While hunting material for tent pegs and poles I noticed a curious rectangular-shaped hillock of green moss a short distance from the shore of the pond. Kicking the mossy covering away, there was disclosed the rotted logs of what had many years ago been a camp about twelve feet square. A dozen yards away was a moss-covered log which seemed flattened on top and tapered at both ends. Scraping away the moss and rolling over the log, I found a "dugout canoe." This had been hewn from a pine log about thirty inches in diameter and sixteen feet long. The canoe was in fair condition, but heavy and somewhat decayed at one end. Having finished our tent and bed, we rolled the canoe down to the water's edge and undertook to put it in order for use. To insure its floating with two heavy men aboard, we cut and trimmed out two dry spruces about six inches in diameter and lashed them, one on either side of the canoe and against two smaller crosspieces placed above to keep the stringpieces near the gunwale. The crosspieces also served the purpose of seats. For many years I have carried in the bottom of the pack, when on camping trips, a coil of small rope or heavy twine and have often found it very useful. It fitted in perfectly on this occasion.
The dusk of evening was now upon us, so we hurriedly pushed our pirogue-raft into the water and climbed aboard. Bige poled our craft out toward the center of the pond while I strung up my rod and put a white miller on the end of the leader. We had heard splashing and saw ripples on the smooth surface of the water before leaving shore, indicating the presence of fish of some kind. At the first cast I hooked one, and after a short struggle Bige brought him aboard with the landing net.
Then followed twenty minutes of the swiftest and most exciting bit of trout fishing that I have ever experienced. I could have hooked three or four at a time if I had put on that many flies, but one kept me busy. With every cast two or three trout would make a rush for the fly, and they would fight one another for possession of it. Even after one fish was securely hooked and was struggling for his freedom others would appear and try to take the fly away from him. Bige said "the trout climbed out, stood on their tails and reached for the fly long before it hit the water."
It was now quite dark and we were losing more fish than we saved. It was impossible to see the landing net, and we often knocked them off the hook when trying to scoop them up. We had enough fish for supper, so we decided to leave some of them for morning, went ashore, built a fire, cooked our trout and bacon, and ate supper by the light of the fire.
I have fished for trout for twenty years, more or less, and during that time caught a great many under varying conditions. It has been my fortune to catch much larger trout than any we saw in this pond, though none of these would weigh less than a pound each. But never before nor since have I met any more sporty fish than these. They were, moreover, the most beautifully marked of any trout of any variety I have ever seen. They lived in ice-water in midsummer. They were muscular and like chain lightning in action.
With every cast I experienced all the excitement, all the thrills, and went through all the strategic maneuvers that a nature writer would describe in twelve hundred words.
The pond had no visible inlet, but a considerable quantity of water was flowing out of it every minute. This must be replenished through some subterraneous passage, and the water doubtless filtered through an enormous field of ice that had been buried under millions of tons of rock and earth for countless ages – since the glacial period, when the mountain slid down from the arctic regions into its present position.
Bige and I discussed it at supper, and that is how we accounted for the peculiar conditions. We were also agreed that there could now be no doubt that this was the pond of Sabattis-Parker fame. The stories fitted well with the facts. Some one surely had been here before and a long time ago, else how could the ruins of the camp and the moss-covered dugout be satisfactorily explained?
That night Bige and I went to bed with clear consciences. We were at peace with all the world. We had put in a long and strenuous day, had met and overcome many obstacles and difficulties, and had accomplished something worth while. We had recovered and put back on the map a pond which had been lost for more than thirty years. Incidentally, we had had a lot of fun in doing it. A pair of hermit thrushes holding converse with each other across the valley and high over our heads sang us to sleep.