href="#ulink_66cdfea9-a37c-57fe-92b3-085db2df31c5">CONTEST OF WITS
BILLY BRASS TELLS ANOTHER STORY
A strange apparition was seen crossing the lake. It appeared to have wings … … Frontispiece
I surmised at once who he was, for one could see by the merest glance
[Illustration: Oo-koo-hoo's bill.]
[Illustration: Oo-koo-hoo's calendar.]
Going to the brink, we saw a "York Boat" in the act of shooting the cataract
Minutes passed while the rising moon cast golden ripples upon the water
The lynx is an expert swimmer and is dangerous to tackle in the water
Next morning we found that everything was covered with a heavy blanket of snow
The bear circled a little in order to descend. Presently it left the shadow
Going to the stage, he took down his five-foot snowshoes
As the wolf dashed away, the bounding clog sent the snow flying
"There's the York Factory packet from Hudson Bay to Winnipeg"
"It was on my father's hunting grounds, and late one afternoon"
Oo-koo-hoo could even hear the strange clicking sound
After half of May had passed away, and when the spring hunt was over
The departure of the Fur Brigade was the one great event of the year
INTRODUCTION
It was in childhood that the primitive spirit first came whispering to me. It was then that I had my first day-dreams of the Northland—of its forests, its rivers and lakes, its hunters and trappers and traders, its fur-runners and mounted police, its voyageurs and packeteers, its missionaries and Indians and prospectors, its animals, its birds and its fishes, its trees and its flowers, and its seasons.
Even in childhood I was for ever wondering … what is daily going on in the Great Northern Forest? … not just this week, this month, or this season, but what is actually occurring day by day, throughout the cycle of an entire year? It was that thought that fascinated me, and when I grew into boyhood, I began delving into books of northern travel, but I did not find the answer there. With the years this ever-present wonder grew, until it so possessed me that at last it spirited me away from the city, while I was still in my teens, and led me along a path of ever-changing and ever-increasing pleasure, showing me the world, not as men had mauled and marred it, but as the Master of Life had made it, in all its original beauty and splendour. Nor was this all. It led me to observe and ponder over the daily pages of the most profound and yet the most fascinating book that man has ever tried to read; and though, it seemed to me, my feeble attempts to decipher its text were always futile, it has, nevertheless, not only taught me to love Nature with an ever-increasing passion, but it has inspired in me an infinite homage toward the Almighty; for, as Emerson says: "In the woods we return to reason and faith. Then I feel that nothing can befall me in life—no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes)—which Nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space—all mean egoism vanishes. … I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty."
So, to make my life-dream come true, to contemplate in all its thrilling action and undying splendour the drama of the forests, I travelled twenty-three times through various parts of the vast northern woods, between Maine and Alaska, and covered thousands upon thousands of miles by canoe, pack-train, snowshoes, bateau, dog-train, buck-board, timber-raft, prairie-schooner, lumber-wagon, and "alligator." No one trip ever satisfied me, or afforded me the knowledge or the experience I sought, for traversing a single section of the forest was not unlike making one's way along a single street of a metropolis and then trying to persuade oneself that one knew all about the city's life. So back again I went at all seasons of the year to encamp in that great timber-land that sweeps from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Thus it has taken me thirty-three years to gather the information this volume contains, and my only hope in writing it is that perhaps others may have had the same day-dream, and that in this book they may find a reliable and satisfactory answer to all their wonderings. But making my dream come true—what delight it gave me! What sport and travel it afforded me! What toil and sweat it caused me! What food and rest it brought me! What charming places it led me through! What interesting people it ranged beside me! What romance it unfolded before me! and into what thrilling adventures it plunged me!
But before we paddle down the winding wilderness aisle toward the great stage upon which Diana and all her attendant huntsmen and forest creatures may appear, I wish to explain that in compliance with the wishes of the leading actors—who actually lived their parts of this story—fictitious names have been given to the principal characters and to the principal trading posts, lakes, and rivers herein depicted. Furthermore, in order to give the reader a more interesting, complete,