Part 2

The chief charm of exploration lies in the uncertainty of always finding what one starts out to find, and in the equal certainty that one may find something else, possibly even more interesting or more valuable than what was on the program.

Columbus failed to discover a western route to India, but he found something else, and got himself put into history and his bust in the hall of fame.

Bige and I failed to reach Plum Pond, but we found a better thing. The fishing in our two brooks was all that could be desired. There were evidences that the hunting would be good in this "neck of the woods," when the hunting season should open, and it was unlikely that any other hunters would penetrate to this remote section. Bige saw great possibilities in the fur crop when the hunting should be over, and trapping begin.

So, though we were hopelessly lost (?) in "an impenetrable forest," we slept comfortably, and peacefully, crawling out of our nest only occasionally when the fire required another stick of wood. Only on such occasions did we see or hear the permanent residents of Muskrat City. As the fire was kicked together and a fresh stick thrown upon it, causing a shower of sparks to shoot upward, then would be heard a rapid succession of splashes as fifteen or twenty rats would plunge into the brook and scurry to their hiding places. Otherwise, they silently went about their business.

About seven o'clock on the following morning, we climbed the ridge over which we had come into Muskrat City, and taking careful note of landmarks, we proceeded in a general eastward direction. One can usually see but a short distance in an unlumbered forest. After two hours of slow and difficult travel we climbed a high and steep hill. When we neared the top we noted a rocky ledge on the summit. Scrambling to the top of this, we had an unobstructed and extended view over valleys and foothills, and saw mountain peaks in every direction.

A long distance off to the northeast loomed up the highest peak of all, which from its height and its two rounded, bare knobs, we knew to be Owl's Head Mountain. We also knew that it was but two miles from the top of Owl's Head to the Dan'l Boone Camp. We trained the compass on that peak and took a fresh start toward home. For many years Bige and I had hunted partridge and deer on every side of this mountain and over its foothills. On many occasions, also, we had been on its bald summit. So now, on returning to its shadow, we should be on familiar ground.

Jim Flynn now lives on Owl's Head Mountain, from the time the snow has melted in the woods in late spring until the snow begins to fall again in the autumn. Jim is employed by the State Conservation Commission to watch out for fires in the forests. When Jim discovers the beginning of a fire anywhere in the range of his outlook, the fact and location is reported by telephone to the chief at fire headquarters, when men with tools are dispatched from the nearest settlement to put out the fire before it gets beyond control. This service was established in 1909 with lookout stations on the tops of all the high peaks in the Adirondack range. Since that date there have been no disastrous forest fires in that region.

Jim lives in a log cabin which he built just below the rocky ledge which covers the summit. On the high point a steel tower thirty-five feet high carries his lookout station above the tree tops. This is a rather lonely spot in which to live half the year. On rainy days, when there is little danger of a fire making headway, Jim is permitted to visit his family at the settlement on the lake, and to bring back fresh supplies.

Jim is glad to have visitors call upon him at his mountain-top resort, and to encourage such he has made an excellent trail to the nearest point on Long Lake, about three miles, and has marked it with signs to point the way up the mountain. Jim will lend you his field-glass, name the points of interest in view, make coffee for you, if you bring the makings, and discuss with you the latest political questions, philosophy or religion.

In a book entitled, "The Adirondack, or Life in the Woods," published in 1849, J. T. Headley, the author, writes about his visit to the top of Owl's Head Mountain, with his guide, Mitchell Sabattis, an Indian, and the first settler on Long Lake. Headley says that in returning they "lost their way and were fourteen hours without food." He describes the view from the top of Owl's Head as follows:

"It looks off on a prospect that would make your heart stand still in your bosom. Look away toward that distant horizon! In its broad sweep round the heavens, it takes in nearly four hundred miles, while between slumbers an ocean but it is an ocean of tree tops. Conceive, if you can, this vast expanse stretching on and spreading away, till the bright green becomes shaded into a deep black, with not a sound to break the solitude, and not a hand's breadth of land in view throughout the whole. It is a vast forest-ocean, with mountain ridges for billows, rolling smoothly and gently on like the subsiding swell of a storm. I stand on the edge of a precipice which throws its naked wall far down to the tops of the fir trees below, and look off on this surpassing wild and strange spectacle. The life that villages, and towns, and cultivated fields give to a landscape is not here, neither is there the barrenness and savageness of the view from Tahawus. It is all vegetation--luxuriant, gigantic vegetation; but man has had no hand in it. It stands as the Almighty made it, majestic and silent, save when the wind or the storm breathes on it, waking up its myriad low-toned voices, which sing:

'The wild profound eternal bass In nature's anthem.'

Oh, how still and solemn it slumbers below me; while far away yonder, to the left, shoots up into the heavens the massive peaks of the Adirondack chain, mellowed here, by the distance, into beauty. Yet there is one relief to this vast forest solitude--like gems sleeping in a moss bed, lakes are everywhere glittering in the bright sunshine. How calm and trustingly they repose on the bosom of the wilderness! Thirty-six, a hunter tells me, can be counted from this summit, though I do not see over twenty. * * * Some of these are from four to six miles in width, and yet they look like mere pools at this distance, and in the midst of such a mass of green.

I have gazed on many mountain prospects in this and the old world, but this view has awakened an entirely new class of emotions."

As Bige and I descended the steep slope from our lookout, we were quickly buried among the evergreens, with the only extended view toward the blue sky and floating clouds above the tall tree tops. Having in mind the experience of the previous day, the compass was frequently consulted, but travel was difficult and progress slow.

An hour later we came upon a small log cabin, having a roof of spruce bark, no floor, but a puncheon door and one window. In one corner was a crude fireplace made of stones, having two lengths of stove pipe which passed through the window for a chimney. Opposite the fireplace was a balsam bed and in another corner was a pile of spruce gum. There were also a frying pan, tin plate, knife and fork, and on a bark shelf some food stuff. We left the shack and on a path a short distance from it, we met its owner who was returning. He was of uncertain age, but with white hair and white scraggy beard. He carried a bag partly filled with gum and in one hand a long pole having a small shovel-shaped piece of steel fastened to one end. This implement he used to loosen a ball of gum that was too high on the tree trunk to be otherwise reached.

The man proved to be Sam Lapham. Bige knew him and I had often heard about him. Sam spent most of the summer collecting spruce gum, which he was able to sell for a good price. This unfrequented part of the forest was one of his camping places during the "gumming season." The sticky juice of the spruce tree oozes out through cracks in the wood, and collects on the bark where it hangs in lumps from the size of a child's thumb up to the dimensions of a hen's egg. In the course of years of exposure to the air this pitchy material crystallizes, "ripens," and becomes spruce gum. On inquiry we learned that there is a constant demand for spruce gum, but an insufficient supply since few make a business of collecting it. It appears that a few pounds of clarified spruce gum and an equal quantity of "chicle" from South America are mixed with a carload of paraffine wax and some flavoring extract, the result being the "chewing gum" of commerce which is distributed by the one-cent slot machines, and furnishes exercise for the jaw muscles of the rising generation. It has been estimated that more than five million dollars are expended for chewing gum in the United States every year.

It also is possible to chew pure spruce gum, just as it is broken from the tree trunk. I have tried it. In this operation one must "watch his step" to avoid lockjaw. At least, caution must be exercised until the quid is well "started." I understand that in some places it is possible, at an increased cost, to buy spruce gum that has been "started."

We reached Dan'l's in time for a late luncheon and were none the worse for our exploit. While we were on our lookout mountain we recognized several lakes and ponds and learned that Plum Pond was a long way from Muskrat City and to the south of it. Also, while there, on a piece of birch bark we made a topographical map of the region in view and laid out a new route to Muskrat City. This route was not a direct bee-line. It was circuitous, but it would avoid the swamps, the deep valleys and the steep ridges, and also would enter the city following up along the brook.

