Many of the difficulties in exploring this scene
will probably vanish in a few years; but as the
wildness of the approach now adds not a little to its
majesty, I can best convey the true character of the
place by leading the reader thither in the mode I
reached it.

The walk to the Indian Pass is difficult enough
at any time; but soon after leaving our boat at the
inlet of Lake Henderson, the morning, which had
hitherto been cloudy, broke into a cold rain, which,
wetting our clothes through, increased the weight
that we had to drag through a primitive swamp;
where each step was upon some slippery log, affording
a precarious foothold, some decayed tree, into
whose spongy body you would sink knee-deep, or
upon quaking mosses, that threatened to swallow one
up entirely. Here, however, while wading through
the frequent pools, or stumbling over the fallen boughs
which centuries had accumulated, I would often
pause to admire some gigantic pine, which, drawing
vigour from the dankness and decay around it, threw
its enormous column into the air, towering a hundred
feet above hemlocks and cedars near, which would
themselves seem forest giants when planted beside
the modern growth of our Atlantic border.

After a mile of such walking, the ground began
to rise, and, instead of wading through pools, we
now crossed several brisk streams, which murmured

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

among the rocks as their pellucid waters ran to join
the main inlet of the lake. Our path lay next along
the border of this inlet, which is one of the chief
branches of the Hudson. Sometimes we would
ascend for several hundred yards among mossy
rocks, thickets of white cedar, and an undergrowth
of juniper; then we would come to a sort of plateau
of swampy land, overgrown with moose maple, or
tangled with fern and interspersed with cranberry
bogs. Another slope of rocky ground, seamed with
numerous rills, that gurgled beneath the roots of
hoary birches or amid thickets of young maple,
succeeded; while again and again we crossed and
recrossed the main stream, upon fallen logs, generally
lying either immediately upon or below one of
the numerous cascades which diversify the river.
Now we scaled some rocky hill-side, and heard the
torrent roaring far beneath us; and now we found a
narrow passage-way between its border and the impending
cliffs.

In the meantime, though winding up and down
continually, we were in the main ascending gradually
to a lofty elevation. The number of the swamps
were diminished, the frequent rills flashed more
rapidly amid the loose boulders of rock, which soon
began to cover the soil entirely; while the boulders
themselves became lofty hillocks of solid stone,
covered with moss, and sustaining a vigorous growth
of the birch, the mountain ash, or clumps of the
hardy white cedar upon their summits.

Wet, bruised, and weary, we sat down beneath
one of those enormous masses of displaced rock

p154-042 [figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

after scaling a difficult ascent, and purposed to encamp
there for the night; but, looking up through
an opening in the trees, we saw the cliffs of the
Indian Pass almost immediately above us. They
were swathed in mist, and the heavy scud, impelled
by the wind which drew strongly through the gap,
drifted past the gray precipice, and made the wall
look as if in motion to crush us when just entering
the jaws of the ravine.

But there were still two hours of daylight left;
and, though the mile that was yet to be traversed
before we gained the centre of the pass, was the
most arduous part of the whole route, we again
commenced the ascent. It took the whole two hours
to accomplish this mile; but as the glen narrowed,
our farther progress was animated by a new object
of interest, in the shape of a fresh moose track; and
we followed the trail until it broke off abruptly in a
rocky gorge, wilder than any I had ever yet beheld.

It was new to me to find the footprints of so large
an animal among rocks that seemed only accessible
to a goat. We saw several places where the moose
had slipped upon the thin and slimy soil, or dashed
the moss from the crags with his hoofs as he leaped
a chasm. Following on the trail with caution, our
guide held himself in readiness to shoot, confident
that we must soon overtake our noble quarry, as no
animal of the kind could possibly make his way

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

completely through the defile; but we soon came to a
passage among the rocks, where the discreet brute,
perceiving that there was but one way of returning
if he ascended higher, had, after making a slight attempt
to force himself through, struck into a lateral
ravine, and sought some other path down the mountain.

I must adopt a homely similitude to give the
reader an idea of the size of the rocks and their
confused appearance in this part of the defile: he
may imagine, though, loose boulders of solid rock,
the size of tall city dwelling-houses, hurled from a
mountain summit into a chasm a thousand feet in
depth, lying upon each other as if they had fallen
but yesterday; each so detached from each that it
is only their weight which seems to prevent them
from rolling farther down the defile: their corners
meeting in angles that defy the mathematician to
describe, and forming caverns and labyrinthine passages
beneath them that no draughtsman could delineate.
The position of these tremendous crags
seems so recent and precarious, that, were it not
for other indications around them, you would almost
fear that your footsteps might topple over the gigantic
masses, and renew an onward motion that was
but now arrested. But Time has stamped the date
of ages in other language upon their brows. Their
tops are thatched with lichens that must be the
growth of centuries; ancient trees are perched upon
their pinnacles, and enormous twisted roots, which
form a network over the chasms between them, and
save your limbs from destruction when stepping over

p154-044 [figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

the treacherous moss that hide these black abysses,
prove that the graceful hand of nature has been
here at work for ages in veiling over the ruin she has
wrought in some one moment of violence.

But we are now in the bosom of the pass, and the
shadows of night are concealing the awful precipice
which forms the background of the picture. We
have climbed the last ascent, more steep than all the
rest, and here, in a clump of birches and balsam firs,
surrounded by cliffs and precipices on every side, is
our place to bivouac for the night.

“It ain't so bad a place for camping out,” said
John Cheney, as he rose from slaking his thirst at
a slender rill which trickled from beneath the
roots of a rifted cedar over which he leaned—“it
ain't so bad a place to camp, if it didn't rain so like
all natur. I wouldn't mind the rain much nother,
if we had a good shantee; but you see the birch bark
won't run at this season, and it's pretty hard to make
a water-proof thatch, unless you have hemlock
boughs: hows'ever, gentlemen, I'll do the best by
ye.”

