E want a quiet place, free from dudes and mosquitoes, with good good fishing.” Thus food and spoke the tired city man to his friend, the Preacher, and the friend answered, “I have heard of such a haven of rest, far in the east, on the shores of Moosehead Lake.” So it came to pass that we—Nell, little Sue and I—made the long journey of 1,500 miles on the strength of a hearsay. Risky? Yes, but the results amply justified our faith. We found the Peaceful Valley and the House of Rest.

Picture to yourself a long, rambling structure, designed according to no known law save that of utility. Additions have been made from time to time to the original farm-house, resulting in a delightfully unconventional and straggly building; an illustration in wood of the law of evolution. Great barns stand guard on the east and south. Hard by, a cold brook gurgles and laughs on its way to the lake a few rods distant. Take your stand facing the west, and declare your vision. Fifteen miles away, on the western border of the lake, Squaw Mountain lifts its ragged line against the sky. On the left, and close at hand, bold hills bound the view, clothed with timber to their very tips. Far to the north, Spencer Bay Mountain lies like a giant haystack. The waters of the lake dimple and flash in the sunlight, the air is filled with the drowsy hum of insects, and over all is peace. In the words of the ancient hymn, one sings,

“This is the place I long have sought

And mourned because I found it not.”

Now that we are here, what shall we do? Rest? Yes, but it cannot be the rest of inactivity. The woods are calling to us and the waters tempt us. The trout are jumping in the pool just beyond the big stump, and a deer is feeding in the meadow yonder. Great herons fly lazily along the shores of the bay, or go on frog-hunting expeditions among the rushes. Surely, there is something better to do than to loll on the porch, and the first important task is to interview those impertinent trout. Leaders are brought out and soaked, flies selected, the Leonard rod jointed and everything made ready. We start for the brook which seems to be murmuring an invitation, only to run against a very formidable obstacle in the shape of the Maine game law. “All streams flowing into Moosehead Lake are closed indefinitely.” Only nine words gently spoken by the landlord, but they were of tremendous significance. A journey halfway across the continent to fish streams that cannot be fished. The arm of the fisherman is palsied, and his tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth. Is this the end of all his bright visions? A darkness like that of Egypt settles down upon him, and all joy flees from his heart. Silently he anathematizes the railroad companies for failing to find space in their attractive circulars for this important piece of information. But just when his gloom is deepest, a ray of light appears. “Do you see that red post?” says the landlord, pointing down the stream. “That marks the boundary between the brook and the lake. Below it you can fish to your heart’s content.”

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Really, it was not as bad as might be supposed. Fish love the mouth of a stream, and this mouth was of generous proportions and largely patronized by the trout. Many a happy hour we spent on that stretch of water below the post. Possibly, in the eagerness of pursuit, the fly sometimes fell over the line into the forbidden waters; but it is not easy to determine the exact location of an invisible boundary, and the trout had no business to gather in town-meeting just over the line and wink derisively at the irritated fisherman. But, on the whole, we sought to obey the law; not alone from respect for the law, mingled with fear of the game-warden, but, as well, because the best fishing was below the post. Here was a half-mile of water frequented by many noble trout. We will say nothing of the many ordinary trout taken from this stretch of stream, but the story of the fisherman’s experience with one wary old grandpa of the Salvelinus Fontinalis family must be told.

