one 
 of these irrepressible fellows, who was one of Burton 
 C. Cook's party making a tour of the woods. He 
 carried his rifle constantly on the qui vive for the 
 imminent deer. The solitary one that materialized 
 on the entire round of the trip, as if by the wind of 
 fortune blown to mortal doom in the apparent jaws 
 of destruction, cantered without scath, and close 
 past the very clump of bushes where Verdant Ven-
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 105 
 
 ator, just then disarmed, had lain down on the 
 grass to snooze. 
 
 By this time Pratt and Bissell were affected with 
 premonitory symptoms of home-fever, by reason of 
 supposed exigencies of business. Though they 
 loved our gentle, dreamy and tardy voyaging not 
 less, they favored home-tending rapid momentum 
 more. High and I were still untired of the woods 
 and the stream, and would fain prolong the canoe- 
 ing and tenting to the extent of the most leisurely 
 and tardy return. By the camp fire at night we sat 
 in sober council over the matter, and puffed a great 
 deal of smoke during tlie session, but we neither 
 befogged their wits with the smoke, nor was our logic 
 potent enough to convince them that we understood 
 the demands of their business better than them- 
 selves, or to change what had become a foregone 
 conclusion. 
 
 Home being the word, the next thing was to ar- 
 range the details, as to a division of the flotilla, 
 of supplies and of Indian service. As there was 
 no peremptory spirit or any positive ultimatum on 
 either side, a result was speedily reached. Early 
 in the morning the camp was in motion, and the 
 ' matin repast soon prepared and dispatched. To 
 give our parting comrades a good send-ofl^, we em- 
 barked at the same time to consort them as far as 
 "White Rapids. 
 
 There, in the smaller canoe, and with George as
 
 106 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 swinger of the paddle, Bissell and Pratt, stowed tliem- 
 selves and their belongings. Bissell fignratively 
 said that there was not a dry eye in the party. There 
 were no visible ocular effects, but we all felt some 
 flutter of the heart, some twitching of the lips and 
 some swell in the throat, when the good-b3'e was 
 spoken and the parting hand in hand was clasped. 
 It was a parting we could well have spared. We 
 sat on the bank watching them. As they receded, 
 they waved us with their white cambrics one last 
 adieu, and then another, until they vanished in the 
 far-down offing. 
 
 White Rapids, so called from a reach of shallow, 
 white-capped rapids, is a settlement of a Chippewa 
 populace, and of a half dozen cabins, with small 
 natural meadows on both shores, greenly bordering 
 the frothy and brawling turbulence of the river. 
 Excepting New York farm, this meadowy and dis- 
 forested acreage was more typical, apparently, of 
 Christianity, civilization and agriculture, than any- 
 thing yet seen along the Menominee. 
 
 A half mile back, there is an infinitesimal brook, 
 spirally lengthening through a patch of meadoM', 
 and running into an impenetrable wood. Paltry 
 as it is, there is a current Indian tradition of its 
 being a trout stream. High thinks wherever there 
 flow's such a brook or rill, he must have a throw 
 there, and to pass by a streamlet wuth trout in it, 
 even were they but minnows of trout, without mak-
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 107 
 
 ing its acquaintance, even briefly, would be a dere- 
 liction for which he could not easily forgive himself, 
 
 Thebault led the way to the petty stream. It 
 looked as if it would be troutiuf; under difficulties 
 to experiment in it with the fly. The grasses al- 
 most smothered it; osiers and branches overhung it, 
 and there was an interlock, often, of brush on the 
 bottom and through it, and it was all one could do 
 to cast a line anywhere. At the hazard of utterly 
 demoralizing his rod, and of his eyes being 
 scratched out, or of his clothes being slit into rags. 
 High pushed in wherever he could thrust his nose 
 through the hindrances, and seemed to enjoy the 
 vexations of such angling. However, he so effi- 
 ciently wielded the rod, that in not much more than 
 an hour's worrying in the thickets he had whisked 
 out nineteen handsome trout. 
 
 I thought that in this wayside or chance diver- 
 sion he evinced greatly more of the higher skill 
 and qualities of an expert troutsman than he did 
 in the canoe fishing on the Brule, where the elbow- 
 room was free and the throwing clear. These trout, 
 it is true, put on the scales, would not tell a large 
 figure in a total of pounds, but I fancied High was 
 rather proud of this achievement, and that in the 
 way, if not of lv^eiglit,yet of patience, art and skill, 
 these nineteen trifles made enough of a wonder 
 of exj^loit to show The'hault and myself how ang- 
 ling thus was to " strive with things impossible,
 
 108 TROUTING ON THE BBULE. 
 
 yea, get the better of them," as in fact it seemed 
 to be. 
 
 Pike river comes in not far below White Rapids. 
 An Indian cabin stands there. We thought we 
 could there hear news of Stockton's party, and so 
 turned ashore to interview the natives of the habi- 
 tation. We all of us started np the path leading 
 to it. A ferocious, long-haired, large dog was lying 
 in front of the door, in the sun, snapping wickedly 
 at flies or fleas. Thebault, as dragoman, took the 
 lead, we following, with our eyes carefully fixed on 
 the dog, which, however, was so exclusively devoted 
 to his petty tormentors that he scarcely noticed 
 ns. We entered the domicile. The inmates were 
 female, except possibly a swaddled papoose, cling- 
 ing, affrighted, around the maternal neck. After 
 once starting, their squaw gift of speech was quite 
 equal in fluency and copiousness to that of the most 
 gifted of their Christian sisters. 
 
 Our inquiry as to the Stockton party was satis- 
 fied in learning that it had passed the day before 
 into Pike river in good plight. But the conversation 
 took, evidently, a wider scope, and our interpreter 
 probably was doing the agreeable on his own ac- 
 count. One of the gentle savages was girlish, and 
 quite comely in the face, with raven dark hair, " like 
 the sweep of a swift wing in vision," though the 
 rather bulbous figure and ponderous size, and afoot 
 that would "bend a blade of grass or shake the
 
 SUMMER WATFAEIXG. 109 
 
 downy blow-ball from liis stalk," were not types 
 of feminine grace or models of art. Bnt, withal, 
 this belle of the lodge or wigwam would not be un- 
 attractive, even bevond the pale of Indian paganism. 
 
 A picture of more grace than the Indian maiden 
 was a beautiful fawn standing on the bank at Wau- 
 sauka bend, calmly looking us in the face. The- 
 bault tried to scare it by motioning and shouting, 
 but it only trotted off a few paces and faced us 
 again, as if lost or confused. The spotted innocent 
 was entirely out of harm's way from us, as tlie gun 
 that the " round haunches gor'd " was then on a 
 forced march to IMarinette. 
 
 As we turned the bend at AVausauka, we swept 
 into the prospect of a line large spreading meadow 
 or sward, and a little on, in the river edge of the land- 
 scape were two white tents with a covered wagon, 
 some grazing liorses and a good deal of a day's 
 washing hung out to dry. These were signs of civ- 
 ilization. We bore dowm at once for the camp. 
 Our coming appeared to have brought out of the 
 tents three or four women and children, on a sur- 
 prise and with a curiosity equal to our own. 
 
 To us, this appearance of ladies in that out-of-the- 
 way place was like a happy vision burst on us out 
 of the heavens. We were ready to echo Jaffier's 
 fervid tribute to woman, or at least, to recall it, 
 that angels are painted fair to look like her; she Ims 
 in her all we believe of heaven: and we had been
 
 110 TEOTJTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 brutes without her. Under the inspiration of this 
 or a similar chivalrous sentiment, High thought it 
 his duty, regarding, for the moment, these ladies as 
 personating, or typifying, the sex in general, to offer 
 them his liomage. 
 
 The gallant chevalier stepped ashore for that pur- 
 pose. He was mindful enough of the difference 
 between woman in the abstract and in the particu- 
 lar to move a little further and out of the way to 
 make up to the fairest one of the sirens. Knowing 
 very well the sensibility of the sex -to the charms of 
 scenery, he attempted to steal a march into her good 
 graces through this weak point by the delicate topo- 
 graphical observation, conveyed in the blandest man- 
 ner: " This is a beautiful camping place, madam." 
 There was nothing extravagant or far-fetched in 
 that remark, and the deportment of High was ad- 
 mirable. 
 
 Whether the lady felt that it was the crowning 
 glory of a true woman to be the admiration and hap- 
 piness of one rather than the toast, or the cynosure 
 of any " vagrom men" that might come roving 
 along there in canoes, without letters of intro- 
 duction or testimonials of character; or, whether 
 the offense was in addressing her as madame and 
 not mademoiselle, she, at all events, received and 
 responded to High's winning amenities of speech 
 and manner with a giggle and snicker of derision, 
 and majestically strode back into the tent. So did
 
 SUMMER WATFAETNG. Ill 
 
 her sisters and her cousins and her aunts. This 
 ended the deportment business, shattered the Jaf- 
 fier ideal into smithers, and settled High. He 
 retired in as good order as he could, considering 
 the sudden demoralization, and asked me if I could 
 see anything in tfiat remark to laugh at. He did 
 not think I could, and, I owned, 1 could not. 
 
 The oni}'^ suggestion I could offer him for the 
 unaccountable disdain of the lady he had picked 
 out as the particular one angels were painted fair 
 to look like, was that the apparel of our party gen- 
 erally, and of some of it in particular, was in a 
 condition of seediness and decrepitude that may 
 have marked us in her mind as tramps or fellows 
 no better than we should be. We learned that the 
 ladies were of a party from Menominee, encamping 
 there, the gentlemen of which were then out hunt- 
 ing.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SANTTAKY MATTERS— DA vis' PAIN-KILLER— THE RELAY nOTJSE 
 AGAIN — FARLIN's PARTY — LYING IN THE SHADE — UPPER 
 TWIN ISLAND — LAST CAMP AND ITS DISCOMFORTS — THE 
 LOWER MENOMINEE — AT MENOMINEE — END OF THE TRIP. 
 
 The river turns on itself at Wausauka, forming 
 a long promontory tln'ee miles around, by canoe, but 
 across its base, by portage, only a few rods. We 
 preferred tlie three miles of ease and languor on tlie 
 water-way to a short portage, and when we had 
 made the run, we landed and crowned the t'p of 
 the steep bank with our camp and tent for the 
 night. This was on one of the borders of the open 
 or clearing of Wausauka, and commanded a fine 
 view of it and of the river. 
 
 We found we had placed ourselves at the mercy 
 of the most ravenous mosquitoes of the whole trip. 
 The comparatively moderate skirmish line that at- 
 tended our landing was reinforced, from time to 
 time, by swarms from a distance, until we were be- 
 (112)
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 113 
 
 clouded "with the biting legions. We smudged our 
 faces and hands with oil and tar, and repeating this 
 was a principal branch of the business carried on 
 at night in the tent. 
 
 So far we had had a clean bill of health, and the 
 sanitary condition had been superb. But at "\Vau- 
 sauka promontory camp. High fancied he was out 
 of sorts. The entire stock of medicines at com- 
 mand consisted of one vial of Davis' pain-killer, 
 and one vial of aperient powders, so of course the 
 choice of remedies was limited. He thought the 
 pain-killer would "yank" him about right. I 
 thought it did. A few drops of it in warm water 
 told the story. If its internal effects were to be 
 judged from the puckering of the mouth and wry- 
 ness of face, his true inwardness-must have been in 
 a state of lively commotion. Its effect, however, 
 was happy, and restored High to his customary hy- 
 gienic condition and cheerfulness. 
 
 We were sped onwards gently and steadily by 
 Thebault, counting the hours, not that they came 
 too slowly, but that they were, one by one, bringing 
 us nearer to the end of the voyage. When we came 
 to the Relay House landing, near the hut of the 
 priest-hunter, we moved, or rather drew out on the 
 bank our canoe, and tramped the half-mile way to 
 the Relay House. We had, the day before, seen a 
 fleet of four canoes being poled up the river, and 
 learned now that Farlin's party had passed there, by 
 8
 
 114 TKOUTING OX THE BKULE. 
 
 team, on the route we liad taken, to Sturgeon farm, 
 to go into camp at Hamilton Lake. This party was 
 a nimrod party more than a trout-rod ])arty, and 
 was to devote itself much more to using bullets 
 than to recreation with the fly. 
 
 The Kelay House was quite empty and silent. 
 Its few inmates were off in the fields, and its appear- 
 ance was very different from that of the rainy even- 
 ing our party housed there. Even the logman's 
 hut was left by the clergyman to its solitude, and 
 the scene was little like that of our night at the hos- 
 telry. Two miles below we hauled to for lunch, at a 
 grassy bank, though the shade was meagre. 
 
 As all the hurry and home-fever passed off with 
 Pratt and Bissell, w^e had time enough on our 
 hands, and were trying to take our ease for the 
 remainder of the short trip. "\Ye found shade 
 enough for a siesta; the breeze was lively, wav- 
 ing the grasses and foliage into woodland music 
 and rouo'liino' the stream into silver wavelets. 
 We readily enough dropped into slumber, and 
 only roused when the signal of the lunch was 
 given. We awoke from a siesta or any sleep that 
 reached to a meal hour, by a sort of self-acting im- 
 pulse, like that of an alarm clock set to strike at 
 an alloted hour, when a repast was set out. For- 
 esters and campers train themselves to, or acquire, 
 this sort of automatic waking up to answer de- 
 mands of the stomach.
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 115 
 
 After the refreshing cloze and tlie lunch, and on the 
 voyage being again resumed, we had the almost daily 
 pillar of cloud following in the wake, which shaded 
 us from the sun at first, but, in its thickening and 
 darkening, ominously prognosticated a heavy rain. 
 We were just enough ahead of the masses of cloud, 
 to reach a point eligible, but, at all events, neces- 
 sary for setting the tent in a field or clearing oppo- 
 site tlie end of Upper Twin Island. The rain did 
 ns the service and favor of holding off until the 
 tent was stretched and pegged down, and very soon 
 after the showers fell copiously for a time; and, in 
 an interval, partly of entire cessation and partly 
 of subsiding into a sprinkle, the cooking fire was 
 kept barely alive long enough to afford us the 
 customary draught of tea and some other of the 
 staples, for supper. 
 
 We had not more than finished our evening refec- 
 tion when the rain began pouring in torrents, leak- 
 ing through the tent, and running in from one side 
 in little rills at our feet. Thebault scoured the ad- 
 jacency, where was an Indian cabin, to hunt timber 
 or pieces of wood to support or prop up the blan- 
 ket quarters out of a puddle. He confiscated 
 some clapboards from somewhere, and by laying 
 them on the ground we improvised a water-proof 
 bedstead for the final sleep in the woods. 
 
 To add to the misery and discomfort of the situ- 
 ation, the mosquitoes of all the country — at least
 
 116 TKOUTING ON THE BEULE. 
 
 of more than one township — semed to swarm in 
 for shelter from the rain. Thej were rapacions, 
 and thirsted for nothing less than all the blood of 
 all the part3\ The air was close, damp and sultry, 
 and all these, with the constant flashing of light- 
 ning and frequent peals of thunder, far into the 
 night, made our tent anything but a pavilion of 
 ease, rest and deep sl.eep. "We were only sixteen 
 miles from Marinette. "We had heard the six 
 o'clock steam-whistle of the mills there. That 
 sound was the knell or signal of our ending life in 
 the tent and in the woods. The memories of the 
 last camp were disagreeable ones. Kain, heat, thun- 
 der, lightning, mosquitoes, sleeplessness, in aggra- 
 vating combination, served to make it almost a 
 night of horrors. The scenery of the river and all 
 the charm of navigating it end at Twin Islands. 
 From thence to the mouth was a monotony of bar- 
 renness and almost waste, the timber having been 
 long since stripped oflf. 
 
 We reached Menominee at noon. The vacation 
 ramble ended there; canoeing on the streams and 
 tenting in the forests, our open air life, were to be, 
 thence, only memories; but with us, memories 
 always golden and abiding!
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SECOND BRULE EXCUKSION — NEW ROUTE — ARTHUR T, JONES 
 — NEW GUIDES — PREVIOUS ARRANGEMENTS — W. H. STEN- 
 NETT — REPUBLIC — TUE MICHIGAMI — UNEASY LYING — 
 STORES — CIRCULATING LIBRARY — TWO KISSES — A BEAR 
 AHEAD — TROUTING AND CHUBS — TALKING SHOP — A METEO- 
 ROLOGICAL-LEGAL CONTROVERSY — THE EARLY RISER — 
 BROOKS — A STATUESQUE GROUP — BUCK-FEVER — A NIGHT- 
 HUNT — FIRST BLOOD — HUZZA FOR DENISON. 
 
 A SECOND Brule river excursion was arrano-ed. 
 The members of it -were High, Pratt, tlie writer, 
 and Franklin Denison, also a Chicago lawyer. A 
 route different from that traced in the previous 
 pages was chosen. This was to afford novelty, 
 greater variety of scenery and a traverse of further 
 and wider regions. The railway connections were 
 the Chicago & Isorthwestern through Marinette to 
 Negannee, thence the Marquette, Houghton and 
 Ontonagon Railway to Humboldt, and thence a 
 short branch to Republic, on the Michigami river, 
 where are the great iron mines of that name. 
 (117)
 
 118 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 The canoes of tlie previous voyage, the Dickey 
 and Tom King, had been laid by at Marinette, in 
 the care of Arthur T. Jones, the freight and ticket 
 agent of the North- Western Railway at that place, 
 and as a sort of pledge committed to his guardian- 
 ship, had been carefully and safel}'" kept in all their 
 integrity, ready on call for immediate service. This 
 gentleman is himself an expert and devotee both of 
 rod and gun, and is, as well as W. H. Stennett, the 
 General Passenger Agent of the Chicago & Korth- 
 "Western Hallway, at Chicago, a cyclopedia of infor- 
 mation on all matters relating to sport, either hunt- 
 ing or fishing:, and the routes leadinoj to therescions 
 of sport in "Wisconsin and upper Michigan, so man}' 
 of which are traversed or reached, from Chicago, by 
 the IS^orth- "Western Railway and its connections, 
 and, also, relating to the necessary equipment and 
 the means of supplying it. Like other cj^clopedias, 
 these gentlemen are free and liberal of their infor- 
 mation to all who may choose to consult them. 
 
 To Mr. Jones' kindly and accommodating civil- 
 ity, and to his intelligent foresight in our behalf, 
 we were much and gratefully indebted for the suc- 
 cess and pleasure which, it will be seen, attended 
 our excursion. Particularly by his judicious action, 
 in pre-concert with us, we were provided, in advance, 
 with a splendid retinue of guides. These were, the 
 reader's acquaintance of the previous images, Mitch- 
 ell Thebault, David Kaquotash, a younger brother
 
 SUMMER WAITAKING. 110 
 
 of the George Kaquotash of the former Briile party, 
 and a veteran in woodcraft, Paul Thebault, brother 
 of Mitchell Thebault, and Joe Dixon, the two latter 
 half-breeds. We knew from Mr. Jones that these, 
 our new acquaintances, were trusty, willing and 
 hearty in such service, and tliat they were exper- 
 ienced in woods and life in the woods, from having 
 traversed our intended route, as well as other direc- 
 tions in the wilderness, with parties prospecting 
 timber lands, or with locators or surveyors of land, 
 or with parties, like our own, in pursuit of vacation 
 sport and recreation. In tlic robust and athletic 
 frames of these auxiliaries we could, at a glance, 
 foresee all the muscle and endurance requisite for 
 the service for which they were engaged. The 
 canoes, with David in charge, had been forwarded 
 by Mr. Jones to Republic a day in advance. The 
 other three guides joined us at Marinette. 
 
 On a clouded August afternoon, the party and its 
 outfit reached Republic, and lirst touched the Mich- 
 igan! i river. 
 
 Around tlie hill, a mile below the village, on the 
 brink of the river, was the iirst encampment. "The 
 water- works for supplying the mines, with the rum- 
 bling machinery, was close at hand. The situation 
 was not delightful. Tlie dull, leaden sky made it 
 look, and the damp air made it feel, much less than 
 pleasing. The temperature reipinded us of a Chi-
 
 120 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 cago [N'ovembcr, "but nothing at all of August dog- 
 da js. 
 
 Even under these inauspicious conditions, Pratt 
 was almost buoyant, and Denison well-nigh irre- 
 pressible. In fact, both of them thought they might 
 prelude a little to get their hands in, one with the 
 rod and one with the gun. The prospect for game or 
 fish at tliat point was wholly unpromising. Pratt, 
 with his fiy-rod, struck an attitude on the bank, 
 and presently snatched out an ignoble cluib. This 
 instantly chilled his ardor, and he promptly betook 
 himself to camp for some other more satisfj^ing re- 
 source. Denison, equipped with his fire-arms, 
 rano;ed about in search of anvthino; on foot or wino^, 
 and worked his way to the east of us, among the bush- 
 es. He did not wholly waste his time or ammunition. 
 He put a solitary partridge to death and blowed a 
 chattering kingfisher to its kingdom come. High 
 and myself tediously busied ourselves in doing 
 nothing. 
 
 Our first night encampment was not delightful 
 or soothing. The air was very damp and chilling, 
 and we shivered as it swept freely and moistly 
 about us. "When we had retired, sleep was won 
 only after long and toilsome pursuit. Sleepers 
 on hair mattresses, feather pillows and in chambers, 
 could not, all at once, fall into the different somnif- 
 erous conditions of a blanket bed, with boots or 
 satchel for bolster, terra fir ma for bedstead, and
 
 SUMMER WAYE'AKINO. 121 
 
 an airj tent for dormitorj. Cf course, a discipline of 
 restlessness was a natural preliminary to our first 
 sleep. One of the party referred to a vulgar calumny 
 of many of the unregenerate, that lawyers find lying 
 on any or either side no trouble at all, and observed 
 that he had been lying on one side, and then lying on 
 the other side, most of the night, and the lying was 
 anything but easy, and certainly was not his forte. 
 Probably this was meant as a joke, but at all events 
 it was received as fact and in silence. 
 
 Another of the party, in a reflective mood before 
 sleep, could discern from what seemed unpropi- 
 tious signs, only an unpromising outlook ahead. 
 Much of the c^lowino; native hue of the resolution 
 with which he set out on the expedition, had con- 
 siderably sicklied over with a pale and cheerless 
 cast of thought. He sang small and in the pen- 
 itential strain of a miserere. However, with the 
 dawn of morning and the lifting of the dense fog, 
 which in the night thickly encompassed us, and in 
 the glowing sunshine, the situation and prospect 
 changed their seeming, and the perspective of the 
 mind's eye brightened into harmony with the radi- 
 ance of the sky. 
 
 The night's experience taught me that additional 
 blanketing was essential. My Chicago blankets 
 were too light. Fortunately the Iron Company's 
 store ^had a stock of these goods of all qualities. I 
 made my way to the village and procured a j)air.
 
 122 TEOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 heavy with the fleeces of many sheep, and suitable 
 for regions more Arctic tlian these. High, who was 
 to be my fellow of the couch, seeing the comfort 
 lying in their folds, Avelcomed their arrival in the 
 tent with a smile of benignity. They would con- 
 tribute to the warmth of feeling between us. 
 
 The forenoon was spent by the Indians in over- 
 hauling the canoes which had not swam the water 
 for a year, and there were seams to be pegged up 
 and leaks to be pitched. They handled the craft 
 delicately, in fact lovingly, as if they were things 
 of life endeared to them. We took account of stock, 
 of the collective outfit, of our eight pairs of blankets, 
 which, when spread, were to be slept on, and wdien 
 rolled into bundles would be sat on, of our two pon- 
 chos, of our valises, of our tackle. There were 
 Denison's gun-case and his caisson, in which his 
 fixed ammunition and deadly missiles were carried. 
 
 The contents of the baskets and valises were 
 curiously miscellaneous. In the way of hygienic 
 precaution there was a whole pocket pharmacy of 
 homoeopathic tincts, pills and powders. Pratt was 
 our professor of the theory and practice of medicine, 
 and actual medical adviser and dispenser. For mi- 
 asmatic localities there was Kentucky old crow, 
 some sour mash for probable malarial effects, and, 
 as a general tonic, or catholicon, to be used as an 
 extraordinary remedy (consult High's " Extraprdin- 
 ary Eem.edies,") there was Hennesey Cognac (1865).
 
 SUMMER WAYFARIISrG. 123 
 
 Bj exercise of a liberal foresiglit, abundant fare 
 ■was provided to feed the mind and meet any reason- 
 able intellectual avidity of the party. In fact there 
 vras a circulating library in the valises. The cata- 
 logue included three or four of Jules Yerne's inven- 
 tions, Lakeside edition, ten cents, "Joshua Haggard's 
 Daughter," "Weavers and Weft," " Christie John- 
 son," "Two Destinies," "Heaps of Money," "The 
 American Senator," and a few other brown-tint, 
 paper-covered novelistic obscurities. It will be per- 
 ceived that this was the very lightest intellectual 
 marchinof bao-o-ao-e. 
 
 Supposing for myself that the merest nut-shell, as 
 it were, of literature, would be enough for the mental 
 sustentation of trouters ai^d canoeists, and as a re- 
 source for a rainy day, I had brought Walton's 
 " Complete Angler " as my own sole reading. It 
 was chosen from a principle or sense of congruity. 
 Its theme accorded with our programme, which 
 was piscatorial, and it would seem that the reading 
 for the occasion should relate to the aim and spirit 
 of the occasion. For instance, Denison's speciality 
 beino; that of huntino; more than of anj^lino:, I 
 fancied his literary researches would relate to the 
 natural history of the regions to be traversed, or to 
 the science of gunning and projectiles. But his 
 bookish humor was not for subjects of gunpowder 
 or zoology. 
 
 1 had my opinion of Denison when I saw the sen-
 
 124: TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 timental gunner stretch out languidly on liis blanket 
 spread, and fall a-sigliing over Hawley Smart's love 
 tale of " Two Kisses." The title-page motto of that 
 romance of tender affection, " Methinks no wrong 
 it were if I should steal from those two melting 
 rubies, one poor kiss," settled it as to the insidious 
 and inflammatory tenor of that story of lips and love, 
 and for what his literary mouth watered. It was 
 rather -a wonder that he, an off-shoot of Plymouth 
 rock and a scion of a devout Puritan ancestry, 
 should rapturize over a perilous romance, whose 
 very front legend or key-note was an incentive and 
 lure to kissing kleptomania. 
 
 There was a rumor of a great bear ranging the 
 country'- down the river. This bruin would be 
 notable food for any man's powder, and test any 
 sportsman's grit and mettle. Thinking forearming 
 should follow forewarning, Denison ransacked his 
 caisson for the right cartridges, carefully wiped and 
 oiled his gun, and whetted his belt-knife to an extra 
 savage edge. He seemed to challenge a mortal en- 
 counter, and to look the defiance " bring on your 
 bears, now!" 
 
 There was nothing we were more willing to part 
 withal than with our water- works encampment. 
 At two o'clock the flotilla was ready to cast ofi", and 
 turning our backs on the forbidding scene, we soon 
 glided on the current of the Michigami into the 
 wilderness. Denison and Pratt, with the arma-
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 125 
 
 ment, were in tlie advance canoe wLicIi David pad- 
 dled. We followed in its wake, and in sliort time 
 saw our consort vessel rounding towards an expanse 
 of liigii grass in a bordering swamp. Eefore we 
 discovered the cause of turning shoreward, the shot 
 gun and David's rifle were simultaneously dis- 
 charged, and we saw a doe leap out of the grass 
 and dash off in confusion, and presently spring in 
 the air again, but finally disappear in the reedy jun- 
 gle. A search was made for the wounded animal, but 
 it had limped or dragged itself beyond reach. Only 
 four miles further on was seen another deer brows- 
 ing in the reeds, and two shots were aimed at and 
 wounded it, for it was seen to stagger for a moment 
 bewildered or stunned, but on exploration by the 
 Indians, only some stains of blood, but not the 
 bleeding deer itself, were found. 
 
 We then advanced a long stretch of smooth water, 
 in a very solitude of calm. Pratt's piscatory in- 
 stinct was incited on reaching a tiny brooklet that 
 quietly found way into the river, and though it is 
 generally supposed that the Michigami is not a trout 
 stream at all, to Pratt's eye favorable conditions for 
 trouting were not wanting. So the canoe was laid 
 in at the brook's mouth for him to try a cast. Al- 
 most at the touch of his fly on the water there was 
 a rise, and Pratt had the credit of taking the first 
 and precursory trout. High's eye glistened. Den- 
 ison disarmed. Their rods were quickly put in or-
 
 126 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 der. All of tlieni rRpidly cast in their liaclde?, 
 and the tront jumped lively for a half-hour. 
 During this time, thirty of them were brought to 
 grief. 
 
