CHAPTER III.
AT CAMP DE SQUATOOK

The next morning we got off at a good hour. For the last half mile of its course we found Beardsley Brook so overgrown with alders that we had to chop and haul our way through it with infinite labor. Here we wasted some time fishing for Sam’s pipe, which had fallen overboard among the alders. The pipe was black, with crooked stem, plethoric in build, and so heavy that we all thought it would sink where it fell. As soon as the catastrophe occurred we halted till the water, here about two feet deep, had become clear. Then, peering down among the alder-stems, Ranolf spied the pipe on the sandy bottom, looking blurred and distorted through the writhing current. Long we grappled for it, poking at it with pole and paddle. We would cautiously raise it a little way towards the surface; but even as we began to triumph it would wriggle off again as if actually alive, and settle languidly back upon the sand. We all knew, without Ranolf’s elaborate explanations, that its lifelike movement was due to its being so little heavier than the water it displaced, or to the uneven refraction of the light through the moving fluid, or to some other equally satisfactory and scientific cause. Finally Sam, getting impatient, plunged in arm and shoulder, and grasped the pipe victoriously. He came up empty-handed; and we beheld a huge tadpole, now thoroughly aroused, flaunting off down stream in high dudgeon. Ranolf remarked that the laws of refraction were to him obscure; and we continued our journey. The real pipe we overtook farther down stream, floating along jauntily as a cork.

Once out upon the Squatook River our course was rapid, for the current was swift and the channel clear. There were some wild rapids, but we ran them victoriously. By noon we were on the bosom of Big Squatook Lake. By six o’clock we had traversed this beautiful and solitary water, and were pitching our tent near the outlet, on a soft brown carpet of pine-needles. Here was a circular opening amid the huge trunks. Between the lake and our encampment hung a screen of alder and wild-cherry, whence a white beach of pebbles slanted broadly to the waves. While Stranion and Queerman made preparations for supper, the rest of us whipped the ripples of the outlet for trout. The shores of the lake at this spot draw together in two grand curves, and at the apex flows out the Squatook River, about waist-deep and a stone’s throw broad. It murmurs pleasantly on for the first few rods, and then begins to dart and chafe, and lift an angry voice. Hither the Indians come to spear whitefish in their season. To assist their spearing they had the outlet fenced part way across with a double row of stakes. All but the smallest fish were thus compelled to descend through a narrow passage, wherein they were at the mercy of the spearman. This fence we now found very convenient. Letting the canoe drift against it, we perched on top of the stakes, a couple of feet above water, and cast our flies unimpeded in every direction. The trout were abundant, and took the flies freely. For an hour we had most exciting sport. It was in itself, for all true fishermen, worth the whole journey. The Squatook trout are of a good average size, and very game. Of the twenty odd fish we killed that evening, there were two that passed the one and one-half pound scratch upon our scales, and several that cleared the pound.

Deciding to spend some days in this fair spot, we named it Camp de Squatook. Lopping the lower branches of the trees, we made ourselves pegs on which to hang our tins and other utensils; while a dry cedar log, split skilfully by Stranion, furnished us with slabs for a table. Our commissariat was well supplied with campers’ necessities and luxuries, but it was upon trout above all that we feasted. Sometimes we boiled them; sometimes we broiled them; more often we fried them in the fragrant, yellow corn-meal. The delicate richness of the hot, pink, luscious flakes is only to be realized by those who feast on the spoils of their own rods, with the relish of free air and vigor and out-door appetites.

Campers prate much of early hours, and of seeking their blankets with sunset; but we held to no such doctrine. Night in these wilds is rich with a mysterious beauty, an immensity of solitude such as day cannot dream of. Supper over, we stretched ourselves out between tent-door and camp-fire, pillowing our heads on the folded bedding. Across the yellow, fire-lit circle, through the trunks and hanging branches, we watched the still, gleaming level of the lake, whence at intervals would ring out startlingly clear the goblin laughter of the loon.

We were not so tired as on the previous evening, and it took us longer to settle down into the mood for story-telling. At last Stranion was called upon. He was ready, and speech flowed from him at once, as if his mouth had been just uncorked.

A NIGHT ENCOUNTER

“I’ll tell you a tale,” said he, “of this very spot, on this very Big Squatook; and, of course, with me and the panther both in it.

“Once upon a time – that is to say in the summer of 1886 – I fished over these waters with Tom Allison. You remember he was visiting Fredericton nearly all that year. We camped right here two days, and then went on to the Little Lake, or Second Squatook, just below.

“One moonlight night, when the windless little lake before our camp was like a shield of silver, and the woody mountains enclosing us seemed to hold their breath for delight, I was seized with an overwhelming impulse to launch the canoe and pole myself up here to Big Squatook. The distance between the two lakes is about a mile and a half, with rapid water almost all the way; and Allison, who had been amusing himself laboriously all day, was too much in love with his pipe and blankets by the camp-fire to think of accompanying me. All my persuasions were wasted upon him, so I went alone.

