What were the voices the still lakes heard? What were the scenes that the forest saw? The rapid chatter of chipmunk small, Springing ever amongst the leaves; The blue-winged jay with its constant call; And creaking of boughs as they felt the breeze; Woodpeckers tapping with iron beak Dead pine trunks, for the worm they seek. The human cry of the mocking loon Ever rose from the lake's dark wave; Wolf, and fox, and muskrat grey, The forest deer, with russet hide, Hart, and hind, and tender fawn, The green snake slipt through the moss-bound fern, The black snake reared his fearless head, As the wild cat crept to the quiet burn, Or the dark, brown bear with his heavy tread ; Whilst on some steep rock's savage crest The eagle made her cruel nest. The speckled trout, and the white-fish leapt, Where bull-frogs croak, and the wild ducks fly; The monster sturgeon quiet slept Beneath the glow of a mirrored sky; And the ceaseless hum of mosquitos' wings TORONTO. Now, sound of axes fills the wood, The blue smoke curls above the leaves, And stately halls and temples stand And homes are raised, and cities filled; And nature's myriad voice is stilled: MY FIRST CARIBOO. BY HUBERT HUMBER. L The These words were spoken to me by my Indian hunter, Michel, as I sat looking very ruefully at the carcass of a huge bull moose which lay before me half buried in the snow; and when Michel added, "no get cariboo easy like dat," I resolved that my last shot had been fired at moose, and that the next season-it was too late that yearI would try my hand at cariboo so a few days after, when parting with Michel at the village, I made a compact with him that when the time came we should hunt cariboo together. OOKING northward from Quebec one! sees a range of low mountains extending all along the north shore of the St. Lawrence away to Anticosti, and behind this range of hills for hundreds of miles lies a wild land of mountain, lake and river-the home of the moose and cariboo deer. cariboo, unlike the moose, is a great runner, seldom staying long in one place; and, being very wary, and of prodigious powers of endurance, even after receiving a mortal wound, its pursuit is justly considered the most exciting of all our Canadian sports. When the cold of early winter has driven The summer had come and passed; the the deer from their far northern haunts into fall snipe shooting was over; the long arrowthe mountains in the immediate vicinity of shaped flocks of wild geese had passed with Quebec, there are always to be found those noisy flight to the southward, and the long who are willing to encounter the privations Canadian winter was setting in with great seand dangers of that inhospitable region for verity when I sent word to Michel to come the chance of a successful stalk after such in and see me. We met, and the result was noble game. an engagement to start on the 15th of De"Cariboo not like moose, no for sure." cember, and a specific estimate of our wants in the shape of powder, shot, biscuits, pork, small purchases made by eleven o'clock and &c. As the weather continued very favourable, that is to say, intensely cold with not too much snow, I went early to bed on the fourteenth fully assured that the next morning would bring Michel. The thickly frosted windows told me, when I awoke, that the thermometer was very low even in my room, and it required some consideration before I could take a leap into my bath, the water in which was almost ice. How comfortable the coal-fire looks when I get down stairs and I am all right, when my old housekeeper, looking severely over her spectacles, says, "your savage has been down stairs speerin' aboot this hour." "All right, send him up, Mrs. Bruce." then we would start- we should reach Madame Lachance's at about 3 o'clock, sleep there that night and take to the forest on our snow-shoes early the next morning-a long day's march, a night in the snow, and then another tramp for half a day would bring us to the grounds we intended to hunt. A morning pipe is scarcely smoked when Antoine drives up to the door; the dark coat of his famous mare is covered with frost ; and as he flings a buffalo robe over her, she puts back her ears and paws the snow impatiently eager to get home. How unlike the two men are: Antoine, a little dark French Canadian, has all the vivacity and small talk of his race, and when I succeed in getting him to sit by the fire and take a cup of hot coffee and a bit of steak, dear me, how he does talk and how he laughs; what a contrast to the quiet sombre man who is going about my room superintending the final preparations for our de A light, almost noiseless, step comes along the passage and Michel glides quietly into the room—a man about forty years of age, of middle height, broad shoulders and deep chest, with rather bow legs, clad in a dark blanket coat, his thick waist girt by a crim-parture! The