 By general consent the trout simultaneously sub- 
 sided, and gave way to the exasperating chubs, 
 which began just as soon to betray their imperti- 
 nent voracity. The rods were promptly disjointed, 
 and speedy departure followed. Denison was so 
 disgusted at the onset of the chubs, that the first 
 one which tackled his fly was flung high and far on 
 the road to Jericho, in the woods, by the pitiless 
 viffor of his backward swino;. 
 
 A few rods on we turned ashore, to camp. "While 
 the tent was being set, I threw in a bass-line with a 
 chub on the hook. A two-pound perch happened 
 to be swimming around on the lookout for an eve- 
 ning meal, and just in the mood and at the instant 
 for a greedj^ dash at the tempting bait. The perch 
 was captured and landed.* That satisfied my yearn- 
 ing for sport. The encampment was high and at a 
 bend. The river is tortuous, and turning bends 
 was so common that Denison had a lively business 
 on his hands in keeping trace of the points and 
 courses with his pocket compass. 
 
 Our supper was a banquet of trout. These be- 
 ing the first of our catch, and rather a surprise, im- 
 parted, perhaps, a keener relish to the dish. In the 
 after-supper lounge and idling, Denison again,
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKIXG. 127 
 
 silently and apart, meditated on tiie tlieme of the 
 kiss and melting ruby lips, and pursned the tender 
 storj of the lovers in the novel. Should Ilawley 
 Smart weave other amorous tales of osculation, 
 Frank is hardly the man to suffer auy of his favor- 
 ite hand-books of the law, such as "Daniell's 
 Chancery Practice," to absorb him from the enjoy- 
 ment of such affecting memoirs. 
 
 High and Pratt entertained themselves and me 
 by fishing over again their previous years' angling on 
 the Megalloway, Parmachene Lake and in the wilds 
 of northern Maine, and in the smoke of our log-heap 
 fire azurely wavering above us, recalled the memories 
 of Whipple's roaring camp-fires on that trip. When 
 the twilight deepened obscurity over the pages, and 
 he lost sight of the lovers in the shadows, Dcnison 
 laid away his book, and found vent for his inappeas- 
 able vitality in practising gunnery. He delivered 
 a random volley at a bat that wheeled about in cir- 
 cles round us, in the waning light, and then also 
 scattered a' canister charge at a fearless muskrat 
 •that was cutting triangular ripples across the stream. 
 
 When we were retired to the tent, it was formally 
 and solemnly agreed that no one should introduce 
 or talk shop, under penalty of a ducking. This 
 was partly because three of us learned gentlemen 
 were too many for Pratt, who was not learned, and 
 who, though knowing little about lands, tenements 
 and hereditaments, except the rents and profits
 
 12S TKOUTING ON TUE BEULE. 
 
 thereof, was not familiar with the legal mj'sterics 
 relating to them, as expounded in Coke or Cruises' 
 Digest, and beanse we ought not to worry him and 
 ourselves with the vain subtleties and quiddities of 
 the law, and because on any question started we 
 could never agree, and there were sure to be three 
 different opinions. 
 
 Later in the evening, the party thought I rather 
 transgressed the rule. I referred to a curious case in 
 Iowa, where a mcteorlite fell on a granger's land. 
 A dispute about this worthless product of the upj^er 
 regions was about as meritorious and profitable, one 
 would think, as the suit about the shadow of the 
 donkey which Demosthenes related to the gap- 
 ing mob of Athens. But still the subtlety and 
 learning of some of the pundits of the profession 
 were sharply exercised on the question whether it 
 belonged, by law, to the finder, by right of dis- 
 cov^ery, or to the owner of the land, as an accession. 
 This reference was imputed to me as a misdemeanor 
 plainly within the interdict of shop. I protested 
 that it was a meteorological rather than a legal mat- 
 ter. But the preposterous wiseacres solemnly gave 
 judgment against me. But they, Denison dis- 
 sentiente, graciously suspended the execution of 
 the sentence of ducking, at least until we should 
 reach warmer water below. 
 
 The Republic blankets made High and me bless 
 our stars for the thoughtful prescience which had
 
 SUMMER WAYTARIXG. 129 
 
 added them to our sleeping kit. They were needed. 
 The air at night was frost-like, and after High got 
 up and grubbed out a protruding root over which 
 he had been sometime unrestfully turning, as on a 
 pivot, and after the others in their l)lankets moder- 
 ated their snoring, we fell into our lirst slumbering 
 in the woods, and it was peaceful and deep. 
 
 Pratt was our morning harbinger, and peep o' 
 day boy. He liked to see what envious streaks did 
 lace the severing clouds in yonder east, and the 
 jocund day stand tiptoe on the misty mountain, 
 hill or tree tops, or whatever height, as Romeo saw 
 them. Whether the eyelids of the morn, cr of 
 Pratt were first opened, was always an open question. 
 The Indians, even, lagged in their snore after he 
 rose — not long, though, for he soon, roused and 
 bestirred them to diligence around the wood-heap 
 kitchen range, that breakfast might come soon apace. 
 While the cooking was being attended to, he and 
 Denison navigated themselves to the little stream 
 where the trout were found, to try again 
 
 " The fond credulity 
 Of silly fish, which, worldling-like, still look 
 Upon the bait, but never on the hook." 
 
 They returned with the inglorious trophy of one 
 trout apiece. 
 
 We broke camp about nine o'clock. A porcupine, 
 looking like, and as still as, a bump on a log, was 
 seen sprawled out on a half sunken and fallen tree 
 9
 
 130 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 in tlie water. Deiiison leveled dead at it, and 
 wonnded it. We drew np, and Thebault despatched 
 it with his paddle, after its making fight. A mile 
 or two below, we trailed around rapids which were 
 passable by the canoes only when lightened. We 
 almost lost the trail, and jogged ahead slowly, 
 over logs, through bnshes and branches, a longish, 
 weary route. We had our rods and baskets, for the 
 Indians said there were trout below. 
 
 At the supposed trouting place, the lines were 
 whipped in with vigor, and with fervor of anticipa- 
 tion. The brush and timber in the water were ob- 
 structions to prosperous sport. High and Pratt 
 tottered or scrambled out on uncertain and yield- 
 ing logs, and made random casts, but with no cheer- 
 ing results, except that Pratt was enlivened by the 
 surprising capture of a S23lendid one-pounder, seem- 
 ingly tlie solitary trout of tlie pool. But the chubs 
 snuffed us as from afar, and came shortly, a collective 
 voracity, to vex our patience, and, after viciousl}' 
 jerking out a few as monitory examples to the spe- 
 cies, the anglers decamped in conspicuous dudgeon. 
 
 Awaiting the canoes and the portage of tlie car- 
 goes, we lounged on the brink. My compeers 
 yielded to the seductive biblomania and industri- 
 ously yawned over their novels and lost themselves 
 in the mazes of the plots. Unequal and not inclined 
 to similar mental dissipatiun, I was content with the 
 thoughtless idleness of smoking and watchino^ the
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 131 
 
 whiffs dissolving aroimd me, or the ripples gently 
 lifting and silvering on the stream. When we were 
 again embarked and not long under way, the ninch- 
 seeing Kaquotash distinguished a deer in a scarcely 
 visible clump of bushes, and advanced the canoe 
 more briskly thereaway. But he could get no nearer 
 than within long rifle range, and the bullet sent 
 from his trusty piece only served to speed the deer 
 rushingly oflT into the dense timber. 
 
 We came, then, to an almost inappreciable brook 
 weakly filtering, as it were, drop by drop, from 
 some neighboring spring, into the river. It is only 
 where the cold thrills of the springs are imparted 
 by these veins of water to the main stream, that 
 haunts of Michigami trout can be found or expected. 
 Pratt had his eye on this tiny outlet, and was the 
 first to cast as we rounded to. He had the luck of 
 starting some lively rises for a time, but not the 
 equal fortune of capturing. He brought in only 
 three or four. Each one that he lost seemed to him 
 lustier than the last, and. of course, his complacency 
 became more jangled and correspondingly out of 
 tune. 
 
 About six o'clock, on reaching a bend, a splendid 
 sight surprised, and at the same time, hushed 
 us into the silence of admiration and caution. 
 Straight ahead were the stately forms of a couple 
 of bucks, one of grand size, with a lordly foli- 
 age of antlers toweling up; his consort buck.
 
 132 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 also, not meagerly branched witli horns, and with 
 them a beautiful doe. They were in full view front- 
 ing us, grouped together in mid-stream, a won- 
 drous picture of majesty and gracefulness, worthy 
 to be sculptured into enduring marble, as they stood. 
 The larger buck seemed fixed in a pose ot pride, 
 as if contemplating his own massive proportions in 
 the mirror of the stream. He and his fellow then 
 dropped their fronts to the water, and gracefully 
 arched them up again ; threw them back erect, and 
 tossed oflF the water that showered like spray, and 
 again repeated the dip, and appeared as if about, 
 another time, to plunge their antlers, when the big- 
 horned buck slowly turned his head, as if first to 
 scent any impending or possible danger. 
 
 In the meantime our Indians instinctively 
 crouched low, like tigers for a spring, and motioned 
 us to perfect quiet, though we already were spon- 
 taneously and breathlessly still. The forward canoe 
 crept on stealthily and slowly, with strokes of the 
 paddles which expert Indian woodsmen and canoe- 
 ists only have the knack of making noiseless. Our 
 canoe was silently moving in the wake of the for- 
 ward one, our eyes fixed, as by a spell, we scarcely 
 respiring, for fear a breath even would dispel the 
 charm of the scene. 
 
 " Ah! what a pity were it to disperse, 
 Or to disturb so fair a spectacle, 
 And yet a breath can do it."
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 133 
 
 It really was a scene too rare and fine to last 
 longer than for momentary view. 
 
 Before the advance vessel could move the shooters 
 into eifective range, we were sighted and scented, 
 and quick like thought, the group broke up; the 
 bucks and doe and the triggers all went together, 
 and, with head thrown back, the deer plunged and 
 dashed, in a foam of the water, to the shore, and 
 receded like a flash into the thick covert of bushes, 
 " lost to sight, but to memory, deer." For a few 
 seconds we were still under the trance, and then 
 nearly all, simultaneously, broke out in a loud whoop 
 of relief. Our boys, George and Paul, twitted and 
 chaffed the forward Indians for the luckless fiasco 
 of their marksmanship and strategy. Denison was 
 sadly crest-fallen over the event. 
 
 Afterwards, in the camp, it was remarked that 
 Denison did not, with his rueful countenance, look 
 like the same man, to which another of the party 
 twinklingly responded, the deer, though, were the 
 same deer. David's rifle fired no better than Deni- 
 son's shot-gun. The range was long, and it was no 
 fault of either that he was forced to fire afar. Except 
 in rounding a bend, and surprising one, it is not easy 
 to get a dead shot at a deer. Even in a near drawing 
 on him, and more especially when the range is dis- 
 tant, the greater or less oscillation and motion of the 
 canoe is likely to waver or swerve the line of sight, 
 and make the shooting something imsure and wild.
 
 131 TROUTIXG ON THE BKULE. 
 
 Kaqiiotasli betrayed earnest meditation in Lis 
 face, as if pondering how yet to show us something 
 in the way of deer-slaying. He steered us for 
 encamping to a high bank with dense pines over- 
 lianging, and to this particular place, because there 
 was a known deer haunt in the vicinit}-. He pur- 
 posed making a night hunt with the lantern to 
 redeem himself and retrieve the mischance of the 
 afternoon. And such was Denison's humor too. 
 His blood was up, and his rage for deer was now 
 inappeasable. In the kindled fervor of the two, 
 we had a sure forecast of venison. 
 
 After the cups and platters of supper were dis- 
 posed of, and the night set in, the gunners held a 
 divan on the grass, and arranged the strategy of a 
 dark hunt. Denison tacked the lantern on his hat 
 so that when the slide was moved its glare would 
 shoot out far in the abyss of darkness, like that of 
 a light-house signal. "With Dixon and Thebault 
 to man the canoe, he vanished into the distance and 
 the night up the river. Kaquotash and Paul footed 
 it, through the shadows of the pines, to a neigh- 
 boring pond or lakelet. High, Pratt and I, in 
 musing meditation fancy free, the while, lay on 
 the blankets, wistfully, and principalh' watching 
 the flare of the blazes of the camp fire, or the 
 smoke of our meerschaums wreathing visible fra- 
 grances around us. Our own voices were the only 
 sounds that broke the dead silence of the night.
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. l6o 
 
 We waited not long. The report of tlie gun 
 was lieard, and, speedily, Denison followed it to 
 camp, and laid before us the trophy of a slain doe. 
 We hailed him with congratulatory paeans. Pratt 
 was enough elated to vow, and give formal notice, 
 that in honor of the event, he would next morning 
 decorate himself in the gala costume of anew shirt 
 collar. Denison quite modestly bore his blushing 
 honors, considering that he never before shed deer's 
 blood, and though not bearing himself with any 
 particular air of flushing or vaunting, he was nota- 
 bly complacent in manner, as if, now, amends were 
 made for his flash in the pan shortly before, and 
 as if we were now bound to rate his gunning at its 
 real worth. David was less fortunate. He wearily 
 and patiently scouted the margins of the pond, 
 and laid in wait, and noiselessly slipped the canoe 
 from point to point, but no sign of a deer was 
 heard or seen, and he was obliged to i*eturn with 
 his redemptory purpose left for future achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 Frank's venison, when served on the breakfast 
 log:, was not a tender viand; but as it was the first 
 of the kind, we proposed making an honest meal 
 of it. I noticed it was not, however, until the sec- 
 ond liberal course had gone the round of the platters, 
 that any one ventured absolutely to aftirm that the 
 venison was rather tough. "We thought it would 
 be ungracious to Denison, and it would seemingly
 
 136 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 be to misprize tlie excellence of the meat and de- 
 tract from the lustre of his achievement for us to be 
 critical about the cohesive quality of the flesh. So 
 we smacked our lips on it as a delicacy and declared 
 the repast a feast.
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 VOCATION OF AKMS AND REVOLVER SHOOTING —TRfING FOR 
 TROUT — DRIFT-PILE — TROUT DINNER — A PORCUPINE AND 
 PORCUPINES — MARBLE — A CARNIVAL OF MINKS — P4RT- 
 RIDGES — FLOPPERS — A WINDFALL — UPPER MICHIGAMI 
 FALLS — MOISTURE — LITERATURE, 
 
 We recognized Denison's vocation as one of arms. 
 His revolver and gun and ammnnition-box were liis 
 playthings. He apparently thought the best ser- 
 vice of his cold steel was its being kept hot by use. 
 Loading and firing were his favorite diversions. 
 Popping gun or pistol was a necessity, and if no 
 living thing offered itself to his marksmanship, a 
 bump or spot on a tree served for target practice. 
 A chunk was floating past, and he challenged me to 
 revolver practice with him. I pulled away at the 
 chunk. I claimed that the ball had perforated 
 its centre, as there was no splash of the water. 
 But he and the others, as his corroborative wit- 
 nesses, with one voice, declared I had missed even 
 (137)
 
 138 TKODTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 the river and shot into the sandbank beyond. As 
 the verdict was against me I was at least silenced, 
 if not satisfied. 
 
 When we were again on the way, Pratt discov- 
 ered a brooklet putting in. In the cool water of 
 its confluence with the river, he knew there were 
 the conditions of a resort for trout. So the canoes 
 were paddled to the mouth of the brook and halted. 
 He switched ia his fly, and whipped a nest of trout 
 into most animated commotion for a brief while. 
 He took in a few of the leapers*, but just at once 
 the whole shoal of trout must have abruptly emi- 
 grated, in a panic, to safer parts, for not another 
 rise was to be had. 
 
 'No sooner had we swung off and were under way, 
 than David's eye discerned a deer ahead; but, 
 though cautiously dropping the canoe toward it, 
 the deer took the alarm and went flying, so the shot 
 aimed at it whizzed a harmless errand. So, too, af- 
 ter a mile of further paddling, we came within view 
 of a buck nibbling his morning herbage. He stop- 
 ped not on the order of leaving his unfinished 
 feeding, and Denison's buckshot effected nothing 
 but to speed him to a masterly retreat into the 
 woods. 
 
 We came to a gorge of drift-wood, which looked 
 like the debris of a forest chaotically jammed fast; 
 it was about a quarter of a mile of piled-uj) heaps 
 and jagged ness, so solidly wedged and massed that
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 139 
 
 the floods conld not move it. We trailed over the 
 carrj, and the boys shouldered the canoes and car- 
 goes around. Below this, a handsome, but incau- 
 tious doe, stepped into the brink to ford the river. 
 She caught sight of us in time, and as our appear- 
 ance was not at all pleasing to her, quicker than a 
 whirligig, she turned tail on us and went a fast 
 vanishing form of white. 
 
 Under the verdure of arching firs and cedars, the 
 dinner was served. There was a carpeting of faded 
 brown layers of fallen twigs, as soft to the footfall, 
 as a vesture of sponge or a velvet of nature's own 
 weaving. The ground was clear of bushes and 
 thicket. The spread of our cuisine was not various, 
 but it was, to us, eminently sufficient, as much so as 
 if it had been prepared according to Soyer, or, as 
 if it were an inspiration of Brillat-Savarin. We 
 needed none of the sauces or condiments of gastro- 
 nomic art to sharpen appetite, or to lend to eating 
 a zest, and to tea-drinking a flavor unknown to 
 gourmets and pampered epicures. The catching of 
 a trout or plumping of a buck, when one, himself, 
 brings in the fins or the horns, or is a witness to 
 the taking ofi", greatly enhances the relish of the 
 fish or the flesh on the dish. 
 
 The Roman table connoiseurs were wont to have 
 the intended fishes of their dinners brought livincr 
 before them, just on the eve of their being put to 
 pot, that the eaters might, in the courses quickly
 
 140 TEOTJTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 following, have tlie sense of freshness to tickle their 
 piscivorous appetites. The stoic Seneca, a sturdy 
 moralist, has severely noted and censured this dainti- 
 ness of the prandial epicures. Whoever has seen the 
 water dripping from the trout as they are taken, then 
 seen them prepared for the pan, touched by the fire 
 into a rich browny crisp, and served at table, all 
 nearly as an entire and inseparable process, knows 
 the difference in lusciousness, flav^or and delicacy 
 between the trout of a dinner he has eaten at Chi- 
 cago, and the trout of a dinnei* al fresco on the 
 brink of their native Michigami. Such trout meals 
 on the river, are something of the luxurious, to be 
 remembered. 
 
 On the afternoon down way we stopped to cast at 
 the mouth of a stream, but a few rises seemed to ex- 
 haust the local sport. All along the water where 
 there were sloughs, grass patches or swamps, fresh 
 deer tracks were innumerably imprinted. At the 
 mouth of Fence river, which sluggishly came in, 
 nearly hidden in a luxuriance of grass, the sands at 
 the margin were trampled into mire by the count- 
 less hoofs of the herds that frequent there. A 
 couple of porcupines were airing themselves on a 
 driftwood log, and immovably stared us in the face. 
 But Denison with his unerring revolver and at short 
 range went by, and they will fret their lives never- 
 more. The charges scattered many of their quills 
 on the water.
 
 SUMMER WAYFAEIXG. 141 
 
 On starting out next morning, Denison and I 
 took the forward canoe. At a brook that ran in 
 over a rocky bed, the other canoe was held np and 
 lagged for trouting. "We moved on ahead, and saw 
 another phenomenally large porcupine snuffing the 
 open morning air, and his prickles glistening in 
 the sun. "We bore down on him at close quarters. 
 I offered him the compliments of a revolver salute, 
 and Denison tendered him the liberal civilities of 
 three shots. These amenities were lost on him. 
 With his quills fretfully bristling out, he scrambled 
 off, unharmed, up the log to his retreat. 
 
 Further on, David ran us in at a white marble 
 ledge on the bank. He landed himself and knocked 
 off specimen fragments for us. He told us that off 
 from the river, there was a hill of fine white mar- 
 ble. Possibly, some day, blocks quarried there may 
 be reared into palaces or sculptured into monu- 
 mental effigies. But as we had no thought of erect- 
 ing palatial edifices in the metropolis, Chicago, and 
 still less of providing for ourselves grave-yard 
 shafts in the necropolis, Graceland or Oakwood, Da- 
 vid's samples and information therefore failed to 
 warm us into a mineralogical fervor. 
 
 But though this geological formation was of no 
 interest to us, a zoological display which we wit- 
 nessed was a jocund, though an exceedingly fleet- 
 ing, entertainment. It was a hilarious rabble of 
 minks, frisking and capering festively on the sand,
 
 112 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 squealing a inerry cliorus, and in the very heiglitli 
 of frolic as we, unbidden and unwelcome strangers, 
 liove around a bend into the midst of the revel. 
 Denison was as much surprised as the minks were, 
 and though their stampede was a marvel of dis- 
 persive celerity, he was quick enough on trigger 
 to make one panic-stricken mink bite the sand. 
 Kaquotash went ashore and appropriated the carcass. 
 He said its pelt was just what he wanted for a to- 
 bacco pouch. iN^orwas this the only animal troph}'^ 
 of Denison. There was a brace of partridges sand- 
 ing their craws. After he fired into one of them, 
 there was very little that was sandy, but a good 
 deal that was leaden, in the demised partridge's maw. 
 But broiled partridge enriched our next bill of fare. 
 We startled a flock of " sawbills " or " floppers." 
 They are fish-eating ducks, but not themselves eat- 
 able of sportsmen. David apprised us that this 
 family of quackers is a numerous aquatic nuisance 
 on the Michigami. Tliey partly run and partly fly 
 along the stream, and, with their wings and webs 
 flapping the water, and harshly quacking as they 
 go, make a boisterous flight that can be heard at a 
 distance. They always keep in the van of the navi- 
 gator, and when out of harm's way, settle down in 
 the water until the canoe again nearing, they 
 scamper in another rout. The Indians predicted 
 that this our introduction was likely to j^relude a 
 frequent, but rather distant acquaintance with the
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 143 
 
 sawbills, as they would surely forerun us far clown 
 the river. 
 
 A pair of porcupines in the top branches of two 
 neighboring trees, looking like bunches of mistletoe, 
 fired Denison's ambition to fusilade them with 
 his revolver. David's far-seeing eye, which took 
 in, and always before any of our eyes had a sight, 
 everything notable, espied a mink frantically tear- 
 ing through the bushes, to its retreat. Its agility in 
 making the run was such that Denison could only 
 fire an equivocal shot, which harmed neither hide 
 nor hair of the noxious creature. 
 
 "We passed a windfall, where a tornado had swept, 
 like a besom of destruction, through the forest, and 
 left towering pines, iirs and cedars prostrate in cha- 
 otic heaps and confusion, to mark its terrific devas- 
 tation. To realize the utter and fearful havoc of a 
 whirlwind in its career of fury and madness, one 
 needs only see its swath and pathway of wreck and 
 ravage in a Michigan pinery. 
 
 "We reached the portage to Michigami fiills about 
 one o'clock. Denison and myself, with our Indians, 
 managed, by vigorous footing, to make the lower 
 end of the trail just as the heavy clouds, which we 
 had seen following darklingly over the back-ground, 
 spread over us, and burst into drenching torrents of 
 rain. The shelter-tent afforded some protection. 
 
 0\iv messmates and suite who had but just readi- 
 ed the upper end of the carry in the midst of the
 
 144: TliOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 sliower, fared less fortunately. The turned-np ca- 
 noe, under whicli tliey tried to compress themselves, 
 was but a mockery of shelter against the merciless 
 drench. In the meantime, spite of the rain, shortly 
 moderating, the natives were able to start a fire. 
 The blazes of the roaring heap were cheering 
 warmth and glowing welcome to High and Pratt, 
 when, soaked and dripping, they stalked into camp- 
 None the less did we pleasantly greet their coming 
 ill because of the splendid mess of trout which they 
 had picked up on the way, in the rear. They had 
 come upon a family of deer, a buck, doe and lawn, 
 swimming the river, but, as they were without the 
 necessary deadly weapon, they had no means of 
 creating a disturbance or a loss in the group, and the 
 fortunate trio passed scathless on its way, admir- 
 able as a vision, but unavailing as venison. 
 
 These upper falls are not a very grand and wild 
 freak of nature, in the way of a cascade; there is 
 no precipitous, sheer deadfall of water over an edge 
 or precipice, but the river compresses its volume 
 into a narrow space between a point of rocks on 
 one side and a rocky wall on the other, the water 
 pitching in terraces, down an incline ; the cliff rears 
 straight aloft, probably a hundred or more feet, and 
 is heavily garnished with small stunted cedars aiid 
 pines; there is also nothing striking in the scenery. 
 Some of the party thought the basin promising for 
 trout, and, after the clouds cleared away, paced
 
 SUMMER WAYFAEIXG. 145 
 
 along the margin from jDoint to point, and dropped 
 in their lines with the persistence of cheering hope, 
 and then skimmed around in the canoe, from one 
 and another current or eddy; but the only signs or 
 responses to the fly were from the aggravating 
 chubs. The trout there, if any, were too wary for 
 the party. 
 
 No useless time, however, was lost in tentative 
 casting. It was our fate to lie idly by the rest of 
 the day, with wet goods to hang over the fire, to 
 dry tlie tents and patch the leaks in the birchen 
 fleet. In the later monotony of the afternoon, the 
 literary fever rather vehemently strnck us. In the 
 brilliant flashes of silence, and while the genial 
 warmth of the fiery log heaps soothed us, each one 
 yielded to the sorcery of the book, Denison was 
 absorbed in the "American Senator," possibly 
 dreaming or hoping to be one. Pratt took a shine 
 to "Joshua Haggard's Daughter." High devoted 
 his intellect to " Heaps of Money." I sharpened 
 my appetite for the coming supper of trout, by 
 reading of trout in honest Walton's pages. While 
 we were so occupied, the shadows stole on and 
 deepened into night. 
 10
 
 ^ OHAPTEK XII. 
 
 SCARECROW DUCKS— CAMPING PLACE — EASE, REST, ISOLATION 
 — A RAYEN — THE RIVER — LAKE MARY — NATURAL PARK 
 CAMP — IN CAMP — PAINT RIVER — RED ROOSTER AND SQUAW 
 — DERELICT CANOE — THE FOUNDLING — HARD NAVIGATION 
 — PAINT FALLS — A MOUSE STORY. 
 
 After the vesper meal of trout, the sawbill 
 plague was a prominent theme of indignant con- 
 fabulation. The pernicious water-tramps had dur- 
 ing the day verified Kaquotasli's ill report of them, 
 in their appearance, from time to time, at the front 
 of us. On our nearing them the flock would start 
 up and off, keeping to the water, winnowing it as 
 they moved on, boisterously splashing and harshly 
 squawking, so as to make them a moving van of 
 scarecrows to all the game in the woods. When 
 the flock preceded us to the falls, it kept on in the 
 current and swept along with the whirl of the tor- 
 rent, and reappeared resilient out of the vortex 
 below, as so many corks bobbing up from a forced 
 submersion. 
 
 (146)
 
 SUMMER AVAYFARING. 147 
 
 Our camp was so well conditioned by night, 
 wlien we were rested and dried, that we enjoyed in 
 it the combined pleasures — ease, comfort and con- 
 tent. The blazing trunks of pines equally bright- 
 ened and warmed us ; the rumble of the falling 
 waters and the lulling murmur of the stream in 
 our front made soothing music for the senses; the 
 light of the swinging lamp enlivened the interior 
 of the tent. "We gossiped into late hours, and witli 
 good cheer of mirth and laughter — for there is no 
 place like a forest camp-mess for stories and fun — 
 we smoothed the way to slumber, that was refresh- 
 ing and sweet. 
 
 The complete repose of mind, with no thought 
 of shop and with but little of the world or of the 
 war in Europe, of the news and life of the day at 
 home even, was the charm and blissfulness of our 
 scenes and pastimes in the far-oif unpeopled wild- 
 erness. Here were none of the pervading agencies 
 of civilization, business and industry, with their 
 cares and importunities — elsewhere ever ceaseless — 
 to perturb our mental isolation and quiet. No 
 railway and its rushing train ; no telegraph stretch- 
 ing as mystic chords to bear us thrills of message 
 from our homes; no daily journal to mirror us a 
 life otlier than our own; no presences to link us to 
 the world beyond our immediate horizon. It was 
 this mental repose that made our hemlock couches 
 as soft as beds of roses and sleep so deep and re-
 
 148 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 freshing. It was this that made every encampment 
 seem a happy Arcadia of peace and content.- 
 
 "We yanished from the dashing of the Michigami 
 Falls. The clouds were tlireatening, and their 
 pluvial omens were soon realities of showering. The 
 drops streaked down the glaze of the ponchos in 
 harmless watery films or veins. A good many 
 puffs of foam, like great white sponges, floated from 
 the falls. The rain pattered the stream into broad- 
 cast tiny bubbles. A raven winged a high flight 
 over our heads, and flew shyly and croaked spite- 
 fully at us, as if he were averse to human society, 
 and was, evidentl}', not in his nature akin to the 
 friendly raven that fed the holy prophet with bread. 
 