“Of course I had an excuse. I wanted to set night-lines for the gray trout, or togue, which haunt the waters of Big Squatook. A favorite feeding-ground of theirs is just where the water begins to shoal toward the outlet yonder. Strange as it may seem, the togue are never taken in Second Lake, or in any other of the Squatook chain.

“It was a weird journey up-stream, I can tell you. The narrow river, full of rapids, but so free from rocks in this part of its course that its voice seldom rises above a loud, purring whisper, was overhung by many ancient trees. Through the spaces between their tops fell the moonlight in sharp white patches. As the long slow thrusts of my pole forced the canoe stealthily upward against the current, the creeping panorama of the banks seemed full of elvish and noiseless life. White trunks slipped into shadow, and black stumps caught gleams of sudden radiance, till the strangeness of it all began to impress me more than its beauty, and I felt a curious and growing sense of danger. I even cast a longing thought backward toward the camp-fire’s cheer and my lazier comrade; and when at length, slipping out upon the open bosom of the lake, I put aside my pole and grasped my paddle, I drew a breath of distinct relief.

“It took but a few minutes to place my three night-lines. This done, I paddled with slow strokes toward that big rock far out yonder.

“The broad surface was as unrippled as a mirror, like it is now, save where my paddle and the gliding prow disturbed it. When I floated motionless, and the canoe drifted softly beyond the petty turmoil of my paddle, it seemed as if I were hanging suspended in the centre of a blue and starry sphere. The magic of the water so persuaded me, that presently I hauled up my canoe on the rock, took off my clothes, and swam far out into the liquid stillness. The water was cold, but of a life-giving freshness; and when I had dressed and resumed my paddle I felt full of spirit for the wild dash home to camp, through the purring rapids and the spectral woods. Little did I dream just how wild that dash was to be!

“You know the whitefish barrier where you fellows were fishing this evening. Well, at the time of my visit the barrier extended only to mid-channel, one-half having been carried away, probably by logs, in the spring freshets. For this accident, doubtless very annoying to the Indians, I soon had every reason to be grateful.

“As I paddled noiselessly into the funnel, and began to feel the current gathering speed beneath me, and noted again the confused, mysterious glimmer and gloom of the forest into which I was drifting, I once more felt that unwonted sense of danger stealing over me. With a word of vexation I shook it off, and began to paddle fiercely. At the same instant my eyes, grown keen and alert, detected something strange about the bit of Indian fence which I was presently to pass. It was surely very high and massive in its outer section! I stayed my paddle, yet kept slipping quickly nearer. Then suddenly I arrested my progress with a few mighty backward strokes. Lying crouched flat along the tops of the stakes, its head low down, its eyes fixed upon me, was a huge panther.

“I was completely at a loss, and for a minute or two remained just where I was, backing water to resist the current, and trying to decide what was best to be done. As long as I kept to the open water, of course I was quite safe; but I didn’t relish the idea of spending the night on the lake. I knew enough of the habits and characteristics of the panther to be aware the brute would keep his eye on me as long as I remained alone. But what I didn’t know was how far a panther could jump! Could I safely paddle past that fence by hugging the farther shore? I felt little inclined to test the question practically; so I turned about and paddled out upon the lake.

“Then I drifted and shouted songs and stirred up the echoes for a good round hour. I hoped, rather faintly, that the panther would follow me up the shore. This, in truth, he may have done; but when I paddled back to the outlet, there he was awaiting me in exactly the same position as when I first discovered him.

“By this time I had persuaded myself that there was ample room for me to pass the barrier without coming in range of the animal’s spring. I knew that close to the farther shore the water was deep. When I was about thirty yards from the stakes, I put on speed, heading for just about the middle of the opening. My purpose was to let the panther fancy that I was coming within his range, and then to change my course at the last moment so suddenly that he would not have time to alter his plan of attack. It is quite possible that this carefully planned scheme was unnecessary, and that I rated the brute’s intelligence and forethought quite too high. But however that may be, I thought it safer not to take any risks with so cunning an adversary.

“The panther lay in the sharp black shadow, so that it was impossible for me to note his movements accurately; but just as an instinct warned me that he was about to spring, I swerved smartly toward him, and hurled the light canoe forward with the mightiest stroke I was capable of. The manœuvre was well executed, for just before I came fairly opposite the grim figure on the stake-tops, the panther sprang.

“Instinctively I threw myself forward, level with the cross-bars; and in the same breath there came a snarl and a splash close beside me. The brute had miscalculated my speed, and got himself a ducking. I chuckled a little as I straightened up; but the sigh of relief which I drew at the same time was profound in its sincerity. I had lamentably underestimated the reach of the panther’s spring. He had alighted close to the water’s edge, just where I imagined the canoe would be out of reach. I looked around again. He was climbing alertly out of the hated bath. Giving himself one mighty shake, he started after me down along the bank, uttering a series of harsh and piercing screams. With a sweep of the paddle I darted across current, and placed almost the full breadth of the river between my enemy and myself.