TO

J.L.H.




PREFACE.


In adding another to the list of stories bearing on that subject of
perennial interest to boys, adventures in camp and on trail among the
woods and lakes of Northern Maine, one thought has been the inspiration
that led me on.

It is this: To prove to high-mettled lads, American, and English as
well, that forest quarters, to be the most jovial quarters on earth,
need not be made a shambles. Sensation may reach its finest pitch,
excitement be an unfailing fillip, and fun the leaven which leavens the
camping-trip from start to finish, even though the triumph of killing
for triumph's sake be left out of the play-bill.

"There is a higher sport in preservation than in destruction," says a
veteran hunter, whose forest experiences and descriptions have in part
enriched this story. I commend the opinion to boy-readers, trusting that
they may become "queer specimen sportsmen," after the pattern of Cyrus
Garst; and find a more entrancing excitement in studying the live wild
things of the forest than in gloating over a dying tremor, or examining
a senseless mass of horn, hide, and hoofs, after the life-spring which
worked the mechanism has been stilled forever.