 Three miles from the start David espied a far-off 
 deer in the brush, and saluted it with a rifle-ball, 
 which clipped the twigs close by, and started it 
 snorting with fright into the safe asylum of the 
 woods. The crack of the gun sounded an alarum 
 to our evil genii, the floppers, which scooped along 
 the water and clamorously squawked down the 
 stream. 
 
 The river swelled into wider bounds as we pro- 
 ceeded, with fewer rapids and shallows, but bordered 
 with a vivid density of forest and uniformity of 
 wildness. "We were in a silent domain of all unsub- 
 dued n ature. The sprays of the pines moved neither 
 with the gentle sway or tremor of a breeze or with 
 the quiver of a bird. The scenery appeared brood-
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 140 
 
 ing in a calm as still as tlie landscape of a picture, 
 but with an exuberance of richness which no pencil 
 of art, but only the touch of nature, could produce. 
 
 At noon, we landed at tlie portage to Lake Marj. 
 It was a scarcely visible entrance to a labyrinth 
 of bushes and woods, the pathway of which was 
 tortuous and barely traceable, and beset, throughout, 
 with undergrowths that had to be bent or brushed 
 aside, and made our footsteps tardy and weary. 
 When we emerged from the density and touched 
 the edge of the lake, the little sheet shone in the 
 radiance of the sun like a glittering mirror in a 
 leafy setting of emerald. The azure of the sky and 
 the snowy clouds were reflected in its pure depths, 
 an imaged heaven, each seeming the other, the sky 
 the water and the water the sky, without a wayward 
 zephyr rippling it with a breath to wrinkle or dis- 
 turb the picture. While the boys were lugging 
 over the canoe and the stowage, we had full time, 
 reclining on the grassy slope, to restfnlly muse and 
 enjoy the summer glories blended in the scene. 
 
 The water was crystally clear. We thought it 
 must be stocked with fish. When the canoes were 
 in motion, trolling lines were put out, but uselessly. 
 The lake curved, and was not wholly seen in a first 
 view. Around the bend, the panorama of lake and 
 shores spread out more charmingly, though the 
 sheet was not a large one. The stillness of the 
 whole Scene was impressive. Little of life was
 
 150 TKOUTING OX THE BRULE. 
 
 lieard or seen. A solitary loon, moaning its plaintive 
 notes, lamentable as a sepulchral wail, was the only 
 sound or sign of living thing on its silent expanse. 
 
 We made the fui-ther end of the lake, about a 
 mile, at a knoll swelling gently up from the little 
 cove or nook in which the canoes were landed. The 
 undei-growth had at some period doubtless been 
 burned out, and the forest thinned by fire, yet with 
 enough scattering green-flourishing pines and firs 
 left by the destroying scourge for shade, and to 
 make the several acres of rolling surface a handsome, 
 natural park. On the summit of the lawn, velvet 
 with carpeting green, the tents were ultimately 
 placed for the day. A rain, with repeated acces- 
 sories of thunder and lightning ripping closely over 
 us, copiously outpoured, for a time, and streamed 
 do\vn_ the canvas roofing. 
 
 Most of the time during the afternoon we were 
 housed in for shelter, as the dropping of the clouds 
 was nearly constant. Ourselves snug and dry within, 
 the cheap novels, at such a time resources of some 
 utility, served to relieve the situation of much of its 
 dreariness, and to make the partj^ unconcerned about 
 the action of the elements. The Indians, in their 
 tented lair, comforted themselves with cards and 
 tobacco. After night set in and the repast was 
 finished, and the clouds had disj^ersed, the camp-fire 
 cheerily lapped the great pine heap in jets and 
 tongues of fiame and we squatted around it.
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 151 
 
 Our spirits brightened in tlie glow of the genial 
 blazes, and the crackling of the flames was out- 
 noised by the lively chatter of much-speaking lips. 
 The forms of the smoke, fantastically rising and 
 vanishing like spectral shadows into the night above, 
 were not lighter and more varying than our wanton- 
 ing fancies. Memories of other woodland scenes, 
 or of wanderings of other days, were recalled. We 
 heard Denison's story of his mountain travel in the 
 West, of his ascent of Pike's Peak, and of the more 
 perilous climb of Long's peak, as well. Hours were 
 thus passed, near unto the witching time of night, 
 and were made the pleasanter by those friendly and 
 ready servitors of all the hours of some of us — the 
 meerschaum pipes. The night's camp-fire lighted 
 the shrine of memory with a blazonry of recollec- 
 tions delightful and enduring, and, for the time, at 
 least, paled the memories of the firelights on the 
 hearthstones at home. 
 
 The waking in the morning was to a rat-tat of rain 
 pattering on the tent. The showering, however, 
 gradually softened into a mist, and finall}^ that van- 
 ished, though the clouds still hovered in the sk}', 
 portending other coming rain. But neither such 
 prognostics of ill-weather nor the beauty of the 
 landscape there could delay us from a quickstep ad- 
 vance towards attractive regions beyond. 
 
 It is a two mile portage to the Paint river. To 
 aid the Indians, each of us swung some parcel
 
 152 TKOUTI^'G ON THE BKULE. 
 
 of his own outfit over Ins shoulder or gripped it in 
 liis hands, and tottered burdensomely along the 
 tortuous footway. Bearing these fardels was, with 
 some of us at least, to grunt and sweat under a 
 weary load, very unlike the burdens we were accus- 
 tomed to carry. Denison, however, rather plumed 
 himself on having achieved a prodigy in the instance 
 of his transportation. To throw our portable ca- 
 pacities in the shade and vaunt his own, he troubled 
 himself to weigh in the fish scales, one by one, the 
 separate parcels of his load. The total pounds 
 avoirdupois were fifty-seven. As the Indians made 
 light of packs more than double that weight, he 
 thought he would scarcely hoist flying colors, or 
 very particularlj'' allude to the sinews of Hercules 
 or the shoulders of Atlas. 
 
 By noon the carrying was finished. The trail 
 led to a high bank or knob of a hill, and had a 
 cleared space for former camping. It overlooked a 
 broad, smooth reach of the Paint river, skirted with 
 borders of unbroken forest. At the foot of the hill, 
 a little brook, hidden under interlacing branches, 
 and cold with the chill of its supplying or parent 
 springs, ran into the stream. Doubtless it was a 
 very covert for shoals of trout. High and Den i son 
 must have had an insight of this, for they set out 
 with rods and baskets, to find some accessible silent 
 nook or recess free enough of limbs and brush 
 wherein to cast the fly. Wherever they pushed on
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 153 
 
 they found the little stream impenetrably guarded 
 and hedged against the art and patience of all 
 anglers, by the density of defensive overgrowth and 
 undergrowth. 
 
 We had dinner there. Just while we were taking 
 the last morsels of our meal, a canoe hove into port 
 with a freight of three — a Chippewa gentleman, 
 barefoot, and two squaws of the same aboriginal ity, 
 apparently matron and maid. The ladies timidly 
 looked at us, and quietly maintained their broad, 
 squat and bandle-like position in the canoe, seeming 
 to imply that as "white men are mighty uncer- 
 tain," they would prefer to keep their distance. So 
 they remained and rode at anchor. 
 
 Red Rooster, or whatever his name was, knowing 
 some of our Indians, and, possibly sniffing in his 
 sensitive nostrils the disseminating aroma of diet, 
 intrepidly climbed or hoisted himself up the hill to 
 camp, and began to pow-wow the natives of the ret- 
 inue. Cordial relations were soon established, and 
 the Menominee or Chippewa vernacular was the 
 medium of their voluble civilities. One word of 
 it, " now-o-liah^'' or an expression very like that, 
 seemed to reach a mo&t tender spot in Red Rooster's 
 capacious diaphragm. We took it to be the Menom- 
 inee phrase for pot-luck or grub, and the Chippewa 
 evidently considered himself an invited guest. 
 
 He evinced a most accommodating alacrity at 
 taking a chair, by straddling a log, at the table,
 
 154: TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 which was a packing-box upside down. He was not 
 taking his dinner in courses, but made a promis- 
 cuous onset on all tlie dishes. He was not meal}''- 
 mouthed in familiarizing himself with the potatoes. 
 He was not at ail prejudiced against the Japan tea. 
 A second supply of it seemed beatifjdng. That 
 Indians, as some speculators theorize, are not de- 
 scendants of the lost tribes of Israel, the havoc he 
 made in the pork side-dish was sufficient proof. 
 His proclivity for the cooked hog would silence a 
 suspicion of the remotest kinship or affinity to the 
 Jews. In fact, all our cooking was precisely to his 
 taste. He showed what he could do when he had 
 a chance at high living like ours. 
 
 If not told the dining guest was a Chippewa, we 
 might have believed him a Gros Yentre. The 
 greedy savage lost his gallantry in his glut, for 
 never a morsel did he bear to the crone and maid in 
 the canoe, though we offered for them the hospital- 
 ity of the cuisine. They knew our tea only by its 
 vapors, and our pork by its odor. It was all a 
 Barmecide feast to them. 
 
 Red Rooster and the ladies were going in our 
 direction, foraging for game. So, when we embarked, 
 he and they embarked and consorted with us. 
 He and our men poled the canoes side by side, and 
 kept up fluent guttural clack between the pushes. 
 The women shared liberally in the palaver, and 
 evinced the civilized sex's fluency of speech. Over
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKING. 155 
 
 ill the bushes, David espied a half-concealed birch- 
 bark cauoe, dry -docked in a bower of leaves. He 
 ran in, and landed himself to inspect the treasure 
 trove, determined, if it were a prize, to condemn 
 and appropriate it by Indian law, as derelict. 
 
 David and Paul hauled the canoe out of her cun- 
 ning embosomment of leaves, and submitted her to 
 close inspection. They set to work at repairing her 
 by smirching the cracks and seams in her birchen 
 sheathing with a glaze of resin and pitch. 
 
 The Indian ladies stepped ashore to lend hands 
 to David in the process. It was nothing to them 
 to step out in the wet. Their kips and Balbrig- 
 gan hose, if such effeminate trifles they had, were 
 away in their far-off wigwam domicile. They waded 
 about in the water like ISTaiades, and daubed on the 
 streaks of pitch like experts. 
 
 I had an interview with one of the female dab- 
 sters, who was melting resin by puffing flame on it 
 from a burning chunk. I said: " Please let me 
 have your fire to light a cigar," in my language. 
 She passed it to me with a mellifluous " Ugh," in her 
 language. The interview was thus short, but mu- 
 tually agreeable and suave. 
 
 Finally, when the canoe was thought water-tight, 
 it was launched into its native clement. We named 
 it the Foundling, to give its history in the name. 
 David and myself, after shifting part of the load to 
 the Tom King, went on in the new shallop. Den-
 
 156 TKOUTING ON THE BKTJLE. 
 
 ison and Paul paddled tlieir own canoe. The 
 Dickej, with High and Thebault, had stolen away 
 a long advance march on us. A couple of miles 
 further we parted with our Chippewa consort, 
 which turned off in a branch around an island, on 
 an exploration for muskrat, mink and deer. Da\dd 
 presented the vermilion dames, who had helped him 
 patch the Foundling, with a perfumed cake of Bab- 
 bitt's soap. 
 
 We found the Paint, on but short acquaintance, 
 to be a hard stream up which to run our prow. It 
 is broad, shallow and rapid, and but for the Sunday 
 rain, which drained into it and overlaid its shoals 
 as well as speeded its currents, we must have fought 
 our way, light-laden as was our craft, inch by 
 inch. Even as it was, in many places advance 
 was a tedious scuffle, and frequently David was 
 forced to wade and drag the pinnace by the nose. 
 Once, too, I Avas obliged to take to water, to lighten 
 the canoe over shallows that were merely a ragged 
 and threadbare cover of stream. 
 
 We reached the Paint Falls, though but seven or 
 eight miles from our embarkation point on this 
 river, just in time to catch the last roseate flushes 
 of sunset on the water, crimsoning it as if a stream 
 of blood had run red into it from the carnage of a 
 battle-field, a glory of color worthy of a Claude to 
 paint. The falls are a broad curving break, with 
 a low rock formation, large boulders upheaving their
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKIXG. ' 157 
 
 bold fronts In places, the water parting around tliem 
 in foaming currents, so that, on the approach from 
 below, the cascade looked like slopes of ground, 
 streaked and patched with drifts of snow. 
 
 The camp was at the further end of the carry 
 around the falls. A space for the tents had to be 
 cleared of bushes and branches, which rapidly fell 
 before the strokes of Thebault's axe. Though a huge 
 drift-pile was near by, a gorge of pines of many 
 freshets, it was difficult to get wood for warming 
 and cooking. There had been no campers here 
 before us this year. We were the pioneers of the 
 season. Pratt and High found places to drop their 
 flies, and were skilled enough to befool a mess of 
 fifteen glistening trout from the pools, which were 
 served in their sweetest freshness and flavor on the 
 supper platters. 
 
 The ill-omened gang of Michigami sawbills, or 
 some of their detestable kind, had forerun us 
 here. They disturbed the serenity of Denison's 
 temper, and, after a bit of strategy for a good posi- 
 tion, he fired a hail of shot into the flock, and, by a 
 good fortune which is rare in the case of this wary 
 duck, one of them wr.s killed. When it was brought 
 in by the canoe, and laid at his feet, Frank exulted 
 over the dead fowl. It was the proudest moment 
 of his life, and so forth. He took a Falstafi" atti- 
 tude, " there lies Percy for you ! " He has such an 
 antipathy against this species of the duck, that if he
 
 358 TKODTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 Gould, by one iiiurderoiis explosion, blow the whole 
 flock of these disturbing nomads into annihilation, 
 he would ask no other lanrel, and would return home 
 without again trying to strike a trout or shoot a 
 deer. 
 
 From our camping fire, at night, the flames threw 
 up a ruddy glare which tinged the massive foliage 
 of the great pines into illuminated drapery of fan- 
 tastic shapes. In the genial radiance, we bright- 
 ened, and the dark solitudes and depths of the 
 wood echoed the noise and laughter of the camp. 
 Denison related us the thrilling story of a mouse 
 prodigy. His office was infested with mice, which 
 nibbled and chewed his chancery tiles, and they 
 were too wary for the cheap device of a mouse-trap. 
 He charged a shot-gun with small shot, and laid for 
 the petty spoilers. One of them crept out slyly, 
 just in the nick of time to draw his shower of 
 leaden mustard seed. He fired away at it, but 
 the mouse slunk bade to its retreat, as he supposed 
 with a whole skin. Next day, in turning over the 
 papers, he found the mouse laid out, defunct. 
 
 The odd and curious part of Denison's story was 
 that the mouse had practiced a bit of surgery on 
 itself by having plugged a shot-wound in its side 
 with a wad of paper to stanch hemorrhage! On 
 this relation Pratt simply ejaculated, "Well, I de- 
 clare! " High said he begged to consider the story 
 as bordering on the marvelous. I added, " Frank,
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 151) 
 
 yonr affidavit on that." He declared his readiness to 
 swear to it, and as a Master in Chancery wonld 
 administer the oatli liimself. High gave his profes- 
 sional opinion that an oath administered before him- 
 self, as Master in Chancery, by himself to himself, 
 was a legal nullity, and he thought a solecism, and 
 he believed no precedent could be found in the books 
 to warrant such practice, and, in fact, such an oath, 
 in the language of the law of Wouter Yan Twiller's 
 time, was nix noot. As Denison was too scrupulous 
 to 2)rostitute tlie important functions of a Chancery 
 Master, or to trifle with the solemn formalities of 
 the law, the jurat was dispensed with, and each one 
 was left to' his own meditations on the mouse.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE FOUNDLING ABANDONED — EARITYOF BIRDS — MORE SA"W- 
 BILLS — A PORTAGE — A PORCUPINE — TROUT RIVER CAMP — A 
 SNAKE INCIDENT — A BEAR INCIDENT TOO — TROUT RIVER — 
 PILLARS OP HERCULES — PLATS AND SHALLOWS — DIFFICULT 
 NAVIGATION — BEAVER DAM — AN EAGLE — LAKE CHICAGON — 
 — CHRISTENING OF LAKE MINNIE. 
 
 The current of the Paint was so stiff that two men 
 were required to run the canoes. We could not 
 make such a distribution of muscular power as was 
 necessary, if we took the waif canoe further on. So 
 we left the Foundling, high and dry in the woods, 
 for some succeeding party to pick up and appropriate. 
 
 The river above the falls was broader, shallower, 
 and more rajDid than below. At many places, the 
 navigators waded and dragged the birches along, 
 and at one point, all of us stepped out and wetted our 
 shins and trousers in the shallow. The party in the 
 Dickey was in the lead. We had the tantalizing 
 but useless privilege of seeing three deer wading 
 (160)
 
 suiiMEu ^vAYFAm^•G. 161 
 
 over, on their southward emigration way, without 
 any means of making anything but a distant ac- 
 quaintance of them, for want of guns. 
 
 Denison, in our boat, liad a chance shot at an 
 overflying straggling flopper, and exultingly slaugli- 
 tered the flagitious duck, and not long after caught 
 sight, in the far-oflT perspective, of a lively moving 
 buck in a dissolving view. Our way was through 
 a monotony of dense foliage of vivid green, a very 
 huge wall, or precipice-like mass of verdure, 
 seemingly planted on the water itself, so few and 
 scant Avere the patches of naked shore, and so 
 meagre were the stri2:>s of sand on the edge of the 
 stream. 
 
 Beyond the water front, all was solitary and un- 
 trodden wilderness. We remarked everywhere, thus 
 far, the exceeding rarity of bird-life in these im- 
 mensities of woods. Few are the " wood-notes wild " 
 of forest songsters. The twigs and branches but 
 seldom bend or sway with the pressure of plumages. 
 The silence of the forest is solemn and death-like. 
 At this season, even the water-fowl are not numer- 
 ous. A kingfisher sometimes swooped down from 
 a hanging branch, to make a scoop of small fry, or, 
 scared by us, darted from his perch of observation, 
 with an angry scream, to a limb further away. 
 Ducks were yet unseasonable — that is, those that a 
 sportsman would covet for his game-bag. The pes- 
 tilent congregation of floppers which heralded our 
 11
 
 162 TEOUTIXG ON THE BRULE. 
 
 advance, or their congeners, was not wanting. It was 
 rather early, too, for the herds of migrating deer. 
 
 We had so slowly worked a way up, that it was 
 noon before we touched our landing-place. It was 
 a portage of a half mile. It was the usual trail of 
 roughness and narrowness, of masses of foliage and 
 net-work of bushes. On the way, we passed wild 
 clierrv trees. Of their red fruitage the bears are 
 particularly greedy. It was not strange, then, that 
 unmistakable bear tracks imprinted the path, and 
 that there were other signs of recent ursine presence 
 and cherrj'-tree spoliation. Yery naturally, there- 
 fore, an emergency of bear could not be thought 
 improbable, and so a look-out was kept, and the 
 armor of defense, in the hands of Denison, was 
 kept in a state of preparation for instant action; 
 that is to say, the gun to shower buck-shot and the 
 somewhat damaged belt-knife to do the jabbing and 
 i'ipping business. 
 
 But in our progress of armed caution no beast 
 more savage or perilous than a porcupine was en- 
 countered, and that one was taking a survey of the 
 country, doubtless, from the topmost limb of a lofty 
 pine. Denison had renewed porcupine entertain- 
 ment on this occasion, and in the contest for life 
 which ensued Denison prevailed, and the porcupine 
 dropped suddenly from his lofty perch, in obedience 
 to the inflexible law of survival of the fittest. We 
 came to an inexpressibly paltry and dismal lakelet.
 
 SUMiIEK WAYFARING. 163 
 
 or really pond, of dead water. It had at a distance 
 a sickly greenish hue, like that of the scurf of a 
 frog-pond. But this semblance of green slime was, 
 in fact, caused by the countless water-lilies whose 
 leaves were spread ilat, as if drooped and prostrated 
 by some vegetable epidemic blight, and overlapped 
 thickly like fish scales, We crossed this mess of 
 water and lily pads. In the sand where we landed 
 fresh imprints betokened recent presence of deer. 
 The portage thence to Trout river was a mile and 
 •a half of the usual multitudinous impediments of 
 the trail. Though we should reach the end and 
 the night together, we at once set out on the wea- 
 risome tramp. To afford us speedier and easier 
 carrying, the canoes were beached on the shore, to 
 be taken over in the morning. The place for 
 encampment was a dreary, low, swampy, malarious 
 pine-flat, more uninviting and deepened into un- 
 pleasantness, from the gloomy shadows of the twi- 
 light. The atmosphere was moist and dank. It 
 was a geographical necessity — a Hobson's choice, a 
 clear case of will^^-nilly — that obliged us to content 
 ourselves with that as onr place of nocturnal so- 
 journ. Trout river was a few rods off. In the last 
 leaden somberness of the day, we could discern a 
 cheerless outlook of a crooked, narrow, sluggish 
 channel of open stream, in a meadow or broad 
 margin of ooze, bottomless mud, and water lilies, 
 where a sand-hill crane would mire in the slime or
 
 164 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 get tangled in the thick-set plant of reeds and 
 grasses. 
 
 How we were, in the morning, to tide canoes, 
 cargoes, and ourselves, over the marshy and nasty 
 morass, to the free water, was a quandary of spec- 
 ulation. The dilemma had to be turned over, for 
 solution, to the engineering resources of the Indi- 
 ans. We had trust in David's wood-craft experi- 
 ence. He looked the spirit of Yirgil's hero, aut 
 inveniam vlam atit faciam, and we were confident 
 he would find a way, or make a way. It w^as im- 
 possible, from the end of the trail, for him to get 
 directly to the river for even enough water for 
 supper purposes. Access was gained by a long 
 oblique of route to the water, but after much exper- 
 imental patience and exploration. He told us that 
 only by a liberal swing of the ax, in some places, 
 and corduroying or pontooning the slumps with 
 branches at others, a way of extrication to the river 
 was possible. 
 
 Spite, however, of adverse surroundings, and 
 first impressions, the blazes of the camp fire tipped 
 the shadowing trees with ruddy tinges, and sent up 
 fire-flies of sparks dotting the whirls of smoke, and 
 the camp was robed in a livery of light. By the 
 time the supper platters were set before us, after 
 unusual delay in the preparation, our appetites were 
 sharpened to unwonted fineness of edge, and the 
 supper's eating was something voracious. The
 
 SUMMER WAYFAEING. 1G5 
 
 moral effects of tlie repast, as well as the enlivening 
 transformation scenes wrought around us hj the 
 brilliant flames of pine, mncli elevated and cheered 
 the tone of the party. We settled ourselves to the 
 conviction that we were not far from being happy, 
 and could accept the situation in much good humor 
 and with exceeding grace. We fell into a lively 
 babble of tongues, little less than exhilarating. 
 
 David interested us with many of his forest rem- 
 iniscences and, like another Scheherezade, became 
 a narrator of Indian Night's Entertainments. One 
 of these night entertainments made a sensation. 
 It was peculiarly topical and ap'Ojyos in its bear- 
 ing; it was an incident of a former camping party 
 at this very spot. While the campers were wrap- 
 ped in the lulling embrace of Morpheus, three large 
 snakes crawled into the tent; one of these wriggled 
 over the uncovered shin of one of the sleepers, 
 and, as if an elongated icicle were drawn over 
 the tibia, with such frigid effect as to bring him to 
 his immediate senses. The impromptu scene of 
 midnight panic and confusion that followed, was 
 indescribable. This reptilian reminiscence had a 
 bad effect oh us, and chilled our fervency of spirit, 
 and induced crawling sensations in each particular 
 spine of the party. 
 
 " Be there bears i' th' town ? — they are very ill- 
 favored, rough things." Master Slender's inquiry 
 and his zoological hint would have been in order
 
 166 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 ill our camp. Kaquotasb's tale of serpents put us 
 in a kind of cold shiver that the blankets could not 
 entirely warm away. To have been surprised in 
 our sleeping, by a serpent creeping in the tent and 
 coiling in one of the manly bosoms there, might 
 not now have appeared supernatural or quite out 
 of the course of the fitness of things in a Trout river 
 swamp. But the fate of being hugged to the 
 bosom of an unceremonious black bear ! It is not 
 easy to say how nearly some of us came to realizing 
 such an unexpected embrace. In fact, in " the dead 
 vast and middle of the night," and out of the wil- 
 derness, while we were sunk in the depth of sleep, 
 a veritable bear did loom into appearance and stalk 
 around the camp, crackling the dry brush, stirring 
 the bushes and leaving his paws imprinted in the 
 mud. He ranged closely enougli to us to prove 
 that he meant no good and was on no peaceful 
 errand. He was smelling about for our provision 
 stores, doubtless, with a keen snout and watering 
 mouth, and, it may be, with designs on the occu- 
 pants of the tent as well as on the commissariat. 
 
 High sometimes sleeps with one eye open, or 
 was at least, on half ocular watch for swamp-snakes 
 at the time, and knew what was afoot. He sound- 
 ed a tocsin of alarm. Denison awoke rather con- 
 fused, and probably having just been dreaming 
 himself a Laocoon in the coil of the serpents, or of 
 wrestling in the compressive grip of a full-grown
 
 SUMilER WAYFARING. 167 
 
 nightmare, and wishing to have his grapple out 
 with the incubus or the snakes, was rather slow in 
 coming to the front, but on realizing the situa- 
 tion, reached about for his trusty field-piece, and 
 then remembered it was unloaded, after all. He 
 requested his bed-fellow, Pratt, to turn him over 
 his caisson, and for once it was out of the waj', and 
 not readily found. Pratt was probably somnambu- 
 listic,' and not conceiving the demand, fumbled 
 around, and, as the first thing he could lay his 
 hands on, clutched one of High's long-legged boots. 
 The point of Denison's savage knife was left at 
 camp Mary sticking in a tree in which it was broken 
 off while being pitched at a mark. For instant 
 use, there were only the angling rods to punch out 
 the enemy's eyes. I tried to muster enough in- 
 trepidity for the pinch from confidence in the ter- 
 rifying effects of my guinea-hen hat which would 
 make it a shield of safety against any ordinary car- 
 niverous beast. Our defensive means, therefore, 
 were uncertain. 
 
 The pickle we were in was a pretty one; but, 
 fortunately, our Indian allies were wide-awake, to 
 save our figurative and our actual bacon. David 
 was a veteran of the woods, and was as quick to 
 hear a bear in the night as he was to sight a deer 
 in sunlight. He had emerged from his snoring, 
 and tip-toed out of the tent with his weapon in 
 hand, and peered through the darkness, waiting a
 
 1GS TROUTIXG ON THE BUULE. 
 
 certain aim on the bear's closer approach. The 
 Kaquotashes are not stranp^ers in those parts, and 
 the bears well know there is no foolishness about 
 one of them when he has his rifle handy. This par- 
 ticular bruin seasonably took the hint and sneaked 
 off with a lively trot into the depths of the further 
 darkness, leaving our sustenance untouched and 
 with but a faint sniff of the flesh-pots for his pains.. 
 
 In the morning, Pratt somewhat gave himself up 
 to mild chairrin. He thought it an ill-chance that 
 he had not been more broad awake, so that he might 
 have met the opportunities of the occasion by hav- 
 ing gone and contended with the bear. Had he 
 taken in the situation in time, doubtless, he would 
 have stalked out, as Hamlet once appeared, with his 
 doublet, and so-forth, all unbraced, for the enter- 
 prise, with stomach in it for the bear but that drowsi- 
 ness overpowered his bloodj- purpose, turned it 
 awry and lost it the name of action. 
 
 The natives hewed and cleared out a way from 
 the camp to the water — but water thick-set with 
 lily pads, and shallow over mud bottom, in which 
 the canoes floundered dubiously, with decided ten- 
 dencies to fixed adhesion. We finally got out of 
 the swamp into a flowing of clear winding stream, 
 with the scantiest dej)th. A beaver dam stretched 
 a little obstruction across, and delayed the passage, 
 while it was being knocked to pieces. A mile be- 
 yond was a tortuous chain of rapids, where the
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 160 
 
 water tmiibled over the stones in a bed or ci^tter of 
 a width barely enough for a canoe. This passage 
 was so densely bordered and overliung with 
 brandies, there were so many trees fallen across, 
 and tliere was such a lack of navigable stream, thai 
 all the j)ale faces of the party took on a trifle more 
 of paleness at the prospect of having come to a full 
 stop. The situation seemed to be the pillars of 
 Hercules of our route, the very ne phis ultra. 
 