men are very courteous to son sash from which hangs a heavy hilted hunting knife in a sheath of deer skin, gaily worked with beads and porcupine quills. His feet and hands are small, and his swarthy face has the haggard look which I have noticed in many of these men, the result, I fancy, of the great privations and hardships which they sometimes have to endure. His keen eyes are small and black, and over the collar of his coat, a plentiful supply of jet black hair falls down, coarse as a horse's mane. In manner, the man is quiet, easy and self-possessed. While we are at breakfast, Michel quietly unfolds his budget of news. The chances for a successful chasse are good-his brotherin-law, Antoine, has been out looking after some traps and shooting grouse and hares for the market, and reports many cariboo tracks the lakes and rivers were all frozen two weeks ago—the snow is not too deep and the cold is on the increase-Antoine would have finished marketing and all his each other; but I notice that Antoine always defers at once to Michel. At last all is ready and Antoine having stowed away the provisions in his comfortable box sleigh, the guns, snow-shoes and Indian sleighs are also packed, and then we all jump in. We descend the narrow steep hills leading out from the old town, and are soon on the Lorette road then we begin to know how cold it really is-the wind cuts like a knife, and our frozen breath curls up into the air like smoke and covers our coat collars, caps and hair with a white frost. Now we have crossed the valley of the St. Charles and passed through the village of Lorette. The road becomes much narrower and the fir trees growing thick and close on each side give a welcome shelter from the wind. Passing over a succession of steep hills we dive down into the primeval forest along a very narrow road on which the snow lies soft and deep. The bush on each side is very thick, and I notice the dotted track of the Alpine hare in every di- stories with a mimicry that convulses the rection. 66 Arrive," shouts Antoine, and the mare trotting very fast for about half a mile stops suddenly at Madame Lachance's, which is our terminus for that day and our point of departure for the next. The house or rather cabin is nothing more than a backwoods shanty formed of hewn logs-the roof is of bark and the smoke finds exit through the pipe of the stove which is carried out through the gable. Madame comes out to welcome us. She is a tall, bony, gray-haired woman with a suntanned face, and the bare arm she holds up to shade her eyes is as dark and muscular as a blacksmith's; but the good soul is very hospitable and keeps repeating her welcome, until we all crowd into the one room which is all her house; a huge double stove is burning fiercely almost in the middle of the room, and a large bed curtained with a very gay patterned print takes up a large portion of what small space remains a deal table and a few home-made chairs with basswood seats comprise the rest of the furniture, while an open cupboard in one corner exhibits the family crockery of a splendid yellow, bright and clean, of which the old lady is not a little proud. Coming from "la ville," of course, I am expected to tell Madame all the news, which she receives with oft uplifted hands and a running comment of never more than one word-thus I tell of the last large fire, "misère," the new railway, "bonté," the price of wood, "tiens”—while the frequent pinch of snuff she indulges in is constantly stayed midway to its destination, while she listens intently to a glowing description of the last fashionable marriage. The mare having been made comfortable for the night, Antoine comes in. Madame's two sons, stout lads of 19 and 17 come home from chopping in the bush, and after supper we all draw round the stove and spend a couple of hours in talking. Antoine is now in his glory and tells his two boys and even draws a grim smile from Michel who sits next me smoking silently. I had, during the evening, made arrangements that Madame's eldest son should come with us in the capacity of cook and woodcutter, as it is no joke to get home to camp after a hard day's work and find no fire and no dinner. So in the morning having breakfasted we at once commenced to pack our traps on the two toboggins, or Indian sleighs, which we brought with us from Quebec. I have with me a double Westley-Richards shot gun and a double Purdy rifle. We slip on our snow-shoes and starteach Indian drawing a toboggin by stout deer-skin thongs passed over the shoulder and under the arm-pits. The party now consists of four-the two Indians, Lachance and myself, and passing down a few yards from the cabin the road ends and we strike into the woods-the primeval forest, which is to be our home for the next two weeks. Michel has decided to make for Lac Rond, a favourite hunting ground of his; and, after a couple