Charles Roberts - Around the Camp-fire

It was toward the end of July, and Fredericton, the little New Brunswick capital, had grown hot beyond endurance, when six devoted canoeists – Stranion, Magnus, Queerman, Sam, Ranolf, and myself – heard simultaneously the voices of wild rapids calling to them from afar. The desire of the woods awoke in us. The vagrant blood that lurks in the veins of our race sprang up and refused to be still. The very next day we fled from the city and starched collars, seeking freedom and the cool of the wilderness.

It was toward Lake Temiscouata and the wilds of the Squatooks that we set our eager faces. In shirt-sleeves and moccasins we went. For convenience we had our clothes stitched full of pockets. Our three good birch canoes and our other impedimenta we put on board a flat-car at the station. And that same evening found us at the village of Edmundston, where the Madawaska flows into the St. John at a point about one hundred and fifty miles above Fredericton.

Unless you are an experienced canoeman, skilled not only with the paddle but with the pole, and expert to run the roughest rapids, you should take a guide with you on the Squatook trip. You should go in the bow of your canoe, with a trusty Indian in the stern; one Indian and one canoe for each man of the party. The art of poling a birch-bark against a stiff current is no easy one to acquire, and needs both aptitude and practice. Your Indian will teach you in the gentler waters; and the rest of the time you may lounge at your ease, casting a fly from side to side, and ever climbing on between the changing shores. But as for us, we needed no Indians. We were all six masters of canoe-craft. Each took his turn at the white spruce pole; and we conquered the currents rejoicing.

Temiscouata is a long, narrow lake just outside the boundaries of New Brunswick. It lies in the Province of Quebec; but its outlet is the Madawaska River, a New Brunswick stream. Our plan of proceeding was to take to the canoes at Edmundston, and pole fifteen miles up the Madawaska, make a portage of five miles across country to Mud Lake, follow Beardsley Brook, the outlet of Mud Lake, to its junction with the Squatook River, and then slip down this swift stream, with its chain of placid expansions, till we should float out upon the waters of Toledi Lake. Toledi River would then receive us among its angry rapids and cascades, to eject us forcibly at last upon the great bosom of Temiscouata, whence we should find plain paddling back to Edmundston. This would make a round trip of, say one hundred and forty miles; and all of them, save the first fifteen, with the current.

At Edmundston that evening we pitched our tent beside the stream; and next morning, though it was raw and threatening, we made an early start. In one canoe went Stranion and Queerman; in the second, Sam and Ranolf; in the third, Magnus and myself. The bedding, extra clothing, etc., laced up snugly in squares of oiled canvas, made luxurious seats, while the eatables were stowed in light, strong boxes built to fit the canoes.

The first day out is usually uneventful, and this was no exception. When adventures are looked for they pretty certainly fail to arrive. We reached the portage with an hour of daylight to spare, and there found an old log cabin, which saved us the necessity of pitching our tent. It was dry, well-ventilated, abundantly uncivilized. What a supper Stranion cooked for us! And then what a swarm of mosquitoes and midges flocked in to bid us welcome! We hedged ourselves about with a cordon of slow fires of cedar bark, the smoke of which proved most distasteful to them, and almost equally so to us. And then with a clear blaze crackling before the open door, and our blankets spread on armfuls of spruce boughs, we disposed ourselves luxuriously for pipes and yarns.

Queerman drew a long, blissful whiff through his corn-cob, blew a succession of rings, and murmured like a great bumblebee, —

“The world is Vagabondia

To him who is a vagabond.”

“Who’ll tell us the first yarn?” inquired Sam, as his pipe drew freely.

“Stranion begins,” said Magnus quietly. Magnus was a man of few words; but when he opened his mouth, what he said went. He was apt to do more and say less than any one else in the party.

“Well, boys,” said Stranion, “if Magnus says so, here goes. What shall I talk about?”

“Who ever heard of Stranion talking about anything but panthers?” jeered Ranolf.

“Well,” assented Stranion, “there’s something in what you say. The other night I was thinking over the various adventures which have befallen me in my devotion to birch and paddle. It surprises me to find what a lot of scrapes I’ve got into with the panthers. The brutes seem to fairly haunt me. Of course fellows who every year go into the Squatook woods are bound to have adventures, more or less. You get cornered maybe by an old bull-moose, or have a close shave with some excited bear, or strike an unusually ugly lynx, or get spilled out of the canoe when you’re trying to run Toledi Falls; but in my case it is a panther every time. Whenever I go into the woods there is sure to be one of these creatures sneaking around. I declare it makes me quite uneasy to think of it, though I’ve always got the best of them so far. I’ll bet you a trout there are one or two spotting me now from those black thickets on the mountain; and one of these days, if I don’t look sharp, they’ll be getting even with me for all the members of their family that I have cut off in their sins.”

“Oh, you go along!” exclaimed Sam. “You’re getting sentimental. I can tell you, I have killed more trout than you have panthers, and there’s no old patriarch of a trout going to get even with me!”

Sam’s practical remark went unheeded; and in a few moments Stranion resumed, —

“You see, boys, the beasts began to haunt me in my very cradle so to speak. Did any of you ever hear mother tell that story?”

“I have!” ejaculated Queerman; but the rest of us hastened to declare our ignorance.

“Very well,” said Stranion. “Queerman shall see that I stick to the facts.”

“Oh, boys, I’ve a heavy contract on hand then,” cried Queerman.

But Stranion blandly ignored him, and continued, —

“I’ll call this tale —

“You have all seen the old parsonage at the mouth of the Keswick River. That’s a historic edifice for you! Therein was I born. There were more trees around it then than now.

“At the mature age of ten months I moved away from that neighborhood, but not before the Indian devil, as the panther is called in that region, had found me out and marked me as a foreordained antagonist.

“One bright June morning, when I was about five months old, and not yet able to be much protection to my young mother, my father set out on one of his long parochial drives, and we were left alone, – no, not quite alone; there was Susan, the kitchen-girl, for company. That constituted the garrison of the parsonage on that eventful morning, – mother, Susan, and myself.

“I cannot say I remember what took place, but I have so often been told it that I feel as if I had taken an active part. Mother and I were sitting by an open window, down-stairs, looking out on the front yard, when suddenly mother called out sharply, —

“‘Susan, Susan! Come here and see what sort of a creature this is coming through the grove!’

“There was a frightened ring in my mother’s voice which brought Susan promptly to her side.

“Just then the ‘creature,’ which was long and low and stealthy, reached the garden fence. It mounted the fence gracefully, and paused to look about.