 While we were driven to our wits' end to see a 
 way through, the Indians were not at their wits' 
 end, nor the journey's end, either. They pros- 
 pected and pow-wowed earnestly, and presently we 
 saw in their faces a cheery flickering that seemed 
 to say where there is a will there must be a way. 
 So they set to work, and, literally, made a way by 
 picking out stones from the channel, chopping 
 limbs, dragging out sunken brush, and lifting the 
 canoes along, inch by inch. Our own course 
 through the woods, by short-cut, was almost impos- 
 sible. Scratches and bruises, climbing over and 
 stooping under, and crawling on and slipping off 
 prostrate trees, breaking down decayed timber, stum- 
 bling against roots, twisting branches aside, were 
 some of the impediments of the tramp. Part of the 
 way I took to the water and waded it, and, hard as 
 it was to balance on the rounded and slippery rocks, 
 and to keep from tumbling over, it was easier than 
 penetrating the natural abattis, and I came out
 
 170 TKOUTIXG ON THE BKULE. 
 
 ahead at the end of the ordeaL The passap^e, 
 though not more than a hundred yards direct, 
 was a tug and toil of more than two hours. 
 
 From this passage, the river spread out into a 
 width of shallows with soft muddy hottom, and 
 with strips and flats of ooze and marsh along. In 
 some places we slid through a soft mire, pushed by 
 the setting poles, which sometimes stuck fast, and 
 stirred up bubbles and nasty smells. While we 
 were floundering through the quagmire, a mallard 
 duck was reckless enough to fly and quack overhead, 
 within reach of a charge from Denison, which 
 dropped it near by in an inaccessible swash. In 
 the struggles of its dying paroxysms, it bedaubed 
 its glossy coloring with an unsightly stucco of 
 mire. 
 
 The river soon lost some of its dreariness by 
 expanding into a lake a mile and a half long and 
 nearly as wide. The entrance to it was through a 
 jungle of reeds and grasses, but further out, there 
 was a clear expanse, that laid as smooth and still as 
 the reflected azure in its depths. It is called, at 
 least it was known to us as Lone Grave Lake. It 
 owes its doleful name to the accident of having on 
 its shore a solitary burial mound that commemo- 
 rates some kind heart's afi'ection or memory for the 
 unknown dead, whose lonely remains repose there 
 in the unending sleep. As a mortuary memento, 
 in the way of funereal cogitation, however, the iso-
 
 SUMMER -SV-ATFArwING. 171 
 
 lated tumulus visibh' affected no known member of 
 our party. 
 
 We converged into the river again, and it was 
 again an ordeal — trying patience and straining 
 muscle to force any passage. We made liaste so 
 slowl}^ that tlie hours went on apace faster than we. 
 The stream shriveled into narrowness and crooked 
 into infinite sinuosities; the lily-pads and water 
 grasses waved — a harvest of excrescence and pester- 
 ing friction — before and around us. There were 
 reaches of slime in which we stuck fast, and no one 
 dared get out to lighten or push on the canoe 
 for fear of sinking into inextricable adhesion; it 
 was easy to deepen the poles in the mud, but the 
 pulling out was a job. More than all, the pushing 
 poles stirred up from the bottom ooze and feculence 
 the foulest of smells, rivaling, as essence of stink, 
 the combined fetor of skunk and assafcetida; as a 
 nostril nuisance. Trout river in places, in its mild- 
 est effluvium, was as malodorous and unsavory as 
 Chicago river in its hot dog-day exuberance of 
 sewage and offal. 
 
 "Not rarely, too, were the Menominees obliged to 
 swing the axe. Here a fallen tree, with a radiation 
 of limbs, there half-sunken brush-heaps, elsewhere 
 a saw-like dentation of snags, bade defiance to paddle 
 or pole, barring the way until they vanished before 
 the strokes of the axe. The business of getting on 
 was entirely too serious to admit of fooling with
 
 172 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 the porcupines we saw here and there. Denison, 
 though, was always ready to pepper a flying duck 
 and brought down several, apparently just to keep 
 in practice, his wing-shooting, of which he is justly 
 proud. Kaquotash says that in the fall this river 
 swarms with ducks of all varieties, and that they 
 are plentier than the lilies. 
 
 After the gauntlet of difficulties so tediously 
 passed through, we were brought to a stand-still by a 
 formidable beaver-dam. But vexation gave way 
 to admiration. It was a consummate piece of 
 beaver engineering. It extended about seventy 
 feet. In form it was an irregular curve with the 
 extreme convex point in the channel, so as to turn 
 the current into a dip on each side. The face was 
 solidly embanked with earth, sloping smoothly and 
 evenly from the top, while the mass of the struc- 
 ture was compacted of the most close contexture of 
 lo^s, limbs, and sticks, very artfully interlaced and 
 dovetailed. Its dimensions were such that it must 
 have been the work of much time and multitudin- 
 ous beavers, although, for such fish as could live and 
 swim in the nasty stream, it was hardly worth a dam 
 to the beavers to pen and impound them. Because 
 it was a solid and fine specimen of animal construc- 
 tion, there was no help for us but to unload the shal- 
 lops, lift them up and launch them over, and load 
 them again. 
 
 On starting again, the further we went the
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. ltd 
 
 harder the tug and the heavier the drag. Tediously 
 and wearisomely we plodded forward. About three 
 o'clock we struck another heaver dam of lesser and 
 ruder construction than the last one, but as it 
 marked the end of our Trout river progress, we 
 were not obliged to demolish or to surmount it. 
 The portage to Lake Chicagon began there. We 
 congratulated ourselves on emerij-ino: from a slouffh 
 of despond, and appreciated more than ever the 
 indomitable and tireless energy and patience of the 
 aborigines. Our eight miles of trip here showed 
 we were more lonor-comino' than far-coming. We 
 gladly landed, and a kindled and vivid log-heap 
 fire soon clothed the over-arching cedars with wav- 
 ering draperies of smoke. The kettle sang songs, 
 and never more fragrantlj^ did the delicate vapors 
 of Japan tea exhilarate our senses than then, after 
 the hungry experiences of the route. 
 
 There, too, Denison just missed the one chance, 
 possibly, of a lifetime, of pluming himself with 
 the rare spoil of Jove's royal bird. A majestic 
 eagle furled his wings and perched on the branch- 
 less stem of a tree that had fallen across the stream 
 below us, at easy range, in clear line and full sight, 
 and calmly turned his piercing eye on every side, 
 and upward, too, as if "gazing 'gainst the sun" — 
 and was long enough there, in his regal pride of 
 feather, for a pause of admiration and wonder on 
 our part, and for our gunner to reach and poise a
 
 171 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 rifle at the splendid mark. Alaekaday! it was his 
 mischance that, with such a prize and trophy before 
 him, tlie perfidious gun missed fire, and, of course, 
 the monarch bird bounded up and soared away on 
 outspread wings, toward tlie clouds. How we all, 
 too, would have plumed ourselves with a quill from 
 that eagle's pinions! 
 
 From there commenced the portage to Lake Chi- 
 cagon. It was sliort and easy. The path was free 
 and open. It was through a thick cedar grove. 
 The layers of decayed and fallen twigs, yielding 
 softl}' to tlie footsteps, were an outspread, nature- 
 woven brussels, of rude, sober and primitive pat- 
 tern, fitting' o-round for midnicjht revels of the fairies 
 under the moon. This carry led us up to the Trout 
 river again, just above another beaver dam. This 
 was the largest of those constructions yet seen, 
 compacted and interwrought of trunks of consid- 
 erable trees, gnawed or cut off by saws of beaver 
 teeth and tugged and floated into place. 
 
 From there, the ascent to the lake, whence the 
 river issues, was about ten minutes of paddle-strokes, 
 and its course was through a wide marshy flat of 
 reeds, lilies and grasses. In places, the river was 
 almost hidden or lost in the thickness of the water- 
 growths. The passage of the canoes, parting and 
 bending down tlie serried ranks of lilies and reeds, 
 left a track behind like and as marked as a path 
 trodden in a grain field. Near the edge of the lake,
 
 SUMMER "WAYFAKIXG. 175 
 
 a deer was solit irily munching, but it vanished too 
 rapidly for any gunnery of ours to put it in jeop- 
 ardy. 
 
 Once out of the river, we saw spreading before 
 us a most lovely expanse of water. It was of ob- 
 long form, and its shore outlines were indented with 
 many small bays and a few bold promontories jut- 
 ted out, and in tlie further sweep from us, two or 
 three islands loomed up, seemingly mere solid 
 masses of deep green color. It was about four 
 miles long and half as many miles in width. The 
 water was transparently clear and cool, and of much 
 depth. Mackinaw trout and white Ush are said to 
 abound in its deep and pure recesses. We had no 
 token, though, of Chicagon piscatory life. Lines 
 were trolled, but the conjectural or reported Mack- 
 inaws did not happen, just at the time, to be in 
 either a hungry or spooney mood, and showed no 
 love for the glittering spoons that wavered below, 
 so nothing was drawn in — excepting the lines. 
 
 David boldly set the course of the canoe, in 
 which were High and myself, straight across the 
 lake. Our frail atomy of a vessel iu that pathway 
 over was only safe as long as it was windless and 
 the water was smooth. A boreal fluster, far short 
 of a typhoon, or a nor'easter, even a moderate im- 
 promptu squall, would surely have swamped and 
 foundered the canoe, and probably have consigned, 
 the crew to the Davy Jones' locker of Lake Chica-
 
 176 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 iron. Our weather-wise navio^ator trusted to Lis 
 Indian instincts as to blows or a cats-paw, or any 
 sudden windiness, and High and I, wishing to 
 coujp cVmil the cliarming scene from a central point 
 of view or commanding line of direction, preferred 
 the diametrical bearing. Pratt and Denison, with 
 an eye to a chance use of powder, navigated coast- 
 wise, hugging closely to the shore. 
 
 Of course, the elements were favorable. The sky 
 was cloudless. The lake was as placid as if it had 
 never tossed to the fury of a tempest; its face was 
 as calm as though it were incapable of ever wrink- 
 ling in anger at the buffeting of a boisterous wind. 
 The scene was really lifeless enough to be termed .i 
 dead calm. The only signs of any life were the 
 occasional loons, some winging in the air, and some 
 floating on the lake, and moaningly chanting. The 
 edges of the lake lap the very roots and branches 
 of the forest that girds it. This is said to be an 
 effect of back-water raised into the trees by the 
 beaver dam in Trout river. We touched the ex- 
 treme end of the lake towards evening, and in 
 the reflection, the beautiful sheet shone like a mir- 
 ror, as still, and calm, and pure, as the deep azure 
 above it, and with 
 
 "Not a span 
 Of its smooth surface trembling to the tune of sun-set breezes." 
 
 We had intended camping on the border of Glu- 
 cagon, though twilight had not yet begun to steal
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 1 i ( 
 
 on; but wood for the fire was reported as unattain- 
 able; so we turned our backs on the enchanting 
 lake and set ont on the portaoje to another lake, un- 
 named, so far as we knew, a half mile beyond. 
 After leaving the thick wilderness of alders that 
 bordered the water, the trail led us to and through 
 hard-wood timber, including a fine maple grove, 
 and woods like those of southern Illinois, free of 
 undergrowth and with vistas beyond. This was a 
 relief after a monotony of pine, hemlock, firs and 
 cedars. We trudged the footway with a certain 
 freedom, and without intrusive twigs and branches 
 to prick or scratch us, or fallen tree-trunks to be 
 escaladed. The fatigue was nothins^. 
 
 CD n 
 
 Near the end of the trail, glimpses of the name- 
 less lake were caught. When we came to it, and 
 first stood on its shore, the tinges of the red sunset 
 served to idealize the crj'stal sheet, and its acces- 
 sories of woods and verdure, into a very scene 
 of fa?ry. Its surjjassing witchery touched some, at 
 least, of the admiring party into moods of senti- 
 ment and poesy. Perhaps Denison was one of the 
 poetized or sentimentalizing ones. Doubtless, a 
 sweet truant fancy that %vandered far, or some 
 haunting form, rising out of a mirage of memory, 
 visible only to him, and wrought of some dear 
 romance of the heart, possessed or spell-bound our 
 musing comrade. For he proposed to us that we 
 should give the charming water a fitting name. 
 12
 
 178 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 With an intuition of the common assent, he him- 
 self officiated as tlie consecrating minister in the 
 impromptu christening, and pronounced the name. 
 Doubtless the name was the worded theme or key- 
 note to which all the heart's tender chords were 
 attuned, and the name was Minnie! And all of 
 us, in spontaneous unison and sympathy, accorded 
 in the naming — Lake Minnie! Even to us, who 
 have no endearing associations of name to hallow 
 it, Lake Minnie will come to frequent recollection, 
 for it was "like a dream of poetry — beautiful ex- 
 ceedingly."
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 FINE ENCAMPMENT — A NOCTURNATj RABBIT — ADIEU TO LAKE 
 MINNIE — THE BRULE ! THE BRULE ! — PrATT THE "WADER. 
 READY FOR BUSINESS — CEDAR CAMP — THE PROSPECT — A 
 DOG IN MINNESOTA — PILFERING MINKS — A DISTURBED 
 REVERIE — MINKS — ASSASSINATING A SUNK — SUNSET FISH- 
 ING, ET CETERA. 
 
 The camping ground on the brow of the lake was 
 a choice one. It was an elevated and dry situation. 
 Some of the sweetest of sleep and most grateful of 
 resting were here; and then, too, we were almost 
 within hail of the Briil^. During the tenting 
 liere, Pratt was wakened from very balmy repose by 
 an apparition of some eccentric animal of the 
 manor, which finally, to his eye, took the shape of 
 a pronounced rabbit, which had stolen into the 
 pavilion and was wonderingly and intrepidly hop- 
 ping about, prospecting the situation. "When satis- 
 fied that it was neither a chimera nor a nondescript 
 perilous beast, but, in fact, was an actual leporine 
 (179)
 
 ISO TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 creature, Pratt thought it a favorable occasion for 
 a nocturnal study in natural history, and indulged 
 the sauc}^ rabbit the full freedom of the tent unmo- 
 lested, so that he might take his observations. The 
 presumptuous puss, finding only a stubble-field of 
 unsliaved faces lying around, presently trotted out 
 and back to its burrow. 
 
 Some of us thought, however, when told of the 
 incident, that it was probably a hare-brained con- 
 ceit, a mere phantom-rabbit or a fantastic coinage 
 of distempered sleep, caused by the excessive pork, 
 potatoes and fried corn-dodgers of a late supper, or 
 one of those spectral " shapes that haunt Thought's 
 wilderness." But Pratt vehemently repelled the 
 phantasmagoria theory, and avouched it a veritable 
 and categorical rabbit, indigenous to the soil of that, 
 and not an illusion of Thought's, wilderness. He 
 protested that he was not fooled of his own senses, 
 and that rabbit will be an immutable article of his 
 faith until his dying day. 
 
 Wc started at eight o'clock in the morning, and 
 paddled with metaphorical flying colors, cheerily 
 and exultingly, as if our barks were similitudes of 
 that in Cole's Yoyage of Life, which coursed buoy- 
 antly, " with Youth at the helm, and Pleasure at 
 the prow." Every stroke of the paddle moved us 
 so much nearer to the Brule, and with our faces 
 turned thitherward, we lingered not in our parting 
 with the pure and beauteous Lake Minnie. Our
 
 SUMMER WATFARmG. 181 
 
 footsteps were quicker, our spirits were more bound- 
 ing, and the trudge over was easier and more will- 
 ing than those of any previous march afoot. When 
 we strained the sight to peer ahead, and caught 
 glimpses of the stream through the forest, and 
 heard the murmurs of the water, and then descended 
 to the foot of the hill at the river brink, we could 
 fancy something of the thrill of the Greeks, on the 
 return from their far expedition, at the first sight of 
 the longed-for scene, in their gladsome shout, " The 
 sea! the sea!" So from us, there was a vociferous 
 impromptu of "The Brule! The Brule!" 
 
 "While the Indians were on the portage with the 
 canoes and stores, we had leisure for overhauling the 
 tackle, as well as for musing, lounging, smoking and 
 resting. But such was the ardor of Pratt's pisca- 
 torial impetuosity, an apparent emotional insanity, 
 to forestall the sport, that though the river at that 
 point offers no tempting prospects for fishing, his 
 vehemence could not abide the delay of the canoe to 
 carry him, but he rolled up his antique trowsers, and 
 intrepidly went in on his shanks. lie waded and 
 splurged about promiscuously in the stream, which 
 split and curled into rifiles around liis legs, as he 
 moved or stood. Thereby he took a half dozen un- 
 wary trout, but probably terrorized ail tlie others 
 thereabouts. High, doubtless, was somewhat in- 
 fected with Pratt's fever, but lie preferred to indulge 
 his more calculating and better regulated avidity
 
 182 TKOUTING ON TUE BKULE. 
 
 dry-sliod. He struggled along tlie bank, and chose 
 a foothold on a stranded log, whence, with spend- 
 tlirift prodigalit}^, he thrashed away with his rod 
 and line some time, but with only a single trout- 
 ling captured.. 
 
 High took this pitiful outcome with stoic calm- 
 ness, and fell back on his blanket and literature. 
 Denison sensibly utilized the spare time by stretch- 
 ing out in the shade, and snoozing innocently but 
 not quite silently. I paid blissful tribute of greet- 
 ing to the river of trout, and to the winds and skies 
 that had graciously prospered us nearly all the way, 
 in liberal oblations of burning incense of Havana 
 from the meerschaum. Now that, like far-come 
 Argonauts within sight of the golden fleece, our 
 goal was at hand, and we could speedily reach 
 out the hand and grasp the prize, we were content 
 and tranquil. At eleven o'clock, the flotilla and its 
 lading were in order for setting out for business. 
 We stepped in, and then were joyously "afloat, afloat 
 on the dark rolling tide " of the Brule. 
 
 The limpid current^ ran either gurgling music- 
 ally over tlie shallows, or purling into eddies round 
 an up-reared boulder, or shivering into sparkling 
 ripples of tumult and riot on the rapids, or smooth- 
 ing and lapsing into a reach of midsummer languor 
 and faintness, but always pure, fresh and living, 
 bearing in their forest-shaded course the chillness of 
 the springs and founts that fed them so unattemp-
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 183 
 
 ered of tlxe sun as to give always a grateful draught 
 for tliirst when dipped in the drinking-cup. This 
 was the Brule of our first experience — everywhere 
 gravelled, rocky and bouldered, the very exclusive 
 haunt and realm of trout, not like the Michigami 
 or the Trout or Paint, with chubs and perch ming- 
 ling in the population of fins. 
 
 AVe could now halt the pinnaces, almost at any 
 place, from time to time, and were sure of a liberal 
 spoil; and, after holding up for some of these in- 
 terim casts, we had gradually and idly sauntered to 
 a point estimated to be about twenty-eight miles 
 above the mouth of the river, where we prospected 
 A most eligible camping place. It was on a bank, 
 embowered by a grove of largest cedars and pines, 
 with gentle slopes of surface, free of troublesome 
 undergrowth, the ground velveted and elastic with 
 layers of twigs, with abundant shade, plenty of fuel 
 and a wealth of Iiemlock boughs for the ground- 
 sj)read of the tents. We named it Cedar Camp. 
 We expected to make it a stopping place for two 
 or three days, and could saUy out from it up and 
 down, and range all the pools and lishing places 
 within easy reach. We could run the canoes light 
 and quickl}', and flit about at will. 
 
 The sport began auspiciously, A little over an 
 hour's tin-owing produced a count of fifty, and, 
 richly tinted and embrowned with the touches of 
 the flame, they bountifully garnished the dinner
 
 184 TRODTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 platters in less than an hour, and ministered hixu- 
 riouslj to -waiting appetites. Tlie two hours follow- 
 ing the feast were spent in camp in rarious modes 
 of indolent and trivial leisure and laziness. No 
 exertion more serious than that of fittine: a 
 ring on a rod, or burnishing a reel, or charging and 
 fumigating with a pipe, or shifting a position on a 
 blanket from an intrusion of the sun, was suffered 
 to perturb the ease and delicious torpor of the sit- 
 uation. 
 
 Toward evening piscatorial aspirations revived. 
 High and Pratt went below, and Denison and I 
 breasted the tide upwardly. The fishing was of the 
 best. To cast a fly upon the water was nearly a cer- 
 tainty of enticing a trout. In the first half-hour 
 out, we could forecast the whole story of the sport 
 on the Brule. It was only to hold at any chance 
 spot, to find that our lines would be cast in places 
 pleasant for us. The throw on the one side or the 
 other, from the canoe, was equally lucky. The 
 trout appeared populous in every direction. Rises 
 were bewilderingly plentiful. We needed recon- 
 noisance but a short way from the camp to find the 
 swimmers in force and voracity. So we soon re- 
 turned with laden baskets, and turned over the 
 abundance, or rather, the sup])lies brought in, to 
 the cooks; for the surplus, beyond the needs of the 
 fry, was tossed back into the water. At suppei', 
 we all expressed regrets that it was not in our
 
 SUM3IER "SVAYFARING. 185 
 
 power to bestow on friends at home, part of tlie 
 excess of our lavish supply. But here, as else- 
 where, and otherwise, one man's waste is another 
 man's want. 
 
 Denison here evinced symptoms of a Minnesota 
 chicken-shooting fever. He had arranged at Chi- 
 cago to meet a friend for a gun-and-dog ramble 
 for prairie hens. Shooting on the wing is his spec- 
 iality. He would prefer dropping a few brace of 
 pinnated grouse, on the rise, even to knocking a 
 deer off its pegs. He had forwarded, in custody of 
 the American express company, his retriever, 
 Dick, in bond, to Minnesota. Probably the faithful 
 dog had already chafed impatiently in his chain, 
 and howled over his unfriended coercion in the 
 leash, or had piteously bayed the moon for the lack 
 of a job more suited to his training, and was, 
 doubtless, then eaojerlv snuffinor all the airs that 
 blow in those windy latitudes for a scent of his 
 master's coming. It was only a question of time 
 when Denison would follow his thoughts to the dog 
 and the grouse. 
 
 Our dash for trout was not so eager, now that 
 they swam closely and superfluously. We slept 
 late in the morning, and were not embarked for a 
 take of a dinner mess before ten o'clock. Duriuo' 
 the night the minks played a sneak-thief game on 
 us, by pilfering every trout from the fisli-pans, and, 
 in the few score of dressed fish, they laid by, in one
 
 186 TEOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 night's fat work of theft, in their neighboring hole, 
 a gorge of trout, for a prolonged gluttinous satur- 
 nalia of feasting. We were, therefore, troutless for 
 breakfast, and to avenge the wholesale sack and 
 plunder, it was resolved that dead-falls should be 
 set for the scurvy pillagers. So traps were con- 
 structed and placed by the Indians, and, from the 
 first of the next catch of trout, the most luscious 
 and plump of the capture were affixed to the triggers. 
 We gloated with much satisfaction on imagined 
 minks entrapped, and fancied we should certainly 
 see " with gripe tenacious held, the felons grin and 
 struggle, but in vain." 
 
 When we next went out the trout were lively in 
 their jumping to the throw, but they were less 
 keen to take the fly. It seemed more in sport than 
 in hunger that they leaped and leaped again ; at all 
 events, we were not brilliantly successful. Only 
 forty were caught by the whole party ; but as enough 
 was as good as a feast, or for a feast, and having 
 such a reasonable catch, we spent only an hour on 
 the water. This essay of the rods exhausted, lor 
 the time, the party's vim. Tiring of killing trout, 
 we devoted all our capacity of sloth to the problem 
 of killing time indolently and inertly. We drows- 
 ily sat or reclined in the shade sunk in languor; we 
 were not up to the mark of the usual dinner gusto. 
 After the somewhat insipid repast, we betook our- 
 selves to the tent for a siesta: but swarms of buz-
 
 SUMMEK WAYFAKI^'G. 187 
 
 zing house-flies huugrilj' pricked us and drove us 
 out. 
 
 High betook himself to a mammoth cedar and 
 supported it bj leaning against its mossy roots, in 
 its shade, as serenely as Tityrus recuhans under the 
 beech tree, an impersonation of goneness and con- 
 tent, and was apparently lapsing into a deep reverie. 
 A couple of minks, possibly in a freak of hilarity 
 over their rich nocturnal plunder, scampered near 
 by him playfully gamboling and squealing, and 
 startled him from his meditation. This vivacity 
 was a saucy presumptuousness provoking and great 
 enough, on the instant, to rouse Denison's martial 
 dander. He seized his gun and reconnoitered the 
 bushes on tiptoe. Several minutes of fruitless watch- 
 ing cooled down his indignant fervency, and, dis- 
 arming, he became a peaceable citizen again. 
 Pratt's dudgeon, on account of the raeagreness of 
 the matinal repast caused by the felonious ravages 
 of the minks, had not even yet subsided. He, 
 therefore, armed and posted himself in the bushes 
 with a finger on the trigger ready to execute san- 
 guinary justice. He stood guard patiently, so. long 
 too, in his watching and biding his time, as to sat- 
 isfy us that patience was one of his cardinal virtues. 
 
 This, his virtue, like virtue generally, finally 
 proved its own reward. One of the minks fur- 
 tively poked his head out of the hole to take a sly 
 look around. Of the same head nothing more was
 
 188 TKOUTING ON THE "bKULE. 
 
 ever known, either bj the mink or the man. Witli- 
 out any official report from Pratt, we knew the 
 eifect of the shot by the smell that was instantly 
 wafted into all the noses in the camp. When the 
 Indians skinned and dismembered the mink in a 
 jpost mortem examination, our sense of retributive 
 justice was satisfied when a trout mess was found 
 in the villain's viscera. In the sunset, we made 
 brief essay with the rods. It was a stirring time, 
 and our lines were kept musically whizzing in a 
 shower of casts, when the flies pattered like rain- 
 drops.
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 THE DEAD-FALL — A PORCUPINE GORMANDIZER — TRIALS OP A 
 TROUTER — PATIENCE AND NOT PROFANITY — LITTLE BRULE 
 FALLS — DENISON's DOG — A THREATENED DUCKING — SUN- 
 DAT AIRS — PRATT AND THE MINKS AGAIN — NEW CAMP — 
 BOOT LAKES — KAQUOTASh's REMINISCENCES — A PINE RIVER 
 BEAR ADVENTURE. 
 
 The schemes of Indians, as well as of men and 
 mice, "gang aft aglee." Kaquotasli's well-laid 
 deadfall, lusciously set with trout, was a failure by 
 a large majority. Pratt's sliot demoralized the 
 minks, and, if they ventured out of their holes and 
 hiding places, it was only on the sly, and the crafty 
 stealers gave the snare a wide berth; they were, 
 doubtless, plethoric with a gorge of feasting on 
 their pillage of the night before, and they could 
 afford to turn up their cunning noses and wag tails 
 of contempt at the solitary sahno fontinalis im- 
 paled in the dead-fall. The early riser, though, 
 surprised a happy porcupine squatted on the keel 
 (189)
 
 190 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 of an upturned canoe, exercising his jaws in brows- 
 ing on a packing strap; he had already gnawed it 
 lamentably, and if not then canght in his chew, 
 would probably have devoured the whole leather. 
 He made off and retreated with some alacrity, for 
 one of his kind, up a tree. It was not with malice 
 aforethought or in a mood of blood-thirstiness, but 
 as a matter of strict justice that his life was made 
 to pay the forfeit, though five revolver shots were 
 required to give him a retributory quietus. 
 
 Unluckily Denison, while in a high tide of pros- 
 perous angling, fractured his rod in two places. He 
 preserved an exemplary degree of equanimitj'' over 
 the casualty. If any one thinks it is not a per- 
 turbing contretemps, or a strain on the temper, to 
 snap a rod, or by a luckless fling to twine the 
 hackle into a limb, or tangle and kink the oil-silk 
 line, or foul it with the other fellows' line, or lose 
 a leader, just when the sport is in full play and 
 the trout are skipping and flurrying the liveliest, 
 he knows but little of an angler's mishaps and of 
 the trials and contingencies that await him. No 
 one has more frequent occasion for the exercise of 
 all Christianly patience and forbearance than each 
 of the eager sportsmen in a canoe cracking whips 
 of rod and line in a trout stream. 
 