He lived in a deep pool bordered by rushes, where a sunken tree-top afforded an excellent hiding-place. Many smaller trout had been lured from this retreat before the patriarch gave any sign of his presence. One day a huge swirl and a heavy tug set the angler’s nerves to tingling; but the line came back limp, and the disappointed disciple of the immortal Izaak went to the house to tell of the four-pound trout that he had hooked and lost. A week passed, during which time the hopeful fisherman whipped every inch of that water many times, taking not a few, but hearing nothing from the veteran for whom he longed. Then, moved by hunger or contempt, or both, the old fellow snapped at a “Montreal,” and the battle was on. When victory for the fisherman seemed certain and the landing net was almost under the tired fish, he gave a mighty surge and was gone. This time he weighed a plump five pounds on the scales of the angler’s imagination. Other days passed, and then, one evening just as the sun was setting, a “Silver Doctor” overcame the wariness of the spotted warrior, and again the issue was joined between man and trout. The fish knew that there was safety in the sunken tree-top, and made heroic efforts to reach it; but the fisherman knew this also, and met every rush by giving the butt of the rod. The boarders on the hotel veranda saw the conflict and shouted encouragement to the anxious angler. Canoeists stopped at a respectful distance to watch the struggle. Nell was at the oars and kept the boat well out in the middle of the pool. The light rod bent almost double as the sturdy fighter made his great rushes for liberty. The reel buzzed as the fish carried out the line, or clicked gently as the fisherman worked the captive towards the boat.

Any one of a great number of things may happen at such a time. The hook may tear out, slack line is fatal, the line may break, the snood or leader may part, the rod may give way, an earthquake may chance along; in short, there is no catastrophe which is not liable to occur when you have a big fish at the other end of a line. The worst of it is that all these possibilities visit the mind of the fisherman at once. There is one other possibility; namely, that you may land the fish. That is just what happened this time; and when he was fairly in the net that fisherman let forth a whoop which must have scared the foxes on Deer Island, three miles away. How much did he weigh? Such inquisitiveness is really painful; but if you must know, the scales said two pounds, fourteen ounces. All fishermen will understand that a fish shrinks rapidly after being taken from the water, and it must have been at least ten minutes after his capture before he was weighed. This accounts for some things.

Will some wise man rise up and explain the puzzling vagaries of the trout? Why does he strike freely at a certain fly one day, and entirely ignore it on the day following? Why will he sulk for hours, and then make the water boil with his acrobatic exercises? One morning, when all the signs were propitious, Mr. D. and the writer sought the mouth of South Brook, a place famous in all this region for the number and size of its trout. Mrs. N., a veteran angler and successful, was just leaving in deep disgust. She had been fishing since five o’clock and not a strike had rewarded her patient toil. One hour, two hours, we cast in vain. We might as well have been fishing in the Dead Sea so far as any signs of trout were concerned. Under the overhanging alders, by the side of old logs, up close to the bridge, down where the stream meets the bay, back and forth we went, but all in vain. At last, over by the big rock, a splash is heard and the widening ripples tell that a trout has jumped. Quietly we seek the spot. When some forty feet away the flies are sent on their mission, and then follows an experience that cannot be put into words. For fifteen minutes the water fairly foams, as the eager fish leap for the fantastic creations which are supposed to resemble different forms of insect life. The sport is fast and furious. Ten feet of line is as good as fifty, and a frayed fly is as acceptable as a fresh one. They seem to be fighting for the first chance at anything that is offered. Singles reward every cast, and doubles are not infrequent. Three of the number taken, go over a pound and a half each, and not one falls under half a pound. A quarter of an hour of this delirium, and then it is all over. We whip in vain for another hour, and turn towards the hotel, puzzled but happy.

Only a little time have we been in the Peaceful Valley, when moose stories begin to circulate. The rumour goes that Mr. P., a camper, has seen a bull moose in the north meadow, and watched him feed for more than an hour. Louise, the dining-room girl, declares that she frequently sees a moose feeding in the “logan” when she rises about daybreak. (Will some etymologist settle the derivation of that word “logan”? About Moosehead it seems to be applied to a bay of any sort or condition. Is it a corruption of “lagoon”?) The Higher Critic kindly calls attention to the evident unreliability of these stories. We know the habits of the moose. It is a shy animal, and seldom comes out into the open. If it should venture out it most certainly would not approach a summer hotel. Granting that some demented specimen might visit a clearing in which is a hotel, it would do so only under the protection of darkness. The stories are evidently mythical. Only a few days later the Higher Critic receives a distinct jar when he is awakened at early dawn one morning by a tapping at his door and hears a low voice saying, “There’s a moose in the logan!” The shadows of night are not entirely gone, but it is light enough to see distinctly the dark object standing in the water and tearing at the lily-pads. A cow? Too large and too high at the shoulders. A horse? No horse ever had such ears or such a head. Although the H. C. has never before seen a moose outside of a zoological garden, one glance convinces him that his theory is seriously damaged.