And so he did! Honest John Cheney, thou art
at once as stanch a hunter, and as true and gentle a
practiser of woodcraft as ever roamed the broad
forest; and beshrew me when I forget thy services
that night in the Indian Pass.

The frame of a wigwam used by some former party

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

was still standing, and Cheney went to work industriously
tying poles across it with withes of yellow
birch, and thatching the roof and sides with boughs
of balsam fir. Having but one axe with us, my friend
and myself were, in the meantime, unemployed; and
nothing could be more disconsolate than our situation
as we stood dripping in the cold rain, and thrashing
our arms like hackney-coachmen, to keep the
blood in circulation. My companion, indeed, was
in a much worse condition than myself. He had
been indisposed when he started upon the expedition,
and was now so hoarse that I could scarcely hear
him speak amid the gusts of wind which swept
through the ravine. We both shivered as if in an
ague, but to his troubles a fever was soon superadded.
We made repeated attempts to strike a fire,
but our friction matches would not ignite; and
when we had recourse to flint and steel, everything
was so damp around us that fire would not kindle.
John began to look exceedingly anxious.

“Now, if we only had a little daylight left, I would
make some shackleberry-tea for you; but it will
never do to get sick here, for if this storm prove a
north-easter, God only knows whether all of us may
ever get away from this notch again. I guess I had
better leave the camp as it is, and first make a fire
for you.”

Saying this, Cheney shouldered his axe, and striding
off a few yards, he felled a dead tree, split it open,
and took some dry chips from the heart. I then
spread my cloak over the spot where he laid them
to keep off the rain, and, stooping under it, he soon

p154-046 [figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

kindled a blaze, which we employed ourselves in
feeding until the “camp” was completed. And
now came the task of laying in a supply of fuel for
the night. This the woodman effected by himself
with an expedition that was marvellous. Measuring
three or four trees with his eye, to see that they
would fall near the fire without touching our wigwam,
he attacked them with his axe, felled, and
chopped them into logs, and made his wood-pile in
less time than could a city sawyer, who had all his
timber carted to hand. Blankets were then produced
from a pack which he had carried on his back; and
these, when stretched over a carpeting of leaves and
branches, would have made a comfortable bed, if the
latter had not been saturated with rain. Matters,
however, seemed to assume a comfortable aspect,
as we now sat under the shade of boughs, drying
our clothes by the fire; while John busied himself
in broiling some bacon which we had brought with
us. But our troubles had only yet begun; and I
must indulge in some details of a night in the woods,
for the benefit of “gentlemen who sit at home at
ease.”

Our camp, which was nothing more than a shed
of boughs open on the side toward the fire, promised
a sufficient protection against the rain so long as the
wind should blow from the right quarter; and an out-lying
deer-stalker might have been content with our

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

means and appliances for comfort during the night.
Cheney, indeed, seemed perfectly satisfied as he
watched the savoury slices which were to form our
supper, steaming up from the coals.

“Well,” said the woodsman, “you see there's
no place but what, if a man bestirs himself to do his
best, he may find some comfort in it. Now, many's
the time that I have been in the woods on a worse
night than this, and, having no axe, nor nothing to
make a fire with, have crept into a hollow log, and
lay shivering till morning; but here, now, with such
a fire as that—”

As he spoke a sudden puff of wind drove the smoke
from the green and wet timber full into our faces, and
filled the shantee to a degree so stifling, that we all
rushed out into the rain, that blew in blinding torrents
against us.

“Tormented lightning!” cried John, aghast at this
new annoyance. “This is too pesky bad; but I can
manage that smoke, if the wind doesn't blow from
more than three quarters at a time.” Seizing his
axe upon the instant, he plunged into the darkness
beyond the fire, and in a moment or two a large tree
came crashing with all its leafy honours, bearing
down with it two or three sapling to our feet. With
the green boughs of these he made a wall around
the fire to shut out the wind, leaving it open only on
the side toward the shantee. The supper was now
cooked without farther interruption. My friend was
too ill to eat; but, though under some anxiety on
his account, I did full justice to the culinary skill of
our guide, and began to find some enjoyment amid

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

all the discomfort of our situation. The recollection
of similar scenes in other days gave a relish to the
wildness of the present, and inspired that complacent
feeling which a man of less active pursuits sometimes
realizes when he finds that the sedentary habits of
two or three years have not yet warped and destroyed
the stirring tastes of his youth.

We told stories and recounted adventures. I
could speak of these northern hills from having, as
a rollicking younker, enjoyed my best-remembered
college vacations among the famous trouting lakes
which bathe their western spurs; while the mountain-hunter
listened with interest to the sporting
scenes that I could describe to him upon the open
plains of the far-west; though I found it impossible
to make him understand how men could find their
way in a new country where there were so few trees.
With regard to the incidents and legends that I
gathered in turn from him, I may hereafter enlighten
the reader. But our discourse was suddenly cut
short by a catastrophe which had nearly proved a
very serious one. This was nothing more nor less
than the piles of brush which encircled our fire to
keep the wind away, suddenly kindling into a blaze,
and for a moment or two threatening to consume our
wigwam. The wind at the same time poured down
the gorge in shifting, angry blasts, which whirled the
flames in reeling eddies high into the air, bringing
the gray cliffs into momentary light—touching the
dark evergreens with a ruddy glow—and lighting up
the stems of the pale birches, that looked like sheeted
ghosts amid the surrounding gloom.