of hours' walk, we reach the river leading to the lake, now, of course, frozen, and covered with about six inches of snow. The walking is good and we calculate to reach the lake in a day and a half; the scenery is wild but rather monotonous; the mountains, not of any great height, are very much alike; and the white highway on which we are travelling winds about, offering to view snow scenes-the one you are looking at being the counterpart of the one you have just left behind. But the air is splendidcold and bracing, and although I had taken an excellent breakfast at Madame Lachance's I am not sorry when Michel calls a halt for dinner. Cold pork, biscuit and a cup of tea-a pipe and an hour's rest and off we go again until four o'clock, when Michel turns off the river into the forest and selects a place to camp for the night. We have done a good twenty miles, and I hungry again, so we all set to work to form a camp, and this is how we do it. The snow for about 10 feet by 6 is cleared away-all of us at work, using our snow-shoes as shovels- and thrown up on each side forms a trench about 12 feet deep. One of the men then goes off for fuel, and soon a roaring fire is blazing up in the middle of the trench, over which a forked stick suspends the cooking pot, while a thick layer of spruce boughs, on each side of the fire, makes a very comfortable seat and bed for the night; stout stakes planted in the snow at each end of the trench, and sloping towards the fire, are covered with pine or spruce branches, affording a good shelter. We are soon very snug; the fire leaps and crackles, sending up showers of sparks into the frosty air, and tinging the forest trees near by with a red light; but the Indians have done a hard day's work and we are all ready for sleep as soon as supper is over, so rolling myself up in my blanket, with my feet to the blaze, I am soon sound asleep on one side of the fire and the three men on the other are snoring heavily. The men replenishing the fire during the night wake me up once or twice, but I sleep well, and in the morning rise fresh, and, I am almost ashamed to write it, hungry again; but this wolfish appetite is a leading feature in camp life, and one seems at all times ready to eat. Breakfast over we are off at half-past seven, and by two o'clock, hurrah! turning a sharp bend in the river we come suddenly on the famous Lac Rond. Following Michel we skirt the lake for about half a mile, then turn into the bush for a few yards, and halt before a small log-hut half buried in snow, which the men commence to clear away, and entering the cabin I find a good sized chamber, rather low in the roof, with a wide chimney, the lower part of which is built of round stones from the lake, while the upper portion is of thick bark. The small quantity of snow which has drifted in is swept out, and the dry spruce boughs which formed the beds of last year are bundled into the chimney—a match is applied, and instantly a ruddy flame leaps up and makes the old hut look quite cheerful. Leaving the men to get the cabin in order I light my pipe and stroll back to look at the lake, which I take to be about two miles in width, and apparently round in shape, from whence it takes its simple name. Frozen to a depth of six or eight inches, and covered with about the same quantity of snow, the even surface lies before me looking cold and dreary in the intense stillness of that calm winter evening. The round mountains, clothed with forest trees of small growth and snow-covered summits, surround it on all sides, and seem in some places to come sheer down to the water's edge; but if you were to make the circuit of the lake, you would find that all round it there lies, between the water-mark and mountains, a thick belt of dark spruce, varying in width from one hundred yards to half a mile, while large patches of cranberry bushes—the favourite resort of the grouse-rear their sturdy stems by the lake side under the shelter of the spruce. Nothing can exceed the sombre appearance or dreary solitude of a caribooswamp at about the evening hour-the dark formal trees, almost black in colour, throw a deep gloom around, which the near mountains serve to deepen, while long festoons of grey moss depending from their stems sway to and fro in the moaning wind, and give a weird and ghastly appearance to the scene. But it is this strange looking moss which I have seen hanging yards in length that forms the favourite food of the cariboo deer, and makes Michel consider this lake in particular one of his best hunting grounds. When I return to camp I find the men have put everything in order, the snow round the cabin is all cleared away, a goodly pile of dry wood is collected for the night, and through the open door I see a large cheerful fire burning brightly. Next morning Pierre goes off at dawn, and, as soon as breakfast is over, Michel |