 It is a tolerably well disciplined temper that can 
 steady itself evenly, and maintain composure and 
 patience during a recurrence of such provoking
 
 8UMMEK AVAYFARING. 191 
 
 casualties, and leave the trouter nnraoved, so that 
 he can as "a man whose blood is warm within, 
 sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster." A good 
 many of his disciples may remember Walton's ad- 
 vice to anglers — " Be patient, and forbear swear- 
 ing, lest they be heard and catch no fish." The 
 teaching is good, but it is not every one wlio has 
 the grace to heed it. Denison, however, was guilt- 
 less of imprecations, and, like a disarmed soldier, 
 useless in the field, retired quietly to the rear. He 
 and Pratt evinced both tlieir skill and patience 
 in tinkering up and mending the fractures; they did 
 it so neatly and successfully, that they protested 
 the rod was really better than before, and it seemed, 
 in fact, to verify the claim, and I seriously doubted 
 if I had not better smash my own rod, and let them 
 make it, too, better than it was in its first estate., 
 
 Reluctantly we struck the tents and left Cedar 
 Camp, the most pleasant of our green-wood homes. 
 On the downward way, we halted at points to fish; 
 the trout leaped briskly, and at more than one of 
 the stoppages, we were busied to unhook the cap- 
 tured. Tlie sport was an embarrass du richesses of 
 which the most ardent of the party began to tire. 
 In the hour and a half of actual casting in these 
 random exploits, a hundred and thirty were taken. 
 Some of the trout are voracious; one that Pratt 
 caught had been chewing a cud of fish, for a smaller 
 one was in his throat not wholly swallowed. Along
 
 192 TKOUTINa ON THE BRULE. 
 
 a considerable stretch the trees, on both sides, 
 seemed nearly all to ]iav6 fallen or grown into or 
 toward each other, across the stream, as if in a 
 friendly embrace of limbs, and it was, sometimes, 
 a close and nice oj3eration for us to pass through 
 and under the intertwinins; arches of rich foliao'e. 
 This overreaching forest tapestry only partially 
 sheltered, us from the pourings of a heavy thunder 
 shower, whose flying squadrons of cloud swept 
 over us. 
 
 When the massive columns of the storm had 
 charged past, we laid in at Little Brule Falls, to 
 dry and to dine. We were in the full reality of the 
 piscatorial condition named in the proverb of a 
 fisherman's luck — wet breeches and a hungry stom- 
 ach. As if almost a work of magic, a camp fire 
 was ablaze with many tongues of flame and curls 
 of smoke, so that the evaporation of our costumes 
 and the process for the dinner went well on apace. 
 When the kettle bubbled and the trout were fried, 
 we plied the cups and forks with a relish and a will 
 few diners and lunchers in the city ever realize. 
 We felt princely afrer resting and dining. Perhaps 
 Deuison was an exception to the general condition 
 of beatitude; he seemed a shade pensive, possibly 
 from reveries about Dick the dog in Minnesota, or 
 perchance some object dearer, at Chicago or else- 
 where. We had the customary early afternoon 
 lounge. I enjoyed the situation simply by lying
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 193 
 
 at rest, watching the quivering of the leaves, list- 
 ening to the chattering of the red squirrels or the 
 lulling music of the water foaming over the rocks. 
 
 Tlie falls, so-called, are an insignificant pitch of 
 the river, a few feet over ledges of rock; thej are 
 something of precipitous rapids, rather than a cas- 
 cade. Toward evening when the canoes were manned 
 for fishing, the one carrying High and Penison, 
 lurched into a swirl near the drop of the falls, and 
 was nearly sucked under, sliipped water consider- 
 ably and seemed on the verge of swamping; but 
 Paul was just quick and skillful enough, by a mas- 
 terly handling of the pole, to poise and right her 
 into equilibrium again and shove her out of peril. 
 During the imminency of the catastrophe, the legal 
 gentlemen were, evidently, for the moment, verte- 
 brally affected with frigid sensations; they were, 
 at least, threatened with a sousing bath, and their 
 skins escaped drenching by just a hair-breadth ex- 
 cess of good fortune. 
 
 Along in the night, while we palefaces were, or 
 should have been, sleeping and dreaming, the native 
 Americans were having their own pleasantries in 
 their tent. Their laugh and jabber told a tale of 
 jovial good spirits, and waked unwonted echoes in 
 the solemn cloisters of the woods; they enjoyed 
 their part of the programme, not less than we en- 
 joyed ours; their night's sleep is usually preluded 
 with a merry pow-wow, and fun all to themselves. 
 13
 
 19i TKOUTING ON THE BBTJLE. 
 
 Whatever muscularity they have exerted during 
 the day, either in packing over the carries, or navi- 
 gating the flotilla, or doing varied utility business 
 in the camp, there was alwaj^s time for their lively 
 palaver and smoking, before " o'er their brows death 
 counterfeiting sleep with leaden and batty wings 
 did creep." Were we ever the theme of their jokes 
 and pleasantries? We knew not. None but a phi- 
 lologist, learned in the dialect of the Menominees, 
 could tell. As Montaigne said about the playing 
 with the cat, who knows whether the cat was most 
 amused at the man, or the man at the cat? Who of 
 us could say if we were objects of more diversion 
 to them than they appeared odd and amusing to us? 
 However that may be, these invaluable red fellows, 
 the primitive copperheads, had then been long 
 enough in our service, and so thoroughly in har- 
 mony of will and spirit with us, that we consid- 
 ered them admitted to full membership in our for- 
 est brotherhood. 
 
 In the matter of costume, our outfit for more 
 than the simplest changes, bordered close on the vo- 
 cative; the Sunday toilette was but slightly differ- 
 ent from the secular raiment. For instance, Pratt 
 made some pretension to style by scraping his beard 
 to a closer stubble, and by a fresh collar to his neck. 
 High wiped his lips with an unprecedented napkin 
 at breakfast, and effected an innovation by turning 
 the sleeve-cuffs of his brown linen shirt out in full
 
 SUMMER ■SVAYFARTXG. 195 
 
 flow; Denison made a clean breast of it by button- 
 ing his vest up to tlie throat, I took on a silk 
 neckerchief knotted into a nondescript tie. These 
 touches of the elegant were not particularly apt to 
 inspire much pride of the flesh or lust of the eye, 
 but symbolically or t^^pically, they were just as good 
 as if tip-top. 
 
 "We were tired of Little Brule Falls, and as a Sun- 
 day work of charity to ourselves, packed up, loaded 
 and embarked for ongoing. As downward meant, 
 with Denison, Minnesota, dog and grouse, we were 
 every mile nearing the place, and every hour near- 
 ing the time of separation and of a break in our 
 fraternal cohesion. The prospect of near disor- 
 ganization imparted something of a serious tone, 
 rather in harmony with Sabbath decorum. 
 
 Yet, after all, the carpediem spirit was not want- 
 ing. It moved Pratt to prove himself no excep- 
 tion to the rule of appetite growing with what it 
 feeds on. Having had a taste of blowing ofi" a 
 mink's head, a mania for minks possessed him. He 
 determined to lay in armed preparation for them 
 as we passed the banks, on the way. He took the 
 forward canoe, and had his gun in hand, well 
 slugged for deadly work among the vermin, and 
 kept a patient, keen lookout. Scarcely a twig 
 rustled on either side, or a dark root protruded, or 
 a trout plunged, or a stir was heard in the bushes, 
 that he was not ready to make prompt and short
 
 196 TKO[JTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 work of it. And so we passed on and on, down 
 smootli reaches, turning bends, past clumps and 
 buslies, log drifts, shaded pools, twining roots, sandy 
 strijDS of beach, and all j^laces where minks might 
 be expected. But his watching was unrewarded, 
 and even his cardinal virtue of patience gave out, 
 and his futile vigilance became tediously monoto- 
 nous. Either because they kept to their holes on 
 Sundays, or from an instinct of Pratt's hostile 
 machination, it was certainly a bad day or an off- 
 day for minks. 
 
 At noon we laid to on the Michigan side, to camp. 
 Fronting the spot was a little island clothed with a 
 mass of alders; on tlie opposite shore beyond it, 
 was our camping place of before the head of the 
 trail to Boot lakes. It is a low, marshy ground; 
 but our new camping was now on a high, dry bank. 
 It was overshadowed by the most umbrageous of 
 forests; the bushes were soon cleared by the axe, 
 and a convenient area of lawn-like smoothness was 
 converted into a choice and pleasant tenting place. 
 The canvass was set up; the kettle was hung; the 
 frying pan told its tale of crisping and browning 
 trout. The repast was grateful and needed. In 
 the post-prandial divan on the grass, we put it in- 
 to our pipes and smoked it how to make the after- 
 noon available. A pilgrimage to Boot lake, or 
 lakes rather, was hinted and then considered in a 
 pourparler of pros and cons.
 
 SUMMER WATFAKING. 197 
 
 There are three of these Lakes, witli a liard port- 
 age from the river to the nearest, and portages 
 thence and between the others; but the question 
 was settled, when it was known that there is a ru- 
 mor of large trout in the further water, and the 
 first lake is a noted resort for deer. The hearsay 
 of the trout determined High, and the repute of 
 the deer won Denison. The venture with the fly 
 and the gun w'as therefore prepared for, and, as a 
 stay over night was a necessity, an outfit of tent, 
 commissary stores and canoe, was at once impro- 
 vised. Thebault and Joe Dixon were the muscular 
 auxiliaries and guides for the campaign. The four 
 remaining signalized the start with a generous send- 
 oif of good wishes and huzzas. 
 
 As our supper had to be caught, Pratt and I took 
 to the water to sway the rods awhile. Though we 
 M'ent not more than gunshot range from camp, the 
 trout swarmed; the sport was exhilarating, and 
 busied us to the extent of our capacity and exceed- 
 ing the measure of our wishes. The capture figured 
 up to ninet^'-three. The fisli here, on the average, 
 are smaller than the upper ones; but they make 
 nearly as good sport, and are quite as savory for the 
 meal as those taken above. 
 
 Kaquotash was in an unusually social and gos- 
 siping mood at night; his spirits enlivened into 
 unwonted effervescence, and his volubility of speech, 
 for an Indian, was something rare; his mind took
 
 198 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 an autobiographical turn. While the fire-light 
 flickered and played in his face, and, at times soft- 
 ened or glowed on his swarthy features, his weird 
 appearance, with his oddities of tongue(j, were a kind 
 of sorcery which held us all willing and attentive 
 subjects. Of course, the greater part of his life 
 has been that of much forest wandering; lie has 
 been something of a sailor, too, and vividly related 
 the foundering condition of a propeller which he 
 piloted through a perilous Green Bay storm, finally 
 into harbor. 
 
 Some experiences as a Wisconsin cavalryman in 
 Georgia, in the war, showed that David was no 
 slouch of a soldier, and that he had had hair-breadth 
 escapes by field as well as by flood ; but his adven- 
 tures in the woods were the most amusing and en- 
 tertaining of his recollections. In the course of 
 nearly thirty years he has been over and over all 
 these northern wildernesses, with locators, prospect- 
 ors, surveyors of lands, and with hunters and fish- 
 ers, and also as a logger, so that he is an authority 
 on topographical, navigating, sporting, cooking, 
 camping matters, as well as thoroughly versed in 
 the natural history of the wilds, and their fish, 
 fiesh and fowl varieties. 
 
 A story of a round with a bear, on Pine Kiver, 
 was related to us. He and a white man undertook 
 to capture a couple of bear cubs they saw in a tree. 
 The parent brute was off foraging, probably; but
 
 * SUMMER WAYFARING. 199 
 
 l)_y way of precaution against a sudden return of 
 the dam, they built a girdle of fire around as an in- 
 tended barrier of safety. When it was well ablaze, 
 and David was about to climb, the mother came 
 madly rushing through the brush toward them; 
 their only weapon of defense was an axe; with this 
 in his hand, Davnd retreated backward as fast as 
 the circumstances and his Indian legs would allow; 
 the enraged bear rapidly advanced; the pallid white 
 man precipitated himself, with marvelous strides, 
 to the river, and leaped into the canoe, shoving it 
 out into the stream, far and fast as he could, leav- 
 ing Kaquotash in the lurch, bawling loudly as he 
 went: "Get aboard, Dave, get aboard!" 
 
 By that time, the she-bear reared up on her 
 haunches to grapple the Indian in her fatal em- 
 brace. Further backing was impossible. David 
 stopped and stood his ground, with the axe drawn, 
 looking the savage brute steadily in the eyes. The 
 bear paused, too, motionless, for a few seconds, fixed 
 by his moveless gaze, and then quailingly dropping 
 on all fours, herself retreated, tail foremost to her 
 cubs, and 
 
 " Cow'd and subdued, fled from the face of man, 
 Nor bore one glance of his commanding eye."
 
 CHAPTEK XYI. 
 
 FORMER CAMP — ARBOREAL INSCRIPTIONS— THE BOOT LAKE 
 PARTY — FISH MARVELS — A BEAR THAT WAS A BUGBEAR — 
 TROUT JUMPING AND FROLICS — COMMITTEE OP THE WHOLE 
 — GOOD-BYE TO DENISON — MORE FISHINO — AN AQUEOUS 
 AFTERNOON. 
 
 Pratt and I made a morning excursion with the 
 canoe. "We paddled over to our camping ground 
 of before. There was very little of the genius loci 
 to enthuse us. It was overgrown with weeds and 
 grasses. It is a situation dismal enough. Some 
 iconoclastic barbarian had ruthlessly, with an axe, 
 chipped away the rude memorials we had inscribed 
 on an unbarked surface of a tree to mark and com- 
 memorate our abiding there. 
 
 These arboreal inscriptions are customary at 
 camping points. They answer to the hotel register 
 as memoranda of travel and sojourn, and, by comity 
 of wayfarers in the woods, are considered as sacred- 
 ly privileged from spoliation as the legends sculp- 
 (200)
 
 SUiTNIER WAYFAEING. 201 
 
 tured on a grave-jard monument. The catches of 
 fish are often arithmetically etched on these tree- 
 tablets, and sometimes these, as also names and 
 dates, are inscribed in rare vagaries of figures and 
 writing. 
 
 The little spring rill, which purely and coldlj'' 
 trickled, and which was the only satisfying natural 
 feature of the place, was now choked up and hid- 
 den by weeds. We recalled reminiscences of the 
 spot, and then willingly turned our direction from 
 it. We tiience cruised down the stream, and skirm- 
 ished here and there with the rods, and relieved the 
 Brule of thirty -seven of its enamelled beauties; we 
 skirmished about leisurely more for an airing than 
 for sporting. Getting back to camp we found our 
 pilgrims returned from their overland wandering; 
 they had a good deal more to tell of than to show, 
 for their digression to the lakes of Boot. All they 
 brought in was a brace of partridges, the plump 
 and glossy victims of Denison's gunning. 
 
 They brou2:ht the recollections, not the carcass 
 of a deer, seen in a safe perspective of distance, 
 which the deer was wary and witting enough to 
 keep from being foreshortened; they had portaged 
 over the canoe for a night hunt with the lantern; 
 they coasted the curving borders of the lake, steal- 
 ing noiselessly through the tall grasses in the shal- 
 lows, or cutting a swathe among the lily pads, or 
 skimming gently over the still clear water, with the
 
 202 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 fflare of the lio^lit casting a fjlittering: refulgence 
 aliead, tbej themselves and their canoe thrown in 
 shadow and concealment. 
 
 But there was no sight or sonnd of a deer, no 
 rustle in the bushes, and no stir in the water. The 
 night hunt was a failure; though that was not sin- 
 gular, and not at all unexpected. The night was 
 bright; Luna had put on her brightest face, such 
 as that with which she shone loveliest to meet and 
 woo her Endymion alone on the mountain and en- 
 circle him in her golden halo; there was no playing 
 or laying a successful ambuscade in the streaming 
 rays of the moon; consequenth^,Denison's venison, 
 which was to garnish our refections, was only moon- 
 shine. 
 
 The stories they told of the bass, in the further 
 lake, were those of icthyological wonders; the water 
 was clear as crystal, and the lake a natural aquari- 
 um, with transparency enough to reveal the thick 
 shoals of fish disporting beneath; they were seen 
 fearlessly swimming in hordes; the place is stocked 
 with them, as if there was no limit to their indefi- 
 nite spawning and propagation; they darted about 
 at random, without fear of foes or danger on the 
 surface. Txic lake is seldom visited; an angler who 
 can have his utmost fill of sport, that which is the 
 superlative of all sport, in abundance, at least, on 
 the Brule, is scarcely apt to venture the trying or- 
 deal of the rough trails over there, to squander time
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 203 
 
 in the muscular exertion of heavy jDulling and drag- 
 ging out which bass fishing is. So tlie Boot lake 
 bass are not decimated or thinned out by fishers. 
 Our party took thirty or more of them, mainly by 
 trolling. 
 
 High was heedless enough to try liis delicate 
 trout rod, and one of the heavy weights nipped his 
 fly, and the tug was so strong that his slender tip 
 snapped like a pipe-stem. Denison dropped in a 
 spoon, with a flaming red pendant, and dangled it 
 near the surface and said that a concourse of all- 
 sized bass loomed up in a circle around it, and 
 poised there on their fins, a sort of wondering, gap- 
 iuff throns: around his ij-laring bob. As a Master in 
 Chancery, who swears others to tell the truth, ought 
 himself to be truthful, we accepted this relation 
 as truth and nothing but the truth; though a con- 
 siderable story of fish, it was not, he afiirmed, a 
 fish story. The fish they caught would weigh from 
 five pounds down to one; the}^ soon tired of their 
 miraculous draught of fishes, went ashore, and, like 
 Arabs, silently folded their tent and stole wonder- 
 ingly away. 
 
 There was a bear incident, also, at Boot lake, or 
 bug-bear, or, only the bare imagination of a bear, 
 and not a real bruin. In trailing to the lake, the 
 party straggled on in Indian file, with Denison in 
 the van, High, Thebault and Dixon bringing up 
 the rear, at intervals; Frank then c^me suddenly to
 
 20 i TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 « 
 
 a dead halt, and excitedly reported " A bear! a bear!" 
 It was not told to us whether the hair electri- 
 cally lifted on the scalps of the hunter and fisher; 
 but, with rare presence of mind, under alarming 
 circumstances, they discreetly abstained from a bold 
 headlong dash, or instant onset on the dangerous 
 enemy, and prudently waited the reinforcen\ent of 
 the experienced bear-slayers from the rear. ""SYliere? 
 where?" inquired Thebault and Dixon, looking 
 grave, as they always do, when there is serious busi- 
 ness on hand or foot, each cautiously scanning, on 
 tip-toe, the direction pointed out by Denison. 
 
 When Denison succeeded in at length directing 
 the Indian's vision point blank to the supposed bear, 
 the natives simultaneously burst into a roar of 
 laughter; of course, this completely demoralized 
 and confounded the Chicago barristers. The Indi- 
 ans declared that the "bear was a porcupine!" and 
 really, the savage bear of an unmitigated optical 
 illusion was, after all, a bugaboo of a porcupine, of 
 most harmless propensities, peacefully sunning 
 itself on a charred stump! 
 
 " Such tricks hath strong imagination, 
 * * * * imagining some fear, 
 How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear." 
 
 This ursine hallucination was one of the wonders 
 of the Boot lake expedition about which our bam- 
 boozled comrades were not inclined to indulge in 
 any sounding manifestoes.
 
 SUJOIER WATFAKIXG. 205 
 
 Pratt and myself struck a choice trout lead, 
 which we worked beautifully. The activities of the 
 brilliant leapers were most varied in their displays; 
 they almost literally flew about as if their tins for wa- 
 ter were as well wine's for the air. Sometimes the 
 high-flyers, as if in play themselves, or as if striv- 
 ing in a grab or snatching match, would leap at once 
 for the same fly. One of them vaulted over a log, 
 as neatly as an expert tumbler would turn a bar; 
 another would skip ducks and drakes along, bob- 
 bing in and out. This was all rather a comical 
 piscatory pleasantry to us. David told us that the 
 trout, going up creeks and small streams, make no 
 bones of tossing over logs, and said he had seen a 
 trout throw himself up over Brule Falls, a good three 
 feet jump. Seeing and hearing these gymnastical 
 feats, I am not sure that it would have greatly sur- 
 prised us to see a trout climbing a tree! It cer- 
 tainly would not have been wonderful for one to 
 have flirted into the canoe. There is no end to the 
 freaks of the volatile imps. 
 
 In the golden sunset, we meandered the twisting 
 thread of the river back to the camp, cutting with 
 the prow the silvery surface into ripples triangula- 
 ting off to the edges, and swaying the grasses and 
 the dipping leafage into waving motion. As the 
 last faint red tinges of the sky faded into twilight, 
 we reached the grassy quay of the camp-ground. 
 That night, after the meal, when the pipes were
 
 206 TROTJTIXG ON THE BKULE. 
 
 suffusing, and after the drowsy autochthones had 
 retired, the Chicago party resolved itself into a 
 committee of the wJiole. 
 
 Denison and his outset for Minnesota were the 
 special order of the day, and the subject of inter- 
 pellation and debate. The fever for that remote 
 promise-land of grouse was now a furor too imper- 
 ative to be stayed or repressed. The rnsh of dog 
 to the head must, we saw, inevitably lead to his 
 taking off. And so Dick, off towards the north 
 star, was too much for us all. We were ready to 
 pronounce on the blameless cur, Launce's outlawry 
 declared against the misbehaving Crab: "Out with 
 the dog! " " "Whip him out! " " Hang him up! " 
 As the only mode of outgo was by canoe, the leav- 
 ing would require a withdrawal of half the party, 
 and a moiety of the equipment. Pratt volunteered 
 to be his companion, though it was only a perfunc- 
 tory assent given — a necessity more than a choice. 
 It was left to the Indian contingent to settle for 
 itself whicli of the guides should attend Denison. 
 When so much of the programme was settled, it 
 was late, and the committee rose, and having, like 
 Bottom, " an exposition of sleep come upon " us, 
 we took to the reposeful blankets, leaving the 
 sweet sorrow of the parting for the rosy early hours 
 of day. 
 
 Chickabiddy Camp, in the morning, was early 
 and busily astir, for a goodly and timely starting
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 207 
 
 and send-off of our parting comrades. Of course, 
 we collectively felt, for the first time on tlie trip, 
 emotions of regret as the time was come to word 
 the farewell with the lips. In the boundless and 
 overpowering presence and solitude of nature, our 
 intimacy had grown so close, warm, united and 
 sympathetic, that near fellowship became Avarin 
 fraternity. Parting would be a break in our unity 
 and community of spirit, and, though some of us 
 should meet again in the city, our paths then would 
 be too diverse, and our several preoccupations too 
 varied to admit of the union into one continuing 
 common mood and mind like that of the woods, 
 where "the electric chain wherewith we are darkly 
 bound " kept us constantly and vividly en rapport. 
 AYe felt somethins' of this on the eve of the dissolu- 
 tion. It was not embodied in lip-language. 
 
 In fact we rather affected facetiousness. Eut the 
 mirth was like that sometimes intended to mask 
 solemnity. It was not the real mirth that makes 
 the side ache, and soothes away the hurt of heart- 
 ache. Our jokes were too weighty to be witty. 
 With them all there was one word we were loth to 
 speak, that should be kept back to the last — " good- 
 bye." We had found we were such good and right 
 companions to be together, we felt we ought to 
 keep the companionship unbroken to the end. And 
 so, when the time came for us to loosen the silver 
 chord, and sever our entirety into parting compa-
 
 208 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 nies, we knew, tliose hasting and those loitering, 
 that there would be an emotion deeper, truer and 
 warmer than is found in a common-place adieu. 
 
 The guides shared these feelings. They were 
 averse to breaking up. Neither of them wanted 
 to be of the returning portion of the party. Which 
 it should be at the last only was settled, as between 
 David and Thebault, by casting lots; and it was the 
 long twig drawn by Kaquotash that fated him to go. 
 Shortly after eight o'clock, everything and every- 
 body were ready, and the order " all aboard," given 
 by Denison, signalled the last moment. The pres- 
 sure of hands in the adieu was warm. And then 
 in their birchen shell, the Tom King, Denison and 
 David, Pratt and Joe Dixon, glided away in the 
 distance. High and I recurred to the passage in 
 Walton of the parting of Piscator and his companion, 
 and applied his words on our occasion: '' We are 
 loth to part with you now, but when you tell us 
 3'ou must go, we will then wait upon you with our 
 thoughts, all the miles of your way, and heartily 
 wish you a good journey." For the kindly and 
 thoughtful David Kaquotash, who had so well 
 served us and so much attached us, he of the native 
 and we of the foreign race and language, we uttered 
 a fervent " God bless you! " We will wear in our 
 hearts his living memory. Our aspiration was, 
 may he live long and prosper, and when he dies 
 may he go to the place where the good Indians go.
 
 SUIMMER 'WAYFAETNG. 209 
 
 "We thonglit the fitting thing by way of relief 
 against the present sense of tlie loneliness and 
 vacancy of the camp, was to divert onr thoughts 
 from it and our friends to the fish. To that end, 
 we arranged the tackle in its best trim, and set- 
 ting out on the Brule, radiant in the glow of the 
 morning, the birch bark we sat in, like Cleopatra's 
 barge on the river of Cydnus, " a burnished throne, 
 burned on the water," so glaring, at starting, was the 
 dazzle of the sun. 
 
 We crept along the winding of the stream, from 
 pool to pool, or through frothy shallows, or into a 
 shadowed nook, or breasted the rapids, and also 
 flung out at random while in tr3,nsit. During the 
 two or three hours of the coursing we canght 6*iily 
 forty-five trout, but did catch a very brief, sudden, 
 refreshing shower, from a single cloud that a way- 
 ward impromptu gust swept over us. On Sunday 
 and the day following, the heat was something of 
 the tropics, and at night we dispensed with the 
 illumining and warming from the usual pine -ingle- 
 side of the camp, and very comfortably enjoyed our 
 last meerschaums before bedtime, in -the midsum- 
 mer night scene in shirt-sleeves. This balminess 
 of the night hours, however, was a rarity and fit- 
 ftilness of temperature. In this camp, and' as if 
 spawned or vitalized by the warmth, the house- 
 flies plagued us fiendishly, more tormentingly than 
 the mosquitoes or midgets. 
 14
 
 210 TKOUTIXG ON THE BEULE. 
 
 The afternoon sport was dashed hy rain, which 
 fell copiously from serried cohorts of clond that 
 swept up, charging fiercely from the west. Part of 
 the time it subsided into a glimmer or a mist of 
 rain, and again showered heavily, so that we were 
 embargoed by the elements into indoor listlessness. 
 Looking out of the open flap of the tent, the pros- 
 pect was dreary enough. The rain drops dotted 
 and pimpled the stream thickly. They pelted and 
 spluttered in the camp fire, and clipped its flames, 
 and p)lumped and dully thudded among the embers 
 and in the ashes, and the tongues of the blazes 
 hissed and sizzled angrily in the strife of flre and 
 water. The pines and firs dripped ceaselessly. 
 The sky was leaden and sullen. Thebault and Paul 
 took their enforced seclusion with the most happy 
 go-lucky composure, laboriously whifiing their 
 pipes and indolently sprawling on the blankets in 
 their tent. 
 
 Against the outer dreariness and the inner mono- 
 tony we fell back on our literature for relief. In 
 his consuming thirst for information about that 
 "Mysterious "Island" of Jules Yerne, and between 
 the book and his pipe. High forgot, possibly, the 
 clouds, the rain, the dullness, the general discomfort 
 of the occasion. I turned the pages of honest 
 Walton, and following his footsteps on the banks 
 of the river Lea, for the time was unmindful of the 
 very Brule at our feet, and, in those charming dis-
 
 SUMilEE WAYFAEING. 211 
 
 coursings which have made the " Complete Ang- 
 ler" forever a lovable classic in onr language, 
 renevt^ed some of those sweet spells which fascinated 
 me in earlier years. "We had time, too, to speak 
 of our away-gone friends, and of course we missed 
 Denison's restless volatility . 
 
 Some of Denison's equipment we could willingly 
 afford to part withal. One familiar object, whose 
 room was greatly preferred to its company, was his 
 portable powder magazine, which he called an ammu- 
 nition case. This twenty-five pound locker of deadly 
 missiles was generally lying around in the tent for 
 us to stumble our toes against, or to menace some, 
 or all of us, with au explosive hoist, to the " demni- 
 tion bow-wows," It was about as safe and cheerful 
 a companion to have around as a torpedo or a carboy 
 of dynamite, when lighted meerschaums were so 
 freely swung around, and the sparks, like whirling 
 myriads of fire-flies, were flying in showers from 
 our breakfast fires, dinner fires, supper fires, and 
 our morning and evening tent fires. That ammu- 
 nition case must have been the terror of the men, 
 if for no other reason than that of its being a 
 heavy dorsal strain on every Indian whose unhappy 
 fate it was to lug it on the portages. The fixed 
 ammunition, as he termed his cartridges, never was 
 fixed, apparently, as he seemed constantly fixing it. 
 He handled it freely, as a child would play its rat- 
 tles and baubles. His case was opened as often as
 
 212 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 tlie valise that lield liis novels. !N"obody could tell 
 when an ill-governed or wayward spark raiglit be 
 the means of blowing up the camp, and all who 
 dwelt therein. He aj^peared to think his explo- 
 sives had a useful disciplinary purpose in school- 
 ing us to sleepless vigilance and caution. 
 