p154-049

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

A finishing touch of the elements was yet wanting
to complete the agreeableness of our situation; and
finally, just as the curtain of brush on the windward
side of the fire was consumed, the cold rain changed
into a flurry of snow, and the quickly-melted flakes
were driven with the smoke into the innermost parts
of our wigwam. Conversation was now out of the
question. John did, indeed, struggle on with a panther
story for a moment or two, and one or two attempts
were made to joke upon our miserable situation;
but sleet and smoke alternately damped and
stifled every effort, and then all was still, except the
roar of the elements. My sick friend must have
passed a horrible night, as he woke me once or twice
with his coughing; but I wrapped myself in my
cloak, and, placing my mouth upon the ground, to
avoid choking from the smoke, I was soon dreaming
as quietly as if in a curtained chamber at home.
The last words I heard John utter, as he coiled himself
in a blanket, were—

“Well, it's one comfort, since it's taken on to
blow so, I've cut down most of the trees around us
that would be likely to fall and crush us during the
night.”

The ringing of Cheney's axe was the first sound
that met my ear in the morning, which broke excessively
cold. The fire had burnt low, though frequently
replenished by him during the night; and he

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

was now engaged in renewing it, to cook our breakfast,
which was soon ready, and for which the frosty
mountain air gave me a keen appetite. The kind
fellow, too, prepared some toast and a hot draught
for my companion, whom nothing could prevent from
farther exploring the pass.

With this view we began descending a precipice
in the rear of our camp, to a place called the ice-hole.
The trees on the side of this precipice have a secret
for growing peculiarly their own, or they could never
flourish and maintain their place in such a position.
The wall, some sixty or eighty feet high, and almost
perpendicular, is covered with moss, which peels off
in flakes of a yard square, as you plant your heels in
it in descending; yet this flimsy substitute for soil
supports a straggling growth of evergreens, that will
bear the weight of a man as he clings to them to
avoid being dashed to pieces in the glen below.
The snow of the last night, which covered the mountain-tops,
made the stems of these saplings so slippery
and cold, that our hands became numb in grasping
them before we were half-way down the descent.
The river runs through the bottom of the ravine; but
its passage is so cavernous, that it is only by letting
yourself down into the fissures between the immense
boulders, which are here wedged together in indescribable
confusion, and crawling beneath the rocks,
that you can obtain a sight of its current. From this
chasm you view the sky as from the bottom of a well.
A pair of eagles, that have their nest in the cliff above,
showed like swallows as they hovered along its face.
The sun never penetrates into this gloomy labyrinth;

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

and here, unless the waters are unusually high, you
may find cakes of ice at midsummer.

Emerging from this wild chaos of rocks, we clambered
a short distance up the sides of the glen, and
penetrated a few hundred yards farther into the pass,
to a sloping platform amid the rocks, where the
finest view of the whole scene is to be obtained.
And here, within a few yards of its first well-springs,
you behold one of the strongest features of the mighty
Hudson developed even in its birth. It has already
cloven its way through a defile as difficult as that
through which it rushes near West Point, and far
more stupendous. A rocky precipice of twelve
hundred feet rises immediately in front of you, and
the jaws of the pass open barely wide enough to admit
the egress of the stream at its highest stages of
water. The cliff opposite looks raw and recent, as
if riven through but yesterday; and ponderous blocks
of stone, that would almost make mountains themselves,
wrenched from their former seat, in what is
now the centre of the pass, stand edgewise leaning
down the glen, as if waiting some new throe of this
convulsion of nature to sweep them farther on their
terrific career. Many of these features of the place
you have already seen while climbing to the point
where we stand; but now, upon turning round as
you gain the head of the pass, and look out from its
bosom upon the mountain region below, a view of
unequalled beauty and grandeur greets the eye.
The morning sun, which will not for hours yet reach
the place where you stand, is shining upon airy peaks
and wooded hills which shoulder each other as far

p154-052 [figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

as the eye can reach, while far down the glen, where
the maple and beech find a more genial soil to nourish
them, the rainbow hues of autumn are glistening
along the stream, which, within a few miles of its
fountain-head, has already expanded into a beautiful
lake.

The group of wild hills among which the Hudson
rises, stands wholly detached from any other chain in
North America. The highest peak of the Adirondachs,
or the Black Mountains, as some call them,
from the dark aspect which their sombre cedars and
frowning cliffs give them at a distance, was measured
during last summer, and found to be nearly
six thousand feet in height.

Mount Marcy, as it has been christened, after the
public functionary who first suggested the survey
of this interesting region, presents a perfect pyramidal
top, when viewed from Lake Sandford. Its
alpine climate is very different from that prevailing
in the valleys below; and I observed its cone sheathed
in snow one day, when I found the water temperate
enough to enjoy swimming in the lake. The
effect was equally beautiful and sublime. The frost
had here and there flecked the forest with orange
and vermilion, touching a single sumach or a clump
of maples at long intervals; but generally the woods
displayed as yet but few autumnal tints: and the
deep verdure of the adjacent mountains set off the

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

snowy peak in such high contrast, soaring, as it did,
far above them, and seeming to pierce, as it were,
the blue sky which curtained them, that the poetic
Indian epithet of Ta-ha-wus (he splits the sky) was
hardly too extravagant to characterize its peculiar
grandeur. The ascent of Ta-ha-wus, or Mount
Marcy, and the view from the summit, will hereafter
puzzle many an abler pen than mine in the attempt
to describe them.

