Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-09-20

He spoke huskily.
Come down offn that wing-dam, ;"
commanded Hale.
Not for you, Josh Hale" replied
Skeene, nor for any other man o.
vel An I won't be took, neither.
I'm goin' away to live quiet If they
let me-"
He crouched and watched them as
they pushed their canoes out into the
main channel. The sheriff and Hale
advanced to the pool where Sebato
lay. A slender fillet of blood hung In
the water, floating like a red string.
Bring them settin' poles" said the
sheriff soberly.
They gave Skeene little peace for
two months Week after week a
string of canoes passed the swift
water under the first and second
wingdams, disembarking a file of
rif1emen. Week after week the dis
tant fash of a paddle startled the
deer at sunrise among the lily pads.
Once they say Skeene for a mo-
ment standing in the stern of his
canoe. The canoe lay at the mouth
of the Little Misery, that dead
stretch of water and deadfall. wind
ing through the bog to the south
ward. They gave chase trailing
Skeene's canoe by the wake bubbles
until they ran plumb into quick
water.
But the Little Misery is strange
stream draining a strange land, and
there, in that maze of cuts and
channels, of "logans" and quick
water. of swamp, shoal. sedge and
spectral ranks of dead trees, tower
ing above swale and deadwood, they
stood no chance.
And so they hunted Skeen at twi-
light, at dusk of morning, at high
noon. from Northeast Carry to the
Northwest Carry, from the West
Branch to Seboomook, from Portage
to Lily Bay. and through hundred
miles of lake and stream, up and
down, up and down. In August they
gave up the chase.
That evening Skeene stood on a
wndfal in the depths of the Little
Misery and watched three canoes file
out of the discharge and glide into
Moose River. The next morning he
started a leanto on the ridge back
of the Little Misery, and the sharp
crack and thwack of his axe rang out
over Red Lake.
At noon the echoes of axe strokes
died away and the hut was matched
with balsam. BY 3 o'clock a spike
buck, a yearling, lay across a log
on the ridge, and at 4 o'clock Skeene
had satisfied his hunger.
In the days that followed, Skeene
learned to talk to himself. When he
did this he forgot that he had killed
Sebato; after a while he forgot 1t al
together.
When the August afternoons were
ablaze with brazen sunlight and the
lake glistened like a sheet of steel,
Skeene sprawled on a log in the shade
and watched the great blue herons.
The great belted kingfishers knew
him. the sheldrake. stringing along
the creek at evening, turned their
bright eyes to h
IRE swift water of the Little Misery
save him a trout to every setline.
On the Little Misery deer swarm at
evening, and he had meat for the
price of a cartridge,
The white nights of August brought
that vague unrest that all forest crea-
lures feel. AS the moon wanted, the
forest world stirred it's attitude was
expectant, 1t waited.
An imipatience, almost sadness,
fell upon Skeene. And with sadness
came fear. He covered his lean-to
and built a smoke hole through which
blue haze rose in the calm morning
air. But the steam hole of a beavers
house might be more easily located
than the chimney of Skeene's hut.
When September came a hush fell
over the forest. Silent and more
silent the woods grew as the new
moon rose in the evening sky. At
its first quarter the silence deepened,
at its half the stiffness was intense.
Then one black night the full moon
of September flashed in the sky, and
gigantic black shadow waded out
into the lake and a roar shook the
hills.
The first bull-moose had beloved,
and the rutting season had begun.
Instantly the forest, the lake, the
shore the stream was alive; the
meat-birds cried from every cedar.
the deer barked from the sedge; a
lynx howled and miauled in the sec
ond growth.
| Now there is a season for all things.
Each after its kind said the quaint
book
| Skeene sewed porcupine quilts in a
semi-circle over the instep of his moe
casins, laced string of scarlet trout
flies across his SLOUGH hat and listened
to the bull-moose believing.
| When the September moon waxed
full Skeene's heart grew full, and the
blood in his neck and cheeks ebbed
and surged like moontides So. on the