 He spread out a two-pound package of powder 
 on a ncM^spaper on the grass in front of the tent, to 
 dry in the sun. He emphatically warned me to be 
 careful about smoking, as I might drop a spark in 
 his powder, and blow up the entire stock and spoil 
 his shooting. The admonition, certainly, was so 
 apt and timely, and so well meant for the safety of 
 the powder, if not of myself, that I felt grateful for 
 his cautionary kindness, and was rather inclined to 
 consider him my benefactor. In looking around 
 for marks to shoot at, he discovered a wasp's nest 
 suspended from a limb of a tree near the tent. He 
 thought that, by right of discovery, he was privi- 
 leged to deal with it in his own way, and that was 
 to shatter it into flinders with his revolver. It was 
 all I could do to keep him from blowing it into 
 fragments and setting loose on us the whole swarm 
 of infuriated wasps, to make it hot and lively 
 around the camp. He seemed to regard the obnox- 
 ious vespiary as a hanging provocation or challenge 
 for his revolver marksmanship. Sitting under or 
 near it, he was uneasy and perturbed, like Damocles 
 beneath the suspended sword at the Dyonisian feast.
 
 SUMMEK WAYFAKING. 213 
 
 I am not sure that lie forgave, or ever will quite 
 forgive me for thwarting him of the ecstacj of 
 demolishing that wasp's nest into everlasting atoms. 
 At twilight the rain increased, and it was by a 
 bare excess of the chances that the kitchen fire was 
 not squelched, and we were not sent supperless to 
 bed. By chipping and splintering dry pine, choi:>ped 
 from the under sides of logs, the Indians found 
 just enough fuel to keep combustion alive; and 
 though the drops pattered on the kettle, the water 
 within at last boiled into a bubbling song of tea. 
 The fire for our tent drowned out, and the niglit 
 darkness and dampness crept on us. The gloom 
 within was made more conspicuous by the weak, 
 imcertain flare of the lantern suspended. To shut 
 out the utter dismalness of the outside, and to close 
 ourselves in, the flaps of the tent were drawn to- 
 gether, the tallow dip, our flickering glim, was put 
 out, and, in the blankets, we gradually soothed 
 away and lost the miseries of the situation in sleep.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SKIRMISHING FOR FISH — A RED TROUT — CRASSUS THE ROMAN 
 —A RARE DISH — RIVER RISE — ECCENTRIC FREAKS OF FISH 
 — A LUNAR EFFECT — THE SAW-BILLS— RED SQUIRRELS — IN- 
 DIANS TROUTING — A COLOSSAL TROUT — HIGH, THE CHAMP- 
 ION ANGLER. 
 
 The clouds that lowered on our house the last 
 night, were in the deep bosom of the ocean buried. 
 In the morning we woke to a very resplendence of 
 sunshine; the azure was without even the fleck of 
 a cloud; the green of the forest was a deeper em- 
 erald ; the air was pure and laden with the odors 
 of balsam. We were in the best of spirits, though 
 we missed some of the boisterous fim or chaffing 
 with which we had been wont to welcome in the 
 jocund morn. "We wished Pratt and Denison were 
 with us for our and their own longer pleasure in 
 the sports of the Brule. After the flrst order of 
 the day, the breakfast, was disposed of, the business 
 next in order was proceeded with. The splendid 
 (214)
 
 SUaniER WAYFARING. 215 
 
 morning incited us to an excursion on tlie river, 
 now, after the gloom and sulleness of tLe previous 
 da}^, more than ever attractive in its fullness of 
 summer glories. 
 
 ' ' Now let tlie fisherman liis toils prepare, 
 And arm himself with ev'iy wat'ry snare; 
 His hooks, his lines peruse with careful eye, 
 Increase his tackle, and his rod re-tie." 
 
 It needed all Paul's exertions to push the craft 
 up the stiff currents swollen with the rains. At 
 times, it was heaving ahead verj slowly. At vari- 
 ous pools, where we held awhile, we most prosper- 
 ously whipped the stream. Our concern was, not 
 to hover where the trout swarmed most abundantly, 
 but to find the haunts of the largest. The small 
 fry could be plenteously caught in nearly any place 
 of the river; but the heavy swells, more shy and 
 wary, frequent under a bank where the water runs 
 close up and deep, or under logs, or in deep pools 
 or holes, or at or under the rapids, or in the depths 
 of the channel, or in the swirl below a large boulder. 
 They are more coy than tlie troutlings, and some- 
 times must be coaxed and tickled with a delicate 
 and cautious dalliance. 
 
 We happened on some of these haunts of the 
 choice fish. E-ight gallantly did they show the 
 gamesome stuff of which they Avcre made. There 
 was agitation in the waters when they stretched a 
 line and bent a tip. I envied High the repeated
 
 216 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 onset and final capture of one particnlar trout, 
 splendid in his mettle and dasli, and in his propor- 
 tions and unequalled heautj'. On his first charge 
 at the flj, he appeared, in the clear water, a flash 
 of deep, red flame, so brilliant was he in his em- 
 blazonry; but he was not then taken. On the next 
 cast he pitched at the fly as it touched the water. 
 We thought him taken, and saw him wavering in 
 shape of red as he was being played in; but, after 
 all, he flouted oif and we thought him gone forever. 
 But, fate had set its seal on him; on a third imme- 
 diate cast, he came boldly to the snatch again, and 
 then he was firmly struck. 
 
 How slowly, carefully and skillfully High han- 
 dled his rod so as to save his gallant, struggling 
 prize. When he was being drawn in, fluttering 
 and writhing, he appeared to us as if reddened in 
 his own blood. He fought gamely to the last. 
 When brought in and unhooked, each of us took 
 him, b}' turns, and handled him tenderly, and with 
 w^ondcr and admiration at his beauty. He was the 
 sole one of the kind we had ever seen taken from 
 the Brule. He was peerless in size as he was in 
 brilliancy. The tail, fins and belly were of deepest 
 red. The specks were unusually defined and high 
 colored, and the skin was finely empearled and per- 
 fect. We all regretted that he could not be kept 
 alive or preserved to be taken home as a wonder. 
 He would be a marvel of beauty in a parlor aqua- 
 rium or fish fflobe.
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 217 
 
 lie was a paragon of a trout, liaudsome enonoli 
 to be kept and fondled as a pet, as was the lamprey 
 of Crassns, the oratoi", which would come at his 
 call and feed from his hand. That eminent Roman 
 forensic gentleman wept when his fondling of the 
 pond died. His tears occasioned a repartee of his, 
 which ^lian has been thoughtful enough to pre- 
 serv^e, and which shows that it was a great point 
 with the lawyers of the Roman, as it is witli those 
 of the modern forum, to have the last wo: d. JEno- 
 barbus was the colleague of the orator in the cen- 
 sorship, and foolhardily ventured to twit his brother 
 official on his puling and sobbing over a defunct 
 fish. The legal wit retorted that it was not for 
 Domitius -^nobarbus to taunt Licinius Crassus 
 with bewailing anything, since the same Domitius 
 had buried three wives without rending his toga or 
 tearing his beard, and without a single tear or 
 whimper at the funeral of either demised consort, 
 or words to that effect. As the historian has not 
 reported a reply, it is to be presumed that the wid- 
 owered Roman silently withered. 
 
 As a dernier resort^ and the only one, the beauty- 
 trout was handed over to the cook for his profes- 
 sional treatment. It was served at our tahle (T hote, 
 and, at High's special instance, fell to my platter. 
 Beneath his crisp and embrowned coat of mail, the 
 tender flakes were delicate and sweet, and of the 
 deepest pink salmon tinge, and were as choice to
 
 218 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 eat as fair to look upon. It was a dainty dish, of 
 which it could be said, as Walton says of a service 
 of fish described by him, it was " too good for any 
 body but anglers and very honest men." 
 
 In the afternoon, and after our customary lounge 
 in the shade, we put off for further essaying with 
 the fly. The rain of the night before, by that time, 
 had swollen the river more voluminously so that 
 it ran swiftly smooth over ordinary shallows. It 
 was all channel. The canoe could float about any- 
 where, and we could strike trout around about us 
 nearly everywhere. Just at the camp, too, we could 
 take them. At the rapids lower down, where Pratt 
 and I had fortuned on a paying lead, as the miners 
 say,'we failed to get a rise, probably because the water 
 swept too turbulently. This convinced us, what 
 indeed, was believed before, that the fish are wander- 
 ing, and do not shoal in pools when there is water- 
 way to swim them freely at large. In the Brule 
 at its full stream, the trout are wanderers — here to- 
 day, and to-morrow elsewhere. 
 
 We saw some of their amusing freaks again; one 
 voracious fellow vaulted over a log to snatch a 
 fascinating, new, glossy fly that High had thrown, 
 and did tackle it, but paid dearly for tlie leap, for 
 he was caj^tured, and was plump enough to be laid 
 by as a choice morsel for the pan. Another trout 
 skipped horizontally, at least two feet along, barely 
 above and in line with the surface, and then frisked
 
 SriTMEK WATFAKING. 219 
 
 out sideways and dropped back flat into the water 
 laterally. These antics rather amazed and much 
 amused us. The figures of the day were one hun- 
 dred and sixty-five. 
 
 I got ujD in the night to close the flaps of the 
 tent, and witnessed a striking lunar effect. Fog- 
 was dense over the river. Tlie moon, directly op- 
 posite to, or fronting the camp, shone lustrously; 
 a narrow pathway of illuminated golden haze 
 stretched from the brink, at our feet, in rising per- 
 spective, up to the face of the moon. Early in the 
 morning, wlien the glories of the coming day were 
 glimmering the east into the hues of dawn, the flock 
 of saw-bills that ill-omened our Michigami voy- 
 age, or some others of the nefarious family, were 
 heard quacking and seen paddling in the very pur- 
 view of the camp. One of the boys rising from 
 his snore frightened them, and as usual they bois- 
 terously scattered in terror. 
 
 There was a settlement of small red squirrels 
 around us. They were very nimble, and the trees 
 near by were noisy with their lively chattering. 
 They ventured occasionally on the trees overhanging 
 the camp. One of them capered neatly on alder 
 bushes within twenty feet of us, bending down 
 slender branches, swinging from one to another, 
 swaying on twigs, rattling the leaves, and whisking 
 his tail. We saw several of them chasing, one 
 after another, in ajumj^ingrace, on logs, squeaking
 
 220 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 sharply as thev went. There were small birds, like 
 sjDarrows, flitting among the bushes in hide-and-go- 
 seek playfulness, twittering little trills. 
 
 A chipmunk sometimes came, and stopjDcd on a 
 log to take a look at us. Occasionally the croak of a 
 raven, or the moan of a loon high flying, the rat- 
 tat of a sapsucker, or the pecking of a woodpecker, 
 or the jerking notes of a jaybird, and some other 
 notes not familiar to ns, were heard, a'nd proved 
 that bird-life is more varied and abundant here 
 than on the Michigami; but even here the feath- 
 ered choristers were not, either in number or va- 
 riety, what would be expected in such a grand old 
 wilderness. High was thoughtful enough of the 
 better-half serviug the household gods at home, 
 to gather and press for her in the leaves of a Jules 
 Yerne extravaganza, some of the choicest of the 
 ferns, which mantled the ground near by with a liv- 
 ery of vivid green. 
 
 We ourselves prompted Thebault and Paul to 
 experiment their Indian skill in a match with the 
 trout. Whether or not they would be successful 
 with the fly and our more delicate appliances, who 
 had only occasionally trouted, and then, with ruder 
 line, and rod fashioned from a branch and with 
 bait, was a problem they themselves had no experi- 
 ence from which to forecast results at starting. We 
 committed to them our rig, and they canoed up- 
 wardly, and, in their venture, wielded the rods so
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKIXG. 221 
 
 mucli to the purpose, in their dalliance with the fish, 
 as to return to us with flving colors and with fiftj- 
 three trout, news of which they proudly hailed to 
 us as they rounded to the mooring. AVhether this, 
 their first foraging the river, had edged their appe- 
 tites more sharply, or whether they had a special 
 relish because the spoils were of their own capture, 
 we did not know, but certainly they bountifully 
 served themselves and repeated more than their 
 usual courses of the fry. 
 
 After dinner, we set out again to fish. From 
 some whim or caprice, in quest of novelty, and to 
 variegate our bearings, we pushed into untried 
 inlets, unexplored nooks and unknown chutes. We 
 tried one or two openings into the stream, which 
 in short time we found to be ciils de sac of water 
 in which we were entrapped, and were obliged 
 to turn about and retrace our course. Within a 
 short distance of the camp there are numerous 
 little islands, with threads of stream tangling and 
 winding about them, Yenetian-like petty lagoons. 
 Into one of these. High's prying curiosity prompted 
 a venture; after we ascended some distance from the 
 entrance, it so narrowed and crooked, the foliage so 
 overstretched it, the snags, sunken brush and fallen 
 timber so obstructed the passage, that it was hard 
 to force the birch-bark on, though Paul struggled 
 manfully. But we had pressed on so far that to 
 return were as tedious as to go on. We determined 
 to crowd ahead to the main stream
 
 222 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 A few pushes further, at a point where seemingly 
 there was no promise of a fish of any size, High 
 instinctively caught sight of a narrow, dark strip 
 of water, close under a shore, embanked by a dense 
 luxuriance of alders, and carefully laid in his fly, 
 on a short piece of line. It was, except to an eye 
 of faith, a forlorn hope of a place. There was no 
 space for two to cast. But the chance dip of the 
 fly proved, by a rise, that the hidden spot might be 
 a lair of trout. The hint was followed up, and its 
 promise was followed too, by splendid performance. 
 
 Again casting his fly at the very shore-line in 
 the dark strip, its touch on the water was one as 
 of magic, and proved to be the master-stroke of 
 all Brule fly-fishing. He had struck a trout that 
 tried his tackle and his skill. His rod curved, the 
 reel buzzed, and the line spun out taut down stream. 
 To prevent the fish from loosening, or from foul- 
 ing the line in the brush and logs, was the critical 
 and turning point. Gay must have had, or seen a 
 similar match with a trout, as in his " Rural 
 Sports," he foreshadows High in what was nearly 
 literally a brush with the Brule trout, diflfering 
 only in the mightiness of the bulk and unfolded 
 length. As thus — 
 
 JSTow hope exalts the fisher's beating heart; 
 Now he turns pale and fears his dubious art; 
 He views the trembling fish with lonigng eyes, 
 While the line stretches with tli' unwieldy prize;
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKING. 223 
 
 Eacli motion humors with his steady hands, 
 And one slight hair the mightj' bulk commands; 
 Till tired at last, despoiled of all his strength 
 The game athwart the stream unfolds his length. 
 
 Paul and I anxiously watched the gallant tour- 
 ney, and were one in admiration over the prize. It 
 was the leviathan or monarch trout of the Brule — 
 larger than any known to, or heard of by any of us 
 taken on this river. We could fairly weight him 
 at two pounds. The average of the larger trout 
 taken in this river, or by us, was probably not 
 over fourteen ounces. High was tickled almost 
 into boyish exhilaration at his capture. "What a 
 volley of admiring exclamations he uttered ! AVhat 
 a serene expression and halo of smiles he wore ; how 
 often he spoke of him, and how many times he 
 opened the basket to be sure he was there, as though, 
 like Falstaff chuckling over the fallen Percy, he so- 
 liloquized: "What if he should rise again?" and 
 renew the fight anon, I cannot undertake to note. 
 I know he said that he felt better on the taking of 
 the trout than if he had taken a successful verdict 
 in a Chicago law suit; 
 
 '•And all the day an unaccustomed spirit 
 
 Lifts him above the ground with cheerful thoughts." 
 
 This will be the red-letter day in Pligh's calendar 
 of Brule troutino^. The rest of the ana-linsr was 
 rather tame to him. Though the fish we afterwards 
 took were considerably above the average, they
 
 224 TROTJTING ON THE BEULE. 
 
 seemed to liim, after the splendid trout coup de 
 grace, rather puny. The peerless one took the dash 
 out of his ambition. In fact, our sport, in weight 
 and number, was so good that he said that, for once, 
 he had had all the trouting he wanted, which, for an 
 irrepressible enthusiast of flj-fishing, as he is, was 
 a rare confession. "We took one huridred and fift}-, 
 but returned most of them to the river again. The 
 day was tlie finest in breeze and sunshine, the eve- 
 ning was cool and still, the unclouded moonlight 
 tinged all the landscape in yellow glow. "We felt 
 genial as the warmth of the log-fire and bright as 
 its fl.ames, and were as placid and blissful as if 
 everything was, and would remain, as serene as the 
 niffht.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CHICKABIDDY CAMP — HARPING ON THE TROUT— RIVER RE- 
 CEDING — A FAWN AND A BUCK — CHANGE IN THE BRULE — 
 — CAMP THEBAULT — THE TOTAL FIGURES — LOGMAN's CAMP 
 — THE MICHIGAMI — WEAWBINYKET's CABIN — PAUL MIL- 
 LER'S — BIG QUINISECK FALLS. 
 
 Thebault tlionglit, perhaps, a day as propitious 
 as that which saw the killing of the splendid trout, 
 should be crowned with more than wonted comfort 
 for the night, so he hewed down a towering hem- 
 lock standing near the camp, and despoiled it of a 
 wealth of boughs to make us a fresh and fragrant 
 spread for sleejiing. These made a couch as much 
 to our ease, if not cpiite as soft, as feathers could 
 make. 
 
 The balmy sleep, which was there our tired nature's 
 sweet restorer was deep as the slumber of infancy 
 in the cradle. No one so well knows what it is to 
 sleep in peace and^^wake in joy, as well as to have 
 good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both 
 15 (225)
 
 226 TROrTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 — where appetite is ever under the spur or on edge 
 — as the roanier in this forest reahn of nature, of 
 solitude and of cahn. 
 
 Enamored of our camping p^ace, we had thought 
 to make there a longer stay; hut the water-rise 
 was running out rapidly, and the trout would be 
 less scattered and broadcast. Besides, it was 
 reported that certain of the stores were exhausted, 
 and others were depleting rapidly. The prospect of 
 famine had expedited the return on the first trip. 
 As we were now cloyed with excess of sport, and of 
 satiety "a little more than a little is much too 
 much," we would be making no great sacrifice in 
 emigrating from Chickabiddy Camp. 
 
 High was still harping on his notable trout. I 
 do not know what his war record is, but I doubt if 
 an}'' single event of it, in the field, on the march or in 
 camp, will be a more satisfying recollection to him 
 than that of his conquest of the mammoth trout. Of 
 course, compared with the three, four or five pound 
 trout, or salmon trout which he himself had captured 
 from Rocky Mountain streams, the Brule captive 
 would be dwarfed and overshadowed; but here, 
 where the scale is reduced, and the fish make up in 
 dash, gameness, beauty and delicacy, what they lack 
 in dimensions and weight, to have proved himself 
 the unrivaled master of the rod, wath an unmatched 
 marvel of its kind for a trophy, was indeed a feat and 
 good fortune worth emblazoning on his piscatorial 
 escutcheon.
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKING. 227 
 
 His superb trout, however, fried, and in a crust 
 of brown, was served in a breakfast mess. And, 
 much of a trout gourmet as he is. High had all lie 
 could do to get away with it. He exercised his jaws 
 with a gusto and with a labor of love in disposing of 
 the rich, delicate, creamy flakes, akin to those of the 
 stomach attributed to a hungry Feejee epicure for a 
 missionary tid-bit. I could not muster assurance 
 enough to accept the slice of it offered to me. After 
 rising from the feast, he felt that he had, indeed, ban- 
 queted, and that he could now, like the Tartar khan 
 after his repast on the sumptuous horse-flesh and 
 mare's milk, flourish the trumpet and proclaim tliat 
 all the rest of the world could go now to grnb. 
 
 Almost as quickly as the shifting of a gypsy en- 
 campment scene from the stage, in a drama, our 
 canvas domicile and the paraphernalia of the camp 
 were transposed from the woodland to the canoe. 
 Blackened logs half burned, charred chunks, heaps 
 of ashes, strips of birch bark, a mixed rubbish of 
 trout heads, tins and skeletons, ^^otato skins, a drift 
 of hemlock boughs, scraps of paper, lithographed 
 tobacco labels, and other minor refuse, were all the 
 vestiges left to testify of our recent homestead. 
 
 About eight o'clock we tucked ourselves in the 
 canoe, and, without much ado, bade a somewhat 
 regretful adieu to Chickabiddy Camp. The christen- 
 ing of the spot with that name was a chance freak 
 of caprice merely, but a memory of the place and of
 
 228 TEOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 our four days' life there will survive long in the 
 future of our several recollections. A half-mile 
 below it, we saw a handsome fawn, with its coat of 
 many spots, standing fixed and still at the mouth of 
 a petty rill. It certainly did not have its eye-teeth 
 cut, or it would not have stood there, within range, 
 a tempting mark for a deadly shot. But we were 
 abreast of it, or slightly below, when it was discov- 
 ered, and before Thebault had fumWed his pocket 
 and found a cap and got the rifle well in hand, the 
 rapid current had swept us furtherward, and dis- 
 tance had made it safe. The crack of the gun sent 
 the startled fawn bounding, but unharmed, out of 
 sight. 
 
 There had been so much trout and so great 
 deficit of deer since we left the Michigami, that such 
 a sight brought imaginary flavors of venison to our 
 lips, and we longed for a real haunch. While our 
 birch was sliding easily along, and our thoughts were 
 yet, possibly, brooding over the evanescent fawn, 
 Tliebault, the far-seer, discerned and pointed to us 
 another statuesque object, a large-horned buck, cool- 
 ing himself in the stream, and there 
 
 " "With his imperial front, 
 Shaggy and bold, and wreathed horns superb, 
 The breathing creature stood." 
 
 He was too far for Thebault's rifle, and caught 
 sight of us too soon to admit of any stealth or strat- 
 egy being played on him by the rifleman. Still,
 
 SUAEMER WAYFARING. 229 
 
 Tliebanlt determined to give him a scare. "When 
 the deer turned for the bushes, the gun was shot, 
 and tlie terrorized buck phmged and tore the water 
 wide open in his panic haste to set his hoofs on 
 shore. 
 
 On the advance, the rods were plied in such 
 reaches, below such rapids, and behind such rock 
 or boulder masses, as promised immediate results; 
 and these brief snatches of angling were sufficient 
 to furnish us an ample dinner and supper supply. 
 In these passings, wliicli were nearing us to the 
 mouth of the river, we scarcely recognized the Brnle 
 we voyaged formerly. Then, a primitive densit}" of 
 forest bordered, and unbroken solitude brooded over 
 the shores to the very mouth. Since then, the log- 
 man's axe has been diligent in clearing spaces in 
 the wood, and the massive foliage that crowned the 
 close towering pines, in whose shadows and silence 
 the river of trout ran undisturbed, remote from 
 busy haunts of men, has, in several places, disap- 
 peared, and vistas stretch into the depths and to 
 the verge of the sky. These clearings leave a rugged 
 and stumpy appearance, and strip the ground of 
 the glorious livery of verdure that robed and liid 
 its barrenness and poverty. These places are now 
 occasional, at least, in the lower ten miles, and, to 
 us, changed the old landmarks. 
 
 But we struck one familiar point when we put 
 in to Camp Thebault for dinner. It and its
 
 230 TKOUTING ON THE BEULE. 
 
 environs were nnelianged. There were wildnessand 
 forest enough of virginal nature to make it a fitting 
 range for the wolf, whose howl we liad there heard 
 in the distance. "When there before, we had im- 
 printed, with a Faber, on a large pine, fresh barked 
 for the purpose, our names and the figures of the 
 catch. Eecalling the "trivial fond recoids" of 
 previous troutings by other parties, as we had found 
 them inscribed on trees, we then supposed we were 
 leaving behind us a proud triumphal memorial of 
 angling prowess, by scoring, in empliatic promi- 
 nence, the figures of seven hundred and seventy-four. 
 Looking now at these, our own figures of before, 
 we thought we could put on airs — certainly over 
 our former selves — and lay rather flattering unction 
 to our souls, in view of the statistical results of this 
 trip. It counted a total of thirteen hundred and 
 eighty-eight. The individual figures, or those of 
 each in this total, ranked High considerably first, 
 Pratt next, myself third, and, because of his earlier 
 return, Denison last, in the rivalry and credit of 
 exploits with the rod. A more imposing maximum 
 might easily have been reached with only a few more 
 daily hours spent in the effort. The few scores of a 
 single catching fully satisfied the demands of a 
 reasonable sporting ambition for the time, while 
 other possible scores would have been wanton and 
 wasteful excess. A superfluity palled the keenness 
 of appetite. The smaller fry we invariably returned 
 to the water.
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 231 
 
 When at dinner, and as lie prodded liis fifth trout 
 with his fork, High remarked that lie had always 
 heard and thought that blessings brighten as they 
 take their flight, and in view of the imminent van- 
 ishment of the luscious trout meals, he intended to 
 make the most of the last to be set before him. After 
 so long breakfasting, dining, supping and sleeping 
 on trout, this certainly showed a healthy and still 
 appreciatory appetence for trout. We all agreed in 
 applying Dr. Butler's praise of the strawberry to 
 trout: " Doubtless God might have made a better 
 fish, but doubtless God never did." However, for 
 my own part, I owned uj) to a trifle of satiety on 
 trout, and it would be no serious gastronomic pen- 
 ance to me to take leave of that daintiest dish until 
 the next or other season's excursion. 
 
 At all events, the fronting was practically ended. 
 The lines were wound up, the reels were rubbed 
 dry and wrapped, the rods were slid into their final 
 covers, and the baskets were stuifed with odds and 
 ends. The fishing campaign, we knew, was over, 
 as we swept into sight of a lumberman's cabin a 
 mile above the mouth of the Brule, in a clearing 
 cut out since our former knowledge of the river. 
 It was of the usual style of the logman's quarters 
 — a parallelogram of pine logs, low and long, and 
 roofed with shakes, fitted with bunks for sleeping, 
 and with a center board table for meals. It is the 
 winter quarters of the hardy cutters whose axes
 
 232 TKOUTING ON THE BEULE. 
 
 level the forest and convert it into losfs to be floated 
 on the spring freshets to the mills, whence, as lum- 
 ber, the pine is dispersed over wide regions. 
 
 To this cabin we designed a visitation, and hove 
 to at the landing place. We knew by a pale, bluish 
 film of smoke risino- above the roof that some livinor 
 soul was on the premises. To our knock responded 
 a man and a dog. It was a response of welcome 
 from both. It was easy to see in the shiny, oily 
 face of the man, in his costume glossed with grease, 
 and from his odor redolent of kitchen pots and dish- 
 water, that he was the cook. He was short, pursy 
 and bald; a French-Canadian, and was not wanting 
 in the reputed afiability of his race. As only three 
 or four men were now of his household, his duties 
 were not pressing, and he had leisure to smoke his 
 well-blackened brier-wood pipe and lazily parley 
 with us. 
 
 AYe were welcome to any supplies we might re- 
 quire, and as replenishment of the larder was the 
 chief purpose of the visit, he supplied our necessi- 
 ties of pork, flour, potatoes and tobacco, as well as 
 spared us a Chicago Sunday newspaper a fortnight 
 old. Bobbie, his dog, was not less sociable, and 
 when we patted him, wagged us his tail in friendly 
 welcome, and hospitably rubbed his nose oil our 
 trousers. Parts of the walls were a rude art gal- 
 lery, formed of wood-cuts, clippings from pictorial 
 papers and police gazettes far out of date, cheap.
 
 SUMMER WAYFAEING. 233 
 
 flaming, liigli-colored lithographs, and for a devo- 
 tional suhject, an engraving of saint and saintess in 
 flamboyant robes. These, and familiar kitchen and 
 household appliances, reminded us that we were now 
 approaching the regions of settlement, the frontier 
 of civilization. 
 
 It was curious to recall, that since we left Repub- 
 lic, until we faced this sylvan pot-slinger, and with 
 the exception of the redskin and the squaws on the 
 Paint, we had not seen a human face or habitation, 
 or signs of them, unless the trails we trod over may 
 be considered such signs. The portages are so sel- 
 dom imprinted by a human foot, that nature almost 
 reclaims them, by growths and fallen timber, back 
 to their natural wildness, so that they are often ob- 
 scure and treacherous. A travel by land and. 
 water, as long and as far as ours, and through re- 
 gions as wide apart, with nothing in sight but all- 
 pervading nature, and not even a single token of 
 man's presence, serves to show the ntter silence, 
 vastness and wildness of the wilderness, still prim- 
 itive in the forms impressed by the Creator. He 
 alone was present on the noiseless and solitary 
 pathways of our advance. 
 