The wild falls of Kos-kong-shadi, (broken water,)
the bright pools of Tu-ne-sas-sah, (a place of
pebbles,) and the tall cascade of She-gwi-en-daukwe,
(the hanging spear,) will hereafter tempt
many to strike over to the eastern branch of the
Hudson, and follow it up to Lake Colden; while the
echoing glen of Twen-un-ga-sko, (a raised voice,)
though now as savage as the Indian Pass already
described, will reverberate with more musical cries
than the howl of the wolf or the panther, whose
voices only are now raised to awaken its echoes.
The luxurious cit will cool his champaign amid the
snows of Mount Marcy; and his botanizing daughter,
who has read in Michaux's American Sylva of pines
some two hundred feet in height, will wonder to
pluck full-grown trees of the same genus, which she
can put into her reticule.

At present, however, the mountain is a desert.
Wolverines, lynxes, and wild cats, with a few
ravens, who generally follow in the track of beasts
of prey, are almost the only living things that have
their habitations in these high solitudes; and, save
when their occasional cry breaks the stillness, the

p154-054 [figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

solemn woods are, on a calm day, as silent as the
grave. The absence of game birds and of the
beasts of chase, which give his subsistence to the
hunter, prevents him from wasting his toil in climbing
to the loftiest pinnacles: and, so far as I learned,
it is only lately that curiosity has prompted those
who have passed a great part of their lives in the
neighbourhood, to make the ascent. The view,
however, when once realized, seems to strike them
not less than it does more cultivated minds. “It
makes a man feel,” said a hunter to me, “what it
is to have all creation placed beneath his feet.
There are woods there, over which it would take a
life-time to hunt; mountains that seem shouldering
each other up and away, heaven only knows where.
Thousands of little lakes are let in among them.
Old Champlain, though fifty miles off, glistens below
you like a strip of white birch bark; and the
Green Mountains of Vermont beyond it fade and
fade away, till they disappear as gradually as a cold
scent when the dew rises.”

The hunter, Holt, of whom I have before spoken,
has had some strange encounters with wild animals
among these lonely defiles which I have attempted
to describe: and John Cheney had, some time since,
a fight with a wolf, which is almost as well worthy
of commemoration as the doughty feat of old Putman.

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

It was in winter: the snows were some four or
five feet deep upon a level; and the hunter, upon
whom a change of seasons seems to produce but
little effect, could only pursue his game upon snow-shoes;
an ingenious contrivance for walking upon
the surface, which, though so much used in our
northern counties, is still only manufactured in perfection
by the Indians, who drive quite a trade in
them along the Canada border. Wandering far from
the settlements, and making his bed at nightfall in
a deep snow-bank, Cheney rose one morning to
examine his traps, near which he will sometimes lie
encamped for weeks in complete solitude; when,
hovering round one of them, he discovered a famished
wolf, who, unappalled by the presence of the
hunter, retired only a few steps, and then, turning
round, stood watching his movements.

“I ought, by rights,” quoth John, “to have waited
for my dogs, who could not have been far off; but
the creetur looked so sarcy, standing there, that,
though I had not a bullet to spare, I couldn't help
letting into him with my rifle.” He missed his aim,
the animal giving a spring as he was in the act of
firing, and then turning instantly upon him before he
could reload his piece. So effective was the unexpected
attack of the wolf, that his forepaws were
upon Cheney's snow-shoes before he could rally for
the fight. The forester became entangled in the
deep drift, and sank upon his back, keeping the wolf
only at bay by striking at him with his clubbed rifle.
The stock was broken to pieces in a few moments;
and it would have fared ill with the stark woodsman,

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

if the wolf, instead of making at his enemy's throat
when he had him thus at disadvantage, had not, with
blind fury, seized the barrel of the gun in his jaws.
Still the fight was unequal, as John, half buried in
the snow, could make use of but one of his hands.
He shouted to his dogs; but one of them only, a young,
untrained hound, made his appearance; emerging
from a thicket, he caught sight of his master lying
apparently at the mercy of the ravenous beast, uttered
a yell of fear, and fled, howling, to the woods again.
“Had I had one shot left,” said Cheney, “I would
have given it to that dog, instead of despatching the
wolf with it.” In the exasperation of the moment,
John might have extended his contempt to the whole
canine race, if a stancher friend had not opportunely
interposed to vindicate their character for courage
and fidelity.

All this had passed in a moment: the wolf was
still grinding the iron gun-barrel in his teeth; he
had even once wrenched it from the hand of the
hunter, when, dashing like a thunder-bolt between
the combatants, the other hound sprang over his
master's body, and seized the wolf by the throat.
“There was no let go about that dog when he once
took hold. If the barrel had been red-hot, the wolf
couldn't have dropped it quicker; and it would have
done you good, I tell ye, to see that old dog drag the
creetur's head down in the snow, while I, jist at my
leisure, drove the iron into his skull. One good,
fair blow, though, with a heavy rifle-barrel, on the
back of the head, finished him. The fellow gave a
kind o' quiver, stretched out his hindlegs, and then

p154-057 [figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

he was done for. I had the rifle stocked afterward,
but she would never shoot straight after that fight;
so I got me this pistol, which, being light and handy,
enables me more conveniently to carry an axe upon
my long tramps, and make myself comfortable in
the woods.”

Many a deer has John since killed with that pistol.
It is curious to see him draw it from the left pocket
of his gray shooting-jacket, and bring down a partridge.
I have myself witnessed several of his successful
shots with this unpretending shooting-iron,
and once saw him knock the feathers from a wild
duck at eighty or a hundred yards.

The deer-stalkers, or “still-hunters,” as they
are called in this part of the country, are very inveterate
against those who hound the deer: for even
in these woods, where you travel through twenty
miles of unbroken forest in passing from house to
house, people array themselves in factions, and indulge
their animosities by acting in separate bodies
with true partisan spirit. In fact, the deer-drivers
and the still-hunters only want their poet or historian,
to make their interminable bickerings as celebrated
as those of the Guelphs and Ghibbelines, or
any other redoubtable bone-breakers whose feudal
“yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty
death.”

