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                           THE DUNE COUNTRY

                         _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_


                        THE VOICES OF THE DUNES

                  QUARTO      BOARDS        $6.00 NET


                               ETCHING:

                         A PRACTICAL TREATISE

              CROWN QUARTO        CLOTH        $2.50 NET

                            [Illustration:

                           The Dune Country.]




                                  THE
                             DUNE COUNTRY

                                 _By_

                             EARL H. REED

                               AUTHOR OF
                       “THE VOICES OF THE DUNES”
                    “ETCHING: A PRACTICAL TREATISE”

                       WITH SIXTY ILLUSTRATIONS
                             BY THE AUTHOR

                      NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
                  LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
                     TORONTO: S. B. GUNDY, MCMXVI


                            COPYRIGHT, 1916
                         BY JOHN LANE COMPANY


                               PRESS OF
                           EATON & GETTINGER
                           NEW YORK, U.S.A.




                             _To_ C. C. R.




INTRODUCTION


The text and illustrations in this book are intended to depict a strange
and picturesque country, with some of its interesting wild life, and a
few of the unique human characters that inhabit it.

The big ranges of sand dunes that skirt the southern and eastern shores
of Lake Michigan, and the strip of sparsely settled broken country back
of them, contain a rich fund of material for the artist, poet, and
nature lover, as well as for those who would seek out the oddities of
human kind in by-paths remote from much travelled highways.

In the following pages are some of the results of numerous sketching
trips into this region, covering a series of years. Much material was
found that was beyond the reach of the etching needle or the lead
pencil, but many things seemed to come particularly within the province
of those mediums, and they have both been freely used.

While many interesting volumes could be filled by pencil and pen, this
story of the dunes and the “back country” has been condensed as much as
seems consistent with the portrayal of their essential characteristics.

We are lured into the wilds by a natural instinct. Contact with nature’s
forms and moods is a necessary stimulant to our spiritual and
intellectual life. The untrammelled mind may find inspiration and growth
in congenial isolation, for in it there are no competitive or
antagonistic influences to divert or destroy its fruitage.

Comparatively isolated human types are usually more interesting, for the
reason that individual development and natural ruggedness have not been
rounded and polished by social attrition.

Social attrition would have ruined “old Sipes,” a part of whose story is
in this book, and if it had ever been mentioned to him he probably would
have thought that it was something that lived up in the woods that he
had never seen.

Fictitious names have, for various reasons, been substituted for some of
the characters in the following chapters. One of the old derelicts
objected strenuously to the use of his name. “I don’t want to be in no
book,” said he. “You can draw all the pitchers o’ me you want to, an’
use ’em, but as fer names, there’s nothin’ doin’.”

“Old Sipes” suggested that if “Doc Looney’s pitcher was put in a book,
some o’ them females might see it an’ locate ’im,” but as the “Doc” has
now disappeared this danger is probably remote.

                                                               E. H. R.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER                                                             PAGE

I. THE DUNE COUNTRY                                                   15

II. THE GULLS AND TERNS                                               39

III. THE TURTLES                                                      47

IV. THE CROWS                                                         55

V. “OLD SIPES”                                                        73

VI. “HAPPY CAL”                                                       97

VII. “CATFISH JOHN”                                                  115

VIII. “DOC LOONEY”                                                   149

IX. THE MYSTERIOUS PROWLER                                           169

X. “J. LEDYARD SYMINGTON”                                            179

XI. THE BACK COUNTRY                                                 193

XII. JUDGE CASSIUS BLOSSOM                                           229

XIII. THE WINDING RIVER                                              255

XIV. THE RED ARROW                                                   279




THE DUNE COUNTRY




[Illustration] CHAPTER I

THE DUNE COUNTRY


While there are immense stretches of sand dunes in other parts of the
world, it is of a particular dune country, to which many journeys have
been made, and in which many days have been spent, that this story will
be told.

The dunes sweep for many miles along the Lake Michigan coasts. They are
post-glacial, and are undergoing slow continual changes, both in form
and place,--the loose sand responding lightly to the action of varying
winds.