A few days later, as the guests are eating their midday meal, the small boy rushes into the dining-room and shouts, “Moose in the logan!” In an incredibly short space of time the boarders have exchanged the dining-room for the garden fence, and are looking down upon such a sight as even dwellers in the Peaceful Valley seldom see. In the middle of the logan, and not more than forty rods away, stands a cow moose with her calf by her side. The mother plunges her muzzle into the water in search of food, lifts her head and munches for a time, and then repeats the process. All the time the tail is switching at the flies, and the great ears are slowly moving back and forth. Neither mother nor child seems to pay any attention to the spectators, and both remain perfectly unconcerned until the small boy begins to whistle and shout. Then, without any signs of fear, they walk out of the water, trot slowly across the meadow and disappear in the woods. The H. C. sadly lays his theory away in the mausoleum where so many of its kindred rest.

By this time some reader is saying, “I don’t care anything about the moose, and less about the fishing. Didn’t you go anywhere? Didn’t you see anything worth writing about?” The rebuke is deserved, and the writer hastens to say that Moosehead Lake is forty miles long and fifteen miles across in the widest part, having an estimated shoreline of something like 400 miles. We saw it all, from Greenville to Southeast Carry; but he would be a brave man or a rash one, who would undertake to put its beauty into words. We drove to Roach River and, from the neighbouring hilltop, looked down upon the sparkling waters of Roach Pond and away across miles of forest to mighty Katahdin. We followed the old lumber roads into the depths of the wood, where the silence is broken only by the chatter of the red squirrel or the harsh cry of the bluejay. In the cool evenings we sat around the wood fire that crackled and leaped in the great open fireplace in the House of Rest, and heard the guides tell stories which would have made Baron Munchausen turn green with envy. We even went to Mountain Pond, six miles away, and all the way up hill. No wagon could make that trip and survive. The lazy man had a chronic dislike to walking six miles up hill on a hot August day, and, in a moment of forgetfulness, accepted the loan of a friend’s horse. He had not been on a horse in fifteen years and had forgotten the eccentric motions which that animal makes in scrambling over rocks and corduroy roads. However, he lived to reach Mountain Pond, and spent the night with three friends in an “A” tent. Don’t ask about the fishing, for it is a subject upon which the writer does not care to dwell. The wind blew a gale every hour of the day spent on Mountain Pond, and you can safely write the sign of equation between the results of that day’s toil and those secured by Peter and his companions engaged in a similar enterprise.

That was a never-to-be-forgotten night. The wind roared incessantly among the trees, the tent shook and flapped, an obtrusive root insisted upon being familiar with our ribs, and, to complete the enjoyment, a hedge-hog made us a call. That call afforded the one bit of comfort in an otherwise dreary night. To see the artist, in scanty attire, chasing that hedge-hog around the camp-fire at two o’clock in the morning was a sight to warm the cockles of the heart. To the artistic temperament there was nothing attractive in slaughter, but if the well-armed marauder could be caught alive and taken down to the hotel, that would be worth while. Finally, a well-aimed blow stunned the animal and he was hastily thrust under an empty box with a sufficient number of stones piled upon it to prevent it from being overturned by any exertion on the part of the captive. When daylight came, the box was in its place, but the hedge-hog had gnawed his way to liberty. That we did not extract his teeth before imprisoning him was a fatal oversight.

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