“What business has a man got in the woods,”

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

quoth the still-hunter, “who can't take home a piece
of venison to his shantee without scaring all the deer
for ten miles around before he gets at it. The flesh
of the poor creeturs is worth nothing neither, after
their blood is heated by being driven to death with
dogs.”

“How can a man sleep sound in the woods,” saith
John Cheney, on the other side, “when he has the
heart to lure the mother of a fawn to the very muzzle
of his rifle by bleating at her: or who has shot down
the dumb brutes by torchlight, when they come to
the water-side to cool themselves at nightfall? It
ain't nateral, and such hunting—if hunting they call
it—will never prosper.” Honest John! whatever
may be the merits of the question, he has reason to
feel sore upon the subject, from the sad and ignoble
death which the hound who played so gallant a part
in his wolf encounter, met with at the hands of the
still-hunters.

Some of the best hounds in the country having
been killed by these forest-regulators, Cheney would
never allow his favourite dog to wander near the
streams most frequented by them; but it chanced
one day that the poor fellow met with an accident
which withdrew his care from the dog. The trigger
of his pistol caught against the thwart of a boat while
he was in the act of raising it to shoot a deer, and
the piece, going off in a perpendicular direction, sent
the whole charge into his leg, tearing off the calf,
and driving the ball out through the sole of his foot.
With this terrible wound, which, however, did not
prevent him from reloading and killing the deer

p154-059 [figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

before he could swim to the shore, Cheney dragged
himself fifteen miles through the woods, to the nearest
log cabin. A violent fever, and the threatened
loss of the limb, confined him here for months. But
his dog, to whom, while idling in the forest, he had
taught a hundred amusing tricks, was still his company
and solace; and, though Tray looked wistfully
after each hunter that strayed by the cabin, no eagerness
for the chase could impel him to leave his master's
side.

At last, however, upon one unfortunate day, poor
Cheney was prevailed upon to indulge a brother
sportsman, and let him take the dog out with him
for a few hours. The hunter soon returned, but the
hound never came back. Under his master's eye,
he had been taught never to follow a deer beyond a
certain limit; but now long confinement had given
him such a zest for the sport, that he crossed the
fatal bounds. The mountain-ridge of a more friendly
region was soon placed between him and his master;
the deer took to the treacherous streams infested
by the still-hunters, and the generous hound
and his timorous quarry met the same fate from the
rifles of their prowling enemy.

“Crusting” is the term applied to taking large
game amid the deep snows of winter, when the crust
of ice which forms upon the surface after a slight
rain is strong enough to support the weight of a man,

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

but gives way at once to the hoofs of a moose or a
deer; while the animal, thus embarrassed, is easily
caught and despatched with clubs. In our northern
states more game is destroyed in this way than in any
other; and you may read in the newspapers every
winter some account of the inhabitants of a whole
village turning out and butchering hundreds of deer
when thus entrapped. Only a few years since, it
was said that more than a thousand were so destroyed
in the township of Catskill in one season. All
true sportsmen, however, hold “crusting deer” in
contempt and abhorrence; for the venison is generally
not in season at the time of year when it is thus
procured; and this mode of taking it belongs rather
to the butcher than to the hunter.

Crusting moose is rather a different thing, as it
requires both skill and courage on the part of the
hunter, and the animal has a chance at least of escape
or resistance. Still, as the law will not, or cannot,
protect this noblest of all forest game from destruction
in this manner, it must at no distant day become
extinct within the boundaries of New York. The
broad west has no moose ground so celebrated as that
in our northern counties; and when you leave the
sources of the Hudson, you must travel westward
to those of the Mississippi before you find the gigantic
moose as numerous as they were in our forests
but a few years since. The woods of Maine, however,
are probably richer in this noble game than any
within the United States territories.

The moose, who is both more shy and more sagacious
than the deer, has his favourite haunts in the

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

depths of the forest. He moves about, not like the
elk, in roving gangs, but stalks in lonely majesty
through his leafy domains; and when disturbed by
the hunter, instead of bounding away like his kinsman
of the forest and prairie, he trots off at a gait
which, though faster than that of the fleetest horse,
is so easy and careless in its motion, that it seems
to cost him no exertion. But, though retreating thus
when pursued, he is one of the most terrible beasts
of the forest when wounded and at bay; and the Indians
of the north-west, among some tribes, celebrate
the death of a bull-moose, when they are so
fortunate as to kill one, with all the songs of triumph
that they would raise over a conquered warrior.

The deepest snows of winter of course offer the
best occasion for moose-hunting. The sagacious
animal, so soon as a heavy storm sets in, commences
forming what is called a “moose-yard;” which is a
large area, wherein he industriously tramples down
the snow while it is falling, so as to have a space to
move about in, and browse upon the branches of
trees, without the necessity of wandering from place
to place, struggling through the deep drifts, exposed
to the wolves, who, being of lighter make, hold a
carnival upon the deer in crusting-time. No wolf,
however, dare enter a moose-yard. He will troop
round and round upon the snow-bank which walls it,
and his howling will, perhaps, bring two or three of
his brethren to the spot, who will try to terrify the
moose from his 'vantage ground, but dare not descend
into it.