The “fixed dunes” retain general forms, more or less stable, owing to
the scraggly and irregular vegetation that has obtained a foothold upon
them, but the “wandering dunes” move constantly. The fine sand is wafted
in shimmering veils across the smooth expanses, over the ridges to the
lee <DW72>s. It swirls in soft clouds from the wind-swept summits, and,
in the course of time, whole forests are engulfed. After years of
entombment, the dead trunks and branches occasionally reappear in the
path of the destroyer, and bend back with gnarled arms in self-defence,
seeming to challenge their flinty foe to further conflict.

The general movement is east and southeast, owing to the prevalence of
west and northwest winds in this region, which gather force in coming
over the waters of the lake. The finer grains, which are washed up on
the beach, are carried inland, the coarser particles remaining near the
shore. The off-shore winds, being broken by the topography of the
country, exercise a less but still noticeable influence. The loose
masses retreat perceptibly toward the beach when these winds prevail for
any great length of time.

To many this region simply means a distant line of sandy crests,
tree-flecked and ragged, against the sky on the horizon--a mysterious
and unknown waste, without commercial value, and therefore useless from
a utilitarian standpoint.

It is not the land, but the landscape, not the utility, but the romantic
and interesting wild life among these yellow ranges that is of value. It
is the picturesque and poetic quality that we find in this land of
enchantment that appeals to us, and it is because of this love in our
lives that we now enter this strange country.

The landscapes among the dunes are not for the realist, not for the cold
and discriminating recorder of facts, nor the materialist who would
weigh with exact scales or look with scientific eyes. It is a country
for the dreamer and the poet, who would cherish its secrets, open
enchanted locks, and explore hidden vistas, which the Spirit of the
Dunes has kept for those who understand.

The winds have here fashioned wondrous forms with the shuttles of the
air and the mutable sands. Shadowy fortresses have been reared and
bannered with the pines. Illusive distant towers are tinged by the
subtle hues of the afterglows, as the twilights softly blend them into
the glooms. In the fading light we may fancy the outlines of frowning
castles and weird battlements, with ghostly figures along their heights.

If the desert was of concrete, its mystery and spiritual power would not
exist. The deadly silences which nature leaves among her ruins are
appalling, unless brightened by her voices of enduring hope. It is then
that our spirits revive with her.

There is an unutterable gloom in the hush of the rocky immensities,
where, in dim ages past, the waters have slowly worn away the stony
barriers of the great canyons among the mountains. The countless
centuries seem to hang over them like a pall, when no living green comes
forth among the stones to nourish the soul with faith in life to come.
We walk in these profound solitudes with an irresistible sense of
spiritual depression.

On Nature’s great palette green is the color of hope. We see it in the
leaves when the miracle of the spring unfolds them, and on the ocean’s
troubled waters when the sun comes from behind the curtains of the sky.
Even the tiny mosses cover with their mantles the emblems of despair
when decay begins its subtle work on the fallen tree and broken stump.

We find in the dune country whatever we take to it. The repose of the
yellow hills, which have been sculptured by the winds and the years,
reflects the solemnity of our minds, and eternal hope is sustained by
the expectant life that creeps from every fertile crevice.

While the wandering masses are fascinating, it is among the more
permanent forms, where nature has laid her restraining hand, that we
find the most picturesque material. It is here that the reconstructive
processes have begun which impart life to the waste places. At first,
among these wastes, one is likely to have a sense of loneliness. The
long, undulating lines of ridged sand inspire thoughts of hopeless
melancholy. The sparse vegetation, which in its struggle for life
pathetically seizes and holds the partially fertile spots among these
ever-shifting masses, has the appearance of broken submission. The
wildly tangled roots--derelicts of the sands--which have been deserted
and left to bleach in the sun by the slow movement of the great hills,
emphasize the feeling of isolation. The changing winds may again give
them a winding sheet, but as a part of nature’s refuse, they are slowly
and steadily being resolved back into her crucible.

[Illustration:

“DERELICTS OF THE SANDS”]

To the colorist the dunes present ever-changing panoramas of hue and
tone. Every cloud that trails its purple, phantom-like shadow across
them can call forth the resources of his palette, and he can find
inspiration in the high nooks where the pines cling to their perilous
anchorage.

The etcher may revel in their wealth of line. The harmonic undulations
of the long, serrated crests, with sharp accents of gnarled roots and
stunted trees, offer infinite possibilities in composition. To the
imaginative enthusiast, seeking poetic forms of line expression, these
dwarfed, neglected, crippled, and wasted things become subtle units in
artistic arrangement.