 The summer livery of the forests will have many 
 a season to decay and grow again, and again to 
 fade and fall, before much of this great wilder- 
 ness shall blossom as the rose. And we were then 
 not out of the woods. This was about the last of
 
 234 TEOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 the Brule, for a mile below tlie logging cabin it 
 and the Paint commingle their waters, and, flowing 
 together five or six miles, the Michigami adds its 
 volume, and tlie blended affluents become the Me- 
 nominee. We portaged ourselves over the rough 
 trail from above and around the Brule falls, while 
 the Indians shot the birch-bark, bounding like a 
 cork among the dangerous boulders, and through 
 the tossing breakers of the rapids, safely and 
 quickly into still w^ater. We had time, while 
 the traps were being borne over the carrj^ to read 
 the legends on the trees, which are numerous in 
 fiojures and names. Among those surviving "de- 
 cay's effacing fingers," we found our own former 
 memorials done in Bissell's boldest autographic 
 scrawl. To these was now added a supplementary 
 inscription of tli3 present party. Many of these 
 rude tablets of the trees were curious and eccentric 
 in their chirography and spelling, and some of 
 them were in a jingle of rhyme. It would seem 
 that usually, Brule troutsmen were not wearied with 
 an affluence of sport. 
 
 The goal of the day's voyaging was Bad water, and 
 Tom King's cabin there. We had enthusiastically 
 invited ourselves to be his guests, and to give him 
 a friendly surprise. We foretold ourselves a cor- 
 dial reception. Our time-table was so set that we 
 and the night would come together at that point. 
 But the day advanced more fleetly than our canoe.
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKING. 235 
 
 AVe could not go down as fast as the evening sun 
 declined. The paddles strained a point in the vray 
 of propulsive effort, and sped the craft gallantly on, 
 and though she sprang like a spurred courser ahead, 
 it was evident, when we saw the sunset reddening 
 already into rosy flush, and we were 3'et some miles 
 off, the propelling machinery would be unequal to 
 the task. So the Indians slowed the advance, and, a 
 couple of miles below the confluence of the Michi- 
 gami and the other mingled streams, where the Me- 
 nominee debouches into several channels, forming 
 little islands, we turned ashore to encamp. It was 
 at a point where these several branches join the main 
 river, and we could command a view of the silvery 
 threads of stream. 
 
 On the inside of the point there was a huge log- 
 drift lodged and heaved up by the freshets. Trunks 
 of all sized trees were swept into a shapeless jam 
 and ja<rged chaos. The top ledge of tins massive 
 interwedged drift was at least thirty feet above the 
 water-mark, showing the height and force of the 
 floods that had whirled them there. There was a 
 glut of fuel, and we had no trouble, with the lurid 
 irradiation of the heaping camp-fire, in driving back 
 the deep shadows of the night. 
 
 In the morning the bones of the last trout mess 
 Avere left strewn around the breakfast log. Our 
 trout-pampered epicurism was now ended. "With 
 the exception of the prospective venison from ex-
 
 236 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 pected deer further down, our repasts in the future 
 voyaging would be reduced to the staples of cook- 
 ery. It is said that kingfishers encase theirnests in 
 the banks with a lining of fish-bones. Our encamp- 
 ments on the Brule must have proved windfalls of 
 trout skeletonry to the kingfishers there, and if the 
 kingfishers, so many of which made our acquaint- 
 ance, lined their nests with our leavings, our 
 wanderings and sojournings must have beeu a 
 happy godsend to them. This allusion was sug- 
 gested by a kingfisher which, near to ns, swooped 
 down and dipped his plumage for an unwary 
 sucker or chub as a breakfast meal. 
 
 The anticipated sensation of the day was our 
 intended and self-invited call on our former Menom- 
 inee guide, Tom King, of Badwater. His pagan 
 name is Weawhiny-Ket. Our Menominees inter- 
 preted it as Weawliny, white, and Ket^ arm. So 
 his native alias means White-arm. Literallyf on ac- 
 count of his dark coppery complexion, the expres- 
 sion is incongruous and a misnomer. But we 
 chose to take it as meaning whiteness in the figura- 
 tive sense of quality; as when it is said of a man that 
 he is white, and, in tliat liberal interpretative spirit 
 we were contemplating a reception worthy of a man 
 and a brother. It was our cue to descend on him 
 as a surprise party, and I intended taking, as is not 
 unusual in such fashionable and impromptu inva- 
 sions, refreshments of a cheering and festive kind.
 
 SUiOIER WATI'ATIING. 237 
 
 So as we neared Bad water and swung into tlie 
 reach where his cabin was visible, and knew from 
 the blue smoke which thinly curled up from the 
 chimney that somebody was at home, the paddles 
 dipped quicker strokes to speed us to the place. 
 
 Nobody, however, appeared to hail our coming. 
 In fact, as we drew up at the landing place, the 
 open door of the mansion was promptly shut with 
 an emphatic slam. We failed to observe any latch 
 string hanging out. Neither squaw, papoose or 
 Weawbiny-ket even yet appeared with an eye to 
 mark our coming and grow brighter as we came. 
 In truth, the surprise party was a surprised part}'. 
 When our surprise gave way to reflection, we con- 
 cluded that sort of thing was Indian style, for the 
 similarly meaning formula of good society, not at 
 home. However, we thought we would not be too 
 sensitive, or put too fine a point on it. We were 
 in seri(tas need of pitch to smear the canoe, and 
 like Falstaflf", hiding our honor in our necessity, we 
 dispatched Thebault, as bearer of dispatches, on a 
 mission of inquiry to Madame King, the Weawbiny- 
 kettle of the domicile. He met the matron at the 
 doorway, and held a threshold pow-wow with her. 
 
 As the result of his embassage, our envoy in- 
 formed us that Tom himself was absent up the 
 Michigami, and further, that Denison and Pratt 
 had invaded her premises, at midnight, during a 
 rain storm, drenched and in a high state of appe-
 
 238 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 tite. Tliis circumstance cnliglitened ns, and was 
 probably the key to tlie mystery of the Weawbiny- 
 kettle cold shonlder shown us. Those famished 
 and inundated gentlemen had possibly laid waste 
 all the provisions in the house, as well as moistly 
 monopolized the family beds and blankets, and 
 sent the mother squaw and the little Weawbiny- 
 kittens to the kitchen floor to worry away a hapless 
 night. Possibly, therefore, a second apparition of 
 pale faces, just from the woods, reduced to meagre 
 rations, was a symbol to her untutored mind of 
 famine and freezino' both. Giving the accused the 
 benefit of the doubt, then, we wrapped ourselves in 
 our imaginary mantles of charity, and, in a benig- 
 nant frame of mind, we were prepared to go on our 
 way, forgiving and forgetting our metaphorical and 
 vicarious slap in the face on account of Denison 
 and Pratt. 
 
 We ran across the river, and advanced;" in full 
 force, to a cabin there, for a supj^ly of pitch. We 
 found there one intimidated squaw and three papoo- 
 ses, "one little, two little, three little Indian boys." 
 But as to the pitch, there w^as not to be had enough 
 to verify the proverb that whoever toucheth pitch 
 he is defiled. We left Badwater with our colors 
 at half-mast, so to speak. Two miles below was 
 Badwater Crossing, a ferry established the previous 
 year for the road to the logging camp near Brule 
 falls. This road marks an inroad of civilization,
 
 SUMMER WATFAKING. 239 
 
 and pioneers the advance of man into tlie domain 
 of nature. 
 
 At the crossing is a pine-log cabin, with preten- 
 sions to be classed as an inn, judging from tlie legend 
 "Montreal Bad water House," imprinted on a splint 
 or shake over the main door. It stands on a high 
 smooth bluf}', in a handsome situation, at tlie con- 
 vex point of a curve in the river. It has several 
 apartments. There was a garden M'ith familiar 
 potato vines, beets and cabbage. Paul Miller is the 
 Boniface, and because there was a bright-eyed, 
 comely woman to mistress it, the honsehold was all 
 snug, neat and tidy, and had an appearance of home 
 comfort. To support its tavernons pretensions, it 
 had just had at least one guest named on its regis- 
 ter. That was D. H. Lloyd, of the Chicago Tribune, 
 who had a few days sojourned there. After satisfy- 
 ing a modest ambition with his rifle in tapping a 
 deer's blood and securing the carcass to be sent to 
 the city, he had undauntedly set out on the home 
 return, on a stout pair of shanks, through the woods 
 to a point on the new railroad. He had stored here 
 a gem of a birch-bark canoe, nearly tiny, pretty and 
 light enough for a fairy craft — not much larger 
 than a Manitoba snow-shoe, and fitted only for a 
 crew of one. 
 
 Here we found a package of Chicago journals, 
 and letters from those who had somethino- sweet 
 and domestic to tell of home, forwarded by Arthur
 
 240 TROUTING ON THE BKTJLE. 
 
 T. Jones, of Marinette. We aj)preciated the civiU 
 ity and attention of this gentleman. He is him- 
 self a devoted and skillful brother of the angle, and 
 is one of those of whom it is said, in the words of the 
 milkmaid's mother, in the Comjilete Angler: " All 
 anglers be such honest, civil, quiet men." For his 
 kindness to us we would wish fortune to " sfet him 
 in a shower of gold, and hail rich pearls upon him," 
 Yet papers and letters only momentarily diverted 
 our thoughts, but did not inspire longings for the 
 homes and the world beyond, whose messages and 
 news they bore us. We were still so miich in spirit 
 with our surroundings that neither Gibbon's fight, 
 nor Hall's discovery of a satellite of Mars, nor the 
 war of Osmanli and Muscovite, nor the perturba- 
 tions of finance, nor any freshet of news could then 
 sensationalize us out of the charm, composure and 
 dolcefar niente of our uncompleted voyage. We 
 would foretaste or borrow no sensations. We would 
 be soon enough returned to the fret and friction of 
 city and business life. We wanted our drift into 
 activity at high pressure to be as smooth, quiet and 
 gentle as the flow of the river. So our newspajDers 
 hardly rippled, for the moment, the ease and calm 
 of the way, and of our way of life. The hours were 
 golden with us, but we were not fain to chase them 
 with flying feet. Passing each of the cascades of 
 the Twin falls, we sidled ashore at a curving ledge 
 of rock rising up to an elevation. Its face was
 
 SUMMER AVAYFARIXG. 2J-1 
 
 tliinly streaked with a shag or scanty nap of moss, 
 and np the side was clotlied with a thicket of 
 stunted trees, in the shade of which we were served 
 to good purpose, with some of Paul Miller's contri- 
 butions to the larder. Just below there were some 
 ugly rapids with wildly pitching billows. It seemed 
 that one's time had possibly come should he dare a 
 passage, which for the canoe was clearly an extra- 
 hazardous risk which a prudent underwriter would 
 not insure against to the value of a pin's fee. The 
 natives checked up on the verge of the turbulence, 
 and took circumspective glances, and parleyed a 
 little and pondered more. We knew the venture 
 was a dubious one. The nervous organizations of 
 Chicago, at least, were not absolutely placid. 
 
 I noticed that on close approach to the " vex'd 
 Bermoothes," High lifted his eyes from a highlj' 
 seasoned Milwaukee divorce scandal and family 
 racket in a newspaper, with the details of which he 
 had been engrossed, and devoted his particular so- 
 licitude to the raging breakers. I shared his anx- 
 iety, and thought " If it were done, then t'were well 
 it were done quickly." But the Indians at length 
 unleashed the craft and let it loose. It bounded 
 amono; heaving: w^aters rushinwlv. The reckless 
 white-caps, like enraged and frantic water sprites, 
 with mad foam frothing their lips, tossed and leaped 
 up to us as if they would board the birch-bark, and 
 lap us in their watery embrace. We sliot through 
 16
 
 242 TKorrixG on the brule. 
 
 the seething peril very rapidly, however, with no 
 mishap more serious tlian a fewsphishes, and scoop- 
 ing in two or three of the more daring white-caps. 
 High i-esnmeil the perusal of the matrimonial sen- 
 sation of Milwaukee. 
 
 Tlie few miles to Big Quiniseck Falls were miles 
 of uniformly beautiful scenery. In some reaches 
 the stream glided partly under the shade of the for- 
 est, and theuon curving around abend spread into 
 full radiance of the sun, so that we were flitting from 
 liglit to shade; but the river was placid as a paint- 
 ed, meadow brook. The stillness of the entire scene 
 was impressive; not a leaf trembling to the sigh of 
 a bi-eeze, not a twig moving, not air enough astir to 
 breathe a film of agitation; only the widening rip- 
 ples cut by the canoe and the spirals from the dip 
 of the paddles, to mar the mirror-like gloss and 
 calm of the stream, and like silence of the bord- 
 ering woods, with scarce a note or chirp or twitter 
 of a bird; this was a stillness which could hardly 
 be found elsewhere. We insensibly assimilated 
 ourselves in spirit to the profound and all-pervad- 
 ing calm, and sympathetically lapsed into a seren- 
 ity and Jangour in harmony with the overpowering 
 hush and repose of nature. Dreamily, passively, 
 Toicelessly and restfully, we kept in this luxurious 
 drowse of enchantment till we neared Big Quini- 
 seck Falls. Only the rumble of the falling waters 
 broke the charm.
 
 SUMMKR WAYFAEIXG. ^43 
 
 "We Imcl scarcely recovered from the spell before 
 our birch bark touched the head of the trail. The 
 portage is a wearisome trudge of two miles, a path- 
 way for single-filing, and almost smothered in the 
 profusion of bushes, wdiich often tripped the feet or 
 switched in our faces. High and I shouldered the 
 blanket packs and led off, and with much weariness 
 of flesh and in copious sweat of the brow, slowly 
 paced the seemingly interminable, and occasionally 
 almost impenetrable route. Ours, though, was a 
 trifling labor compared with the task of Thebault 
 and Paul. They twice plodded over the route, and 
 even their stalwart frames weakened and tired under 
 the strain; and before tlie carry was all finished, 
 and they had borne the canoe through the sea of 
 foliage, the twilight overspread us in its gathered 
 shades. 
 
 We tented on the high point of rock on the Mich- 
 igan side. We liad a commanding view of the 
 scenery, striking yet, though sobered into dimmer 
 outline. But in the glow of the morning sun the 
 scenery was beautiful exceedingly. At our feet the 
 foam from the cataract washed the edge of the 
 shore, and laid in streaks like drifts of snow. The 
 currents in the eddies curved gracefully, bearing 
 flakes and tufts of foam. Just by, the misty spray 
 rose like a phantom drapery of silvery smoke over 
 the rushing waters of the falls. The perspective 
 down the river was not less charming.
 
 244 TEOUTING ON THE BETJLE. 
 
 In fact; the wliole scenery of these falls, the wild- 
 ness and beauty, the forest and stream, need only 
 the genius of some Claude Lorraine, Turner or 
 Church to trace and color them in the immortal 
 glories of art, to make them world-known and famed 
 and sought. Some day, tourists in search of the pic- 
 turesque and artists in pursuit of studies, will come 
 out of their way to take in Big Quiniseck Falls. 
 Pictures of them in the memory of the one, and on 
 the canvass of the other, would well match, or sur- 
 pass, those of many a view more famed of art and 
 story. These were the impressions of the former 
 trip, and now they were more than renewed.
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 A SPOKTSMAN's camp — AMENITIES OF THE "WOODS — LITTLE 
 QUINISECK FALLS — SAIf D RAPID — STURGEON FARM — A HAT 
 — STURGEON FALLS — DR. ANDREWS — PEEMBINWUN RAPIDS 
 — A PICKEREL INCIDENT — INDIAN ENCAMPMENT— PEEMONY 
 FALLS — KITER SCENES. 
 
 After starting, not many minutes of paddling 
 brought witliin view, in the distance, a scene of 
 quite another sort, which put an end to our impres- 
 sions of the grand and beautiful, and set our emo- 
 tions to quite another key. A couple of tents on 
 the bank, in white relief against a deep emerald 
 background, with figures standing ormoving"about, 
 proclaimed a camp. Nearing more closely, we 
 knew by the token of a deer-skin stretched to dry, 
 and from the red-shirted Indians, and a group of 
 men in hunting coats in the foreground, that we 
 had come upon a sportsman's encampment. When 
 within hail, we were saluted with a hearty "Good 
 morning, gentlemen, won't you land? " There was 
 (245)
 
 246 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 a very generous alacrity on our part to accept the 
 invitation, and we promptly turned in and laid 
 alongside the pine-log pier and disembarked. 
 
 There were no preliminary formalities. The 
 shaken hands at once endenizened us, as it were, in 
 the full freedom of the camp, and the pledge or 
 ceremony of investiture with such freedom was a 
 a pipe apiece to smoke, and a cup of kindness from 
 the confidential demijohn. These hospitalities were 
 agreeably improved by us. We exchanged short 
 and rapid expeditionary histories. Our friends, as 
 we felt them to be, were a Chicago party, at the 
 head of which was Robert Clark, the well-known 
 veteran woods sportsman, with Ira Augur, W. B. 
 "Wilcox, and 0. E. Fargo, as his fellows. They had 
 five Chippewa camp followers, luggers and polers. 
 
 They had journeyed overland, and three days 
 previously struck the river and set up their can- 
 vass quarters at this point. The canoe flotilla and 
 the Indians had come on in advance and to aAvait 
 them. They had already had a prelude of gunning 
 and game, and had shot and feasted on two deer; 
 of one of these they spared us an acceptable haunch 
 with their compliments, and with gratefulness from 
 us. They were well equipped for all the contin- 
 gencies; and were bound for the Brule. Our brief 
 meeting with them was a delightful episode of so- 
 cialities and kindnesses on surprise, and an in- 
 stance of the rough and spontaneous friendliness
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 247 
 
 of the woods. "We heartily wished them hon voyage, 
 and gave them our friendliest adieus. 
 
 Little Quiniseck Falls are not now as grand as 
 we saw them in their primitive and natural estate. 
 Science, capital and labor have shorn them of much 
 of their natural grandeur. Some combined lumber 
 companies are waging a strife against nature for 
 their improvement. The design is to merge the 
 separate runs of water into one, which is to be 
 freed, by blasting, from the rocks that formerly 
 split or broke in pieces the logs pitching over. By 
 a temporary wing-dam, the water is forced into the 
 Wisconsin chute, w-hile the Michigan branch is 
 having its rock blasted out piecemeal, and huge 
 masses and ledsres of the granite were being blown 
 from foundations as old and firm as those of the 
 everlasting hills. 
 
 Man with capital, and giant powder as his dyna- 
 mic agent, will soon prevail, and cataracts that for 
 ages have been untamed and unchanged, will be 
 made obedient and pliant servitors to his needs. 
 AVhen the one channel is excavated or blasted out, 
 and the whole river turned into it, there will be lit- 
 tle of the natural grandeur of the cascade left. 
 When we passed there, we found an encampment 
 of many men who were working the drills and blasts. 
 Powder and steel have wrought wonders, but these 
 wonders of skill and science liave nearly effaced 
 some of the impressive wonders of nature. In the
 
 248 TROCTIXG OX THE BRULE. 
 
 basin below, where I had formerly but vainly drop- 
 ped in hook and line, one of the brawny drill-pick- 
 ers had been bobbing for fish, and liad nipped nearly 
 a score of bass and wall-eyed pike. 
 
 Preparatory to attempting the Sand Kapid we 
 lunched, not far below the falls, on a rocky point. 
 These rapids are an ordeal of peril to the frail birch- 
 barks. They are three miles of boulders, breakers, 
 shallows, whirls and dashes, in one stretch. The 
 trail around is two miles, and zig-zags up a spur of 
 elevation — quite the most considerable up-hill ele- 
 vation of the route yet passed — and strained our 
 pedestrianism to its utmost. On the plateau was a 
 sparseness of forest in places, there were woods 
 elsewhere with prostrate trees over which we 
 climbed and scrambled throuffh the branches, with 
 much peril to the rods we carried. On the other 
 and descending side of the hill-spur, the trail was 
 lost in grasses and bushes, and down on the level, 
 the tangle of fallen timber and undergrowth was 
 such that we thought the way hopelessly barred and 
 lost. 
 
 We aimlessly struggled through the obstructive 
 maze, without a visible trace of the path, and sink- 
 ing at every step in the plashes of the marsh. By 
 accident, we came upon a dragway for logs, which 
 we followed up, and it led us to' the river. By 
 clambering and balancing on treacherous trunks in 
 the log-drifts, and jumping from stone to stone, in
 
 SUMMER "WATrAKIXG. 240 
 
 the edge of the water, and by scuffling through 
 tliickets, we finally made our way, exhausted, to the 
 foot of the Rapid. 
 
 This was just in time to see the Dickey heave in 
 sight, the paddles swinging briskly from side to 
 side, winding with the coiling channel, sometimes 
 checked and eased up with the poles, then shooting 
 ahead in bounding swiftness, and nearing us, round- 
 ing and gracefully riding in the still water at our 
 feet. We thankfully blessed the good fortune that, 
 through the dangerous passing, she was 
 
 " Held up so tenderly, 
 Fashioned so slenderly," 
 
 as to come in nnharmed in perfect trim. 
 
 We ran near a woodchuck swimming across. We 
 veered a bit one side, so Thebault could jab his head 
 under water with the paddle. The submersion only 
 enrao;ed the creature. He emero^ed, snortino: the 
 water from his nostrils, and spunkily turned and 
 swam toward us in onr wake, as if to fight the whole 
 party, spitting viciously at us like a mad cat. His 
 pluck was a^jpreciated. We declined the skirmish. 
 We preferred to give him our benediction. We let 
 him go, with the magnanimous words of Uncle 
 Toby to the fly, " Go, poor devil; the world is large 
 enough for us all." 
 
 The next port of entry was the Xew York farm, 
 at the mouth of Sturgeon river. As our carrying 
 capacity was less than our consuming ability, the
 
 250 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 robustness of our forest-sharpened appetite brought 
 us frequently to the verge of depletion, and now 
 the viands were running short again. It was neces- 
 sary to victual the expedition ; we therefore landed 
 in a stress of pork and tubers. I was deputed to 
 attend to this commercial, or rather commissariat 
 business. Thebault, bearing bag and basket, at- 
 tended me as master of transportation; As a pro- 
 visional deputation we climbed the sandy path up 
 the steep bank, and presently interviewed the busi- 
 ness man of the demesne. The figures on his price 
 current were reasonable, the supplies abundant, and 
 the traffic was completed before our heels had time 
 to cool. 
 
 During the intei'val of the chaffering, the ladies of 
 the family or household strewed the full-blown 
 roses of their smiles on our path, and to us who had 
 been fellows so long to the weeds, herbage and other 
 vestures of the wilderness, such flowers were win- 
 somely sweet and pleasant — " too pleasant to be 
 looked upon except on holidays " — and they made a 
 brief holiday to us. The grangeresses or patron- 
 esses of husbandry, it is true, very curiously eyed 
 my hat askance, as though they were sure that they 
 never saw anytliing quite like that head-gear. Still 
 I hoped I had acquitted myself in the way of civil- 
 ity and devoirs qnite as well as High did at the 
 Wausauka tents, when the ladies giggled at him in 
 his gallant role of Turveydrop.
 
 SUMMER WATFAKING. 251 
 
 In fact the hat was something phenomenal. Its 
 original linen dome-shape was speckled like a guinea- 
 hen, and from its resemblance to the spotted plum- 
 age of that barn-yard fowl, Denison nicknamed the 
 chapeau guinea-hen, and I was not critical enough 
 nicely to consider whether that name was a mis- 
 nomer. The hat had been presented to me expressly 
 for the trip, by a near relative of an ex-president of 
 the United States, and as this was nearest to anything 
 in the way of executive patronage I ever received, I 
 felt bound to make the most of the gift. It had an 
 indestructibility equal to that of a nine-lived cat. 
 It had been tramj^led on, sat on, slept on, rained on, 
 shined on, dried in the sun, shrivelled by the iire, 
 turned inside out, with its brim looped up and also 
 flajiped down, and had moulded itself into most 
 varied shapes, and still retained the essential utilities 
 of a hat. It entirely eclipsed my felt hat. 
 
 TVe had news of Denison and Pratt at this place; 
 tliey had put in there under stress of circumstances, 
 and had been compelled to abandon and condemn 
 the Tom King as unseaworthy, probably from her 
 having been rough-used and battered in the labyr- 
 inths of the Sand Rapid. Fortunately, they re- 
 lieved themselves from tlieir stranded condition by 
 being able to get team'ed, from the farm, a few 
 miles to the new railroad for a train. 
 
 From the farm to Sturgeon Falls is a mile; over 
 a high back-bone of a hill, the trail winds to the
 
 252 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 foot of the cascade; short as the portage was, it 
 was panting work to climb it. Lowering clouds 
 obscured the setting sun, and tokened the quick 
 advance of showers from the west; we hasted to 
 set our house in order, and had but barely reared 
 the canopy, when the skirmish line of the charging 
 clouds opened on us and nearly beat out the camp- 
 fire, and forced us into shelter. Supper was served 
 in the tent by the feeble glimmering of the fitful 
 tallow-dip. Soon the heavier and massed squad- 
 rons of rain -clouds swept over, and delivered us rain 
 in torrents; there was thunder resonance, with 
 flashings of lio^htninff. 
 
 Boo f ' 
 
 It was a scene of great moisture; drops trickled 
 through some pores of the tent, and our inner at- 
 mosphere was grievously humid; the supply of 
 hemlock boughs, for embedding on, was scant; the 
 dreams of Ijroken sleep, the beating of the rain and 
 the dampness made it a night of dismal phantas- 
 magoria to us. The morn did not come in russet 
 mantle clad. Though the heaviest of the storm had 
 l^assed, a train or rear-guard of scowling clouds 
 hung back portentously looming. On a memorial 
 tree we saw inscribed the names of Doctor E. An- 
 drews and sons, of Chicago, who had encamped 
 here the previous night. We were prompt, as soon 
 as we had breakfasted and stowed the cargo, to start 
 on our way rejoicing from the forbidding spot. 
 
 At the strip of shore where Pratt had, on the
 
 SUMMER WAYFAEING. 253 
 
 previous trip killed a fawn, fresh deer-tracks im- 
 printed tlie sand. He liad then declared per- 
 petual truce and amity with the deer kind. But 
 Thebault was not so compunctious or tender-heart-^ 
 ed, and was on the lookout for the hoofed and an- 
 tlered "native burghers of the desert citj." It was 
 life and liberty to those recent deer that they had 
 seasonably made tracks out of the way, which 
 was all we saw of them. Clark's venison had now 
 gone the way of all flesh of the haunch, that is to 
 pot, and we depended for fresh meat on the rifle. 
 We were, therefore, advancing in a state of armed 
 reconnoisance. , 
 
 At Peembinwun rapids the Menominee was 
 almost shrunken literally to bed-rock. The whole 
 loading was put ashore and carried around. The 
 canoe was safely, though at hazard of wrecking, 
 guided through. There was a fine vesture of grass 
 in the shade, and we had lunch there, and reclining 
 on the grass, we leisurely sipped the Oolong tea 
 procured at Sturgeon farm, and much at ease en- 
 joyed the prandial snack. Three Chippewas, on 
 the way above for deer, stopped for portaging their 
 canoes and for rest, at this point. They and our 
 natives held a brief international or intertribal 
 council on the ground, in one of their maternal 
 tongues. It was not encouraging to our aspirations 
 or rather stomach for venison, expected below, that 
 these redskins had left from below, and were out
 
 251 TKOTJTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 .to peer the country over our just traversed course, 
 in deer-slajing cohoot. 
 
 There was a pickerel entertainment here, also. 
 Just off our canoe, at the beach. High espied a large 
 .pickerel, about two feet in length, sunning himself 
 or sleeping in shoal water. On account of my 
 tourney with one of the same species at Michigami 
 falls, High pointed him to me as the pickerel champ- 
 ion. But I declined the exertion of unsheathing, 
 jointing up and rigging my rod for even so promis- 
 ing a diversion. Thereupon, Thebault attempted 
 to knock out the fish's brains with the pushing pole, 
 but the pickerel dodged, and bore oft' his brains with 
 liim to the deeper water. But presently, the offi- 
 cious fish swam again into sight. This hardihood 
 now roused High's piscatory blood; but how to 
 harmonize it and his piscatory taste, to which bait- 
 ing seemed only foul play and wholly repugnant, 
 was a perplexity — for a moment. He knew a pick- 
 erel would turn up its nose at a fly gewgaw. So, to 
 compromise himself only partially, he tacked on 
 what we supposed was a slit of bacon with a new 
 glaring red-fly. 
 
 High clambered to a rock in reach of the fish, 
 and gently swung in the gorgeous mongrel scare- 
 crow right by the fish's snout. As was to be ex- 
 pected, the monstrous thing-of-a-jig terrified the 
 pickerel into fits, and it shot off like a flash into the 
 deep. Such an egregious ^asco would set any table
 
 . SUMMER WATFARIXG. 255 
 
 in a roar, and the jest was too mneli for even Indian 
 gravity. High manfully bore onr broad grins, but 
 when he was chaffed for baiting with ignominious 
 pork, he vehemently resented the derogatory impu- 
 tation, and protested it was a tittle of deer grafted 
 on the fly. We had not been aware that there was 
 a venison fibre on hand, and though, in his word, I 
 generally considered him, like Horatio, " as just a 
 man as e'er my conversation cop'd withal," I was 
 after all sceptical about the deer. 
 