But when the hunter, prowling about on his

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

snow-shoes, discovers a moose-yard, he feels so sure of
his quarry, that he will sometimes encamp upon the
spot, in order to take the game at his leisure; and,
when there have been several hunters in company,
I have heard of their proceeding patiently to fell the
neighbouring trees, and form a lofty fence around
the yard, which enabled them to take the animal alive
when subdued by long confinement and starvation.
An opportunity of doing this occurred near M`Intyre
last winter, when a yard with three moose in it, an
old cow-moose and two yearlings, was discovered
and surrounded by a band of hunters. Some of the
party were desirous of taking them alive, as one of
the proprietors of this extensive property—a gentleman
of great public spirit—wishes to make an attempt
to domesticate the animal, and, if possible,
introduce the use of it to agricultural purposes.
This is an exceedingly interesting and hardly doubtful
experiment, for the moose has been frequently
tamed, and, unlike the common deer, can be halter-broken
as easily as a horse.

The hunters, however, were too excited with their
good luck to listen to any suggestion of the kind;
few of them had ever killed a moose. Their rifles
were in their hands, and they were bent upon having a
shot at the game, which dashed to and fro, snorting
and whistling, within the snowy bounds of the yard.
The whoops and shouts of their enemies, redoubled
by the echoes from the adjacent mountains, made
them furious at being thus beset; and at each discharge
of a gun they would plunge at the assailing
marksman so desperately, that he would be

p154-063 [figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

compelled to take refuge behind the nearest tree. The
scene became thus so exciting, that all order was
lost among the huntsmen. Each fired as fast as he
could load, hardly waiting to take aim, lest some
quicker-sighted comrade should bear off the prize.
The moose, though repeatedly wounded, would
charge again and again into the snow-banks around
them, and drive their enemies from the brink, retiring,
at each turn, to a corner of the yard where
they were least molested, and there rally at once for
another charge. Faint with the loss of blood, however,
they were successfully discomfited and borne
down by the hunters, who, retreating upon the crust
when pursued, would turn upon the moose the moment
they tried to retrace their steps, and assail them
with axes and bludgeons while floundering in the
snow to recover the 'vantage ground of the yard.
The two yearlings, with their dam, after making a
most gallant resistance, were ultimately despatched.

Such was the description which I had one day
from a veteran hunter, while lying round a fire discussing
a venison-steak cut from a fine buck, whose
death had been compassed after the curious fashion
described as follows.

After a week of fine trout-fishing, alternated by
such picturesque rambles as I have attempted to
describe, we could not leave the sources of the
Hudson without devoting our last day to a deer-hunt,

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

which had only been hitherto deferred from Cheney's
hounds being absent with a brother hunter.

Taking an early breakfast, my friend and I, accompanied
by John Cheney, another forester of the
name of Linus Catlin, and our hospitable host, separated
at the inlet of Lake Sandford, to take our different
stations. Cheney, with three hounds, was to
rouse the deer from his lair upon an adjacent mountain;
Catlin was to take post in his skiff, behind one
of the islets of the lake; and the rest of us were to
watch in the canoe, under the shelter of a bold promontory,
opposite to which the deer was expected to
take the water.

Before entering his boat, Catlin, who appeared to
be one of those quiet fellows that say little and do
much, having no gun with him, proceeded to cut
down a birchen sapling, and strip it of all its branches
except two, the elastic wood of which he twisted together,
so as to form a large noose upon the end of
the pole. As he was laying this weapon in the stern
of his skiff, and preparing to push off, his preparations
did not seem to meet the approbation of his
friend, Cheney.

“What, Linus, you are not agoing to withe the
deer?”

“And why not?” answered Catlin, taking his seat
and placing the oars in the rowlocks.

“Because I never see any good in withes: a
man that can't tail a deer, oughtn't to hunt him.”

“Why, John, you couldn't hold a fat buck by his
tail long enough to cut his throat with your hunting-knife.”

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

“Can't I? I'd like to see the time! Well, if I
know'd I could never tail another, as I have thousands,
the creetur might go, afore I'd be the man to
drown him with a withe.”

The quiet Linus only replied by pushing off into
the current and dropping down the stream; and we
immediately followed, while Cheney, whistling to
his dogs, plunged into the forest and disappeared.

The boats kept near each other for some time,
and we landed together upon a sunny point, to deposite
a basket of bread and vegetables, an iron pot,
and some other “kitchen fixins” which we had
brought with us, under the confident promise of John
that we should surely have a venison dinner in the
woods that day, if he had to drive a dozen deer before
we could kill one. Our craft being lightened
of her lading, Catlin pulled for the islet, which was
yet a mile off down the lake; and we, after watching
his oars flashing in the sunshine for a few moments,
embarked anew and paddled round a headland;
when running the canoe under the trees, whose
morning shadows still hung over the lake, we
stretched ourselves upon the grass, listening and
looking with the most eager attention for the first
intimation of approaching sport.

There was a slight ripple upon the lake, which
was not favourable to our seeing the deer should he
take the water at any great distance from us; and
the incessant call of the jay, with the ever-changing
cry of the loon, created so many noises in the woods
generally so still, that the opening of the hounds
might have escaped us unheard. These early

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

sounds, however, soon ceased as the sun came
marching up above the mountain-tops, and spread
the silver waves from the centre of the lake far and
wide, into all its sheltered bays and wood-embowered
friths. The faint ripple of the waters upon the
rocky shore was the only murmur left.

My companions were conversing in a subdued
voice, and I was lying a little apart from them,
revelling in the singular beauty of the scene, and
sketching in imagination the peculiar outline of the
“Dial Mountain” opposite, when I heard the faint
crashing of a bough upon the other side of the lake,
and, running my eye along the water, discovered a
noble buck, with fine antlers, swimming beneath the
bank. My comrades caught sight of him a moment
afterward, and we all waited with eager anxiety to
see him put out far enough for us to row round him
and cut him off from the shore. But the buck had
evidently no idea of making a traverse of the lake at
this time. He was far in advance of the hounds,
and had taken the water at this place, not from being
hotly pursued, but only to throw them off the scent,
and then double on his own track. He therefore
kept swimming along the shore, close under the steep
bank, looking up at it every now and then, as if in
search of a “runway” which would carry him back
again in the depths of the forest. This runway was
in a little cove immediately opposite to us; and,
though it was almost impossible now to cut him off
from reaching it, yet the moment we saw his object
we determined to make the effort.