Having gone out to our headquarters on the lake for fresh supplies, a week later we made another trip to Muskrat City. This time we carried a small tent, an axe and food to last a week. While there we built a log lean-to camp. It was placed on a shelf, or narrow level space on the steep hillside, about seventy feet above the bottom of the valley. The shelf was just wide enough for our building and the fireplace in front. There were plenty of stones on the ground with which we built the fireplace. We chose this elevation for our building site because it would be above the fogs that often at night settle in the bottom of a valley, on a stream or pond.

A rill, tumbling down the steep hillside, draining a cold spring above, passed within thirty yards of the camp and supplied us with the kind of drinking water that, in the city, we buy for thirty cents a quart. This is a commodity that Nature distributes with lavish hand throughout this entire mountain region. On every hillside may be found one or more springs of pure soft water having a temperature of approximately forty degrees on the hottest days of summer. Here, the rheumatic, the dispeptic, the diabetic, and the fellow with kidneys, may have the poisons washed out of his system; while the balsamic air heals the rent in his breathing machinery. These processes may go forward, not while he sits on a hotel porch and broods over his troubles, but while he camps, explores, fishes, hunts and forgets his disabilities.

Bige and I made many trips to, and spent many days at, Muskrat City. We explored a large section of forest country adjacent thereto. In the season, we frequently ate broiled partridge, venison and other game, while a few minutes of fishing any day would furnish all the trout we ever cared to eat. When we required a variation in diet, we might go down stream about two miles to a pond and catch a mess of bullheads or frogs.

We made the acquaintance of many fur-bearing animals who lived in the neighborhood. In these Bige took a deep interest, since he was always looking forward to the winter season, when he should extend his old trapping line over the mountains to this valley. This, indeed, was one of the motives that induced the building of the camp. It provided a sleeping place for him at the outer end of his trapping circuit.

Personally, for many years, I have not engaged in the very strenuous sport of trapping. I shall, therefore, represent the trapper by proxy. When the snow in the forest is from four to five feet deep, one may travel on snowshoes over the tops of witchhopple bushes and much other underbrush which in summer impedes travel. Nevertheless, it is not child's play to drag a pair of snow shoes fifteen or twenty miles per day, visit a hundred and fifty traps, rebait and reset them, skin the caught animals, and carry home the hides. All of this, of course, must often be done when the thermometer is far below zero. On so long a trapping line as this would be, a comfortable boarding house at the outer end of the loop was, for many reasons, very desirable.

One of the frequent visitors to the brook that ran through Muskrat City below our hillside camp, was a mink. She often caught small trout, from three to five inches long. Some of these were eaten on the spot, others were carried to her nest in a hole in the bank. They doubtless were fed to her family of nine half grown young minks.

The mink is a small animal, having a long, slender body and short legs. It walks rather clumsily, with back arched upward, but it can go rapidly and gracefully in a springing, bounding movement. In this manner it often travels long distances. In a farming section, mink will rob the hen-house, eating eggs and killing young chickens. In the woods, mink catch mice, frogs and eat eggs of water fowl, but they specialize on small fish. In trapping mink, a piece of fish makes good bait. A large number of mink skins are required in making a fur garment for a human to wear, but considering its small size the trapper gets a good price for a mink skin.

On the hillside back of our camp, on occasions, a marten might be seen chasing a red squirrel over the ground, up a tree trunk, through the branches, jumping from one tree to another, and generally catching and eating the squirrel. We don't care if he does. The red squirrel eats the eggs of the partridge and our sympathies are with the partridge.

The marten is one of the most graceful and beautiful animals in our forests. It has a rich brown coat and lives in remote, inaccessible parts of the wilderness. It is more shy of the human animal than is the mink. It is also about three or four times the size of mink and will sometimes attack and kill a mink or a rabbit. The marten will, when possible, vary his diet by eating nuts and small fruit.