 Not far below was an encampment of Indians, 
 squaws, papooses and dogs, who had come up from 
 White Tiapids for a sojourn in bark tepees, on a gen- 
 eral shooting and curing of deer for winter. One 
 of the men had just punctured a btick, though not 
 so mortally but that the shot animal was able to get 
 away with his antlers and the bullet into unknown 
 parts of Michigan. As we came along, the savage 
 was squatted in his canoe, musing like a sage how 
 receding deer, like other blessings, are most prized 
 when they take their flight. The pickerel exploit 
 inspired High with a fellow feeling that made him 
 look wondrous kind and sympathetic toward the 
 discomfited copper-skin. 
 
 On the Peemony Falls portage, a handsome trail, 
 we failed to find any of the blueberries which, on 
 the former occasion, so plentifully bespangled the 
 ground, like dewdrops in blue. Just below there 
 is a cultivated farm, with the most pretentious hab-
 
 256 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 itation on the river, having an existing lioiisehold 
 and home, and it is really the most advanced outpost 
 of agriculture on the river. On the bank below it, 
 an hour's run, were two clearings or meadows, with 
 Indian cabins. At one of them, a couple of youth- 
 ful Chippewas, in primitive duds and innocence, 
 stood on the. bank and curiously gazed at ns passing, 
 as if we were an unaccustomed apparition. Three 
 miles further down was one of our former camping 
 grounds. The shadows of evening that were gath- 
 ering, as well as considerations of kettle and pan, 
 joined in directing and hastening us there as an 
 encampment for the night. 
 
 The hand of innovation had made notable chang- 
 es; the forest that shadowed the river, had been thin- 
 ned out, and the landmarks were difficult of recog- 
 nition; though, on the opposite shore, the dense 
 wood still reared up, in its native wildness, its dark 
 and solemn outlines. These more frequent clear- 
 ings and deadenings have destroyed much of the 
 beauty of the lower Menominee scenery; the many 
 leafless trees, gaunt, stripped, blackened by fire, or 
 dead from girdling, in the garish sun, give a for- 
 lorn and naked appearance. The denuded land, 
 however, after being stripped of its timber, con- 
 verted into logs and floated to the mills, is left bar- 
 ren and unpeopled, and is not sown for harvests or 
 cultivated for homes and habitations. The charms 
 of voyaging the stream are rapidly vanishing;
 
 SUMMER ^VAYFARING. 257 
 
 while the luxuriance of nature is being shorn away, 
 it is not replaced with the tokens and evidences of 
 life and labor. 
 
 These occasional disafforested strips, which have 
 made nnsightlj gaps in the massiveness of the 
 woods, present an appearance of ntter waste or 
 desert, strangely at variance with the luxuriant 
 density of the wilderness elsewhere. Tlie growths 
 of weeds and stunted shrubbery that creep over tlie 
 ground, unpleasantly mark both the despoliation of 
 the original forest wealth and. the sterility or pov- 
 erty of the soil itself. It will probably be very 
 many years before the smoke of domestic altars in 
 cottagers' abodes will ascend in these clearings, as 
 signs of farm or pastoral life, and of homes of con- 
 tented labor and enterprise and prospective vvcaltli. 
 17
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 WHITE llAPIDS — TROUT BROOKLET — PIKE RIVER AND "W'ANI- 
 TAH — SIXTY ISLANDS — YELLOW DOGS — RAVENS — HIGH AS 
 PADDLER — JIM KAQUOTASH — LONE PINE CAMP — EVENING 
 SCENE — LOWER MENOMINEE — DOCTOR ANDREWS — THE END 
 
 — ST. Peter's blessing. 
 
 It was not a long paddle we had of it to White 
 Eapids. High and I took to the pathway through 
 the meadow-like stretch of ground, thinly fringed 
 on the bank with small trees, casting a meagre rag- 
 ged shade, and left the Indians to work the canoe 
 through the shoals and rapids. The trouting fever 
 showed symptoms on High as soon as we touched 
 the trail. He recalled his reminiscences of the 
 rather difficult, but not unpleasant sport before, 
 at the brooklet. It was easy to presage his wishes 
 from the tone of his recollections, and from his so- 
 licitude about the signs of the weather, of which he 
 took constant observations from the clouds. 
 
 Before the fever had risen to its climacteric, the 
 (258)
 
 SUMMEK WAYFARING. So9 
 
 sky was more ominous of a shower, and, even his 
 enthusiasm for a trial of the fly, amon^ chimps of 
 bushes and thickets of alder, oozed away on account 
 of the probable moisture of the attempt. He ad- 
 mitted it would hardly pay to wet his jacket for the 
 trout, and thought it preferable to take the chances 
 of rain with the tent at hand to be landed for ready 
 shelter. Though, as this was the last known possi- 
 bility of trout on the nearly ended trip, he wavered 
 and faltered in will and purpose till we depossible- 
 ized the venture by getting him actually embarked 
 and under way. 
 
 At the mouth of Pike river, the pine-wood bower 
 or boudoir of the dusky Indian maid and kennel 
 of the Cerberus dog were shut up and deserted. 
 Paul was a trifle emotional on this occasion, possi- 
 bly expecting to have had a brief scene of eyes look- 
 ing love to eyes that would speak again, or something 
 to that effect. The young buck heaved a bit of a 
 sigh as we went skipping by. We passed the Sixty 
 Islands. These are an archipelago of islands and 
 islets, a cluster of glorious emerald, of various forms 
 and sizes, with splendid profusely branched and 
 leaved elms, a very wealth, of verdure, making a 
 view of the most lovely and picturesque scenery. 
 
 We were content to float, at times, on the cur- 
 rent rather than outspeed it with strokes of the 
 paddles, that we might lingeringly enjoy the sur- 
 passing beauty. Prom a cabin we were passing, a
 
 2G0 TKOUTIXa ON THE BEULE. 
 
 jellow dog ran out and followed on the bank, bark- 
 ing at us savagely, making the welkin ring with his 
 howls, until he yelped all the wind out of him. 
 High was facetious enough to hint that guinea- 
 hqn hat as the cause of the yellow whelp's convul- 
 sions. Down further, Thebault fired the rifle at a 
 plover that was strutting about wetting its toes in 
 the edge of the river. The charge had been loaded, 
 far above, for expected deer. They were frequent 
 on our first descent of this river. On this voyage, 
 excepting the two near Cauip Chickabiddy, we had 
 not seen one of tlie "dappled fools." The railroad 
 to the Breen mines, the clearings and the many 
 stranded logs along shore, were said by an Indian 
 hunter, to frighten them from the river. 
 
 B}^ the side of a couple of canoes drawn up in 
 the grass, was another Yellow Dog, with a com- 
 rade. This was quite a different sort of a yellow 
 doo' from the ill-begotten cur that had shown his 
 teeth to us — no other than a well-known old Indian 
 of that name, of Twin Island habitancy. Thebault 
 and Paul well knew him. Thej^ held up, and he 
 and his dilapidated chum and themselves fired vol- 
 leys of Indian gab promiscuously and interchange- 
 ably. He must have been a witt}' dog, for his sal- 
 lies generally brought down our men in rather 
 boisterous merriment. Doctor Andrews' party was 
 reported by them to have passed down shortly 
 before. I am not enough versed in the theory of
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 261 
 
 omens to judge wlietlier the croakiiigs of a funereal 
 party of ravens, perched on a dead tree near the 
 river, which we heard, were sepulchral forebodings 
 or monitions of mortality instinctively excited by 
 the appearance of a doctor to their prophetic eyes. 
 
 By noon we were at Wausauka bend. Instead 
 of doubling the long narrow promontory on the wa- 
 ter, w^e trod the portage across its base. V^e in- 
 tended dining there. When we camped there 
 before, we were swarmed on by the most multitu- 
 dinous and ravenous mosquitoes of the whole 
 journey. And now, no sooner were our packs laid 
 down, than flying legions of the blood-thirsty fiends 
 encompassed us round about. Among the leaders 
 of the winged lancers, we recognized that demon 
 vampyre of the gory host and of his species, the 
 gallinipper. The onset was too much for us, and 
 the demoralized party fled the field and rallied on a 
 further point. 
 
 We went through- the Long Reach, which is a 
 beautiful, straight and wide perspective of river 
 scenery. Instead of having his esthetic sensibilities 
 mo-ved, as an impressionable voyager would, by 
 such blended charms of wood and stream. High was 
 seized with a sudden dementia or idiosyncrasy of 
 propulsion. He grasped Thebault's paddle, and 
 with it enthusiastically buffeted the water, wield- 
 ing it rapidly, like an orchestra leader swaying his 
 baton in allegro passages of the score. The cauoej
 
 262 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 under his vigorous impulsion, jerked ahead in gal- 
 lant style. 
 
 His mode of paddling, though, was rather exhaus- 
 tive and'uot likely to be long-winded. He bended 
 forward to plunge the paddle up to the handle, and 
 then throwing himself back, swung a deep, long 
 back stroke, making the water swirl, and " in con- 
 volution swift the feathered eddy float," when he 
 lifted out the blade at the end of the sweep. The 
 eccentricity of performance that most concerned me 
 was, however, the over-shifting of the paddle from 
 one to the other side. It scattered the drip from it 
 over me as if from a shower-bath, and with copious 
 dampening effects on the cargo, to say nothing of the 
 danger of my crown being banged by some of its 
 wayward motions. His lunacy of paddling, though 
 exciting solicitude, was amusing. It tickled The- 
 bault and Paul more than his pickerel experiment 
 witii tlie red fly and equivocal venison. However 
 we could all see that, with the necessary practice. 
 High has a great future before him as a paddler. 
 But a mile of this health-lift took the wind out 
 of him. 
 
 Just above the Relay House rapids, there was an 
 Indian's castle of bark. The family linen hung out 
 to dry. This was a token, if not of so much clean- 
 liness as is next to godliness, at least of the red 
 inmates having reached the saj)onaceous stage of 
 civilization. A copper-sheathed Stentor on shore
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 263 
 
 liailed our boys in a tone loud enougli for a 
 camp-meeting preacher. Tlieir reply was sotto 
 voce comparatively. But they lield a parley in 
 tongues unknown to lis. It appeared that the sten- 
 torian aborigine was Jim Kaquotash, a brother of 
 our auxiliary Kaquotashes. He told of a weaichiny 
 man who had passed down but little in advance 
 of us. This we knew to be Dr. Andrews. "We 
 hoped to run him down and to extend to liim the 
 hospitalities of our camp for the night, or, if his 
 hospitalities were more liberal than ours, that is, 
 if his cornucopia was less impoverished than our 
 cornucopia, to permit ourselves to be invited to go 
 snacks with him. But the Grand Rapids separated 
 us. We navigated them safely, but slowly, and in 
 doing so grazed low submerged rocks, rubbed on 
 stones, cut through breakers and sometimes stuck 
 on flats. 
 
 The last camp of the former trip, at Twin Island, 
 the poor demesne of Yellow Dog, was a wretched 
 one, with torrents of rain, and the mosquitoes of 
 all out-of-doors. But the last camp of this trip 
 was attended with all the charm of our roufjhino- 
 and tenting all the way rouiid about. It was on a 
 high bank of clearing, a sward smooth and hand- 
 some as a lawn ; not far over on the other side 
 was a fine alluvial natural meadow; overshadowing 
 the tent, a splended, solitary pine tree, doubtless 
 spared from the axe for its stateliness. From this, 
 we named our encampment Lone Pine Camp.
 
 264 TEOUTINO ON THE BRULE. 
 
 The air was soft, pure and balmj. When twi- 
 light dee]:)ened into dark, we stretched on the grass, 
 on the brink of the river, and watched the stars 
 glimmering and quivering reflexly in the stream, 
 and heard the whip-poor-wills whistling to their 
 mates, and whip-poor-will notes echoing back 
 again. "We recalled the many incidents and unal- 
 loyed delights of both our trips, and were loth 
 to realize that this was to be the last of our mid- 
 summer nights in our companionship with nature. 
 With a touch of sentiment we yielded, finally, to 
 the stillness and the calm, and, with our pipes whif- 
 fing their clouding odors about, mused and lapsed 
 into the reveries of wayward fancy. The moon rose 
 behind us. Its beams tipped the forest, over there, 
 fronting us in grim silence, like an array of dark, 
 weird, embattled phantoms, and their deep draper- 
 ies of shadow vanished, and all the wood shone into 
 shapes of golden light and beauty. 
 
 We lingered late and long, so as to enjoy the 
 charm and glories of the summer night. The 
 scene was about to chauge. All the way we had 
 been free from shop. Even in sleep Queen Mab 
 had not galloped her team of atomies over our 
 lawyer fingers to make us straight dream of 
 fees. But now that we were going back to shop, 
 all shop, and shop at all times, was, perhaps, the 
 dark thread in the weaving of our reveries. We 
 made preparation for an early start by packing our
 
 SUMMER WAYFARING. 265 
 
 luggage and paraphernalia for the last liome port- 
 age, then to be laid aside, like armor taken off and 
 hung up during the calm of peace. 
 
 Since the great fire of 1871, which, like a destroy- 
 ing angel, smote the forests of far-extending regions 
 with a blast of flame, the lower twenty miles of the 
 river are strij^ped of all woodland beauty. Burnt 
 and blackened stems of branchless trees, without 
 shade enough of foliage, except a rare small oasis of 
 spreading green, to cover a camj)ing i)arty, with few 
 and far between huts and cabins, mark with desola- 
 tion this part of the route. For this reason, and from 
 the burning glare of the sun, our descent of that 
 day was the exceptional coursing of the voyage un- 
 attended with charm, comfort or pleasure. "We 
 had Dr. Andrews and party in sight a long way 
 down the river, in the van of us. We overhauled 
 him on\y at the head of the log-jam, three miles from 
 Marinette and Menominee, where further passage 
 was apparently blocked. He, with his sons, was 
 sitting on the bank, at full stop, with his skifi" at 
 bay, in much perplexity. 
 
 There is no critical or delicate case of surgery 
 that could confuse or bewilder the eminent surgeon, 
 but here was a dilemma too much for all his science 
 and skill. It was evidently to him a case like Mer- 
 cutio's wound, " past all surgery." But our boys 
 were equal to the emergency. As loggers and log- 
 drivers, a chaos and muddle of floated pines were
 
 266 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 
 
 no no.veltj or liopeless dead-lock to them. They 
 liopped and skipped from one undulatorj and roll- 
 ing log to another, far enough down to take in the 
 situation. They started the logs afloat, and by 
 degrees got those that barred our way deployed and 
 going aspread, so that in the gaps opened we could 
 make Avay and tide along with the floating mass. 
 The doctor and his boat threaded throuijh in our 
 wake. The skiff was built by his own sons. In it 
 they and he had cruised the river as high as Bad- 
 water, merely for a vacation tour, in search of the 
 picturesque, to rough it, and to realize the liygiene 
 of open air, of summer skies and of forest life. 
 
 We advanced along with the immense fleet of 
 logs for nearly a mile, hemmed in sometimes in 
 peril of a crush, like arctic boats in moving floes 
 of ice. But at length the floating ceased. The 
 logs began to compact immovably into a hopeless 
 jam. We had nothing left us to do but to lift out 
 and unload the canoe, and portage it and the equip- 
 age over the logs to shore, to be teamed thence 
 a couple of miles to Marinette. Hot and glaring as 
 was the day, the tramp was not formidable to us, 
 then well used to footing distances, and we made 
 our way on foot. In good season we shook off the 
 dust of our feet at the Dunlap House, not inapt 
 for a j>lentiful meal at the flrst tap of the dinner- 
 gong. 
 
 Cedant anna togce. Our vacation and our tour
 
 SUMMER WAYFAKING. 267 
 
 were ended. From the wood in nature's unbroken 
 luxuriance and repose, to the stir and whirl of city 
 life; from the canoe, one of the earliest contri- 
 vances of primitive man for boating, to the Pull- 
 man palace-car, the latest and perfect scheme for 
 easing, soothing and luxuriating travel; from the 
 trivial fatigues of the portage to the serious 
 burdens of daily toil; — these were our extreme 
 transitions of a single day. 
 
 Three of us, lawyers, in the early August, wear- 
 ied of labor, threw off the professional harness and 
 sought freedom of action, rest, health and recre- 
 ation — to have a good time. We knew where and 
 how to find it, and we had found it in exuberance 
 of satisfaction. We had left our library books to 
 find more animatinoj and living books in the run- 
 ning brooks, sermons in the stones and good in 
 everything. Our outfit was simple, but enough, 
 and not overburdensome in the canoe or on the 
 portage. Our train of Indian attendants was more 
 and better than we expected; all of them were 
 ready and eager to do their utmost in their parts 
 and sphere, and, as we believe, mutual attachments 
 have entwined them and us as friends for all time. 
 Our adieus with them were warm with the sincer- 
 ity of friendliness. 
 
 And so, looking back over our excursion, in which 
 could be recalled no single jar or discordance in the 
 common fellowship of the party — without a growl
 
 268 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 or murmnr of complaint, or even a physical pain 
 or misliup to be remembered, the only regret being 
 that of a too early severance or sej^aration while on 
 the route — we felt and were at peace of mind and 
 rest of body, content with each other and ourselves. 
 And aH were read}^ to join in the spirit of the closing 
 words of the fisher and hunter in ■ good old Izaak 
 "Walton's book, "Let the blessing of St. Peter's 
 master be mine and upon all that are lovers of 
 virtue, and dare trust in his providence and be 
 quiet and go a-angling."
 
 SUMMEK "WAYIARIXG. 
 
 269 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 DISTANCE TABLE.— BRULE RIVER. 
 
 r rom 
 To 
 
 Lake Brule 
 
 Hagcrman, or BigrLake Portage. ■ 
 
 :First Lake (Portage) 
 
 'H'^german Lake (Portage J mile). 
 Pickerel Lake (Portage j mile).. . 
 
 '.Big Hill, Portage 
 
 Foot Big Hill Portage (Portage 2>i 
 
 I miles). 
 
 Mouth Maple Creek 
 
 I Lake Chicagon Portage 
 
 Cedar Camp, 
 
 Little Brule Falls 
 
 'Boot Lakes Camp, (ChickabitUly). 
 
 .1st Boot Lake (Portage) 
 
 |2d Lake (Portage, i mile) 
 
 '3d Lake (Portage, i mile) 
 
 ^Pine River (Portage, 2f miles). . . 
 
 Brule Dam, (18,8) 
 
 Armstrong's Canlp 
 
 La Montaigne's Upper Camp 
 
 Cauldwell's (La Montaigne's 
 
 Farm, f miles) 
 
 R. Stephenson's, Brule Faim 
 
 Brule Falls (Mouth Paint River).. 
 
 Mouth Otter Creek 
 
 Mouth Brule River 
 
 li 
 
 i 
 
 4 
 
 17 
 3i 
 2i 
 2i 
 4i 
 
 1 
 
 If 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 5 
 li 
 
 n 
 
 TOTAL 
 
 From 
 Republic 
 
 II 
 
 4 
 
 12i 
 33 
 
 m 
 
 38 
 421 
 
 n 
 
 Si 
 
 43i 
 44i 
 46i 
 
 49* 
 
 54| 
 
 56 
 
 bSi 
 
 60 
 
 yoi 
 
 93 
 
 971 
 
 98i 
 
 99i 
 
 lOli 
 
 104* 
 
 109i 
 
 111 
 
 113f 
 
 115 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 DISTANCE TABLE.— WAGON ROAD, QUINISECK TO 
 BRULE RIVER. (1878) 
 
 From 
 To 
 
 Quiniseck. ........ 
 
 First Creek 
 
 Second Creek 
 
 Outlet Lake Antoine 
 
 Bass Lake 
 
 Twin Falls Bridge.
 
 270 
 
 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 
 
 Wagon Road, Quiniseck to Brule River — Continued. 
 
 To 
 
 
 Bad water Lakes 
 
 Commonwealth Mine 
 
 Otter Creek (Outlet Fisher's Lake).. 
 
 Brule River (R. Stephenson's Brule 
 
 Farm) 
 
 Two Lakes 
 
 Armstrong's Camp. 
 Brule Dam 
 
 5f 
 
 H 
 
 3i 
 
 4i 
 Hi 
 
 n 
 
 17+ 
 19 
 
 221- 
 
 26f 
 30 
 
 31ir 
 
 No. 3. 
 
 DISTANCE TABLE.— WAGON ROADS TO PIKE RIVEB. 
 
 From 
 To 
 
 
 Section 18 (C. & N. W.- Ry.) 
 
 Smith's Farm (mouth Little Cedar). 
 
 Relay House 
 
 Little Shakey River 
 
 Month Pike River (Ford). 
 
 Half-way Creek 
 
 High Landings 
 
 Dave's Falls .' • . 
 
 Forks Dam 
 
 U 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 7i 
 6 
 6 
 
 74 
 H 
 
 TOTAL 
 
 5* 
 lOi 
 18 
 24 
 30 
 374 
 39 
 
 From 
 To 
 
 Carney (Sec. 34i, C. & N. W. Ry.).j 
 
 Little Cedar River | 
 
 N. Ludington Co.'s Pemeroe Farm.' 
 
 .Vluscawana Creek j 
 
 Little Muscawana Creek i 
 
 Road to Forks of Pike I 
 
 Caton Lakes 
 
 Fork's Pike River, (Pike Dam) 
 Dave's Falls 
 
 North Branch Bridge 
 
 5 
 
 24 
 
 _^ 
 2 
 
 4i 
 H 
 
 12 
 17 
 191 
 23 
 
 25 
 
 294 
 31 
 
 31 
 
 No. 4. 
 
 DISTANCE TABLE.— MICHIGAMI RIVER. 
 
 From 
 To 
 
 Michigammi 
 
 Outlet, Lake Michigami (Port- 
 age, one mile left bank) 
 
 TOTAL 
 
 From 
 Republic
 
 STJMMER WAYFARING. 
 
 27i 
 
 MiCHiGAMi B.i-v~EU— Continued. 
 
 ~f^ 
 
 Republic 
 
 Foot Long' Rapids (Portage 2 
 
 miles, right bank) 
 
 Flood wood Portag'e (Portage i 
 
 mile, left bank) 
 
 Lake Ellen 
 
 Fence, or Mitchigan River 
 
 Deer River 
 
 Upper Micliigami Falls (Portage 
 
 i mile, right bank). 
 
 Lake Mary, Portage 
 
 Little Norway Portage (Po tage 
 
 i mile, left bank) 
 
 Big Falls, or Grand Portage 
 
 (Portage li miles left bank) 
 Mouth Michigami River (Portage 
 
 at Falls i miles, right bank.. 
 
 11 
 
 18 
 
 
 Hi 
 
 m 
 
 14* 
 
 Si 
 
 8 
 
 U 
 
 41 
 49 
 
 58 
 
 23 
 31 
 
 40 
 
 4 
 9 
 
 62 
 71 
 
 44 
 53 
 
 5 
 
 76 
 
 58 
 
 6 
 
 82 
 
 64 
 
 8 
 
 90 
 
 72 
 
 No. 5. 
 
 DISTANCE TABLE.— MICHIGAMI RIVER TO BRULE 
 RIVER, VIA LAKE MARY AND PAINT RIVER. 
 
 From 
 To 
 
 Michigami River 
 
 Lake Mary 
 
 Deer Fence Portage 
 
 Paint River (Portage) 
 
 Ciystal, or Paint Falls 
 
 Mouth Sugar, or Trout River. . 
 
 Sugar River, Portage . . 
 
 Mud Lake (Portage) 
 
 Sugar River (Portage, li miles 
 
 Lone Grave, or Bass T^nke 
 
 Foot Lake Chicagon 
 
 Head Lake Chicagon 
 
 Lake Minnie ( Portage) 
 
 Brule River (Portage, | mile). 
 
 
 TOTAL 
 
 i 
 
 
 ■ u 
 
 H 
 
 2 
 
 ■ 3^ 
 
 6i 
 
 lOi 
 
 Hi 
 
 181 
 
 2i 
 
 2H 
 
 i 
 
 21i 
 
 n 
 
 23i 
 
 2i 
 
 26 
 
 31 
 
 294 
 
 3+ 
 
 33i 
 
 i 
 
 33i 
 
 li 
 
 35 
 
 53i 
 54J 
 56| 
 
 m 
 
 7U 
 
 74i- 
 
 14i 
 
 76i 
 
 79 
 
 82f 
 
 86i 
 
 86i
 
 272 
 
 TEOUTING ON THE BEULE. 
 
 No. 6. 
 
 DISTANCE TABLE.— MENOMINEE RIVER. 
 
 From 
 To 
 
 Mouths Michiofami & Brule Rivers 
 
 Badwater (Indian Village) 
 
 Badwater Crossing (Feny) 
 
 Upper Twin Falls (Portage, leit 
 
 bank) 
 
 Lower Twin Falls (Portage, left 
 
 bank) 
 
 Month Pine River 
 
 Head Quiniseck Rapids, 
 
 ' Long Portage, If miles, left 
 bank. 2 Short Portages. 
 
 f miles, left bank 
 
 Upper, or Big Quiniseck Fall? 
 
 (Portage, left bank) 
 
 Lower, or Little Quiniseck Fallf 
 
 (Portage, left bank) 
 
 Head Sand Portage, 
 
 ( Long Portage, 2 miles, left 
 ■j bank. 2 Short Portages, i 
 
 ( mile left bank 
 
 Foot Sand Portage 
 
 New York Farm (Mouth Sturgeon 
 
 River) 
 
 Sturgron Falls (Portage,left bank' 
 
 Grand Island 
 
 "No Speak" 
 
 Pemeneebunwan Rapids (Portage. 
 
 right bank) 
 
 Pemeneebunwun Creek 
 
 Pemenee Falls (Poi-tage, right 
 
 bank) 
 
 Pemenee Creek 
 
 N. L. Co.'s Pemenee Farm 
 
 Muscawana (Indian Village).. . • 
 
 Muscawana Island 
 
 Muscawana Rapids 
 
 Chalk Hill Rapids 
 
 White Rapids 
 
 White Rapids (Indian Village). . 
 
 Sixty Islands 
 
 Mouth Pike River 
 
 
 
 From 
 
 
 T )TAL 
 
 ■■; f public 
 
 6+ 
 
 
 121i 
 
 2 
 
 8i 
 
 123i 
 
 2i 
 
 lOf 
 
 125| 
 
 i 
 
 m 
 
 ]26i 
 
 4i 
 
 15!^ 
 
 130| 
 
 6i 
 
 22ir 
 
 137i 
 
 li 
 
 24 
 
 139 
 
 41 
 
 28| 
 
 1431 
 
 n 
 
 32i 
 
 174i 
 
 If 
 
 32i 
 
 147i 
 
 4i 
 
 3Pi 
 
 15U 
 
 1 
 
 37+ 
 
 1524 
 
 9 
 
 46i 
 
 161i 
 
 2 
 
 48i 
 
 W6i 
 
 f 
 
 49i 
 
 164i 
 
 24 
 
 52 
 
 167 
 
 2f 
 
 54| 
 
 169| 
 
 i 
 
 55i 
 
 170: ■ 
 
 1 
 
 56i 
 
 171i 
 
 21 
 
 69 
 
 174 
 
 i 
 
 591 
 
 1744 
 
 n 
 
 m 
 
 176ir 
 
 11 
 
 63 
 
 178 
 
 4+ 
 
 671 
 
 1824 
 
 f 
 
 68ir 
 
 183i 
 
 i 
 
 est 
 
 1831 
 
 3 
 
 711 
 
 186i
 
 SUMMER WAYIARING. 
 
 273 
 
 Mexominee River — Continued. 
 
 To 
 
 K. C. Co.'s Pike Farm 
 
 Mouth Shakey River 
 
 Head Wausauka Portage (Portage 
 
 i mile, left bank) 
 
 Foot Wausauka Portage (Poitage 
 
 i mile, left bank ) 
 
 Pock Du Nock 
 
 Head Long Reach 
 
 Relay House 
 
 Head Grand Rapids 
 
 Foot Grand Rapids, (Mouth Little 
 
 Cedar River I 
 
 Twin Islands 
 
 Twin Creek 
 
 Little Kiver 
 
 Upper Dam 
 
 Mouth Menominee River. . . 
 
 n 
 
 T.ii 
 
 1 
 
 m 
 
 4i 
 
 ISi 
 
 ?A 
 
 82 
 
 4i 
 
 864 
 
 51 
 
 m 
 
 4 
 
 mi 
 
 i 
 
 96i 
 
 31 
 
 lOOi 
 
 6i 
 
 106J 
 
 6t 
 
 li:-i 
 
 6J 
 
 120 
 
 U 
 
 12H 
 
 'Si 
 
 125 
 
 im 
 
 189i- 
 
 193i 
 
 197 
 20H 
 207ir 
 211 i 
 21 li 
 
 215i 
 
 22U 
 
 228i 
 
 235 
 
 236* 
 
 240
 
 CJ-'g/C^Ott 
 
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