The position of each in the canoe had of course

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

been previously arranged; we accordingly crept into
our seats, and pushed out into the lake, without making
a sound that could attract the attention of the
deer. The little islet of Inch-Hamish lay but a few
yards out of our course, and we slid along as quietly
as possible, until we could get under cover of this, and
then gave way with all our strength. The lean craft
glanced like an arrow through the rippling waters.
We were all three familiar with the use of oar or paddle,
and the buck would have had no chance of
escape from that canoe had we been a hundred yards
nearer. Our hopes were high in the brief moments
that the islet shut him from view; but he had just
reached the shore when we shot from its cover. We
now threw up our paddles in despair, and paused to
take a fair view of him as he escaped from the lake.
It was beautiful to see him lift his arching neck from
the water when he first touched the bottom; and his
whole form was brought to view while he made a
few steps through the shallow waves, as leisurely as
if no pursuers were near. Throwing his antlers,
then, upon his shoulders, to clear the boughs above
him, he bounded over a fallen tree near the margin,
and disappeared in the forest.

Looking now to the point where he had entered
the lake, we saw one of the hounds standing out on
a rock, with nose uplifted to catch the vanished scent
of his quarry. The dog saw us pulling for the runway,
and, dashing into the lake, swam for the point
to which we were steering, and reached it just as
our boat grated upon the beach. A moment sufficed
to put him again upon the scent. He opened

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

with a joyous yell; his mouthing soon became deeper
and more distant; it neared again; and the two
other hounds, who, while following some other trail,
had now, for the first time, struck his, joined in the
chorus. The echoes in the upper part of the lake
are the finest that I ever heard; and, as the morning
breeze had now lulled, they were all awakened by
this wild music. The deer was evidently making
for the inlet; and, indeed, before we could pull out
far enough to command a view of the point where
be would probably cross, he had made the traverse,
and we only caught a glimpse of the dogs thrashing
through the wild grass upon a tongue of land upon
the opposite side of the inlet.

“You may give up that buck,” said our host;
“he has gone over to Lake Henderson, and the best
thing we can do is, to start another.”

Almost as he spoke a clear whoop rang through
the forest, and soon after we saw John Cheney
waving us to the shore we had just left.

“Tormented lightning! what are ye doing there,
when the deer is going down the lake?”

“Down! why, he has just crossed at the upper
end, and gone over to Lake Henderson.”

“I tell you he hasn't. No deer will go there when
the water's so high that he would be entangled in
the bushes before he could swim beyond his depth.
I know the natur of the creetur; and that deer has
gone round the lower end of the lake, to cross back
to the mountain where I started him.”

With these words Cheney waded into the water
without waiting for us to approach nearer the shore,

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

jumped into the canoe, seized a paddle, and away
we sped again over the waves. The event proved
that he was right. The buck, after crossing at the
inlet, made a circuit of a mile or two, and, before we
could pull half-way down the lake, took the water at
a runway opposite to the islet behind which Catlin
was watching in his skiff.

Cool and experienced in the sport, this hunter
never broke his cover until the deer got fairly out
into the lake, when he launched out and turned him
so quickly, that the buck made for the island which
his pursuer had just left. Linus, however, was too
quick for him, and threw his withe over the deer's
antlers before he could touch the bottom with his
feet. But the buck was a fellow of great weight
and vigour; and, feeling himself thus entangled, he
made a lateral spring into deeper water, which dragged
the hunter out of the boat in an instant. Linus
fortunately seized one of the oars, which, being rigged
with swivels instead of rowlocks, still kept him
connected with the skiff. But his situation was a
very precarious one; the buck becoming the assailant,
struck at him with his forefeet, and got him
again fairly under water. He rose this time, however,
with the oar between himself and his antagonist,
and, while clutching the gunwale of the boat
with one hand, seized the withe, which had escaped
from his grasp, in the same moment that the buck
made a pass at him with his horns, which ripped up
the bosom of his shirt, and was within an inch of
goring him to death. But before the desperate animal
could repeat the thrust, the hunter had gained

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

the skiff, now half-full of water, and, seizing the first
missile that came to hand, he dealt the buck a blow
upon the head, which, followed up by a slash from
his hunting-knife, put an end to the encounter.

The conflict was over before we could reach the
combatants; but the carcass was still warm when
we relieved the leaky boat of Catlin by lifting the
buck into our canoe; and his eye was so bright, his
skin so smooth and glossy, and his limbs, not yet
stiffened in death, folded so easily beneath him, that
it was difficult to imagine life had departed.

When we landed at the spot before selected, it
required the united strength of the whole party to
lift the buck up the steep bank, and suspend him
upon the timbers, which Cheney prepared, secundum
artem, for scientific butchery. The eloquent Bucklaw,
by whose learned discourse upon this branch of
“the gentle science of venerie” the reader has been
enlightened when reading Scott's “Bride of Lammermoor,”
could not have been a more thorough
practitioner of the art than John Cheney.

A group worthy of Inman's pencil was collected
around the roaring fire, by which the dripping Catlin
was drying himself; while Cheney, with the fat
buck before him, and the dogs licking the blood at
his feet, as ever and anon he paused in his operation,
and turned round to us to point out some graceful
line of fat with his hunting-knife, would have formed
the prominent figure of the picture.

The potatoes, in the meantime, were roasted
whole, or sliced up with various savoury matters,
which were put into the kettle to boil; and, though

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

we had omitted to bring tumblers with us, Cheney's
axe hollowed out and fashioned some most ingenious
drinking-cups, which were ready by the time
divers choice morsels of venison had been grilled
upon the coals. There were a few drops at the
bottom of an old flask of cogniac for each of us;
we had Mackinaw blankets stretched upon balsam
branches, to recline upon; there was no call of duty
or business to remind us of the lapse of hours; and
stories and anecdotes of former huntings in these
mountains, with practical discussions as to what part
of a deer afforded the most savoury venison, prolonged
the repast till sunset.

The haunch of the buck, wrapped in its clean skin,
was left untouched for future feasting. “Well,
John,” said I, as I tried in vain to lift it into the
boat by the short, fat tail, “how could you ever
have taken such a fellow as this by `tailing him,'
as you call it?”

“It's all knack—it's being used to the thing unly.
Not but that I always said that withing is a good
way.”

“No, no, John!” we all exclaimed; “you said
just the reverse.”

“Well, perhaps I did, and, without meaning to
discredit Linus, who, for certain, has been the man
among us this day, I still say that withing only does
for those that don't know how to tail a deer. And
now let's take the old hounds in the boats, and pull
homeward.”

p154-072

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

The hunters with whom we had enjoyed our last
day's sport upon Lake Sandford, accompanied us
some forty miles through the woods, when we started
next day upon our homeward journey. John
Cheney, like the rest, trudging along on foot, found
an opportunity of shooting several partridges by the
way, picking them from the trees with his pistol with
as much case as an ordinary sportsman could have
effected with a fowling-piece, (admitting the thick
cover to give the bird such a chance of life as to warrant
a sportsman to take him sitting.) After killing
three or four partridges, however, John could not be
prevailed on to shoot at more. I several times called
his attention to a good shot, but he always answered,
shaking his head, “It's wrong, it's wrong,
sir, to use up life in that way; here's birds enough
for them that wants to eat them; and that saddle of
venison on the buckboard will only be wasted, if I
kill more of these poor things.”

About noon we halted by a brook which ran through
the forest near a clump of maples which grew so
widely apart as to let the sunshine down upon a
grassy spot, where we spread our table upon a fallen
tree, and, kindling a fire, proceeded to cook our dinner.
All found something to do while this was in
preparation; one attended to the comfort of the
horses, another kept the fire supplied with fuel,
some shot at a mark with Cheney's pistol, while
worthy John himself watched with the most

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

sedulous care over the venison and partridges, which he
roasted after a fashion peculiarly his own, and which,
with four or five large trout that we had brought from
the lake, and the customary accompaniment of roast
potatoes and wheaten bread, all being flavoured with
good humour and keen mountain appetites, made the
repast a delicious one.

The day was fine, the air clear and remarkably
bland for the season, and I don't know how long we
should have protracted our woodland revel, as Cheney
exercised his skill and ingenuity, serving up
every moment some tempting morsel of venison,
pressing my friend and myself particularly to eat, as
“we didn't know when again we might have a raal
nateral dinner in the woods; and it was a comfort to
him to see gentlemen from the city take things in the
woods as if they liked them.”

No town-adoring cockney, nor patriotic villager,
nor proud Castellan could imagine himself more
identified with all the honours and glory of his distinct
and especial dwelling-place, than does this
genuine forester with everything that appertains to
the broad woods through which he ranges. Cheney
was now, as he told me when walking by my side
after resuming our journey, going out of the woods
for the first time in many months, to visit his father,
who lived some sixty miles off. He was very old,
and John had not seen nor heard from him for some
time previously to his last visit to the settlements
which we were now approaching, and from which
his father lived still another day's journey distant.
He seemed quite anxious as to the tidings he might

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

hear about his venerable parent, and talked of remaining
to spend a month with him. Such was the
complexion of the hunter's feelings when we came
out of the forest at nightfall upon what is called the
Schroon-road, where we found a good inn to receive
us. Here my friend and I, after securing a conveyance
which should enable us to follow down the
course of the Hudson instead of returning home
through Lake Champlain, invited Cheney to take a
seat in our wagon, which would carry him some
thirty miles on his next day's journey. He was so
eager to see his father, that the proffer was at once
accepted, and all our mutual arrangements were
completed for the morrow. But just as we were on
the point of starting, and had shaken hands with our
hearty host of M`Intyre and his party, Cheney was
hailed by a brother hunter, who, rifle on shoulder,
trudged up to the inn-door upon the road we were
about to travel.

“Hullo, Bill!” cried the filial John, advancing to
shake hands with him. “Come up from Ti, eh?
and how's the old man?”

“Right well, I tell ye,” replied Bill; “he's killed
six bear this fall; and, thinking the creeturs must be
pretty well routed out among our mountains, I've
struck over the ridge to see what I can find among
your'n.”

“Tormented lightning! six bear!” quoth John.
“Why, the raal old chap; his grain is as tough and
springy as ever. Well, Bill, if you'll hold on till I
can speak a word to these gentlemen in the wagon,
I'll turn round with you, and back into our woods
again.”

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

Saying this, cheney came up to us, and repeating
what we had just overheard as the reason for changing
his intentions, he shook hands with us, and we
parted upon our separate journeys.

We reached Lake George that night, our road
winding side by side with the Hudson for many
miles, passing several picturesque lakes, crossing
mountain-ridges commanding the most superb bird's
eye views, or descending into valleys where the
painter might find an ever-varying novelty for the
exercise of his art. But as the reader is perhaps
already fatigued with these loose sketches, and as the
prominent figure which gave them animation has
disappeared from the scene, I will here conclude my
notes upon The Sources of the Hudson.

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